Along this week I saw some such procession, more or less
in numbers, every day, as they were brought up by the boat. The
government does what it can for them, and sends them north and west.
_Feb. 27_.--Some three or four hundred more escapees from the
confederate army came up on the boat. As the day has been very
pleasant indeed, (after a long spell of bad weather,) I have been
wandering around a good deal, without any other object than to be
out-doors and enjoy it; have met these escaped men in all directions.
Their apparel is the same ragged, long-worn motley as before
described. I talk'd with a number of the men. Some are quite bright
and stylish, for all their poor clothes--walking with an air, wearing
their old head-coverings on one side, quite saucily. I find the old,
unquestionable proofs, as all along the past four years, of the
unscrupulous tyranny exercised by the secession government in
conscripting the common people by absolute force everywhere, and
paying no attention whatever to the men's time being up--keeping
them in military service just the same. One gigantic young fellow,
a Georgian, at least six feet three inches high, broad-sized in
proportion, attired in the dirtiest, drab, well smear'd rags, tied
with strings, his trousers at the knees all strips and streamers,
was complacently standing eating some bread and meat. He appear'd
contented enough. Then a few minutes after I saw him slowly walking
along. It was plain he did not take anything to heart.
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