ey, of the soldier's best friend, his
sheltering blanket,--herded in shivering nakedness on the bare
ground,--deprived of every implement by which men of energy and spirit
had soon bettered their lot,--forbidden to cut in adjacent forests
branches for shelter, or fuel to cook their coarse food,--fed on a pint
of corn-and-cob-meal per day, with some slight addition of molasses or
rancid meat,--denied all mental resources, all letters from home, all
writing to friends,--these men were cut off from the land of the living
while yet they lived,--they were made to dwell in darkness as those that
have been long dead.

By such slow, lingering tortures,--such weary, wasting anguish and
sickness of body and soul,--it was the infernal policy of the Rebel
government either to wring from them an abjuration of their country, or
by slow and steady draining away of the vital forces to render them
forever unfit to serve in her armies.

Walter's constitution bore four months of this usage, when death came to
his release. A fellow-sufferer, who was with him in his last hours,
brought the account to his parents.

Through all his terrible privations, even the lingering pains of slow
starvation, Walter preserved his steady simplicity, his faith in God,
and unswerving fidelity to the cause for which he was suffering.

When the Rebels had kept the prisoners fasting for days, and then
brought in delicacies to tempt their appetite, hoping thereby to induce
them to desert their flag, he only answered,--"I would rather be carried
out in that dead-cart!"

When told by some that he must steal from his fellow-sufferers, as many
did, in order to relieve the pangs of hunger, he answered,--"No, I was
not brought up to that!" And so when his weakened system would no longer
receive the cob-meal which was his principal allowance, he set his face
calmly towards death.

He grew gradually weaker and weaker and fainter and fainter, and at last
disease of the lungs set in, and it became apparent that the end was at
hand.

On Christmas Day, while thousands among us were bowing in our garlanded
churches or surrounding festive tables, this young martyr lay on the
cold, damp ground, watched over by his destitute friends, who sought to
soothe his last hours with such scanty comforts as their utter poverty
afforded,--raising his head on the block of wood which was his only
pillow, and moistening his brow and lips with water, while his life
ebbed slowly away,