Page:FourteenMonthsInAmericanBastiles-2.djvu/52

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

52

ter, intelligence and position, with Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Stanton,, or Mr. Seward. It was an extremely fortunate thing, that the weather was fine, and the sea calm, after we passed out of the Sound. Wretched as our situation was, it would have been aggravated ten-fold, had many of the prisoners suffered from sea sickness. We were, however, spared such addition to our troubles. I need not therefore surmise, how miserable in such a case, our lot would have been, nor what would have been the inevitable result of our being overtaken by such a gale as set in the very night after we reached Fort Warren. With a very little forethought and trouble, and a very slight expenditure of money on the part of the Government, or of those of its officers who were charged with our transportation to Fort Warren, our journey might have been made in tolerable decency, if not comfort. As it was, we were treated with as little consideration as cattle. The brutality that characterised the higher officers of the Government, seemed, as far as we could then judge, to be equally conspicuous in most of their subordinates.