that he used every effort and means at his command to effect an exchange of prisoners, but General Grant refused.
As before stated, General Grant refused to exchange as a war measure, and it had the desired effect.
That there were some men in uniforms who might be classed as brutes is not to be denied; we are thankful the number was comparatively small. In the campaign into Maryland in 1862, our regiment was in the division commanded by the gallant Gen. D. H. Hill, who held the mountain passes against overwhelming numbers. My younger brother, James Albert Sherrill, who had been with us only six months, fell dangerously wounded just at the time the command was given to fall back. Of course he fell into the hands of the enemy; there, lying weltering in his blood, the enemy came on him, and instead of ministering to his wants, a brute in human form in uniform took his bayonet and stabbed the poor boy to death. I did not see this, but Alfred Sigmon, of Catawba County, who was also wounded, was an eyewitness to the tragedy. I give this incident as it came near to me; many others just as cruel might be given. It would not do to hold General McClelland or his true soldiers responsible for the conduct of a drunken, cowardly brute. The Union army was afflicted by having foreign soldiers who could not speak the English language. We have met the Union soldiers when many of them were so drunk they could hardly tell what they were doing.
There never was any trouble between true soldiers, whether they wore the blue or the gray. It was the warlike civilians who did not fight and the soldiers who were mere hangers-on and camp followers that made the trouble. But for the influence of General Grant and other army officers we would have fared much worse in the South after the close of the war than we did; they, as conquerors, became our protectors. The true soldiers could be seen exchanging coffee for tobacco, going in bathing at the same time, in the same river; and when the enemy fell into his hands as a prisoner he would
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