The Colville Examiner

THE LOTTERY OF DEATH.
Imprisoned Union Officers Chosen by
Lot to Be Hanged.
The most singular and appalling of
all true narratives of the civil war is
Lieutenant Stradling's story of "The
Lottery of Death," says the Cleveland
Plain Dealer. The Confederate govern-
ment had determined upon the execu-
tion of two Federal captains in retalia-
tion for the hanging as spies of two of
their own captains caught by the Union
troops. All the Federal captains, pris-
oners of war in Libby prison, were
compelled to draw lots to select two of
their number to be hanged. The two
fateful black beans were drawn by
Captain Sawyer and Captain Flynn of
the Fifty-first Indiana infantry, the first
men to draw from the lottery of death.
At a two hours' notice they were cart-
ed off to die.
Lieutenant Stradling tells the story
in graphic, unvarnished English as he
had it from Captain Sawyer-how the
doomed men were reprieved at the foot
of the gallows tree by the hard riding
of the bishop of Richmond and the in-
terference of Jefferson Davis: how Lin-
coln heard the story from Sawyer's
wife and at the end of a sleepless
night devised a plan whereby the men
were finally saved. Lincoln's plan was
one of the most pitiless moves war
ever forced upon him. He notified the
Confederate cabinet that immediately
upon the execution of Sawyer and
Flynn he would retaliate by hanging
General W. H. F. Lee, son of their
great commander, and another Confed-
erate officer. This threat frightened
the Confederate cabinet into abandan-
ing their plan.