Page:FourteenMonthsInAmericanBastiles-2.djvu/54

54 and rear, there were twenty more of the same size as those above, the inner or front ones being, of course, basement rooms, and opening upon an area about seven feet wide and ten or twelve deep, and those in the rear looking out on the space between the interior and exterior works above mentioned, which was below the level of the inside enclosure. Between the front and rear rooms, above and below, there were also two very small dark rooms, intended, I presume, for store-rooms. All the interior or front rooms were lighted by large windows, and those in the rear by narrow loop holes, about six inches wide, at the outer edge, and four or five feet high. The upper rooms were all neatly finished, and those in front were very light and airy. The lower rooms had cement floors, and were much less desirable. Sixteen of the rooms I have attempted to describe, were assigned to the a political prisoners," and the officers who were prisoners of war, viz.: four front rooms opening on the parade-ground, and four immediately beneath them, and eight just in the rear of these, together with the smaller rooms or closets which separated the front and rear rooms. One large, long casemate, in another side of the Fort, was devoted to the same purpose. Commodore and several of the army officers with him, and Marshal, selected one of the four upper front rooms ; the North Carolina officers of the highest rank another ; the Baltimore Police Commissioners another; and the Mayor of Baltimore and Messrs.  and  the fourth. These several parties having, in accordance with Colonel  request, made choice of their rooms, also selected as their companions, in their new quarters, those who had been their room-mates at Fort Columbus and Fort La Fayette. I thus found myself again among my old roommates. The other prisoners, generally choosing their own room-mates, were quartered in the other rooms and in the casemate before mentioned. The crowded condition of the room I occupied will illustrate the situation of our fellow prisoners. This room was nineteen-and-a-half by fifteen feet, and one of the little closets of which we had the