Chapter 37 - Page 2

wood, and plank for tent purposes, that
they would scarcely have fallen to the ground before they were spirited
away, had we not stood over them all the time with clubs.

The carpenters sent by Key came over and set to work. The N'Yaarkers
gathered around in considerable numbers, sullen and abusive. They cursed
us with all their rich vocabulary of foul epithets, vowed that we should
never carry out the execution, and swore that they had marked each one
for vengeance. We returned the compliments in kind, and occasionally it
seemed as if a general collision was imminent; but we succeeded in
avoiding this, and by noon the scaffold was finished. It was a very
simple affair. A stout beam was fastened on the top of two posts, about
fifteen feet high. At about the height of a man's head a couple of
boards stretched across the space between the posts, and met in the
center. The ends at the posts laid on cleats; the ends in the center
rested upon a couple of boards, standing upright, and each having a piece
of rope fastened through a hole in it in such a manner, that a man could
snatch it from under the planks serving as the floor of the scaffold, and
let the whole thing drop. A rude ladder to ascend by completed the
preparations.

As the arrangements neared completion the excitement in and around the
prison grew intense. Key came over with the balance of the Regulators,
and we formed a hollow square around the scaffold, our company marking
the line on the East Side. There were now thirty thousand in the prison.
Of these about one-third packed themselves as tightly about our square as
they could stand. The remaining twenty thousand were wedged together in
a solid mass on the North Side. Again I contemplated the wonderful,
startling, spectacle of a mosaic pavement of human faces covering the
whole broad hillside.

Outside, the Rebel, infantry was standing in the rifle pits, the
artillerymen were in place about their loaded and trained pieces, the No.
4 of each gun holding the lanyard cord in his hand, ready to fire the
piece at the instant of command. The small squad of cavalry was drawn up
on the hill near the Star Fort, and near it were the masters of the
hounds, with their yelping packs.

All the hangers-on of the Rebel camp--clerks, teamsters, employer,
negros, hundreds of white and colored women, in all forming a motley
crowd of between one and two thousand, were gathered together in a group
between the end of the rifle pits and the Star Fort. They had a good
view from there, but a still better one could be had, a little farther to
the right, and in front of the guns. They kept edging up in that
direction, as crowds will, though they knew the danger they would incur
if the artillery opened.