It was truly a house builded with our own hands, for we had no tools whatever save the occasional use of the aforementioned dull axe and equally dull knife.
The rude little hut represented as much actual hard, manual labor as would be required to build a comfortable little cottage in the North, but we gladly performed it, as we would have done any other work to better our condition.
For a while wood was quite plentiful, and we had the luxury daily of warm fires, which the increasing coolness of the weather made important accessories to our comfort.
Other prisoners kept coming in.

Those we left behind at Savannah followed us, and the prison there was broken up.

Quite a number also came in from--Andersonville, so that in a little while we had between six and seven thousand in the Stockade.

The last comers found all the material for tents and all the fuel used up, and consequently did not fare so well as the earlier arrivals.
The commandant of the prison--one Captain Bowes--was the best of his class it was my fortune to meet.

Compared with the senseless brutality of Wirz, the reckless deviltry of Davis, or the stupid malignance of Barrett, at Florence, his administration was mildness and wisdom itself.
He enforced discipline better than any of those named, but has what they all lacked--executive ability--and he secured results that they could not possibly attain, and without anything, like the friction that attended their efforts.