"Why didn't you shoot away as long as one was lef'?"
"Our officers compelled us to stop."
"I don't care for that; they need killin', every one."
Said I, "You wouldn't kill the women, would you?"
"Yes, I would," she answered; "for they's wusser'n the men."
"Well, there are the innocent little children—you wouldn't kill them, would you?"
Hesitating a little, she said:
"Yes, I would, madam; for I tell you nits make vermin."
She and all her family had belonged to Judge Bullock's wife, and she was still living in her little cabin and doing the work for the family, as she had done heretofore, though she did not work so hard. She would take the time to do our washing for us. She said Judge Bullock was harder to please than her mistress; but he was afraid of our soldiers, and when Natchez was taken he kept hid in a thicket of bushes in the garden a number of days. They took his meals to him when no one was in sight, expecting the Yankees would kill every man they met; but as he found it otherwise he came into the house, and now he talked with us quite freely. Their slaves were mostly house-servants, and better treated than many others. Judge Bullock was formerly from the North, and married in the South, and his wife inherited the slaves. Their cook was a mulatto, of more than ordinary intelligence, and she told me of the most terrible scenes of barbarity that she had witnessed.
The marks of cruelty were in that camp so frequently seen—men with broken shoulders and limbs—that it was heart-sickening to listen to the recital of their wrongs.