Still this was a vast improvement on Andersonville, as the meal was fine and sweet, and we each had a spoonful of salt issued to us regularly.
I am quite sure that I cannot make the reader who has not had an experience similar to ours comprehend the wonderful importance to us of that spoonful of salt.

Whether or not the appetite for salt be, as some scientists claim, a purely artificial want, one thing is certain, and that is, that either the habit of countless generations or some other cause, has so deeply ingrained it into our common nature, that it has come to be nearly as essential as food itself, and no amount of deprivation can accustom us to its absence.

Rather, it seemed that the longer we did without it the more overpowering became our craving.
I could get along to-day and to-morrow, perhaps the whole week, without salt in my food, since the lack would be supplied from the excess I had already swallowed, but at the end of that time Nature would begin to demand that I renew the supply of saline constituent of my tissues, and she would become more clamorous with every day that I neglected her bidding, and finally summon Nausea to aid Longing.
The light artillery of the garrison of Savannah--four batteries, twenty-four pieces--was stationed around three sides of the prison, the guns unlimbered, planted at convenient distance, and trained upon us, ready for instant use.

We could see all the grinning mouths through the cracks in the fence.

There were enough of them to send us as high as the traditional kite flown by Gilderoy.