This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

Hill, where we were joined by a portion of our command which had captured four young men . . . They had shot into our troops, killing some of our boys and wounding others. A drumhead court-martial was ordered by Col. Lowry. This court convicted the four men and sentenced them to be hanged im mediately." Capt. Thompson admitted he was appalled by the sight.
After the war, Marion Baxter had similar reservations about some of the happenings in Piney Woods Mississippi that spring of 1864. He told of how on one occasion a patrol he was with captured a party of 20, including a boy of 16 (Baxter?s own age) and hanged them all. Baxter said "it was a mistake to have hanged that boy as undoubtedly he was led into that kind of life by the older men."
During Baxter?s stay in the bushwacking stronghold southwest of Meridian, some 1500 or more stragglers and deserters (and perhaps conscripts) were returned to active duty. No accurate records exist of the casualties of the expedition, but they must have exceeded 50 on each side (including hangings by Lowry?s troops). One one occasion a Confederate force under Col. Lowry was ambushed by a body of insurgents, and the Southerners lost 15 killed and a number wounded. Likely there were other similar occasions. And Baxter found himself exposed to the seamy, unromantic side of warfare.
64