I have heard men speak of receiving justice--even favors from Wirz.
I never heard any one saying that much of Barrett. Like Winder, if he
had a redeeming quality it was carefully obscured from the view of all
that I ever met who knew him.

Where the fellow came from, what State was entitled to the discredit of
producing and raising him, what he was before the War, what became of him
after he left us, are matters of which I never heard even a rumor, except
a very vague one that he had been killed by our cavalry, some returned
prisoner having recognized and shot him.

Colonel Iverson, of the Fifth Georgia, was the Post Commander. He was a
man of some education, but had a violent, ungovernable temper, during
fits of which he did very brutal things. At other times he would show a
disposition towards fairness and justice. The worst point in my
indictment against him is that he suffered Barrett to do as he did.

Let the reader understand that I have no personal reasons for my opinion
of these men. They never did anything to me, save what they did to all
of my companions. I held myself aloof from them, and shunned intercourse
so effectually that during my whole imprisonment I did not speak as many
words to Rebel officers as are in this and the above paragraphs, and most
of those were spoken to the Surgeon who visited my hundred. I do not
usually seek conversation with people I do not like, and certainly did
not with persons for whom I had so little love as I had for Turner, Ross,
Winder, Wirz, Davis, Iverson, Barrett, et al. Possibly they felt badly
over my distance and reserve, but I must confess that they never showed
it very palpably.

As January dragged slowly away into February, rumors of the astonishing
success of Sherman began to be so definite and well authenticated as to
induce belief. We knew that the Western Chieftain had marched almost
unresisted through Georgia, and captured Savannah with comparatively
little difficulty. We did not understand it, nor did the Rebels around
us, for neither of us comprehended the Confederacy's near approach to
dissolution, and we could not explain why a desperate attempt was not
made somewhere to arrest the onward sweep of the conquering armies of the
West. It seemed that if there was any vitality left in Rebeldom it would
deal a blow that would at least cause the presumptuous invader to pause.
As we knew nothing of the battles of Franklin and Nashville, we were
ignoran