THE IMMORTAL SIX HUNDRED
towards Charleston. In our close, hot quarters our suffering was the most intense. The Yankees knew it, yet they would do nothing to relieve us, but seemed to enjoy the torture they inflicted upon us. We arrived off Morris Island on the morning of September 7, 1864, and had now been eighteen days on this prison ship, suffering the tortures of the damned, and not the least effort was made by the brute who had charge of us to curtail our suffering. About 10 o'clock of this morning, September 7th, Captain Webster, who had charge of us, coolly informed us that it never had been the intention of the United States Government to exchange us. That we would be placed on Morris Island under the fire of our own guns, in retaliation, he said, for the Union prisoners under fire, in Charleston City, of the guns of Morris Island and fleet shelling that city. After Webster had vouchsafed us this information, most forcibly came back to me Colonel Fulkerson's prophecy that the war
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