John G. B. Adams, Reminiscences of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment

We took cars here for Augusta; the Texans said Georgians were mighty mean people, and they reckoned we had better get to Augusta before we had trouble. We arrived at Augusta late in the afternoon. The people expected us and were in line on each side of the street to welcome us. Old men called us “Yankee-doodles;” boys called us “Blue bellies;” the women yelled all sorts of vile words. We marched up the main street into an old stock yard; an officer, dressed in the uniform of a captain of our army, stood at the gate, and the first words we heard were, “Halt, d-n you, halt! Would you go to h--11 in a moment?” Our Texas guards left us here; they shook hands with Frank and me, wished us good luck, but reckoned we would have a right hard time with this fellow. The “imp of darkness” who commanded the place was a Tennesseean, named Moore. He was surrounded by a gang of cut-throats, mostly deserters from our army, who, having jumped all the bounties possible, had joined his gang; nearly all were dressed in uniforms of blue.

We were turned into a mule pen, and while resting there a boy about seventeen years old, dressed in rebel gray, came to me and said, “They are going to search you; if you have anything you want to save, give it to me.” “But you are a rebel,” I said, “and I can't trust you.” He answered that he was not, only galvanized (had taken the oath); that he had been a prisoner at Andersonville and had not courage to hold out, so he had gone over to the other side, but assured me that if I would trust him he would be true. While I hated the sight of him for his treason, he was better than the rest. All I had was my diary; it was very imperfect and of no real value; but in it I had noted the places where we had stopped