[232]
wide, forming the pathway of the sentinels.
Ten or twelve feet in front of the stockade was a row of pine poles.
Through each of these an auger hole was bored and a strong two-inch rope passed.
This was called the dead line.
If the prisoners touched it, or came too near it, the negro sentinels were instructed to fire upon them.
Frequently they would cry out: ‘Look a-here, white man, the bullet in this nigger's gun is getting mighty hot, and he will fling it into some of you directly, if you don't mind!’
This text is part of:
Richmond, VA. 1901.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.