Identifier: battlefieldpriso00urba (find matches)
Title: Battle field and prison pen, or Through the war, and thrice a prisoner in rebel dungeons
Year: 1882 (1880s)
Authors: Urban, John W
Subjects: United States -- History Civil War, 1861-1865 Personal narratives United States -- History Civil War, 1861-1865 Prisoners and prisons
Publisher: (Philadelphia, Hubbard Brothers) Edgewood Pub. Co
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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a very short time beforetheir execution. When, however, they found itwas to be a terrible reality, their firmness com-menced to give way, and the look of helplessdespair on their countenances, as they looked onthe mass of men around them, was sad to see.When asked if they had anything to say beforebeing put to death, one of them requested acomrade to eo to his friends in New York, andtell them of his sad fate; all of them requestedtheir comrades to take warning by their death.A Catholic priest, who very frequently paid us avisit, beofcred hard that their lives mieht bespared; but finding he could not change the pur-pose of the men who were determined to carryout the sentence, he endeavored to get thedoomed men to realize the awful position theywere in. Let us hope that the prayers of thisgood man prevailed on them to look to Him whowill finally judge us all, and who never judgesunrighteously. It was a sad sight to see six of our own men,who were fellow-prisoners, suffer death In such
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SEVERITY DEMANDED. 335 an io-nominious manner; but their crimes weregreat, and we felt that the punishment was just.Their crimes had been carried on with such totaldisregard of the rights of others, and so recklessof human life had they become, that there can beno doubt but that the sentence of death inflictedon them saved the lives of others, who were ofmore service to their country, and better membersof society. The prisoners at Andersonville were ofall classes of men ; you would find there the mostearnest Christian, as well as the most depravedvillain. New arrivals were cominof in almostevery day, and we were compelled to have somesystem of law that would protect the respectableclass of prisoners from the low and vicious. Ofcourse, this very bad element was comparativelysmall; but a few determined bad characters cando a great deal of evil among a very large classof respectable people, and in this case we felt thatsevere measures alone would keep in subordina-tion the bad element am

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