Our whole camp was rearranged; the parapet guard were ordered not to fire unless some one tried to escape; a police guard was placed in the prison to do all the devilment which the infernally fertile mind of Captain Sponable could invent; starvation was carried on quite systematically. Our rations for breakfast consisted of five ounces of bread and six ounces of fresh beef. As the rations for two hundred men were boiled in a sixty-gallon kettle, it was necessary in order to cook it done, to boil it to shreds. In fact there was no more nutritious matter in it than in an old dish cloth, for dinner one pint bean soup and five ounces of bread, this was our living. This was not regularly issued, for the slightest offence would cause the captain's direful anger to be aroused, and as he would make most by stopping our rations this was quite a favorite punishment.
His mildest punishment was to get a scantling two inches wide, shave it down until it was only half inch thick on top and put legs about seventeen feet long to it. (This horse, when finished, was called Morgan). Now, for the slight offence of looking at a guard the boys have been placed on this horse for hours, their feet hanging down. Sometimes the Yanks would laugh and say, I will give you a pair of spurs, which was a bucket of sand tied to each foot; also to set the boys astraddle the roof of a dog house. I have seen men who had been left in this condition until the skin and flesh was cut nearly to the bone. Men in the winter would get so cold that they would fall off. When warmed they were put back. Another slight punishment was to saw a barrel in two, cut a hole in one end so as to allow a man's head to go through, but leave the barrel around his shoulders, then march him in the sun until the rays reflected from the barrel would swell his head almost twice its natural size. I have seen men's faces peel all over from this innocent amusement of the guards.
If the least sign of water or spit was seen on the floor the order was, "Come, go to the horse or point for grub," which was to stand with the legs perfectly straight, reach over, and touch the ground with the fingers. If the legs were bent in the least, a guard was present with a paddle, which he well knew how to use. When the guards grew weary of this punishment, another was to make the men pull down their pants and sit, with nothing under them, on the snow and frozen ground. I have known men to be kept sitting until you could see their prints for some days afterwards in the snow and ice. When they got weary of this, they commenced whipping, making the men lay on a barrel, and using their belts, which had a leaden clasp with sharp edge, the belt would often gather wind so as to turn the clasp edgeways; every lick inflicted thus cut entirely through the skin.
If more than five men were seen together, or if anyone was heard to whisper or spit upon the floor, it was certain to be followed by one of these punishments. Frequently men sick in barracks were delirious; sometimes one or two in a barrack were crazy. These
