Pvt. A.J. Cone, Co. I 18th Georgia Infantry

Pvt. A.J. Cone, Co. I 18th Georgia Infantry. . , …Major A.G. Brady as I saw and knew him would have the sole distinction of having impressed his brutal image, his cowardly and inhuman conduct to the prisoners in his keeping, as the lowest and most consummate villain of which history makes record., He was a typical commander of Federal prisons, arrogant, domineering, without the slightest approach to human virtues. He was the (Provost Marshall) from Oct 19, 1864 to the time I was exchanged March 19, 1865. He was about 40 years old, with florid complexion, sandy beard, long nose, small head, goose eyes, fidgety, wolfish in countenance, savage, and cruel. His Sunday exercises were riding through the streets of the camp on a tall, large-footed horse at a breakneck speed when the poor men were out in the prison streets to get the benefit of the sunshine, to restore their benumbed limbs from the cold and cramped tents, where only a little green pine wood was allowed, which in the attempt to burn would fill the tents with suffocating smoke which could be endured only by lying prone on our faces., …I got permission to go to a large syrup kettle near the road and found it filled with odds and ends of rusty bacon boiled to a jelly of which soap was to be made. I fished out and filled my haversack with this putrid mass and carried it into the prison and gave to my starved comrades, who ate it with avidity and thanked me for the favor., We were guarded by blacks clad in greatcoats, boots and gauntlet gloves who stalked through the streets at night. One of these devils shot into the tent next to mine simply because one poor fellow could not suppress a cough when ordered to do so., From a letter in the Confederate Veteran magazine 1912, Vol 20 page 524.