way; I'm your man; I have five hundred dollars for you." Another would say, "Here is five hundred dollars and a land warrant;" and another, "I have twenty-one hundred dollars for you if you will come with me."
The poor devils, deafened by the clamor around them, tempted by the magnificent inducements held out to them, and believing that they really had at last reached the Eldorado of which they had been dreaming, in the majority of cases surrendered at discretion, and were marched off to act as substitutes for able-bodied American citizens who had no fancy for fighting the rebels. Every broker's office had its runners, just the same as the hotels, who were posted at the emigrant station whenever a vessel load of human beings came into port; and among them the poor foreigners, who came over here to better their fortunes, had but little chance to become anything but food for Confederate bullets.
On one occasion I saw a squad of Germans who had just landed, and who seemed to be looking for some one. As a runner approached them, their head man, who acted as interpreter, drew from his pocket a letter, and asked, "Are you Captain P.?"
"I am here in his place," replied the runner. "What can I do for you?"
The German hesitated a moment, and before the runner could fairly commence work with him, Captain P. made his appearance from the purser's office, where he had, doubtless, just been receiving intelligence of the arrival of his human cargo. The runner seeing P., and knowing that his opportunity was now gone, went off to seek for his prey elsewhere, while the captain proceeded to take the party in charge with small ceremony.
"Is your name P.?" queried the leader.
"Yes, and you are ——;" and without more ado, he hurried them off to a den in Greenwich Street, where they were forthwith enlisted in the Federal service.
These people, like thousands of others, had been picked up in Europe by agents, under all kinds of pretexts and promises, and shipped for this side of the ocean just like so many cattle. Captain P. considered himself as their owner, and he sold them to the government exactly as he would have sold cattle, if that sort of traffic had been as profitable as dealing in white human beings.
On one occasion, when I was at the station, I heard a runner
