aring that they should wear
the irons until delivered up to our Government.

One of the Raiders--named Heffron--had, shortly after his arrest, turned
State's evidence, and given testimony that assisted materially in the
conviction of his companions. One morning, a week or so after the
hanging, his body was found lying among the other dead at the South Gate.
The impression made by the fingers of the hand that had strangled him,
were still plainly visible about the throat. There was no doubt as to
why he had been killed, or that the Raiders were his murderers, but the
actual perpetrators were never discovered.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

JULY--THE PRISON BECOMES MORE CROWDED, THE WEATHER HOTTER, NATIONS
POORER, AND MORTALITY GREATER--SOME OF THE PHENOMENA OF SUFFERING AND
DEATH.

All during July the prisoners came streaming in by hundreds and thousands
from every portion of the long line of battle, stretching from the
Eastern bank of the Mississippi to the shores of the Atlantic. Over one
thousand squandered by Sturgis at Guntown came in; two thousand of those
captured in the desperate blow dealt by Hood against the Army of the
Tennessee on the 22d of the month before Atlanta; hundreds from Hunter's
luckless column in the Shenandoah Valley, thousands from Grant's lines in
front of Petersburg. In all, seven thousand one hundred and twenty-eight
were, during the month, turned into that seething mass of corrupting
humanity to be polluted and tainted by it, and to assist in turn to make
it fouler and deadlier. Over seventy hecatombs of chosen victims
--of fair youths in the first flush of hopeful manhood, at the threshold
of a life of honor to themselves and of usefulness to the community;
beardless boys, rich in the priceless affections of homes, fathers,
mothers, sisters and sweethearts, with minds thrilling with high
aspirations for the bright future, were sent in as the monthly sacrifice
to this Minotaur of the Rebellion, who, couched in his foul lair, slew
them, not with the merciful delivery of speedy death, as his Cretan
prototype did the annual tribute of Athenian youths and maidens, but,
gloating over his prey, doomed them to lingering destruction. He rotted
their flesh with the scurvy, racked their minds with intolerable
suspense, burned their bodies with the slow fire of famine, and delighted
in each separate pang, until they sank beneath the fearful accumulation.
Theseus [Sherman. D.W.]--the deliverer--was c