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Reminiscences of the Civil War, by James J. Williamson
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Title: Prison Life in the Old Capitol and Reminiscences of the Civil War
Authors: James J. Williamson
B. F. Williamson
Release Date: October 4, 2021 [eBook #66470]
Language: English
Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRISON LIFE IN THE OLD
CAPITOL AND REMINISCENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR ***
[Illustration: OLD CAPITOL PRISON, WASHINGTON, D. C.]
PRISON LIFE IN THE
OLD CAPITOL
AND
REMINISCENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR
BY
JAMES J. WILLIAMSON
_Author of “Mosby’s Rangers”_
_Illustrations by_
B. F. WILLIAMSON
WEST ORANGE, N. J.
1911
COPYRIGHT, 1911
BY
JAMES J. WILLIAMSON
PREFACE
It is not my intention in my prison diary to discuss the constitutional
or legal question of arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of
non-combatants, but to present to my readers a picture of the daily
routine of prison life as I saw it, together with incidents related to
me by fellow-prisoners.
Conditions in the Old Capitol differed in many respects from the prison
camps. Prisoners in the Old Capitol were mostly civilians, except where
soldiers (either prisoners of war or men charged with offenses), were
brought in and kept until they could be sent to places designated; or
prisoners from other prisons held over until they could be shipped
South for exchange.
In the itinerary of our journey from Parole Camp to Upperville I have
given little details which to some may seem trivial and unworthy of
note, but I give them to show existing conditions in sections of the
Confederacy through which we passed.
I do not feel that I am straying from the subject of this narrative of
prison experience in appending some facts concerning the treatment of
prisoners of war. It is only by laying before the people a frank and
faithful statement that we can overcome prejudice and hostile feeling,
and bring about that hearty reunion which is earnestly desired by all
who have the peace and prosperity of the country at heart.
I have before me a report of a sermon from the New York _Press_, May,
1909, in which a minister of the Gospel (?) residing within the limits
of Greater New York speaks of “_the infamous Captain Wirz_”--“_a
murderer_.” It is charitable to attribute such language from the lips
of a minister to ignorance rather than malice. Yet, while persons are
found who entertain and publicly express such sentiments, I cannot be
open to the charge of desiring to awaken and perpetuate bitter memories
if I seek to place on record the true history of Major Wirz, to refute
the falsehoods and misrepresentations which have crept into history and
are still believed by some.
When the grave questions which for years agitated our country had
reached the crisis, and there remained but the _ultima ratio regum_,
they were submitted to the arbitrament of the battlefield. We of the
South accepted the result of that contest and laid down our arms in
good faith. But when we are asked, like a whipped child, to say we were
wrong and are sorry for what we did, and promise to sin no more, it is
asking too much. We fought for what we considered our rights, and lost.
Yet our men, who fought and lost, and those who died in the struggle,
were just as brave and as honest as the men who wore the blue. _They_
fought for the Union, _we_ fought for our homes, for our wives and
our dear ones. For those of our dead who were consigned to death and
ignominy we do not ask pity, but only for that justice which was denied
them in life--that the blot upon their reputations be effaced and their
names stand out clear and stainless.
The little episode in relation to the Fairfax Court House raid will
need no apology for its introduction, as I have already had occasion to
refer to that affair in my diary.
The illustrations here given are from drawings made by my son, B. F.
Williamson.
JAMES J. WILLIAMSON.
_West Orange N. J., April, 1911._
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Old Capitol Prison [_Frontispiece_]
Exemption Certificate 16
Pass Through Confederate Lines 17
Carroll Prison (Duff Green’s Row) 21
Arch Window in Room No. 16 24
Colonel William P. Wood, Superintendent 33
James J. Williamson 39
Stove in Room No. 16 55
Map of James River, from Fortress Monroe to Richmond 93
John H. Barnes 96
Lieutenant Albert Wrenn 99
Colonel John S. Mosby 106
Lieutenant Frank Fox 109
Brigadier-General Edwin H. Stoughton 116
Certificate of Membership 118
Major Henry Wirz 133
Rev. F. E. Boyle 140
Rev. Bernardin F. Wiget, S. J. 143
Gunnell House (General Stoughton’s Headquarters) 155
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY 11
Maryland My Native State--Baltimore My
Home--Outbreak of Civil War--Leave Sick-bed
and Start for Seat of War--Wrecked on Railroad--Gala
Days in Richmond--Running the
Blockade.
PRISON LIFE IN THE OLD CAPITOL 19
My Arrest and Imprisonment--Description
and History of the Old Capitol--Iron-clad Oath.
_Diary Kept During My Imprisonment_: Daily
Routine--Men I Met There--Stories I Heard
There and General Features of Prison Life--Rations,
Recreations and Rules--How We Passed
Our Time--Fresh Fish--Paroles--Superintendent
Wood--Sundays in Prison--Belle Boyd--Gus
Williams--Shooting of Prisoners--An Old
Schoolmate--Blockade Runners--Outrages on
Citizens--Spies and Detectives--Old Men,
Women and Children Imprisoned--Western
Prisoners--Escape of Prisoners--Overcrowded,
Vermin and Smallpox.
OFF FOR DIXIE 89
From Old Capitol to Parole Camp to Await
Exchange--Down the Potomac on Flag-of-Truce
Boat to Fortress Monroe--Wrecks of United
States Warships Sunk in Fight With Confederate
Iron-clad _Virginia_ (_Merrimac_)--Steaming
Up James River--Jamestown--Westover, Residence
of Colonel William Byrd--City Point as it
then Looked--From City Point to Petersburg
and Model Farm Barracks, Parole Camp.
LIFE AT PAROLE CAMP 98
Short Rations and Little Comfort--Petersburg
in Spring of 1863--Change of Diet; Beans and
Brandy--Western Prisoners at Parole Camp
Complain of Hardships at Camp Chase, Camp
Douglas and Johnson’s Island; Cruelty of Guards
and Great Mortality Among Confederate
Prisoners--Exchanged and Mustered Into Confederate
Service--Bathe in Elk Licking Creek, Where We
Left Off Our Bad Habits and With Them a Host
of Little Attachments We Could Not Shake Off
in Prison--Leave Parole Camp.
ITINERARY OF JOURNEY FROM PAROLE CAMP TO UPPERVILLE 108
Richmond in the Spring of 1863--Gordonsville--Madison
Court House--Along Robertson
River--Crossing the Blue Ridge at Milani’s
Gap--Wild Road Over the Mountains--Tramping
Down the Valley--Along the Shenandoah--Luray
and Front Royal--On Old Manassas Gap Railroad--Halt
by the Wayside--Crossing Goose
Creek Under Difficulties--Reached Upperville,
Where I First Saw Mosby and Joined His Command--Meet
Old Friends and Fellow Prisoners.
List of Prisoners in Room 16, Old Capitol
Prison, During My Term of Imprisonment.
TREATMENT OF PRISONERS OF WAR 122
At Camp Chase, Camp Douglas and Johnson’s
Island--Efforts of Confederate Authorities to
Bring About Exchange--False Impression at the
North--United States Authorities Did Not Want
Exchange--Letter of Robert Ould to Major-General
Hitchcock--Letter of Ould to _National
Intelligencer_--Report of General Seymour to
Colonel Hoffman, Commissary-General of
Prisoners--General Ben Butler Tells How His Efforts
Were Frustrated--General Jubal A. Early
Comments on General Order No. 209, Issued by
War Department, Washington--Extracts from
Report of Committee of Confederate Congress
on Treatment of Prisoners of War--Publications
Issued by United States Authorities and Others
to Stir Up and Keep Alive War Spirit Among
Northern People--A Vindication of the South--About
Dead-lines.
MAJOR HENRY WIRZ, C. S. A. 131
_True History of the Wirz Case_: Sacrificed to
Gratify Malignity of Men in Authority and Pander
to the Passion of the Mob--Wirz Not Responsible
for Sufferings at Andersonville--Brief
Sketch of the Man--His Efforts to Better Condition
of Federal Prisoners--His Trial--Witnesses
Not Allowed to Testify in His Behalf--Letter
of General John D. Imboden--Letter of
Robert Ould--Rev. Father Whelan--Hired Witnesses
Swear Away the Life of Wirz--Condemned
on False Charges--Thirteen Specifications
of Men Said to Have Been Murdered by
Wirz, But Not One Named--Charged with Conspiracy
and Hanged, But no Other Conspirator
Punished--Offered His Freedom if He Would
Incriminate Hon. Jefferson Davis--Testimony of
Major Winder--Letter of Rev. Father Boyle--Wirz’s
Bearing at the Trial and on the Scaffold--His
Execution--Scenes at the Hanging--Rev.
Father Boyle and Father Wiget--Letter
from Wirz’s Wife Received After Termination
of His So-Called Trial--His Last Letter to His
Wife and Children.
DIARY KEPT BY WIRZ DURING HIS IMPRISONMENT AND TRIAL 147
MONUMENT TO WIRZ AT ANDERSONVILLE 152
FAIRFAX COURT HOUSE RAID AND CAPTURE OF GENERAL STOUGHTON 154
Interesting Incident Related by General Stoughton’s
Telegraph Operator--What the Chaplain of
Fifth New York Cavalry Said of this Raid--Sergeant
James F. Ames (Big Yankee).
INTRODUCTORY
Prison life was much the same North or South in its general features,
having its discomforts and privations, its days of worry, its longings
and its disappointments, combined with that chafing under restraint,
which is a feeling common to all men. Yet the sufferings of prisoners
could have been alleviated in the North to a greater degree than was
possible at the South, where in most cases the distress was due to
lack of means to relieve it. The Confederate Government could not do
for Federal prisoners what it was unable to do for its own soldiers or
people.
It is not strange that when the flood of war swept over the country I
should plunge into its turbulent waters and be carried along with the
current. This martial spirit was inherited and fostered from the cradle
up. My grandmother came to this country from Ireland in the stormy days
of the rebellion of 1798. When but a little child I would sit by her
side for hours, drinking in, like a heated, thirsty traveler, the wild
stories of the exciting scenes she had witnessed there, and listening
to the pathetic recital of the wrongs of her loved country and its
people. And at night I would drop off to sleep on her lap with the old
Irish rebel songs of ’98 murmuring a lullaby in my baby ears.
It was only natural, too, that I should be enlisted on the Southern
side. I was born in Baltimore, and it was there I passed the early
years of my life. My father, James J. Williamson, had the distinction
of designing and building the first clipper ship ever constructed--the
clipper ship _Ann McKim_, built in Baltimore in 1832, for the old
house of Isaac McKim, of Baltimore. The history of Maryland, with the
record of the heroic deeds of the Old Maryland Line in the War of the
Revolution, had always possessed a charm for me above all other books.
It was my greatest pride to know that I was a Marylander and that
Baltimore was my home.
When I became of age I went to Washington and obtained a position in
the Government Printing Office, where I remained until the breaking out
of the war.
In the spring of 1861, the Federal troops were ordered to march on
Washington. When the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment was attacked while
passing through Baltimore, I was ill, in bed and under the doctor’s
care. The next day my mother brought into my room the morning paper and
read to me an account of the fighting in Baltimore, and of the threats
made to invade my native State and bombard and destroy Baltimore. I
felt all the youthful fire within me blazing with fury. The warm blood
coursing in my veins carried with it a force which seemed to give an
almost unnatural strength to my feeble body, weakened by a painful
illness. I was seized with a desire to rush at once to the scene of
action. I felt that the bed was no place for me--that I must rouse
myself to meet the issue--that my dear old mother State was calling for
her sons, and I would not let that call go unheeded, but must hasten on
to help guard that sacred soil upon which I had received my being and
in which reposed the ashes of those who were most near and dear to me.
I felt all that enthusiasm with which the Southern hearts were filled
when their States were invaded and their cities and their homes laid
waste. Old Maryland was invaded--I did not care by whom--for whoever
came with hostile intent was an enemy, and her enemies were mine.
I said:
“I am going to Baltimore.”
“When?” asked my mother.
“I will start to-morrow morning.” My mother left the room without reply
to what she thought were idle words.
When the doctor came for his morning visit, my mother said:
“What do you think this boy says? He says he is going to Baltimore.”
“Let him go,” said the doctor, with an incredulous smile.
The next morning when he came, expecting to find me in bed, my mother
said: “Well, Doctor, he has gone to Baltimore.”
The doctor shook his head, and replied, “It will either kill or cure
him.” And it cured him. The day I left my bed I went to Baltimore, and
a week after that I was in Richmond.
When I reached Baltimore trains were running to and from the city
without interruption, but troops were being rushed to Washington, and
it was seen that Baltimore would soon be surrounded and hemmed in by
Federal troops, and it would then be difficult to leave the city, so
I left for Harper’s Ferry, where I understood a body of Confederate
troops were already in camp. From Harper’s Ferry I went, via Strasburg,
to Manassas. There I found a few regiments of Confederates assembled.
From Manassas I started on train for Richmond.
Between Culpeper and Orange Court House we unfortunately came in
collision with a train carrying infantry and a battery of artillery to
Manassas. Both trains were on the same track and coming from opposite
directions. There was a head-on collision; the two engines crashed into
each other and the cars telescoped. There were fourteen killed outright
and a great number wounded, many fatally.
I was sitting in the rear car, talking to a man who stood holding on to
the rear door of the car. When I felt the shock I saw him shoot past me
and down the aisle, between the seats. That night, when I arrived at
Gordonsville, I went to a house, seeking lodgings for the night, and to
my surprise, when the door was opened and the gentleman of the house
stood before me, although his head was bandaged and his arm in a sling,
I recognized in him the man I was conversing with at the time of the
accident.
In Richmond I found a number of acquaintances from Baltimore. A great
many young men were coming in from Maryland, some of whom had been
comrades in military companies in Baltimore, and soon a couple of
companies were organized to be united to a regiment then forming at
Harper’s Ferry, which afterward gained honorable distinction as the
First Maryland Regiment.
Richmond had already put on a military air. In the throngs on the
streets a major part of the male population appeared in stylish
uniforms. These were the gay days in Richmond.
Troops were arriving from the South and West, passing through on their
way to the seat of war. I was particularly struck with the appearance
of the Louisiana troops in their holiday dress, marching proudly along,
with bands playing inspiring martial airs; the drum-major leading off
with stately tread, waving his staff. Tripping gaily after came the
sprightly vivandieres, their dainty little caps tipped saucily to one
side, their shapely ankles peeping from beneath the folds of their
short skirts, and the little keg at their side hanging by a fancy cord
thrown over the shoulder.
At the outbreak of the war the men came out as they had been accustomed
to “play soldiers”--attired in gaudy uniforms, with gay colors, bright,
shining gun barrels and flashing bayonets. The Zouaves with their red
breeches, their red caps or turbans, their gilt braids and chevrons.
These soon gave way to less showy trappings. The jaunty caps were
exchanged for the Kossuth felt hat, the showy jackets, with their rich
gilt braid and trimmings, were replaced by the unpretentious blouse,
and the flaming red breeches were now conspicuous by their absence, and
in their stead comfortable, though less attractive, garments were worn.
The bright gun barrels and flashing bayonets even were found to be no
more efficient than those dulled by age and use, whose somber hue did
not present such a shining mark for a watchful sharpshooter.
In the house where I had taken board there was a gentleman who was
employed in the printing office doing the work of the State and
Confederate Governments. Learning that I had been in the Government
Printing Office in Washington, he said they would be glad to have
me at this office. I told him I expected to join my friends from
Baltimore; that we were anxious to be together in the Confederate army.
He said, “You can be of service on this work just now, and we are badly
in want of help.” I accordingly went to Ritchie & Dunnavant’s, the
parties having charge of this work.
Soon after this my wife ran the blockade and joined me in Richmond.
[Illustration: CERTIFICATE OF EXEMPTION
These were furnished to save annoyance from provost-guards or
Conscript officers.]
After a time, owing to the strict blockade, the fighting around
Richmond, and the scarcity of the necessaries of life, the sufferings
of the people were becoming more serious every day. I felt that while
it was a matter of love and duty on my part to endure these hardships
without murmuring, and to contribute all my efforts to the attainment
of the success of our cause, still I had no right to impose upon others
an amount of distress which they were not called upon to undergo, and
which could in no wise aid in the accomplishment of that object, but
was simply adding to the number of non-combatants who were consuming
the scanty store of supplies without contributing to their increase.
Taking this view of the situation, I decided to run the blockade, and
after getting my wife and children safely outside of the lines, where
they would be properly cared for and have those comforts which I could
not obtain for them in Richmond, I could then take chances for my
return to the scene of duty.
[Illustration: PASS THROUGH CONFEDERATE LINES]
I procured a pass for myself, wife and children through the Confederate
lines, and, traveling in the most primitive fashion, striking out
from Hanover Junction, crossed the Rappahannock River, and reached
Westmoreland Court House one summer evening, in an ox-cart. We waited
at the Potomac River for a favorable opportunity to cross without too
great risk of capture by one of the United States gunboats patroling
the river, and then crossed in an open boat to Stone’s Landing, on the
Maryland side. Here we were very comfortable, with a nice breakfast
of fish and oysters fresh from the water, until the steamboat came
along which was to take us to Washington. There were a number of Union
officers and soldiers on the boat, but having my wife and little
children with me I suppose averted whatever suspicion they might
otherwise have entertained, and we reached Washington without any
mishap.
PRISON LIFE IN THE OLD CAPITOL
On the evening of Saturday, January 31, 1863, between seven and eight
o’clock, an officer in full uniform, but unarmed, came into a bookstore
on Seventh Street, Washington, D. C., where I was then engaged, and
asked for the proprietor, Mr. Russell. I pointed out Russell. The
officer then asked him if he knew a Mr. Williamson. Russell answered,
“Yes.”
“Is he a printer?” asked the officer.
“Yes.”
“Is he the only one of that name that you know?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“There he is,” answered Russell, pointing toward me.
The officer walked over to me and said:
“Sir, you will have to come along with me.”
“All right,” said I.
He then went to the door and called in a soldier he had left standing
guard outside, and said:
“Take charge of that man.”
I asked the officer if I would be permitted to call at my home in
order to acquaint my family with the cause of my absence. He said I
would not; that I must go to the Provost-Marshal’s office. I obtained
permission to send a note to my wife, stating that I was under arrest.
Putting on my hat and coat, I was marched to the corner of Eighth
Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Here we halted, and the officer called
out to another soldier, who stood there holding his sword, which he
took from the man and buckled on. Placing me between the two guards, we
all marched up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Provost-Marshal’s office. The
Marshal was not in, but his assistant said:
“Do you belong in Washington?”
“I do,” said I.
“Haven’t you been South lately?”
“Yes,” I said; “I came from Richmond on the third of last August.”
“Have you reported yourself to the military authorities?”
“I have not.”
He next asked me if I would take the oath of allegiance to the
Government. I told him I would not; that I could not think of doing
so. He said I would have time enough to think about it, as it might be
necessary to do so before I could obtain my release. That I was charged
with having been in Richmond, and also with being accessory to the
imprisonment of some Union citizens.
I again asked if I would be permitted to go home under escort of a
guard, so as to acquaint my family with the cause of my absence and
also to get a change of clothing and some few articles necessary for me
during the time I might be kept under arrest. This request was denied,
and I was marched off under guard to the Old Capitol Prison, at the
corner of First and A Streets.
The building known as the Old Capitol had a memorable history. Built
in 1800, it was originally designed for a tavern or boarding-house,
but owing to bad management it proved a failure and was closed shortly
before the War of 1812.
In August, 1814, when the British troops under General Ross entered
Washington, they burned the Capitol and other public buildings, and the
Government bought this old tavern or boarding-house, in which Congress
should hold their sessions and public business be transacted until the
Capitol could be rebuilt.
[Illustration: CARROLL PRISON (DUFF GREEN’S ROW)]
The interior of the building was completely renovated and
reconstructed, and here both Houses sat for a number of years. Within
its walls two Presidents were inaugurated, and here some of our most
distinguished statesmen began their careers. It was in this building
the Hon. John C. Calhoun died.
When it was abandoned by Congress upon the completion of the Capitol,
it was called the “Old Capitol,” as a distinctive title. After that it
underwent a number of changes as boarding-house, school, etc., until,
in 1861, it was taken by the Washington authorities to be used as a
prison.
A row of houses on the adjoining block, known as Duff Green’s Row, was
afterward taken and used as an annex to the Old Capitol, and for the
same purpose. It was called the “Carroll Prison.”
On arriving at the Old Capitol, we were halted at the entrance by
the sentry patroling the pavement in front of the prison door, who
called out with a loud voice, “Corporal of the guard; Post No. 1.”
This brought out the corporal, with his musket at his shoulder, and he
escorted us inside.
Entering the prison from First Street, we passed through a broad
hallway, which was used as a guard room, and thence into a room where
prisoners were first taken to be questioned and searched. I found the
lieutenant in charge more courteous than any of those in whose custody
I had been. After receiving my commitment from the guard who brought
me from the Provost-Marshal’s office, he inquired if I had any arms
or other prohibited goods in my possession. I replied that the only
article I had which might come within the forbidden class was a small
pocket-knife, which I took from my pocket and handed him. He smiled as
he gave it back, and made no further search. He asked me if I had been
to supper, and receiving a negative reply, led me to a dirty, dismal
room, which I afterward learned was the mess-room. Here, grouped around
a big stove was a gang of negroes, one of whom, at the lieutenant’s
command, brought out a chunk of beef, a slice of bread over an inch
thick, and a cup of coffee (?), sweetened, but without milk. This was
set out on a table, of what material constructed it was impossible to
determine on account of the accumulation of dirt. The meat was served
in a tin plate which looked as though it might have been through the
Peninsular campaign.
Though I failed, no doubt, to do full justice to the repast set before
me by the good-natured lieutenant, I certainly appreciated his good
intentions and his honest efforts to entertain me with the best at his
command.
The lieutenant sat and talked with me for some time before taking me
to my room. He asked me if I would take the oath of allegiance to the
Government. I told him I would not. He asked if I would be willing to
take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States. “Yes,”
said I, “but not an oath to support the Government or Administration.”
He asked if I were living in a Northern city and came to Washington and
went into business, would I in that case take the oath. I told him I
would not. I said, “If I were in the South, even, and that iron-clad
oath” (as it was called) “was offered to me, I would not take it.”[A]
He then accompanied me upstairs to Room No. 16, and here, after the
door was unlocked, I was ushered into my future quarters. I was
welcomed and introduced by one of my fellow-prisoners to the others of
the party, some of whom had been brought in that same day.
[Illustration: WINDOW IN ROOM 16]
Room No. 16 was a spacious room, with one very large arch window
opposite the door from which the room was entered. This window was
directly over the main entrance to the building on First Street, and
in by-gone days it lighted up the former Senate Chamber. In the middle
of the room a huge cylinder stove formed the centerpiece, while around
and against the walls were twenty-one bunks or berths, arranged in
three tiers, one above the other. There were a couple of pine tables,
each about five feet long, with a miscellaneous collection of chairs,
benches and home-made apologies for seats.
When the building was used as the Capitol, this floor contained the
Senate and House of Representatives, but after its abandonment by
Congress the floor was cut up into five rooms, now numbered from 14
to 18--No. 16 being the largest. The doors of all opened into a large
hall, from which a broad stairway led to the floor below.
After spending a couple of hours in swapping stories and getting better
acquainted, the whole party adjourned to their up-and-downy beds.
_Sunday, February 1, 1863._--My first night in my new quarters was a
very uncomfortable one. An old blanket spread over the hard boards,
with a piece of wood morticed in at the head for a pillow, was the
bed on which I was expected to sleep. All night the steady tramp of
the sentry up and down the hall outside of our room door, with the
clanking of arms, the challenging of the guards and the calls of the
relief through the night, kept me awake, until at last tired nature
gave way and the god of sleep closed my weary eyes. How long I slept I
know not, but when I woke it was as if awaking from a troubled dream.
I looked around at my surroundings and then lay down again on my bunk,
pondering on the events of the past night. After a while I got up and
took a wash. There was but little time required for dressing. Soon
the door was thrown open and there was a call to breakfast. Being
totally unacquainted with the daily routine, I mechanically followed
the crowd, without knowing where it would lead me. It led me to the
mess-room. It might have led me to a worse place, but it would have
been difficult to find.
It was a long, dirty, gloomy-looking room, with nothing in its
appearance to tempt the appetite, and the food looked as though
served at second-hand. The odor which assailed the nostrils seemed
as if coming from an ancient garbage heap. The waiter stood at the
head of the long board table, with a handful of tin cups filled with
a liquid by courtesy called coffee. He would, with a dextrous twist
of the wrist, send them spinning along down the table, leaving each
man to catch one of the flying cups before it slid past. Fortunately,
the waiter had by practice acquired sufficient skill to enable him
to shoot a cup in your direction without spilling more than one-half
of its contents. With this was served a chunk of beef and a slice of
bread. The beef was left untouched by those who had the privilege and
the means of providing their own food, but the bread was good, and a
generous slice. I saw my companions slipping their quota of bread under
the breasts of their coats, and I did the same.
After a half-hour’s recreation in the prison yard, we went back to our
rooms and were locked in. In our room a table was spread and we had
breakfast of ham, sausage, bread, butter and tea.
Room No. 16 faces the east front of the Capitol, and by standing or
sitting back a short distance from the window we can look out and see
the passers-by. No persons, however, are allowed to show any signs of
recognition. If a person is seen loitering in passing the prison, or
walking at a pace not considered satisfactory by the guard, he soon
receives a peremptory command to “pass on,” or, “Hurry up, there,” and
if this warning is not heeded the offending person, whether male or
female, is arrested and detained.
This morning, two gentlemen walking down on the opposite side of the
street, looked across and smiled. One of my room-mates raised his hat
and bowed. One of the gentlemen did the same. Immediately we heard the
sentry under the window call out: “Corporal of the guard, Post No. 1,”
and an officer coming out, the person was pointed out, with the remark,
“That man bowed over here.” A guard was instantly dispatched after him,
and he was brought over, but was released in a short time.
Dinner to-day consisted of boiled beans and rusty-looking fat pork,
with molasses (the molasses thin as water), served up in a dirty tin
plate. There being neither knife, fork nor spoon given out with it, the
only way the mixture could be eaten was by dipping it up with the bread
and thus conveying it to the mouth.
When we went back to our room we prepared dinner from our own supply of
provisions.
This afternoon three young ladies passing the prison looked over very
pleasantly at the prisoners, who were in sight at the window, much to
the displeasure of the guard, who stopped his walk and stood watching
them. Finally, one of them smiled and nodded her head. At this moment
came the call--“Corporal of the guard, Post No. 1.” The young ladies
had by this time reached the corner of the street. Turning around and
seeing the soldier coming after them, they waved their handkerchiefs
and ran down the street. The sentry, after picking his way through the
mud across the street, turned back and gave up the chase.
For supper we had a piece of bread, without butter, and a cup of coffee
(?), without milk.
The bill of fare here given for the three meals of this day would
serve, with but little variation, for the entire time of my detention.
One of the prisoners, a Confederate soldier, whom I met in the yard
to-day, told me that he was just recovering from a fever, and although
he had an excellent appetite, his stomach was weak and he could not eat
the food set before him; that as he had no money to purchase anything
else, he was compelled to go hungry.
With the exception of the bread, which is good (thanks to
Superintendent Wood), the food dealt out here is poor in quality and
insufficient in quantity. I noticed some of the boxes were marked
“White House,” from which I inferred the contents were condemned army
stores.
Those who can afford to do so club together and, having obtained
permission, purchase such articles as the sutler will procure for them.
The goods kept in stock by this dignitary are neither very choice nor
varied, chiefly tobacco, cigars, cakes, candy, pies, etc. For our
mess in Room 16, we select one man as treasurer, and he purchases our
supplies, such as coffee, tea, sugar, cheese, and he occasionally has
a large ham boiled. All of these articles the sutler furnishes at
prices far beyond their market value; but we are glad to get them, and
compelled from necessity to submit to the extortion.
Prisoners having money or friends outside of the prison can obtain
many necessaries and enjoy comforts which are denied those less
fortunate. A friend (Mrs. Ennis), living near the prison, sends dinner
in to me every day. There is always enough to feed three or four
abundantly, and none of it is ever wasted.
We take turns in the household work--cooking and cleaning up--two men
being detailed for this duty each day. It is unnecessary to say our
cooking arrangements are very simple.
In our room there are two, one, I think, a Yankee deserter, known as
“Dutchy” and “Slim Jim,” who are unable to contribute their quota to
the commissary fund, but as they can make a pot of coffee or tea, and
wield a broom or wash a dirty dish, they are always ready to make
up their deficit by taking the place of room-mates afflicted with
hook-worm or victims of inertia.
Having our meals in our own room, we can take the whole half-hour
allowed at meal time for recreation in the prison yard, which gives
us an opportunity to mingle with prisoners from other rooms than our
own. This meeting of old friends and comrades, and the making of new
acquaintances, is a source of great pleasure to us and a relief from
the monotony of what would otherwise be the dull routine of prison life.
_Monday, Feb. 2._--To-night two men were brought into our room. They
say they were employed in General Halleck’s office, and are confined
here for absenting themselves without leave. They are looked upon with
suspicion by our party, who fear they may be spies.
Persons are often put in the rooms with prisoners, who, while posing
as prisoners themselves, are really spies or detectives in the employ
of the officials. They associate with the prisoners in their rooms,
and also in the yard during the time allowed for recreation, and by
assuming an air of injured innocence as victims of oppression, seek to
gain their confidence with the intention of betraying them. If they
can succeed in overcoming their suspicions and induce the prisoners
to speak freely, these detectives report the conversations to their
employers.
_Wednesday, Feb. 4._--Superintendent Wood said last night that he would
allow the party in Room 16 (as they were not satisfied with the prison
fare), if they preferred it, to receive the money in lieu of rations,
and supply themselves. This was agreed to.
Mr. James Fullerton came to see me to-day. An official seated himself
directly in front of us during the interview, and when Mr. Fullerton
proceeded to ask me if I had any idea as to the person who had me
arrested, the official interrupted him, saying he would be allowed to
speak only of family affairs. Mr. Fullerton said he only wished to find
out something of the nature of the charges against me, in order to
furnish rebutting testimony. He was twice interrupted while attempting
to ask me questions.
I had written a note to my wife, asking her to send me a change of
clothing and some articles necessary here, for even with frequent
changes it is difficult to keep free from vermin. To-day I asked Mr.
Drew, the clerk, if it had been sent. He said, “Why, you have sent her
all the word you wanted to send.” I said, “I have sent nothing but the
note which you still retain.” “Oh, then,” said he, “I will send that.
I thought you had written before.” Had I not called his attention to
this note it would not have been delivered.
This was the first and last letter I sent out during my term
of imprisonment, as I found all letters had to go first to the
Provost-Marshal’s office for inspection, and then it was doubtful when
they would reach their destination, if at all. A young man named Hurst
wrote a letter to his father, who was residing in Washington City, and
nine days passed before it was delivered.
A young man named Moore died to-night in one of the adjoining rooms. He
was arrested without any specific charge. Though he was very ill at the
time, he was marched eight miles. This proved too great a strain for
him, and he died soon after his arrival here. His poor old mother was
with him at the time of his death. Knowing his condition, and fearing
he would not survive the effects of the long journey, she followed
after. She was greatly excited. Throwing up her hands, she exclaimed:
“I have lost all. I am ruined. My poor boy was all that was left to me,
and now you have robbed me of him. But if there is a just God He will
not suffer my wrongs to go unpunished.”
Towering up in front of our window rises the stately dome of the
Capitol, its top being prepared for the statue of “Freedom.” What a
contrast! What a spectacle from a prison window!
Some newspapers received to-night contain rumors from Charleston of the
raising of the blockade, and also accounts of some dashing exploits
of Wheeler’s Cavalry, consequently there is great rejoicing among
the Confederate prisoners, who can scarcely contain themselves. The
news soon spread, and cheers were given in every room where they are
confined. The officers on duty were very lenient, and went around
endeavoring to quiet the prisoners, saying the noise sounded badly in
the street, and had a damaging effect. Some of the guards, however,
were in a very ugly mood, and as one of our men went from the room to
get water, one of the soldiers on guard made a wicked thrust at him
with his bayonet.
_Thursday, Feb. 5._--Snowing hard this morning and continuing until
evening, when it turned to rain.
Received parcel to-day from home, containing clothing, etc.
Every day from eight to twelve wagons pass the prison, laden with dead
horses and mules, from the camps around Washington. From this alone one
can form an idea of the number of animals used up by the army.
_Friday, Feb. 6._--Colonel Doster, Provost-Marshal, paid a visit to the
prison to-night. He came into our room. On being asked by Mr. Hunter
concerning his case, he said: “Gentlemen, your cases have all been
decided by military governors.”
_Sunday, Feb. 8._--A great many ladies and gentlemen pass and repass
the prison, many merely from curiosity, perhaps, and the guards are
very vigilant to see that they exchange no signals or glances with
prisoners. This afternoon two ladies bowed to our window, and a
corporal was sent after them. He followed them about half a block, and
we could see him talking to them for some little time, but he came back
without them.
A little later, two old gentlemen stopped on the street opposite the
prison. One of them took from his pocket a small spy-glass, which he
applied to his eye and took a careful survey of the building, to the
great discomfort of the sentry, who called to him several times to pass
on. The old gentleman paid no attention to the call, and the sentry
asked the officer if he should arrest him. The old man then coolly put
up his glass, waved his hand and passed on.
[Illustration: COLONEL WILLIAM P. WOOD, SUPERINTENDENT]
To-day being Sunday, the superintendent, Mr. Wood,[B] went through the
prison, making the announcement at each door, that all who wished to
hear the Gospel according to Jeff Davis could go down to the yard,
where a Secesh preacher would give it to them (this was the Rev. Mr.
Landstreet, a Confederate chaplain, who is imprisoned here), and all
who wanted to hear the Lord God according to Abe Lincoln could be
accommodated in Room 16.
Mr. Wood professes to be an infidel, and therefore, while his partisan
feelings are very strong on the question of duty and devotion to the
Union cause, he is not disposed to view it from a Gospel standpoint.
I have heard, however, that he was born and baptized in the Catholic
Church, but left it, and in the days of Know-Nothingism became a
prominent leader in that party. I went down to the yard, not so much to
hear the reverend preacher (though my preference, if any, would have
led me to select him) as to enjoy a smoke and a social chat with some
of my friends from the other rooms.
_Monday, Feb. 9._--The Tenth New Jersey Regiment is the prison guard
here. Among them are many who combine the qualities of soldier and
gentleman, but there are some who lack both. The latter, I am glad to
say, are in the minority.
Last night before going to our bunks, we were shaking the coal stove.
The grate was choked and it was hard to rake out. A guard was sent up
to the room, and one said gruffly:
“What is all this noise about?”
“We are raking the stove,” said one of our party.
“No, you are not,” replied the fellow; “I know what you are doing--you
are dancing, and if I hear any more of it, some of you will get in the
guard house.” Being prisoners, we have to submit to this insolence.
This morning, as I was standing at the window looking out, I heard
the sentinel on the sidewalk under the window order a prisoner in the
next room to go from the window, or he would get a ball through him.
I was standing about a foot back from the bars when the sentry, an
ill-looking fellow, called out to me:
“Get away from that window.”
“I am not touching the bars,” said I. I had been told by prisoners long
confined in the Old Capitol that a prisoner was permitted to look out
of the window so long as he did not touch the bars.
“I will put a ball through you, damn you,” said the brute, at the same
time cocking his gun and aiming at me. As I thought the cowardly rascal
might shoot, and I would only be exposing myself foolishly, I drew back.
When I related this affair to a fellow-prisoner, Mr. Augustus
Williams, he told me that he was a prisoner in the Old Capitol at the
time young Wharton was shot, and his room was on the same floor.
It was either in the latter part of March or first of April, 1862,
that Jesse W. Wharton, a young man about twenty-five or twenty-six
years of age, son of Professor Wharton, of Prince George County, Md.,
was deliberately murdered by a man belonging to the 91st Pennsylvania
Regiment, then on guard duty at the prison. Wharton was standing at
the window of his room when the sentry called out to him: “Get away
from that window, or I will blow your damned head off.” Wharton turned
away, walked across the room and again stood at the window as before.
The guard, on seeing him, repeated his command, or words to the same
effect. Wharton, feeling that as he was violating no rule the guard
would not attempt to carry out his threat, paid no further attention,
but stood with his arms folded. The sentry (I cannot call him soldier)
fired, and the ball struck Wharton in the left hand, passed through
the right arm, breaking the bone of the elbow, entered the right side,
coming out near the spine. He staggered, and would have fallen, but
some of his fellow-prisoners caught him and lowered him gently to the
floor. He lingered for seven or eight hours. Before he died he called
for the lieutenant commanding the post, and when he came in, the dying
man said: “I am dying, and you are the man who caused my death.” He
said he heard the lieutenant give the man the order to fire.
Williams also mentioned another case, that of Harry Stewart, son of
Dr. Frederick Stewart, of Baltimore, a young man less than twenty-five
years of age. He had been to Richmond, and on his return was arrested
as a spy and sent to the Old Capitol. One of the sentinels, a member
of the 86th Regiment New York Volunteers, agreed for a bribe of fifty
dollars to allow him to escape by lowering himself from the window to
the pavement below. Stewart waited until the hour appointed, when this
particular sentry should be on guard. He then let himself out of the
window and was lowered but a few feet when the sentry cried, “Halt!”
and fired, the ball striking Stewart’s right leg, splintering the
knee-bone. He was quickly drawn up by his room-mates, and the prison
surgeon amputated the limb. The shock was too great, however, and he
died in a short time after the operation. The money (fifty dollars) was
found in his pocket, wrapped up in paper, upon which was written, “This
is the money I promised you.”
Augustus Williams, to whom I am indebted for these facts, is a citizen
of Fairfax County, Virginia. Living near Vienna, and being within
the Union lines, he was arrested and taken to the Old Capitol. There
being no charge against him, except refusal to take the oath, he
was released after a short term of imprisonment. Going back to his
home, he was again picked up by the first party of troops raiding in
his neighborhood, and returned to the Old Capitol. This occurred so
frequently that Superintendent Wood came to look upon him as a regular
visitor, and would greet him on his arrival with a handshake, and say:
“Hello, Gus; you’re back again. You couldn’t stay away from us very
long.”
“No,” he would reply. “You fellows treat me so well when I am here. And
then, it’s such a nice trip to go back home by way of Fortress Monroe
and Richmond.”
Some of the prisoners who have gone out recently are suspected of
having purchased their freedom at a cash valuation.
A man named George Hammett was brought in on Saturday night with
a number of prisoners. He was captured on the Potomac River, and
is charged with attempting to run the blockade. He was called down
from the room this morning, and on his return said that he told
Superintendent Wood he was willing to take the oath. Wood told him that
hereafter no one would be released on simply taking the oath; that he
might be released on payment of a sum of money--from one to six hundred
dollars. These blockade runners, I suppose, are thought to have money,
and this, no doubt, is but a plan to extort money from them.
Emanuel Weiler was released to-day. He was taken with Aaron J. King on
charge of carrying contraband goods.
_Tuesday, Feb. 10._--This morning two ladies passing the building bowed
to prisoners at our window. A guard was sent out and brought them in.
They were released after fifteen or twenty minutes’ detention, Brave
soldiers! How fortunate the weather continues cool so that the ladies
cannot _bare_ arms, as it might interfere with the prison arrangements,
making it necessary to double the guard in order to insure the safe
keeping of the prisoners and protect our timorous guards.
After dinner a guard came into the room and escorted me down before
Captain Parker, who told me to take a seat, while he proceeded to look
over a paper he held in his hand.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“I have resided in this city for the past seven or eight years,” I
answered.
“Where were you born?”
[Illustration: _James Williamson_
From picture taken in 1861]
“I was born in Baltimore and lived there until I came to Washington.”
“What is your occupation?”
“Printer; but since November I have been engaged in a bookstore on
Seventh Street.”
“You have been South during the war?”
“Yes.”
“What were you doing there?”
“I was employed at Ritchie & Dunnavant’s.” (Ritchie & Dunnavant did the
printing for the State and Confederate governments).
“Do you know Henry Howe?”
“I do, sir.”
“Did you ever have any difficulty with him?”
“I did. Mr. Howe and a man named Daniels came to Richmond while I was
there. They took board at a house kept by Mrs. Graves, on Franklin
Street, where I was boarding. On the night of July 3d or 4th, I had
a sum of money stolen from my pockets. Mr. Howe and his friend slept
in the room adjoining mine. The door between the rooms was left open,
while the doors leading from the rooms into the hall were locked. The
pants, in the pockets of which I had the money, were hung on a hook
near the door, and in the morning the money was gone. Mr. Howe had
been boarding in the house for about five weeks without paying any
board. That morning he and his friend Daniels left and went to another
boarding-house. Before leaving, Howe told Mrs. Graves he would not take
his baggage away until he paid her all he owed. He put his clothes in
Daniels’ trunk, and they left with one trunk. The next day Daniels
came to me and said: ‘Howe has stolen your money. You know, he had
none before he left, and now he has plenty, and he is lying in a beer
house on Main Street, drunk.’ I took Daniels to a detective, to whom he
repeated this story. The detective arrested Howe. He was kept in prison
for about a week. When brought before the Mayor of Richmond (Joseph
Mayo) for final examination, the Mayor said:
“‘I am confident one of you two men took that money, but as there are
two of you, it is possible one may be innocent, therefore I am obliged
to release you both. But I will give you twenty-four hours to leave the
city, and if you do not leave within that time I will have you arrested
under this act (reading them the vagrant act) and put to work in the
chain-gang.’”
“Have you ever taken an oath of allegiance to the South?” asked Captain
Parker.
“No, sir,” I replied.
“Would you take an oath to this government?”
“No, sir; I would not.”
“That is very strange. That you will not take an oath to support a
government under whose flag you live and which protects you. And you
born in Maryland, a loyal State, as she has proved to be by the vote of
her people.”
As I was a prisoner in his hands, I knew it would be folly on my part
to enter into an argument on this question, but I said:
“I will not take an oath of allegiance. You take an oath of office
which is binding on you so long as you hold office, but you ask me to
take an oath of perpetual allegiance--‘_at any and all times hereafter,
and under all circumstances_.’ You have shown no act of mine to prove
me disloyal, and I think you have no right to demand such oath.”
“Your refusal to take the oath is sufficient proof of your disloyalty.
How long have you been here, sir?”
“A week last Saturday. I was arrested and brought here, and have not
been able to learn either the name of my accuser or the nature of the
accusation.”
“I will inform you, then, that Mr. Howe is the principal witness
against you. I have done with you for to-day, sir.”
I then left him and went back to my room. Here one man is judge, jury
and witness.
There are a number of men here in close confinement. We can see them as
they are taken out in the yard daily in charge of a guard. None of the
other prisoners are allowed to speak to them.
I have been fascinated with the reading of Byron’s “Prisoner of
Chillon” and with Dumas’ picture of the “Man With the Iron Mask,” of
the mysteries and miseries of the Bastile, and the wretched prisoners
who were immured within its dismal walls. I have felt my blood tingle
when I read of men who had not been convicted of any crime, and, in
some instances, who had committed no crime, yet had been confined for
years--often uncared for and forgotten, under the infamous system
of the _lettre de cachet_. I regarded them mostly as sensational
stories--as fiction--but here the picture is faithfully copied--the
_lettre de cachet_, the prison, the murder--all here in the stern
reality.
Many persons confined here were arrested, robbed of everything they
possessed, and kept merely on suspicion for weeks, and even months,
without examination or trial, and sometimes, after an examination and
no proof of charges, being still detained.
The occupants of the rooms on the same floor with Room 16 (Rooms 14,
15 and 18), are mostly farmers from Virginia, living either within
the Union lines or on disputed territory. Because of their refusal to
take the oath of allegiance, they are arrested and brought to the Old
Capitol. They were robbed of their personal property, their negroes run
off, and in many instances their houses and farm buildings destroyed.
Among the prisoners with me in Room 16 is an old gentleman named Henry
Love. He and his son Llewellyn are both prisoners. The old gentleman
seems completely broken down. In telling me the story of his treatment,
he said:
“I kept a hotel, and also farmed, near Dumfries, Virginia. I had a farm
of 200 acres, all under cultivation, except about 25 acres in wood. My
house was taken by Federal troops and used as a hospital, leaving me
only three rooms for myself and family. They killed seventeen head of
cattle, some of the finest cows you ever saw; my stock was all choice
breeds. One cow, with her second calf, was killed, her hindquarters cut
off, and the balance, with the calf, left to rot. They killed forty
hogs, took two of my best horses, Black Hawks, killed all my poultry;
took two stacks of hay, two entire crops of corn, wheat and oats,
and two hundred and seventy pounds of bacon. They destroyed all my
shrubbery and fences. My place is now as bare as the palm of your hand.”
He was afterward taken prisoner, then released on parole, but is now
again under arrest. He was called before Parker, who told him there
were no charges against him, but as he was a Secessionist he would have
to keep him for a while.
Another is James Johnson, of Clarke County, Virginia, who was taken
from his home by a raiding party. He was robbed of everything, his
horse stolen, and he has been kept a prisoner for two months. He is
sick all the time; appears to be in an advanced stage of consumption.
Mr. Redmond Brawner, who lived at Manassas, lost everything, and he,
with his family, were compelled to become refugees. He was arrested,
and is now a prisoner here.
Mr. James F. Kerfoot, of Millwood, Clarke County, Virginia, when
arrested was buying cattle for the Confederate Government. He had in
his possession $18,000 belonging to the Government and $400 of his own
money. He was stripped of everything.
Another of my room-mates is Mr. George S. Ayre, of Loudoun County,
Virginia. At the outbreak of the war he was a wealthy farmer and
cattle dealer. He owned one of the finest improved farms in the
county and slaves enough to cultivate it. The army under General
Geary camped in the neighborhood of his farm, and one day loaded up
twenty-six four-horse wagons with corn and provender, and in return the
quartermaster gave receipts. Since then he has suffered at the hands of
raiding parties, and now is arrested and imprisoned here.
[Mr. Ayre was released a short time before I was and returned to
his home. In the Fall of 1863, General Hunter threatened Lynchburg,
where Mr. Ayre had a quantity of tobacco stored. Fearing it might be
destroyed, he went South, disposed of it, and started for home with
the proceeds of the sale. When near James City, in Culpeper County,
he met a scouting party from Meade’s army, who first carried him to
headquarters and then to Washington, where the Provost-Marshal took
from him his money, amounting to $80,000 in Virginia money, a $1,000
bond, and some valuable papers, and held him as a hostage for a
Captain Samuel Steers, who was captured by Mosby’s men. He was held a
prisoner for nine months.
His slaves all remained with him, and he continued to cultivate his
land, consequently he had good crops on hand in November, 1864, when
General Sheridan sent his forces into Loudoun to destroy crops and
property in his futile efforts to drive out Mosby and his men, who
continued to occupy the same ground until after the surrender of
General Lee. Mr. Ayre then had three crops of wheat in the stack. The
Union troops burned 8,000 bushels of wheat, 130 tons of hay, 70 acres
of corn in the shock, a new barn with all his machinery and farming
implements, and drove off 80 fine improved sheep.[C]
After the war he put in a claim, through his Representative in
Congress, endeavoring to recover something for these losses, but his
claim was bandied about from committee to committee, and from Congress
to the Court of Claims, while the poor old man, now in his 93d year,
penniless and broken in health, is unable to get a cent from the
Government in return.]
_Wednesday, Feb. 11._--We received some newspapers to-day, and in them
I see it stated that Captain Wynne escaped from the Old Capitol Prison
on Monday night last, by breaking out a panel of his door. This no
doubt gave rise to the ghost story which was going the rounds of the
prison at that time, of the ghost without a head who frightened the
wits out of some of the sentries.
I heard a great commotion in the prison to-day, and as the noise
approached nearer and grew more distinct, I could detect the cry of
“Fresh fish! Fresh fish!” which I was afterward told announced the
arrival of a fresh lot of prisoners. Among them were a number of
blockade runners--eleven white and six negroes. Two of the whites were
put in our room. At the advent of a new prisoner, the old ones gather
around, anxious to hear the latest news from the outside world.
Captain Thomas Phillips had an interview with Captain Parker to-day. He
was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment.
Phillips was captain of a vessel captured while attempting to run the
blockade into Wilmington, N. C. His clothes and money, together with
his quadrant and charts, were all taken from him.
Blockade running is a dangerous but, when successful, a very profitable
business. Of the few ports of the Southern Confederacy used for running
the blockade, that of Wilmington, N. C., is the one most frequently
chosen, from the fact of there being two entrances, or channels,
leading into the Cape Fear River, on which the city of Wilmington is
situated, the south entrance being protected by Fort Fisher and Fort
Caswell; the north, or new inlet, by Fort Fisher and a small land
battery.
[One of the strongest inducements for running the blockade was the
enormous value of cotton outside of the Confederacy. A vessel laden
with provisions, medical stores, arms and munitions of war for the
Confederate Government, effecting an entrance, discharging her load
and taking in a return cargo of cotton, which would perhaps yield a
profit of five or six hundred per cent., if successful in evading the
blockading squadron, would certainly furnish a strong incentive for
other daring adventurers to take the risk of a voyage.
The high rate of wages paid to master and crew was always a sufficient
inducement to secure a complement of hardy and efficient men for the
enterprise.]
Three ladies called at the prison to-day. After they left the building,
one of them looked up, and seeing some of the prisoners at the window,
bowed to them. The guard called out to the corporal, who started a
soldier after them. He pursued them down the street, but returned
shortly after, saying they refused to return with him. Of course, we
were all pleased with the result.
_Thursday, Feb. 12._--Our time is spent in reading, when we have
anything to read; card playing, dominoes, or checkers. Newspapers we
get occasionally. Some devote much of their time to smoking, others to
relating stories of adventures, with an occasional song and dance.
Among the songs is one, written before my advent into this, my prison
home, by some one, of whose name even I am ignorant; but being a
picture of our prison life, as well as a faithful expression of the
sentiments cherished at the time in the breasts of many who dared not
give them utterance outside of these prison walls, without the risk of
punishment or exile, I give it here entire and unaltered.
SONG.
Air--Villikins and His Dinah.
All persons confined in the Capitol jail
Must know that _habeas corpus_ shall never avail
In taking them hence, for ’twas lately decreed
That laws are denied to all men of our creed.
_Chorus_
So let’s be contented, whatever may come,
We’ll live upon hope in the absence of rum;
And in water we’ll drink, when affected with drought,
A health to old Jeff and success to the South.
Now, this one advantage ’tis ours to claim--
Though prisoners in fact, yet proud of that name;
While others their statutes pull down from their shelves
We legally make other laws for ourselves.
_Chorus_
Abe Lincoln, full gorged with imperial power,
Destroying the work of long years in an hour,
Makes anarchy reign, heaping sin upon sin,
Whilst we are establishing order within.
_Chorus_
On the streets, in the halls where the multitude throng,
To speak certain things is essentially wrong,
But here we’re more free, be it spoken or sung;
There’s a lock on the door, but no lock on the tongue.
_Chorus_
Outside, if you drill with a stick for a gun,
You are called a vile Rebel, and treated as one;
But here we’ve a barrack in every room,
In lieu of a gun, we disport with a broom.
_Chorus_
We’re healthy within, but there’s danger without,
For wherever you turn there’s a gun at your snout,
But here we’re as safe as a bug in a rug,
And the adage is false, “There’s death in a jug.”
_Chorus_
But heed not the twaddle of tyrants and knaves;
Though they the laws make, they cannot make us slaves;
Unheeding the wrong and maintaining the right,
We’ll stick to our creed to the end of the fight.
_Chorus_
OLD CAPITOL PRISON, _Washington_, 1862.
This would be one feature of the program, with “Maryland, My Maryland,”
“Dixie,” “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” and a song, the chorus of which
ran--“Ain’t You Glad You’re Out of the Wilderness?” but which a
few months later was changed to “Ol’ Joe Hooker, Come Out of the
Wilderness.”
When the singing would lag a little, Fax Minor, on whom the sound of
music or singing caused a contraction and extension of the muscles,
producing an effect like pulling the strings of a supple-jack, would
jump up and execute a regular plantation break-down.
Some of our room-mates were gifted with good voices, which, though
untrained or uncultivated, were pleasing to the ear, and, combined with
the sentiment of the songs, had an inspiring effect on the listeners,
like the strains of martial music on the lagging footsteps of the
marching soldier.
One day as they were singing “Maryland, My Maryland,” Gus Williams,
getting up from a bench near the stove, where he sat whittling a stick,
advanced toward the group of singers and said:
“You boys sing that well, but I’ve heard ‘My Maryland’ sung here in the
old building in a way that would make you feel like jumping out of the
window and swimming across the Potomac. When Belle Boyd was here I was
on the same floor. She would sing that song as if her very soul was in
every word she uttered. It used to bring a lump up in my throat every
time I heard it. It seemed like my heart was ready to jump out--as if
I could put my finger down and touch it. I’ve seen men, when she was
singing, walk off to one side and pull out their handkerchiefs and wipe
their eyes, for fear some one would see them doing the baby act.
“She left soon after I came in. I was glad to know that she was
released, but we all missed her. Even some of the Yankees, although
they would not show it while she was here; but when she was sent away
they missed her sweet singing--Rebel songs though they were. One of
them told me it made him feel sad to hear her sing.
“And on Sundays, when there was preaching down in the yard, she would
be allowed to come down and sit near the preacher. If you could only
have seen how the fellows would try to get near her as she passed. And
if she gave them a look or a smile, it did them more good than the
preaching. You wouldn’t hear a cuss word from any of them for a week,
even if one of the guards would swear at them or threaten them.”[D]
_Friday, Feb. 13._--George Hammett, Davis, Gardner and George were
released this afternoon upon taking the oath.
_Saturday, Feb. 14._--A number of prisoners were brought in to-day.
There are said to be 450 prisoners here at present, the greater portion
of them being citizens.
Last night I was awakened by hearing an unusual commotion throughout
the building. This morning there were a number of prisoners in the
guard house. It is said that Captain Darling and George Adreon escaped.
The sentinel was bribed, and a greater number would have escaped but
for the indiscretion of the prisoners. They were so jubilant at the
prospect of getting out, that they had some whiskey sneaked into the
room and treated the sentinel. They made him drunk, so that he had
to be taken off post, and he was put in the guard house. The new man
being ignorant of the deal made with his comrade, the whole scheme
failed. There is a standing order to sentinels on each floor to
allow not more than two men to leave their rooms at a time. Trusting
to their arrangement with the sentry, the prisoners who were in the
plot would leave singly on this night, at slight intervals, until
the guards, seeing so many more going out than the rules permitted,
became suspicious and reported their suspicions. Consequently, as each
prisoner left his room and went down stairs, he was quietly taken to
the guard house, until the number of absentees from the rooms became so
numerous the prisoners themselves grew suspicious, and the exodus was
stopped.
It is an easy matter to get whiskey here. A bright young contraband,
whose ebony face gives proof of the purity of his Congo blood, comes
into our room every morning to remove the ashes and refuse. For a
trifling sum Charlie will bring in two flasks of whiskey in the breast
pockets of his coat, and afterward take back the empty flasks. Many of
the prison guards are ready to do the same when asked.
Mr. James Fullerton came to see me to-day. He told me my wife went to
the Provost-Marshal’s office last Tuesday and asked for a pass to visit
me, but was refused.
_Sunday, Feb. 15._--Stephen R. Mount, of Loudoun County, Virginia, aged
sixty-eight, was put in our room to-day. There is another old gentleman
here, named Randolph, aged seventy-five. He is also from Virginia.
An order was issued to-day that no more singing of Rebel songs will be
tolerated. Also, that any prisoner bowing or otherwise noticing persons
passing on the street, will be put in the guard house.
There are no printed rules for our guidance placed where they can be
seen, and no official instructions as to how we are to act, or to whom
we shall make known our necessities. A knowledge can only be gained
from conversing with prisoners who have been a long time in the prison,
or from actual observation, or from seeing punishment inflicted upon
some poor wretch for a violation of an unwritten law. One can only do
as you see others do, and if you blindly follow a willful or ignorant
transgressor, you must take the punishment of a guilty person.
The daily routine may be summed up as follows:
The first call in the morning is when the door is thrown open and
breakfast announced. All in the room then scamper down to the yard and
into the mess-room already described.
About nine o’clock the door is again opened and a voice shouts in tones
loud enough to be heard by all, “Sick Call.” Then all who have need of
medicine or treatment go to the hospital, located in a two-story wooden
building, an extension of the main building, and reached by a flight of
steps leading up from the prison yard.
The next sensation is the dinner call. This gives the prisoners a
half-hour, most of which, if not all, is spent in the yard. The
yard is about one hundred feet square, partly paved with bricks or
cobble-stones.[E] On the side of this yard, extending from this wooden
building occupied as sutler’s shop, mess-room and hospital, and running
back to the gate, is a one-story stone building in which are the cook
house, guard house and wash house. Back of this building are the sinks
used by the prisoners. These are wide trenches with a long wooden rail
in front, after the manner of the trenches in the camps, except that
when those in the camps become offensive they are filled in with earth
and new ones dug. The presence of these sinks, used for months by
several hundred men, it may be safely said, did not contribute to the
beauty of the scenery or add sweetness to the tainted air. Any further
description, I think, is better left to the imagination than expressed
in words.
[Illustration: STOVE WHICH STOOD IN CENTER OF ROOM 16]
After returning to our rooms there is another lull until supper-time,
when we enjoy the freedom of the prison yard until it is rudely broken
into by the gruff voice of the sergeant: “Time’s up. Go to your rooms.”
Next comes the roll-call, when the prisoners are lined up in their
respective rooms to answer to their names as called.
Lastly, taps is sounded, by the guard marching through the halls and
calling out at the doors of the rooms: “Lights out.” At this warning
cry every light must be extinguished, and the prisoners are compelled
to go to their bunks or sit in the dark. And here is where our rusty
fat pork, saved by us from the mess-room table, is made do good service.
One night we sat around the stove, with a quantity of this over-rich
food, contributed by the inmates of our room, one of whom sat in front
of the stove and threw in piece by piece as it burned away. This shed a
light over the room, and it was seen by the sentry pacing his beat in
front of the building. He called out “Corporal of the guard, Post No.
1.”
In a few minutes the sound of approaching footsteps was heard in the
hall outside, the door was thrown open and a corporal with guard
entered.
“What are you doing with a light here?” said he.
“We have no light here,” was the reply.
“You have,” said the corporal, “we can see it plainly from the street.”
“Oh, that is only a piece of fat meat we threw in the stove.”
The corporal, although he saw the flickering remains through the open
stove door, marched away with an incredulous and unsatisfied air.
_Tuesday, Feb. 17._--Captain Parker called me down this afternoon. He
told me he had received a letter from Mr. James Fullerton, stating
that my wife was ill, and my eldest child very ill with dropsy after
scarlet fever. He said that under the circumstances he would grant me
a parole for one day only, to see them. I was accordingly released to
report to Superintendent Wood at five o’clock to-morrow. On reaching
home, I found my son Henry lying ill, delirious, and so changed I could
scarcely recognize him.
_Wednesday, Feb. 18._--_At Home._--Mrs. Fullerton called this
morning. She said she had been to the prison and had carried a few
things, including my wife’s picture. The officer who received them
said he would give them to me. She then handed him a note from my
mother, stating that my wife was recovering from her illness and
was able to go about the house. When requested to hand me this the
officer said: “There can be no communication, unless it goes through
the Provost-Marshal’s office.” So I had been denied this slight
gratification, of knowing that my wife, whom I left suffering from an
attack of typhus fever, was improving in health. This afternoon I went
to prison and reported myself to Captain Higgins. I told him my child
was very ill; that the disease was just at its height and his recovery
doubtful. That under the circumstances I would like to have my parole
extended for a short time, until I saw how the disease would likely
terminate. He told me he would see Captain Parker. After hearing my
request, Parker asked if I could get a certificate to the effect that
my child was dangerously ill. Told him I could. He said: “If you will
bring me such certificate from the attending physician, I will grant
you a parole until Friday, at 5 P.M.” He added, “As you are living in
this city and refuse to take the oath, it proves that your sympathy is
with the South.” After leaving the prison I went to the office of Dr.
Toner and procured the required certificate.
_Thursday, Feb. 19._--This morning went to headquarters of Military
Governor, and gave the certificate to Captain Parker, according to
agreement.
From a conversation which I overheard while standing on the steps at
the Provost-Marshal’s office, one can get a faint idea of the state
of society now existing under the infamous spy system. A sergeant and
corporal were standing near the doorway, conversing with a citizen:
Sergeant--You know he is a Secessionist?
Citizen--Yes.
Sergeant--Then go in and report him.
Citizen (smiling and shrugging his shoulders)--I don’t like--
Corporal--You have gone too far now; you must go in and report him.
Sergeant--Your name won’t appear at all in this.
The citizen still appeared to hesitate, but the two were still urging
him when I passed on.
Fostered by partisan hatred or private malice, a system of espionage
has been established which is felt on every side. Servants and
employees are tampered with, witnesses are bought or threatened.
Actions or expressions, in themselves perfectly innocent, are perverted
and by misconstruction made to assume an air of treason or disloyalty.
In this way persons are often arrested and imprisoned for months
without trial or without even knowing the nature of the charge against
them or the name of their accuser.
_Friday, Feb. 20._--Henry passed a very uneasy night. The doctor says
he is not so well this morning as yesterday; still, he says he has
hopes of saving him. I hope for the best, yet fear the worst. This
afternoon, between four and five o’clock, reported myself at the Old
Capitol. After having my valise searched, I retired to my room, where
I found a number of prisoners in addition to those I left when I went
out on parole.
Captain Phillips was released from guard house this afternoon. A few
days ago he asked Wood to give him a parole. Wood refused, and said no
paroles would be granted. Phillips said a man who was confined under
similar circumstances to himself had been given a parole on the day his
vessel was to be sold. Soon after this interview I saw Phillips and
Wood running around the yard, both much excited. Phillips said, “Come
on; I will show you the man.” Wood said, “Go on; I’ll prove either you
or him to be a liar.” When Phillips found the man, Wood was not to be
found.
A day or two after this, Phillips was going into the office to pay the
clerk, Mr. Drew, for a pair of spectacles, when Wood, who was in the
office at the time, called out to him in a rough manner, and Phillips
went out and closed the door. When he got to his room a guard came
up and took him to the guard house, from which he was only released
to-day. Wood said he had not intended to keep him there so long, but
had forgotten him.
How faithfully does history repeat itself. How many unfortunates
have been arrested, thrown into prison, and their accusers having
accomplished their object in placing them in durance, cared no more
about them, and their jailers were totally indifferent in the matter.
Wood said the principal cause for his punishment was the indifference
with which Phillips appeared to treat him.
_Sunday, Feb. 22._--I was told there are over five hundred prisoners
here now. When those in our room were counted last night there were
found to be thirty-four. A number of _fresh fish_ have been brought in
since my return.
Sixty-two prisoners were brought here from Camp Chase. Some have been
imprisoned for fifteen months. About twenty of them have no charge
against them except refusal to take the oath.
Goldsmith said that while he was in the guard house a Union soldier was
put in who was drunk and noisy, and the lieutenant came in, slapped him
in the face and kicked him several times.
One of my fellow-prisoners is an old gentleman from Virginia, named
John B. Hunter. He is over sixty years of age. He is detained without
any charge whatever, but as a hostage for a man named Stiles, who has
made himself notorious as a spy and detective, and by acting as guide
in piloting raiding parties through Virginia. Mr. Hunter was called
down last night by Captain Parker, who told him information had been
received that Stiles had been released, and that he, too, would be
released. That he could leave the prison then or wait until to-day. He
has been in prison forty-two days altogether, and his health is now
very poor.
Another of my room-mates is John Carr, of Fauquier County, Va.; he is
a widower, who was about to be married. As he was journeying on to the
home of his intended bride, where all the preparations had been made
for the approaching nuptials, he was rudely seized by a scouting party
and landed here in the Old Capitol. He has been unfortunate in his
matrimonial ventures. He was married to his second wife a few years
before the war, and started on a bridal tour through some of the
Western States. It happened that the cholera was raging at the time in
some parts of the West, and while going down the Mississippi River on
a steamboat his wife was suddenly taken ill with cholera and died on
the boat. The passengers became frightened and put him ashore with the
dead body of his wife at a desolate spot on the banks of the river, at
night and in a heavy storm. He was compelled to remain there through
the long, dreary night, sitting beside the corpse, holding a blanket
over it to protect it from the rain, and keep the wind from blowing
away the covering. The splash of the water, the puffing and snorting of
the boats on the river, with the shrill blast of their whistles or the
bellowing of their signals in passing each other, found an echo in the
moaning and shrieking of the angry wind. These mingled sounds to the
sad watcher in his lonely vigil seemed a requiem for the dead.
_Tuesday, Feb. 24._--Three of the prisoners brought in last Saturday
were Italians--Peter Eorio, Raphael Rinaldi and Marco Comastri. They
appear to be very intelligent men, and I have derived much pleasure
from conversing with them. They have been in this country about three
years. Living in the South, and wishing to return to their native
country, they asked and received permission from the Confederate
authorities to pass through the lines; having first procured
certificates to the effect that they were citizens of Italy and as to
their intentions. On their arrival in Washington they were arrested and
brought to this place.
To-day the Commission appointed to try political prisoners commenced
their sittings.
Fourteen prisoners were sent off to-day upon taking the oath. Quite a
number have been released lately by so doing. Many of them say they do
not regard the oath--that it is unconstitutional, unlawful, and not in
any sense binding.[F]
_Wednesday, Feb. 25._--This morning one of the negroes in the breakfast
room accused a prisoner of taking two pieces of bread instead of one,
which is supposed to be one man’s portion. Although the man denied
having done so, the negro persisted in saying he had, and the man was
put in the guard house.
Peter and John Flaherty were called before Parker. They are British
subjects and are provided with British protection. They had been at
work for some time in Richmond, and were on their way North when
arrested. Parker asked them why they left Richmond. “Thinking to do
better, sir,” promptly replied Peter. They were released with the
injunction to leave the city within forty-eight hours.
_Thursday, Feb. 26._--Three more prisoners brought into our
room--twenty-nine now in all. Some Yankee sutlers were brought in
lately. They are very bitter in denouncing the Federal Government.
It is rumored an attempt will be made by some of the prisoners to
escape. The matter was talked over to-day in our room. Many plans were
suggested as being feasible and attended with but little danger. One
said it would be an easy matter, when we were out in the yard, and the
wagon came in to deliver bread, for the prisoners to make a rush for
the gate, and before the gate could be closed quite a number could get
out.
“But the guards would fire on us, and some of us would be killed,” said
Fax Minor.
“Of course,” was the reply, “somebody might be shot--perhaps killed. We
must expect that. But many would get away safely.”
“Yes, that is all true,” returned Fax; “but just suppose there was only
one killed, and that one was poor Fax--what then?”
A noticeable character in the prison yard at one time during the
half-hour allowed for recreation was a Hebrew named Fleggenheimer. He
was captured while attempting to run the blockade on the Potomac, and
his goods confiscated. Like Rachel of old, he would not be comforted,
but was continually bewailing his loss. One of my room-mates, John
Pentz, of Baltimore, finding that sympathy only added fuel to the fire
of his distress, sought to divert his thoughts into another channel by
bantering him.
“Oh, Sledgehammer” (as Pentz was accustomed to call him), “don’t worry;
you’ll soon be out of this place, and it won’t take you long to make up
what you lost.”
“Ah, but, Mr. Benty, I lose more ash five t’ousand dollars.”
“Well, you can get that back in the profit of one good trip.”
“And den it vash all borrowed monish.”
“Then that is so much the better--_you_ won’t lose anything.”
“Oh, you don’t know all, Mr. Benty. My poor wife, she yust git a leetle
baby, unt ven she hear dis it makes her right down stone dead.”
From conversations had with Western prisoners, I judge there is more
intense bitterness of feeling in the West, particularly in Missouri and
Kentucky, than in the Eastern border section. One old Missourian in our
room said he was from Schuyler County, and had been in prison since the
12th of August. That one of the prisoners in the Court House, named
Ford, was shot with a pistol by one of the guards.
He said the Union men were called “Sheepskins,” and they perpetrated
the most villainous outrages. That on one occasion a party arrested
a man, and while carrying him through the village, some little boys
playing marbles, cried out: “Here comes the militia,” and ran away. One
of the “Sheepskins” fired into the crowd of children and killed a boy
twelve years old. They picked the child up, carried him to his home,
and threw him in the door to his mother, saying: “Here is one we’ve
kept from growing up to be a damned Secesh.”
Another man told me he was in prison with some of the men who were
executed by General McNeil. He said he was playing cards with Wade
when he was called out. Wade put down his cards, saying he knew he was
called out to be killed. There was among the doomed men one old man
with a large and helpless family. A brave young hero volunteered to
take the old man’s place, saying he had none to leave behind to regret
him or feel the loss. He was accepted. His savage executioners, dumb to
this noble exhibition of heroism and self-sacrifice, sent him off on
his coffin with the others.
I afterward learned the facts concerning this brutal tragedy:
In the Fall of 1862, the Confederates, under Colonel James Porter,
captured the town of Palmyra, and during their occupancy a man named
Andrew Allsman, an ex-soldier of the Third Missouri Cavalry (said to
have been a spy), disappeared.
After the Confederates evacuated the town and McNeil returned, he
learned of the abduction of Allsman, and thereupon issued a notice,
that unless Allsman was returned within ten days he would retaliate
upon the Rebel prisoners then in his hands. At the expiration of the
ten days, ten prisoners then in his custody: Willis Baker, Thomas
Humston, Morgan Bixler, and John Y. McPheeters, of Lewis County;
Herbert Hutson, John M. Wade and Marion Lair, of Ralls County; Captain
Thomas A. Sidner, Monroe County; Eleazer Lake, Scotland County, and
Hiram Smith, Knox County, were selected--ten men, to give up their
lives for one man _missing_.
Three Government wagons drove to the jail, with ten rough board
coffins. The condemned men were taken from the prison, seated upon
their coffins in the wagons, and driven to the place of execution--the
Fair Ground. There the coffins were arranged in a row, six or eight
feet apart. Thirty soldiers of the Second Missouri State Militia were
drawn up in line facing the coffins. The ten men knelt upon the grass
between the coffins. A prayer was offered up by Rev. R. M. Rhoades,
and the prisoners each took his seat upon the foot of his coffin. Two
accepted bandages; the others refused. The officer in command then
stepped forward and gave the command: “Ready--aim--fire!” Two of the
prisoners fell backward upon their coffins, dead. Captain Sidner sprang
forward and fell with his face to the soldiers, and died immediately.
He had requested the soldiers to aim at his heart. The other seven were
not killed, and the reserves were called and put an end to their lives
with their revolvers.
Among the Camp Chase prisoners are three little boys, their ages
ranging from ten to fourteen. I saw one in the yard to-day. The men
called him “John Morgan’s Orderly.” He was dressed in gray and seemed
a shrewd, bright little fellow. He told me he was fourteen years of
age. That he had been with John Morgan, and was captured while carrying
a letter from General John C. Breckenridge to General John Morgan. He
said he had been in prison thirteen months.
The second boy was held on charges similar to the one first mentioned.
The third, and youngest, says he does not know why he was arrested, or
why he was brought here.
_Friday, Feb. 27._--Boyd Barrett and others, ill with smallpox, were
removed in ambulances to-day.
Messrs. Ayre, Carr, and Brawner were called to-day and the oath offered
them. They refused to take it and were marked for exchange.
It is said one of the prison officials was going around the yard last
night, dressed in Confederate uniform, endeavoring, by offering bribes,
to test the fidelity of the guards.
_Saturday, Feb. 28._--I slept but little last night. Some prisoners who
were put in the room were very noisy, and I was cold. I had one sheet
and one blanket, and I had to take my overcoat for a covering. When I
got warmed up, the mice became lively and commenced a game of tag. They
appear to think it fine fun chasing one another under the board pillow
at my head, and then running over my bunk and crawling about through
the folds of my blanket. When I shake them off they scamper away, only
to return when they see I am quiet again.
There is also a large force of bedbugs in the room, and they send out
detachments and raiding parties to all the different bunks, and draw
their full supply of rations from the occupants. Sometimes we get
together and have a round-up, and a promiscuous slaughter, regardless
of age or sex. But they must recruit from the other side, like the
Yankee army, as we can notice no diminution in the forces. I suppose,
like the poor, we will always have them with us.
Owing to the dirty and overcrowded condition of the building, we have
another pest in the shape of an insect, smaller than the one just
mentioned, but equally bloodthirsty, who makes his presence felt, and
has reduced us to such a condition that we have to scratch for a living.
This morning, while standing near the window, I saw two little boys,
ten or twelve years of age, standing on the street corner, opposite the
prison. They were looking down the street and did not hear the guard
calling to them to leave the corner. Presently a corporal was sent
over and the children, now in the act of moving on, were arrested and
brought into the prison. I stood at the window for some time, but I did
not see them pass out.
Six prisoners brought into our room to-day. Thirty-seven now in the
room, with bunks for twenty-one; the balance sleep on the floor as best
they can. At night the floor is completely taken up by sleeping men, so
we can only walk the floor by stepping over them. They roll themselves
in their blankets and go to sleep.
Frank Thornton released on parole to-day. John Pentz went out at night.
A man in Room 15 threw a piece of bread out of the window into
the street. In consequence of this, all the inmates of the room,
twenty-eight in number, were confined to the room during the half-hour
usually allowed for recreation, and put on bread and water diet--two
pieces of bread being allowed them daily.
_Monday, March 2._--Commission in session to-day.
The surgeon came in and made inquiries as to the number in our room,
etc. Thirty-nine in room--beds for twenty-one. Call for all who desire
to be vaccinated to come into the hospital.
In the dull uniformity of prison life every trifling event which
breaks the monotony and diverts the attention, for the time, from
the unpleasant reality of our situation is seized upon and becomes a
subject of conversation. To-day a drove of mules was passing the prison
on their way to some of the camps or corrals, and this brought out a
number of stories illustrating peculiar traits or features of that
useful and much-abused creature--the mule.
“When the Confederate army was encamped at Manassas,” said Bennett,
“after the battle of Bull Run, the mules, being fastened to the wagons
by their halters, after eating their supply of provender, would start
in, biting and chewing the feed-boxes and wagon bodies. They were not
satisfied with the quantity of long-feed that was dealt out to them and
sought to make good the deficiency by chewing up the wagons. To prevent
the total demolition of wagons, details of men were sent out daily
to cut and bring in loads of hoop-poles for belly-timber, as Bennett
termed it. These were spread out before the mules who no doubt found
the wood in its crude state as appetizing as when fashioned into wagons
or feed-boxes.”
“An old friend of mine, Dr. Green,” said John Carr, “was at one time
induced to purchase a lot of mules. They were sold at a sacrifice,
and knowing there was a constant demand for mules in army circles, he
flattered himself that he had been cut out for a sharp trader, but had
always before that time missed his opportunity; that he had made a
good investment, and now having the long-delayed opportunity, he would
surely get all there was in it. So when he had paid his money he patted
himself on the back--figuratively--in a patronizing manner and turned a
round dozen well-conditioned mules into his pasture.
“In this field where he had put the mules his riding-horse was
accustomed to graze. A close intimacy sprang up between the mules and
the horse. On Sunday, when Dr. Green brought up his horse in order to
attend service at the village church, he noticed a commotion among the
mules, but paid no further attention to them.
“While riding to church with his wife, however, he heard a noise on the
road behind them, a tramping of hoofs, with a nickering and braying.
Soon the mules came in sight, frisking about and apparently delighted
to overtake their newly-found friend and comrade, the horse. They
refused to be sent back, and the Doctor and his wife rode into town to
church at the head of a drove of mules.”
_Tuesday, March 3._--Last night about midnight I was awakened by a
noise and great commotion in the building. A man in the adjoining room
cried out lustily, “Fire! Fire!” Then there was a knocking at the
doors. The flames were breaking out through a board partition which
cuts off a portion of our room, making an entry to the adjoining room.
The fire had not gained much headway, however, and a little water soon
extinguished it. For a time there was great confusion and excitement.
The guard at the door, as soon as he was aware of the fact, cried out
“Corporal of the guard, Post No. 5--Fire!” Then the word was passed
from sentinel to sentinel, until it rang through the building. Men
were jumping out of their bunks, hastily putting on their clothes,
some cursing, calling for things they were unable to find--“Where’s my
pants?” “Where’s my boots?” In the confusion one man would grab up an
article belonging to another--often a misfit. I lay quietly in my bunk
for a while. I felt there could be little danger from fire occurring
in the rooms occupied by either the prisoners or guards; for if by any
mischance a fire should break out, it would soon be discovered and
quickly extinguished. Or, if in the outhouse or kitchen, they, being
small buildings, the fire could be put out before it communicated to
the main building--the prison itself.
At the time of the greatest excitement one man said: “Look out of the
window and see the light. The building is on fire.” When this light was
found to proceed from the rising moon, it had a quieting effect on the
panic. A sergeant came in with a light and searched around to find out
how the fire originated. After this a lieutenant with a few privates
came in under arms, and examined thoroughly and questioned, but no one
appeared to know how it started. If the fire had progressed to any
great extent before discovery, no doubt many of the prisoners would
have escaped as it would have been impossible for the guards to have
kept in check the large number of prisoners now in the building.
_Wednesday, March 4._--Congress adjourned to-day. From the prison
window we saw the flag lowered.
At night Superintendent Wood came to the door and called me out of the
room. He walked over and sat at the foot of the stairs in the big hall
leading to the floor above, and told me to sit down beside him. He
asked me where I belonged. I said:
“I am a citizen of Washington. This is my home.”
“What were you doing South?” asked Wood.
“Working at my business.”
“Where did you work?”
“At Ritchie & Dunnavant’s.”
“What kind of work was done there?”
“They did the State printing and a portion of the Government work.”
“When did you go South?”
“Just before the commencement of hostilities.”
“How did you get back?”
“I came across the Potomac River.”
“You didn’t bring any letters, or anything of that kind?”
“No; I brought nothing but my wife and children.”
“Are you willing to take an oath to support the Government?”
“No, sir.”
“Then we will have to send you back South.”
I said, “Mr. Wood, I am in your hands, a prisoner, and powerless to
resist. I am obliged to submit to whatever disposition you may make of
me.”
“A couple of gentlemen called to see me about you,” said Mr. Wood, “and
I am anxious to do all I can for you. You know that this city is in a
special manner under the care and jurisdiction of the President and
Congress, and if you are a citizen of this place you ought to submit to
the law.”
“But, Mr. Wood,” said I, “there is no law to compel me to take this
oath.”
“You violated the law when you crossed the Potomac.”
“In what manner?”
“In running the blockade.”
“This city is my home. I was South with my family. How could I get home
with them without crossing the Potomac. What law did I violate?”
“I have no time to spare,” said Mr. Wood, as he arose and walked away,
and I went back to my room.
One more prisoner brought into our room--thirty-seven now in.
_Thursday, March 5._--Boyd Barrett returned. He had a slight attack of
varioloid. Haskins, of South Carolina, who was taken away with him,
died of smallpox. Another of the party is in a fair way of recovery.
At night about one hundred and fifty Union soldiers were brought in;
mostly for desertion and insubordination. They are very bitter in
their denunciation of the Government. They seem to care but little for
the guards, and do pretty much as they please. Whether from fear or
sympathy, the guards appear indifferent to their words or behavior.
Some of the soldiers say they “enlisted to fight for the Union and
not for the nigger.” One said, “If they bring up all the men who are
dissatisfied, the Government will have to build more prisons.”
_Friday, March 6._--My wife came to see me. A corporal came up and
escorted me down to the reception room. On entering the room we were
seated in chairs placed opposite each other, and at a distance of about
three or four feet apart. Then a little puppy, who acts as a clerk or
detective, took his seat in a chair which he drew up in front of, and
between the chairs occupied by myself and wife; where he could not
fail to hear every word that passed. Then he threw himself back in his
chair with an air of self-importance, as if to say, “Now you can go
on, with my permission.” He interrupted our conversation several times
by volunteering remarks altogether uncalled for. My wife said that my
mother and she were worried about me at home, as they heard I would be
sent away. Hearing this the fellow turned to a lieutenant who was in
the room, and asked in a tone which could be heard across the room:
“Can you give me the number and names of the prisoners in Rooms 15 and
16, as they are about to be sent away?”
He knew I was in Room 16, and thought to annoy us by asking this
question. At the end of fifteen minutes our conversation was abruptly
brought to an end. My wife was compelled to take the oath before she
was allowed to see me.
She told me that my son Henry had taken a change for the better within
an hour after I left him, at the expiration of my parole, and, knowing
I would be anxious to hear about him, they sent me a message to that
effect immediately. Two weeks have elapsed, but the message has never
been delivered.
Young Thomas Hurst was called down to see his sister directly after my
wife left, and he told me he had the same experience as we had, and
the same remark was made in the presence of his sister as that used to
annoy my wife.
Three Federal soldiers confined here attempted to escape by way of the
cellar. Two succeeded and one was caught.
_Sunday, March 8._--About 1:30 P.M., one hundred and fifty prisoners
were brought in. They came from St. Louis direct; they are mostly
soldiers. They have been in prison--some one, others three and five
months. With regard to the soldiers this is a violation of the cartel
by the United States authorities. The cartel of exchange provides that
prisoners of war be discharged on parole within ten days after capture.
These expect to be exchanged about the 16th of this month. They were
brought through Baltimore, arriving in this city last night, and were
crowded in a place which, from the description given, I judge to be
the Central Guard House. They say that they were put into rooms where
they were obliged to pass the night in a standing posture, as there
was not room enough to lie down. After being brought here they were
kept standing in the damp yard (part of the time it was raining), until
after ten o’clock at night, when they were removed to the adjoining
houses (Duff Green’s Row), Carroll Prison.
Two men, Wesley Phillips and Mitchell, were released to-day. They were
captains of schooners engaged in carrying sutlers’ stores to the Army
of the Potomac. They were Baltimoreans and very fine men.
_Monday, March 9._--Fine day. After a rain the water drips from the
window cornices or eaves of the roof, to the ground, sometimes dropping
over the doorway. As some of the guards were on the doorstep they
caught the drops and said the men in our room were spitting out of the
window. A corporal was sent to the room and although the men explained
the matter to him--said they had not spit out, and called his attention
to the falling drops, the window was shut down and we are now forced
to remain in this close room, with no ventilation and the breaths of
thirty-seven men poisoning the air. Our keepers appear to take pleasure
in annoying and persecuting those in their power, knowing they can do
so without fear or resistance or retaliation.
A man who either drunk or crazy, passing on the opposite side of the
street, looked up at the window and seeing the crowd of prisoners,
laughed and waved his hat. The officer standing at the door said to
the sentry, “You had better bring that fellow in, anyhow.” He was
accordingly brought in.
There is a man in Room 16, named Armand. He claims to be from
Louisiana. He is of very dark complexion, with black hair, short black
beard and mustache. He always wears a blue uniform, but I never saw him
with a hat, either indoors or out. He is looked upon with suspicion and
shunned by all. By many he is thought to be a spy. If he goes out of
the room for any purpose whatever, the other prisoners exchange knowing
glances, and shake their heads in a manner indicating distrust. Some
do not hesitate to say: “He is now going down to make his report to
Wood.” Every act is observed and commented on.
No one cares to be seen speaking to him or noticing him. If he
approaches one with a pleasing expression on his face, as if about
to speak, the person so approached will turn from him with a look of
contempt, or, if addressed, return a half-hearted reply, and with a
stealthy look around, as if to see if anyone observed him, shy off in a
direction opposite that in which Armand appears to be going. Even the
Yankee prisoners are shown more consideration, and more regard paid to
their wants and advances. Men who occasionally bestow upon him a look
of pity--such as they would give to a poor friendless dog--will quickly
turn away if he shows a disposition to return a grateful acknowledgment.
Although I have no means of ascertaining whether this treatment is
deserved, or if he is unjustly suspected, yet I cannot shut out from my
breast a feeling of pity for the poor fellow.
At night, when all others were soundly sleeping in their bunks, I
have often watched him as he paced the floor or stood at the window,
his hands folded behind him, looking out into the deserted street, as
lonely and forsaken as himself, singing, or rather crooning in a low,
mournful, but not unmusical tone:
“When the sad, chilly winds of December,
Stole my flowers, my companions, from me.”
_Tuesday, March 10._--Eorio, Comastro and Rinaldi, the three Italians I
have already mentioned, were called before the Colonel acting in place
of Parker, who is sick.
He questioned them in regard to their arrest, etc. He told them there
was no reason for keeping them and they would be released to-morrow.
Eorio promised to see my wife and tell her what I could not write her
with any certainty of its being delivered. This I learned afterward he
did faithfully.
Old Mr. Love was again called before the colonel. He had a certificate
from the prison surgeon, stating that he was ill. That the confinement
was injuring him, and he should be discharged. The Colonel told him his
case would have to go before the Commission.
One of the prison guards to-day snapped his gun twice at a man passing
on horseback, but it missed fire each time.
Captain Thomas Phillips was released this afternoon.
_Wednesday, March 11._--This morning as Keleher was looking from the
window, singing:
“The niggers we will sell
And the Yankees send to hell,” etc.,
a little fussy lieutenant, named Thackery, came bristling up, saying,
“I’ll send _you_ to hell,” and as if intending to carry out his threat
literally, rushed at Keleher with his arm outstretched to push or grasp
him, but just before the hand touched him, Keleher stepped to one side
and Thackery, unable to check or recover himself, went spinning halfway
across the room. The men, none of whom have any love or good feeling
for Thackery, laughed at his discomfiture, and this so irritated the
crestfallen lieutenant that he had the guards take Keleher off to the
guard house.
James Taylor and James Stant were called and took the oath not to
attempt to run the blockade again. Aaron Lewis released.
_Thursday, March 12._--Three more prisoners brought into our room last
night. One belonged to Stuart’s Horse Artillery; the other two were
citizens.
James Ewell released. Russell released; he had British protection.
Frank Thornton, who had been out on parole, returned.
A man confined in the guard house knocked down a portion of the
partition. He was taken out and tied up by the wrists to a tree. He
broke the cords after a time and released himself. He was then removed,
but I do not know what was done with him after.
Among my room-mates I have discovered an old schoolmate, Thomas
Holbrook, of Baltimore. He and I were schoolboys together at a school
kept by Martin J. Kerney, in a little one-story brick building,
situated on Exeter Street, between Baltimore and Fayette, Baltimore
City. Mr. Kerney was a graduate of Mount St. Mary’s College,
Emmittsburg, Md. After giving up school teaching he entered into the
practice of law and was afterward a member of the Maryland State
Legislature. He was the author of a number of educational works, some
of which are still used. Three of the Booth brothers--Edwin, the
celebrated actor; John Wilkes, who shot Lincoln, and Joseph Adrian
Booth, who afterward became a physician, and also John Sleeper Clarke,
the comedian, who later on married Asia Booth, a sister of the Booth
brothers, were all attending this school at the same time with us.
Holbrook is quite a valuable addition to our company. He is exceedingly
clever in handling playing cards and often amuses us with exhibitions
of tricks, in which he displays remarkable dexterity. He thus helps
us while away many a tedious hour. He was at one time in the Navy,
and, like all seafaring men, is handy about the house. We all are glad
when it is Tom’s day in the kitchen as cook for the mess. He will say,
“Well, boys, what will it be to-day--lobscouse or skilligalee?”
He will take a ham-bone, from which most of the meat has been cut, and
sitting down will patiently pick off with a pocket-knife every scrap
of fat and lean, and with the addition of a few potatoes or other
ingredients, will serve up quite a tasty little side dish for our table.
An old man who had been confined here for some time, was released a
few days ago. He was bent with age, and very feeble and childish, so
that when here he would often get lost in the building. After wandering
about for some time he came back. He said he thought the war was over
when he was sent off. That he was away from home; 84 years of age; with
no place to go and no means of getting to his home. He begged to be
taken back.
At night a sergeant came into the room with a list of names which he
called over; my name being among the number. He asked each one if he
wanted to go to Richmond. All those who are booked for Richmond are
greatly elated at the prospect of their release from prison and a trip
to Dixie. Whiskey was smuggled in and several of the fortunate ones
were quite lively. Very little sleep to-night for anyone here.
Fitzhugh Carter, or as he was familiarly called “Chew Carter,” was a
sprightly little fellow from Fauquier County, Virginia. Brought up on
a farm and enjoying in his early life the companionship of the little
darkies, he had acquired much of their quaint dialect and rollicking
manners. On this night Chew had by some means got more than a fair
share of the smuggled whiskey.
When the lieutenant came in for roll-call, it was the custom for the
prisoners to form in one line, while the lieutenant with the guard
would stand at the head, and as each man’s name was called he would
step out, turn and face the line he had just left. This would be
repeated until, when all the names were called, the new line would be
formed opposite that formerly occupied by the first line.
As it was a difficult matter for poor Chew to preserve his equilibrium,
his comrades endeavored to keep him steady on the perpendicular by
bracing him on either side. All went well until it came his turn to
answer. When the officer called “Fitzhugh Carter,” Chew stood erect,
pushed his hat back from his forehead and snapped out “Yer, sah!” and
lurched forward to the line opposite. The loud and jerky way he was
answered appeared to strike the lieutenant, for he raised his head and
looked to where the sound came from and then cast his eyes down again
to his roll. Just at this moment Chew, apparently satisfied with the
accomplishment of his little feat, looked toward the head of the line
and observing the action of the lieutenant, said “Who de hell keers foh
yo’ damn ol’ roll-call?”
The lieutenant heard the voice, but did not catch the words. He looked
down the line. The men who stood on either side of Chew nudged him to
keep quiet, and all looked so innocent of any wrong-doing that the
officer evidently disbelieved his ears, if they carried a trace of
the actual words uttered, for he proceeded with his roll-call without
further interruption.
When the lieutenant left the room one of his comrades said:
“Chew, where did you get it all?”
“Jis’ had one drink,” replied Chew.
“Then you must have tapped a still-house,” said Ed. O’Brien, and he
sung--
“The man that has good whiskey
And giveth his neighbor none,
Sha’n’t have any of my good whiskey
When his good whiskey is gone.”
“When--
“Now, altogether”--(and all took up the refrain):
“When his good whiskey is gone.”
There was one little incident during Chew’s sojourn in the Old Capitol
which proved that the course of love does run smoothly sometimes--even
love of whiskey. Chew was very thirsty, and was determined to quench
that thirst. At “Sick Call,” he joined the throng who wended their way
to the hospital.
“Oh, I’m so sick. I got sich cramps. Bin sick all night,” said Chew,
as he entered the hospital, with one hand clutching a portion of his
garments covering the part of his anatomy where cramps are supposed to
locate, and the other pressed against his forehead.
“I’ll give you a dose of castor oil,” said the hospital steward.
“Oh,” said Chew, “I kaint take castoh oil. Nevah could take it.”
“I’ll fix it up so you won’t taste it.”
“It’s no use, I know. You’ll hav’ter give me somethin’ else.”
The steward poured a little whiskey in the bottom of a glass; then
poured in the oil, which was quite stiff, and after that put whiskey on
top. Chew took the glass and with a quick toss gulped down the whiskey
before the oil had fairly started to flow, and handed the glass back,
saying: “Take it quick. I’m afeerd I’ll throw it up”--at the same time
making such grimaces that one would think he really had swallowed a
nauseous dose.
“You haven’t taken any of the oil,” said the steward. “Here; drink it
down.”
“Oh, I got a big mouthful, an’ I’m pow’ful sick.”
“I’ll put some more whiskey on top. Drink it quick and you won’t taste
it.”
“I did drink it jis’ ez quick ez I could. I’ll try, but I know it won’t
stay down.”
Taking the glass he tossed off the whiskey from the top, as before, and
leaving the oil. The steward, now seeing through the trick, said: “You
can take that now as it is, for I will not put another drop of whiskey
in it.”
“Well,” said Chew, as he moved toward the door, “I dun told ye I
couldn’t take castoh oil. I nevah could take it. I drink’t it quick ez
I could. I kin take mos’ ennything better’n castoh oil.” He came back
to his room where he told of the success of his scheme to his laughing
companions.
_Saturday, March 14._--Last night we got the daily papers--the first
for several days. In the kitchen the cooks were at work nearly all
night to have the rations ready for to-day. It was reported that the
prisoners would leave about ten o’clock in the morning. All day the
streets were filled with people eager for a glance at the Rebels. About
2 P.M., orders came to pack up, and about 4 P.M., they left the prison.
Seventeen were taken from Room 16. Guards were placed in line along the
sidewalks and in the Capitol grounds to keep back the crowd who had
assembled to witness the departure. There were ambulances for the old,
infirm, sick and wounded. The soldiers expected to leave to-day, but
were left behind, with the exception of a few of the wounded.
_Sunday, March 15._--It seems lonely to-day on account of the
change--we miss so many familiar faces. It seems like a break in the
family. Six more prisoners were put in our room, making twenty-one in
all. There are two cases of smallpox in the next room.
_Monday, March 16._--This morning the prisoners from Room 14,
were crowded into our room while that room was being cleaned and
whitewashed. There are twenty-one of them--some are broken out with
smallpox.
_Tuesday, March 17._--The men having smallpox, who were put in our room
yesterday from Room 14 were to-day put in Room 18. If they are changed
around a few more times the disease will be pretty well spread.
Two men, father and son, just brought in, were captured in a raid on
the Potomac River. They are citizens. Their families are left without
support or protection. The wife of one about being confined. Both men
agreed to take the oath, but were told that as they would do so only on
account of their situation they would not be released.
Volney Purcell, of Loudoun County, Virginia, was called to-day. Colonel
Buell asked him what charges were against him. He replied he did not
know. Purcell then asked Colonel Buell if _he_ knew. Buell said he did
not; there was nothing that he could see. Purcell then said: “Can you
not release me, then?” “No,” said Buell, “I cannot.” Purcell said he
thought it very strange that he should be brought from his home and
kept here without any charge. Buell said it was strange, but his case
would have to go before the Commission.
The prison yard is now in a very filthy condition. In rainy weather a
great part of the space allowed the prisoners for exercise is covered
with mud.
_Wednesday, March 18._--I was called to-day by Colonel Buell. After
questioning me regarding my arrest and imprisonment, he asked if I
would take the oath.
“No, sir,” said I.
“What,” said he, “not willing to take the oath. I will acknowledge that
my sympathies were enlisted in your behalf, but your refusal to take
the oath puts an entirely different face on the matter. Had you told me
that at first it might have saved this examination. In fact, you need
not have left your room.”
“What charges are against me?” I asked. “If there are any, let me have
a fair trial, as is my right, and if I am found guilty I am willing to
suffer punishment, but if there are none you have no right to keep me
here.”
“You have a very exalted opinion of the leniency of this Government, to
think that after having been South you could be permitted to come back
here and live without taking the oath.”
“No, sir,” said I, “I have no reason to have a very exalted opinion of
the leniency of this Government. I had a right to go where I pleased
before the blockade was established, and afterward had a right to come
to my home where I belonged. I would not take that oath if it were
offered to me at the South, and I do not see how any man can honestly
take it with the intention of keeping it--‘to support, protect and
defend a government or administration, _now and hereafter, under any
and all circumstances_.’ How do I know what may be done hereafter?”
“I have taken that oath,” said Colonel Buell.
“That may be,” said I; “your views and mine differ on the subject of
right and wrong.”
“Go back to your room, sir,” said Buell, and that terminated the
interview.
_Thursday, March 19._--An officer came up to-day with a paper and
called over the names of seven in our room (Room 16)--Holbrook, Barnes,
Littlepage, Keleher, Hoyle, Simmons and myself, and at night we were
removed to Room 10. With the three prisoners already in the room there
are ten of us now in a small room with two bunks and three small beds.
Room 10 is on the north side of the building, third story, first window
from the corner on First Street.
_Friday, March 20._--The prisoners brought in numbered twenty-five
instead of seventy-five as reported in the daily papers, where it is
stated that they were taken in a fight with Stuart’s Cavalry, and that
nothing but the saber was used. The prisoners say the Federals had
artillery and used it.
_Sunday, March 22._--Two elderly ladies, with a small child, were
brought in from the street for saluting prisoners.
The prison officials are taking the names of soldiers to-day
preparatory to exchange.
_Monday, March 23._--It is said that the private soldiers will be sent
off to-morrow. The officers will not go.
One of the prison guards, named Highland, who has always acted very
kindly toward the prisoners while on post, and has made many friends
among them, told me that two young ladies have been brought in and
are now confined in Duff Green’s Row (Carroll Prison). He does not
know who they are or what charges are against them. I understand a
number of citizens from the neighborhood of Fairfax Court House have
been arrested and brought in since Mosby’s raid and capture of General
Stoughton, and these ladies may be of that number.[G]
_Tuesday, March 24._--I have been suffering from severe cold for
several days. Our room is small, close and ill-ventilated, and here we
are kept penned up, with the exception of the time we are allowed out
at meal times. Then we are out in a damp yard, which is so crowded when
there is a large number of prisoners here (as at the present time,)
that there is little room for comfortable exercise. In this yard we
stand for about a half-hour, consequently nearly all of us are troubled
with colds.
The prisoners booked for exchange are here yet, and it is hard to say
when they will leave. It is reported that a number of prisoners are
expected from Camp Chase or some other place, and that is a reason
given for the delay.
_Wednesday, March 25._--At night, a short time before roll-call, the
clerk came up and inquired if all in the room were “State” prisoners.
Receiving an affirmative reply, he asked who wanted to go to Dixie.
Simmons, Barnes and myself answered “Here.”
OFF FOR DIXIE
_Thursday, March 26._--Could not sleep last night. Got up about twelve
or one o’clock, took a smoke and then lay down until near daylight. I
then got up and went down to the prison yard. I understand a batch of
prisoners were brought in about eleven o’clock last night. I heard a
great tramping of feet at that time.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, all who expected to go to Richmond
were called down in the yard and the roll called by Superintendent
Wood. When he came to my name he asked where I was taken.
I said “Here, in Washington.”
“What were you doing?”
“At the store, attending to my business.”
“Stand back. You can’t go.”
I went back to my room, giving up the idea of getting away then. Some
things I had sent for had not arrived, so I was disappointed in more
than one respect, and was about settling myself down, when Adamson
called out to me--“Get your things and come on.” I hurried down, and
when I passed out the prisoners were in front of Duff Green’s Row.
Littlepage, Keleher, Holbrook and Hoyle, poor fellows, looked lonely
enough when we left them.
After receiving the prisoners from Carroll Prison, the cavalcade moved
on past the Capitol and through the streets, to the foot of Sixth
Street, where a crowd of ladies were waiting and bade us adieu, waving
their handkerchiefs in spite of all protests from the guards, who at
last drove them from the wharf at the point of the bayonet.
We were then put on board the flag-of-truce boat, the steamer _State
of Maine_, and left the city at night. About seven or eight o’clock,
bread, crackers and cheese were given out to the prisoners--some got
a good share, while others were served with three soda crackers each.
This was the first food given us since breakfast in the Old Capitol.
In the effort to get the prisoners off we failed to get any dinner,
although we left the prison fully three or four hours after the regular
dinner hour.
Six of us secured three staterooms by paying $1, each for the trip.
Here we were very comfortable, with good berths, etc. Many who were not
so fortunate had to sleep on the floor or on trunks, boxes, or anything
they could find handy.
It was an agreeable change when we were once on board the steamer. To
be where no guards with bristling bayonets were continually meeting you
to remind you that you were a prisoner. Where no sentinel challenged
you at every turn. With no one calling after you if you made a false
move or deviated in the slightest from prison discipline.
_Friday, March 27._--Awoke about eight or nine o’clock this
morning--our boat was steaming down the Potomac River, Westmoreland
County, Virginia, on the one side, and St. Mary’s County, Maryland, on
the other. Breakfast was over, but Wright brought me some bread and
sausage. In the rush for dinner I had my coat-tail torn off and was
pretty well shaken up.
This afternoon we anchored off Fortress Monroe. At night half a dozen
prisoners were brought over to the steamer from the fortress. They have
been at the fort for a week. They are from the West--some Morgan’s men.
I saw Captain Darling making a bed for himself on a hard bench and
invited him to share my stateroom, which he did. He said he had a
very high opinion of the patriotism of the citizens of Washington,
particularly the ladies, and spoke with warmth of the parting scene at
the wharf, where the Federal guards brought their guns to a charge on
the ladies and drove them off.
_Saturday, March 28._--Awoke about seven o’clock. Still at anchor
between Fortress Monroe and the Rip Raps. Two English war ships
anchored off in the Roads. Many of our company are complaining of
seasickness. I felt a little dizzy and weak before breakfast, but went
below and got a cup of coffee, a slice of bread and a piece of fat
pork. After eating this I felt better. Sea quite high for some time. A
heavy rain storm came up about ten o’clock, with thunder and lightning.
The water then became calmer but the rain continued.
At 12:45 the captain came over from Fortress Monroe and we started from
the anchorage in the midst of a heavy rain. The guard here left us,
good-naturedly bidding us good-bye and hoping to meet us soon in more
peaceful times. They were of Company K, Third New York Regiment, and
were on the best of terms with us during the trip.
When opposite Newport News, saw the wrecks of the United States
frigates _Cumberland_ and _Congress_, sunk in the fight with the
Confederate iron-clad _Virginia_ (_Merrimac_),[H] on the 8th of March,
1862. A portion of one mast only of the _Congress_ being visible, while
we could see parts of three masts of the _Cumberland_ and a part of
the bowsprit above the water. They were but a short distance from the
shore, off the point. A little beyond we saw the United States steamer
_Minnesota_ and two other vessels, ironclads, and a little farther off
the _Monitor_ lay floating at ease.
Hundreds of sea-gulls hovered around our boat, circling overhead,
occasionally stopping in their flight and beating the air with their
wings, then floating along like a boat on smooth water, darting down
now and then, attracted by the pieces of bread and scraps of food
thrown into the water by the men on board, all the while uttering a
peculiar cry resembling the creaking of an old wagon wheel in need of
oiling. A man on the lower deck threw a piece of coal into the flock
which struck one of the birds, apparently breaking a wing, as it fell
over into the water, helpless. The rest of the flock ceased following
us and gathered round their wounded companion, who lay on top of the
water. They fluttered around him, chattering and seemingly endeavoring
to aid or save him. Soon, however, they again gathered around us and
seemed to forget their loss in their efforts to catch the tempting
morsels thrown to them from the boat.
How rudely cut off from life. How soon forgotten, poor bird. But how
like man the conduct of these birds. A poor mortal is stricken down
in the midst of his cares and his enjoyments. Friends and relatives
cluster about him and pour forth their lamentations. But how soon
does their grief wear off, and they are carried away in the whirl of
excitement of the giddy, thoughtless world, and all is forgotten.
[Illustration: MAP OF JAMES RIVER
From Fortress Monroe to Richmond]
A guard-boat hailed us, and the captain in reply said that we were
going to City Point with five hundred Confederate prisoners, for
exchange. “All right,” was the answer from the guard-boat. Two hundred
and forty prisoners were brought to the Old Capitol the night before we
left, and we left there with four hundred and eighty-eight.
I lay down and took a nap in the afternoon. When I awoke the rain had
ceased, but the clouds hung lowering overhead and the muttering thunder
was sullenly giving out angry growls.
We were then in the James River, and passing in sight of Jamestown, the
first settlement in Virginia. There are no houses on the island. The
brick walls of one of the old houses and chimneys of two outhouses are
in sight. These were destroyed by the Union troops. We could also see
the remains of the batteries erected by the Confederates. An old church
tower is all that remains of a church built in Colonial times.
A colored boy came to our stateroom and said if we wished to keep it we
should come down to the clerk’s office and re-engage it. Wright said he
would like to keep it, but had no money. I sent down a bill and paid
for the room for the night. After sundown it cleared off beautifully,
and the sky was bright and clear. Our boat anchored in mid-stream, with
a white flag at the fore and the United States flag flying at the peak.
_Sunday, March 29._--When I awoke this morning the boat was steaming
up the James River, a little below the mouth of the Chickahominy
River. We soon came to Westover, originally the residence of Colonel
William Byrd, who was in his day one of the most accomplished gentlemen
in the Colony, and Westover was noted for the magnificence of the
buildings, the beauty of the situation and the charms of its society.
Next came Harrison’s Landing, a place made memorable by the retreat of
McClellan’s army from before Richmond, after the seven days’ fight.
From this point it was but a short run to City Point, where we cast
anchor in the stream opposite the landing.
Here we were gladdened by the sight of a small Confederate flag waving
from a house on a bluff opposite, and at the landing a sentinel in
Confederate gray paced up and down. A few soldiers appeared on a
hill near by, and some distance above City Point we could see flags
waving--first white and then red. This was a signal station. One of our
men had been in the Signal Service and he explained its workings to us.
Captain John E. Mulford, United States Agent of Exchange, went ashore
in a boat and soon after returned and said the Confederate authorities
had been notified of our arrival and we would be sent off as soon as
they came down for us.
Last night there were no rations given out, and this morning we got
nothing but a piece of fat pork and a slice of bread--no coffee. Meals
were served up on the boat at 50 cents a head.
About 4 P.M. the anchor was hauled up and two hundred and eighty-five
soldiers, including those from the Old Capitol, and a portion of the
soldiers from Johnson’s Island, were landed at the wharf. Cars were in
readiness to take them to Petersburg. They went off in high spirits,
all apparently rejoiced to find themselves again free.
[Illustration: J. H. Barnes.]
City Point is at the confluence of the James and Appomattox Rivers.
The railroad runs along the shore and the land rises abruptly a short
distance back from the river bank, forming in many places high bluffs.
The wharves, which extended along the whole front of the town, have
been destroyed, and nothing remains of them but the charred tops of
the piles which supported them. The houses along the shore in front
of the steep banks, are all more or less injured and many completely
demolished. Great holes are seen through the sides and roofs, made by
shot and shell.
At night saw signal station on James River in full operation. Flags are
used by day and lights at night.
_Monday, March 30._--Barnes asked Captain Mulford if citizens, after
being exchanged, could return to their homes within the Federal lines
without being subject to arrest. Captain Mulford said the same charge
which led to their arrest in the first instance could be again brought
against them, and he said he would advise all who were exchanged to
keep outside of the lines, unless they came with Morgan, Stuart, or
some one who could take them back safely.
About one o’clock a train came down from Petersburg, with the
Confederate States Commissioner of Exchange, Robert Ould. Soon the
United States steamer _Henry Burden_ came up with a flag-of-truce,
and made fast alongside. She brought Colonel Ludlow, United States
Commissioner. About 4:45 we were put on the cars and taken to
Petersburg.
PAROLE CAMP
Arriving at Petersburg, we were marched through the city to Parole Camp
at Model Farm Barracks. Here we went to headquarters and registered our
names. Bennett took me to his quarters and gave me some supper--bacon
and crackers. On the boat we had nothing but bread and coffee toward
the last, and the meat was quite a luxury. It was of good quality, too.
_Tuesday, March 31._--When I awoke this morning I had to turn over
two or three times to supple my joints. The bunk I slept in was
hard boards, and our covering for the two was a small shawl and one
overcoat. It was a cold, rainy night and my bed was cold. Still, I am
satisfied to put up with this lack of comfort to be out of prison and
among friends once more. I saw James F. Kerfoot, a room-mate from the
Old Capitol. Crowds of negroes flock around the camp with pies, bread
and fried chicken, etc. If you ask the price of anything they will
answer--“A dollar.” Four pies, $1, and everything in dollar parcels, as
though that was the lowest current value known in ordinary traffic.
Parole Camp is located at what was formerly an Agricultural Fair
Ground. Here twelve of us are quartered in one end of an old stable.
We drew our rations--rice, sugar, salt, bacon and three biscuits each.
We put one of these big round biscuits or crackers in a little tin
plate, heat some water in a skillet and pour over the biscuit, then
turn another tin plate over it and leave for a few minutes. On removing
the upper tin plate the biscuit will be found to have swelled out so
that it fills the plate. A piece of fat pork or bacon is now put in
the skillet, and when the fat is well fried out the biscuit is put
in the hot fat and placed over the fire, and to a hungry man living
in the open air it is a first-class luxury on a bill of fare, where
the great fault is that, like Sam Weller’s love letter, it is too
short, and makes you wish there was more of it. The supply of wood is
light--rations only five or six sticks.
[Illustration: Albert Wrenn]
Jack Barnes, Albert Wrenn and Frank Fox went to Petersburg on an old
pass and came back at night, bringing with them a canteen of whiskey,
for which they paid $6.50 per quart.
We have only two bunks in our quarters. While we take turns with these
the rest of the party have to sleep on the floor or sit up around
the fire. The building is open to the wind, and so cold that it is
impossible to sleep comfortably.
At Parole Camp I see a great many prisoners who have been incarcerated
in Northern prisons, principally Camp Chase, Camp Douglas, and
Johnson’s Island. They all corroborate the statements made to me by
the Western prisoners with whom I conversed while in the Old Capitol
regarding the treatment of prisoners.
I was speaking to one of my companions who was complaining of the short
rations and cold comforts at Camp Parole, when one of the released
prisoners who had but recently arrived, said:
“You should not complain of the fare and treatment here. It is nothing
compared to what we had to go through on Johnson’s Island. Of course
it is hard living here, but we know it can’t be helped; there was no
excuse for it there. What we suffered there was from pure cussedness.
The Yankees have plenty of everything and could certainly give
prisoners enough to eat if they chose--plain, cheap food--enough to
sustain life in a healthy condition, but they didn’t. Some prisoners
would eat their day’s rations at one meal; others would make two meals
of it. Salt beef, salt pork, salt fish and bread was doled out to us
for months; no coffee, tea or sugar; no vegetables, except very rarely
an onion or potato. Consequently, men suffered with scurvy so that
their gums were bleeding and sometimes their teeth fell out. Old bones
were broken up and boiled, and scraps of food were culled out from the
hospital slop-barrels. Rats and cats were eaten by the hungry men when
they could catch them. For a time prisoners were allowed to receive
food from friends outside, but an order was published denying them this
privilege.
“For trifling offences Confederate officers were compelled to stand on
the head of a barrel between the dead-line and the prison wall, and
one officer while standing in the door of Block 12 was killed by a
sentinel. It was not unusual for our quarters to be fired into at night.
“The place being exposed to the cold wintry winds from Lake Erie we
suffered from the intense cold, and in summer the only shade was that
afforded by the buildings where the prisoners were housed.”[I]
_Thursday, April 2._--The soldiers here have to endure greater
hardships than we do. Last night they were coughing continually in the
barracks adjoining the quarters I am in. One poor fellow, suffering
with neuralgia, was walking up and down the floor, groaning and acting
like a crazy man. At last, losing his patience completely, he commenced
to swear. A comrade, shocked at his utterances, said:
“Bill, why don’t you pray to God to help you, instead of cursing and
going on as you are?”
“Oh,” replied Bill, “I have done that, but d----n it, He won’t do it.”
Captain Cannon told Bowles yesterday that he had written to Colonel
French the day before, to know what he should do with the citizens
brought here. This should have been provided for in advance of their
arrival. There seems to be very poor management on the part of the
officials in charge.
Yesterday we got a ration of flour and half a ration of bacon--quarter
of a pound to each man.
This afternoon nine hundred men arrived from Camp Chase. There is now a
general exchange going on, and it is said about six thousand prisoners
are to be brought on. A number were sent off to-day. They go to the
Western army. The wind is blowing very hard. Frank Fox, Phil. Lee, and
the two Mills sick. Militia relieved from guard duty.
Barnes yesterday appointed sergeant of our company. This morning some
of our mess bought a bottle of brandy and half a gallon of beans. I had
a good drink of the brandy, and it put a little warmth in me. Beans for
dinner--the first good hearty meal since we left the Old Capitol.
We borrowed a big iron kettle from one of the messes, and having
gathered a lot of wood and chips, started a fire and put our beans on
to cook. One of the men picked up a piece of an old cracker box and we
made a number of rude paddles to use as spoons in eating the beans.
Tom Lee was walking around seemingly unconscious of what was going on.
“Don’t say anything to Tom about what we are doing,” said one. Tom
wandered off, and when he returned the beans were ready for eating.
“How are you going to eat the beans--with your fingers?” asked Tom as
he saw us seat ourselves around the pot.
All smiled at his innocence, and taking out their paddles commenced
fishing for beans. Tom quietly took from his pocket a clam shell he had
found in his wanderings and fitted it into a split stick. With this
primitive but all-sufficient implement he proceeded to dip into the
pot, and while the beans were slipping off our rudely fashioned paddles
he could scoop up at one dip as much as we could take at a dozen.
“You boys are smart,” said Tom, “but you couldn’t fool your brother
Tom.”
_Saturday, April 4._--Got a pass to visit Petersburg in company with
Jack Barnes, Gus Williams and Tom Lee.
Our rations are dealt out in such homeopathic doses that we are always
glad when we can obtain a pass to visit Petersburg so as to gratify a
little of that craving for food which it is impossible to satisfy here.
Went through the market. Meat selling at $1 a pound; turnips, 25 cents
each, and other vegetables in proportion. Bought a hat, $20; had a
drink of apple brandy, 50 cents. Walked up along the Appomattox River,
and came back into camp through the old Fair Grounds. Rain and cold
wind; nearly all the tents blown down.
_Sunday, April 5._--Still raining. Captain Cannon said a dispatch
had been received from the Secretary of War, that all civilians not
attached to regular commands and liable to conscription, would have
the privilege of joining any command they chose. I told Cannon I was
a Marylander and that I would like to go to Richmond before making
choice. He said I must first designate a command I wished to join. Told
him then I would join Captain Mosby. He said I would be mustered in and
leave as soon as possible.
_Tuesday, April 7._--Went to Petersburg with Barnes, Wrenn and Biggins.
Got plate of ham and eggs (two eggs and a piece of bacon), $1.25.
George Richardson, Gus Williams, Cooke, J. Mills and Benjamin F. Bowles
left camp and went to Richmond. Williams, in bidding us good-bye, said
he expected to be back in the Old Capitol within a week after leaving
Richmond. He said this was the fourth time he had been a prisoner; that
his two daughters and one son, about ten or twelve years of age, were
arrested at the instigation of Union men and imprisoned three months.
Some of the Confederate officers from the Old Capitol Prison came down
last night and reported at camp this morning: Captain Sherman, Major
Breckenridge, Lieutenants Smith, Bixler and others. William M. Mills
leaves camp to-morrow.
_Thursday, April 9._--One of the prisoners from Camp Douglas told
me that there was great mortality among the Confederate prisoners
there. A large number were in the hospital, and the morning he left
there were thirty corpses in the dead house. “It is no wonder they
die off,” said he; “hundreds were frost-bitten and suffered terribly
from the cold last winter. Fuel was given out so sparingly, that we
had to treasure every little piece of wood and coal as if it was
precious metal we were hoarding. Our rations were cut down so that we
were never able to satisfy the craving of hunger. So long as we were
allowed to receive food from benevolent persons outside of the prison
some of the prisoners fared tolerably well, but when the order came
prohibiting this we really suffered. Many poor fellows, broken down and
emaciated by disease, passed away in the silence of the night and their
companions in misery were in ignorance of the fact until the dawning of
day exposed to their view the pale corpse in their midst.
“Our barracks were miserable, dilapidated buildings, and our prison
guards were brutal in the extreme; they had never been to the front,
nor within sight or sound of a battle. Kicks and curses were liberally
dealt out, and prisoners were shot without any real provocation.
Men were hung up by the thumbs until they fainted. One half-starved
prisoner was shot while fishing bones out of a slop-barrel.”
_Sunday, April 12._--Fine day. Yesterday I was passed out by Lieutenant
Smith. Gathered some broom-sage and made a bed of it, so I slept more
comfortably last night. Heavy cannonading heard yesterday.
About four o’clock this afternoon I was regularly mustered into the
Confederate service, to serve under Mosby, now operating in the
borderland of Virginia.
Lindsay, of Washington, went to Richmond, to be sent to Company K,
Tenth Louisiana Regiment.
There have been so many prisoners brought here to Camp Parole lately
that we are getting overcrowded. Coming from the prison pens of Camp
Chase, Camp Douglas, Johnson’s Island, and other Northern prisons,
where they have been confined for months, they are all more or less
infested with vermin. It is a common sight to see an old soldier
quietly seat himself in a line of unfortunates, on the sunny side of
a fence or building sheltered from the cold wind, and deliberately
drawing his shirt over his head, set to work industriously searching
for vampires--picking them out from their hiding places in the folds
and creases. Skirmishing, the boys term this occupation, though it
might be called picketing. To kill the tiny creatures who seek to
conceal themselves along the seams of the pants, and to destroy the
eggs, two round stones are taken in the hands, and by clapping them
together up and down the seams on the side of the legs of the pants the
life is crushed out of a goodly number of the bloodthirsty crew.
[Illustration: COLONEL JOHN SINGLETON MOSBY, C. S. A.]
Expecting now to leave the camp in a day or two, we--that is, our mess
(and we certainly were a sorry mess)--went up the Appomattox to Elk
Licking Creek and took a bath. We had gotten so stocked up with vermin,
that the only way we could see to rid ourselves of the pest was to buy
new outfits in Petersburg and go to the Creek, take a good scrubbing,
throw away all our old clothes and put on the new ones.
_Monday, April 13._--William McK. Perry, who was a room-mate in the Old
Capitol Prison, sent there from Camp Chase, left Parole Camp to-day for
his home in Missouri.
FROM PAROLE CAMP TO UPPERVILLE
_Tuesday, April 14._--Left Model Farm Barracks, Camp Parole, in company
with John H. Barnes, Albert Wrenn, Frank Fox, Philip and Thomas Lee,
and Charles W. Radcliffe.[J] About 4 o’clock left Petersburg for
Richmond, where we arrived at 6:30 P.M. Along the road to Richmond are
lines of rifle pits and intrenchments commanding the approaches to the
city. When we reached the outposts at Richmond we were challenged by a
guard, and after showing our papers, were permitted to proceed to the
hotel. We put up at the Powhatan House, corner of Eleventh and Broad
Streets. Our supper consisted of tough beef, bread and rye coffee--no
butter.
_Wednesday, April 15._--Settled my bill at the Powhatan, $8. Terms:
$8 per day; $2 each for breakfast and supper; $3 for dinner; $2 for
lodging.
Beef is selling in Richmond at $1.25 per pound; butter, $3; coffee,
$4 to $5; eggs, $1.50 per dozen. Expected to go to the transportation
office at night, but went to the theater and then back to the hotel.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT FRANK FOX]
_Thursday, April 16._--At 7:30 left Richmond and arrived at
Gordonsville at 1 P.M.; stopped at Mann’s Hotel. Gordonsville is a
miserable looking place now. There has been so much rain lately, and
the roads have been cut up with the travel and passing of army teams
and trains, so that it is little else than a mud-hole.
_Saturday, April 18._--Paid Mann’s bill, $7.50. There are but six of
us now, as Frank Fox left us and remained at Barboursville. MacWooster
hitched up a wagon, agreeing to take us to Madison Court House for $5
each. We reached Madison Court House about dark and went to a hotel
kept by Mr. Seal. Here we were very comfortable--good beds and an
excellent table.
_Sunday, April 19._--Madison Court House is a very pretty little place,
well situated, and commanding a beautiful view of the Blue Ridge and
surrounding country. There are two or three churches and a fine court
house. The houses are neat and comfortable. After dinner paid Mr. Seal.
Our bill for supper, breakfast and dinner, was $4.50.
MacWooster said he would carry us as far as Criglersville, about six
miles distant, and there leave us to foot it. The drive along the road
was very pleasant, particularly after striking Robertson River, a
beautiful clear stream with a swift current, which comes down from the
mountains.
“Now, boys,” said Mac, as he bid us good-bye at a ford on the Robertson
River, “you’ve got a rough road before you, and a poor country to
travel through. Take my advice and stop for the night at Matt.
Graves’s. His house is near the foot of the mountain. He is one of the
finest men in the country. He will treat you well and give you the best
he has in his house.” We afterward found good reason to be thankful for
having taken this friendly advice.
When we reached the house which we supposed was to be our haven of
rest, we saw a man riding up to the stable, and on accosting him found
he was Mr. Graves. He invited us to his house, where he regaled us
with a good drink and a bottle for our day’s journey on the morrow.
This he said we would find needful before we got far on our road, for
he not only repeated MacWooster’s warning as to the hardships awaiting
us, but also said he feared the weather would prove unfavorable and add
to our discomfort.
_Monday, April 20._--At Mr. Graves’s there is a little fellow about
the size, age and appearance of my youngest son, Bernardin. Seeing him
playing around and fondling on his father it brought to mind thoughts
of home--thoughts of home and its comforts; of the dear ones there; of
the sad hearts I left, and of the glad hearts to greet me on my return.
I could hardly resist the temptation to pick up the little one without
saying a word, but I feared he would cry, so I made friends with him
by showing him a ring on my finger, and so coaxed him on until I had
banished any fears he might have. All the time I was there I could
scarcely keep my eyes off him.
Paid Mr. Graves $2 each for supper, bed and breakfast, and started to
cross the mountain at Milani’s Gap. We were told it was ten miles from
Mr. Graves’s to the top of the ridge and six miles to the foot on the
other side. Rain set in last night and this morning the clouds are very
heavy, enveloping the mountains completely. The road takes a zigzag
course up the slope, which is quite steep in many places. A great
portion of the way we followed along the Robertson River. The scenery,
as well as we could see it through the mist, appeared grand. It was
mountains piled on mountains--an ocean of ridges. In some places we
could travel for a long distance and then throw a stone to the place
we started from. A number of huts are scattered through this mountain
region, but the people are almost as wild as Indians, and it was
impossible to obtain refreshments of any kind along the road.
When about four miles from the top rain again set in, and we tramped
along through the driving storm. In some places, endeavoring to save
distance, we would leave the main road and climb up the steep sides
until we struck into the road at some point higher up. We had to ford
the swift mountain streams, or cross on an old log or fallen tree,
where, as also in clambering along the narrow footpath, a false step,
the turning of a stone or the breaking of a limb, and one would have
been precipitated into the foaming current which dashed on among the
rocks. In those mountain storms a tiny stream which winds along like
a silvery thread in fair weather, is in less than an hour transformed
into a raging torrent, sweeping off everything in its course.
On nearing the top we fell in with a man who was traveling through the
country buying up cattle and forage for the Confederate Government.
He kept in company with us until we reached Marksville. Hearing a
noise which sounded like the rumbling of a wagon train coming down the
road, we listened and finally concluded it either proceeded from a
subterranean stream which flowed through the mountains or that roaring
which usually precedes a mountain storm.
Seeing a hut near the roadside, we stopped, and a youth came out to
the fence, followed by a squad of unkempt redheaded children. We asked
if we could get anything to eat. He had nothing. Seeing some chickens
roaming around, Barnes said he would give him $1.50 for a dozen eggs.
He replied that he had none; no meal--nothing edible, and it was a half
mile to the top of the mountain.
We passed through Dismal Hollow, a wild, romantic-looking place. The
road was sometimes hidden by the overhanging foliage. We saw the snow
piled up on the side of the road and through the hemlock thickets,
where it remains far into the summer. On reaching the top of the
mountain we uncorked our bottle and drank that the Yankees might never
cross the Blue Ridge.
Then commenced our descent, and it is hard to say whether it was easier
to go up or down hill. Had it not been for the rain our traveling would
have been less difficult. After getting to the foot we proceeded on
until we came to the house of a man named Kite. He had a fine house
and farm, but refused to accommodate us. He said he was eaten out and
had not enough for his own family. We jogged on through the rain until
we reached Marksville, on the Hawksbill Creek, where we stopped a few
minutes to rest, and then walked along until within about four miles of
Luray.
We inquired at every house along the road, but could neither get a
mouthful to eat nor a place to shelter us from the rain, though we told
them all we were not asking charity, but were willing to pay liberally
for all we received. After so many rebuffs we were about giving up
the attempt to get food or shelter, when Barnes and Wrenn stopped at
the house of Reuben Long. He said he would take three of us and the
other three could get accommodated at the next house--a Mr. Spitter.
We tried there and he had a sick family. We then went to the house of
Ambrose Varner, who received us kindly, built a big fire to warm us and
dry our wet clothes, and prepared a good substantial supper for us.
Charles Ratcliffe had become disgusted with our receptions and made
arrangements to build a fire and pass the night in an old shanty, while
a negro was to furnish bread and meat for his supper. He afterward came
to Varner’s, where we spent the night.
_Tuesday, April 21._--After a good breakfast we prepared for a start.
On asking what our bill was, Mr. Varner said he would make no charge,
but if we chose to give his wife anything for her trouble, he would
leave it altogether with us. We gave him $2 each, and he put up a nice
lunch to take along with us. We called at Long’s, where Barnes and
Wrenn joined us, and then pushed on to Luray. Yesterday we walked a
little more than twenty-one miles across the mountains, through mud and
rain.
At Luray, while Barnes and Wrenn stopped at Modisett’s Hotel for
dinner, I went in search of a druggist, as I had been unwell for
several days. He gave me some powders. I took one, which made me very
sick. I lay down for a while, but felt no better, and we started off on
the road to Front Royal. Along the road I was burning with fever--my
head so dizzy that I staggered like a person drunk. I had an excessive
thirst and drank at every spring or stream we came to, but even water
would not remain on my stomach--soon after drinking I would be taken
with vomiting. After going about six miles we turned off from the road
into a lane, and thence to the house of Mr. Hoffman, where we obtained
supper, bed and breakfast. The good lady of the house made me a cup of
tea, which I drank, but could eat no supper. Went to bed early, and
after I got in bed Mr. Hoffman brought me a glass of toddy.
_Wednesday, April 22._--Felt somewhat better this morning; got
breakfast. Settled bill, $1 each. Mr. Hoffman brought us a plate of
biscuits to carry along and we started for Front Royal. We met parties
along the route, each with a different story to tell about the approach
of the Yankees. Some said they were in force at Middletown, about 12
miles from Front Royal. Others, that they were expected in Front Royal
at any moment, and advising us not to stop there. Indeed, had we heeded
half the reports we would have retraced our steps.
A few miles from Front Royal we met a carriage going toward Luray. In
it was a young man in Confederate uniform and two young ladies. Barnes
spoke to them and one immediately recognized him. She was Miss Belle
Ford, a cousin to Miss Antonia Ford, who was arrested and confined in
the Old Capitol Prison after Mosby’s raid into Fairfax Court House and
capture of General Stoughton, charged with giving Mosby information
which led to the raid and capture.[K] After leaving them we proceeded
about another mile, when we were halted by a patrol of Confederate
Cavalry, who demanded to know where we were from, where we were going,
etc. One of them said he had seen the Yankees at Middletown--cavalry,
infantry and artillery--and cautioned us about stopping at Front
Royal. Our road ran a great distance along the Shenandoah River. On the
one side we had the river banks, and on the other towering rocks and
rugged mountains. In some places there was a gradual slope, while in
others they rose perpendicular, forming a complete wall, but without
its uniformity--massive and broken, showing occasionally large fissures
which, viewed from the ground, resembled windows.
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL EDWIN H. STOUGHTON, U. S. A.]
On reaching Front Royal we went to the hotel. There are two in town,
but only one occupied. Here a very nice supper was set out for us, but
I was content with a dish of boiled milk. There were but two beds in
the house, and as there were six of us we slept three in a bed.
_Thursday, April 23._--Good breakfast this morning. It was raining
very hard when we started on toward Markham. Our route led us down the
old Manassas Railroad. The track had been torn up, the sleepers and
all woodwork burnt, the rails bent and in many cases twisted around
the trunks of trees. The road in some places was so muddy we sunk five
or six inches at every step, and in other places we were slipping over
sharp broken stones. Finding the road so bad, our clothing completely
saturated with rain, and there being no appearance of the rain ceasing,
we halted by the roadside at an old deserted shanty, which had at one
time been occupied by workmen on the railroad. We gathered some wood,
built a fire and tried to make ourselves as comfortable as possible.
We bought seven pounds of flour from an old Irishman living near by,
but could get neither meat nor eggs. The man baked us some bread and
with it brought us a pot of coffee. At night slept on a bunch of wet
straw thrown on the floor of the shanty--that is, on the place where
the flooring should be, but in this instance it was dirt, the same as
outside, except that it was sheltered from the rain.
_Friday, April 24._--Still raining. Made another start, but stopped at
Mr. Lee’s, about a mile from our last halting place, and got breakfast.
We then struck out through rain and mud, our boots soaking wet and
our clothes hanging limp. Stopped at Bush Thompson’s and bought some
apple brandy. Passed through Markham and on to Piedmont (now called
Delaplane). We crossed Goose Creek three times: first, on charred
logs, the remains of what was once the railroad bridge; second, on a
fallen tree, and, third, on a bridge similar to the first. The burnt
logs, broken and bent down, looked as if ready to give way under our
weight in crossing. From Piedmont took the road to Upperville, where we
arrived early in the evening. Barnes and Ratcliffe went to the house of
a friend near town. Philip Lee, Thomas Lee, Wrenn and myself went to
Lunchford’s, where we got a very poor supper, no fire, and sat until
bedtime shivering in our wet boots and clothes.
_Saturday, April 25._--On opening my valise to get out dry clothes,
I was surprised to find that the water had leaked in and everything
in it was soaked with water. I was compelled to put on wet socks and
underclothes.
[Illustration: CERTIFICATE OF MEMBERSHIP
As there were men wearing Confederate uniforms (either deserters or
absent from their commands without leave), roaming about the country,
claiming to belong to Mosby’s command, the men were furnished with
certificates of this kind.]
There was a meeting of Mosby’s men in Upperville on this day and
they were coming in town singly and in small squads from different
directions. I saw Mosby and made myself known to him and my purpose in
coming to Virginia. He said he would furnish me a horse, and told me
to come to the next meeting of the command.
I met a number of men who had been prisoners in the Old Capitol with
me. I was introduced to William Ayre and rode with him to the home of
his brother George S. Ayre, at Ayreshire, who had been a room-mate with
me in the Old Capitol Prison. He welcomed me to his home and told me to
make his house my headquarters. When I got my horse and equipments I
was ready to enter upon my career as a Partisan Ranger.
INMATES OF ROOM NO. 16, DURING MY TERM OF IMPRISONMENT
[The Missourians named were held here awaiting transportation South for
exchange.]
Adreon, George S., Baltimore.
Armand, William, Louisiana.
Ayre, George S., Loudoun County, Virginia.
Barnes, John H., Fairfax County, Virginia.
Barrett, Boyd.
Bennett, .........., Maryland.
Brawner, Redmond F., Prince William County, Virginia.
Carr, John, Fauquier County, Virginia.
Carter, H. Fitzhugh, Fauquier County, Virginia.
Chandler, .........., Missouri. (From Camp Chase.)
Clift, .........., Missouri. (From Camp Chase.)
Comastri, Marco, Italy. Arrested coming from the South.
Davis, ..........
Delano, Philemon.
Dula, Lowring, Missouri.
Eorio, Pietro, Brusnengo, Piemonte, Italia.
Ewell, James, Accomac County, Virginia.
Fitzgerald, Edward.
Flaherty, John, Baltimore.
Flaherty, Peter, Baltimore.
Ford, John.
Gardner, ..........
George, ..........
Goldsmith, John M., St. Mary’s County, Md.
Green, .........., Missouri. (From Camp Chase.)
Hagan, .........., Missouri. (From Camp Chase.)
Hammett, George.
Hertzog, .......... (From Camp Chase.)
Holbrook, Thomas H., Baltimore.
Hollenbaugh, William T., Pennsylvania.
Hoyle, George, Maryland.
Hunter, John B., Virginia. (Held as a Hostage.)
Hurst, Thomas, Baltimore.
Jenkins, ..........
Johnson, James, Clarke County, Virginia.
Keleher, John, Baltimore.
Kerfoot, James F., Clarke County, Virginia.
Key, J., Maryland.
King, Aaron J.
Lackey, .........., Missouri. (From Camp Chase.)
Lewis, Aaron.
Littlepage, William T., Baltimore.
Love, Henry, Dumfries, Virginia.
Love, Llewellyn, Dumfries, Virginia.
Marchland, Judge. (From Camp Chase.)
Martin, .......... (From Camp Chase.)
Minor, Fairfax, Virginia.
Mitchell, Captain, Baltimore.
Mitchell, Lieutenant Hugh.
Montgomery, ..........
Mount, Stephen R., Loudoun County, Virginia.
O’Brien, Edward H., Maryland. (First Md. Regiment.)
Pentz, John, Baltimore.
Perry, William McK., Missouri. (From Camp Chase.)
Phillips, Captain Thomas. (Captured running the blockade
into Wilmington, N. C.)
Phillips, Captain Wesley, Baltimore. (Captain of schooner
carrying stores to the Army of the Potomac.)
Purcell, Volney, Loudoun County, Virginia.
Randolph, .........., Virginia.
Reilly, ..........
Richardson, George, Fairfax County, Virginia.
Rinaldi, Raphael, Italy. (Arrested coming from the South.)
Russell, .........., Baltimore.
Short, .........., Virginia.
Simmons, Albert, Baltimore.
Smith, John C.
Spence, William A., Westmoreland County, Virginia.
Stant, James, Accomac County, Virginia.
Storm, R. B., Baltimore.
Tansell, James, Washington, D. C.
Taylor, George, Accomac County, Virginia.
Taylor, James, Accomac County, Virginia.
Taylor, John W., Accomac County, Virginia.
Taylor, Samuel, Accomac County, Virginia.
Thornton, Frank, Baltimore.
Thornton, William.
Ward, Charles.
Ward, Walter W., Baltimore. (Stuart’s Horse Artillery.)
Weiler, Emanuel, Richmond, Virginia.
Williams, Augustus, Vienna, Virginia.
Williams, W. F., Maryland.
Williamson, James J., Washington, D. C.
Wright, J.
TREATMENT OF PRISONERS OF WAR
Hon. Jefferson Davis, in a letter written from Beauvoir, December,
1888, said:
“Nearly a quarter of a century has elapsed since war between the
States ceased. Has the prejudice fed on the passions of that period
ceased with the physical strife? Shall it descend from sire to
son, hardened by its transmission? Or shall it be destroyed by the
full development of the truth, the exposure of the guilty, and the
vindication of the innocent?”
In the North a general impression was produced, and exists to a certain
extent even at this late day, that Northern prisoners incarcerated
in Southern prisons during the war, were brutally treated, starved,
frozen, neglected and inhumanly treated in sickness, and even murdered,
and that this was done in accordance with a wilful and deliberate
plan, inaugurated by the Confederate Government and carried out by its
officers and soldiers. And no other subject has tended more to keep
alive a bitter and hostile feeling between the sections.
It is not so much among soldiers who fought through the war that the
intenseness of this feeling is shown as among those whose fighting has
been done since the war. In most cases it is the result of prejudice or
through ignorance of the real facts.
The Confederate authorities made every effort possible to alleviate
the sufferings of prisoners in Southern prisons. Finding it impossible
to effect exchange man for man, and aware of their inability to
properly care for the sick and wounded, they offered to deliver to
the United States authorities the sick and wounded without insisting
on the delivery of any equivalent in return. It was nearly four months
after this offer was made by the Confederate authorities before it was
accepted by the United States authorities, who had been informed of the
frightful mortality among their soldiers in Southern prisons and urged
to send speedy transportation to take them away.
Robert Ould, Confederate Agent of Exchange, offered to purchase
medicines from the United States authorities, to be used exclusively
for the relief of United States prisoners--to pay in gold, cotton or
tobacco--two or three prices even--such medicines to be brought into
the Confederate lines and dispensed by United States surgeons.
The following letter will show the persistent efforts made by the
Confederate authorities for the relief of prisoners in their hands:
Confederate States of America,
War Department, Richmond, Va., Jan. 24, 1864.
Major-General E. A. HITCHCOCK,
_Agent of Exchange_.
Sir:--In view of the present difficulties attending the exchange and
release of prisoners, I propose that all such on each side shall be
attended by a proper number of their own surgeons, who, under rules
to be established, shall be permitted to take charge of their health
and comfort.
I also propose that these surgeons shall act as commissaries,
with power to receive and distribute such contributions of money,
food, clothing and medicines as may be forwarded for the relief of
prisoners. I further propose that these surgeons be selected by
their own governments, and that they shall have full liberty at any
and all times, through the agents of exchange, to make reports not
only of their own acts, but of any matters relating to the welfare of
the prisoners.
Respectfully, your obedient servant,
RO. OULD, _Agent of Exchange_.
Could anything be fairer and more humane than this proposal?
In a letter to the editor of the _National Intelligencer_, dated August
17, 1868, Robert Ould says:
“The cartel of exchange bears date July 22, 1862. The fourth article
provided that all prisoners of war should be discharged on parole in
ten days after capture. From the date of the cartel until the summer
of 1863, the Confederate authorities had the excess of prisoners.
During that interval deliveries were made as fast as the Federal
Government furnished transportation.... As long as the Confederate
Government had the excess of prisoners matters went on smoothly
enough; but as soon as the posture of affairs in that respect was
changed the cartel could no longer be observed.
“More than once I urged the mortality at Andersonville as a reason
for haste on the part of the United States authorities. I know
personally it was the purpose of the Confederate Government to send
off from its prisons all the sick and wounded, and to continue to do
the same from time to time, without requiring any equivalents.”
The War Department at Washington, on July 3, 1863, issued General Order
No. 209, which states that “it is understood captured officers and men
and sick and wounded in hospitals have been paroled and released,”
and concludes: “Any officer or soldier who gives such parole will be
returned to duty without exchange, and, moreover, will be punished for
disobedience to orders.”
General J. A. Early, commenting on this order, said: “But for that
order all the prisoners captured by us at Gettysburg, amounting to
fully six thousand, would have been paroled, and, in fact, the proper
staff officers were proceeding to parole them, and had actually
paroled and released a large number of them, when news came of the
order referred to. Why did Mr. Stanton object to the paroling of
those prisoners? And why did he prefer that they should be confined
in prisons in the South--‘prison pens,’ as Northern Republicans
are pleased to call them.... If any of the prisoners brought
from Gettysburg, or subsequently captured, lost their lives at
Andersonville, or any other Southern prison, is it not palpable that
the responsibility for their deaths rested on Edwin M. Stanton?”
The fact is, the authorities at Washington were willing to allow their
soldiers to languish and die in Southern prisons rather than consent to
exchange. Would rather have them kept and starved that they might make
capital out of it. When they consented to receive the sick and wounded,
they did it--not for the purpose of ameliorating their sufferings,
but that they might take the worst looking of the sick and starved
prisoners and make an exhibition of their pictures to arouse a feeling
of resentment among the Northern people, cover up their own infamy and
place the South in a false light before the powers of the world.
In August, 1864, Brigadier-Generals Wessells and Seymour were sent
South to look into the condition and treatment of Union prisoners. From
a report of General Seymour to Colonel Hoffman, Commissary-General
of Prisoners, Washington, D. C., I take the following extract, which
proves how little the United States authorities were concerned on
account of the sufferings of their soldiers who were held as prisoners
of war:
“The Southern authorities are exceedingly desirous of an exchange
of prisoners. General Wessells and myself had an interview with
General Ripley at Charleston, S. C., on this point. Their urgency is
unbounded, but we asserted that it was the poorest possible policy
for our Government to deliver to them 40,000 prisoners, better fed
and clothed than ever before in their lives, in good condition for
the field, while the United States receives in return an equal number
of men worn out with privations and neglect, barely able to walk,
often drawing their last breath, and utterly unfit to take the field
as soldiers.”
Major-General Ben Butler, referring to the frustration of his efforts,
while in command at Fortress Monroe, to bring about an exchange of
prisoners, says in his book:
“His (Grant’s) proposition was to make an aggressive fight upon
Lee, trusting to the superiority of numbers and to the practical
impossibility of Lee getting any considerable reinforcements to keep
up his army. We had 26,000 Confederate prisoners, and if they were
exchanged it would give the Confederates a corps larger than any
in Lee’s army, of disciplined veterans, better able to stand the
hardships of a campaign and more capable than any other,” etc.
At the last session of the Confederate Congress a joint committee of
the two Houses was appointed to take up and investigate the “Condition
and Treatment of Prisoners of War.” This committee took a vast amount
of testimony--sworn depositions of witnesses--surgeons, officers and
soldiers, private citizens and Federal prisoners.
The object of this was to correct the unjust statements and
misrepresentations which were circulated, and to remove false
impressions and unfounded prejudices--to present to the world “a
vindication of their country and relieve her authorities from the
injurious slanders brought against her by her enemies.”
From the extremely lengthy Report of this committee I give here a few
extracts:
“This Report is rendered especially important by reason of persistent
efforts lately made by the Government of the United States and by
associations and individuals connected or co-operating with it,
to asperse the honor of the Confederate authorities and to charge
them with deliberate and wilful cruelty to prisoners of war. Two
publications have been issued at the North within the past year and
have been circulated not only in the United States but in some parts
of the South and in Europe. One of these is the Report of the joint
select committee of the Northern Congress on the Conduct of the
War, known as ‘Report No. 67.’ It is accompanied by eight pictures
or photographs alleged to represent United States prisoners of war
returned from Richmond in a sad state of emaciation and suffering.
“The intent and spirit of this report may be gathered from the
following extract: ‘The evidence proves beyond all manner of doubt,
a determination on the part of the rebel authorities, deliberately
and persistently practised for a long time past, to subject those
of our soldiers who have been so unfortunate as to fall into their
hands to a system of treatment which has resulted in reducing many
of those who have survived and been permitted to return to us to a
condition both physically and mentally which no language we can use
can adequately describe.’--Rep. p. 1.
“The other (Report) purports to be a ‘Narrative of the Privations and
Sufferings of United States Officers and Soldiers while Prisoners of
War,’ and is issued as a Report of a Commission of Inquiry appointed
by the United States Sanitary Commission.
“The disingenuous attempt is made in both these publications to
produce the impression that these sick and emaciated men were fair
representatives of the general state of the prisoners held by the
South, and that all their prisoners were being rapidly reduced to the
same state by starvation and cruelty, and by neglect, ill-treatment
and denial of proper food, stimulants and medicines in the
Confederate hospitals. The facts are simply these:
“The Federal authorities, in violation of the cartel, having for
a long time refused exchange of prisoners, finally consented to a
partial exchange of the sick and wounded on both sides. Accordingly
a number of such prisoners were sent from the hospitals in Richmond.
General directions had been given that none should be sent, except
those who might be expected to endure the removal and passage with
safety to their lives; but in some cases the surgeons were induced
to depart from this rule by the entreaties of some officers and men
in the last stages of emaciation, suffering not only with excessive
debility, but with ‘nostalgia,’ or home-sickness, whose cases were
regarded as desperate, who could not live if they remained, and might
possibly improve if carried home. Thus it happened that some very
sick and emaciated men were carried to Annapolis, but their illness
was not the result of ill-treatment or neglect. Such cases might
be found in any large hospital North or South. They might even be
found in private families, where the sufferer would be surrounded by
every comfort that love could bestow. Yet these are the cases which,
with hideous violation of decency, the Northern Committee have
paraded in pictures and photographs. They have taken their own sick
and enfeebled soldiers, have stripped them naked; have exposed them
before a daguerrean apparatus, have pictured every shrunken limb and
muscle, and all for the purpose, not of relieving their sufferings,
but of bringing a false and slanderous charge against the South.
“A candid reader of these publications will not fail to discover
that, whether the statements they make be true or not, their spirit
is not adapted to promote a better feeling between the hostile
powers. They are not intended for the humane purpose of ameliorating
the condition of the unhappy prisoners held in captivity. They are
designed to inflame the evil passions of the North; to keep up the
war spirit among their own people; to represent the South as acting
under the dominion of a spirit of cruelty, inhumanity and interested
malice, and thus to vilify her people in the eyes of all on whom
these publications can work.
“But even now enough is known to vindicate the South, and to furnish
an overwhelming answer to all complaints on the part of the United
States Government or people, that their prisoners were stinted in
food or supplies. Their own savage warfare has wrought the evil. They
have blockaded our ports; have excluded from us food, clothing and
medicines; have even declared medicines contraband of war, and have
repeatedly destroyed the contents of drug stores, and the supplies of
private physicians in the country; have ravaged our country, burned
our houses and destroyed growing crops and farming implements. One
of their officers--(General Sheridan)--has boasted in his official
report that in the Shenandoah Valley alone he burned 2,000 barns
filled with wheat and corn; that he burned all the mills in the whole
tract of country, destroyed all the factories of cloth, and killed or
drove off every animal, even to the poultry, that could contribute
to human sustenance. These desolations have been repeated again and
again in different parts of the South. Thousands of our families
have been driven from their homes, as helpless and destitute
refugees. Our enemies have destroyed our railroads and other means
of transportation, by which food could be supplied from abundant
districts to those without it. While thus desolating our country in
violation of the usages of civilized warfare, they have refused to
exchange prisoners; have forced us to keep 50,000 of their men in
captivity, and yet have attempted to attribute to us the sufferings
and privations caused by their own acts.”
The report also contains a great amount of testimony concerning the
cruel treatment of Confederate prisoners in Northern prisons.
Pollard, in his history of the “Lost Cause,” after reciting the
extraordinary efforts made by the Confederate authorities to relieve
the sufferings at Andersonville, says:
“Who was responsible for the sufferings of the sick and wounded
prisoners at Andersonville, from August to December, 1864? The
world will ask with amazement if it was possible that thousands of
prisoners were left to die in inadequate places of confinement,
merely to make a case against the South--merely for romance! The
simple fact gives the clue to the whole story of the deception and
inhuman cruelty of the authorities at Washington with reference to
their prisoners of war--the key to a chapter of horrors that even the
hardy hand of history shakes to unlock. To blacken the reputation of
an honorable enemy; to make a false appeal to the sensibilities of
the world; to gratify an inhuman revenge, Mr. Stanton, the saturnine
and malignant Secretary of War at Washington, did not hesitate to
doom to death thousands of his countrymen, and then to smear their
sentinels with accusing blood.”
ABOUT DEAD-LINES
Much has been written and spoken of the “dead-lines” in Southern
prisons. One would suppose they were unknown in Northern prisons. The
fact is, they were as common at the North as in the South. There was
not a Northern prison-camp but had its “dead-line,” and at all these
prisons men were shot at and many killed _for passing over them_. And
there was no reason to complain of this, for the lines were plainly
marked, and it was known that anyone attempting to cross them would
be shot. So, any man--no matter whether North or South--killed in
violating this regulation did not deserve any sympathy.
Even in the Old Capitol Prison guards with loaded guns were stationed
around the prison, within and without, and any prisoner attempting to
escape, or overstepping the bounds, was liable to be shot. Two men,
at least, were killed there--Wharton and Stewart, as described in my
Prison Diary, page 36. And this in the city of Washington, a fortified
city, within the Union lines, surrounded by camps, with thousands of
soldiers, and the prisoners confined in a walled prison-house heavily
guarded.
MAJOR HENRY WIRZ, C. S. A.
_The True History of the Wirz Case._
I was living in Washington at the time Captain Wirz underwent the
travesty of a trial--a farce which ended in a tragedy.
I frequently met and conversed with Louis Schade, his counsel, and his
associate, Judge Hughes. I also met and conversed with witnesses on the
trial.
Rev. Father Boyle and Father Wiget, who attended Wirz during his
imprisonment and ministered to him in his last moments on the scaffold,
were both warm personal friends of mine--Father Wiget particularly. I
not only regarded him as a spiritual father, as he was, but with all
the respect and affection which a devoted son would have for a kind,
loving father. Had I any doubts in the matter of the guilt or innocence
of Wirz, I would take the word of either of these good and true men
before that of the whole tribe of hired perjurers who testified against
him.
There are many persons at the present day who know nothing as to the
truth or falsity of the record of events which took place during and
immediately after the Civil War, except what they have heard or perhaps
read in histories written in the heat of passion, with prejudice and
malice, and their minds are often poisoned and their judgments warped
by the misrepresentations and sensational stories invented at the time
to exasperate the people of the North.
Major Henry Wirz was a native of Switzerland. He came to this country,
and in 1861 was a physician practising his profession in Western
Louisiana.
He entered the Confederate Army at the beginning of the war, was
wounded--his right arm shattered by a ball, so that he remained a
cripple permanently. As his right arm was powerless he did not have
the physical ability to ill-treat prisoners as some of the witnesses
testified at his trial. Even if this charge had been true, that he
exercised undue severity toward some of the prisoners, he might have
been justified in so doing, when their fellow-prisoners were compelled
to hang a half a dozen in self-defense.
[Illustration: MAJOR HENRY WIRZ, C. S. A.]
In 1862 he was promoted to the rank of Captain “for bravery on the
field of battle,” and to that of Major a few months before the close of
the war.
He was an impulsive man--some said he was rough in his manner. This
apparent roughness in persons of foreign birth sometimes proceeds
from difference in language and their mode of expression, which may
only need a little prejudice or ill-will to distort into something
offensive. But that he was a man kind at heart is shown by his earnest
endeavors to relieve the sufferings of the prisoners under his charge.
In the Official Records of the Rebellion, published by the United
States Government, will be found letters of Wirz to Captain R. D.
Chapman, Acting Adjutant of Post, and Colonel D. S. Chandler, Assistant
Adjutant and Inspector-General, showing his efforts to better the
condition of the prisoners, both with regard to rations and hygiene.
In the Southern Historical Society Papers is a letter from General John
D. Imboden, written in 1876, from which the following extracts are
taken:
“I have already alluded to Captain Wirz’s recommendation to put up
more shelter. I ordered it, and thereafter, daily, a hundred or more
prisoners were paroled and set to work in the neighboring forest. In
the course of a fortnight comfortable log-houses, with floors and
good chimneys--for which the prisoners made and burnt the brick--were
erected for twelve or fifteen hundred men.
“This same man (Captain Wirz) who was tried and hung as a murderer,
warmly urged the establishment of a tannery and shoemaker’s shop,
informing me that there were many men among the prisoners skilled in
these trades, and that some of them knew a process of very rapidly
converting hides into tolerably good leather. There were thousands
of hides at Andersonville from the young cattle butchered during the
previous summer and fall, whilst the country yet contained such
animals. A few weeks later many of the barefooted prisoners were
supplied with rough, but comfortable shoes. Another suggestion came
from the medical staff of the post, that I ordered to be at once put
into practice: It was to brew corn beer for those suffering from
scorbutic taint. Captain Wirz entered warmly into this enterprise.
I mention these facts to show that he was not the monster he was
afterward represented to be, when his blood was called for by
infuriated fanaticism. I would have proved these facts _if I had
been permitted to testify on his trial, after I was summoned before
the Court by the United States_, and have substantiated them by the
records of the prison and of my own headquarters.”
When the Federal troops were sent to Georgia Major Wirz was placed
under guard and taken to the Old Capitol Prison, in Washington, D. C.,
where he remained from the 10th of May, 1865, until November 10th,
1865, when he was hung.
For three weary months he was kept a close prisoner, and then he was
taken before a Military Commission for trial (?).
In the case of Major Wirz the usual course of procedure was
reversed--he was first condemned, then tried, and finally executed.
Yet this was not the final act, for the malignity of his persecutors
followed him even after death. When Father Boyle and others sought
to give the body of Wirz Christian burial in consecrated ground the
request was denied and the body deposited beside those executed for the
assassination of President Lincoln, in the yard of the old arsenal.
The regard for law and justice which usually governs in a Civil Court
had no holding in the proceedings of a Military Commission, where the
decisions of the Court were rendered in accordance with the opinions
of the Judge Advocate, who admitted or rejected testimony as he
thought it affected the case. Consequently persons whose testimony was
considered vital for the defense, were not allowed to testify, while
witnesses for the prosecution were permitted to give their evidence, no
matter how inconsistent or manifestly false it was.
In a letter dated August 17th, 1868, to the _National Intelligencer_,
Robert Ould, who was Confederate States Agent of Exchange, says:
“I was named by poor Wirz as a witness in his behalf. The summons
was issued by Chipman, the Judge Advocate of the Military Court. I
obeyed the summons and was in attendance upon the court for some ten
days.... Early in the morning of the day on which I expected to give
my testimony I received a note from Chipman requiring me to surrender
my subpoena. I refused, as it was my protection in Washington....
I engaged, however, to appear before the court and did so the same
morning. The Judge Advocate endorsed on my subpoena these words: ‘The
within subpoena is hereby revoked; the person named is discharged
from further attendance.’ I have got the curious document before me
now, signed with the name of ‘N. P. Chipman, Colonel,’ etc. I intend
to keep it, if I can, as the evidence of the first case _in any court
of any sort_, where a witness who was summoned _for the defense_ was
dismissed _by the prosecution_.”
Rev. Father Whelan, of Savannah, Ga., a venerable Catholic priest, who
had been in the habit of visiting and ministering to the prisoners at
Andersonville, went to Washington, as a witness. He was asked by the
prosecuting attorney what he knew, and after telling his observations
at the prison, he was told he was not wanted and could go home.
In an old diary of mine, I find this entry:
“A man named Marini was in the store to-day. He was called as a
witness in the Wirz case. He had been a prisoner at Andersonville.
He said many of the witnesses had sworn falsely. Some swore he had
been bitten by bloodhounds. This he said was false; that he had shown
them his person to prove there were no marks of wounds. ‘If I had
been torn by the dogs as they swore I had,’ said he, ‘would there not
have been at least some scars to show it?’ He said that at the time
some of the witnesses swore Wirz had shot prisoners, Wirz was not at
Andersonville, but was absent from the post for about four weeks on
surgeon’s certificate, suffering from gangrene; that the accounts
of the prisoners being killed by Wirz were false. Marini was in the
employ of the United States Government as a spy during the war. He
said that one of the witnesses swore he had been sick during the
whole time he was at Andersonville. ‘So he should have been,’ said
Marini; ‘he didn’t wash himself the whole time he was there; he was
too lazy.’”
The star witness for the prosecution was the Marquis De la Baume,
who claimed to be a grand nephew of Lafayette. He testified to the
“individual killing” or murder “committed by Wirz.” Before the
conclusion of the trial he was, _on the recommendation of the members
of the Military Commission_, appointed to a clerkship in the Interior
Department at Washington. He was afterward recognized as a deserter
from the Seventh New York Regiment, and his name was plain Felix Oeser.
When this fact became known he was dismissed from his office, a few
weeks after the execution of Wirz. There was no further need of his
services.
Another witness against Wirz was John Rainbow. In September, 1894,
he was sentenced in Union County (N. J.) Court to one year in State
Prison for stealing a watch. A petition, signed by Grand Army men,
was presented to the court and this sentence was revoked and he was
committed to the county jail for six months.
In the charges upon which Wirz was condemned and hung were thirteen
specifications of men said to have been murdered by him, but though all
the most minute details were given, it is a singular fact that there
is not given the _name_ of any one of these persons--in every instance
mentioned, it is “name unknown.”
In the first specification Wirz was charged with conspiring with
Jefferson Davis, James A. Seddon, Howell Cobb, and others, named and
unnamed, “to injure and impair the health and destroy the lives,” etc.,
“of soldiers in the service of the United States.” On this charge Wirz
was declared guilty and hanged. Why were none of the other conspirators
punished? Did he conspire alone?
Had the case been brought in any Civil Court--no matter where--it would
have been thrown out of court.
What must have been the agony of this poor victim, sitting in the
courtroom, day after day, and week after week, listening to the recital
of the horrible tales, describing him as a fiend incarnate, by wretches
who were swearing his life away. He looked in vain upon the faces
around for a glance of pity, but on all sides he met the glaring eyes
of men thirsting for his blood.
Foiled in their efforts to incriminate Jefferson Davis, his cruel and
vindictive persecutors determined to wreck their vengeance upon Wirz,
poor and friendless, whom they had in their power, and who had rejected
their proposal to purchase his life by swearing falsely against
Jefferson Davis.
Major Richard B. Winder, M.D., and dean of the Baltimore Dental
College, was a prisoner in the Old Capitol, Washington, at the time of
Wirz’s imprisonment and execution. A statement of his in regard to an
occurrence which took place the evening before Wirz was executed has
been extensively published, but an extract from it will not be out of
place here:
“A night or two before Wirz’s execution--early in the evening, I saw
several male individuals (looking like gentlemen) pass into Wirz’s
cell. I was naturally on the _qui vive_ to know the meaning of this
unusual visitation, and was hoping and expecting too that it might be
a reprieve--for even at that time I was not prepared to believe that
so foul a judicial murder would be perpetrated. I think--indeed, I am
quite certain--there were three of them. Wirz came to his door, which
was immediately opposite mine, and I gave him a look of inquiry,
which was at once understood. He said: ‘These men have just offered
me my liberty if I will testify against Mr. Davis, and criminate him
with the charges against the Andersonville Prison. I told them that I
could not do this, as I neither knew Mr. Davis personally, officially
or socially, but if they expected with the offer of my miserable
life to purchase me to treason and treachery to the South they had
undervalued me.’”
In reply to a letter of inquiry from Hon. Jefferson Davis, Rev. Father
Boyle wrote:
“On the evening before the day of the execution of Major Wirz a man
visited me, on the part of a cabinet officer, to inform me that Major
Wirz would be pardoned if he would implicate Jefferson Davis in the
cruelties at Andersonville. No names were given by this emissary,
and, upon my refusing to take any action in the matter, he went to
Mr. Louis Schade, counsel for Major Wirz, with the same purpose and
with a like result.
[Illustration: REV. F. E. BOYLE
Pastor of St. Peter’s R. C. Church, Washington, D. C.]
“When I visited Major Wirz the next morning he told me that the same
proposal had been made to him and had been rejected with scorn. The
Major was very indignant, and said that while he was innocent of the
charges for which he was about to suffer death, he would not purchase
his liberty by perjury and a crime such as was made the condition of
his freedom.
“I attended the major to the scaffold, and he died in the peace of
God and praying for his enemies. I know that he was indeed innocent
of all the cruel charges on which his life was sworn away, and I
was edified by the Christian spirit in which he submitted to his
persecutors.
“Yours very truly,
F. E. BOYLE.”
Wirz spent the greater part of the night before his execution in
writing, but slept for a few hours before daylight and awoke cheerful
and refreshed. He was calm and self-possessed and had left nothing
undone. His own books, as well as those borrowed, were all neatly done
up and left for delivery to the proper parties. His diary was completed
up to the last day.
He felt keenly the abuse that was heaped upon him. As he bade farewell
to his old associate, Captain R. H. Winder, he said:
... “Promise me, if you live, to do all in your power to wipe out
this awful stain upon my character. Make my name and character stand
as bright before the world as it did when you first knew me. Promise
me you will do something to assist my wife.”
Winder turned his face away to hide his tears, as he replied: “Captain,
I will.”
One of the daily newspapers, after relating this parting with Winder,
said:
“Wirz passed on down the stairs, out between the files of men facing
outward, up to the scaffold, showing something in his face and step
which in a better man might have passed for heroism.”
How contemptible! His courage and fortitude shone out in spite of the
infamous position in which his enemies sought to place him, but even
the eyes blinded by prejudice and the callous hearts around him could
not fail to note, though they could not appreciate, the lofty spirit of
the man.
From the little room in the third story, designated “No. 9--Wirz,
H., Captain C. S. A.,” he was marched to the scaffold, erected in
one corner of the prison yard. Here he took a seat on a small stool,
immediately under the gaping noose swaying over him. A soldier stood
at shoulder arms on either corner of the platform, and four companies,
one each from the 195th and 214th Pennsylvania, and two from the
9th Regiment of Hancock’s Corps, formed a hollow square around the
scaffold. Fathers Boyle and Wiget never left his side until the last
moment. Indeed, when the noose was adjusted his face wore a smile and
he was still talking to Father Boyle.
For eighteen minutes he was compelled to sit and listen to the reading
of the findings and sentence--the enumeration of the crimes with which
he was charged, while on the housetops and in the branches of the trees
in the Capitol grounds men and boys crowded, all eager to witness the
ghastly spectacle; and their inhuman shouts, and brutal jests about
the “dead-line,” pendant above him, could be heard by Wirz, who sat
apparently calm and unmoved, save when amid the groans and outcries,
a voice called out “Hang the scoundrel.” As this reached his ears
he turned quickly, with a defiant look in the direction from which
the sound proceeded, then, giving a cool glance on the surroundings,
he resumed his self-command, giving his undivided attention to his
spiritual advisers.
At the close of the reading Major Russell asked Wirz if he wished to
say anything to the public before the execution. He replied: “I have
nothing to say, only that I am innocent, and will die like a man, my
hopes being in the future. I go before my God, the Almighty God, and
he will judge between me and you.” At twenty minutes to eleven o’clock
Sylvester Ballon kicked away the prop and Henry Wirz passed from life
to the dark valley of the shadow of death.
[Illustration: St. Aloysius R. C. Church, Washington, D. C.]
I saw Father Wiget a few hours after the execution. He, with Father
Boyle, had stood with Wirz on the scaffold--had clasped his hand just
as he was about to be launched into eternity. He had been with him
through the mockery of a trial, and when I saw him his breast was
filled with emotion. He said: “Oh! he was a brave man!” He had stood by
him as the rabble thirsting for his blood, like the cruel Jews, cried
out “Crucify him! Crucify him!” and he knew the man was innocent of the
crimes imputed to him. “He was a brave man”--the good old priest could
say no more; his heart was touched, and his feelings too deep for mere
words. Between what is felt and what is expressed there is often an
immeasurable distance. It is impossible at times to give expression in
words to the most touching--to the most beautiful emotions of the heart.
In Wirz’s letters to his wife there is an amount of pathos--a bitter,
yet mournful wailing. The soft notes which he touches with trembling
fingers will strike a sympathetic chord in hearts not utterly lost to
all sense of tenderness or humanity.
A letter written by his wife just after she had learned of the
termination of her husband’s trial would in itself show how false and
malicious were the assertions of sensational newspapers that there was
no kindly feeling between them. After speaking of her distress at the
necessity of leaving him at that critical moment, and telling him not
to despair--that all would come out right--she speaks of their past
happiness, and cannot believe the authorities will tear them apart;
that if the members of the court only knew how much they suffered, a
pardon would be granted him. The letter concludes as follows:
“Dear husband, bear up bravely, whatever your fate may be. If I could
but see you for one short hour I should be much comforted. I cannot
describe to you on paper the distress of my mind. May angels watch
and protect you from all harm, is the constant prayer of your loving
wife.”
In Wirz’s last letter to his wife and children are the sad, soft
breathings from a bosom filled with the warmest affection and anxious
solicitude for their welfare:
“Old Capitol Prison,
Washington, D. C., Nov. 10, 1865.
“My dearest Wife and Children: When these lines reach you the hand
who wrote them will be stiff and cold. In a few hours from now I
shall be dead. Oh, if I could express myself as I wish, if I could
tell you what I have suffered when I thought about you and the
children! I must leave you without the means to live, to the miseries
of a cold cruel world. Lise, do not grieve, do not despair; we will
meet again in a better world. Console yourself, think as I do--that
I die innocent. Who knows better than you that all these tales of
cruelties and murders are infamous lies, and why should I not say it?
A great many do call me hard-hearted, because I tell them that I am
not guilty, that I have nothing to confess. Oh, think for a moment
how the thought that I must suffer and die innocent must sustain me
in the last terrible hour; that when I shall stand before my Maker
I can say, ‘Lord, of these things you know I am not guilty. I have
sinned often and rebelled against Thee, oh, let my unmerited death be
an atonement.’ Lise, I die reconciled. I die, I hope, as a Christian.
This is His holy will that I should die, and therefore let us say
with Christ, ‘Thy will, O Lord, be done.’
“I hardly know what to say. Oh, let me beg you, do not give way to
despair. Think that I am gone to my Father, to your Father, to the
Father of all, and that there I hope to meet you. Live for the dear
children. Oh, do take good care of Cora. Kiss her for me. Kiss Susan
and Cornelia, and tell them to live so that we may meet again in the
heaven above the skies: tell them that my last thoughts, my last
prayer shall be for them.”
Then follow some words of advice with regard to the schooling of the
children, and to the future life, etc., of the family, and he concludes
by saying:
“God bless you all and protect you. God give you what you stand
in need of, and grant that you all so live that when you die you
can say, Lord, Thou callest me, here I am. And now, farewell wife,
children, all, I will and must close, farewell, farewell; God be with
us.
“Your unfortunate husband and father,
H. WIRZ.”
EXTRACTS FROM DIARY OF MAJOR WIRZ
From the diary kept by Wirz while in prison during the progress of
the trial, I make a few extracts, yet enough to show the manhood, the
nobility of the man:
“Old Capitol Prison, Oct. 1, 1865.
“Everything is quiet around me. No sound but the measured steps of
the sentinel in the corridor can be heard. The man who is sitting in
my room is nodding in his chair. Poor, short-sighted mortals that we
all are! This man is here to watch me, to prevent any attempt I might
make to take my own life. My life--what is it worth to anyone except
myself and my poor family, that they should be so anxious? I think I
understand it very well, they are afraid I might cheat them and the
public at large from having their revenge, and giving, at the same
time, the masses the benefit of seeing a man hanged. If this is all,
they are welcome. I have no desire to live; perhaps there never was
a more willing victim dragged to the scaffold than I am. Why should
I desire to live? A beggar, crippled, and with my health and spirit
broken--why, oh why, should I desire to live? For the sake of my
family? My family will do as well without me as with me. Instead of
providing for and taking care of them, I would be a burden to them. And
still, knowing all that, why do I not put an end to my life? Because,
in the first instance, what I suffer now is the Will of God. GOD--how
much is not in this word--what a tower of strength, of consolation!
Yes, Heavenly Father, if it was not Thy will I would not be a prisoner.
I would not be looked at, spoken of as a monster, such as the world has
never seen and never will see. If that what I suffer now was not put on
me by you for some wise purpose I would be as free as the bird in the
air. Thou and I--we two alone know that I am innocent of those terrible
charges. Thou and I--we both know that I never took the life of a
fellow man--that I never caused a man to suffer and die in consequence
of ill-treatment inflicted by me; and still I am tried for murder. Men
have sworn that they saw me do it; they have called on Thee to witness
that they would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, and still they told a lie--a lie as black as hell itself. Why
did you not send a thunderbolt from the high heavens--why, oh God, why?
Because it is Thy holy will, and in humility I kiss the rod with which
Thou seest proper to chastise me.
“The second reason why I did not destroy a life which is a burden to
me, is because I owed it to myself, my family, my relatives, even
to the world at large, to prove that there never existed a man so
utterly devoid of all humanity, such a fiend incarnate, as it has been
attempted to prove me to be. I see very well that I have no earthly
show--that I am a doomed man; but thanks be to God that I am enabled to
say with holy Stephanus: Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. They
judge from what they hear and I must abide by it.
“_Oct. 2, 1865._--Another day has passed. I am tired and worn out;
whichever way I turn my eyes everything looks gloomy and dark. Can
it be possible that, knowing what I do know, I shall fall a victim.
But why do I doubt? What right have I to grumble, as if it were a
thing unheard of in history that men suffered the death of a felon
as innocent of the crime alleged as I am; and if I dare to make a
comparison between our Saviour and myself, did not He also suffer
death? True, he died as an atonement for a sinful world; true, He died
willingly; He had a holy mission to fulfill; but I? Why should I die? I
can only say, because it is God’s will. Oh, God! Our Heavenly Father,
give me grace, give me the power to bear the cross which Thou seest
fit to lay on me. Have I not often sinned against Thee, and neglected
the holy commandments? If I suffer now innocently can I, dare I say,
I never offended Thee? Therefore be calm, my poor heart. Give thyself
into His hands and say, Abba! Father!
“_Oct. 3. 1865._--What a mockery is this trial. I feel at times as if
I ought to speak out aloud and tell them, why do you wrong yourself
and me too? Why not end the game at once? Take me and hang me and be
done with it. A few days I asked to arrange my defense; it was refused
on the ground that I had ample time. Ample time, indeed! May the day
be far distant for General Wallace when he may plead with grim death
for a day, and receive the answer, No! I just received a note from my
wife, saying she had tried in every way to see me, but impossible. She
says she is going to her mother in Kentucky, and hopes to be able to do
more for me there than in remaining here. Poor, deluded woman, what do
you expect to accomplish, what can you do for me but pray? Oh, what a
consolation it is to a person in a situation like mine, that there is
in the wide, wide world at least one being that will pray for me. Yes,
pray; but pray for thyself; the road thou hast to travel is a hard one;
when thou findest out that when you pressed my hand two weeks ago, when
thy lips touched mine, it was in all probability the last time _then_
dost thou need all the comfort prayer can give. May God bless you, and
take care of you and the dear, dear children--I must end. Everything
swims before my eyes--God, oh, God, have mercy upon me.
“_Oct. 4. 1865._--What a mockery this trial is. They say that they are
anxious that I should have justice done to me, and then when a witness
is put on the stand to give testimony they try everything to break him
down; if they cannot do it, they try to assail his private character.
When they had their own witnesses up, they not alone were allowed to
state everything I said, everything I done, but even what they heard
others say that I had said so and so, done such and such things, and
now, when I wish to prove by my witnesses what I also said and done, it
is said it is inadmissible. I might just as well be put on the stand
myself, as if I had said those things now and not a year ago, when I
had no idea that I should be held to account hereafter. But so the
world goes, and all I can say is, Oh, God, give me strength to bear
with patience and humility what Thou seest fit to put on me. Be Thou my
judge.
“_Oct. 5, 1865._--When I left the courtroom to-day, I heard a lady
remark: ‘I wish I could shoot out his eyes,’ meaning me. Foolish woman!
The time will come when my earthly eyes are shut up; are you in such
a hurry? But it is very natural that people do think and pass such
remarks. For weeks and weeks they have heard men testify to cruelties
done by me and now a very slim chance have I to contradict these
statements. It seems to me as if General Wallace had a personal spite
against me or my counsel, or he would not act the way he does. If he
has one against me, I pity him that he has not more magnanimity of soul
than to crush me in such an unheard-of arbitrary way; if he has a spite
against my counsel, it is a cowardly act to do as he does, for in the
end I am the sufferer, and not my counsel.
“_Oct. 6, 1865._--Another day passed. I wish the trial was over. I
wonder what unheard-of resolutions the court will pass again to-morrow.
I did not feel it so keenly to-day as I felt it other days, and I have
to thank God for it in permitting me to partake of the Holy Communion
this morning. I feel less contempt for those who are sitting in
judgment over me. If it is God’s will to open their eyes and hearts,
He alone has the power to do it. I am certain that none of the court,
nor the Judge Advocate, considers and believes me guilty. They all
know that the whole thing is a farce. Cruelties have been committed at
Andersonville: some one has to suffer for it; they have me; therefore,
I am the one, _voila tout_.”
MONUMENT AT ANDERSONVILLE
After more than forty years had passed an act of tardy justice was
performed, when a monument was unveiled at Andersonville, in memory
of the man who was the victim of cruel injustice and put to death for
crimes of which he was innocent.
The monument is a shaft of gray and white, 35 feet in height and
simple in design. The base is formed by four square slabs of stone
superimposed in the form of a pyramid. Above this are two heavy
blocks of stone, on the four sides of which are carved the following
inscriptions:
NORTH SIDE
“When time shall have softened passion and prejudice, when reason
shall have stripped the mask from misrepresentation, then Justice,
holding evenly her scales, will require much of past censure and
praise to change places.
“JEFFERSON DAVIS.
“_December, 1888._”
SOUTH SIDE
“Discharging his duty with such humanity as the harsh circumstances
of the times and the policy of the foe permitted, Captain Wirz became
at last the victim of a misdirected popular clamor. He was arrested
in time of peace while under the protection of a parole, tried by
a military commission of a service to which he did not belong and
condemned to ignominious death on charges of excessive cruelty
to Federal prisoners. He indignantly spurned a pardon proffered
on condition that he would incriminate President Davis and thus
exonerate himself from charges of which both were innocent.”
EAST SIDE
“In memory of Captain Henry Wirz, C. S. A. Born in Zurich,
Switzerland, 1822. Sentenced to death and executed at Washington, D.
C., November 10, 1865. To rescue his name from the stigma attached
to it by embittered prejudice this shaft is erected by the Georgia
Division United Daughters of the Confederacy.”
WEST SIDE
“It is hard on our men held in Southern prisons not to exchange them,
but it is humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our battles.
At this particular time to release all Rebel prisoners North would
insure Sherman’s defeat and would compromise our safety here.
“ULYSSES S. GRANT.
“_August 18, 1864._”
FAIRFAX COURT HOUSE RAID AND CAPTURE OF GENERAL STOUGHTON
As detailed accounts of this famous raid have been so often published
I will not repeat the story here. A little incident connected with it,
however, may be new to some of my readers:
In October, 1906, there was a reunion of the old-time Telegraphers’
and Historical Association held in Washington, D. C. From a special
dispatch to the _Baltimore Sun_ of October 11th, I take the following:
“Another interesting war-time telegrapher attending the Convention is
R. F. Weitbrec, now a wealthy contractor of Denver. In March, 1863,
he was operator for General Stoughton, whose headquarters were at
Fairfax Court House, with several thousand men.
“‘Hooker had more than 100,000 men between us and Lee’s army,’ he
said to-day, ‘and we felt as safe as if we were in Boston. My office
and living quarters were in a tent in the yard of the General’s
headquarters. About three o’clock one rainy night I was rudely
awakened by some one playing “ride a cock horse” on my stomach. There
had been several gay young lieutenants around my camp who made a
practice of coming to my tent at unseemly hours and having fun with
me.
“‘In the darkness I mistook the person on my stomach for one of
these, and tried to throw him off. Instantly my throat was clutched
and I felt a cold muzzle against my temple.[L] That moment a light
flared up and my intruders were two Confederate cavalrymen, who told
me they were Mosby’s men, who had gobbled up a General with a lot of
horses and prisoners. One of them whittled my telegraph instrument
into junk. I was taken out, mounted on a horse and taken on one of
the wildest rides ever experienced by a human being. There were only
a dozen or two of the cavalrymen. They had nearly 100 horses and
prisoners. Besides, they were surrounded by thousands of our soldiers
and didn’t stop for sentries, except to grab and take them along.
By daybreak they had us outside the Federal lines, and breakfast
didn’t come for anybody in the party until late that evening. I spent
several months in prison, and when exchanged went West, where Indian
hunting proved tamer than pastoral life in Virginia during the war?’”
[Illustration: THE GUNNELL HOUSE, FAIRFAX COURT HOUSE
General Stoughton’s Headquarters]
* * * * *
In “Historic Records of the Fifth New York Cavalry,” by Rev. Louis N.
Boudrye, Chaplain of the Regiment, I find the following:
“_March 9th._--About 3 o’clock A.M. Mosby and his gang, led by
Sergeant James F. Ames, formerly of Company L, of this regiment,
having safely passed the pickets, entered Fairfax Court House.
Without scarcely firing a shot they captured 50 fine horses and about
30 prisoners, including Brigadier-General Stoughton and Captain
Barker of the Fifth New York Cavalry. The brigade was sent in pursuit
of the dashing party, each regiment taking different routes, but
they returned at night unsuccessful, the Fifth New York having gone
to Herndon Station. Such a raid, five or six miles within our lines,
resulting in such a heavy loss to us, reflects very uncreditably upon
some of our military leaders, while it shows how wily a foe we have
to contend with.”
When Company F, Mosby’s Battalion, was organized, James F. Ames,
usually spoken of as “Big Yankee,” was chosen as second lieutenant. He
was killed October 9th, 1864, at Mrs. Shacklett’s gate on the road to
Piedmont (now called Delaplane) by a Federal scout who came out with
one of the parties from Rectortown that morning, and while this scout
was rifling the corpse, he was killed by one of Mosby’s men, Lud. Lake.
INDEX
A
Adreon, George S., escape, 52.
Allsman, Andrew, 65, 66.
Ames, Lieut. James F., 156.
Andersonville (see Wirz).
Armand, William, 76, 77.
Ayre, George S., arrested, robbed and imprisoned, 44.
Hostage for Steers, 45.
B
Baker, Willis, 66.
Ballon, Sylvester, 143.
Baltimore, 12, 13.
Barnes, John H., 86, 88, 97, 102, 103, 104, 108, 113, 114, 118, 119.
Barrett, Boyd, 67, 73.
Bennett, ----, 119.
Tells mule story, 69.
Bixler, Lieut., at Parole Camp, 104.
Bixler, Morgan, 66.
Blockade runners, 38, 46, 47, 64, 75, 78, 79.
Bowles, Benjamin F., 104.
Boyd, Belle, Gus Williams tells of her imprisonment, 50.
Her remarkable career, 51.
Supt. Wood spoke of her, 52.
Brawner, Redmond F., imprisoned and family driven from home, 44.
Breckenridge, Major, 104.
Bribery, 37, 38, 52, 67.
Buell, Colonel, 85.
C
Camp Chase, prisoners tell of treatment there, 100, 101, 102.
Three little boys from, 67.
Camp Douglas, prisoners tell of cruel treatment and great mortality
at, 100, 101, 104.
Verified by Official Records, 101.
Camp Parole, hardships at, 101.
Exchange of prisoners, 102.
Vermin, 105, 106.
Carr, John, sad experience, 60.
Dr. Green and his mules, 70.
Carroll Prison (Duff Green’s Row), 22, 75, 87.
Carter, H. Fitzhugh, 119.
Answers at roll-call, 81.
Also at “sick call,” 82, 83.
Chandler, ----, 119.
Charlie, our friendly contraband and our Ganymede, 53.
Children held as prisoners, 66, 67, 68, 87, 104.
City Point, Va., 95.
As it looked in spring of 1863, 96.
Clift, ----, 119.
Collision on railroad, 14.
Comastri, Marco, 61, 77, 119.
Commission to try State prisoners, 61, 69.
_Congress_ and _Cumberland_, wrecks of, 91.
Cooke ----, 104.
D
Daily routine of prison life, 54.
Daniels, ----, 40, 41.
Darling, Captain, rumor of his escape, 52.
On flag-of-truce boat, 91.
Davis, ----, (blockade runner), 52, 119.
Davis, Hon. Jefferson, 122, 138, 139, 152.
Dead-lines, about, 131.
De la Baume, the Marquis, star witness against Wirz, 137.
Delano, Philemon, 119.
Delaplane (Piedmont), 117, 118.
Departure of prisoners, 84, 89.
Detectives and spies, 58.
Diary, in Old Capitol, 19.
At Camp Parole, 98.
Itinerary from Parole Camp to Upperville, 108.
Extracts from diary of Wirz, 147.
Doster, Colonel (provost-marshal), 32.
Duff Green’s Row--(see Carroll Prison).
Dula, Lowring, 119.
“Dutchy,” 29.
E
Early, General Jubal A., comments on Gen. Order No. 209, 125.
Efforts of Confederate authorities to relieve prisoners, 123.
To effect exchange, 124-6-7, 130.
Elk Licking Creek, 107.
Ennis, Mrs., the prisoners’ friend, 29.
Eorio, Peter, 61, 77, 78, 119.
Escapes from Old Capitol, Adreon and Captain Darling, 52.
Captain Wynne, 46.
Federal prisoners, 75.
Plans laid but defeated, 52.
Ewell, James, 79, 119.
Examination, provost-marshal, 20.
And search entering prison, 22.
By Colonel Buell, 85, 86.
By Colonel Wood, 72.
By Captain Parker, 39, 42.
Exchange of prisoners, Ould’s letter to Hitchcock, 123.
Letter to _National Intelligencer_, 124.
Report of Gen. Seymour, 126.
U. S. authorities did not want, 125.
Gen. Butler’s efforts frustrated, 126.
Southern authorities anxious for, 126.
Extracts from report Confederate Congress, 127-8-9, 130.
Execution by Gen. McNeil, 65, 66.
Of Wirz, 142, 143.
F
Fairfax Court House raid, 115.
Gen. Stoughton’s telegraph operator tells of his capture,
154, 155, 156.
Sergeant Ames (Big Yankee), 156.
Federal soldiers, prisoners for insubordination and deserters, 73.
Fifth New York Cavalry, what the chaplain said of Fairfax Court House
raid, 156.
Fire, alarm in Old Capitol, 70, 71.
First Maryland Regiment, 14.
Fitzgerald, Edward, 119.
Flag-of-truce boat, steamer _State of Maine_, 90.
Flaherty, John, 63, 119.
Flaherty, Peter, 63, 119.
Fleggenheimer mourns the loss of his goods, 64.
Food, at Old Capitol, poor in quality and insufficient in quantity,
22, 26-7-8.
Providing our own rations, 27-8.
Rations at Camp Parole, 98-9, 103.
Ford, Miss Antonia, 87, 115.
Ford, Miss Belle, 115.
Ford, John, 119.
Fortress Monroe, 90, 91.
Fox, Lieut. Frank, at Parole Camp, 99, 102, 108, 110.
Lieut. Co. C, Mosby’s Men, 108.
Wounded and died, 108.
“Fresh fish,” 46.
Front Royal, 115, 116.
Fullerton, James, 30, 56, 57.
G
Gardner, ---- (blockade runner), 52, 119.
General orders No. 209,
refusal to recognize paroles, 124.
Gen. Pope’s order licensing soldiers to plunder citizens, 45.
George, ---- (blockade runner), 52, 119.
Goldsmith, John M., 60, 119.
Goose Creek, crossing under difficulties, 117, 118.
Gordonsville, 109.
Graves, Matt., 110, 111.
Green, ---- (from Missouri), 119.
Guard house at Old Capitol, 59, 78, 79.
Gunnell House, Fairfax Court House, 155.
H
Hagan, ----, 119.
Hammett, George (blockade runner), 38, 52, 119.
Haskins, ---- (from South Carolina), 67, 73.
Died of smallpox, 73.
_Henry Burden_, U. S. steamer, 97.
Hero, a young, 65.
Hertzog, ----, 119.
Higgins, Captain, 57.
Highland, ----, prison guard at Old Capitol, 87.
Very kind to prisoners, 87.
Hoffman, Mr., 115.
Holbrook, Thomas, an old schoolmate, 79.
A valuable addition to our mess, 79, 80.
To room No. 10, 86, 89, 119.
Hollenbaugh, William T., 119.
Hospital, 54.
Hostages, John B. Hunter, for Stiles, 32.
George S. Ayre, for Steers, 45.
Howe, Henry, my accuser, 40, 42.
Arrested in Richmond on charges, 40, 41.
How we passed the time, 47, 48.
Hoyle, George, 85, 89, 119.
Humston, Thomas, 66.
Hunter, John B., 32, 119.
No charge, but hostage for Stiles the guide, 60.
Hurst, Thomas, 31, 75, 119.
Hutson, Herbert, 66.
I
Imboden, Gen. John D., letter of, 134.
Not allowed to testify at trial of Wirz, 135.
Itinerary of journey from Parole Camp to Upperville, 108, 118.
J
James River, steaming up the, 94-5.
Jamestown, first settlement, 94.
Jenkins, ----, 119.
“John Morgan’s orderly,” 67.
Johnson, James, robbed and imprisoned, 43, 119.
Johnson’s Island, prisoners tell of hardships and sufferings, 100-1.
Shooting prisoners, 101.
K
Keleher, John, 78, 85, 89, 119.
Kerfoot, James F., 44, 98, 119.
Kerney, Martin J., my old school-master, 79.
My schoolmates, 79.
Keys, J., 119.
King, Aaron J., 38, 119.
L
Lackey, ----, 119.
Ladies passing prison arrested and detained, 32, 38, 87.
Lair, Marion, 66.
Lake, Eleazer, 66.
Landstreet, Rev. Mr. (Confederate chaplain), 34.
Lee, Philip, 102, 108, 118, 119.
Lee, Thomas, gets his share of beans, 102, 103.
Mentioned, 108, 118, 119.
Letters all have to go through provost-marshal’s office, 30-1.
Ould to Hitchcock, 123.
To _National Intelligencer_, 124.
Gen. J. D. Imboden, 134.
To Wirz, from his wife, 144.
Wirz’s last to his wife and children, 145.
Rev. Father Boyle, 139, 140.
Lewis, Aaron, 79, 119.
“Lights out” (taps), 55.
We install our own lighting plant, 56.
Lindsay, ----, of Washington, leaves Parole Camp to join Co. K, Tenth
Louisiana Regt., 105.
List of prisoners in Room 16, 119-121.
Littlepage, William T., 85, 89, 119.
Long, Reuben, 113.
Louisiana troops, 15.
Love, Henry, arrested, imprisoned, property taken or destroyed and no
charge against him, 42, 78, 119.
Love, Llewellyn, 119.
Ludlow, Colonel, U. S. Commissioner of exchange, 97.
Luray, 114.
M
McNeil, Gen. John, his brutal execution of ten Confederate
prisoners, 66.
McPheeters, John Y., 66.
MacWooster, takes us to Criglersville, 110.
Gives us good advice, 110.
Madison Court House, 110.
Manassas Gap railroad, along the old road on foot, 117.
Marchland, Judge, 119.
Marini, ----, witness in Wirz case, 137.
Martin, ----, 119.
Maryland, my native State, 12.
First Maryland Regiment, 14.
Marylanders in Richmond, 14.
Mess room in Old Capitol, 22, 26, 54.
Milani’s Gap in Blue Ridge, 111.
Mills, J., 102, 104.
Mills, William M., 102, 104.
Minor, Fairfax, 50, 119.
Won’t take chances where only one man is killed, 63.
Missouri State Militia, 66.
Mitchell, Captain, 75, 119.
Mitchell, Lieut. Hugh, 119.
Model Farm Barracks, 98, 108.
Montgomery, ----, 119.
Monument at Andersonville, 152.
Moore, ----, death of, 31.
Mosby, Col. John S., my first meeting with, 118.
Mount, Stephen R., 53, 119.
Mules at Manassas, 69.
Dr. Green and his mules, 70.
Mulford, Captain John E., 95, 97.
Mustered into Confederate service, 105.
N
Names of prisoners in room 16, 119.
Nelson, Lieut. Joseph H., 154.
New Jersey Regiment, Tenth, prison guard at Old Capitol, 35.
Newport News, 91.
New York Regiment, Third, Co. K, guard on truce boat, 91.
O
Oath, copy of iron-clad, 23.
At Old Capitol prisoners take it and say it is not binding, 62.
“The Oath”--parody on Hamlet’s soliloquy, 62.
O’Brien, Edward H., 82, 119.
Oeser, Felix (see De la Baume).
Off for Dixie, 89.
Old Capitol Prison, description and history, 20, 22, 24-5.
Escape of prisoners, 52.
My first night, 25.
Old men, women and children, 80.
Overcrowded, 39 in room 16, bunks for 21 only, 68, 69.
Prisoners in close confinement, 42.
Room No. 10, 86, 87.
Rooms 14 to 18, 25, 42, 69, 84.
Room 16, 24, 26, 28, 30.
Shooting of prisoners, 35, 37.
Old age no exception or exemption, 80.
Ould, Robert, Confederate agent of exchange, 97.
Letter to Federal agent, 123.
To _National Intelligencer_, 124.
Called as a witness for Wirz, but not allowed to testify, 136.
P
Parker, Captain, 38, 42, 56.
Parole granted me to visit sick child, 56.
Frank Thornton, 68.
Captain Phillips and Wood, 59.
General order No. 209, refusing to recognize, 124.
Gen. Early comments on same, 125.
Parole Camp, location of, 98.
A ration of flour and quarter of pound of bacon to each man, 102.
Life at Model Farm Barracks, 98.
Overcrowded, vermin, 105.
Prisoners from Camp Chase, Camp Douglas and Johnson’s Island tell of
their treatment, 100.
Reports (official) verify their statements, 101.
To Upperville, 108.
We get a good feed of beans, 102.
Passers-by arrested and brought in, 26, 27, 32, 33.
Ladies and children not exempt, 27, 32, 38, 76, 87.
Pentz, John, 64, 68, 119.
Perry, William McK., 107, 119.
Petersburg in spring of 1863, 97, 98, 100, 103, 104.
Phillips, Captain Thomas, captured off North Carolina coast, 46, 119.
Released, 59, 78.
Sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, goods confiscated, 46.
Phillips, Captain Wesley, 75, 119.
Pope, Gen. John, order licensing his soldiers to plunder citizens, 45.
Porter, Col. James, 65.
Potomac River, going down on flag-of-truce boat, 90.
Powhatan House, Richmond, 108, 109.
Prison guard, Tenth New Jersey, 35.
At Camps Chase and Douglas, 100, 101.
Brutal and inhuman, 100, 101.
Shooting of prisoners, 36-7.
Threats to shoot, 35.
Prison life in Old Capitol, 19.
Daily routine, 54.
How we passed the time, 29, 48, 50.
My first night in prison, 25.
Rations, recreations and rules--(see Old Capitol Prison).
Prison yard, description of, 54-5.
Filthy condition, 55, 85.
Meeting place for friends and comrades, 29.
Prisoners (see Treatment of).
Arrested, imprisoned and no charge against, 42-3, 60, 85.
Arrested, robbed and confined without trial, 42, 58, 84.
Conditions North and South, 11.
Ill-treatment and injustice, 42, 58.
In close confinement, 42.
Locked up and forgotten, 59.
March from prison to boat, 89.
Off for Dixie, 84.
Union soldiers, deserters and other offenses, 73.
Private mess in room 16, 26, 28, 30.
Provost-marshal’s office, 19, 58.
All letters must go through and take chance of delivery, 57.
Arrested on information and accuser unknown, 58.
Spies and detectives, 58.
Punishment for trifling offenses, 63, 69, 76.
Purcell, Volney, 85, 119.
R
Rainbow, John, witness in Wirz case, 137.
Randolph, ----, 53, 119.
Ratcliffe, Charles, 108, 114, 118.
Rations at Old Capitol, 22-6-7-8, 30.
At Camp Chase, 100.
At Camp Douglas, 104.
At Johnson’s Island, 100.
At Parole Camp, 98, 99.
On steamer _State of Maine_, 90-5.
Recreations and amusements, 26, 29.
Reilly, ----, 119.
Report of committee of Confederate Congress, 127-130.
Committee Sanitary commission, 128.
Gen. Seymour, 126.
No. 67, 127.
No. 209, refusal to recognize paroles, 124.
Rhoades, Rev. R. M., 66.
Richardson, George, 104, 119.
Richmond at outbreak of war, 14.
Gala days in, 14.
Hard times in, 16.
In 1863, 108.
Mayor Joseph Mayo, 40.
Parole Camp to, 108.
“Who wants to go to,” 88.
Rinaldi, Raphael, 61, 77, 119.
Ritchie & Dunnavant, 16, 49, 72.
Robbing prisoners, George S. Ayre, 44-5.
Redmond F. Brawner, 43.
James Johnson, 43.
James F. Kerfoot, 44.
Henry Love, 42.
Captain Thomas Phillips, 45.
Provost-marshal, 44.
Robertson River, along the, 110, 111.
Roll-call, 55, 81.
Room No. 10, close and ill-ventilated, 87.
Rooms Nos. 13, 14, 15, 18 and 19, 25, 42, 69, 84.
Room No. 16, description of, 24-6.
Formerly old senate chamber, 24.
Our mess, 26-8, 30.
Prisoners in, 119-121.
Prisoners sent South, 84.
Running the blockade, with my wife and children, 17.
Wilmington, port most frequently used, 47.
Russell, ----, 79, 119.
Russell, Major G. B., 142.
S
Schade, Louis, 132.
Sea-gulls, 92.
Seal, Mr., hotel, Madison Court House, 110.
Seymour, Gen., report, 126.
“Sheepskins,” outrages by, 65.
Shenandoah River, along the, 116.
Sherman, Captain, 104.
Shooting prisoners, Gen. John McNeil, 66.
Harry Stewart, 36-7.
Threats to shoot, 35, 37.
Jesse Wharton, 36.
Short, ----, 119.
“Sick call,” 54, 82.
Sidner, Captain Thomas A., 66.
Signal stations on James River, 95-6.
Simmons, Albert, 85, 88, 119.
Sinks, very offensive, 55.
“Slim Jim,” 29.
Smallpox, changed from room to room, 84.
Smith, Hiram, 66.
Smith, John C., 119.
Smith, Lieut., 104.
Songs and singing, 48-9, 50.
“All prisoners confined in Capitol jail,” 48.
Belle Boyd, 50-1.
Order prohibiting, 53.
Spence, William A., 121.
Spies and detectives, 29, 30.
Spy system and its injustice, 58.
Stant, James, 78, 119.
Stewart, Harry, killed by guard, 36-7.
_State of Maine_, flag-of-truce boat, 90.
Rations, 90.
Staterooms, 90, 94.
Stone’s Landing, on Potomac, 17.
Storm, R. B., 119.
Stormy traveling through mountain and valley, 111-115.
Stoughton, Brig.-Gen., war-time telegrapher tells of his capture,
154-5.
Sunday in Old Capitol, 34, 51.
Supper call, 28, 55.
Sutler, no competition and no cut rates, 28.
T
Tansell, James, 119.
Taylor, George, 119.
Taylor, John W., 119.
Taylor, James, 78, 119.
Taylor, Samuel, 119.
Thackery, Lieut., 78.
Thornton, Frank, 68, 79, 119.
Thornton, William, 119.
Treatment of prisoners, at Andersonville, (see Wirz).
Camps Chase and Douglas, 100-4.
Johnson’s Island, 100-1.
Efforts of Confederate authorities to relieve suffering, 123.
In Old Capitol, 73.
Gen. order No. 209, 124.
Ould’s letter to Hitchcock, 123.
Report of Confederate Congress, 127-130.
Report of Gen. Seymour, 126.
Statements of Confederate prisoners as to cruel treatment verified
by official reports, 101.
U. S. authorities aware of sufferings, but did not want exchange,
125-6.
U
Unfortunate in matrimonial ventures, 60.
Uniforms, plain instead of showy, 15.
Upperville, from Parole Camp, 118.
V
Varner, Ambrose, 114.
Vermin, in Old Capitol, 67-8.
At Parole Camp, 105-6.
Vindication of the South, 129-30.
_Virginia_ (_Merrimac_), iron-clad, 91.
Blown up off Craney Island, 92.
Visitors at Old Capitol, 30-1.
My wife rudely treated, 74.
Vivandieres, pretty on parade, 15.
W
Wade, John M., 65-6.
Ward, Charles, 119.
Ward, Walter W., 119.
Weiler, Emanuel, 38, 119.
Weitbrec, R. F., telegraph operator, tells of capture, 154-5.
Wessells and Seymour, Gens., 126.
Western prisoners, at Old Capitol, 64, 75.
A brave young hero, 65.
At Fortress Monroe, 90.
At Johnson’s Island, 100-1.
At Parole Camp corroborate accounts given at Old Capitol, 100.
Gen. John McNeil’s brutal massacre, 65-6.
Ill-treatment, sickness and great mortality among, 100-105.
150 brought from St. Louis, 75.
Outrages and bitter feeling in the West, 64-7.
Westmoreland Court House, 17.
Westover on the James, 95.
Wharton, Jesse W., killed, 36, 132.
Whelan, Rev. Father, called as witness, not allowed to testify, 136.
Whiskey, how obtained, 53, 80.
Charlie, our friendly contraband, 53.
Guards ready for consideration, 53.
Defeats escape planned, 52-3.
Chew Carter gets more than his share, 81.
He also finds it in hospital, 82-3.
“Who wants to go to Dixie,” 80, 88.
Wiget, S. J., Rev. B. F., attended Wirz with Father Boyle, 132, 142-3.
Williams, Augustus, arrested and imprisoned four times, 104, 119.
Familiarly greeted by Wood, 37.
His son, 12 years old, and two daughters imprisoned three months,
104.
Williams, W. F., 119.
Williamson, James J., early life, 11.
Arrest and imprisoned in Old Capitol, 19.
At outbreak of war, 12.
At Parole Camp, 98.
At provost-marshal’s office, 58.
Examined by Col. Buell, 85-6.
Examined by Captain Parker, 38, 42.
Examined by Col. Wood, 72-3.
Granted parole to see sick child, 56.
In railroad wreck, 14.
In Richmond, 15, 40, 108-9.
Leave sick-bed to go South, 13.
Off for Dixie, 88.
Meet old schoolmate in prison, 79.
Regularly mustered into Confederate service, 105.
Wilmington, N. C., port most frequently used in running the blockade,
46-7.
Winder, Major Richard B., letter regarding offer to pardon Wirz, 139.
Wirz’s farewell, 141.
Wirz, Major Henry, after close of war arrested and imprisoned, 135.
Brief sketch of, 133.
Charged with conspiracy, but no other punished, 138.
Charges and specifications, 138.
Extracts from his diary, 147-51.
Father Whelan, 136.
Father B. F. Wiget, S. J., 142-3.
Gen. Imboden, 135.
Good-bye to Winder, 141.
Hired witnesses swear his life away, 137.
Last letter to his wife and children, 145-6.
Letter from his wife, 144.
Letter of Gen. Imboden, 134.
Letter of Rev. Father Boyle, 139, 140.
Letter of Robert Ould, 136.
Letter of Major Winder, 139.
Letters in official records show efforts to relieve prisoners, 134.
Marini, a witness, 136.
Marquis De la Baume, 137.
Monument at Andersonville, 152.
Night before execution, 141.
Not responsible for sufferings at Andersonville, 125, 130.
Promoted to captaincy for bravery on battlefield, 133.
Promoted to rank of major, 133.
Rainbow, John, a witness, 137.
Rev. Father Boyle, 135, 139-40-1-2.
Rejects proposal to purchase pardon by perjury, 139, 140.
Scene at the scaffold, 142-3.
Schade, Louis, 132.
Tried by military commission, 135.
U. S. authorities refuse to give up body for burial, 135.
Witnesses not allowed to testify in his behalf, 135-6.
Wood, Col. William P., supt. Old Capitol Prison, 38.
Biographical sketch, 33-4.
Gospel according to Abe Lincoln and Jeff. Davis, 34.
Gus Williams, 37.
Wrecks of _Congress_ and _Cumberland_, 91-2.
Wrenn, Lieut. Albert, 99, 104-8-13-14.
Wright, J., 90-4, 119.
Wynne, Captain, escaped from Old Capitol, 46.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] THE OATH
_District of Columbia_, }
_County of Washington_ }
I, .........................., of ................... do solemnly
swear on the Holy Evangelist of Almighty God, without any mental
reservation, that I will at any and all times hereafter, and under
all circumstances, yield a hearty and willing support to the
Constitution of the United States and to the Government thereof;
that I will not, either directly or indirectly, take up arms against
said Government, nor aid those now in arms against it; that I will
not pass without the lines now established by the Army of the United
States, or hereafter from time to time to be established by said
Army, nor hold any correspondence whatever with any person or persons
beyond said lines so established by said Army of the United States
during the present rebellion, without permission from the Secretary
of War; also, that I will do no act hostile or injurious to the Union
of the States; that I will give no aid, comfort or assistance to the
enemies of the Government, either domestic or foreign; that I will
defend the flag of the United States and the armies fighting under it
from insult and injury, if in my power so to do; and that I will in
all things deport myself as a good and loyal citizen.
Subscribed and sworn to before me, this ........ day of
....................
........................
[B] Colonel William P. Wood was born in Alexandria, Va., on the 11th
of March, 1820, and died at the Soldiers’ Home, Washington, D. C.,
March 20, 1903.
He was a veteran of the Mexican and Civil Wars, and one of the
survivors of the Walker filibustering expedition to Nicaragua. When
the Mexican War broke out he enlisted in the mounted rifles under
Sam. H. Walker, the noted Texan Ranger. After serving out his term,
he returned to Washington and married a Maryland lady.
When Stanton became Secretary of War he appointed Wood to be
Superintendent of the Military Prisons of the District of Columbia,
and concentrated the “State” prisoners and all others in the Old
Capitol, to which was afterward added the Carroll Prison (Duff
Green’s Row).
Wood was the first Chief of the United States Secret Service when it
became part of the Treasury Department.
At the time of his death a bill was before Congress to pay him
$15,000 for his services in the famous Brockway case. Wood captured
the author and secured the plate of this noted 7.30 Bond counterfeit.
The work on this bond was so well executed that it passed as genuine
until Jay Cooke & Co. forwarded $84,000 to the United States Treasury
for redemption.
[C] When General Pope was placed in command of the Army of Virginia,
he issued a General Order to his soldiers which virtually gave them
unbridled license to plunder and destroy, by depriving the citizens
of the section of country through which they were passing of even the
trifling amount of protection afforded by safeguards, as may be seen
by the copy of the Order here shown:
HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF VIRGINIA }
Washington, July 25th. }
_General Orders No. 13._--Hereafter no guards will be placed over
private houses or private property of any description whatever.
Commanding officers are responsible for the conduct of the troops
under their command, and the articles of war and the regulations of
the army provide ample means for restraining them to the full extent
required for discipline and efficiency. Soldiers were called into the
field to do battle against the enemy, and it is not expected that
their force and energy shall be wasted in protecting private property
of those most hostile to the government. No soldier serving in this
army shall be hereafter employed on such service.
BY COMMAND OF MAJOR-GEN. POPE,
(Signed), Geo. D. Ruggles,
_Col. A. A. G. and Chief of Staff_.
[D] Belle Boyd had a most remarkable career. Her life story, with the
account of her daring exploits, is more like romance than reality.
She was born in Martinsburg, Va., in May, 1843, and was little
more than a school girl when the war broke out. Her father, John
Read Boyd, was an officer in the Confederate army. The act which
first brought her into notice was the shooting by her of a Federal
soldier who assailed her mother--she seized her father’s pistol and
shot him dead. She then threw all her energy into the struggle. On
information furnished by her, Stonewall Jackson drove Banks out of
the Shenandoah Valley, for which service Jackson sent a special
dispatch thanking her. Her daring led to her capture and imprisonment
in the Old Capitol for three months. She was then exchanged for
Colonel Corcoran, of the 69th New York Regiment. She went South,
was commissioned as Captain in the Confederate army, and served as
courier and in the Secret Service.
After the battle of Gettysburg she went home, was arrested and sent
to Carroll Prison, Washington, D. C., where she was confined for
seven months, and sentenced to be shot, but through the efforts
of influential parties she was exchanged for General Nathan Goff,
of West Virginia. She afterward sailed from Wilmington, N. C., in
the steamer _Greyhound_, with important dispatches for England,
but after a chase the steamer was captured by the Federal cruiser
_Connecticut_, and Belle was brought back, court-martialed in Boston,
and again sentenced to be shot. Her sentence was afterward commuted,
and she was escorted to the Canadian border by a deputy marshal, with
the understanding that if she ever returned to the United States she
would be put to death.
She died in Kilbourn, Wis., in June, 1890.
Superintendent Wood, of the Old Capitol Prison, is reported as
saying of her: “Her face was not what would be called pretty--her
features indicated firmness and daring, but her figure was perfect,
and a splendid specimen of feminine health and vigor. She was a good
talker, very persuasive, and the most persistent and enthusiastic
Rebel who ever came under my charge. Her father sent her, from time
to time, large sums of money, most of which was expended for the
comfort of the Confederate prisoners in the Old Capitol.”
[E] It was in a corner of this yard, a few years later, after the
close of the war, that poor Wirz, condemned and tried by a Military
Court-Martial, was judicially murdered.
[F] Regarding the Oath, a writer in the _New York Freeman’s Journal_
vented his feelings thus:
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE
Parody on the Soliloquy of Hamlet.
To swear or not to swear, that is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler in a man to suffer
Imprisonment, exile and poverty,
Or take the oath amidst a sea of troubles,
And by submission, end them? To swear, to lie,
Once more; and, by a lie, to say we end
Starvation, nakedness and all the ails
That Rebs are heir to--’tis a perjury
Devoutly to be wished. To swear--to lie;
To lie!--perchance a change; aye, there’s the rub,
For in that change the angry Rebs may come,
When from these lands the Feds are driven out,
Must give us pause; there’s the respect
That makes a man of honor hesitate.
But who would bear at the dead hour of night
To be ’roused from his sleep--dragged out of bed--
To be locked up in jail--to hold his tongue--
Before a mock tribunal to be tried,
And then condemned for deeds he knew not of,
When he himself these evils might avoid
By perjury? Who would detectives bear--
To look about before he opes his mouth,
But that the dread of bayonets and chains--
The provost-marshal, from whose iron grip
No victim e’er escapes, puzzles the will,
And makes us swallow every oath that comes,
Than fly to evils that we dread still more?
Thus, love of ease makes _patriots_ of us all!
And thus our sympathies are sicklied o’er
With confiscation, banishment and death!
With this regard, we doff our principles,
And swallow Abe, the Nigger and the Oath!
NED CRACKER.
[G] See page 115.
[H] The Confederate iron-clad _Virginia_ (_Merrimac_) was abandoned
and blown up off Craney Island, Virginia, on the 11th of May, 1862,
after the evacuation of Norfolk by the Confederate forces.
[I] In the official records, War of the Rebellion, reports of
surgeons and medical directors to the Commissary-General of Prisoners
verifies the statements made by the Confederate prisoners as to the
wanton shooting of prisoners, the prevalence of scurvy and great
number of deaths from same, and to the unnecessary sufferings of
prisoners from causes which could be remedied.
[J] John H. Barnes joined Mosby, and while scouting with Lieutenant
Williams and a few men was captured, taken to Washington and put in
the Old Capitol Prison; was tried by court-martial and sentenced to
be shot. This sentence was commuted to imprisonment in penitentiary
for twenty years. He was afterward released, but was so broken down
that he died soon after his release.
Frank Fox joined Mosby; was elected second lieutenant of Company
C; was especially mentioned for conspicuous gallantry in Colonel
Mosby’s report of fight with Cole’s Battalion, February 21, 1864;
was mortally wounded September 3, 1864, in fight with Sixth New York
Cavalry, taken prisoner, and died some days after at Sandy Hook, Md.
Albert Wrenn joined Mosby; was elected second lieutenant of Company
B, October 1, 1863; wounded and horse killed at Berryville, August
13, 1864; died Washington, D. C., November 6, 1910, and buried at
Chantilly, November 8, 1910.
Philip Lee also joined Mosby.
[K] See page 154.
[L] The “Mosby Man” here mentioned, was Joseph Nelson, afterward
Lieutenant of Company A, 43d Battalion Virginia Cavalry, Mosby’s
Rangers.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
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