The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1896-02-07
DIAGRAM OF SITUATION AT CAPTURE.

DIAGRAM OF SITUATION AT CAPTURE.
ed YEARLY, waiting for the three meals
of fried bacon and hot biscuits. AS
soon as | could get out 1 hobbled across
the field to a one story building fronting
road leading from the battlefield,
where / found several Michigan officers.
The poor people of the neighborhood
were busily engaged gathering clothing,
and their rude OK carts, loaded with
overcoats and blankets, frequently pass
ed the porch where we sat, stopping to
wat,sS 5Eeir cattle at "a spring opposite.
The carts We're usually conducted by
tall women whose hands were protected
by long sheepskin mitts.
/ left this camp one evening with a
trainload of wounded, crawling at
snail's pace to Gordonsville. Consider
ing that we lay ON platform cars in the
open air, we were not disposed to COM
plain of the rate of locomotion or to
grumble when the engineer halted the
train to run back and pick up his oil
can From Gordonsville we were sent
to Lynchburg and quartered in brick
hospital in the upper part of the town.
Most of the inmates were officers and
men of our own army, and we lay in
big airy room on clean cots provided
with white sheets and wooden blankets.
During this week General Hunter was
threatening Lynchburg. There were no
troops in the town. The negroes were
strengthening the earthworks, but so
little hope had the citizens of holding
the fort" that the merchants went home
every night with their account books
under their arms. For several days we
heard the distant booming of General
Hunters artillelJ. One moonlight night
there was a general stampede of country
people from north of Lynchburg, fee
ing, with all their portable belongings,
before the invading army. we lay III
great glee at the open windows, review
ing the motley procession as it toiled up
the steep hillside Anticipated family
coaches surrounded by troops Of slaves
of all ages, carts loaded with furniture,
horned cattle and sheep, creaked and
chartered and rumbled and lowed and
bleated in the hot and sitting dust.
After a short week of sleeping in
white sheets l was adjudged GONZALES
cent and was sent to filthy prison in
the lower part of the town near the rlv-
er. My quarters heretofore had been
paradise compared with this place. The
company consisted of a few Yankees
snd a mixed crowd of Confederate de-
sefters and negroes We were huddled
into two rooms connected by an arch
way ana were socfowded upon the floors
by night that the guards at the doors
stood astrids Of the PROSTATE forms. l
was sick with dysentery when / arrived,
and for three days lay with my head
ffl the fireplace of the cleaner room OF
the two, until the doctor came and re-
moved me to an empty room across the
passage and prescribed boiled milk for |
my nourishment.
There was small back yard, to which |
the prisoners repaired in the daytime, |
and 1 had so far meuded as to crawl |
down there when the first troops arrived
in Lynchburg. If remember rightly, |
they were some regiments of General
Breckinridge's command. We heard the
drums outside ON their arrival, and sew
eral of the musicians came into the yard.
The most unique character in our
midst was German naturalist who had
been captured in the mountains for
spy, whom the ignorant soldiers alleged
to have found living ON snakes and liz
ards. By his own statement he was
pupil of the great Humboldt and vic
tim of the pursuit of science in coun-
try without a German consul The old
man was clad in tunic made from