Page:The Immortal Six Hundred.djvu/195

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

THE IMMORTAL SIX HUNDRED


what hunger is, what it really means, unless they have had an experience in starvation's grasp. The torture of starvation exceeds all other torture in intensity; it beats sheol itself. What can be greater torture to a man with the least heart than to suffer himself and see those he loves suffering about him, and he powerless to help them? It was sad, it was heart-breaking, to see the suffering of our men in the Fort Pulaski prison; suffering because Gen. J. G. Foster preferred to take the word of Confederate deserters to the word of his own officers and men who, over their own signatures, wrote him they were not under fire, not in danger, but kindly and fairly treated by the Confederate authorities, both officers and men, who guarded them. One of the very sad cases of the regime at Fort Pulaski prison comes vividly back to me now. Lieut. Billy Funk, 5th Regt., Stonewall Brigade, one of our number, was little more than a boy in years when he joined the Confederate Army in 1861.


144