ing in, negro quarters, washing rooms, &c. The eating room could accommodate at one time as many as a hundred persons. There were two tables running the length of the room. Each eater was furnished with a tin plate, tin cup, knife and fork, of camp quality. Plenty of bread was furnished to each person, and more than enough of meat, for but few persons could eat that which was furnished generally. Soup was given out occasionally, made of dessicated vegetables, and once in a while boiled rice also was served up. Potatoes, a few times a week, formed a part of the fare.

When there were more prisoners than would fill the eating room one time, when the meal was called by the proper officer, a rush would be made by the whole crowd to be at the first table. This was owing less to the desire to be first to eat, than it was to avoid eating and drinking from the same unwashed plates and tin cups, and the used knives and forks of the first set. Sometimes there would be half a dozen sets to eat-all of those who came after the first set being obliged to eat off of dirty plates, and drink out of the dirty cups of their predecessor eaters. This became so disgusting to all but the roughest specimens of humanity in the prison, that it was a general practice of those of refined tastes and delicate stomachs to take the bread and meat in their hands and eat them in the yard, or in their rooms.

Most of the Prisoners of State were obliged to go with the crowd of deserters and criminals of the Federal Army, and lousy confederate prisoners of war to this feeding place. There were but few who had not to go through this humiliating and disgusting subjection to arbitrary power, tyrannically exercised the first days of their incarceration.

Can any American, innocent of crime, who has been subjected to this outrage, ever forget it, aye,

or ever forgive the tyrants by whom it was perpetrated. No being of sensibility inferior to God in perfection, can he so charitable as to forgive the tyrants Lincoln, Stanton, and their associates in despotism; who have thrown down the security and trampled under their heels the guarantees of the Constitution to American citizens, and outraged in person and property the victims of their displeasure.

BELLE BOYD-DEFEAT OF BANKS ATTRIBUTED TO HER STRATEGY ARRESTED AND TAKEN TO THE OLD CAPITOL SUBJECTED TO SOLITARY CONFINEMENT-MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF A CONFEDERATE OFFICER-ROMANTIC SEQUEL.

Among the prisoners in the Old Capitol when I reached there was the somewhat famous Belle Boyd, to whom has been attributed the defeat of General Banks in the Shenandoah Valley by Stonewall Jackson. Belle, as she was familiarly called by all the prisoners, and affectionately so by the confederates, was arrested and imprisoned as a spy. She was said, by the confederates who professed to be acquainted with her family, to be the daughter of a respectable Presbyterian clergyman at Martinsburg, Virginia, and the sister of Mrs. Faulkner, whose husband was the late United States Minister to France.

The first intimation some of us new comers in the Old Capitol had of the fact of there being a lady in that place, was the hearing of " Maryland, my Maryland," sang the first night of our incarceration in what we could not be mistaken was a female voice. On enquiring we were informed that it was Belle Boyd. Some of us had never heard of the lady before, and we were all enquiring about her. Who

was she, where was she from, and what did she do. The most satisfactory account represented her as being a young lady of about nineteen years of age, of lithe body, and of a pleasing, though not what is called either beautiful or handsome countenance.

When Banks was down the Shenandoah Valley, Belle conceived the idea of playing the part of Delilah on him. To accomplish this purpose she gave out invitations to the Federal officers in camp, including General Banks, for a ball to come off some days subsequently. This done, she took a fleet and long-winded horse, starting late one evening, and rode by morning sixty miles across the mountains to where Stonewall Jackson was encamped. She informed that wary officer of her plans, of the situation of the Federal troops, their disposition in camp, the number and position of their cannon, and, in short, of everything she knew about Banks' army. The night of the ball was fixed for just the time it would take Jackson to march his "foot cavalry," as his infantry were called by the confederates, to Banks' camp. Belle's arrangements being all made with Jackson, she rode back the same day, making the hundred and twenty miles in twenty-four hours. This, to some, will appear incredible, but Belle Boyd is said to have no superior, man or woman, as an equestrian in Virginia.

On the night of the ball, Belle lavished her blandishments on General Banks especially. She had procured a large and elegant secesh flag, with which she covered the person of the General, and by her familiarity made him oblivious, it would seem, to all else than the attentions of his fair entertainer. Meanwhile Stonewall Jackson had made a successful march, and knowing from Belle's information, the weak points in the Federal camp, attacked Banks corps so suddenly and with such boldness that it was thrown into confusion. A panic succeeded,

and Banks suffered not only an overwhelming defeat, but a disaster which has never been repaired, as ever since the Shenandoah valley has been in the virtual, if not in the actual, control of the Confeder

ates.

Subsequent to this, Belle Boyd went to Washington, where being well known, she had the entree to the best society of the Capital. But she did not mean to spend her time uselessly. Virginia had claims upon her services, and to requite these claims she conceived the idea of sketching the fortifications over the Potomac. It was not difficult at the time, especially for a young lady, to procure a pass to cross the long bridge. Furnished with this, Belle crossed the river on her reconnoisance, but being less cautious than she was zealous, she was detected in the act of making a sketch of one of the forts by which Washington is defended on the South, She was immediately arrested, and taken to the Old Capitol, the only one of her sex in that Bastile. Belle was put in solitary confinement, but allowed to have her room door open, and to sit outside of it in a hall or stair-landing, in the evening. Whenever she availed herself of this privilege, as she frequently did, the greatest curiosity was manifested by the victims of despotism to see her. Her room being on the second story, those who occupied the third story had a good opportunity to indulge their curiosity, especially as there were no guards at that time in the third story of the building, a favor for which the other prisoners were indebted to the fact that it was on the third story, the civilians from Fredericksburg, who have been referred to already, were confined. Were all the prisoners on that story Northern political offenders, they would not have thus been exempt from the surveillance and annoyance of the guards. Thanks, therefore, to the

gentlemen from Fredericksburg for the enjoyment of a moderate degree of liberty in the Old Capitol. But we must not lose sight of Belle Boyd. I heard her voice my first night in prison singing "Maryland, my Maryland," the first time I had ever heard that Southern song. The words, stirring enough to Southern hearts, were enunciated by her with such peculiar expression as to touch even sensibilities which did not sympathize with the cause which inspired the song. It was difficult to listen unmoved to this lady throwing her whole soul as it were into the expression of the sentiments of devotion to the South, defiance of the North, and affectionately confident appeals to Maryland which form the burden of that celebrated song. The pathos of her voice, her apparently forlorn condition, and at these times when her soul seemed absorbed in the thoughts she was uttering in song, her melancholy manner, affected all who heard her, not only with compassion for her, but with an interest in her which came near on several occasions bringing about a conflict between the prisoners and the guards.

Fronting on the same hall or stair-landing on which Belle Boyd's room door opened, were three other rooms, all filled to their capacity with prisoners, mostly Confederate officers. Several of these were personally acquainted with Belle, as she was most of the time and by nearly every one called. In the evenings, those prisoners were permitted to crowd inside of their room doors, whence they could see and sometimes exchange a word with Belle. When this liberty was not allowed, Belle contrived to procure a large marble, around which she would tie a note written on tissue-paper, and when the guard turned his back to patrol his beat in the hall, she would roll the marble into one of the open doors of the Confederate prisoners' rooms. When the contents were read and noted, a missive