CHAPTER VII.

Macon-A Southern Unionist in the Rebel Army-Beneath a Georgia Sun-Secession Speech-Thoughts of HomePolitical Prisoners-Horrible Place-Offer of the GospelLieutenant A. P. Collins-Contemplated Escape-Robes of Blood!-Pinning a Federal Soldier to the Ground.

WE were next taken to Macon, Georgia. Traveling by night in box-cars, we had little opportunity to see the country. We were much annoyed on this trip by drunken, profane, and sleepy guards. Their cuffs and curses were almost too intolerable to be borne.

On board the train, however, there was one companionable and intelligent gentleman. I regret that I cannot record his name, for he was a worthy man, and a lover of his country. He related to me many strange inconsistencies of rebeldom. Said he:

"I am here in the army. I was a Douglas Democrat, and opposed this war until my life was threatened. My only alternative was to become a soldier. You may think your case a hard one, sir, but I would readily exchange with you, for then I should not be compelled to

fire upon any who rallied beneath the stars and stripes. I was in the Mexican war, and there followed the dear old flag until it floated proudly over the metropolis of the enemy.”

He also informed me that he had a family dependent upon him for a livelihood, and complained of a government that paid eleven dollars a month to soldiers, and allowed fifty dollars per barrel to be exacted for flour, and all other necessaries in proportion. Pointing to his coarse shoes, he said:

"These cost me eleven dollars; this flimsy clothing I wear cost ten dollars a yard! Once times were good and we were content and happy; but now my family is suffering, and I know not my own fate. I know not whether you are a Christian or not; but, sir, my hope is in the Lord. He knows my heart; and although I am compelled to do what I believe to be wrong, I feel that God will forgive me for my family's sake."

He was a member of the Methodist Church South, an uneducated man, but honest and humble. He remarked that, if our conversation were overheard, we would both be in danger of immediate death.

The morning light appeared at last, and we

were passing through a level, boggy country, very thinly inhabited.

Soon after dawn, the long, shrill scream of the locomotive announced that we were approaching a place of some note. In a few minutes we were in Macon depot; but of our destiny or doom we knew nothing. At this time there were about six hundred of us. Not until ten o'clock were we permitted to move, hungry and hampered as we were. Then we were taken from the cars, and for the first time set our feet on the traitor-cursed soil of Bibb county, Georgia. In a short time we were driven, like a herd of mules, to the fair-ground, an area of three acres, surrounded by a picketfence. Within were several large, rough, wooden buildings thrown together for the purpose of holding Yankee prisoners.

It was now the 29th of May, and the noonday heat was intense. They kept us sweltering in the broiling sun for more than two hours, and our sufferings were excessive. Suddenly the attention of the crowd was attracted by a pompous-looking individual, who mounted a stump in the enclosure, and began, with violent gesticulations, to harangue the prisoners.

The substance of this speech is herewith appended, though I confess my inability to trans

mit it in the patois in which it was spoken. It is reported to serve as a specimen of the average of Southern logic and oratory, such as often harried our unwilling ears:

Prisoners, you have been committed to my charge, and you know that you are invaders of our soil. You have been stealing our property, and running them off to Canada and other places. And when we appealed to you to deliver up our slaves, you passed liberty bills in your States, nullifying a law that had been passed by the legislature, declaring that you would not regard the Fugitive Slave Law. We, in assuming the position we now do, are acting as a safeguard to our slaves, and protecting them as our property-property to which we have the right guaranteed to us by God himself, when he said, 'Servants, be obedient unto your masters.' But you of the North have violated the Word of God, and the Constitution of the once United States. When we asked to secede from you, giving you all your rights, and demanding only our own, your government waged an unholy war against us-have carried it into our country with all its carnage, destruction, and, bloodshed. The God of battles is turning all things in our favor, and we are driving your army from our soil-taking your

men prisoners, which is your own sad experience. Now, prisoners, you are in my charge, and I am sure you cannot expect me to treat you only as invaders of our soil, and murderers of our countrymen. Notwithstanding all this, I shall try to do the best for you, as poor unfortunate prisoners, that the conscience of a brave and gallant officer would allow him. While you obey my orders strictly, you shall not suffer. But if you disobey them, you must expect to take the consequences."

After this address, embodying so much profundity and wisdom, we were surrounded by a heavy guard, and taken within the guard-lines located on the grounds referred to.

What a dreary spot for our abode, to be endured we knew not how long! A gloomy, dismal pen was to be our habitation. The only shade afforded us was that of a few straggling pine-trees, beneath which we sat at times, brooding over our forlorn and desolate situation. Oh! how wearily passed the days! how sadly the nights! How much did our thoughts revert to the "loved ones at home," and how in imagination did we realize the loneliness of their sorrowing hearts!

Mr. Rogers-before spoken of-came and informed me that a group of men standing at a