Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/176

164 finely; and this, coupled with the previous remark, was made a subject of complaint to the Colonel, who ordered a court-martial. The trial was held, contrary to military usage, in the presence of a vast assemblage. The prisoner was ably defended. The counsel first resolved to attempt the proof of an alibi, by showing that the prisoner was sick that day and could not have been present at the time and place specified; but the prosecution thwarted this by introducing a witness who testified that he had seen him on that very day with an immense wooden harpoon fishing in the great cauldron of soup for a piece of "salt horse" that had been left there, the judge-advocate pleading overwhelmingly that no man whose digestion was impaired by sickness could have borne the sight and smell of the nauseous mess. As quite a number of the officers and soldiers of the fort were present, the effect of the vivid description of our prison fare by the judge-advocate may be well conceived.

The counsel for the defence at length agreed to risk the prisoner's fate upon a plea of insanity. And a strong case they succeeded in making. They pointed to the strange under-ground tunnel as a clear evidence of mental aberration. They reviewed his whole course since he had been in the fort; they attributed his insanity to the hard life and unwholesome fare, which they denounced in unmeasured terms. But the court found a verdict of guilty. He was sentenced to be reprimanded publicly on dress-parade, and to be fed until further orders on "hard tack" and "salt horse"—our common prison fare. That evening at dress-parade, the public reprimand was duly administered. Chaplain C. was called out in front of the command and listened meekly with uncovered head, whilst the Colonel (a young Assistant Surgeon, somewhat given to wildness) delivered a homily to him on the impropriety of his conduct, so unbecoming to him and so dishonoring to the command.

Thus the days and weeks rolled away in the midst of high-hearted resolve not to give way to despondency, and of constant and yet ever-varying expedients to rally the spirits of those who were becoming depressed. No one who has not experienced it knows anything of the depressing influence of continued imprisonment, with the mind shut off from its ordinary lines of thought, and the heart from its customary channels of communion with those it loves. He who has passed through the same experience will readily understand me when I say, that notwithstanding all