THE IMMORTAL SIX HUNDRED
guards force us to get up and stagger on at the point of the bayonet in the hands of a negro soldier. When I had fallen in the sand an old man, wearing the badge of the Sanitary Commission, attempted to cross the guard line to help me. He was driven back by a burly Dutch lieutenant, with an oath, who ordered the negro guard to make me move on. I heard the old man protesting to the guard that we were human beings even if we were Rebels. When we reached the stockade prison-pen gate we were again halted, counted off by fours and sent inside the inclosure, where a negro sergeant assigned us to tents, putting four men in each small A-tent which would not comfortably hold more than two men. But what mattered this? We were prisoners of war, in the hands of a great and good government. Our camp was laid off between batteries Waggoner and Gregg: Waggoner in our rear, Gregg in our front. We were in exact line of the guns of Fort Sumter. To the left of Battery
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