“a mere idle, absurd camp rumor.”  As to the lack of shelter, room and rations for so many prisoners, he claimed that the sole responsibility rested upon the Confederate Government.  There never were but two prisoners whipped by his order, and these were for sufficient cause.  He asked the Court to consider favorably two important items in his defense:  first, that he had of his own accord taken the drummer boys from the Stockade, and placed them where they could get purer air and better food.  Second, that no property taken from prisoners was retained by him, but was turned over to the Prison Quartermaster.

The Court, after due deliberation, declared the prisoner guilty on all the charges and specifications save two unimportant ones, and sentenced him to be hanged by the neck until dead, at such time and place as the President of the United States should direct.

November 3 President Johnson approved of the sentence, and ordered Major General C. C. Augur to carry the same into effect on Friday, November 10, which was done.  The prisoner made frantic appeals against the sentence; he wrote imploring letters to President Johnson, and lying ones to the New York News, a Rebel paper.  It is said that his wife attempted to convey poison to him, that he might commit suicide and avoid the ignomy of being hanged.  When all hope was gone he nerved himself up to meet his fate, and died, as thousands of other scoundrels have, with calmness.  His body was buried in the grounds of the Old Capitol Prison, alongside of that of Azterodt, one of the accomplices in the assassination of President Lincoln.

CHAPTER LXXXII.

The responsibility—­who was to blame for all the misery—­an examination of the flimsy excuses made for the rebels—­one document that convicts them—­what is desired.

I have endeavored to tell the foregoing story as calmly, as dispassionately, as free from vituperation and prejudice as possible.  How well I have succeeded the reader must judge.  How difficult this moderation has been at times only those know who, like myself, have seen, from day to day, the treason-sharpened fangs of Starvation and Disease gnaw nearer and nearer to the hearts of well-beloved friends and comrades.  Of the sixty-three of my company comrades who entered prison with me, but eleven, or at most thirteen, emerged alive, and several of these have since died from the effects of what they suffered.  The mortality in the other companies of our battalion was equally great, as it was also with the prisoners generally.  Not less than twenty-five thousand gallant, noble-hearted boys died around me between the dates of my capture and release.  Nobler men than they never died for any cause.  For the most part they were simple-minded,