er would-be
escapes. They were defeated in this benevolent intention by the
readiness with which we divined the meaning of that incautiously loud
halt, and our alacrity in leaving the unhealthy locality.

The traitorous N'Yaarker was rewarded with a detail into the commissary
department, where he fed and fattened like a rat that had secured
undisturbed homestead rights in the center of a cheese. When the
miserable remnant of us were leaving Andersonville months afterward, I
saw him, sleek, rotund, and well-clothed, lounging leisurely in the door
of a tent. He regarded us a moment contemptuously, and then went on
conversing with a fellow N'Yaarker, in the foul slang that none but such
as he were low enough to use.

I have always imagined that the fellow returned home, at the close of the
war, and became a prominent member of Tweed's gang.

We protested against the barbarity of compelling men to wear irons for
exercising their natural right of attempting to escape, but no attention
was paid to our protest.

Another result of this abortive effort was the establishment of the
notorious "Dead Line." A few days later a gang of negros came in and
drove a line of stakes down at a distance of twenty feet from the
stockade. They nailed upon this a strip of stuff four inches wide, and
then an order was issued that if this was crossed, or even touched, the
guards would fire upon the offender without warning.

Our surveyor figured up this new contraction of our space, and came to
the conclusion that the Dead Line and the Swamp took up about three
acres, and we were left now only thirteen acres. This was not of much
consequence then, however, as we still had plenty of room.

The first man was killed the morning after the Dead-Line was put up.
The victim was a German, wearing the white crescent of the Second
Division of the Eleventh Corps, whom we had nicknamed "Sigel." Hardship
and exposure had crazed him, and brought on a severe attack of St.
Vitus's dance. As he went hobbling around with a vacuous grin upon his
face, he spied an old piece of cloth lying on the ground inside the Dead
Line. He stooped down and reached under for it. At that instant the
guard fired. The charge of ball-and-buck entered the poor old fellow's
shoulder and tore through his body. He fell dead, still clutching the
dirty rag that had cost him his Life.

CHAPTER XIX.

CAPT. HENRI WIRZ--SOME DESCRIPTION OF A SMALL-MINDED PERSONAGE, WH