Question. How many did you see in that condition?
Answer. I saw five.
Question. Did they burn the hospital?
Answer. I saw the hospital burning, but I do not know whether they moved the sick out or not before they burned it. I understood the rebels went in where there were some 20 or 30 negroes sick, and hacked them over their heads with sabres and shot them. The negroes had been moved from the heights up on the hill into two large tents by us; but I do not think our men had been moved up there. I went through the hospital tents up there the morning before I started down to Memphis, and saw them full of colored troops. Dr. Fitch told me that he had his hospital flag on every bush around the bottom of the hill. At the commencement of the fight the major had told him to take his instruments and his medicines down under the bluff and stick up flags there, and have the wounded taken down to him. But the doctor said they did not notice his flags at all; that some of his patients were wounded there. He was wounded himself and taken prisoner and paroled.
Question. Did you see them shoot any colored men that morning?
Answer. I saw them shoot one man just before we landed with the flag of truce. An escort of about 20 men rode up to a livery stable and set it on fire. The gunboat fired at them but did not hit them, and they got on their horses and rode off at a trot. There were some paths down the hill, and a man came along down one of them; I saw them halt; the foremost one, an officer I think, pulled out a revolver and shot very deliberately at this man, and then they galloped off in quick time. He did not kill the man, however, for I saw him walking along afterwards. I do not know whether the man was white or black.
Question. Did you hear anything of their nailing men to a building and then burning it?
Answer. Yes, sir; I heard of it. And I heard a lady say that a man was nailed to a building that was burned. She said she was well acquainted with Lieutenant Akerstrom before the fight took place. Some one asked why he was not buried. Some of the rebels said he was a damned conscript that had run away from Forrest. But I never heard Lieutenant Akerstrom say any such thing.
Question. Who was that lady?
Answer. Mrs. Ruffin, the wife of Thomas Ruffin.