Still they were treated well in Charleston--better than they bad been
anywhere else. Intelligent physicians had visited the sick, prescribed
for them, furnished them with proper medicines, and admitted the worst
cases to the hospital, where they were given something of the care that
one would expect in such an institution. Wheat bread, molasses and rice
were issued to them, and also a few spoonfuls of vinegar, daily, which
were very grateful to them in their scorbutic condition. The citizens
sent in clothing, food and vegetables. The Sisters of Charity were
indefatigable in ministering to the sick and dying. Altogether, their
recollections of the place were quite pleasant.

Despite the disagreeable prominence which the City had in the Secession
movement, there was a very strong Union element there, and many men found
opportunity to do favors to the prisoners and reveal to them how much
they abhorred Secession.

After they had been in Charleston a fortnight or more, the yellow fever
broke out in the City, and soon extended its ravages to the prisoners,
quite a number dying from it.

Early in October they had been sent away from the City to their present
location, which was then a piece of forest land. There was no stockade
or other enclosure about them, and one night they forced the guard-line,
about fifteen hundred escaping, under a pretty sharp fire from the
guards. After getting out they scattered, each group taking a different
route, some seeking Beaufort, and other places along the seaboard, and
the rest trying to gain the mountains. The whole State was thrown into
the greatest perturbation by the occurrence. The papers magnified the
proportion of the outbreak, and lauded fulsomely the gallantry of the