THE IMMORTAL SIX HUNDRED
saw a paper; they were not allowed us. If a letter was written a prisoner that contained the least particle of information about the outside world save that which pertained strictly to family affairs it never reached the prisoner to whom it was written. Yet news would get into our camp, and we called such news "grape." One day in August, 1864, news spread over the camp that the fifty general and field officers that had been sent in June to Charleston Harbor, S. C, had been exchanged, and that a general exchange of prisoners of war, which had been stopped, would now be resumed, and very soon we would all be back in Dixie. The Yankee sergeant who called the prison roll confirmed this "grape," but gave no time as to when the exchange would begin or where it would take place. After this confirmation by the Yankee sergeant the only topic of conversation amongst the prisoners was exchange. The man who did not believe this "grape" of exchange was looked upon by his fellow-
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