They had the same rattlesnake venom of the Home Guard crowd wherever we met it, and shot us down at the least provocation.

Fortunately they only formed a small part of the sentinels.
Best of all, we escaped for a while from the upas-like shadow of Winder and Wirz, in whose presence strong men sickened and died, as when near some malign genii of an Eastern story.

The peasantry of Italy believed firmly in the evil eye.

Did they ever know any such men as Winder and his satellite, I could comprehend how much foundation they could have for such a belief.
Lieutenant Davis had many faults, but there was no comparison between him and the Andersonville commandant.

He was a typical young Southern man; ignorant and bumptious as to the most common matters of school-boy knowledge, inordinately vain of himself and his family, coarse in tastes and thoughts, violent in his prejudices, but after all with some streaks of honor and generosity that made the widest possible difference between him and Wirz, who never had any.