The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1886-04-16

"
"Colonel;" was the reply, 81 thank
you for your interest. If we are Ma
tiOnal enemies, you speak as a man
and a soldier. But let me say this
(now can not explain what induced
me to make the following foolish, brag-
CART speech): Colonel, you or I may
die before night; we do not know
but in so far as the result of your
courts finding is concerned, will be
alive when you and your twelve officers
are dead and forgotten ~
He left me in disgust, and I don't
blame him. But such was my feeling.
did not ''feel it in my BONES" as the
slang goes, that death was so near.
The Colonel and the entire twelve COM
posing the court died before l was ex-
changed-''shot to DEATH in one charge
at Coal Harbor. live to write the
occurrence twenty-five years after the
conversation.
It may or may not be true that when
the grim monster singles out his victim
he sends him some way spiritual pre-
mOnitiOn that he is going to let fly
/ from Death culver the fatal dart. Be
/ that as il may-I had no premonition
of death. Not when they stood me up
to hear my sentence and to answer, nor
/ afterwards in the cool contemplation
my isolation and silent dungeon
| afforded not when the officer of the
! day, on that eventful execution morn
/ ing, read to me in my dungeon the
| days programme and delineated my
doom at the hands of twelve detailed
| soldiers. He found me whistling as
paced my narrow cell that morning and
| exclaimed in surprise:
"GOOd God, Captain what kind of a
man are you P"
! "Oh, I don't know; skin and bone,
flesh and sinew, blood and bile. Why ?"
"Why Don't you know you are to
be shot to-dayp Outside here are the
! twelve men detailed to send you into
eternity. You'll never see another
morning And here you are whist
lingr'
well, why not whistle as long as
possible, and cry when you can not
laugh Pr
Hence, I may not be able to tell just
how a man feels who stares death
calmly in the face, for may be I did
mot comprehend my situation. But
I was sentenced to death, that 1 fully
| comprehanded when they marched me,
hand-cuffed, between two guards with
arms at ''charge" and bayonets fixed,
back to the prison and instead of to
my former y by II cell, barred
and bolted me in an underground,
dark, dank dungeon, three feet by ten.
significantly suggestive that was to
stay right there until the day and hour.
The sentence was fully realized during
the sunless days and no darker nights
of the weeks that followed.
Daylight Good God, man! you do
not appreciate what a ray of glad,
bright sunlight is until shut in from all
that makes day beautiful. Oh, yes; l
comprehend, slightly, that mine was
no trif1ing sentence, as crOuched in
that felt darkness, waiting till dilated
i pupils enabled me to see imperfectly
what was the dampness that L touched.
Finally, however, was permitted to
send out and buy a lamp, and to keep
it lighted The walls had been re-
peatedlv whftewashed, but the humid
filth OOzing through the bricks had
pushed it off in discOlOred flakes. The
floor was stone; a solid or cemented
mass thatonce negatived any Inorganic
idea of digging out Away up
wonder, ten or twelve feet away, was
the arched brick ceiling, whose sweaty
surface told it, too, was under sod.
Shiny snails and thousand legs" drew
their clammy ways across the moist
walls and floor; vermin found and fed
upon the noxious dirt-damp; the dis
gusted rats that crept in at the grated
door, darted back to find a more yield
ing substance for their burrowing
teeth.
But the dampness and the darkness
and the dirt were but grains of dust
compared to the unutterable loneliness
that grew upon me in that sepulchre.
Not human sOul-nOt even a brute,
except the scamperin0 rats-tO break
the stiffness of that murky tomb! Out
wonder, somewhere, I knew was grim
sentry, for heard the measured tread
of the relief as they left him on his
lonely post. But 1 never saw or heard
him.
} Twice a day, grimly silent, came the
cooks detail with my barrack soup or
coffee. But he was mute, under strict
: orders not to speak or signal to the
prisoner, as his baker-like shovel
reached in my morsel of food. Per
dition! how I strove to make him speak
! If he only would curse me, abuse me,
any thing; even his profanity would
have sounded as melody in my solitude
r I never knew what music there was
= in the human voice till in that dungeon
/ where it never sounded and where
, soon grew startled at my own.
D The post chaplain's was the only
human voice heard for weeks-and his
/ only once, for my levity shocked hin
so that he gave me up as an irredeem
| able reprObate. He offered a payer
for me, however, / courteously kneel
- ing with him on the stone floor. Blu
t he never came again. He told me
= what my occasionally allowed letters
from my friends had too plainly in
o formed me-that there was no hope o
}. escape from the fate that seemed t
G them and the outside world to bu
{ staring me in the face. Every pOssibl,
t effort had been made, every available
influence pressed into service with tn
r President, and he had positively &c
s clined interfering with the judgmen
of the court-martial. The WORTHY
l. chaplain corroborated their sad in
Q formation. Said he:
J. Captain, you should prepare TO
d death, for your life ends in few
days"
e Here was food for reflection, surely
3 In the prime and vigOr of early man
+, hood, my veins thrilling with tn,
bounding energy of young blood, will
!, life just begun, with its plans, seheme
and purposes all to work out; a youns
V wife and two children, with all tn
o hopes of Joy existence with them gave
Y ambitious walks all wide before m
|, waiting to be trod; what burning page
n vet unread in the book of life
In battle the half read paragraph o
V life is suddenly left with dash -
e an unseen, unfelt bullet cuts off with
n out a thought the 'might-be."
IS But here. alone, in silent darkness
II the heavy wonder would come: IS
h strong in health and hope of life, i
a doatb 81 naarpi'