Saturday, November 30, 2013

The Dark Side of Sod...11

Good morning! It's great to wake up free. Another journal entry from my grandfather John. 
 
He writes...

Saturday July 16, 1864

Well, business called me away before I got writing yesterday, I intended to make some remarks about the intellectual faculties. As far as literature is concerned, it is almost impossible to get hold of a book, and as almost everything is copied nowadays, the intellectual faculties are not called into action in the direction, except in a very few instances in which men energetic and active minds employ a portion under their observation.

There are others who train their minds in another direction - being noted for shrewdness and not enjoying confinement they are continually planning escape, but their plans are generally found out. Some miserable traitors who think more of the will of the Confederacy than they do liberty, their comrades or their country will inform on them, and they are checkmated before they can be carried into execution.

Sunday July 17, 1864

We had an example of the latter remark yesterday, but as the informant was not known. I declined making any remarks until further developments-this morning the developments have been made - the informant was discovered and the regulators took him in hand. He was taken to the barber shop and got a shave gratis - but it happened to be his head instead of his face - after which a paper bearing a stigma of traitor in large characters was pinned to his back and he was promenaded through the camp. This performance being over, he had the same stigma picked on his forehead with indelible ink, leaving him in a nice condition to return to family and friend. This reminds me of a punishment of a coward in the 57th Indiana on the 19th of June. The day before he had shown signs of cowardice, and that morning he was marched through the brigade with a board fastened to his back on which was printed the word coward.
 

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