We were not losing anything by the delay; we were not anxious to go anywhere.

One part of the Southern Confederacy was just as good as another to us.

So not a finger could they persuade any of us to raise to help along the journey.
The country we were traversing was sterile and poor--worse even than that in the neighborhood of Andersonville.

Farms and farmhouses were scarce, and of towns there were none.

Not even a collection of houses big enough to justify a blacksmith shop or a store appeared along the whole route.
But few fields of any kind were seen, and nowhere was there a farm which gave evidence of a determined effort on the part of its occupants to till the soil and to improve their condition.
When the train stopped for wood, or for repairs, or from exhaustion, we were allowed to descend from the cars and stretch our numbed limbs.
It did us good in other ways, too.