“A few tents, covered with pine-tops, were crowded with the dying and the dead in every stage of corruption. Some lay in prostrate helplessness; some had crowded under the shelter of the bushes; some were rubbing their skeleton limbs. Twenty or thirty of them die daily; most of these, as I was informed, of the scurvy. The corpses laid by the roadside waiting for the dead-cart, their glaring eyes turned to heaven, the flies swarming in their mouths, their big-toes tied together with a cotton string, and their skeleton arms folded on their breasts. You would hardly know them to be men, so sadly do hunger, disease, and wretchedness change 'the human face divine.' Presently came the carts; they were carried a little distance to trenches dug for the purpose and tumbled in like so many dogs. A few pine-tops were thrown upon the bodies, a few shovelfuls of dirt, and then haste was made to open a new ditch for other victims. The burying party were Yankees detailed for the work, an appointment which, as the Sergeant told me, they consider a favor, for they get a little more to eat and enjoy fresh air. “Thus we see at one glance the three great scourges of mankind--war, famine, and pestilence, and we turn from the spectacle sick at heart, as we remember that some of our loved ones may be undergoing a similar misery.” “This publication,” said Col. Bush, “made in one of their own papers at the time, proves that all that has ever been said of their treatment of our prisoners is true.” “Yes,” said Uncle Daniel, “and much more.” “Uncle Daniel,” said Dr. Adams, “this Miss Seraine Whitcomb was, indeed, a true woman, and, as the President well said, a 'little heroine.' I take it she was rather small, from this expression of his.” “Yes, she was rather small, but a pure jewel.” “She was a woman of great determination, and loved purely and strongly. There are but few instances of such pure devotion and rare patriotism to be found in the annals of history. What feelings she must have had while traveling through the Confederacy in such anguish and suspense. She was a jewel, sure enough.” 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?”