Page:The Immortal Six Hundred.djvu/147

   report from the niggers who counted us three times each day. This little fellow had a sword about two feet longer than he was tall. The sword would get tangled up in his short legs, reminding one, as Pete Akers said, of a boy playing soldier. This fellow's dignity was huge—about on the order of a free nigger parson before "de wah," at a lodge funeral. Colonel Hallo well, with whom we were brought more in contact than any other officer,—for the reason he had full control of our pen,—was about the meanest fellow our misfortunes brought us in connection with; in fact, the negroes he commanded were Chesterfields in politeness in contrast with this fellow. After we had been some weeks in the stockade under fire of our own guns, and the starvation rations had begun to tell upon us, this doughty colonel one afternoon came into the stockade, had us drawn up in line, and made the following speech which I have never forgotten. He said: