When Paul and his comrades reached the prison, they were examined by the officer in command, a brutal fellow named Wirz, who robbed them of what money they had. The gate opened, and they passed in. When Paul beheld the scene, his heart sank within him. He had suffered many hardships, but this was an experience beyond everything else. He was still weak. He needed nourishing food, but he must eat the corn-meal or starve. Everywhere he saw only sickening sights,--pale, woe-begone wretches, clothed in filthy rags, covered with vermin. Some were picking up crumbs of bread which had been swept out from the bakery. Others were sucking the bones which had been thrown out from the cook-house. Some sat gazing into vacancy, taking no notice of what was going on around them,--dreaming of homes which they never were again to behold. Many were stretched upon the ground, too weak to sit up, from whose hearts hope had died out, and who were waiting calmly for death to come and relieve them from their sufferings. Thousands had died. One hundred died on the day Paul entered, and another hundred during the night. All day long the bodies lay among the living in the sun. When the dead-cart came in, they were thrown into it like logs of wood. It was a horrible sight,--the stony eyes, the sunken cheeks, the matted hair, the ghastly countenances, the swaying limbs, as the cart jolted along the uneven ground! More than thirteen thousand soldiers starved and murdered by the Rebels were thus carried out in the dead-carts. The keepers of the prison were cruel. Paul saw a poor cripple crawl towards the fence and reach his hand over the dead line to get a bone. Crack went the rifle of the sentinel, which sent a bullet through the prisoner's brain, who tossed up his hands, gave one heart-rending outcry, and rolled over--dead. On a dark and stormy night some of the prisoners escaped, but ferocious dogs were put upon their track, and they were recaptured. The hounds mangled them, and the Rebel officers had them tied up and whipped, till death put an end to their sufferings.