Some froze to death, others had their hands
and feet frozen. The rebel guards would occasionally, and on the least
pretence, fire into the prison from mere demonism and wantonness. All
the horrors that can be named, starvation, lassitude, filth, vermin,
despair, swift loss of self-respect, idiocy, insanity, and frequent
murder, were there. Stansbury has a wife and child living in
Newbern--has written to them from here--is in the U. S. light-house
employ still--(had been home to Newbern to see his family, and on his
return to the ship was captured in his boat.) Has seen men brought
there to Salisbury as hearty as you ever see in your life--in a
few weeks completely dead gone, much of it from thinking on their
condition--hope all gone. Has himself a hard, sad, strangely deaden'd
kind of look, as of one chill' d for years in the cold and dark, where
his good manly nature had no room to exercise itself.
DESERTERS
_Oct. 24_.--Saw a large squad of our own deserters (over 300)
surrounded with a cordon of arm'd guards, marching along Pennsylvania
avenue. The most motley collection I ever saw, all sorts of rig, all
sorts of hats and caps, many fine-looking young fellows, some of them
shame-faced, some sickly, most of them dirty, shirts very dirty and
long worn, &c. They tramp'd along without order, a huge huddling mass,
not in ranks. I saw some of the spectators laughing, but I felt like
anything else but laughing. These deserters are far more numerous than
would be thought.
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