he same time inquired,--

"Are you related to Dr. Turner, of Fayetteville?"

"No, Sir. I am of the old Virginia family." (I never met a negro-whipper
nor a negro-trader who did not belong to that family.) "Are you a
North-Carolinian?"

"No, Sir"--

Before I could add another word, the Judge said,--

"No, Major; these gentlemen hail from Georgia. They are strangers here,
and I'd thank you to show them over the prison."

"Certainly, Colonel, most certainly. I'll do it with great pleasure."

And the little man bustled about, put on his cap, gave a few orders to
his subordinates, and then led us, through another outside-door, into
the prison. He was a few rods in advance with Colonel Jaquess, when
Judge Ould said to me,--

"Your prisoners have belied Turner. You see he's not the hyena they've
represented."

"I'm not so sure of that," I replied. "These cringing, mild-mannered men
are the worst sort of tyrants, when they have the power."

"But you don't think _him_ a tyrant?"

"I do. He's a coward and a bully, or I can't read English. It is written
all over his face."

The Judge laughed boisterously, and called out to Turner,--

"I say, Major, our friend here is painting your portrait."

"I hope he is making a handsome man of me," said Turner, in a
sycophantic way.

"No, he isn't. He's drawing you to the life,--as if he'd known you for
half a century."

We had entered a room about forty feet wide and a hundred feet deep,
with bare brick walls, a rough plank floor, and narrow, dingy windows,
to whose sash only a few broken panes were clinging. A row of tin
wash-basins, and a wooden trough which served as a bathing-tub, were at
one end of it, and half a dozen cheap stools and hard-bottomed chairs
were littered about the floor, but it had no other furniture. And this
room, with five others of similar size and appointments, and two
basements floored with earth and filled with _debris_, compose the
famous Libby Prison, in which, for months together, thousands of the
best and bravest men that ever went to battle have been allowed to rot
and to starve.

At the date of our visit, not more than a hundred prisoners were in the
Libby, its contents having recently been emptied into a worse sink in
Georgia; but almost constantly since the war began, twelve and sometimes
thirteen hundred of our officers have been hived within those half-dozen
desolate rooms and filthy cellars, with a space of only ten feet by two
all