A squad of drafted riflemen was brought up in front
of him, and the word was given by a sergeant. They made their aim false
purposely, and but one shot took effect on the doomed man. He fell back
into the water, where he lay struggling, and stained the waves red with
his blood. It was a wrenching sight, too brutal far, to see the sergeant
place his gun against the poor wretch's head, and end his agony!
It seemed so abominable to every spectator there that General Walker
should thus seek to enforce Devil's service from his men, entrapped
mostly in the first place, without wages or half maintenance, and with
no claim upon them whatever, but by a contract without consideration
on the one part, on the other hard labor to the death,--that this
exhibition, which in another army were calculated to strengthen just
authority, here only aroused indignation and disgust. This very night,
after witnessing the deserter's punishment, eleven men left the company
to which he belonged in a body, and were seen no more in Nicaragua. And
though for selfish reasons I was concerned to see the army falling to
pieces, and the load of toil and danger increasing upon the rest of us,
yet both I and the rest acknowledged that there was no tie of honor or
honesty to keep any man with us who wished to escape; and this deed
seemed to us without decent sanction.
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