Life here was brief. The victims, as they entered the gate, were appalled
at the horrors that were presented to them in this living sepulchre.
Nature seemed to have abandoned the struggle early, and the young men
passed, with rapid pace, from youth--that youth so rich in its future--to
manhood, from manhood to old age. Neither prudence nor philosophy could
protect them from the grievous influences of the morbid conditions to
which they were exposed. The delicate and noble faculties were blunted and
destroyed. Some perished at once, almost as quickly as though struck by
the lightning of heaven, whilst others lingered, according to the strength
of the hidden resources, the reserved and superabundant powers of youth.
Among the few survivors of the present day we can learn of the fearful
struggle between life and death, by the gray hairs, the impassive
features, from which the smile of youth has fled forever, the feeble and
tottering steps of the man who has prematurely arrived at his limit of
earthly existence.
The integrity and character exhibited by these men, in the midst of these
tortures, is unsurpassed.
It was the same morale that immortalized the armies of Italy and Moreau,
that covered with splendor the heroes of Sparta and Rome, and proved
incontestably the superiority of the volunteer over the mercenary regular.
The wretched men died in silence, or with the name of home or the loved
ones on their lips, and adjuring their comrades to stand firm in defence
of their faith, their country, their God. "My treatment here is killing
me, mother; but I die cheerfully for my country." They died as the wounded
French died at Jemappes, with the delirium and exaltation of patriotism,
uttering at the last moment some of the strains of the songs of freedom,
and the names of country and liberty. "Thus the enthusiasm of the combat
prolonged or reproduced itself, and survived even in their agony."
The sufferings of these men, wasting, putrefying, dying daily by scores,
by hundreds, without touching the remorseless hearts of the
prison-keepers, recall to mind those monsters which history points out as
rising now and then from out the wreck of social order. It was one of the
results of Slavery, for Slavery weakens the natural horror of blood.
Cruelty is naturally progressive, for it engenders the fear of a just
revenge. New cruelties succeed, until extermination becomes the rule and
ends the scene.
"To hate whom we have injured is a propensity of the human mind," says
Tacitus.