Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/118

 ]18 Southern Historical Society Papers.

using it for the field to hunt in. He smilingly remarked to some who through modesty attempted to hide, " Don't stop, I like to see you all busy." Talking of Major Brady, no one can say that he was not always polite, and he appeared to be very friendly towards the pris- oners, yet it is said he made more than $1,000,000, outside of his pay, from his position. Having charge of all the sutler establishments, and all the money, boxes, letters, and presents passing through or in his hands, his position must have made him a rich man.

NEGRO INSOLENCE.

Next our guards. As already stated, they were negroes who took particular delight in showing their former masters that " the bottom rail was on top." On one occasion one of the North Carolina men, who have a habit, which is shared by our Virginia country cousins, in whittling every wooden object they come across, was enjoying this sport on the prison gate, when one of the colored soldiers snot him down, nearly blowing his head off. This created some little excite- ment, but what the result was I never learned. During the day we had access to the sink built on piles in the bay, but at night the gates were closed, and boxes were placed in the lower part of the camp, to which the men were allowed to go at all hours of the night. There were hundreds of sick in camp, cases of violent diarrhoea, reducing the men to skeletons. As these men were compelled to frequent these boxes, the negroes would often compel them at the point of the bayonet to march around in double quick time, to carry them on their backs, to kneel and pray for Abe Lincoln, and forced them to submit to a variety of their brutal jokes, some of which decency would not permit me to mention.

FEDERAL SERGEANTS.

The white sergeants in charge were hardly of a better class than their colored brother. They belonged to that class of mean cowards who dare not face the foe on the battle field, whose bravery consisted in insulting and maltreating a defenseless prisoner. Often I have seen them kick a poor, sick, broken-down prisoner, because he was physically unable to take his place in line at roll-call as quickly as the sergeant demanded. Prisoners were sometimes punished by them too horribly to relate. Men were tied, hand and feet, and had to stand on a barrel for hours; others were bound and dipped head