The train rolled away amid cheering by ourselves and those we left
behind. One thousand happier boys than we never started on a journey.
We were going home. That was enough to wreathe the skies with glory, and
fill the world with sweetness and light. The wintry sun had something of
geniality and warmth, the landscape lost some of its repulsiveness, the
dreary palmettos had less of that hideousness which made us regard them
as very fitting emblems of treason. We even began to feel a little
good-humored contempt for our hateful little Brats of guards, and to
reflect how much vicious education and surroundings were to be held
responsible for their misdeeds.

We laughed and sang as we rolled along toward Savannah--going back much
faster than the came. We re-told old stories, and repeated old jokes,
that had become wearisome months and months ago, but were now freshened
up and given their olden pith by the joyousness of the occasion. We
revived and talked over old schemes gotten up in the earlier days of
prison life, of what "we would do when we got out," but almost forgotten
since, in the general uncertainty of ever getting out. We exchanged
addresses, and promised faithfully to write to each other and tell how we
found everything at home.

So the afternoon and night passed. We were too excited to sleep, and
passed the hours watching the scenery, recalling the objects we had
passed on the way to Blackshear, and guessing how near we were to
Savannah.

Though we were running along within fifteen or twenty miles of the coast,
with all our guards asleep in the caboose, no one thought of escape.
We could step off the cars and walk over to the seashore as easily as a
man steps out of his door and walks to a neighboring town, but why should