the prison office, in which were a number of dapper, feeble-faced clerks
at work on the prison records.

As I entered this space a squad of newly arrived prisoners were being
searched for valuables, and having their names, rank and regiment
recorded in the books. Presently a clerk addressed as "Majah Tunnah,"
the man who was superintending these operations, and I scanned him with
increased interest, as I knew then that he was the ill-famed Dick Turner,
hated all over the North for his brutality to our prisoners.

He looked as if he deserved his reputation. Seen upon the street he
would be taken for a second or third class gambler, one in whom a certain
amount of cunning is pieced out by a readiness to use brute force. His
face, clean-shaved, except a "Bowery-b'hoy" goatee, was white, fat, and
selfishly sensual. Small, pig-like eyes, set close together, glanced
around continually. His legs were short, his body long, and made to
appear longer, by his wearing no vest--a custom common them with
Southerners.

His faculties were at that moment absorbed in seeing that no person
concealed any money from him. His subordinates did not search closely
enough to suit him, and he would run his fat, heavily-ringed fingers
through the prisoner's hair, feel under their arms and elsewhere where he
thought a stray five dollar greenback might be concealed. But with all
his greedy care he was no match for Yankee cunning. The prisoners told
me afterward that, suspecting they would be searched, they had taken off
the caps of the large, hollow brass buttons of their coats, carefully
folded a bill into each cavity, and replaced the cap. In this way they
brought in several hundred dollars safely.