The papers were brought in by "fresh fish," purchased from the guards at from fifty cents to one dollar apiece, or occasionally thrown in to us when they had some specially disagreeable intelligence, like the defeat of Banks, or Sturgis, or Bunter, to exult over.

I was particularly fortunate in getting hold of these.

Becoming installed as general reader for a neighborhood of several thousand men, everything of this kind was immediately brought to me, to be read aloud for the benefit of everybody.
All the older prisoners knew me by the nick-name of "Illinoy" -- a designation arising from my wearing on my cap, when I entered prison, a neat little white metal badge of "ILLS." When any reading matter was brought into our neighborhood, there would be a general cry of: "Take it up to 'Illinoy,'" and then hundreds would mass around my quarters to bear the news read.
The Rebel papers usually had very meager reports of the operations of the armies, and these were greatly distorted, but they were still very interesting, and as we always started in to read with the expectation that the whole statement was a mass of perversions and lies, where truth was an infrequent accident, we were not likely to be much impressed with it.
There was a marled difference in the tone of the reports brought in from the different armies.

Sherman's men were always sanguine.

They had no doubt that they were pushing the enemy straight to the wall, and that every day brought the Southern Confederacy much nearer its downfall.
Those from the Army of the Potomac were never so hopeful.