little in their hovels but bones picked,
Oh, so clean, that they were polished. These
spoke whole volumes. Half a dozen of us
in strolling through the place found
two bodies, uninterred, which, of course,
we buried as well as we could, having
nothing but our hands & swords to do it
with. When we came out of this den
I think there was no man of the party
but felt that an honorable death in
battle was far preferable to such captiv–
ity.
There is one subject which I must
not forget to speak of, and that is
the immense number of negroes that
flock to our columns. They come in
swarms like mosquitoes till the air is
fairly black with them. In fact they
completely neutralize the effect of the
moon at its fullest. Every age is
represented from the grey wooled patri-
arch to the child at the breast. One
day I saw 2 women with 21 children
& none over 12 years of age. There was
one little thing about 3 or 4 years old
whom we saw several times and
who caused great merriment. She
was fastened of the back of a sorry
looking mule, led by her mother