CHAPTER XIV.

HOPING FOR EXCHANGE--AN EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF CHANCES
--OFF FOR ANDERSONVILLE--UNCERTAINTY AS TO OUR DESTINATION--ARRIVAL AT
ANDERSONVILLE.

As each lagging day closed, we confidently expected that the next would
bring some news of the eagerly-desired exchange. We hopefully assured
each other that the thing could not be delayed much longer; that the
Spring was near, the campaign would soon open, and each government would
make an effort to get all its men into the field, and this would bring
about a transfer of prisoners. A Sergeant of the Seventh Indiana
Infantry stated his theory to me this way:

"You know I'm just old lightnin' on chuck-a-luck. Now the way I bet is
this: I lay down, say on the ace, an' it don't come up; I just double my
bet on the ace, an' keep on doublin' every time it loses, until at last
it comes up an' then I win a bushel o' money, and mebbe bust the bank.
You see the thing's got to come up some time; an' every time it don't
come up makes it more likely to come up the next time. It's just the
same way with this 'ere exchange. The thing's got to happen some day,
an' every day that it don't happen increases the chances that it will
happen the next day."

Some months later I folded the sanguine Sergeant's stiffening hands
together across his fleshless ribs, and helped carry his body out to the
dead-house at Andersonville, in order to get a piece of wood to cook my
ration of meal with.