Escaped Prisoner at Jeff. Davis's Levee.
Robert Slocum, of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Volunteers, was taken to Richmond as a prisoner of war. In two days he escaped, and procured, from friendly negroes, citizen's clothing. Then passing himself off as an Englishman recently arrived in America by a blockade-runner, he attempted to leave the port of Wilmington for Nassau. Through some informality in his passport, he was arrested and lodged in Castle Thunder. Employing an attorney, he secured his release. Still adhering to the original story, he remained in Richmond for many months. He frequently sent us letters, supplies, and provisions, and made many attempts to aid us in escaping. One day he wrote me an entertaining description of President Davis's levee, at which he had spent the previous evening.
Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.Tempest.
Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.Tempest.
Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.
Tempest.
Assistance from a Negro Boy.
Several days of our confinement in Castle Thunder were spent in a little cell with burglars, thieves, "bounty-jumpers," and confidence men. Our association with these strange companions happened in this wise:
One day we completed an arrangement with a corporal of the guard, by which, with the aid of four of his men, he was to let us out at midnight. We had a friend in Richmond, but did not know precisely where his house was situated. We were very anxious to learn, and fortunately, on this very day, he sent a meal to a prisoner in our room. Recognizing the plate, I asked the intelligent young Baltimore negro who brought it:
"Is my friend waiting below?"
"Yes, sir."
"Can't you get me an opportunity to see him for one moment?"
"I think so, sir. Come with me and we will try."
The boy led me through the passages and down the stairs, past four guards, who supposed that he had been sent by the prison authorities. As we reached the lower floor, I saw my friend standing in the street door, with two officers of the prison beside him. By a look I beckoned him. He walked toward me and I toward him,until we met at the little railing which separated us. There, over the bayonet of the sentinel, this whispered conversation followed:
"We hope to get out to-night; can we find refuge in your house?"
"Certainly. At what hour will you come?"
"We hope, between twelve and one o'clock. Where is your place?"
The Prison Officers Enraged.
He told me the street and number. By this time, the Rebel officers, discovering what was going on, grew indignant and very profane. They peremptorily ordered my friend into the street. He went out wearing a look of mild and injured innocence. The negro had shrewdly slipped out of sight the moment he brought us together, and thus escaped severe punishment.
The officers ordered me back to my quarters, and as I went up the stairs, I heard a volley of oaths. They were not especially incensed at me, recognizing the fact that a prisoner under guard has a right to do any thing he can; but were indignant and chagrined at that want of discipline which permitted an inmate of the safest apartment in the Castle to pass four sentinels to the street door, and converse with an unauthorized person.
Visit from a Friendly Woman.
Ten minutes after, a boy came up from the office, with the message—this time genuine—that another visitor wished to see me. I went down, and there, immediately beyond the bars through which we were allowed to communicate with outsiders, I saw a lady who called me by name. I did not recognize her, but her eyes told me that she was a friend. A Rebel officer was standing near, to see that no improper communication passed between us. She conversed upon indifferent subjects, but soon found opportunity for saying:
"I am the wife of your friend who has just left you.He dared not come again. I succeeded in obtaining admission. I have a note for you. I cannot give it to you now, for this officer is looking; but, when I bid you good-by, I will slip it into your hand."
The letter contained the warmest protestations of friendship, saying:
"We will do any thing in the world for you. You shall have shelter at our house, or, if you think that too public, at any house you choose among our friends. We will find you the best pilot in Richmond to take you through the lines. We will give you clothing, we will give you money—every thing you need. If you wish, we will send a half dozen young men to steal up in front of the Castle at midnight; and, for a moment, to throw a blanket over the head of each of the sentinels who stand beside the door."
At one o'clock that night, the Rebel corporal came to our door and said, softly:
"All things are ready; I have my four men at the proper posts; we can pass you to the street without difficulty. Should you meet any pickets beyond, the countersign for to-night is 'Shiloh.' I know you all, and implicitly trust you; but some of my men do not, and before passing out your party of six, they want to see that you have in your possession the money you propose to give us" (seventy dollars in United States currency, together with two gold watches).
This request was reasonable, and Bulkley handed his portion of the money to the corporal. A moment later he returned with it from the gas-light, and said:
"There is a mistake about this. Here are five one-dollar notes, not five-dollar notes."
My friend was very confident there was no error; and we were forced to the conclusion that the guards designedto obtain our money without giving us our liberty. So the plan was baffled.
The next morning proved that the corporal was right. My friendhadoffered him the wrong roll of notes. We hoped very shortly to try again, but considerable finessing was required to get the right sentinels upon the right posts. Before it could be done we were placed in a dungeon, on the charge of attempting to escape. We were kept there ten days.
Shut up in a Cell.
Our fellows in confinement were the burglars and confidence men—"lewd fellows of the baser sort," without principle or refinement, living by their wits. They frankly related many of their experiences in enlisting and re-enlisting for large bounties as substitutes in the Rebel service; decoying negroes from their masters, and then selling them; stealing horses, etc. But they treated us with personal courtesy, and though their own rations were wretchedly short, never molested our dried beef, hams, and other provisions, which any night they could safely have purloined.
Small-pox was very prevalent during the winter months. An Illinois prisoner, named Putman, had a remarkable experience. He was first vaccinated, and two or three days after, attacked with varioloid. Just as he recovered from that, he was taken with malignant small-pox, while the vaccine matter was still working in his arm, which was almost an unbroken sore from elbow to shoulder. In a few weeks he returned to the prison with pits all over his face as large as peas. Small-pox patients were sometimes kept in our close room for two or three days after the eruptions appeared. One of my own messmates barely survived this disease.
We were allowed to purchase whatever supplies the Richmond market afforded, and to have our meals preparedin the prison kitchen, by paying the old negro who presided there. These were privileges enjoyed by none of the other inmates. Supplies commanded very high prices; it was a favorite jest in the city, that the people had to carry money in their baskets and bring home marketing in their porte-monnaies. Our mess consisted of the four correspondents and Mr. Charles Thompson, a citizen of Connecticut, whose Democratic proclivities, age, and gravity, invariably elected him spokesman when we wished to communicate with the prison authorities. As they regarded us with special hostility, we kept in the back-ground; but Mr. Thompson's quiet tenacity, which no refusal could dishearten, and the "greenbacks" which noattachécould resist, secured us many favors.
Stealing from Flag-of-Truce Letters.
Northern letters from our own families reached us with considerable regularity. Those sent by other persons were mostly withheld. Robert Ould, the Rebel Commissioner of Exchange, with petty malignity, never permitted one of the many written fromThe Tribuneoffice to reach us. All inclosures, excepting money, and sometimes including it, were stolen with uniform consistency. I finally wrote upon one of my missives, which was to go North:
"Will the person who systematically abstracts newspaper slips, babies' pictures, and postage-stamps from my letters, permit the inclosed little poem to reach its destination, unless entirely certain that it is contraband and dangerous to the public service?"
"Will the person who systematically abstracts newspaper slips, babies' pictures, and postage-stamps from my letters, permit the inclosed little poem to reach its destination, unless entirely certain that it is contraband and dangerous to the public service?"
Apparently a little ashamed, the Rebel censor thereafter ceased his peculations.
For a time, boxes of supplies from the North were forwarded to us with fidelity and promptness. Supposing that this could not last long, we determined to make hay while the sun shone. One day, dining from the contentsof a home box, in cutting through the butter, my knife struck something hard. We sounded, and brought to the surface a little phial, hermetically sealed. We opened it, and there found "greenbacks!"
Upon that hint we acted. While it was impossible to obtain letters from the North, we could always smuggle them thither by exchanged prisoners, who would sew them up in their clothing, or in some other manner conceal them. We immediately began to send many orders for boxes; all but two or three came safely to hand, and "brought forth butter in a lordly dish." Treasury notes were also sent bound in covers of books so deftly as to defy detection. One of my messmates thus received two hundred and fifty dollars in a single Bible. The supplies of money, obtained in this manner, lasted through nearly all our remaining imprisonment, and were of infinite service.
Paroles Repudiated by the Rebels.
All the prisoners who were taken to Richmond with us had received identically the same paroles. In every case, except ours, the Rebels recognized the paroles, and sent the persons holding them through the lines. But they utterly disregarded ours. We felt it a sort of duty to keep them occasionally reminded of their solemn, deliberate, written obligation to us. We first did this through our attorney, General Humphrey Marshall, of Kentucky. His relations with Robert Ould were very close. Upon receiving heavy fees in United States currency, he had secured the release of several citizens, after all other endeavors failed. The prisoners believed that Ould shared the fees.
General Marshall made a strong statement of our case in writing, adding to the application for release:
"I am instructed by these gentlemen not to ask any favors at yourhands, but to enforce their clear, legal, unquestionable rights under this parole."
"I am instructed by these gentlemen not to ask any favors at yourhands, but to enforce their clear, legal, unquestionable rights under this parole."
Commissioner Ould indorsed upon this application that he repudiated the parole altogether. In reporting to us, General Marshall said:
"I don't feel at liberty to accept a fee from you, because I consider your case hopeless."
Sentenced to the Salisbury Prison.
Early in the new year, we addressed a memorial to Mr. Seddon, the Rebel Secretary of War, in which we attempted to argue the case upon its legal merits, and to prove what a flagrant, atrocious violation of official faith was involved in our detention. We plumed ourselves a good deal on our legal logic, but Mr. Seddon returned a very convincing refutation of our argument. He simply wrote an order that we be sent to the Rebel penitentiary at Salisbury, North Carolina, to be held until the end of the war, as hostages for Rebel citizens confined in the North, and for the general good conduct of our Government toward them!
Like the historic Roman, content to be refuted by an emperor who was master of fifty legions, we yielded gracefully to the argument of the Secretary who had the whole Confederate army at his back; and thus we were sent to Salisbury.
"Abolitionists Before the War."
On the night before our departure, the warden, a Maryland refugee, named Wiley, ordered us below into a very filthy apartment, to be ready for the morning train. We appealed to Captain Richardson, Commandant of the Castle, who, countermanding the order, permitted us to remain in our own more comfortable quarters during the night. Ten minutes after, one of the little negroes came to our room, and, beckoning me to bend down, he whispered:
"What do you think Mr. Wiley says about CaptainRichardson's letting you stay here to-night? As soon as the Captain went out, he said: 'It's a shame for Richardson and Browne to receive so many more favors than the other prisoners. Why, ---- ---- them, they were Abolitionists before the war!'"
On the way to Salisbury we were very closely guarded, but there were many times during the night when we might easily have jumped from the car window.
At Raleigh, a pleasant little city of five thousand people, named in honor of the great Sir Walter, the temptation was very strong. In the confusion and darkness through which we passed from one train to another, we might easily have eluded the guards; but we were feeble, a long distance from our army lines, and quite unfamiliar with the country. It was a golden opportunity neglected; for it is always comparatively easy for captives to escape whilein transitu, and very difficult when once within the walls of a military prison.
On the evening of February 3d we reached Salisbury, and were taken to the Confederate States Penitentiary. It was a brick structure, one hundred feet by forty, four stories in hight, originally erected for a cotton-factory. In addition to the main building, there were six smaller ones of brick, which had formerly been tenement houses; and a new frame hospital, with clean hay mattresses for forty patients. The buildings, which would hold about five hundred prisoners, were all filled. Confederate convicts, Yankee deserters, about twenty enlisted men of our navy and three United States officers confined as hostages, one hundred and fifty Southern Unionists, and fifty northern citizens, composed the inmates.
The miserable have no other medicine, But only hope.Measure for Measure.
The miserable have no other medicine, But only hope.Measure for Measure.
The miserable have no other medicine, But only hope.
Measure for Measure.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow?Macbeth.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow?Macbeth.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow?
Macbeth.
Truly saith the Italian proverb, "There are no ugly loves and no handsome prisons." Still we found Salisbury comparatively endurable. Captain Swift Galloway, commanding, though a hearty Confederate, was kind and courteous to the captives. Our sleeping apartment, crowded with uncleanly men, and foul with the vilest exhalations, was filthy and vermin-infested beyond description. No northern farmer, fit to be a northern farmer, would have kept his horse or his ox in it.
The Open Air and Pure Water.
But the yard of four acres, like some old college grounds, with great oak trees and a well of sweet, pure water, was open to us during the whole day. There, the first time for nine months, our feet pressed the mother earth, and the blessed open air fanned our cheeks.
Mr. Luke Blackmer, of Salisbury, kindly placed his library of several thousand volumes at our disposal. Whenever we wished for books we had only to address a note to him, through the prison authorities, and, in a few hours, a little negro with a basket of them on his head would come in at the gate. It seemed more like life and less like the tomb than any prison we had inhabited before.
The Crushing Weight of Imprisonment.
And yet those long Summer months were very dreary to bear, for we had upon us the one heavy, crushingweight of captivity. It is not hunger or cold, sickness or death, which makes prison life so hard to bear. But it is the utter idleness, emptiness, aimlessness of such a life. It is being, through all the long hours of each day and night—for weeks, months, years, if one lives so long—absolutely without employment, mental or physical—with nothing to fill the vacant mind, which always becomes morbid and turns inward to prey upon itself.
What exile from his country Can flee himself as well?
What exile from his country Can flee himself as well?
It was doubtless this which gave us the look peculiar to the captive—the disturbed, half-wild expression of the eye, the contraction of the wrinkled brow which indicates trouble at the heart.
We were most struck with this in the morning, when, on first going out of our sleeping quarters, we passed down by the hospital and stopped beside the bench where those were laid who had died during the night. As we lifted the cloth, to see who had found release, the one thing which always impressed me was the perfect calm, the sweet, ineffable peace, which those white, thin faces wore. For months I never saw it without a twinge of envy. Until then I never felt the meaning of the words, "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." Until then I never realized the wealth of the assurance, "He giveth his beloved sleep."
Bad News from Home.
Some prisoners had an additional weight to bear. They were southern Unionists—Tennesseans, North Carolinians, West Virginians, and Mississippians—whose families lived on the border. They knew that they were liable any day to have their houses robbed or burned by the enemy, and their wives and little ones turned out to the mercy of the elements, or the charity of friends.This gnawing anxiety took away their elasticity and power of endurance. They had far less capacity for resisting disease and hardship than the northeners, and died in the proportion of four or five to one. I could hardly wonder at the fervor with which, in their devotional exercises, night after night, they sung the only hymn which they ever attempted:
"There I shall bathe my weary soulIn seas of heavenly rest;And not a wave of trouble rollAcross this peaceful breast."
"There I shall bathe my weary soulIn seas of heavenly rest;And not a wave of trouble rollAcross this peaceful breast."
The cup of others, yet, had a still bitterer ingredient, which filled it to overflowing. I wonder profoundly that any one drinking of it ever lived to tell his story. They had received bad news from home—news that those nearest and dearest, finding their load of life too heavy, had laid it wearily down. During the long prison hours, such had nothing to think of but the vacant place, the hushed voice, and the desolate hearth. Hope—the one thing which buoys up the prisoner—was gone. That picture of home, which had looked before as heaven looks to the enthusiastic devotee, was forever darkened. The prisoner knew if the otherwise glad hour of his release should ever come, no warmth of welcome, no greeting of friendship, no rejoicing of affection, could ever replace for him the infinite value of the love he had lost.
The Great Libby Tunnel.
Early in the Spring we were delighted to learn from Richmond that Colonel Streight had succeeded in escaping from Libby. The officers constructed a long tunnel, which proved a perfect success, liberating one hundred and fourteen of them. Streight, whose proportions tended toward the Falstaffian, was very apprehensivethat he could not work his way through it. Narrowly escaping the fate of the greedy fox which "stuck in the hole," he finally squeezed through. The Rebels hated him so bitterly that, by the unanimous wish of his fellow-prisoners, he was the first man to pass out. A Union woman of Richmond concealed him for nearly two weeks. The first officers who reached our lines announced through the New York papers that Streight had arrived at Fortress Monroe. This caused the Richmond authorities to relinquish their search; and finally, under a skillful pilot, having traveled with great caution for eleven nights to accomplish less than a hundred miles, Streight reached the protection of the Stars and Stripes.
Our prison rations of corn bread and beef were tolerable, in quantity and quality. The Salisbury market also afforded a few articles, of which eggs were the great staple. We indulged extravagantly in that mild form of dissipation—our mess of five at one time having on hand seventy-two dozen, which represented, in Confederate currency, about two hundred dollars.
We soon made the acquaintance of several loyal North Carolinians. Citizens of respectability were permitted to visit the prison. Those of Union proclivities invariably found opportunity to converse with us. Like all Loyalists of the South, white and black, they trusted northern prisoners implicitly. The reign of terror was so great that they often feared to repose confidence in each other, and cautioned us against repeating their expressions of loyalty to their neighbors and friends, whose Union sympathies were just as strong as theirs.
Horrible Sufferings of Union Officers.
Captains Julius L. Litchfield, of the Fourth Maine Infantry, Charles Kendall, of the Signal Corps, and Edward E. Chase, of the First Rhode Island Cavalry, were imprisoned in the upper room of the factory. Held as hostagesfor certain Rebel officers in the Alton, Illinois, penitentiary, they were sentenced to confinement and hard labor during the war. In one instance only was the hard labor imposed. In the prison yard they were ordered to remove several heavy stones a few yards and then carry them back. For some minutes they stood beside the Rebel sergeant, silently and with folded arms. Then Chase thus instructed the guard:
"Go to Captain Galloway, and tell him, with my compliments, that perhaps I was just as delicately nurtured as he—that, if he were in my place, he would hardly do this work, and that I will see the whole Confederacy in the Bottomless Pit before I lift a single stone!"
Chase and his comrades were never afterward ordered to labor. Other Union officers, held as hostages, arrived from time to time. Eight, who came from Richmond, had been confined one hundred and forty-five days in that horrible Libby cell where the mold accumulated on the beard of the Pennsylvania lieutenant. While there they suffered intensely from cold, ate daily all their scanty ration the moment it was issued, and were compelled to fast for the rest of the twenty-four hours, save when they could catch rats, which they eagerly devoured. Some came out with broken constitutions, and all were frightfully pallid and emaciated. Starving and freezing are words easily said, but these gentlemen learned their actual significance.
Four of them were held for Kentucky bushwhackers, whom one of our military courts had sentenced to death, which they clearly deserved under well-defined laws of war. Had they been promptly executed, the Rebels would never have dared, in retaliation, to hurt the hair of a prisoners head. But Mr. Lincoln's kindness of heart induced him to commute their sentence to imprisonment,and made him unwittingly the cause of this barbarity toward our own officers.
The hostages were plucky and enterprising, frequently attempting to escape. One night they suspended from their fourth-story window a rope which they had constructed of blankets. Captain Ives, of the Tenth Massachusetts Infantry, descended in safety. A daring and loyal Rebel deserter, from East Tennessee, named Carroll, who designed to pilot them to our lines, attempted to follow; but the rope broke, and he fell the whole distance, striking upon his head. It would have killed most men; but Carroll, after spending the night in the guard-house, bathed his swollen head and troubled himself no further about the matter.
Captain B. C. G. Reed, from Zanesville, Ohio, was constantly trying to secure his own release. It always seemed to make him unhappy when he passed two or three weeks without making attempts to escape. They usually resulted in his being hand-cuffed and ballasted by a ball and chain, or confined in a filthy cell.
A Cool Method of Escape.
But, sooner or later, perseverance achieves. Once, while so weak from inflammatory rheumatism, contracted in a Richmond dungeon, that he could hardly walk, he made a successful endeavor, in company with Captain Litchfield. At nine o'clock, on a rainy March night, with their blankets wrapped about them, they coolly walked up to the gate. They rebuked the guard who halted them, indignantly asking him if he did not know that they belonged at head-quarters! Impudence won the day. The innocent sentinel permitted them to pass. They went directly through Captain Galloway's office, which fortunately happened to be empty; reached the outer fence; Litchfield helped over his weak companion, and the world was all before them, where to choose.They traveled one hundred and twenty miles, but, in the mountains of East Tennessee, were recaptured and brought back.
Nothing daunted, Reed repeated the attempt again and again. Finally, he jumped from a train of cars in the city of Charleston, found a negro who secreted him, and by night conveyed him in a skiff to our forces at Battery Wagner. Reed returned to his command in Thomas's Army, and was subsequently killed in one of the battles before Nashville. Entering the service as a private, and fairly winning promotion, he was an excellent type of the thinking bayonets, of the young men who freely gave their lives "for our dear country's sake."
Captured through an Obstinate Mule.
Early in the summer, our mess was agreeably enlarged by the arrival of Mr. William E. Davis, Correspondent ofThe Cincinnati Gazetteand Clerk of the Ohio Senate. Davis owed his capture to the stupidity of a mule. Riding leisurely along a road within the lines of General Sherman's army, more than a mile from the front, he was compelled to pass through a little gap left between two corps, which had not quite connected. He was suddenly confronted by a double-barreled shot-gun, presented by a Rebel standing behind a tree, who commanded him to halt. Not easily intimidated, Davis attempted to turn his mule and ride for a life and liberty. With the true instinct of his race, the animal resisted the rein, seeming to require a ten-acre lot and three days for turning around—wherefore the rider fell into the hands of the Philistines.
Books whiled away many weary hours. As Edmond Dantes, in the Count of Monte Christo, came out from his twelve years of imprisonment "a very well-read man," we ought to have acquired limitless lore; but reading at last palled upon our tastes, and we would none of it.
Concealing Money when Searched.
Our Salisbury friends supplied us liberally with money. The editors of the migratoryMemphis Appealfrequently offered to me any amount which I might desire, and made many attempts to secure my exchange.
The prison authorities sometimes searched us; but friendly guards, or officers of Union proclivities, would always give us timely notice, enabling us to secrete our money. One (nominally) Rebel lieutenant, after we were drawn up in line and the searching had begun, would sometimes receive bank-notes from us, and hand them back when we were returned to our own quarters.
Once, as we were being examined, I had forty dollars, in United States currency, concealed in my hat. That was an article of dress which had never been examined. But now, looking down the line, I saw the guard suddenly commence taking off the prisoners' hats, carefully scrutinizing them. Removing the money from mine, I handed it to Lieutenant Holman, of Vermont; but, turning around, I observed that two Rebel officers immediately behind us had witnessed the movement. Holman promptly passed the notes to "Junius," who stood near, reading a ponderous volume, and who placed them between the leaves of his book. Holman was at once taken from the line and searched rigorously from head to foot, but the Rebels were unable to find the coveted "greenbacks."
The prison officers, under rigid orders from the Richmond authorities, would sometimes retain money received by mail. Two hundred dollars in Confederate notes were thus withheld from me for more than a year. Determined that the Rebel officials should not enjoy much peace of mind, I addressed them letter after letter, reciting their various subterfuges. At last, upon my demanding that they should either give me themoney, or refuse positively over their own signatures, the amount was forthcoming. Thousands of dollars belonging to prisoners were confiscated upon frivolous pretexts, or no pretext whatever.
Attempts to Escape Frustrated.
Persistent ill-fortune still followed all our attempts to escape. Once we perfected an arrangement with a friendly guard, by which, at midnight, he was to pass us over the fence upon his beat. Before our quarters were locked for the night, "Junius" and myself hid under the hospital, where, through the faithful sentinel, escape would be certain. But just then, we chanced to be nearly without money, and Davis waited for a Unionattachéof the prison to bring him four hundred dollars from a friend outside. The messenger, for the first and last time in eleven months, becoming intoxicated that afternoon, arrived with the money five minutes too late. Davis was unable to join us; we determined not to leave him, expecting to repeat the attempt on the following night; but the next day the guard was conscribed and sent to Lee's army.
These constant failures subjected us to many jests from our fellow-prisoners. Once, in a dog-day freak, "Junius" had every hair shaved from his head, leaving his pallid face diversified only by a great German mustache. He replied to allbadinagethat he was not the correspondent for whom his interlocutors mistook him, but the venerable and famous Chinaman "No-Go."
Yankee Deserters Whipped and Hanged.
The Yankee deserters, having no friends to protect them, were treated with great harshness. During a single day six were tied up to a post and received, in the aggregate, one hundred and twenty-seven lashes with the cat-o'nine-tails upon their bare backs, as punishment for digging a tunnel. Many of them were "bounty-jumpers" and desperadoes. They robbed each newly-arrivingdeserter of all his money, beating him unmercifully if he resisted. After being thus whipped, at their own request theirstatuswas changed, and they were sent as prisoners of war to Andersonville, Georgia. There the Union prisoners, detecting them in several robberies and murders, organized a court-martial, tried them, and hung six of them upon trees within the garrison, with ropes furnished by the Rebel commandant.
For seven months no letters, even from our own families, were permitted to reach us. This added much to our weariness. I never knew the pathos of Sterne's simple story until I heard "Junius" read it one sad Summer night in our prison quarters. For weeks afterward rung in my ears the cry of the poor starling: "I can't get out! I can't get out!"
——- Not a soulBut felt a fever of the mad, and playedSome tricks of desperation.Tempest.
——- Not a soulBut felt a fever of the mad, and playedSome tricks of desperation.Tempest.
——- Not a soulBut felt a fever of the mad, and playedSome tricks of desperation.
Tempest.
All trouble, torment, wonder, and amazementInhabit here.Ibid.
All trouble, torment, wonder, and amazementInhabit here.Ibid.
All trouble, torment, wonder, and amazementInhabit here.
Ibid.
Great Influx of Prisoners.
Early in October, the condition of the Salisbury garrison suddenly changed. Nearly ten thousand prisoners of war, half naked and without shelter, were crowded into its narrow limits, which could not reasonably accommodate more than six hundred. It was converted into a scene of suffering and death which no pen can adequately describe. For every hour, day and night, we were surrounded by horrors which burned into our memories like a hot iron.
We had never before been in a prison containing our private soldiers. In spite of many assurances to the contrary, we had been skeptical as to the barbarities which they were said to suffer at Belle Isle and Andersonville. We could not believe that men bearing the American name would be guilty of such atrocities. Now, looking calmly upon our last two months in Salisbury, it seems hardly possible to exaggerate the incredible cruelty of the Rebel authorities.
When captured, the prisoners were robbed of the greater part of their clothing. When they reached Salisbury, all were thinly clad, thousands were barefooted, not one in twenty had an overcoat or blanket, and many hundreds were without coats or blouses.
Starving in the Midst of Food.
For several weeks, they were furnished with no shelter whatever. Afterward, one Sibley tent and one A tent was issued to each hundred men. With the closest crowding, these contained about one-half of them. The rest burrowed in the earth, crept under buildings, or dragged out the nights in the open air upon the muddy, snowy, or frozen ground. In October, November, and December, snow fell several times. It was piteous beyond description to see the poor fellows, coatless, hatless, and shoeless, shivering about the yard.
They were organized into divisions of one thousand each, and subdivided into squads of one hundred. Almost daily one or more divisions was without food for twenty-four hours. Several times some of them received no rations for forty-eight hours. The few who had money, paid from five to twenty dollars, in Rebel currency, for a little loaf of bread. Some sold the coats from their backs and the shoes from their feet to purchase food.
When a subordinate asked the post-Commandant, Major John H. Gee, "Shall I give the prisoners full rations?" he replied: "No, G-d d--n them, give them quarter-rations!"
Yet, at this very time, one of our Salisbury friends, a trustworthy and Christian gentleman, assured us, in a stolen interview:
"It is within my personal knowledge that the great commissary warehouse, in this town, is filled to the roof with corn and pork. I know that the prison commissary finds it difficult to obtain storage for his supplies."
After our escape, we learned from personal observation that the region abounded in corn and pork. Salisbury was a general dépôt for army supplies.
Freezing in the Midst of Fuel.
That section of country is densely wooded. The carsbrought fuel to the door of our prison. If the Rebels were short of tents, they might easily have paroled two or three hundred prisoners, to go out and cut logs, with which, in a single week, barracks could have been constructed for every captive; but the Commandant would not consent. He did not even furnish half the needed fuel.
Cold and hunger began to tell fearfully upon the robust young men, fresh from the field, who crowded the prison. Sickness was very prevalent and very fatal. It invariably appeared in the form of pneumonia, catarrh, diarrhœa, or dysentery; but was directly traceable to freezing and starvation. Therefore the medicines were of little avail. The weakened men were powerless to resist disease, and they were carried to the dead-house in appalling numbers.
By appointment of the prison authorities, my two comrades and myself were placed in charge of all the hospitals, nine in number, inside the garrison. The scenes which constantly surrounded us were enough to shake the firmest nerves; but there was work to be done for the relief of our suffering companions. We could accomplish very little—hardly more than to give a cup of cold water, and see that the patients were treated with sympathy and kindness.
Mr. Davis was general superintendent, and brought to his arduous duties good judgment, untiring industry, and uniform kindness.
"Junius" was charged with supplying medicines to the "out-door patients." The hospitals, when crowded, would hold about six hundred; but there were always many more invalids unable to obtain admission. These wretched men waited wearily for death in their tents, in subterranean holes, under hospitals, or in the openair. My comrade's tender sympathy softened the last hours of many a poor fellow who had long been a stranger to
"The falling music of a gracious word,Or the stray sunshine of a smile."
"The falling music of a gracious word,Or the stray sunshine of a smile."
Rebel Surgeons Generally Humane.
I was appointed to supervise all the hospital books, keeping a record of each patient's name, disease, admission, and discharge or death. At my own solicitation, the Rebel surgeon-in-chief also authorized me to receive the clothing left by the dead, and re-issue it among the living. I endeavored to do this systematically, keeping lists of the needy, who indeed were nine-tenths of all the prisoners. The deaths ranged from twenty to forty-eight daily, leaving many garments to be distributed. Day after day, in bitterly cold weather, pale, fragile boys, who should have been at home with their mothers and sisters, came to me with no clothing whatever, except a pair of worn cotton pantaloons and a thin cotton shirt.
Dr. Richard O. Currey, a refugee from Knoxville, was the surgeon in charge. Though a genuine Rebel, he was just and kind-hearted, doing his utmost to change the horrible condition of affairs. Again and again he sent written protests to Richmond, which brought several successive inspectors to examine the prison and hospitals, but no change of treatment.
We were reluctantly driven to the belief that the Richmond authorities deliberately adopted this plan to reduce the strength of our armies. The Medusa head of Slavery had turned their hearts to stone. At this time, they held nearly forty thousand prisoners. In our garrison the inmates were dying at the rate of thirteen per cent. a month upon the aggregate. About as many more were enlisting in the Rebel army. Thus our soldierswere destroyed at the rate of more than twenty-five per cent. a month, with no corresponding loss to the enemy.
Terrible Scenes in the Hospitals.
Frequently, for two or three days, Dr. Currey would refrain from entering the garrison, reluctant to look upon the revolting scenes from whichwecould find no escape. I am glad to be able to throw one ray of light into so dark a picture. Nearly all the surgeons evinced that humanity which ought to characterize their profession. They were much the best class of Rebels we encountered. They denounced unsparingly the manner in which prisoners were treated, and endeavored to mitigate their sufferings.
To call the foul pens, where the patients were confined, "hospitals," was a perversion of the English tongue. We could not obtain brooms to keep them clean; we could not get cold water to wash the hands and faces of those sick and dying men. In that region, where every farmer's barn-yard contained grain-stacks, we could not procure clean straw enough to place under them. More than half the time they were compelled to lie huddled upon the cold, naked, filthy floors, without even that degree of warmth and cleanliness usually afforded to brutes. The wasted forms and sad, pleading eyes of those sufferers, waiting wearily for the tide of life to ebb away—without the commonest comforts, without one word of sympathy, or one tear of affection—will never cease to haunt me.
At all hours of the day and night, on every side, we heard the terrible hack! hack! hack! in whose pneumonic tones every prisoner seemed to be coughing his life away. It was the most fearful sound in that fearful place.
The Rattling Dead-Cart.
The last scene of all was the dead-cart, with its rigid forms piled upon each other like logs—the armsswaying, the white ghastly faces staring, with dropped jaws and stony eyes—while it rattled along, bearing its precious freight just outside the walls, to be thrown in a mass into trenches and covered with a little earth.
When received, there were no sick or wounded men among the prisoners. But before they had been in Salisbury six weeks, "Junius," with better facilities for knowing than any one else, insisted that among eight thousand there were not five hundred well men. The Rebel surgeons coincided in this belief.
The rations, issued very irregularly, were insufficient to support life. Men grew feeble before living upon them a single week; but could not buy food from the town; and were not permitted to receive even a meal sent by friends from the outside. Our positions in the hospitals enabled us to purchase supplies and fare better. Prisoners eagerly devoured the potato-skins from our table. They ate rats, dogs, and cats. Many searched the yard for bones and scraps among the most revolting substances.
They constantly besieged us for admission to the hospitals, or for shelter and food, which we were unable to give. It seemed almost sinful for us to enjoy protection from the weather and food enough to support life in the midst of all this distress.
On wet days the mud was very deep, and the shoeless wretches wallowed pitifully through it, seeking vainly for cover and warmth. Two hundred negro prisoners were almost naked, and could find no shelter whatever except by burrowing in the earth. The authorities treated them with unusual rigor, and guards murdered them with impunity.
No song, no athletic game, few sounds of laughter broke the silence of the garrison. It was a Hall of Eblis—devoid of its gold-besprinkled pavements, crystal vases, and dazzling saloons; but with all its oppressive silence, livid lips, sunken eyes, and ghastly figures, at whose hearts the consuming fire was never quenched.