That a thing hurt some one else was always ample reason for his doing it.  The starving, freezing prisoners used to collect in considerable numbers before the gate, and stand there for hours gazing vacantly at it.  There was no special object in doing this, only that it was a central point, the rations came in there, and occasionally an officer would enter, and it was the only place where anything was likely to occur to vary the dreary monotony of the day, and the boys went there because there was nothing else to offer any occupation to their minds.  It became a favorite practical joke of Barrett’s to slip up to the gate with an armful of clubs, and suddenly opening the wicket, fling them one after another, into the crowd, with all the force he possessed.  Many were knocked down, and many received hurts which resulted in fatal gangrene.  If he had left the clubs lying where thrown, there would have been some compensation for his meanness, but he always came in and carefully gathered up such as he could get, as ammunition for another time.

I have heard men speak of receiving justice—­even favors from Wirz.  I never heard any one saying that much of Barrett.  Like Winder, if he had a redeeming quality it was carefully obscured from the view of all that I ever met who knew him.

Where the fellow came from, what State was entitled to the discredit of producing and raising him, what he was before the War, what became of him after he left us, are matters of which I never heard even a rumor, except a very vague one that he had been killed by our cavalry, some returned prisoner having recognized and shot him.

Colonel Iverson, of the Fifth Georgia, was the Post Commander.  He was a man of some education, but had a violent, ungovernable temper, during fits of which he did very brutal things.  At other times he would show a disposition towards fairness and justice.  The worst point in my indictment against him is that he suffered Barrett to do as he did.

Let the reader understand that I have no personal reasons for my opinion of these men.  They never did anything to me, save what they did to all of my companions.  I held myself aloof from them, and shunned intercourse so effectually that during my whole imprisonment I did not speak as many words to Rebel officers as are in this and the above paragraphs, and most of those were spoken to the Surgeon who visited my hundred.  I do not usually seek conversation with people I do not like, and certainly did not with persons for whom I had so little love as I had for Turner, Ross, Winder, Wirz, Davis, Iverson, Barrett, et al.  Possibly they felt badly over my distance and reserve, but I must confess that they never showed it very palpably.