me 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
ignorant of the destruction of Hood's army, and were at a loss to account
for its failure to contest Sherman's progress. The last we had heard of
Hood, he had been flanked out of Atlanta, but we did not understand that
the strength or morale of his force had been seriously reduced in
consequence.

Soon it drifted in to us that Sherman had cut loose from Savannah, as
from Atlanta, and entered South Carolina, to repeat there the march
through her sister State. Our sources of information now were confined
to the gossip wh