It is comparatively easy to face death in battle. No great courage or merit in that. The soldier is swept along with the mass. Often he cannot shirk if he would. The chances usually are that he will come out alive. He may be inspired with heroism,
And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foeman worthy of their steel.
There is a consciousness of irresistible strength as he beholds the gleaming lines, the dense columns, the smoking batteries, the dancing flags, the cavalry with flying feet.
'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life,
One glance at their array.
Or nobler, he feels that he represents a nation or a grand cause, and that upon his arm depends victory. In his enthusiasm he even fancies himself a vicegerent of the Almighty, commissioned to fight in His cause, to work His will, to save His earth from becoming a hell. "From the heights of yonder pyramids," said Napoleon to the French battling against the Mamelukes, "forty centuries are looking down upon you." Our soldier in battle imagined the world looking on, that for him there was fame undying; should he fall wounded, his comrades would gently care for him; if slain, his country's flag would be his shroud.
By no such considerations were our imprisoned comrades cheered. Not in the glorious rush and shock of battle; not in hope of victory or fadeless laurels; no angel charities, or parting kiss, or sympathetic voice bidding the soul look heavenward while the eye was growing dim; no dear star-spangled banner for a winding sheet. But wrapped in rags; unseen, unnoticed, dying by inches, in the cold, in the darkness, often in rain or sleet, houseless, homeless, friendless, on the hard floor or the bare ground, starving, freezing, broken-hearted.
O the long and dreary winter!
O the cold and cruel winter!
It swept them away at Salisbury by tens, twenties, even fifties in a single night.
These men preferred death to dishonor. When we are told that our people are not patriotic, or sigh of America as Burke did of France a century and a quarter ago, that the age of chivalry is gone, we may point to this great martyrdom, the brightest painting on the darkest background in all our history—thousands choosing to die for the country which seemed to disown them!
My diary records, and I believe it correct, that on the 17th of February, there were ten deaths in the Danville prisons. A little before midnight of that day the Danville prisoners were loaded into box cars, and the train was started for Richmond. Three, it was reported, died in the cars that night, and one next morning in the street on the way to Libby.