Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons Part 3

CHAPTER IV

At Libby--Thence to Clover, Danville, Greensboro, and Salisbury--Effort to Pledge us not to Attempt Escape.

The two rooms at Libby adjoined each other on the second floor, but a solid brick wall was between them. When we entered, about a hundred and fifty officers were already there. The first thing that attracted my attention was an officer putting a loaf of bread through a small hole in the part.i.tion where one or two bricks were removable. He was feeding a hungry prisoner. A cap or hat nicely concealed the perforation.

Libby has a hard name, but it was the most comfortable of the six Confederate prisons of which I saw the interior. With all his alleged brutal severity, of which I saw no manifestation, and his ravenous appet.i.te for greenbacks, for which we could not blame him, d.i.c.k Turner seemed an excellent disciplinarian. Everything went like clockwork. We knew what to expect or rather what not to expect, and _when_! My diary for Wednesday, September 28, 1864, the day after our arrival, reads as follows:

The issue to us daily is One gill of boiled beans, One quarter gill of bean broth, One half loaf of soft bread, (Four ounces meat) and A little salt.

There was one inestimable boon, a copious supply of pure water.

There were at this time no panes of gla.s.s, in fact no sashes, in the windows, and the wind swept freely through. The nights were becoming cold. Confederate sentries were on the lower floor and outside. They kept up a custom rather unusual, I think, during the war, of calling out in sing-song tones every hour the number of the post and the time, with occasional variations; _e. g._: "Post number fourteen, two o'clock, and all's well." Then the next sentinel would sing out, "Post number fifteen, two o'clock, and all's well." Then the melodious voice of the next, farther away and sadly unorthodox, "Post number sixteen, two o'clock, and cold as h--l!"

Except one or two rickety tables and two or three old chairs, there was no furniture in the prison. Some of the officers had contrived to save a little money when searched, and with money it was possible to procure small articles slyly smuggled in contrary to orders; but most of us were disposed to sing with old Isaac Watts,

Dear Lord, and shall we ever live At this poor dying rate?

From the rear windows we were occasionally entertained with the sight of exploding sh.e.l.ls, which the indefatigable Grant was daily projecting towards Richmond. Particularly was this the case on the thirtieth of the month, when the boys in blue captured Fort Harrison, and the next day when the Confederates made several gallant but unsuccessful attempts to retake it. At such times we could see some of the steeples or high roofs in Richmond thronged with non-combatants gazing anxiously towards Petersburg. The belief that our prison was undermined, a vast quant.i.ty of gunpowder stored in the cellar, and that d.i.c.k Turner had threatened and was desperate enough to blow us all into eternity in case of a sudden dash of our cavalry into Richmond, somewhat marred the satisfaction with which we contemplated the evident progress of the siege. We could sympathize with the Philadelphia Friend, who said to his wife on the introduction of gun-cotton, "What comfort can thee take, even when sitting in thy easy chair, when thee knows not but the very cus.h.i.+on underneath thee is an enormous bomb-sh.e.l.l, ready upon the slightest concussion to blow thee to everlasting glory?"

At three o'clock, Sunday morning, October 2d, we were roused by the entry of armed men with lanterns. They furnished each of us with a dirty haversack containing what they called two days' rations of corn bread and meat. Then they moved us single-file down stairs. As we pa.s.sed, they took from each his blanket, even those the officers had just bought and paid for. If we expostulated, we were told we were going to a place where we should not need blankets! For my freemasonry or some other unexpressed reason, they allowed me to pa.s.s, wearing my overcoat. Then they took us by bridge across the James River, packed us in box-cars on the railway, forty to sixty in each car, and started the train southwest towards Danville.

The road-bed was bad and the fences on either side were gone. We made but four or five miles an hour. One of our officers declared that they kept a boy running ahead of the engine with hammer and nails to repair the track! also that they put the cow-catcher on behind the last car to prevent cattle from running over the train! At nine o'clock in the evening we reached a place called Clover. We pa.s.sed the night in Clover!

on the bank beside the railroad, where we studied astronomy! and meditated!

Next morning they repacked us, and we were transported seventy miles farther to Danville. My memorandum book mentions a conversation I had on the way with a very young and handsome rebel, one of the guard. He was evidently ingenuous and sincere, pious and lovable. After a few pleasant remarks he suddenly asked:

"What are you Northerners fighting for?"

"In defense of the Const.i.tution and the Union. What are _you_ fighting for?"

"Every right that is sacred and dear to man."

"What right that is sacred and dear to man had the United States ever violated before you fired on Fort Sumter?"

Of course he fell back on the Declaration of American Independence, that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed"; also on the doctrine so emphatically expressed by Abraham Lincoln in his speech in Congress in 1846; viz.:

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to raise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize and make their own of as much territory as they inhabit.

We arrived at Danville at noon. A heavy rain began to fall. Having been two days without opportunity to wash, we were drenched for an hour or two by the sweet shower that seemed to pour from the open windows of heaven. When our thoughtful guards concluded that we were sufficiently cleansed and bleached, they sheltered us by putting us into coal cars, where the black dust was an inch deep. That dust was fine! but the thought seemed to strike them that our nicely laundered garments might get soiled. So in half an hour they took us out and placed us in corn cars. It rather went against the grain, but finally I sat down with the other kernels on the floor. The weather being inclement, they felt it their duty to keep us in doors, lest we should catch cold!

In these elegant and commodious vehicles we were transported next day till we reached Greensboro, North Carolina, about fifty miles southwest from Danville. Disgorged like poor old Jonah after three days' living burial, we were placed in the beautiful open square, and never before did air, earth, trees, and skies seem lovelier. Here they gave each of us three h.o.r.n.y crackers, "rebel hardtack," out of which some of us carved finger rings that might have pa.s.sed for bone.

In those days I was too much addicted to making public speeches, a habit which I had contracted in Yale College. On the edge of the public green, backed by a hundred prisoners, I was haranguing a crowd of curious spectators, telling them how abominably we were treated, exhibiting to them our single ration of flinty biscuit, and consigning them all to everlasting perdition, when a well-dressed young man elbowed his way to me at the fence. He had a large black s.h.i.+ny haversack swung under his left arm. Patting it with his right hand, he asked:

"Will you have a snack?"

"A what?" I answered.

"A snack, a snack," he said.

"I don't know what a 'snack' is, unless it's a _snake_. Yes, I think I could eat a copperhead--_cooked_. Snake for one, if you please; well done."

He thrust his hand into his haversack; took out and gave me the most delicious sandwich I ever tasted. Seeing how I enjoyed it, he emptied the satchel, giving all his food to my hungry fellow prisoners. He told me he was just starting on a long journey, and had laid in a good stock of provisions. I took pains to write in my journal his name and residence--"George W. Swepson, Alamance, North Carolina. Lives near the Court House." To which I added "_Vir et Amicus_."--"The blessing of him that was ready to perish" was upon George W. Swepson.

That night we slept again on the ground and without covering under the open sky; and again several prisoners, Captain Howe and myself among them, attempted in vain to slip past the sentinels.

Next morning we reentered the freight cars. A twelve hours' ride brought us at nine o'clock, Wednesday evening, October 5th, to our destination, Salisbury, North Carolina. As the "Four Hundred" pa.s.sed into the dark enclosure, we were greeted with the cry, "Fresh fis.h.!.+ Fresh fis.h.!.+" which in those days announced the arrival of a new lot of prisoners. We field officers were quartered that night in a brick building near the entrance, where we pa.s.sed an hour of horrors. We were attacked by what appeared to be an organized gang of desperadoes, made up of thieves, robbers, Yankee deserters, rebel deserters, and villains generally, maddened by hunger, or bent on plunder, who rejoiced in the euphonious appellation of _Muggers_! We had been warned against them by kindly disposed guards, and were not wholly unprepared. They attacked us with clubs, fists, and knives, but were repeatedly driven off, pitched headlong downstairs. "_Muggers!_"

Salisbury prison, then commonly called "Salisbury penitentiary," was in the general form of a right-angled triangle with base of thirty or forty rods, perpendicular eighty or ninety. In a row parallel to the base and four or five rods from it were four empty log houses with a s.p.a.ce of about four rods between each two. These, a story and a half high, had formerly been negro quarters. On each side of the great triangle was a stout tight board fence twelve or fifteen feet high. Some two or three feet from the top of this, but out of our sight because on the other side, there was evidently a board walk, on which sentinels, four or five rods apart, perpetually paced their beats, each being able to see the whole inside of the enclosure. At each angle of the base was a shotted field-piece pointing through the narrow opening. We could see that behind each cannon there was a number of muskets stacked and vigilant soldiers watching every movement inside. Close to the fence outside there were three camps of Confederates, variously estimated to contain from seven hundred to two thousand in all.

The number of Union officers in prison after our arrival was about three hundred and twenty; the number of non-commissioned officers and privates was suddenly increased from about two thousand to some eight thousand.

Among these were non-combatants, refugees, lighthouse keepers, and other government employees. Albert D. Richardson, then well-known as a correspondent of the New York _Tribune_, whose romantic marriage to Abby Sage by Henry Ward Beecher and whose tragic death created a sensation in the newspaper world, had been held as a prisoner there for several months. He told us he had found Salisbury a comfortable place. It immediately ceased to be such.

There stood the empty log houses. We besought the rebel commandant, Major Gee, to allow us officers to occupy those buildings. He said he would permit it on condition that we should sign a stringent parole, binding us on our honor not to attempt to escape! We objected to it as a preposterous requirement that, remaining under strict guard and wholly cut off from communication with the outside world, we should sign such a pledge as the only condition on which we could receive decent shelter.

I asked Major Gee if the rigor of our confinement would be in any way relaxed. He answered bluntly, "No."--"Well, where's the reciprocity?" I demanded; "what are you giving up?"--"Well," he replied, "if you don't choose to sign the parole, you can't have the buildings. Other Federal officers have not objected to signing it." He showed us the signature of Gen. Michael Corcoran, who had been colonel of the 69th New York, was captured at the first battle of Bull Run, was promoted to be brigadier, and who raised the so-called "Corcoran Legion." Our senior officer, Brig.-Gen. Joseph Hayes of the Fifth Corps, now called a meeting of the field officers, and submitted the question, "Shall we sign the parole, and so obtain shelter? Or shall we hold ourselves free to escape if we can, and so share the privations of our enlisted men, who have no bed but the ground and no covering but the sky?" I spoke strongly against making any promise. We voted almost unanimously against it.

General Hayes and others then urged upon the commandant the absurdity and meanness of requiring it. It was clear to us and must have been so to him that it was for his interest to separate the three or four hundred officers from the thousands of prisoners accustomed to obey our orders. He finally consented that we should occupy the houses without imposing any conditions.

Parallel to the front of these buildings, about five rods from them and extending across the enclosure, was a so-called "dead line," on which nine sentinels paced their beats. Another "dead line" about four rods from the high fence paralleled the whole length of each side of the prison. It was death to come near these.

About eighty officers were a.s.signed to each of the four houses. In each an officer was elected to serve as house-commissary. His duty was to receive the rations from Lieutenant-Colonel Hooper, already mentioned, acting as commissary-general, to whom the Confederate authorities delivered them in bulk. The house-commissary distributed the food and acted as agent representing the house in all communications with Confederate headquarters. Col. Gilbert G. Prey of the 104th N. Y. Vols.

was elected commissary of house number one; Capt. D. Tarbell, of Groton, N. Y., commissary of house number two; Lieutenant Reilly of Philadelphia, of house number three; and I of house four.

Each house contained but two rooms, a lower and an upper, both empty, for the most part without gla.s.s windows or even sashes; the s.p.a.ces between the crooked logs not stopped up; a single fireplace in each house, but not half enough wood to keep a blaze; without tables, benches, or chairs; without cooking utensils; without table, knife, fork, spoon, or plate; often without cup or dish; without blankets, or any clothing but the scantiest summer outfit; without books or papers; without water sufficient for was.h.i.+ng, or soap, if we could possibly get water; we were in a sorry plight as the nights grew colder. And if the prospect was bad for us, how much worse for our soldiers across the "dead line," who had no shelter, hardly a sc.r.a.p of blanket! Every rain made their beds a pool or ma.s.s of mire. It is not pleasant, but it is a duty to record some of the shadows of our prison life, "lest we forget."

On the open ground outside of what was called the "hospital," October 8th, a sergeant-major was found dead; October 9th, two private soldiers; October 13th, five; October 14th, two; October 16th, eleven; October 17th, seven; October 18th, nine. We could tell how severe the weather had been at night by the number found dead in the morning.

Not far from the prison enclosure was an abundance of growing timber.

More than once I besought Major Gee to allow our men to go, under guard on parole, to get wood for fires and for barracks. He refused. He said he was intending to build barracks for the prisoners as soon as he could procure lumber. I presume that he was sincere in this. I asked in vain for blankets for the men; for tents, but none came till December, and then but one "Sibley" tent and one "A" tent per hundred prisoners, not enough for one-third of them.

We procured water from a deep well on the grounds. The supply was so scanty for the thousands of prisoners that it was always exhausted before sunrise. Soon after we came the Confederates commenced digging two new wells. At their rate of progress we reckoned it would take several months to finish either.

My memorandum book shows that the issue of food daily at Salisbury, though sometimes partly withheld, was for each prisoner "one half loaf of soft bread; two, three, four, or five ounces of meat; a gill of boiled rice, and a little salt." I have no doubt that Major Gee meant to deal fairly with us; but he was unprepared for the avalanche that had descended upon him. We are too much in the habit of blaming individual combatants for severities and cruelties that are inherent in the whole business of war, either civil or international, and inseparable from it.

Said our Lieut.-Gen. S. M. B. Young at a banquet in Philadelphia, "War is necessarily cruel; it is kill and burn, and burn and kill, and again kill and burn." The truth was more bluntly expressed by the British Rear-Admiral Lord Fisher, now the first sea lord of the British Admiralty:

Humanizing war? [said he]; you might as well talk of humanizing h.e.l.l! When a silly a.s.s got up at the first Hague Peace Conference in 1899, and talked about the "amenities of warfare" and putting your prisoners' feet in warm water and giving them gruel, my reply, I regret to say, was considered brutally unfit for publication. As if war could be "civilized"! If I am in command when war breaks out, I shall issue as my orders, "The essence of war is violence.

Moderation is imbecility. _Hit first, hit hard, hit everywhere._"

In this light we may view more charitably the slaying, on the 16th of October at Salisbury, of Second Lieutenant John Davis of the 155th N. Y.

It was a Sunday morning about half-past ten o'clock. One of our fellow prisoners, Rev. Mr. Emerson, chaplain of a Vermont regiment, had circulated notice that he would conduct religious services in the open air between houses number three and four. The officers were beginning to a.s.semble when the sharp report of a musket near by was heard. Rus.h.i.+ng to the spot, we found the lieutenant lying on his back dying at the "dead line." The sentinel on the fence, a mere boy, had fired upon him, and was now reloading. One of our number, Captain William Cook, unable to restrain his anger, hurled a large stone at him. But the hundreds of Confederates in the camps just beyond the fence had sprung to arms at the sound of the firing; the top of the fence was being lined with soldiers; and the vigilant cannoneers at the angles were training their artillery upon our dense ma.s.s of officers. We prisoners regarded the shooting as a brutal murder. The religious exercises were turned into a funeral service. Chaplain Emerson prayed, "O G.o.d! our only refuge in this dark hour, avenge the atrocious murder of our beloved comrade; protect that widow so cruelly robbed of one dearer to her than life; and especially grant that this accursed Confederacy may speedily sink into its native h.e.l.l!" His text was from _Isaiah_ viii, 12: "Say ye not a Confederacy!" Next day I asked the officer of the guard if any punishment was to be inflicted upon the sentinel. He answered: "No; we don't punish men for doing their duty."

So vitally important is the point of view in deciding upon the right or wrong of an act.

CHAPTER V