Page:The Immortal Six Hundred.djvu/194

   tender and white; but, reader, I do not commend dog meat as a daily food, but if you ever are so unfortunate as to be a prisoner of war in the hands of a Gen. J. G. Foster, living on retaliation rations, you will find in your hunger that dog meat is most excellent, indeed.

It is impossible to explain how we lived through the terrible ordeal of fire and starvation. Those were horrible days—days which most thoroughly convinced me that nothing but actual experiment can determine how much starvation, hunger, and bad treatment a human being can stand, especially if he was a prisoner of war in the hands of the Federal Government during the years 1861-65. When the wolf, hunger, takes hold of a man, all that is human in the man disappears. He will, in his hunger, eat anything. I most fully understand, after my personal experience, why those poor fellows on the late expedition to the North Pole did eat each other, and thought it no crime. No person knows