arrangement to take a portion of it, when he was informed by the steward that Lieutenant Miller had come up during the night and taken the liquor away; adding that the Lieutenant had some brother officers for company, and as he presumed Mr. Hopkins' liquor was of good quality, he made free to take it. As might be supposed, this information was not very welcome intelligence, or pleasing to Mr. Hopkins, who left_the_hospital immediately to return to his room. On the way through the yard he fell in with Lieutenant Miller, who bid Hopkins good morning very cordially and familiarly. "Good morning, Lieutenant," returned Hopkins, who by this time had recovered his usual good-humored disposition. A few more words passed between them, when Hopkins ventured in the most familiar tone to remind the Lieutenant of how he had purloined his liquor, not reproachfully, for Hopkins cared but little about it, as he would give it freely if asked of him, but as one familiar and even friendly with another might intimate. Lieutenant Miller took the matter in another light, however, and seizing Mr. Hopkins by the collar, in the most ruffianly manner, dragged him to the guard house and kept him there in filth and without food till next day.Every person in the Old Capitol was indignant at this outrage, and it would not have taken much provocation to incite them to resist it.

Sundays in the Old Capitol being observed as Sabbath to the extent of refraining from the usual amusements which occupied the time and attention of the prisoners, it was made a habit by those who were acquainted in Washington and by some of the other prisoners who had the curiosity to observe the passers-by, to look out of the windows on that day.

On one occasion, it was on the 2d of November, Mr. V. R. Jackson, a resident of Washington, was looking through the window in No 16, when some

acquaintances of his chanced to ride by in a barouche. He and they recognized each other, they by bowing to him, and he by touching his hat to them. One of the guards who was on the qui vive to observe the gestures of passers by, ordered the gentlemen in the barouche to halt, which they of course did. The party were compelled to alight from the vehicle, and enter the prison, when they no doubt, to exculpate themselves, informed Lieutenant Miller that they had only bowed in return to a salute from their friend Mr. Jackson. Lieutenant Miller came up stairs immediately, accompanied with a corporal. He inquired, who was it that made a sign of recognition to those gentlemen who had just been arrested by the guard? No one answered at first; when he directed his inquiry to Mr. Jackson, asking that gentleman if his name was not Jackson, and if he was not a clerk in the Post Office? Mr. Jackson replied in the affirmative. The Lieutenant then asked him if he had not taken his hat off to the gentlemen in the barouche? Mr. Jackson replied that he was not certain that he had done that, but admitted that he had touched his hat to the gentlemen, they being acquaintances and friends of his, and he was not aware that it was forbidden the prisoners to do so. "Take him to the guard-house," commanded Miller to the corporal; and poor Mr. Jackson was seized suddenly by the corporal and taken to and kept in the guardhouse til bedtime, and would probably be kept there all night were it not for the solicitation of his fellow-prisoners and the interposition of the Superintendent according to their request for his release.

Frank Blair, Jr., a son of Hon. Frank Blair, Jr., of Missouri, was put in the guard-house for going into the next room to No. 16, and was sent there another time for making a little more noise than Lieutenant Miller thought it the right of a prisoner

to do. Frank was a lively young fellow, excited with mischief, and playful to a degree beyond propriety sometimes. But the guard-house was not the proper way to restrain or correct him. A kind or civil word would have done better.

Marcus Buck Baily, the gentleman who was taken in company with Miss Beukner, the quinine lady, was put in the guard-house for a similar offense to that committed by Mr. Jackson. It went hard with Buck to be treated with such indignity, he being one of the F. F. V.'s; but Lieutenant Miller was no respecter of persons. Even if Buck Baily was arrested in company of a niece of Post Master General Blair, it made no difference with Lieutenant Miller.

In this respect, the lieutenant was right, but it was a small business in him to outrage the feelings of gentlemen who happened to be placed in his power, by placing them in his guard-house for bowing to a friend or acquaintance on the streets of Washington through the barred windows of the Old Capitol.

Petty tyranny exercised by a shoulder strapped official was never better exemplified than it was in several instances in the Old Capitol, where besides the cases referred to above two insane men, one a man formerly well known in New York in connection with the anti-rent excitement, by the name of Burrell, was repeatedly placed in the guard-house, not to keep him from doing mischief, but as a punishment for some trifling offense. Burrell, better known in the prison as General Thunderbolt, imagined himself to be the person designated by Providence to command the Federal Army and lead it to victory. Under the influence of this hallucination, he had sought an interview with President Lincoln at his country residence, the Soldiers' Home, and being taken into custody there by some one, the

President and his friends took it into their frightened heads that Burrel was an assassin, and so the poor lunatic was sent down to the Old Capitol. It appeared that he had been down to Richmond, which circumstance gave color to the accusation of evil designs upon the President.

Whenever Burrell, or as he was better known, General Thunderbolt, happened to be in the yard at recreation time, he was the center of attraction. Insane as he was, he was as caustic in his sarcasms and witty in repartee as if his intellect were perfectly sound. One day Lieutenant Miller enquired of him what he thought of the rebel soldiers in comparison with those of the Federal Army. Said Miller, "Don't you think, General, that you could whip them rebels yourself?"

"Yes," said General Thunderbolt, "of course I could; but I'll tell you what, Lieutenant, if the Federal Army were all like you, one rebel could whip every five of you."

Of course this disparaging compliment, albeit applied by a crazy man, could not be brooked with impunity. So poor Thunderbolt was sent to the guard-house. There was another crazy fellow, an Irishman it appeared he was, whom any one might see at a glance that he was insane, yet this poor demented fellow and Thunderbolt were oftener in the guard-house than any other prisoners in the estab lishment. It was purely an exercise of brute tyranny to send either of them to such a place.

CARELESSNESS OR CULPABLE RECKLESSNESS OF THE GUARDS.

The carelessness of the guards in carrying their loaded arms was a matter of constant alarm to the prisoners, who lived in continual dread of having a

bullet fired through the floors, or as they passed up or down the stairways. Several such occurrences, either of carelessness or of intentional mischief, took place during the months of September and October. The floors and ceilings of some of the rooms bore unmistakable evidence, in the shape of bullet-holes, that there was sufficient cause for the apprehensions of the prisoners. In one instance, this careless, or, as it seemed, intentional discharge of firearms in the prison, came near proving fatal to one of the prisoners of state. The occurrence was so peculiar, and, under the circumstances, extraordinary, that the following statement of it was drawn up at the time: OLD CAPITOL PRISON,

Washington, D. C., Oct. 22d, 1862.

The undersigned, prisoners in the Old Capitol, do hereby testify, that on this day, viz., the twentysecond of October, 1862, at 2 o'clock and forty minutes P. M., a ball was fired through the floor of room No. 16, in which we, the undersigned, were at the time present. The ball passed through the head of the bed on which D. A. Mahony, a prisoner of state, was at the time reclining, and on which he had been lying most of the day ill. At the moment the ball went through his bed, he had raised himself up on one of his elbows to speak with a fellow-prisoner, Dr. Moran, who was shaving at the time. Had Mr. Mahony been lying down as he had been most of the day, the ball would have gone through his head inevitably. The force with which the ball was shot will be understood from the fact that, after passing through the ceiling and floor underneath room No. 16, it went through one of the slats of the bed, through two bedticks, and through a blanket of twelve thicknesses rolled up as a pillow, and through a feather pillow, and then penetrated the ceiling overhead of room No. 16.