But, Lord, you can't shoot for sour apples; if I couldn't shoot no better than you, Mr.Johnny Reb, I would -- --" By this time the guard, having his gun loaded again, would cut short the remarks with another shot, which, followed up with similar remarks, would provoke still another, when an alarm sounding, the guards at Libby and all the other buildings around us would turn out.

An officer of the guard would go up with a squad into the third floor, only to find everybody up there snoring away as if they were the Seven Sleepers.
After relieving his mind of a quantity of vigorous profanity, and threats to "buck and gag" and cut off the rations of the whole room, the officer would return to his quarters in the guard house, but before he was fairly ensconced there the cap and blouse would go out again, and the maddened guard be regaled with a spirited and vividly profane lecture on the depravity of Rebels in general, and his own unworthiness in particular.
One night in January things took a more serious turn.

The boys on the lower floor of our building had long considered a plan of escape.

There were then about fifteen thousand prisoners in Richmond--ten thousand on Belle Isle and five thousand in the buildings.

Of these one thousand five hundred were officers in Libby.