Page:The Immortal Six Hundred.djvu/200

   orders; Gen. J. G. Foster executed them. The very idea of feeding human beings on ten ounces of corn meal and half a pint of acid pickles is revolting in itself. But couple it with the fact that the meal was rotten, filled with worms, without salt, meat, or grease to flavor it, is almost beyond belief. Yet the proof is beyond question that this rotten corn meal and pickle was all the ration Gen. J. G. Foster, the humane modern Nero, gave us while held at Hilton Head and Fort Pulaski as prisoners of war.

What was the result from this cruel order of retaliation? Under the sands of Morris Island, Hilton Head, S. C., and in the swamp graveyard of Fort Pulaski, and buried under the swamp, are Confederate soldiers—prisoners of war—murdered by the cruel retaliation orders of Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and his chief executioner, Gen. J. G. Foster, U. S. A.

Over the graves of these grand Confederate braves the bright stars of heaven