are. As soon as this had been done, a
door on the ground floor of the penitentiary was swung open, and the
two condemned men marched out, pinioned side by side, and surrounded by
a small guard. The culprits were apparently somewhere between forty and
fifty years of age. They ascended the scaffold, were placed with their
feet on the trap, the nooses were adjusted, the trap was sprung,--and
it was all over. The crimes of which these men had been convicted were
peculiarly atrocious. They were not members of any organized body of
the Confederate army, but guerrillas pure and simple. It was
conclusively established on their trial that they, with some
associates, had, in cold blood, murdered by hanging several men of that
vicinity, private citizens of the State of Arkansas, for no other cause
or reason than the fact that the victims were Union men. In some cases
the murdered men had been torn from their beds at night, and hanged in
their own door-yards, in the presence of their well-nigh distracted
wives and children. There can be no question that these two
unprincipled assassins richly merited their fate, and hence it was
impossible to entertain for them any feeling of sympathy. Nevertheless,
I stand by my original proposition, that to see any man strung up like
a dog, and hanged in cold blood, is a nauseating and debasing
spectacle.

In January, 1864, while we were at Little Rock, the "veteranizing"
project, as it was called, was submitted to the men. That is to say, we
were asked to enlist for "three years more, or endurin' the war."
Sundry inducements for this were held out to the men, but the one
which, at the time, had the most weight, was the promise of a
thirty-days furlough for each man who re-enlisted. The men in general
responded favorably to the proposition, and enough of the 61st
re-enlisted to enable the regiment to retain its organization to the
end of the war. On the evening of February 1st, with several others of
Co. D, I walked down to the adjutant's tent, and "went in" for three
years more. I think that no better account of this re-enlistment
business can now be given by me than by here inserting a letter I wrote
on December 22nd, 1894, as a slight tribute to the memory of our acting
regimental commander in February, 1864, Maj. Daniel Grass. He was later
promoted to lieutenant-colonel, and after the war, came to Kansas,
where, for many years, he was a prominent lawyer and politician. On the
evening of Dece