Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 1.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[264] chiel frae the land oa cakes, who was a queer compound of good-nature and brutality. To some of us he was uniformly polite, but he had his pistol out on any occasion when dealing with the majority of the “Johnnies,” and would fly into a passion over the merest nothing, that would have been exceedingly amusing, but for a wicked habit he had of laying about him with a stick, a tent pole — any thing that fell into his hands. He was opening a trench one day, through the camp, when, for the crime of stepping across it, he forced a poor, sick boy, who was on his way to the dispensary for medicine, to leap backwards and forwards over it till he fell from exhaustion amid the voluble oaths of the valiant lieutenant. One Lieutenant R. kept McC. in countenance by following closely his example. He is a little compound of fice and weasel, and having charge of the cleaning up of the camp, has abundant opportunities to bully and insult, but being, fortunately, very far short of grenadier size, he does not use his boot or fist as freely as his great exemplar. No one, however, was safe from either of them, who, however accidentally and innocently, fell in their way, physically or metaphorically.

Of the same block Captain Bowden was a chip: a fair-haired, light-moustached, Saxon-faced “Yank” --far the worst type of man, let me tell you, yet discovered — whose whole intercourse with the prisoners was the essence of brutality. An illustration will paint him more thoroughly than a philippic. A prisoner named Hale, belonging to the old Stonewall brigade, was discovered one day rather less sober than was allowable to any but the loyal, and Bowden being officer of the guard, arrested him and demanded where he got his liquor. This he refused to tell, as it would compromise others, and any one but a Yankee would have put him in the guard-house, compelled him to wear a barrel shirt, or inflicted some punishment proportionate to his offence. All this would have been very natural, but not Bowdenish, so this valorous Parolles determined to apply the torture to force a confession! Hale was accordingly tied up by the thumbs — that is, his thumbs were fastened securely together behind his back, and a rope being attached to the cord uniting them, it was passed over a cross bar over his head and hauled down, until it raised the sufferer so nearly off the ground that the entire weight of his body was sustained by his thumbs, strained in an unnatural position, his toes merely tonching the ground. The torture of this at the wrists and shoulder joints is exquisite, but Hale persisted in refusing to peach, and called on his fellow-prisoners, many of whom were witnesses of this refined villainy, to remember this when they got home. Bowden grew exasperated at his victim's fortitude, and determined to gag him. This he essayed to accomplish by fastening a heavy oak tent-pin in his mouth; and when he would not open his mouth sufficiently — not an easy operation — he struck him in the face with the oaken billet, a blow which broke several of his teeth and covered his mouth with blood!