s direct superiors--Howell
Cobb and Jefferson Davis--conceived in all its proportions the gigantic
engine of torture and death they were organizing; nor did they comprehend
the enormity of the crime they were committing. But they were willing to
do much wrong to gain their end; and the smaller crimes of to-day
prepared them for greater ones to-morrow, and still greater ones the day
following. Killing ten men a day on Belle Isle in January, by starvation
and hardship, led very easily to killing one hundred men a day in
Andersonville, in July, August and September. Probably at the beginning
of the war they would have felt uneasy at slaying one man per day by such
means, but as retribution came not, and as their appetite for slaughter
grew with feeding, and as their sympathy with human misery atrophied from
long suppression, they ventured upon ever widening ranges of
destructiveness. Had the war lasted another year, and they lived, five
hundred deaths a day would doubtless have been insufficient to disturb
them.

Winder doubtless went about his part of the task of slaughter coolly,
leisurely, almost perfunctorily. His training in the Regular Army was
against the likelihood of his displaying zeal in anything. He instituted
certain measures, and let things take their course. That course was a
rapid transition from bad to worse, but it was still in the direction of
his wishes, and, what little of his own energy was infused into it was in
the direction of impetus,-not of controlling or improving the course.
To have done things better would have involved soma personal discomfort.
He was not likely to incur personal discomfort to mitigate evils that
were only afflicting someone else. By an effort of one hour a day for
two weeks he could have had every man in Andersonville and Florence given
good shelter through his own exertions. He was not only too indifferent
and too lazy to do this, but he was too malignant; and this neglect to
allow--simply allow, remember--the prisoners to protect their lives by
providing their own shelter, gives the key to his whole disposition,
and would stamp his memory with infamy, even if there were no other
charges against him.

CHAPTER LXXV.

ONE INSTANCE OF A SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE--THE ADVENTURES OF SERGEANT WALTER
HARTSOUGH, OF COMPANY K, SIXTEENTH ILLINOIS CAVALRY--HE GETS AWAY FROM
THE REBELS AT THOMASVILLE, AND AFTER A TOILSOME AND DANGEROUS JOURNEY
OF SEVERAL HUNDRED MILES, REACHE