Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/434

 434 Southern Historical Society Papers.

continually jeered at through the little window by the negro guards who were off duty, they telling the suffering prisoners how delighted they would be to see them shot.

The awful hours rolled on, another night of indescribable suffering passed away, and the day of execution has come. To many of these men a quick death was to be preferred to the slow and cruel death they were then passing. The hour for the execution arrives. All the troops, mostly negroes, off guard on the Point were formed into the hollow square. The thirty-two almost naked, freezing, starving men were marched out in line into the hollow square. Major Brady, with the audacity of the wolf before eating the lamb, proceeded to ask each man if he knew who killed the guard. As he proceeded he received a very positive no from the heroic boys first, and then from the brave men. He had not gone far, however, when an alarm was heard in the direction of the gate. Four or five men were seen coming on horseback at full speed and yelling at the top of their voices. It was an officer who had found a young man, a prisoner and employ in the next cook-house, who could tell them something about who killed the guard.

But we must go back one day in the narrative. During that day of cruel mocking there was one kind man who visited the suffering prisoners. He was a commissioned officer and a Mason. Among the thirty-two prisoners there was but one Mason, and he gave a signal which will stir the deepest emotions of a, brother. This officer lost no time, but set to work to ferret out the cause of the death of the guard. Major Brady, unfeeling monster as he was, attempted to find out the cause by torturing innocent men.

Of course the proceedings were stayed until the young man was heard from. He was placed on a box to testify, but he could not do this until Major Brady had indulged in some silly, irrelevant ques- tions. He, however, stated that on the evening the guard was killed he was at the wood-pile gathering some chips for the fire when he was hit on the leg by the brick. Smarting with pain he threw the brick back and hit the guard on the head, and he fell off the parapet. Whether, said the young man, the brick or the whiskey in the guard caused the fall and death he could not say ; for, said he, the guard was drunk that afternoon. Then the young man added, I am sorry that I did not know that you were bestowing this cruelty on these men, for I should have come forward and made known these things.

The thirty-two were immediately sent back to their quarters, where they were clothed and fed, but three of them died soon after from this