While we were arranging our stump so as to carry it to the best
advantage, a vulgar-faced man, with fiery red hair, and wearing on his
collar the yellow bars of a Lieutenant, approached. This was Lieutenant
Barrett, commandant of the interior of the prison, and a more inhuman
wretch even than Captain Wirz, because he had a little more brains than
the commandant at Andersonville, and this extra intellect was wholly
devoted to cruelty. As he came near he commanded, in loud, brutal tones:

"Attention, Prisoners!"

We all stood up and fell in in two ranks. Said he:

"By companies, right wheel, march!"

This was simply preposterous. As every soldier knows, wheeling by
companies is one of the most difficult of manuvers, and requires some
preparation of a battalion before attempting to execute it. Our thousand
was made up of infantry, cavalry and artillery, representing, perhaps,
one hundred different regiments. We had not been divided off into
companies, and were encumbered with blankets, tents, cooking utensils,
wood, etc., which prevented our moving with such freedom as to make a
company wheel, even had we been divided up into companies and drilled for
the maneuver. The attempt to obey the command was, of course, a
ludicrous failure. The Rebel officers standing near Barrett laughed
openly at his stupidity in giving such an order, but he was furious. He
hurled at us a torrent of the vilest abuse the corrupt imagination of man
can conceive, and swore until he was fairly black in the face. He fired
his revolver off over our heads, and shrieked and shouted until he had to
stop from sheer exhaustion. Another officer took command then, and
marched us into prison.

We found this a small copy of Andersonville. There was a stream running
north and south, on either side of which was a swamp. A Stockade of
rough logs, with the bark still on, inclosed several acres. The front of
the prison was toward the West. A piece of artillery stood before the
gate, and a platform at each corner bore a gun, elevated high enough to
rake the whole inside of the prison. A man stood behind each of these
guns continually, so as to open with them at any moment. The earth was
thrown up against the outside of the palisades in a high embankment,
along the top of which the guards on duty walked, it being high enough to
elevate their head, shoulders and breasts above the tops of the logs.
Inside the inevitable dead-line was traced by