Still in camp. It was misty all day. One of our rebel
prisoners was shot today at corps headquarters. He had to pay the penalty for
the rebels' treatment of one of our men, from Company H, Thirty-fourth
Illinois, whom they held as a prisoner and shot without provocation. When the
prisoners at our headquarters were told that one of them had to pay the
penalty, they drew lots, and it fell to a middle-aged man to die. The man was
given time to write a letter to his family and then after bidding his comrades
farewell, he was led out and shot.
Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B.,
Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 258
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