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[195] Tenth regiment fought on Saturday, some of our men were killed, and I have been told, eaten by swine; and I believe it to be true. After spending three days in connection with our own hospital in gathering up the wounded, I found in the dead room of one of our hospitals five men, who were lying in a state of decomposition. The nurses told me they could not be handled or taken out, as the stench was such that the room could not be entered. I immediately went to an old German, who had furnished us with coffins when our forces had possession of Winchester, and engaged coffins from him, which I carried on my shoulders to the hospital. Those whose business it was to attend to this matter of burial refused to do it, and I had to use my authority, and say that the thing must be done, and that it should be done. I got a detail of our own men from the provost marshal, and we dug graves and buried those men. I worked at Winchester from Monday morning until Saturday afternoon--and this was the first I had seen of the provost marshal, when I had called upon him for a detail of men to dig those graves and bury these men. He ordered me to report to him to-morrow, and then the next day. On Saturday, when I reported to him, he said there was a charge preferred against me. He then read the charge. The man who preferred the charge was in an adjoining room and I had an interview with him. He said that I had sent his negro girl to Ohio. I told him I had nothing to do with sending his negro girl away. After having — some conversation with him, he told me that if I would engage to return that negro girl to him it would be all right. I told him it would be as much an impossibility for me to return the negro girl as to go to Ohio and gather up any other free girl and bring her down and give her to him. I had nothing to do with the matter, and did not know where the girl was, and could not make any such promise. He then informed me that if I did not return his girl he would hold me responsible. I told him that he might do so, but I had nothing to do with his girl, and it was out of my power to return her. The provost marshal then said that my parole was revoked, and he ordered me under arrest; and under a charge of bayonets I was taken before General Early, and was informed that by the laws of some of the Southern states the offence for which I was charged was punishable with death; that men were hung for such offences, and I ought to be. After leaving General Early, under charge of bayonets, I gathered up two blankets and rolled them up, for I had nothing else, my clothing having all been captured. I also took the only Bible that was there. I asked permission of the provost marshal to look among the baggage for my valise, but this permission was refused me. I gathered up my two blankets, and supposed that I was to go into some place of confinement in Winchester; but instead of that, I soon discovered that there was already in line of march out of the town some five or six hundred in number, and with them I was started on my march towards Richmond. The provost marshal told me that my destiny was to be delivered over to the civil authorities to be tried for the offence. I knew what the laws of Virginia were in regard to this matter, and I knew at the same time that there was no truth or honesty, no justice or humanity in the bosom of rebels. I knew that there was nothing for me to expect from them either in the way of justice or humanity. My only hope, then, was in the strong arm of our government. As I had seen thousands upon thousands of Confederates going up into Pennsylvania, I did not know what the result might be. I was considerably gloomy and downcast in my mind. Some of our soldiers and officers were marched out on the road, where they lay down upon the bare ground, and spent the night in a drenching rain, without hardly any blankets or protection. Many were left in the dust and heat for three days before they were taken out, and without blankets, or provisions, or anything to make them comfortable. When they lay down at night they lay down in the dust, and when they rose in the morning they were in the dust, and among this number were twelve or fifteen respectable women whose husbands were serving in the army. They were not camp-followers, but respectable women, and they were crowded into that fort with those three to four thousand men. Such objects of pity I never saw before. There they lay in the dust of a crowded fort, with nothing to protect them, nothing to eat, and nothing to drink, (for the water gave out in the cisterns,) and they were nearly famished for water. I was at the entrance of the fort, before my arrest, when the husbands of these women were marched out. They started out with them, but were driven back at the point of the bayonet into the fort; and though they wept and entreated to be permitted to accompany their husbands, they were kept there, and sent to Richmond in the same gang in which I was sent. I saw these women on the march for Richmond, lying on the bare ground and in the drenching rain. That is the way the Confederates treat our soldiers and our women. The speaker here related an incident of the daughter of a wealthy merchant in Winchester, who had fallen in love with a Lieutenant in the Eighty-seventh Pennsylvania regiment, and had married him, and after the battle had asked permission to enter the fort to look for her husband, who fortunately had not been captured. Said the commander, “Is your husband in the Federal army? How came he to be there?” “Why,” said she, “he was there when I married him.” “You,” said he, “a high-born Southern lady, marry a Federal soldier! Ain't you ashamed of yourself?” With a look of as much indignation in the countenance as I ever saw in the countenance of any lady in my life, she answered him, “No, sir! I am proud of him.” In a short time an ambulance was sent to her father's house, and she was notified that immediately she must get into it and start for Richmond. She could not stay within the rebel lines. She must be sent north. The lady who was proud of her Federal soldier sat down fiat in the ambulance, and rode
Van Nostrand. New York, New York. 1866.
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