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The North rang with praises of the Great March, which had pierced like a knife the vitals of the Confederacy. Georgia, with her arsenals and factories, had been the Confederacy's workshop. Twenty thousand bales of cotton had been burned upon the march, besides a great amount of military stores. The 320 miles of railroad destroyed had practically isolated Virginia from the South and the West.
The prisoners were non-important factors in the military problem. Had they all been turned loose as soon as captured, their efforts would not have hastened the Confederacy's fate a single day.
The prisoners were non-important factors in the military problem. Had they all been turned loose as soon as captured, their efforts would not have hastened the Confederacy's fate a single day.
Southern writers and politicians, naturally anxious to diminish as much as possible the great odium resting upon their section for the treatment of prisoners of war during the last year and a half of the Confederacy's existence, have vehemently charged that the Government of the United States deliberately and pitilessly resigned to their fate such of its soldiers as fell into the hands of the enemy, and repelled all advances from the Rebel Government looking toward a resumption of exchange.
"O go to h with your parole," said the spokesman of the crowd, with nonchalant contempt; "we don't want none of your paroles. Old Billy'll parole us before Saturday." To us they said: "Now, you boys want to cheer right up; keep a stiff upper lip. This thing's workin' all right. Their old Confederacy's goin' to pieces like a house afire.
"The whole infernal Southern Confederacy's out there," said one boy, who was holding his shattered right hand in his left, with his thumb pressed hard on the artery, to stanch the blood, "in three lines-of-battle, stretching from daybreak to sunset. The boys have been standing them off bully, though, but I don't know how long they can keep it up.
He had a death-grip upon the Confederacy's throat, and waited with confidence for the contortions which should announce its death. The spring of 1865 found the South reduced to the last extremity. The blockade had shut out imports, and it is doubtful if ever before so large and populous a region was so far from being self-sustaining.
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.
There was a considerable trade driven between the prisoners and the guard at the door. This was a very lucrative position for the latter, and men of a commercial turn of mind generally managed to get stationed there. The blockade had cut off the Confederacy's supplies from the outer world, and the many trinkets about a man's person were in good demand at high prices.
We had hoped that the title of thieves, of which we had become heartily tired, would now be left behind; but it seemed still to cling to us, and afforded an unpleasant premonition of the Confederacy's not yet being done with us. The Marshal then gave his orders, and we were again marched off. By this time it was daylight, December 7th, 1862.