mitted that I was a pretty good shot. He asked
me if I could hit a man's eye every time at ten paces. I told him I was
almost sure I could. He said he had a duty that must be performed by
some man that was an excellent shot, and I might report at once with
forty rounds of ammunition. I don't know when I had been any more
startled than I was at the colonel's questions, and his manner. Could it
be that he had some secret expedition of murder that he wanted to send
me on. I had never deliberately aimed at a man's eye, and if there
was anybody to be killed I would be no hand to do it in cold blood. It
seemed as though I had rather give anything than to kill a man, but that
was evidently the business the colonel had in his mind. Was it a lot of
prisoners that were to be killed in retaliation for some of our men who
had been treated badly by the enemy. I reported shortly, with my carbine
and forty cartridges, and the colonel told me to go to a certain place
on the bank of the river, a mile away, and report to the chaplain, who
would be there to see that everything was done properly. Then when I
started off I heard the colonel say to the adjutant that there were
about forty to be killed, and while it seemed cruel, it had to be done,
and he hoped they would suffer as little as possible. If I could have
had my way, I wouldn't have gone a step. I reflected on the pained look
on the colonel's face, and wondered why I was picked out for all these
sad events, but I thought if the chaplain was there everything would
be all right. Arriving at the placed I found the chaplain sitting on a
stump, on a big bluff overlooking the river. He sighed as I came up and
said:

"Death is always a sad thing."

I told him that no one appreciated it more than I did, and I sighed
also.

"But," said he, as he took a chew of navy plug tobacco, "when death
is necessary, we should make it as painless as possible, I have been
studying this matter over a good deal, and trying to figure out how
to make the death the least painful to these poor victims, and it has
occurred to me that if we place them on the edge of the precipice, and
you shoot them through the brain, while at the same time I push them,
they will fall down a hundred feet into the river, and if they are not
killed instantly by having the brain blown out, they will certainly
drown. How does that strike you?"

I thought the chaplain was about the most heartless cuss I ever heard
talk about ki