THE COURT-MARTIAL AT TUPELO

CHAPTER IV--TUPELO
THE COURT-MARTIAL AT TUPELO

At this place was held the grand court-martial. Almost every day we would hear a discharge of musketry, and knew that some poor, trembling wretch had bid farewell to mortal things here below. It seemed to be but a question of time with all of us as to when we too would be shot. We were afraid to chirp. So far now as patriotism was concerned, we had forgotten all about that, and did not now so much love our country as we feared Bragg. Men were being led to the death stake every day. I heard of many being shot, but did not see but two men shot myself. I do not know to what regiment they belonged, but I remember that they were mere beardless boys. I did not learn for what crime or the magnitude of their offenses. They might have deserved death for all I know.

I saw an old man, about sixty years old, whose name was Dave Brewer, and another man, about forty-five, by the name of Rube Franklin, whipped. There was many a man whipped and branded that I never saw or heard tell of. But the reason I remembered these two was that they belonged to Company A of the 23rd Tennessee Regiment, and I knew many men in the regiment.

These two men were hung up by the hands, after having their heads shaved, to a tree, put there for the purpose, with the prongs left on them, and one hand was stretched toward one prong and the other hand to another prong, their feet, perhaps, just touching the ground. The man who did the whipping had a thick piece of sole-leather, the end of which was cut in three strips, and this tacked on to the end of a paddle. After the charges and specifications had been read (both men being stark naked), the whipper "lit in" on Rube, who was the youngest. I do not think he intended to hit as hard as he did, but, being excited himself, he blistered Rube from head to foot. Thirty-nine lashes was always the number. Now, three times thirty-nine makes one hundred and seventeen. When he struck at all, one lick would make three whelps. When he had finished Rube, the Captain commanding the whipping squad told him to lay it on old man Brewer as light as the law would allow, that old man Brewer was so old that he would die--that he could not stand it. He struck old man Dave Brewer thirty-nine lashes, but they were laid on light. Old Dave didn't beg and squall like Rube did. He j-e-s-t did whip old man Dave. Like the old preacher who caught the bear on Sunday. They had him up before the church, agreed to let him off if he did not again set his trap. "Well," he said, "brethren, I j-e-s-t did set it."