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| Death of A deserter. |
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prisoner was seated on an end of his coffin, which had been placed in the centre of the open end of the rectangle, near Ills grave.
The chaplain then made a prayer, and addressed a few words to the condemned man, which were not audible to any one else, and followed them by another brief prayer.
The provost-marshal next advanced, bound the prisoner's eyes with a handkerchief, and read the general order for the execution.
He then gave the signal for the shooting party to execute their orders.
They did so, and a soul passed into
eternity.
Throwing his arms convulsively into the air, he fell back upon his coffin but made no further movement, and a surgeon who stood near, upon examination, found life to be extinct.
The division was then marched past the corpse, off the field, and the sad scene was ended.
I afterwards saw a deserter from the First Division of the Second Corps meet his end in the same way, down before Petersburg, in the summer of 1864.
These were the only exhibitions of this sort that I ever witnessed, although there were others that took place not far from my camp.
The artillery was brigaded by itself in 1864 and 1865, and artillerymen
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