Chapter 69

BARRETT'S INSANE CRUELTY--HOW HE PUNISHED THOSE ALLEGED TO BE ENGAGED IN
TUNNELING--THE MISERY IN THE STOCKADE--MEN'S LIMBS ROTTING OFF WITH DRY
GANGRENE.

Winder had found in Barrett even a better tool for his cruel purposes
than Wirz. The two resembled each other in many respects. Both were
absolutely destitute of any talent for commanding men, and could no more
handle even one thousand men properly than a cabin boy could navigate a
great ocean steamer. Both were given to the same senseless fits of
insane rage, coming and going without apparent cause, during which they
fired revolvers and guns or threw clubs into crowds of prisoners, or
knocked down such as were within reach of their fists. These exhibitions
were such as an overgrown child might be expected to make. They did not
secure any result except to increase the prisoners' wonder that such
ill-tempered fools could be given any position of responsibility.

A short time previous to our entry Barrett thought he had reason to
suspect a tunnel. He immediately announced that no more rations should
be issued until its whereabouts was revealed and the ringleaders in the
attempt to escape delivered up to him. The rations at that time were
very scanty, so that the first day they were cut off the sufferings were
fearful. The boys thought he would surely relent the next day, but they
did not know their man. He was not suffering any, why should he relax
his severity? He strolled leisurely out from his dinner table, picking
his teeth with his penknife in the comfortable, self-satisfied way of a
coarse man who has just filled his stomach to his entire content--an
attitude and an air that was simply maddening to the famishing wretches,
of whom he inquired tantalizingly:

"Air ye're hungry enough to give up them G-d d d s--s of b----s yet?"

That night thirteen thousand men, crazy, fainting with hunger, walked
hither and thither, until exhaustion forced them to become quiet, sat on
the ground and pressed their bowels in by leaning against sticks of wood
laid across their thighs; trooped to the Creek and drank water until
their gorges rose and they could swallow no more--did everything in fact
that imagination could suggest--to assuage the pangs of the deadly
gnawing that was consuming their vitals. All the cruelties of the
terrible Spanish Inquisition, if heaped together, would not sum up a
greater aggregate of anguish than was endured by them. The third day
came, and still no signs of yielding by Barrett. The Sergeants counseled
together. Something must be done. The fellow would starve the whole
camp to death with as little compunction as one drowns blind puppies.
It was necessary to get up a tunnel to show Barrett, and to get boys who
would