But to return to my narrative. One morning, as I stood gazing at the guards about our prison, I was forcibly struck with their appearance. They were a new set of men, who had relieved our old guards, the latter having been sent to Richmond. They were all tall and ungainly, and, in speaking, always said “har,” “sar,” “whar,” and “dar.” Their most favorite exclamations were, “tarnal Jesus,” and “I golly.”
As I was thus surveying these degraded creatures, I heard one of them say:
“Tom, what do you always go to old Sanders’s mill for? Why don’t you go to Mike Adams’s mill?”
“Why, you tarnal fool,” was the reply, “don’t you know there’s a good deal better clay up at old Sanders’s than there is at Mike Adams’s?”
As we were at this time under the charge of one Captain Collins, who was more indulgent than any of our previous keepers, we were allowed to converse with the guards. I resolved to settle this matter of clay-eating. So I asked one of the fellows to whom I have just referred, what his comrade wanted with the clay that he got at the mill.
“Why, tarnal J——s,” retorted the repulsive brute, “and don’t you know nothin’? He wanted it to eat, I golly!”
Reader, it would be impossible to describe the personal appearance of these wretched clay-eaters, except by the remark an Ohio lady made upon seeing them in all their glory, in Georgia. Said she, “they do not look like fresh dead men, but men who have been dead some time.”
Of all the negro-haters in the world, the clay-eater is the most bitter, the cause of which is nothing more than jealousy and a degraded moral system.
While in this prison, we were permitted occasionally to receive our dinners from outside; but even this privilege was stopped every few days, so that it was always altogether uncertain.