Explore "Fighting Joe" by Oliver Optic on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
IN one week from the day on which Somers made the acquaintance of Colonel Roman, he was inside of the stockade at Andersonville. It so happened that the general officer with whom rested the decision in the case of the prisoner, was a personal and political opponent of the planter, and the colonel had no influence with him. An appeal was made to higher authority, but it was unavailing; and Somers was hurried away to that miserable place, where officers and soldiers died by thousands, of sheer inhumanity.
Colonel Roman promised to continue his exertions for the release of his friend, or, if he could not obtain that, for better treatment than had usually been accorded to prisoners of war by the Confederacy. It is quite probable that he did so, but the subject of his intercession obtained no favor on account of it. His experience at Andersonville was that of thousands of others. It would require a volume to narrate it; and the sad story has been so often told, that it needs not a repetition here. The whole civilized world condemns the barbarous treatment of prisoners by the Confederacy.