He thought this was a good time to show off, and forcing his way through the crowd, he said, vauntingly: 

“Just fall back and form a ring, boys, and see me polish off the—–­fool.”

The ring was formed, with the Bugler and the Sergeant in the center.  Though the latter was the younger and stronger the first round showed him that it would have profited him much more to have let Marriott’s challenge pass unheeded.  As a rule, it is as well to ignore all invitations of this kind from Englishmen, and especially from those who, like Marriott, have served a term in the army, for they are likely to be so handy with their fists as to make the consequences of an acceptance more lively than desirable.

So the Sergeant found.  “Marriott,” as one of the spectators expressed it, “went around him like a cooper around a barrel.”  He planted his blows just where he wished, to the intense delight of the boys, who yelled enthusiastically whenever he got in “a hot one,” and their delight at seeing the Sergeant drubbed so thoroughly and artistically, worked an entire revolution in his favor.

Thenceforward we viewed his eccentricities with lenient eyes, and became rather proud of his bull-dog stolidity and surliness.  The whole battalion soon came to share this feeling, and everybody enjoyed hearing his deep-toned growl, which mischievous boys would incite by some petty annoyances deliberately designed for that purpose.  I will mention incidentally, that after his encounter with the Sergeant no one ever again volunteered to “polish” him off.

Andersonville did not improve either his temper or his communicativeness.  He seemed to want to get as far away from the rest of us as possible, and took up his quarters in a remote corner of the Stockade, among utter strangers.  Those of us who wandered up in his neighborhood occasionally, to see how he was getting along, were received with such scant courtesy, that we did not hasten to repeat the visit.  At length, after none of us had seen him for weeks, we thought that comradeship demanded another visit.  We found him in the last stages of scurvy and diarrhea.  Chunks of uneaten corn bread lay by his head.  They were at least a week old.  The rations since then had evidently been stolen from the helpless man by those around him.  The place where he lay was indescribably filthy, and his body was swarming with vermin.  Some good Samaritan had filled his little black oyster can with water, and placed it within his reach.  For a week, at least, he had not been able to rise from the ground; he could barely reach for the water near him.  He gave us such a glare of recognition as I remembered to have seen light up the fast-darkening eyes of a savage old mastiff, that I and my boyish companions once found dying in the woods of disease and hurts.  Had he been able he would have driven us away, or at least assailed us with biting English epithets.  Thus he had doubtless driven away all those who had attempted to help him.  We did what little we could, and staid with him until the next afternoon, when he died.  We prepared his body, in the customary way:  folded the hands across his breast, tied the toes together, and carried it outside, not forgetting each of us, to bring back a load of wood.