Page:The Immortal Six Hundred.djvu/158

   he did his duty he was a patriot, a nobleman. His old gray jacket gave him a patent to nobility greater and grander than those conferred by mortal hands. God, Himself, gave to the Confederate soldier the right of nobility; the old gray jacket was his decoration and insignia of the cause we loved and lost—the nobility of manhood.

We had now been on Morris Island several weeks, suffering the pangs of starvation, and every man bearing himself with dignity and courage through the trying ordeal. One morning in October, to our surprise, the guns of old Sumter, Charleston, Moultrie, and Johnson were silent. We could not divine why, and began to make all kinds of surmises. The negro guards and their officers walked leisurely about, without the fearful look they generally bore. After a long time we ascertained, from one of the negro sergeants in charge of our camp, that the Confederate Government had demanded our removal from under fire and off of