THE IMMORTAL SIX HUNDRED
prisoners as a man to be watched—a skeptic beyond reformation. After days of exchange talk, and the impossibility to clinch or give body to the rumor, interest died and we all resumed the quiet of our prison life. But a day or two of rest and there came another "grape". A sergeant of the guard told one of our officers that a new cartel of exchange had been agreed upon and would surely take place just as soon as the status of nigger troops could be arranged. A few days after this another " grape" was received, which said the question of exchanging nigger troops was laid aside by both the Confederate and Federal governments, and now exchange was sure. All this was taken as gospel truth by the prisoners in our camp, but it all proved to be moonshine. But to revive all the " grape" of the past and add new fuel to the exchange fire excitement, on the 17th day of August, 1864, the Irish sergeant, Murphy, who called the prison roll, informed us before we broke ranks, after roll call, that
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