Col. Bush here interrupted, saying: “The condition of our poor soldiers in the prisons she visited must have driven her almost insane. It certainly drove many of the poor sufferers into a state or condition of insanity, in which numbers died in their ravings and delirium.”
“Is it not wonderful,” said Dr. Adams, “how soon these barbarities and inhumanities are forgotten by our people?”
“Yes,” said Col. Bush; “but you must remember that our people are moving too rapidly to look back upon scenes of distress. Money and power are now the watchwords—throw patriotism to the dogs. It is not needed now to save their property and their rights. You must remember that a man like Hibbard, the deputy at Pine Forest Prison, who allowed men to be shot down like dogs and starved like wild beasts, is now looked upon with more consideration and favor than Uncle Daniel, who gave his whole family as a sacrifice for his country. Did not this same Hibbard travel all through our country last Fall making speeches? Was he not received with shouts by our very neighbors, within a stone's throw of this dear old man, whose son was starved near unto death in Pine Forest Prison by this man? Has he not held high positions in his State since? And I would not be surprised to hear that he had been appointed to some Foreign Mission, in order that he may represent our country abroad in the true Christian spirit of our advanced civilization!”
“Yes,” said Uncle Daniel; “when he was North on his stumping tour I mentioned the fact of his inhumanity, and only received jeers from those who heard me—some young students who were not old enough to be in the war, and now feel that it must never be mentioned except in a whisper. It seems that all the treason, infamy, and the barbarities and cruelties practiced during that bloody period are now condoned, and the persons who practiced the greater wrongs are made thereby the more respectable. Oh, that I had not lived to see these things! It makes me almost doubt my own existence. Sometimes I feel that it is all a dream.”
Maj. Clymer, in order to draw the aged man's mind away from this unpleasant theme, inquired if he knew what became of Mrs. Lawton.
“I cannot tell,” said Uncle Daniel; “she and Seraine corresponded for a number of years after the termination of the war. The last we ever heard of her she had married with an Englishman and located in Canada. God knows, I hope she may yet be living and happy. She was a noble woman. I fear, however, that she, too, has passed away, as we have had no tidings of her for many years.”
Uncle Daniel at this time becoming weary and very melancholy, we excused him for the present, and asked permission to return again, when he promised that he would continue his narrative, and, bidding him good-night, we left, with an increased desire to hear more from his honest and truthful lips.
CHAPTER XV.
PLOTS TO POISON AND BURN.—FIRE AND POISON.—THE PLOT TO
BURN NORTHERN CITIES AND SPREAD DISEASE.—THE SCHEME
AVENGED.—PART OF THE CHIEF PLOTTERS BURNED BY THEIR OWN
COMBUSTIBLES.
“The earth had not
A hole to hide this deed.”
—Shakespeare