When I became acquainted with the motives of these two representative men—how they despised their poor, ignorant soldier-brethren, armed and fighting to fasten fetters on themselves and children for ever, I could but exclaim, “Send out thy light and thy truth, O God! into all the earth. Hasten the day when ignorance and oppression shall vanish before the free gospel, and righteousness through all the land prevail.”
From my prison windows I now had ample leisure to study the countenances of all classes of our rebellious enemies, from Brigadier Generals down to the conscript “Sand-hillers.” All faces were indicative of sadness. From what I could see and overhear—the downcast eyes and the conflicting stories—I was well satisfied that they had been worsted at Shiloh. The officers were given to wholesale exaggeration, their falsifying tongues gliding from lie to lie with the alacrity of a Baron Munchausen! These prevarications forcibly reminded me of a negro boy down South, who undertook to describe to his master a storm.
“Why, massa, dare was de wonderfullest, de tremendus’est most powerfulest win’ stohm dat you ever heah. De win’ blowed so hard dat it blowd de har—de har—all off one man’s head. Ya’as, de har all off one man’s head! De har!”
“Now, Sam, you lying rascal, why didn’t the wind blow your hair off?”
“Why—why—you’se allers bodderin white folks when dey’se tellin’ de trufe—why, dare was a man a-stan’in’ a-holdin my har on! Ya’as—a man a stan’in’—a man!”
“But why wasn’t his hair blown off?”
“O dare was anudder man a-standin’ a-holdin’ his har on! Ya’as anudder man.”
“But why was’nt his hair blown off?”
“Kase—why—w-why,—(you’se bodderen you’sef about de wind-stohm)—why dare was a little boy a-standin a-holdin his har on. Ya’as, a-ha-a little boy—a holden his har on!”