The formula for this ran thus: "Post numbah 1; half-past eight o'clock, and a-l-l 's w-e-l-l!" Post No.

2 repeated this cry, and so it went around.
One evening when our anxiety as to Atlanta was wrought to the highest pitch, one of the guards sang out: "Post numbah foah--half past eight o'clock--and Atlanta's--gone--t-o -- hell." The heart of every man within hearing leaped to his mouth.

We looked toward each other, almost speechless with glad surprise, and then gasped out: "Did 'you hear THAT ?" The next instant such a ringing cheer burst out as wells spontaneously from the throats and hearts of men, in the first ecstatic moments of victory--a cheer to which our saddened hearts and enfeebled lungs had long been strangers.

It was the genuine, honest, manly Northern cheer, as different from the shrill Rebel yell as the honest mastiff's deep-voiced welcome is from the howl of the prowling wolf.
The shout was taken up all over the prison.

Even those who had not heard the guard understood that it meant that "Atlanta was ours and fairly won," and they took up the acclamation with as much enthusiasm as we had begun it.