Lawley being in weak health, we determined to spend another
day with our kind friends in Winchester. I took the horses out again for six
hours to graze, and made acquaintance with two Irishmen, who gave me some cut
grass and salt for the horses. One of these men had served and had been wounded
in the Southern army. I remarked to him that he must have killed lots of his
own countrymen; to which he replied, “Oh yes, but faix they must all take it as
it comes.” I have always observed that Southern Irishmen make excellent “Rebs,”
and have no sort of scruple in killing as many of their Northern brethren as
they possibly can.
I saw to-day many new Yankee graves, which the deaths among
the captives are constantly increasing. Wooden, head-posts are put at each
grave, on which is written, “An Unknown Soldier, U.S.A. Died of wounds received
upon the field of battle, June 21, 22, or 23, 1863.”
A sentry stopped me to-day as I was going out of town, and
when I showed him my pass from General Chilton, he replied with great firmness,
but with perfect courtesy, “I'm extremely sorry, sir; but if you were the
Secretary of War, or Jeff Davis himself, you couldn't pass without a passport
from the Provost-Marshal.”
SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three
Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 236-7
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