The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1865-08-05
Mistellalteolls.
IFrom the Atlantic Monthly.l
o U r P Is o N E r S.

In the town of Andover, Massachusetts,
boy of sixteen, named Walter Raymond,
enlisted among our volunteers. He was
under the prescribed age, but his eager zeal
led him to follow the footsteps of an elder
brother who had already enlisted and the
father of the boy, though these two were
all the sons he had, instead Of availing him
self Of his legal right to withdraw him, in
dorsed the act in the following letter ad-
dressed to his Captain .3o8a5f4laae
aasqo9 latANDovER, MASS, Aug. f5th,s 1862.
ro eCAPTAIN HUNT,-My eldest son has en-
listed in your company | send you his
younger brother. HeIs, and always has
been, in perfect health, Of more than the
ordinary power of endurance, honest, truth
full, and courageous. / doubt not you will
find, him on trial all you can ask, except
his age, and that am sorry to say is only
sixteen yet if ouricountry needs his SER
vice, take him.
n 'fYour obedient servant ~. +
"SAMUEL RAYMOND
The boy went forth to real service. and
to successive battles at Kingston, at White
hall. and at GoldsboroGgh; and in all did
his duty bravely and faithfully. He met
the temptations and dangers of a soldiers
life with the pure-hearted frmness Of a
Christian child, neither afraid nor ashamed
to remember his baptismal vows, his Sun
day-school teachings, and his mothers
wishes. s 5d la'sxdg hAs tsa sat 55
-s He had passed his promise to his mother
against drinking and smoking, and held it
with q simple, childlike steadiness. When
I in the midst of malarious swamps, physi-
clans and officers advised the use of tobac-
co. The boy writes to his mother,-"A
great many have begun to smoke, but /
shall not do it without your permission,
though / think it does great deal of
good" 3sas "n io-b7eE asa
In his leisure hours he was found in his
tent reading; and before battle he prepar-
ed his soul with the beautiful psalms and
collects for the day, as appointed by his
church, and writes with simplicity to his
friends,- sifl Il sn sail Bo'i sloaV
Il 81 prayed God that he would watch over
me, and if Ifell, receive my soulin heaven !;
and also prayed that might not forget
the cause was fighting for, and turn my
back in fear.@ 2A
..2 After nine months service, he returned
with a soldiers experience, though with a
frame weakened by sickness in malarious
region. But no sooner did health and
strength return than he again enlisted in
the Massachusetts, cavalry service, and
passed many months of constant activity
and adventure, being in some severe skir-
mishes and battles with that portion of
Sheridan's troops who approached nearest
to Richmond, getting within mile and a
half of the city. At the close of this raid,
so hard had been the service, that only thir-
ty horses were left out of seventy-four in
his company, and Walter and two others
we're the sole survivors among eight who
occupied the same tent. ~
On the 18th of August, Walter was taken
prisoner in skirmish; and from the, time
that this news reached his parents, until
the 18th of the following March, they could
ascertain nothing of his fate. A general
exchange of prisoners having been then
effected, they learned that he had died on
Christmas Day in Salisbury Prison, of hard
ship and privation. A
What these hardships were is, alas easy
to be known from those too we'll authenti-
Gated accounts published by our Govern
meut of the treatment experienced by our
soldiers in the Rebel prisons eiiss
Robbed of clothing, of money, of the
| soldiers best friend, his sheltering blanket
-herded in shivering nakedness on the
bare ground deprived of every implement
by which men of energy and spirit had soon
bettered their lot forbidden to cut in adj
iacent forests branches for shelter or fuel
TO cook their coarse food, fed on pint of
corn-and-cob-me per day, with some slight
addition of molasses or rancid meat, de-
MED all mental resources, all letters from
home, all writing to friends those men
were cut off from the land of the living
while yet they lived,-they were made to
dwell in darkness as those that have been
long dead.
BY such slow, lingering tortures, such
weary, wasting anguish and sickness of bo-
dy and soul, lit was the Internal policy of
the Rebel government either to wiring from
them an abjuration OF their country, or by
slow and steady draining away of the vital
/ forces to render them forever unfit to serve
| in her armies.
| Walters constitution bore four months
| of this usage, when death came to his re-
| lease. A fellow-sufferer, who was with him
| in his last hours, brought the account to his
parents.
Through all his terrible privation, even
| the lingering pains of slow starvation, Wal
ter preserved his steady simplicity, his
| faith in God, and unswerving fidelity to the
cause for which he was suffering.
When the Rebels had kept the prisoners
fasting for days, and then brought In dell
cacies to tempt their appetite, hoping
thereby to induce them to desert their flag,
he only answered, ,-'I would rather be car
ried out in that dead-cart !"
| When told by some that he must steal