Page:The Immortal Six Hundred.djvu/133



FTER two days' confinement on much drinking water or rations, we were ordered, on the afternoon of the second day, to turn out and form in line on the beach. After forming and the counting of our number was finished the order was given to march. We started up the beach in full view of Sumter's guns. The day was intensely hot; the sun shone down upon us in all its splendor. We had not gone over half a mile before some of our men, weakened from the eighteen days on the filthy prison ship, fell, from prostration, in the sand. I was of this unfortunate number. The brutal white officers of the 54th Massachusetts (nigger) Regiment made the negro the old schooner hulks, without