— — > &\S>S r K9 10 PRISONER OF WAR. coquetry called reconnoissance, determined our enemy to feel us first with a small portion of his command, and on came, at a sweeping gallop, a gallant company of troopers with as confident an air ns though all that was necessary was that they should "come" and. "see 1 ' in order to " conquer."' Every one saw that this was a party we could easily manage, and we possessed, therefore, our souls in great patience till we could see the chevrons on the arm of the non-com mis- ' sioncd officer who led them, and then there broke forth (from such muskets as could be induced to go off,) a discharge that scattered the cavaliers like chaff, — three riderless horses being all of the expedil ion that entered our lines.. This trifling event saved the cii rsburg, — -v. hat else it saved, let the reader ask himself! — Tor the Yankees now became convinced that no cavalry charge would frighten these ununiformed and "half-armed militia-men from their posts, and that a regular infantry attack must be made\ For this purpose, two regi- ments of their cavalry were dismounted and deployed on either side of the road, in a line double the length of our owmv and it was evident that they had d i to flank us on both sides. The welcome rattle of artillery horses brought now a cheer to t lip as we observed two field pieces fall- ing into position on our right, and the sharp shriek of a shell curvetting over the Yankee line, was an agreeable variation of the monotonous silence in which, to the right and left, their skirmish line was stretching away to encompass us. This occasioned another check, and provoked an artillery response, which continued for twenty minutes, with about the effect currently attributed to sacred melodies chanted in the hearing of a certain useful hybrid, deceased. But these were all golden moments for Petersburg, — cannon, and horses were pouring into town. Graha.it and ;--tu.rdJ.vant's batteries were wheeling into position, and Dearing was hastening to the scene with his gallant cavalry. And now came the serious attack : the enemy advanced,, outnumbering us five to one and armed with the sixteen shoot- ing rifle, thus increasing over fifty fold their actual supe- FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. H riority, — and there we fought them ; fought them till we were so surrounded; that the two nearest men to me were shot in ilve back while facing the Line of original approach ; till both our guns were captured ; till our camp, in rear of the works, was full of the foe- till the noblest blood of our city stained the clay of the breast- work as th out their lives, gun •in hand and face foeward, on the snot where their officers placed them. Their faces now rise before .me this summery morning in November, the calm grave countenances of Ban- nister and Staubley, the generous joyous frankness of Friend and Hardy, i ; \j conscientious lire of patriotism in all — Bellingham and Blanks, Jones, Johnson, and the rest, — all gallant gentlemen and true, one of whose lives was well worth all the Yankees from Indus to the pole: and I could but ask ■myself then as now, the prophetic question whoso answer in all ages su .as o.f Faith — can such blond j un .' One by one I around me — Bellingham the last — and as I turned and to change his position to one of greater comfort, at Lis request, the enemy trooped over the earth-work behind me, the foremost presenting his loaded ■carbine, demanded my surrender with an unrepeatable vio- lence of language that suggested bloodshed, and all avenue of escape being cut off, I yielded with what grace I could to my fate, captive to the bow and spear of a hatchet-faced member of the 1st District Cavalry, greatly enamored of this honorable opportunity of going to the rear. He conveyed me to Major AVetlierell, the Provost Marshal of General i'. command, who wa the animate and inanixnal day, — the latter consisting of our muskets, all of w with utter disregard for their age and manifest infirmities, he incontinently smashed. At this point I had the satisfaction of seeing a Yank, whose haste to des- troy our guns was so great, that he would not take time to withdraw the load, blow a h • in his thigh — an accident whereon his Yankship i- :> bably mc to this hour. One by one, other captives b* in an [ were ar- 12 PRISONER OF WAR. ranged in line,, and a more varied collection in the same com- pass, could not well be imagined. An inexcusable weakness, for looking at the ridiculous side of everything, overcame, for a moment, my apprehensions for the safety of the city, and my sorrow and shock over the loss of my friends^ though the latter sentiment, has alas ! received rude treat- ment many a time, and oft during this bloody war. Several of my comrades were many years over fifty, while some had not passed their second decade, and their pursuits were as diverse as their ages. Although, so. few in number, I noticed among my fellow-captives, tradesmen and farmers, clerks and school-masters, merchants and millers, manufac- turers, and magistrates, a city chamberlain, a member of the legislature, and a chaplain! In the matter of uniform and soldierly appearance, we were as motley a crew, as the mem- orable squad of recruits that Sir John swore he would not lead through Coventry. CHAPTER III. General ICaulz comes to grief- — In the Chain Gang — First Sleep in vinculis — Kautz and the AuV.or talk it over — No Result. One of the regiments that had not been dismounted now gallopped up the road — all obstacles being removed and filing to the left set their horses' faces toward the city. The prison- ers meanwhile had been all gathered together and an officer was making a memorandum of their names, when a shell came booming over us with a welcome whistle, for it betoken- ed resistance at a point where we thought our city defenc- less. Another and another! and emerging: from the lane down which a few moments before they had turned with such evident anticipation of easy conquest,, we saw the rear, now FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 13 by a '"bout face," the front, of theYaukee column retreating with Gilpin speed! All thought of cataloguing us was now abandoned and with significant intimations of the need of haste, we were ordered under a heavy escort "back to camp." It was a little after twelve — for we had held our ground two hours — when we started on our devious way to the pontoon bridge that Butler had stretched across the river at Point of Eocks, and with but one rest before we reached the river we continued our toilsome march — the cavalry constantly urgino- us to greater "speed. Once or twice I got a " lift " from some benevolent trooper, who recognized the difficulty which bipeds experience in matching tl ! of animals of more liberal ambulator v endowments, and before we had gone very far the assistant provost martial, Lieutenant W. E. Bird, intro- duced himself by an inquiry after his uncle a well known citizen of Petersburg. This introduction was fruitful of cer- tain liquid comforts to which it is needless to make more par- ticular allusion, and long before we arrived at our journey's end we had established a rapport — a canteen being the medium — which I remember now all the more gratefully as death has proclaimed an endless fcruqe between the Lieutenant and his prisoner. I have said we made one regular halt — this was within a half a mile of the river, and about 11 p. m., when we stopped to permit our captors to take a little refreshment. Here we were gathered together and counted, when to the surprise of some, there was one man missing. The roll was called and Rev. Mr. Hall, Chaplain of the Wi n Artil- lery was found to be absent. lie had come out to the trenches after the light began, in order to bring news to a lady in Pe- burg at whose, house he was stopping, of the fate of her husband. Though unarmed, a non,-combatant, and a mere spectatpr, he was seized by the Yanks, put into line with the rest and hurried off despite his proti . t. < )n .the inarch I was introduced to him — misery acquainting us oftentimes with ieble as well a lows, and found that he had falling into B i— a worthy whose I oder as, and FRISO^ER OF WAR. 14 whose character and acts he had charaterized in terms of just and indignant criticism in a publication in t lie Southern news- papers shortly after the Beast drove him from the city. Unwilling, therefore,to fall again into that saint's hands, he ^contrived to escape by obtaiuing permission to ride in an am- bulance which soon got separated from that portion of the column in which the rest of the prisoners were, and when the party stopped, he quietly slipped out of the wagon, plunged into the woods, the night being as dark as Erebus, and thus escaped. The Provost Marshal's wrath was excessive and profane at this contretemps, and he endeavored to shield himself from the charge of neglect by insisting that Mr. Hall had given his parole not to attempt to escape— a very unlikely story — in- deed simply absurd. While stopping here, the rest of the d'scomfited Brigade overtook us, and filing by, crossed the pontoon-bridge before ws. We followed them, crossed into Chesterfield county, tramping along a well beaten road lined with tents, and with all the appointments and appearance of a huge, camp. It was past midnight as we neared General Kautz's head- quarters, some -three miles from Bermuda Hundreds. A filthy log hut, which was used as a guard house, was pointed out to us, as our hotel, and foot-sore, and weary, and hungry and blanketless, we threw ourselves on the ground to take our first sleep as captives. I had hardly disposed myself for a nap when I heard my name called at the door, and on answering, was invited to ac- cept a blanket and a berth in the tent of my new friend Lieu- tenant Bird. I accepted nem con. Of course I ought now to have spent at least an hour medi- tating on the stirring and unusual events of the day, planning measures of escape, congratulating myself on the safety of Petersburg, berating the Yankees or wafting to the sympa- thizing stars affectionate messages to — none of your business whom. Alas ! with much humiliation do I confess, my hand oa my mouth and my face in the dust, not all nor any of these FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 15 things did I. Doffing my shoes— no old soldier sleeps in his shoes — I speak from two and a half years of experience — I stretched myself on the floor, wrapped a blanket around me, and with a "good morning Bird," fell straightway into so profound a sleep, that if eyes soft or stern flashed on rnc in dreams that night, they left no trace on my waking mem* ory then, nor leave they any now. It was broad day when I shook myself out of my blanket at the instance of a friendly- voiced son of Yaterland, who ad. ministered a little spirituous consolation, besides furnishing me with a bueket of water and a towel, and in a few moments I was ready for a visit to my comrades, whose complaints of their several discomforts during the night argued a very indifferent appreciation of the lodging accomodations of their hotel. The gnawing- claims of vulgar hunger soon however proved, to be gifted with the swallowing power of Aaron's rod, and we refused to be comforted because rations were not. It was quite 9 a. m., when a barrel of "salt horse" and a couple of bo^es of " hard tack" were deposited at the door of our pen, ami Hanking them, was a keg of most odorous sour krout and a small supply of potatoes. And here, gen- tlest reader,. after a fashion which, for thy instruction, I pro- pose to pursue, generally, in this narrative, let me jot down from my note-book the reflection I straightway made on the uncovering of the sour krout. I find written as follows: "June 10th, 1SG-1; the man who invented sour krout had but three senses." To explain, much more to enlarge upon, the above text would demand an amount of space not to be thought of in the present condition of the rag market. We were dividing out our "provender" with soldierly equity, when, very much to my amazement, an orderly hal- looed at the door that General Kautz wished to see me 4 and hoping that there might be some good news for the citizen prisoners, several of whom were in our party — possibly their release, — I abandoned my rations, [n folly, I confess with mortification,) and in a few minutes found myself in the pre- 16 PRISONEB OV WAR. sence of the celebrated raider. Kautz is a man of about five feet ten inches in height, I should suppose, though I only saw him in a sitting position, has a swarthy complexion, a square massive head, wears his hair and beard cut close, speaks slowly and thoughtfully, and has the breeding of a gentleman. He desired me to take a seat, offered a cigar, and we were soon engaged- in a conversation which was protracted for a couple of hours. I did not hesitate to tell him how insignificant the force opposed to him in his attack of the previous day was, and asked him with as innocent an expression as I could assume, why he did not enter Petersburg after passing us ? " Only because I did not know how I could get out again. The failure of the expedition on the river roads which was relied on to support me made it n \- to be cautions, and while I might have dashed into town and burned some proper- ty, I might have lost my command." In the course of the conversation I learned that he was a West Pointer ami the I mate of General Pickett, as well as several other Confederate officers about whom he inquired He was by education an infantryman, and observed that he thought the government had spoiled a good infantry soldier by giving him a cavalry command. I discovered also that the Gh neral was somewhat piqued at his failure to receive credit with the Southern people for what lie had done. He claimed to have planned and led the expedition that resulted inMorgan's capture on the Ohio the year before, and yet had hardly been mentioned in connection with it. But what surprised him most was that in the late raid which he had made around the South of Petersburg, his name had escaped notice except in one or two instances, where it was mis-spelled, while the credit or discredit of the expedition was divided between Colonel Spears who served under him and General Custar, who was not present. The alleged superiority of Yankee cavalry seemed to in- spire him with great confidence in the early subjugation of the ''rebels,'' and lie did not b to express the opin. FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 17 ion that the war would be closed by successful raids, and by the greater efficiency and better discipline of that branch of the Federal . in actual combat. I thought of all this with very unchristian satisfaction some months later, when Hampton entered the Yankee store-room and cut out splendid cattle by the thousand under Kautz'a very nose, and again : still, a week or two, when Hoke captured his last gun, and sent his last squadron flying in irremediable con- fusion, down the Darbytown road, to the very foot of Birney's infantry. One thing I found General Kautz fully impressed with and . frank to acknowledge — the splendid lighting qualities of the Simtheni people. " I may safely say this/' he remarked in the coifrse of our conversation, " whatever be the issue of this Avar, we shall have a higher respect for your courage and military skill Tor ever h r." He appeared very much annoyed at certain acts ol outrage committed by his men in Greensville and Surry, on his last raid, of which he heard the . as he informed me," from my lips, and deplored the impos- sibility of preventing such acts, especially among cavalry, where it is so ea ;;ve and return to the column, and so alt for officers to prevent misconduct. On the whole I was quite favorably impressed with my cap- tor, and regard my interview as among the most pleasant des of in}- sojourn in partibus infidelium. The arrival of Colonel Spears put an end to our conference and I returned to my comrades to find the hard tack dwindling, the potatoes gone and nothing left of the " krout," but an odor so strong and so diabolical that I am firmly per- suaded he who examines that log hut a century hence will find that : " The scent of tho sour krout will cliag to it still." I had little time to indulge regrets, however, for before many- minutes we were ordered to fall in for General Butlers head- quarters, and our baggage being as scant as that of the Hiber- nian, who refused to buy a trunk, because, if he put anything IS PRISONER OE WAR. in it he would have to go naked, we soon got into line and a half-tour's march brought us to the head-quarters of the Beast — a personage who on many accounts deserves a separate chapter. CHAPTER IV. MAJOR GENERAL BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. — A sedate, a thinking villains whose black bloc^d rune tem- perately bad." — Congreve. Double dealer. Off for Butler's Quarters — Benevolence of Providence — Pen and Ink Sketch of the Beast — Dialogue — The Lawyer's Hit — The Contraband Question — Jus postliminium. On approaching Butler's quarters, which were quite hand- somely located, out of reach of all intrusion, the first thing that attracted attention was the presence and prominence of the negro. So far we had only seen one or two of the negro soldiers on duty at the pentoon bridge, and the night being as dark as themselves, Ave could with difficulty distinguish them but there Abysinia ruled the roost. It was " nigger " every- where, and altho' the white soldiers were obviously annoyed at the companionship, the terror of Butler's rule crushed all re- sistance even of opinion, and the colored brethren knew, and presumed on, their secured position and importance. "We were ranged out in front of Lis Majesty's tent, and there kept standing hour after hour, in one of the hottest suns that I ever felt in any month or at any place. ■ Most of the ■party were men, past middle age, and with hardly an excep- tion they had had but one meal, and that a miserable one for twenty-four hours. When I add that they had had two hours of fighting and at least twenty ? five miles of marching during FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 19 the same interval, arid that a sufficient shade was within a couple of hundred yards of cs, it may be easily imagined that our first impressions of " the brute" were not coukur ut most ol the Yan] • ' had the power to to this uiir, .g. " come," and to the other, "do this," and as all cv lake deb in the J ' sueh a | It is not, perhaps, surprising that these Cedrics n how of their "born thralls" on all occasions : and, sooth to cay, Gurth wears his collar v most servile satisfaction. Past these masters and i St crowds of sutlers and cam}) followers) past thiops, dj nous, and idle, we vein to the river, w!r was marked out to us 1 i scores of masts, an'd fwili 'lit of a Pi;.om i I's office . ' l! y to our na Were turned over to a i hority. A frame building-, whose only otho irons, was allot to us.for the night, ; iiiiDg myself in a window, 1 be- ga*, in the little light still left, to amuse myself > drawing a erayon likeness of Butl I noticed that our new guards were black/ An odorous Congo, with a c two-thirds his length, a Nubian n boundless buttons, and the port of Soulouo'ue was strutting up and down before me in most amusing enjoyment of his responsible position. Like every other negro soldier I met, ■with three exceptions, he was as black as Mason's " Chal- lenge/ 1 and as surly looking a dog as ever brake bread. Be- fore he had been on duly ten minutes he picked a quarrel "with a brother black who dared to cross his post, and straightway both drew their sabres to my infinite satisfaction, FIVE ',- av<.v. 27 as I presumed I was about 60 bo a panicle of ebony chivalry a . !, to great grief, that the sa : only impetus and a finish to a fusillade of oaths, which, for num- ber, force, and unrelieved prafifciity, I neves 'lied nil. once. On our return from Gettysburg, while i the mountains, I saw a iir^i class arm res of •ous blocked op in a narrow mountain-way on a down grade of about two tin feet to the rnile>— everything with wheels running into everything else, and a herd of Pennsylvania 1 ing up the small and constantly varying intervals between the . Then broke forth ■ rained Lungs, and exhi bulary of a . SUeh a t, aval.;!! Iwind, yea, " of impreca competition of the must terrible swearing in Flanders. The ; expletives, m whioli ' finds vent witb ■ mortals, found in that Lodore o ■.••, — were obvioui '/, thdi , — and a and ! ' me and tail aal mule and nwileteer in all tl while the inter*.- * fillip, from the fact that we had to . < ■ Of this st: b left bu . i,«ohes i If a ad feet sheer ! '' , ear- before or si illy since my capture has Getting an old - er of our jail, and, without blanl head on M of June, are | ur- heat, exposure a. .ise of tl .1 fell i em which I 28 PRISONER OF WAR. woke; just in time to save myself from a plunge through, a treacherous seal-hole into the Polar sea! I found myself chilled through and stiff n ith "cold. There was no lire to be had, and the darkey at the door incontinently refused to per- mit me to walk out, so I was" constrained to restore circula- tion by certain frantic gymnastics, in which I was, before long, joined by sundry comrades similarly uncomfortable. Like everything sublunary (except Coleridge's sermons,) the night came, perforce, to an end, and we were allowed to go out, two at a time, to wash our faces, — a- rather superflu- ous ceremony in the absence of soap and towels, and the most striking necessity for both. Salt-junk, coffee and as much "hard tack" as we wanted, were issued to us by our "col- ored brefehern," and at 8^ a. m., a guard of twenty, from iJae same regiment, — the 1st U. S. Colored Cavalry,— formed around us with drawn swords, — a white officer at their head, — and, thus convoyed, we proceeded aboard a fine river boat, the "John A. Warren." A few minutes after getting aboard, an officer came from shore with a dispatch from General Butler, commanding the return of three of our party (whom he designated by name,) to his head-quarters. This manoeuvre, I believe, never re- ceived satisfactory explanation : the men were detained several days by Butler, and eventually sent to the same orison with, the rest of us. Before another half hour passed we heard the tinkle of the engineer's bell, the gang plank was drawn aboard, the paddles began to revolve, lines were cast off, and we felt indeed that we were turning our backs on home. It w T as the " bluest " moment of mj r imprison- ment. There seemed such a cruel injustice in tearing a party of men, some of whose heads wore the gray honors of many a winter, from families and friends, and all that men hold dear, for the crime alone of standing before their own hearths and homes, and resisting assassins and burglars, bent upon the desecration of both, that I called in vain on philosophy for consolation, and as we glided along by the well-remem- bered and ancient plantations of our beautiful river, seen FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YAXKEE3. 20 then the first time for three years, and to be seen again alas, when I I recalled the days when those deserted and wasted mansions were the abode of a courtly, generous hos- pitality, worthy of the baronial days of "memo. England," until I filled my mind and heart with such memories and such regrets as are wont to moisten sterner eyes than mine. We sailed past two long pontoon rafts, in preparation for the move of General Grant across the river, soon to take place with such pomp and trumpeting, past the cloud of transports, that the supply of his vast army, so soon to change its base, demanded: past the Atlanta, so easily captured not long before in the Savannah, and a little before 5, came abreasl of Newports News, and in sight of Old Point and the ami fleet of Hampton Roads. When I saw that harbor again, there were two thousand guns upon it, and such an Armada as the world never saw before* Landed, we were again marched before a Provost Marshal, and required to answer onr names, and then, under our negro guard, marched* to cam]) Hamilton, a little West of the large structure form- erly known as the Chesapeake Female College, of Hampton. This "camp" is a two-story wooden barrack, with a yard, the whole surrounded with a fence, : feet high. Into this enclosure we were marched, - cued out, and the perennial roll-calling again gone through with, and then we were dismissed and told to find room to sleep in, as best we could. I had hardly left the ranks, when a jolly sou of Erin a Federal soldier— stepped up to me, beckoned me aside, and informed me that the lower story of the building was occu- pied by Yankee prisoners, incarcerated for various villainies, and that into that apartment I must, under no circumstance venture, as they garroted and robbed every Uoni sol- dier they could inveigle into their dvn. 1 asked, with some surprise, whether complaint was never made. "< ."" ] 1C said, "gremies do complain, and the laugh in their faces." I needed no farther Warning, and steered clear of the "below stairs" in that mansion. Five minutes had not ZO PRISONER OF WAR. elapsed before one of our party emerged from that lower door, swearing like an irate moss-trooper. One of the Yan- kees had offered him some coffee, for which he was of course very grateful, and invited him in to drink it ; but he had hardly entered the den before a blanket was thrown over his head, and he was pulled to the earth, his pockets rifled, and even the gold buttons wrenched from his shirt ! I thought it time to get up-stairs among some honest Con- federates, and so mounted to the second story, where I had the good fortune to meet two old friends who had been incar- cerated there some time, and who having learned the ropes, had made themselves comfortable. They very kindly gave me a bunk and a good supper, for both of which they have now, as they had then, my benediction, and having washed my face after a civilized fashion, I turned in to a sleep which the excitements of the past three days made very desiral — and very profound. The next day was Sunday, our first •in prison. "I think that those people, the rituals of whose churches comprise prayers for the captives, never utter those petite with sufficient unction. I'll mend my fervor in that be! hereafter." Such is the memorandum in my diary, u; date of June 12th. I commend it pious reader of mine, to your attention — make a note on't. There is, in the Roman Catholic church, an order called the Redenrptorists, whose members, besides taking the m monastic obligations of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience, bound themselves by a vow, to dedicate their lives to the re- demption of captives, particularly those taken by the Moors ; and so faithfully did they devote themselves to this pious vo- cation, that in the event of any of them failing to compass otherwise, the release of at least one captive, he consid< himself bound to volunteer to take the place of some christian prisoner thus confined, and restore him, thereby, to his ily. Cases of this wonderful self-denial were of constant occurrence, and strange to say, the barbarians kept faith with the good monks with surprising scrupulousness. We con- FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 31 eluded, while in bonds, that something of that sort was des- perately needed at the present day, only the Yankees would scarcely be as honest as the pirates. About sun-down, we were marched back to Old Point, and with a hundred or more compatriots, huddled into the bow of the " Louisiana," a well-known boat of the old Bay Line to Baltimore. Here it was our fortune to succeed in the teu- of our premises, to an invoice of h sought down t On her preceding trip, and any tiling being 1 enough for the rebels, the ceremonies, usual on verting a stable into a human habitation, were dii :! In these savory quarters we were packed away ; the Ding fortress with her diadem of cannon sopn faded into ,m r. and by 11 o'clock, we made Point Lookout. V so called; I am at a loss to im: there is notliing in t p.ect to make the most curious inhabitant ■my direction. This n ■ lire has puzzled wiser heads than mine, and I am free to admit that Point Lookout is far from an exceptional ease. A cev- group of islands in the Pacific is denominated " Societ} 7 ," I no society there, I suppose, aud another, de- id " Frie itliough the kind< m to strangers is to eat the is a non lucendo. The tide being down, wo were - of a little tug that e- fling and fusi and hungry, sleepy and half frozen, we set our et on the friendly shores of " Maryland, my Maryla CHAPTER VI. ' e Cold— Seard nng the " Reb "—17ieP< nined to in >, ,< " — A friend in need — Prison Demoralization. It w. M'tune to fall straightway into the han amp. It was scarcely midnight when we landed on a long pier, which jutting out into the P • caught the o2 rrasoxER of war. full sweep of the sharp Nor' Wester, that screamed and rattled down the channel of the river. The guard though comforta- bly clad and furnished with heavy overcoats, suffered acutely, and altho' the officer which met us as we landed told them that we coukt not he received until morning, the soldiers did not imagine that their duty required them to stay themselves, or keep their prisoners on the exposed extremity of the long wharf, and they accordingly marched us to land. Huddling ourselves together we were endeavoring to coax a wink from Morpheus, when some ill wind blew the receiving officer, Lieu- tenant Phillips, again before us. He straightway opened a torrent of profane abuse upon Ua and upon our guard, ordered them to take us inimediatly back to the end of the pier, and waited to see his orders executed, breathing unmentionable execrations against the whole of us. Shivering and utterly miserable, we were marched back, and spent the night in vain efforts to find heat in exercise— sleep being out of the ques- tion. The guards themselves with blanket and overcoat complained bitterly of the fierce blast, while Ave had to endure it in light summer costumes, some even without a ooat or roundabout. The hours dragged heavily on, and not until 7 o'clock in the morning, were Ave alloAved to come oil' the river. Another Provost Marshal's o^cc soon hove in sight, before which avc were ranged in a double rank and the inevitable roll- call again iblloAved. All being right, Lieutenant Phillips, our Avorthy of the night before, appeared again, rejoicing in mut- ton-chop whiskers, and a grape vine cane, and in a gruff, per- emptory A'oiee, ordered the first four of us to step out to be searched. This Avas accomplished by himself and a couple of assistants, and consisted in turning the contents of our pockets on the ground, and then taking off all our clothing except Avhat was absolutely next the skin, and 'part of that also. This Avas done to enable the examiners to search thoroughly our per- sons for money — a conimodit}'- Avhich Avas pretty generally stolen at Point Lookout, either formally or informally — and in case of Lieutenant Phillips, this ceremony was usually va- ried by tearing the lining out of the hats and pantaloons of FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 83 such unfortunates as fell particularly to his lot. Some of his aids were discharging their duty too gingerly for his notions of official obligation, and hailing them with "that's no way to search d — d rebels," he proceeded to illustrate by unusual vio- lence of conduct, what he thought the proper way — sundry seams suffered in consequence. This rifle practice having been continued until all our valuables were taken from us, Ave were graciously] I to dress ourselves, and the line being formed once more, we were nun-died off a quarter of a mile to "THE PEN." The military prison, or rather prisons, at Point Lookout, consist of two enclosures, the One containing about thirty, the other about ten acres of (hit sand, on the Northern shore of the Potomac at its mouth, but a few inches above high-tide, and utterly innocent of tree, shrub or any natural equivalent for the same. Each is surrounded by a fence about fifteen feet high, facing inwards, around the top of which on the out- er face, and about twelve feet from the ground, runs a plat- form on which twenty or thirty sentinels are posted, keeping watch and ward, night and day, over the prisoners within. Besides these precautions, a si r i >d palisade stretches across the tongue of land on which the prisons stand, from the bay on the North East, to the Pototnacon the South West. "Within this palisade, but of course outside of the " pens," are usually two regiments of infantry, and a couple of batteries of artillery, and without the fortification two or three com- panies of cavalry, while, riding at anchor in the bay, one gun- boat at least may always be seen. One face of each of these "pens," the Eastern, fronts the bay, and gates lead from the enclosures to a narrow belt of land between the fence and the water, which is free to the prisoners during the daj r , piles being driven into the bay on either hand to prevent any dexterous "reb" from flanking out. A certain portion of the water is marked off by stakes driven into the bottom, for bathing purposes, and most of the prisoners gladly avail themselves of the privilege thus afforded; although, as the same locality precisely and exclusively, is devoted to the re- 8-i PRISONER OF WAR. ception of all tlie filth of the camp, I admit a squeamishness which deprived me of sea bathing as long as I staid there. Allans mes amis .' we have been outside as long as the gentle- man of the grape-vine and mutton-chop will permit — let us enter^. The first thing that strikes you as peculiarly prominent within the fence is a row of eight or ten wooden buildings, jutting out from the Western face of the. Feu, a hundred feet long, perhaps, by eighteen in width, and one story high, with four tables running down the entire length of each. At the end next the fence, a' partition divides off about twelve feet of the structure. These are the Mess Rooms and cook houses. Here all the public cooking and eating of the premises is con- ducted. A street, twenty feet in width, ri ■ >■ long the front of these houses, and at right angles to this street, run long rows of tents of all imaginable pattern-, and of no pattern at all, to within twenty or thirty feet of the opp< se of the enclosure. Each of these rows of tents is designed to con- tain one thousand prisoners, and at the time of our advent, there were ten of these nearly filled, and another just begun. We were assigned to various "divisions," as the rows of tents are called, and dismissed. I was informed that Co. "B," 4th Division, was my ''command," and reporting forthwith to the Sergeant of the same, he designated my place' as No. lo, in a dirty Sibley tent, which the tenants, from some freak, strongly suggestive of danger, however, had christened and duly labelled, the " Lyon's Den." (I disclaim all responsi- bility for the orthography. ) I approached the structure with about as heavy a heart as any unregenerate Daniel might be supposed to possess on pre- sentation to a location with so fearful a name, but the sight that met my eyes as I stooped to pass in, barred my further 'progress. It is not necessary to enter more particularly inte> details than to intimate that my prospective mess-mates were anxiously on the war-path after certain animals of the para- site order, whose name — infandum — has the same origin as that of la helk passion ! Mariu;-, amid the ruins of Carthage: FIVE MOXTIIS AMOXG THE YANKEES. o5 Belisarius, begging the ol Coriolanus, when his ma was plaguing him, or the first instant of her discovering that Flora McF's. lace was a half inch deeper than her own — not I any or all of these, (except possibly the last,) could equal the mute misery with which hungry, slee; fcy, tired, angry, robbed, and rebellious, I stalked ■ id a half can stalk,) away, with h and a groan, from on's Don. " I had nM gone - T was hailed by name in a voice perfectly familiar, though 1 had not heard it before for some time, and turnin ction whence it came, saw a well »wn face, my vis-a-vi in many a game of "pri- ." in the blissful days of boyhood. I think lie must have known intuitively both the character and the depth of m of his first question was: — " W here are your quarters." I mentioned the dread name with a sickl; ; at a smile, which was a signal failure, when, my friend, ;s ten months ri I the prison, invited me around to his domicile) until I could bet- ter pro"\ If. Several of ray companions were similar- ly favored, and those who were not, were provided generally with new tents and allowed to make up their own messes. Sleep was what 1 wanted most, so borrowing v blanket from my good Samaritan, I availed myself of his invitation, and before many minutes was happily indifferent to all terres- trial affairs. Physiologists have a mused themselves with re- oording the order in which the several senses go to sleep : my own opinion is that, under such circumstances, they make a lumping business of It, and fall by platoons ; certainly such was my experience. I i sin prison life in earnest, and none but those who have ex] I it can approximate an idea of its wretched- ■onsist in loss of liber ty, in absence from ion to other . in insufficient food, in scant clothii in want of occupation, in an exposed life, in the absence of all conveniences of living, in the menial or physical oppression of confinement — though, $Q PRISONER OF WAR. God knows, all these are bad enough, and contribute in the aggregate greatly to the enchancement q£ the misery of a prisoner. I think, however, that the great overshadowing agony of imprisonment is isolation. the dreary void, The leafless desert of the raind, The waste of feelings uneiaplojed." The world, friends, fellow-citizens, home, are things as remote as though in another sphere. Death brings its compensation aside from the consolations of religion, in the remembrance that it is irreversible, and we choke down and eradicate, if we cannot exalt and purify those emotions, whereof the lost were the objects, insensibly changing our social schedule to meet the new 1 order of things. But the prisoner preserves affections and interests without being able to indulge them, and thus with straining eyes and quickening pulse, he dismisses continually the dove for the expected emblem, but it returns forever with flagging wing and drooping head, not having found whereon to rest its weary foot. Thus, there comes that despair which is the aggregate of many, or the su- premacy of one disappointment— and from despair conies always degradation. Men become reckless, because hopeless — brutal- ized, because broken-spirited, until from disregard of the for- malities of life, they become indifferent to its duties, and pass with rapid though almost insensible steps from indecorum to vice— until a man will pick .your pocket in a prison, who would sooner cut his throat at home. I perceive, that I shall have to write a didactic chapter, however, and the reader may as well prepare himself for his fate. Meanwhile, I will continue my record of the facts of my prison experience. « CHAPTER VH. Prison Programme — Miss Dix on the Witness Stand — Copper- as Water — Under Water — Yankee Thievery — Guards and Pa- trols. t The routine of prison-life at Point Lookout was as follows : Between dawn and sunrise a "reveille " horn summoned us into line by companies, ten of which constituted each divi- sion — of which I have before spoken — and here the roll was called. This performance is hurried over with as much haste as is ascribed to certain marital ceremonies in a poem that it would be obviously improper to make more particular allu- sion to — and those whose love of a nap predominates over fear of the Yankees usually turn! - another snooze. About 8 o'clock the breakfasting begins. This operation consists in the forming of the companies again into line, and introducing them under lead of their Sergeants, into the mess-rooms, where a slice of bread and a piece of pork or beef — lean in the for- mer and fat in the latter being contraband of war — are placed at intervals of about twenty inches apart. The meat is usu- ally about four or five ounces in weight. These we Sei upon, no one being allowed to touch a piece, however, until the whole company entered, and each man was in position opposite his ration (universally and properly pronounced ray- Hon, among our enemies, as it is ! as generally called, with the " a " short among ourselves.) This over, a detail of four or five men from each company — made at morning roll- call — form themselves into squads for the cleansing of the camp — an operation which the V, , where attend to with more diligence than ourselves. The men then busy themselves with the numberless occupations, which the fertil- ity of American genius suggests, of which I will have some- thing to say hereafter, until dinner time, when they are again carried to the mess-houses, where another slice of bread, and 38 PRISONER OF WAR. rather over a half pint of a watery slop, by courtesy called "soup," greets the eyes of such ostrich-stomached animals, as can find comfort in that substitute for nourishment. About sundown the roll is again called, on a signal by the horn, and an hour after, " taps ". sounds, when all are required to be in. their quarters — and this, in endless repetition and without a variation, is the routine life of prii The Sanitary Commission, a benevolent association of ex- empts in aid of the Hospital Department of the Yankee army, published in July last, a ''Narrative of Sufferings of United States Officers and Soldiers, Prisoners of War," in which a parallel is drawn, between the treatment of prisoners on both sides, greatly to the disadvantage of course, of " Dixie." Among other statements, in glorification of the humanity of the Great Republic, is one on p , from Miss Dix, the grand female dry nurse of Yankee Doodle, who by the by, gives unpardgnable offence to thepulchritu.de of Yankeedom, by persistenl ing to employ any but ugly icornen as nurses — the vampire — which, affirms that the prisoners at Point Lookout, "were supplied with vegetable.-, with the best of wheat bread, and fresh and salt meat three times daily in abundant measure." Common gallantry the characterization of this re- markable extract in harsher terms than to say that it is untrue in c '/'. It is quite likely that some Yankee official at Point Look- out, made this statemenl to the benevolent itinerant, and her only fault may be in suppressing the fact that she "mas in- formed," &c, &c. But it is altogether inexcusable in the Sani- tary Commission, to attempt to palm such a falsehood upon the world, knowing its falsity, as they must. For my part, I never saw any one get enough of any thing to eat at Point Lookout, except the soup, and a tea spoonful of that was too much for ordinary digestion. These digestive discomforts are greatly enhanced by the villainous character of the water, which is so impregnated with some mineral as to offend every nose, and induce diar- FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 39 rhcca in almost every alimentary canal. It colors every tiling black in which it is allowed to rest, and i the top of a vessel if it is left standing during the night, which reflects the plasmatic colors as distinctly as the surface of a stagnant pool. Several examin itions of this water have been made by chemical analysis, and they have uniformly resulted in its condemnation by s i, but the advantages of the position to the Yankees, so counterbalance any claim of humanity, that Point Lookout is likely to remain a prison camp antil the end of the war, especially as there are wells outside of "the Pen," which are not liable to these charges, the water of v fectly pure and wholesome, so that the Y nodamage therefrom. I was not surprised therefore on my return to the Point, after three months absence, to find many pr< parations looking to permanent occupancy of the place. It has already served the purposes of a prison, since the 25th of July, 1863, when the Gettysburg . . or a la • of them, wore s< thither from the "Old I," Fort McIIenry and Fort Delawar. the chant that it will play the part of a jail unti ! of -the promised redemption of our National Currency. . Another local inconveni n of the post. Situated on a Ioav tongue "of i .'.v,^ out into the bay, and. as I have 1 . but a few inches above ordinary high tide, it is visited in winter by blasts whose severity has can. ■ '> of several of the well-clad sen- tinels, even, altho' during the severest portion of the winter of 1863-4, they were relieved every thirty minutes — two hours being the. usual time duty. And when a strong easterly gale prevails for many hours in winter, a large portion of the sea, which finds convenient :■■ of ditches < instructed for the drainage of be men, their u PPty of wood issued to the | • the winter was not enough to keep up the most mp< wo hours out of the twenty-four, 40 PRISONER OF WAR. and the only possible way of avoiding freezing, was by unre- mitting devotion to the blankets. This, however, became impossible when everything was afloat, and I Was not sur- prised, therefore, to hear some pitiable tales of suffering dur- ing the past winter from this cause. This latter evil might be somewhat mitigated but for a barbarous regulation peculiar, I believe, to this "pen," under which the Yanks stole from us any .bed clothing we might possess, beyond one blanket I This petty larceny was effected through an instrumentality they call inspections. Once in every ten days an inspection is ordered, when all the prison- ers turn out in their respective divisions and companies in marehing order. They range themselves in long lines between the rows of tents, .with their blankets and haversacks — those being the only articles considered orthodox possessions of a rebel. A Yankee inspects each man, taking away his extra blanket, if he has one, and appropriating any other super- fluity he may chance to possess, and this accomplished, he visits the tents and seizes everything therein that under the convenient nomenclature of the Federals, is catalogued as " contraband," — blankets, boots, hats, anything. The only way to avoid this, is by a judicious use of greenbacks, — and a trifle will suffice — it being true, with a few honorable ex- ceptions, of course, that Yankee soldiers are very much like ships: to move them, you must "slush the ways." In the matter of clothing, the management at Point Look- out is simply infamous. You can receive nothing in the way of clothing without giving up the corresponding article which you may chance to possess; and so rigid is this regulation ? that men who come there bare-footed have been compelled to be" - or buy a pair of worn out shoes to carry to the oflice in lieu of a pair sent them by their friefii re they could receive the latter. To what end this plundering is committed I could never ascertain, nor was I ever able to hear any better, or indeed any other reason advanced for it than that the pos- session of extra clothing would enable the prisoners to bribe FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 41 their guards ! Heaven help the virtue that a pair of second- hand Confederate breeches could seduce! As I have mentioned the guards, and as this is a mosaic chanter, I may as well speak here as elsewhere of the method by which order is kept in camp. During the day the plat- form around the pen is tly" paced by sentinels chiefly of the Invalid (or, as it is now called, the Veteran Reserve) Corps, whose duty it is to see that the prisoners are orderly, and particularly, that no one crosses "the dead line." This is a shallow ditch traced around within the enclosure, about from I'. The penally for stepping over this is death, and altl he sentinels are probably instruct- ed to warn . : be violi i s rule, the order does hot seem to be imperative, and the negroes, when on duty, rarely troubled themselves with this superfluous form- ality. These were on duty curing my stay at the Point, every third day, and their insolence and brutality were in- tolerable. Besides this detail of day guard, which of course is pre- s.i ved during the night, a patrol makes the rounds constantly from " taps," the last horn at night, to "reveille." These are usually armed with pistols for convenience, and as they are shielded from scrutiny by the darkness, the indmni- and cru< lict on prisoners, who for any cause may be out of their tents between those hours especially when the patrol are black, are outrageous. Many of t 1 of a character, which could not by any periphrases be decently expressed, — they are, however, precisely the acts which a set of vulgar brutes, suddenly invested with irres- ponsible authority, might be expected to take delight in, and as it is of course impossible to recognize them, redress is un- attainable, even if one could brook th and insult which would inevitably follow complaint. Indeed, most of the Yankees do not disguise their delight ut the insolence of these Congoes. G CHAPTER VIII. Houses Plebeian and Patrician — Love's Labor Lost — llic Manufactures of Camp — Samples of Curious Workmanship — Washerwomen and Gamblers — Exceptional Prisoners. I have said that the only shelter supplied by the Yankee government to the prisoners at Point Lookout is canvass. Tents are issued to the prisoners at the rate of one " A tent " — covering about six feet square — to each squad of five, or one Sibley tent — covering a circle whose diameter is about fifteen feet — to every eighteen men. The camp uniformity is how- ever agreeably diversified by mansions of aristocratic propor- tions and finish, which from their material are styled " crack- er-box houses." Top-boots and a cracker-box house fill the measure of any genuine Point Lookouter's ambition. To want these is to be the subject of envy — to possess them is to be its* object, (I speak Kant — as maDy a better man before me.) It is only as a very special favor that a rebel is allowed to wear boots there at all, but the other blessing being attainable by all by means of a little cash, and much diligence, is a lawful object of universal ambition. They are made on this wise : A large proportion of the bread used at all prisons consists of square crackers made of flour, water and salt alone, and thoroughly baked, which are put up in fifty pound boxes, and everywhere denominated "hard tack." The boxes in which these crackers are packed, are made of white pine or some other light and easily worked wood, and are, I suppose, about thirty-two inches long, by twenty broad and twelve deep. They are the perquisites of the prison Commissary, who sells them at from ten to fifteen cents apiece according to the de- mand, These are knocked to pieces carefully, the nails all saved, and the boards put away, until longer pieces of wood in sufficent numbers to make a frame are procured from out- F;VE MONTHS AMONG TIIE YANKEES. 43 side. This accomplished, and the boards nailed on carefully, the " A tent " is slit up the back, and stretched across the ridge pole of th< micile to form the roof. If newspa- pers, especially illustrated ones, can be procured, the walls are papered inside, increasing the comfort as avcII as bettering the appearance of the room — a fire place is made in the end, of sun-dried bricks of home manufacture, which having *been raised four or five feet, is surmounted by a Hour barrel; the floor is spread \. from the beach, a table and a couple of chairs are impro\ a name painted (with a composition of soot and vinegar) over the door; and the family moves in — men of mark and consequence forever henceforth in th of Point Lookout! Most of these buildings have been put up by Marylanders, whose proximity to their homes enables them to command a larger exchequer than the risoners. Many of the names by which these mansions arc designa- ted are purely fanciful, as "Here's your Mule," " The Alham- bra," &c, but sometimes they are quite significant. I noticed a very neat one at th of the division in which I slept, labelled " Home Again," and on enquiry learned that the ap- propriateness of the title depended on the following incident. It was erected on the ground of a former structure of the same kind, tenanted by the same parties, which came to grief as follows : Its occupants, an ingenious partv with considerable mechanical skill, had contrived to accumulate cracker-box lumber in large quantities without exciting suspicion, and by watching their opportunities, had fashioned their material into two canoes, each capable of containing two or three men. These boats could be carried under the arm, the various parts disjointed, without e suspicion, and could be readily fitted together, even in the dark, by those who were familiar with their construction. Everything promised success, and they were awaiting a night of favoring darkness, having. made the necessary arrangements for getting outside of the enclo- sure, (which it woul I not be prudent perhaps to disclose, as that gate is still open.) when the Yanks were somehow made ac- 44 PRISONER OF WAR. quainted witli the scheme. They sent a guard to the house, found the canoes, made a bon-fireof them, and then razed the castle to the ground, leaving not a bit of,..it standing, " from turret to foundation stone." For some time the baffled tenants wandered around, pensioners upon the charity of their com- rades ; but at last they ventured on rebuilding their palace, and having accomplished this unmolested, they gave modest vent to their satisfaction as well as a visiting-card to their friends, by writing over their door, "Home Again."' As I have spoken of the architectural ingenuity of the "rebs," I may as well do scant justice, here as elsewhere, to the surprising ingenuity and skill displayed by them in the various devices, with which they contrive to beguile the tedi- um (and buy the tobacco) of prison life. The larger portion of the manufactures of the prisoners con- sists of rings, chains, breast-puns, shirt buttons, lockets, &c, of gutta percha. These are beautifully carved in an infinite diversity of style and design, and inlaid with gold, silver and pearl, in an endless variety of "ornamental device. The rings are chiellv made of coat buttons; the chains exclusively I believe from a certain long hollow tube of gutta percha] used as a needle in some d itting or crochet, by saw- in "■ the cylinder into rings, slitting one side of each and thus linking them together ; and the other ornaments are made principally of what is known as block gutta percha, the mas- ses of which being of greater thickness, afford the means of heavier work. A large needle, to drill the holes for the pins, which confine the inlaid material, a hand lathe which can be made in a half hour, and a knife, one blade of which has been filed into a saw, arc the only instruments required for this manufacture, though many who have been long at the busi- ness, have supplied themselves with graver's tool of every variety. A more ambitious class of workmen confine themselves to carving in bone, and I remember a "Greek Slave," a "Paul in chains," and a " crucifix," by one of these which would not shame an experienced artist, and yet the maker had never five months among tee Yankees. 45 carved a pipe, even, until lie was a prisoner. I feel no hesita- tion in mentioning the name of the ingenious gentleman who wrought thus beautifully, nor any delicacy in giving this pub- lic expression to the hope that Mr. W. W. Marstellar,* will do himself and his native state, Virginia* the justice to cher- ish and mature the talent he so obviously possesses in unusual degree. While these are the regular occupations of camp, no division is without one or two shoe-makers, and as many tailors, and barbers, who contrive -somehow to obtain both the tools and materials ol their trades, while here and there throughout the camp, you will find ginger-bread and molasses candy of do- mestic manufacture for sale, and, strangely enough, one or two regular eating-houses, where a very respectable dinner can be obtained for filly cents ! The solvent power of money triumphs over every obstacle. Well and wisely wrote that rollicking son of Venusium : rem Jacias : rem Sipossis recte, si von, oiiocunquo modo rem." Before my arrival at Point Lookout, two of its most cele- brated pieces of workmanship had been sold outside. One of these was a locomotive, with a camp kettle for a boiler, and the other a watch, which filled a common canteen! both of which worked admirably, as I learned from many who inspect- ed them. The handsomest and, considering all the difficulties, the most surpri* mpie of mere mechanical ingenuity which I saw, was a violin made of a cracker-box, wherein all the curves and undulations of that praHer-naturally twisted instrument were reproduced with the utmost fidelity, This curiosity stood the crucial test of practice, for T had the plea- sure of hearing as honest a jig, extracted from its sonorous *Mr. Marstellar presented one of the samples of his skill "Paul " through the hands of his former Colonel and Brigadier, our gillant Governor, who never forgetshu soldiers, to General Lee, shortly after his return from prison and received a handsome autograph aknowlcdge- ment from the General. 46 . rmsoN'ER of war. body as ever tried the endurance or evidenced the skill of dame or demoiselle in all the tide of time. Another source of extensive profits in prison is the pursuit of the washerwomen — if that phrase may be used without compromising the conscript liability of the subjects. The la- bors of these useful ouvriers are conducted on the beach at low tide. The beating of the waves against the bank, which is formed just here of a tenacious clay, leaves a little bluff some two or three feet high, along the bay face of the prison, which, as I have before mentioned, is free to the prisoners during the day. Here the washers most do congregate. Their first d«ty is to make a stove. This is effected by digging a round hole in this clay bluff) about eight inches in diameter, and as many deep, the outer rim of which is some four or five inches from the edge of the bluff. A second hole is then tun- nelled in the face of the bluff, at such a distance below the surface as will allow it to strike the bottom of the first hole, so that the two apertures have the general form of the elbow of a stove pipe — and the furnace is complete. Afire is made in the larger cavity over the mouth of which the boiler is placed, being raised from the ground by a few pebbles that the draught may be perfect. The washerwoman rolls up his pants and wades out a few yards to clear water, fills his buck- et with the salt tide, and is soon under weigh. The washer women do not, however, monopolize this belt of ground, unfortunately. Its most numerous occupants are gamblers, who, under hastily constructed booths which they erect every morning and sleep on every night, carry on every game of cards at which money is staked, from aristocratic " faro " to cut-throat monte. Here the dice rattle and the cards are shuffled from morning till night, everything repre- senting value, from a "hardtack" up, being freely offered and accepted as legitimate currency. In truth, the " hard tack " may be considered the unit of value in prison. One of them will purchase a single chew of tobacco anywhere in camp, eight will buy a U. S. postage stamp ; ten a loaf of bread, &c. Indeed, the air resounds from rosy morn to dewy FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 47 eve with sucli sounds as "Here's yer tobaccer for yer hard tack," " Here's envelopes for yer hard tack," and the like There is quite an amount of this commodity always in circu- lation from the fact that many of the prisoners are not de- pendant on the government rations ; so they draw their supplies and either give them or sell them to less fortunate neighbors, who in turn dispose of them to others more needy than themselves, so that the commerce of the " pen " consists in various exchanges, whose design and effect is to get hard tack from full mouths to empty ones. Whence comes the money for all this gambling you natur- ally ask, and I confess I was for a long time puzzled by the phenomenon. The regulations of this prison not only pre- scribe, that all money shall be taken from prisoners on their entry, but that under no circumstances shall money be de- livered to them. When friends, therefore, transmit them supplies of this sort, they are taken possession of by the com- mandant of the camp, who noli lies the prisoner, and the latter is then permitted, in one form or another, to draw on the deposite thus made. At Point Lookout, under the regime at the time of our capture, the money was issued in sutler's checks or tickets, which the sutler was forbidden to receive again from any one not a prisoner. Subsequently, the plan was devised of handing to each prisoner who had money to his credit, a pass-book, on the first page of which he found himself- credited with' the money sent him, and debited with the cost t>f the book, and by taking this account book to the sutler, purchases could be effected to the amount of the bal- ance due. But, under whatever form, money obtained, by some muni;:, admission. Rebel ingenuity managed it, and I am overwhelmed with regret, oh, most in of readers, that "the e\ of the public service" do not permit me to say hoio. I I d, but "odds bodikins!" how can I help that? Curiosity has brought many a man and woman to e .anion grandmother's unfortunate and, doubtless, will continue to be the vestibule to misery till 'the crack of doom. Ruminate there- 48 ' PRISONER OF WAR. on, and be comforted, for tell you, I am resolved beyond hope of repentance, I will not. As this is a chapter devoted somewhat to the rarities of prisondom, I must not forget to mention that among the con- victs is a woman ! She was captured in the Valley of Vir- ginia, I was informed, while acting as a member of an artil- lery company, and her sex discovered, probably, on the usual search for valuables. Common civility suggested a conver- sation with her, and one day as I was passing the little tent, which was assigned to her exclusivel}', I approached her for the purpose of making some inquiries, as well as letting her know that we were disposed to serve her in any way possi- ble to prisoners. She seemed, however, indisposed to con- verse and I was compelled to give up the chase. Why the Yanks detain her, I can't imagine, as I believe in the rare instances in which these Amazonian propensities have brought the sex to trouble, heretofore, on either side, their exchange has been promptly made. Another "rara avis" — the remainder of the line is even more pointedly appropriate — is a genuine "Old Virginny" negro, named " Dick," whilom a servant at the Bollingbrook Hotel, in Petersburg, who was taken while in the service as cook to some mess, during the Gettysburg campaign. Dick has been importuned, time and again, to renounce the Con- federate cause, come out of prison and accept work and good wag§3 outside, but he resists with Koman fortitude — protests that he is a "Jeff. Davis" man, that he is going back to his home, and wants nothing to do with the Yankees, and expres- ses the most appropriate and sovereign contempt for "Old Abe." It is positively exhilarating to see such loyal devo- tion in a slave, tempted and persecuted by the enemy as they are, and it involves many sacrifices, besides the usual ones of prison, to stand his ground so manfully. Chief among these, probably, is the jeers of his fellow-negroes when on duty # But Dick rises sublimely superior to all this, and quietly pur- sues his labors with no more apparent annoyances or regrets, than are supposed to be inseparable from the pursuits of any FIVE MONTHS ASIOXG- THE YANKEES. 49 other overworked washerwoman — that being his profession. The advent of the Petersburg delegation was a source of mingled mortification and delight to him. He obviously re- gretted to see us in bonds, but he was glad to hear news of many who had been dead to him for a year, and his gratifica- tion took the practical turn of placing his purse and labor at our disposal. Day now followed day in tedious progression, little occur- ring to break the monotony of a life which has all the stupid- ity of a tread-mill without its exercise. The few incidents that marked it, I cannot, perhaps, more conveniently dispose of than by extracting from 1:13' diary, with a little amplifica- tion for greater clearness. CIIArTEK IX. A Negro Raid — Major Weymouth — General Augur In speets Us — Fall of Petersburg — Camp Inspection — Petersburg in Mourning — Letter , r ome — Culottes and Seen*- Culottes — Speculations . I limen tary. Thursday, June 16th. A prisoner a week to-day — it seems a year. Last night the negro regiment which constitutes part of our guard, and which has been raiding over in AVestmorerand and the adjacent counties, returned with great beating of drums and blowing of fifes. The captives of these br; soldiers of the Eepublic, consisted of a hundred head of cattle, principally poor women's cows, several plows, buggies^ primeval sulkies, harrows, beds, chairs, &c, and from twenty to thirty decrepit citizens ! This is the service in winch t] demons are regularly employed. Every month, and some- times more frequently than once in thirty days, they are sent across the river on a plundering tour. The Yankees arc too 7 50 rmsoNEii OF war. much ashamed of this, to fill their papers with the doings of these valiant "swash bucklers/' but they are glad of the means of keeping alive by this promise of stated plunderings, the martial ardor and fidelity of their black brethren, and of course, are not un walling to share the spoils. These raids, which are usually made in a country entirely devoid of Con- federate soldiers, are, of course, without any earthly justifica- tion or purpose, except to gratify the malignity and feed the beastliness of their new allies, whose delight in these safe robberies is, as may be expected, boundless. The old men are usually kept a short time in an unenclosed camp outside, under guard of the negroes, and then returned to their homes, the Yankees even not having the audacity to detain them — perhaps not the humanity to feed them. Saw to-day, for the first time, the Chief Provost Marshal, Major H. G. 0. Weymouth. He is a handsome official with ruddy face, a rather frank countenance, and a cork-leg. He conducts this establishment on the " laissez fqire " principle — in short he lets it alone severely. Whatever the abuses or complaints, or reforms, the only way to reach him is by com- munications through official channels, said channels being usually the authors of the abuses ! It may be easily computed how many documents of this description would be likely to reach him. Two or three times a week he rides into camp with a sturdy knave behind him, at a respectful distance — makes the run of one or two streets and is gone, and I presume sits down ovef a glass of brandy and water, and indites a mostsati tory report of the condition of the " rebs," for the perusal of his superior officer, or plies some credulous spinster with specious fictions about the comfort, abundance and general desirableness of Yankee prisons. Major bears a bad reputa- tion here, in the matter of money — all of which I presume arises from the unreasonableness of the " rebs," who are not aware that they have no rights, which Yankees are bound to respect. Friday, June 17th. — A salute of thirteen guns heralded FIVE MONTH* (UHONG THE YANKEES. 51 this morning, the arrival of General Augur, who commands the department of Washington. About 12 m., the general with a few other officials, made the tour of camp, performing in the prevailing perfunctory manner the official duty of in- spection. Wandered about among my fellow-prisoners to-day, and found nearly all of the new comers suffering from the poison- ous water. Sunday, June 10th. — The New York papers received to- day are blatant with accounts, most detailed and circumstan- tial of the capture of Peter-burg. The back door of Rich- mond is now secured say the editors, and bets are freely offered in Grant's army, according to the correspondents, that the "Fourth of July " will be celebrated under the shadow of Washington's statue, on Capitol Square in Eichraond ! All this I believe with unhesitating faith to be a lie of the first water, explicable alone in the light of the circumstance, that the regular mail for Europe left yesterday. Such of General Grant's officers as celebrate the " Fourth " in Richmond, will perform that patriotic service in the Libby, and to-morrow's papers, (the steamer being gone,) will contradict the falsehood of to-day. And yet — and here's the psychological paradox in the matter — the credulous Yanks, though thus deceived On a moderate calculation, three hundred and sixty live times in every year of grace since the war began, are as ready now to be deluded as in the earliest hour of the earliest day, and the enterpria Liuses who control, or furnish news for, the press of the North, play the game of wholesale lying, with the same profound audacity and superb success this blessed day as. when they first gave American circulation to the European simile " lying like a bulletin." Me in Gott vot a beebles ! To-day, We were blessed with our first practical experience of the beauties of a Yan pection. The massacre of the innocent [blankets) was wholesale and very provoking. I performed an acceptable servic i for a fellow -prisoner, by ap- pearing in line with his extra blanket in my hand, not having 52 PRISONER OF WAR. one of my own. Oar division being a new one — for though sleeping in the fourth, I answered roll in the twelfth — the prisoners had bat little superfluous cloth of any sort, and the Yank who did the stealing from us, was obviously mortified at the scant game he bagged. While waiting dutifully, hour by hour, for our inspector to approach and perform his task, the gates of the prison opened and a batch of " rebs," numbering a couple of hundred en- tered. Among them were several of our fellow-citizens of Petersburg, captured in the attack of the preceding Thursday I believe, by Baldy Smith and Hancock, which gave rise to the flaming particulars of the capture of the gallant Cockade, so ostentatiously displayed in the journals of Saturday. They assure us that our little city is still safe, bat the accounts tiny bring of the distress of the inhabitants, on the day after our capture are heart-rending. I can well imagine it. Only a drop, it was, truly, in that fierce tide, each refluent wave of which comes to the shore of the South, crested with the shat- tered wrecks of the best and dearest, and noblest of her sons, yet to those mourning homes in Petersburg, shuddering with the agony of an unexpected and bloody woe, that drop was a consuming flood. Her young men had gone into the war, with a noble prodigality of their lives, and health, and com- fort, that proved them worthy of the ancient fame of their little city, and of the priceless heritage they coveted, and when they fell they were mourned indeed, but it was a sacri- fice anticipated and in some sort prepared for. But on that day, the fathers and grand-fathers full— the bullet cheated the grave. The blood-stained locks were grey— the pallid cheeks were wrinkled. It was not mothers that wailed the lost, but daughters and daughter's daughters! Yet, how well and worthily these heroes shed their blood, let the record of the villainies now staining, as I write, the track of Sherman, at- test ! Tuesday, June 21st. — As I expected, the capture of Peters- burg was a mere Yankee lie, which having accomplished its purpose, be the same financial or political, is now shelved as FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 53 quietly as the same versatile people sacrifice a principle, or decapitate a general when either has served their turn. The further issue of cracker-boxes to the prisoners was pro- hibited to-day, so that an elegant arrangement by which I pro- posed in company with five or six others, to become a P. L. aristocrat is postponed, if not prevented utterly. As our rulers do not vouchsafe any excuse for this act, we are of course left to conjecture as to the cause, and guesses at the mo- tives of the conduct of these worthies are not likely to prove signally profitable. lo triumplie ! I received to-day a letter ! To ordinary mor- tal eyes this may seem, nothing more than a common quad- rangle of M. S., distinguished by the imprimatur of a certain official outside the " pen," who stamps our correspondence "Prisoner's Letter, Examined," but to me, hungering and thirsting after news of home, this was as grateful as the first golden distillation of the grape to our pluvious progenitor in the earliest autumn after the Delugo. (N. B. This simile is copyrighted.) The regulations of all the prisons prohibit prisoners, from sending or receiviog a longer letter than one page. At Point Lookout the ellipsis which may be supposed to follow the word "page," in the "general order," is filled with the words " of note paper." So that one had to acquire a telegraphic habit of writing or be content to say little. Some geniuses whose fancies refused this mathematical curb, were in the habit of writing their letters at the usual length, and cutting them off by the page and sending them "by de- tail," very much as ships are built " Down East " by the mile, and then cut off to suit purchasers: — while others cultivated a microscopic penmanship, which must be eminently useful to them on their return to Dixie, unless paper falls in the market meanwhile. Tuesday, June 21st. On the prison bulletin board — an institution by which general information is conveyed to pri- soners — a list was pasted this morning, containing the names of parties for whom there were boxes or packages to deliver, and to my considerable joy, my name appeared iu the list. 54 PRISONER OF WAR. These presents to, or purchases by prisoners, are delivered at a door in the South side of the enclosure, which opens through the fence and into an office or store room, where the packages are received, opened, examined, and all that escapes the reg- ulations (and the regulators) turned over to the owners. As before remarked, this performance is conducted on the most ascetic principles as respects clothing, no one being allowed to take any articles of outside wear, from hat to shoes, (boots are mala prohibit®,) unless he depositos the corresponding article of his existing stock. It becomes necessary, therefore, if one has any article of apparel, that he is not exactly pre- pared to turn over to his merciful masters, to find some method of evading the laws. This was not very difficult. All that was necessary, was to buy or beg or " Hank " a suit of clothes, to surrender which would involve no other sacri- fice than that purely emotional one which founds our attach- ment to certain tilings, on account of an absurd veneration for antiquity. Accordingly, I beat up quarters for a half an hour, till I accumulated a suit that would have entitled me to an exalted position among the raggedest vagrants in Naples or Constantinople. My shoos had to be coaxed to stay on, by an arrangement after the fashion of a surcingle, which strapped them to my feet. My hat only deserved the name from the circumstance that m some mythical era of the past, it was attached to certain others, and relatively very extensive portions of organized matter, now, alas, long resolved into their original elements, — the combination of which consti- tuted the article in question, though I am free to say, it would have required the anatomical intuition of a Cuvier, to have deduced the castor from the specimen. It being a warm sum- mer day, I conceived it would excite no suspicion to appear without a coat, so my only other article of external costume, was one, which with great and many misgivings, I venture to enter on the catalogue of pantaloons. Verily, verily, never since the martial ancestors of the gay Parisians invented these indispensable institutions of dress, (and I have Gibbon's authority for the assertion, that they deserve that credit,) did FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 55 such a travesty on costume/disgust the eye of taste. Inno- cent of buttons, both legs out at the knees, stained by time and less tender agencies out of all approach to its original color, with an enormous quadrilateral, carved out of it in a location which indeed could best spare so large a tax, but which modesty forbids me to make particular reference to, it was only by a diligent and scientific application of pins, that I could induce it to preserve even a bifurcate appearance, while the assistance of one hand was necessary to keep the entire compilation from demolition, and the wearer from the miserable fate of Parson Adams, in his cele- brated nocturnal encounter in the inn. Long ere this, oh, most comical of costumes, thou hast found appropriate ser- vice in the terrifying of crows, or more noble fate, ''the paper mill bath claimed thee for its own.'' Thus caparisoned, however, and a an air of such desolation as might be considered appropriate to preserve the tout ensemble, I wended my way to the offiee. As I passed along, my raggamuilin appearance excited, of course, a little comment, which I bore with philautrophic patience till one villainous "reb," presuming on the position pf the hand that was doing the duty of a pair of suspenders, suggested with a solemn wag of his head, " maybe a little Jamaiky ginger might help yer, mister ! " To the office I went, however, but my preparations turned out to be all in vain. My package consisted of a beef tongue and a can of " solidified cream." I returned to my quarters with my plunder, gave myself a denuding shake, which re- duced my dress pretty much to the condition of the memo- rable "one horse shay," and summoning my mess-mates, soon forgot both the troubles and the farce of costuming in diligent application to the "provant." Ob, Dalgetty, prince and prototype of the military Bohemian, with what wisdom and justice did you assign the highest place in the soldier's scale to " rations." It is quite humiliating \, bose idea of the superior 56 PRISONER OF WAR. dignity of humanity is so very exalted, to confess how much of the good and evil, great and little, objective as well as sub- jective, of life is dependant on the average dinner a man gets, but the fact is indisputable. I claim no originality for this reflection. Forty years ago Byron wrote " all human history attests That happiness for man — the huDgry sinner — Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner." And whoever troubles his brain with the unfashionable labor of thinking, will be apt to conclude with me, that much be- sides happiness hangs on the same thread. What is the reason that the Romans conquered the world ? Merely this — they were generous feeders. Who can account for the fact that the hardy Scotsman has not been able to hold his own against his less stalwart neighbor below the Tweed, except as a result of the fact that oat meal, though flanked by usquebaugh, is no match for wheat flour with only beer for an ally ? Why have the Indians so steadily and so extensively bowed their n before the English ? Preachers, and philanthropists, and edi- tors, and place-men, all have their ready-made theories to ac- count for the phenomenon, but the patent fact, which they won't confe-s, because it don't suit their hypotheses, is that Nana Saib ate rice, but Llaveloek roast beef. Why was Cassias a conspirator ? Because he was " lean and hungry." Why did Napoleon lose Waterloo ? Merely because he was too fat as he confesses. Why wont revolution succeed in Ireland '( Depend upon it. the root of the mischief is the potato. Who could be humane on raw beef or virtuous on truffles ? Shakespeare recognized the general connection in his broad assertion " Fat paunches have lean pates," and many a long century before him, the candid Horace, regardless of the danger he ran of having his criticism turned on his jolly ro- tund little self, uttered the same thought. u Pingue peous domino facias, cfc cetera, pratier} Ingenium." Indeed, I am Dot sure that those philosophers were wholly FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 57 in the wrong who located the soul in the stomach, and being an optimist I find great comfort in the thought that if this be true, few will be lost for want of attention to this tabernacle of the nobler part of man. CHAPTER X. Officers Leaving — I > rth Division in Trouble — ( Waking— Negro Exodus — A new Prison — The Fourth — Maryland and Mary Thursday, June 23rd. The bfficera who were confined in a pen near us, were to-day removed, preparatory to sending them to Fort Delaware. It has been determined to keep no commissioned prisoners at this point. To-dny, the negroes are again on guard, and are very insolent. Like all the rest of these sable patriots, they seem to have exhausted the re- sources of darkness to form their complexions, and their con- duct is as black as their skin. There, is however a compen- sation in all this — it is exhilarating to witness the effect on the prisoners — how it deepens and widens the gulf between them and the canting crew, who seek such agencies to make imprisonment torture. The truth is, it is everyAvhere apparent throughout the history of this conflict, that all that is necessary to crystallize into unsolva~ble hate, the lingering lukewarmness of a Southern man or community, whose faint hearts go out hungering after the Egyptian flesh-pots, is to bring them face to face with the enemy. The cruelty, blood-thirstiness, ava- rice, hypocricy, vulgar despotism and brutality, which charac- terize SO many of our enemies, need only to be oiu-e. seen, and above all once felt, to summon every Southron to the al tar, that ho may take the Carthaginian oath of undying hate 8 58 PRISONER OF WAR. to his enemies. And hence it is, that wherever the fortune of war has set the foot of a Yankee General in command of Yan- kee troops, there is to be found the most unyielding, uncom- promising fealty to the patriot cause, and the most inextinguish- able hate to the Yankees. Our stupid foes imagine that the desolation and ruin, which they everywhere dispense, terri- fy the hostile and re-assure the wavering, and that these Christian arguments will not fail to produce conviction where- ever strongly presented. But they are as ignorant as they are depraved— such treatment has never subdued a free people in all the tide of time. The dragon teeth they sow, spring up behind them an army of mailed men. The whirlwind comes of the sown wind — and out of the: * if ruined homesteads, forth frcm the bosom of the scourged earth, out of the agony of dying men, and the worse than dying women m born the fierce insatiate cry for vengeance, and the uncon- querable resolution to be free. And similar in kind is the result of the insults deliberately and purposely Inflicted on prisoners. An order was issued to us to-day, prohibiting the lighting of any more fires in camp, so that the extra cooking, which we have been able to give our half raw rations is foreclosed. Hoping to be able to perform iportant, if not necessary service to my "salt horse" to-day, I went out on the beach and was lighting a lire there, when one of the ebony cu dians ordered "dat Arc out d — n quick," and I ate half-ravr meat perforce. Before night-fall our Yankee sergeant visited the various tents in our Division and " coi d " the light- wood, we had purchased and stored away as fuel. It was a trilling matter unquestionably, but the air of satisfaction with which this worthy " clothed in a little brief authority," per* formed his I ve to each motion of the vulgarian the sting of a personal affront. The members of tfe Fourth Division came to exceeding grief to-day. Some of the tin cans in which our slops are furnished, were missing from the tables of that division after breakfast, and when the "rebs" of that sectioq marched up FIVE MOKTHS LT&OTSQ THE YANKEES. 59 For their dinner, they were quietly told, to expect no rations till the missing cups were found. The Edinburg Review rose according to S\ i of polities," and I suppose the return of the missing tin-ware may be coerced by stress of starvation. At all events the Fourth Division " rebs " must test, the efficacy of the system through much ali- mentary tribulation. I find I am becoming Sybaritic, and though a crumpled rose leaf might not in1 fatally with my sleep, the planks on the floor of my kind host's house certainly do. This morn- ing, therefore, I conceived a French bedstead — this evening it is un fait < . An emp 'barrel and two poles about six and a half feet long, constituted my stock. I knock- ed the barrel to pieces and nailed the staves on the poles, placed about two feet apart and parallel. Then nailing over the hoops which ! bad i traitened out for the purpose, I had a comfortable sprin day-time, I shall place on its end at tl .of the ranche out of the way, and in the night tin. 1 at length, between th« bunks with which our 1 already supplied. This is the cheap- est and best of impr teads, and I commend it to gentlemen of expensive tastes who may be similarly circum- stanced. The boys are laughing at the summons which S., one of my fellow Petersburgers got to-day, from a negro sentinel. S. had on when captured, and I suppose still possesses, a tall bea- rer of the antique pattern, considered inseparable from ex- treme respectability in the last decade, and for many a year before. While wandering around the enclosure, seeking I suspect "what he might devour," he accidentally stepped be- yond "the dead line," and was suddenly arrested by a sum- mons from the nearest negro on the parapet, who seemed to be in doubt whether so well dressed a man could be a "reb," and therefore whether he should be shot at once. " White man, you b'long in dar " Yes." "Well aim or sense den to cross dat line ? " 60 PRISONER OF WAR. " I did not notice the line/' " Well you better notice it, an' dat quick or I'll blow half dat nail hag off? " It is needless to say, that the owner of the " nail kag," u stood not upon the order of his going." Friday, July 1st. To-day, one of the negro regiments that has been guarding us — the 36th U. S. Colored — loft this point for the front, their places being taken by another black regiment ordered here, it is said, by Butler for cowardice in presence of the enemy, (good joke for Butler,) and the 5th Massachusetts Colored Cavalry. Negro-like, the out-going regiment left singing, in a most orthodox plantation whine, the National (African) Anthem, "John Brown's body lies mouldering in the ground." One of the disgraced (!) darkies was standing near me as the regiment passed our gates with every jaw extended, and with a knowing wag of the head, lie observed "Niggers is such fools. Dey is gwine away wid der moufs open, but dcy'll came bach wid 'em shot, I 'speck." On they travelled making the welkin ring with " "John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the ground, John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the ground, John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the ground, But his soul is a marching on." AH of which and much more of the same sort was chanted ■with that monotonous cadence that many a time and oft we have all heard at camp-meetings and corn-shuckings, under the in- spiring influence of religion in the one, and — horresco referens — rot-o-ut in the other. It was not many weeks before their man- o-led bodies were clogging up that horrible valley of death* which the fatal mining of Grant clove in a certain memorable hill-side of Petersburg, where for nearly an hour, at short o-rape range, the cannoniers of the Army of Northern Virginia, dealt destruction from their safe embrasures upon the Writhing, powerless and baffled columns of assault. Saturday, July 2nd. A notice was posted on the public bulletin board to-day, requiring all prisoners who were FIVE MOXTTTS 4.MGNG THB YANKEES. 61 brought from Belle Plain, on the 23rd of May, to fall in at the gate, at 9 a. m. This is preparatory to a move somewhere, and the rumor is that Elmira, N. Y., is to be the point of des- tination. I hope our turn will not be long coming, or this in- fernal water will settle the question of exchange as far as re- gards me personally, in a very unsatisfactory manner. I am not at all superstitious in the matter of sepulture, but, if I have an antipathy thereanent, it is to being buried at Point Lookout. I hardly think the example of AVellington in the old world, or Webster in the. new, both of whom died by the sea, could reconcile me to such -a fate just now. Monday, July 4th. This is the day that all America was wont to dedicate to lemonade, ice cream, pic-nics and patriot- ism. I remember well one " Fourth," so long back that I de- cline to enter into any vulgar arithmetic about it, when, in obedience to a. custom almost as universal as that sanguinary Indian rule which denies the privileges of the tribe to a young man until he scalps an enemy, I, who write to you, assumed the toga virilis by means of a Fourth of July oration, and worked myself into a perspiration, and my amiable auditory into demon- strative gratification over the glories and greatness, the prowess and the perpetuity of the Union ! And here am I, this blessed day of grace, suffering condign pains and penalties at the hands of the successor of Washington, for the but, hang politics, I made a vow twenty days ago that, unless mightily moved by some Yankee, I would eschew all thought of politics until I saw my own good flag once more, and as you have done me no par- ticular harm that I wot of, most courteous reader, I'll spare you. Suffice it to say, that Point Lookout, July 4th, 1SG4, and Peters- burg, July 4th, 18 — , were about as different dates in all their relations to the writer, as any two points of time could well be. On the latter occasion, I enjoyed various exhilarations, which now in the retrospect refuse to arrange themselves in any regu- larity or method, but present a confused melange of ice cream, Declaration of Independence, sherry-cobbler, military proces- sion, national salute, fruit cake, toasts, orator of the day, exces- sively wet shirt collar, millions of fans,— I wont qualify as to 62 PRISONER OF WAR. the number, — pretty women, (mainly from the country !) con- gratulations and an immense dinner — admire the climax ! But the other date ushered in divers miseries, and nothing but hard tack and fat pork ! Verily, verily, Plautus is right, " The gods have us men for foot-balls." All this and much more of the same sort, which I charitably spare you, ran through my mind as I took my usual morning promenade on the beach to-day, and watched the streamers and flags spreading from main-top to bow-sprit over the wicked look- ing gunboat that watched (and showed its teeth, for that matter) like a naval Cerberus over the gates of our " pen." At 12, M., the stars and stripes were flung out, and the national salute of thirty-I-do-not-know-how-many guns fired, amid the piping and drumming and braying of Yankee Doodle, from divers bands ashore and aboard. The " rebs " had no idea, however, of per- mitting the Yanks to monopolize the fun, and on a couple of the patrician mansions of " cracker-box row," there might be seen diminutive copies of our own Southern Cross, gaily flung cut "to the bold breeze of heaven," after the manner detailed in one of the many metrical villainies which have been palmed off on the long suffering Southern people, under the name of National Anthems, any time these four years back. I noticed particularly on the "Home Again" house a pretty Confederate flag, which must either have been manufactured in- side, or conveyed very surreptitiously from the outside by some ingenious sympathiser - a icoraan" for a ducat" — who had the courage to dare, and the wit to baffle Yankee jealousy of every- thing suggestive of the "so called." This house was occupied, and if it stands, I suppose still is, by Marylanders, and I will not have a better opportunity than this to challenge for these exiles from that noble state, a reversal of the unjust reproach which has been cast upon her froao various quarters, and in various forms in the South. It is doubtless true, that there are cowards and knaves in Maryland, and it is not less true that every Southern State and Northern, could furnish many a sam- ple to place by the side of those who have earned so much reproach for her. But it is quite as true that no people in any FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. G3 part of the world have furnished more illustrious examples of pure, unselfish, uncompromising, all sacrificing devotion than now distinguishes the citizens of that gallant State. I knew much of this before. I had seen her biave sons suffering a long and bitter exile from all that was dear to them — uncheered by hope of speedy return — cut off from their families — hurled, in many cases, from affluence to poverty — condemned to the dis- heartening spectacle of witnessing their possessions enjoyed, their friends imprisoned, their state controlled by an abhorred race, imported from New England to colonize and convert Maryland. And yet, I had seen them gallantly bearing a ban- ner which no Land of ours has been able to maintain on any spot of Maryland's soil for thirty days, hoping against hope while the weary years rolled on for the day of deliverance, and fal- tering not, nor failing, th< r hearts sank in the pain and palsy of that hope forever deferred. So. have I seen her fail- daughters, many of them tenderly and delicately raised, forced to choose exile as the alternative of a jail — perchance for some act of common humanity to a Confederate soldier — or volunta- rily embracing the perils and hardships, because in their gener- ous, loyal hearts, approving the principles, and sympathising with the sufferings of our beleaguered Confederacy, spending their days near the hospital cot, ami devoting their nights to the toils of the busy needle, for an army that has never yet been strong enough, to give them an escort for one short day to their hospi- table city of monuments. All this have I seen, and have seen it oftentimes repeated, and I have placed it to the credit of that noble State against the recreancy of the few Marylanders who have skulked among us, and the many not Marylanders, who have counterfeited the name to cloak their cowardice. But it was not till I became a prisoner that I appreciated to the full the devotion of her children. Wl Q cheerfully enduring the privations of a long imprisonment, almost within sight of their own home:-, many of them persecuted with solicitations from their nearest relati ome out, take the oath, and enjoy every comfort that wealth and society ( r, all of tl em ci a oious that a word woul ! i A them forth 64 PRISONER OF WAR. to their families, with no one to question or reproach them ; and then learned of the many hundreds of Marylanders at various periods who were tenants of that pen, some of whom are prisoners of over a year's standing, not five in all had taken the oath of allegiance to the Yankee government, I felt that the best of us might take a lesson from their patriotic constancy. And when a few months afterwards, I saw some of these very men marched like felons through their own fair city, without permission to whisper a word — scarcely to cast a look at mothers and sisters standing by, who were heart-hungry for the poor privilege of a mere greeting, and yet saw no cheek blanch, no muscle quiver, no weakening of their proud res©lve to fight the fight out for prin- ciple, through every sacrifice and every peril — calmly, nay, with a smile on their lips, half of triumph, half of scorn, answering the taunts of their keepers — they inarching from prison to exile while I was marching from prison to my home, I felt as I now feel the wish that the Confederacy was peopled with such men. Let not their names nor their deeds die — let some pen meet for the task, gather now while the events are fiedi, the memorials of her children in this war for freedom where they have so little to hope — so much to fear, and though the fortune of war should separate them and the Confederacy from their be- loved State, let history do justice to the faithful living, and let a nation's gratitude lay immortal laurels o'er 11 the sacred grave Of the last few who, vainly brave, Die for the land they cannot save." CHAPTER XI. More Prisoners Leaving — Sinking of the Alabama — Miss Gilbert's Career — Sutlers Irirfcs — Water getting Scarce — Going Out on Detail — Off for Elmira. Tuesday, July 5th. Another batch of prisoners, those who arrived here on the 8th of Juno, received a summons yesterday to be in readiness to leave, and Mere carried out of camp. As we were the next tenants to these in the order of time, I presume avc will be next called. Two items of news are furnished us by the papers to-day — one the anticipation of a raid by Early into Maryland — the other, the destruction of the Alabama by the Kearsage. Fortunately the two came together, so we managed to endure the latter with some composure, though both surprised and mortified that Semmes should have lost his ship, and the Confederacy his in- :;ible services, for a time at least, on a point of professional etiquette. Still it may be said of most naval as well as of most other duels, that the result is purely an accident. The exploding or failure to explode of a particular shell—an event utterly be- yond the skill or control of any one aboard, may, and in this in- stance did, constitute the whole matter. No one succnests a doubt CO of the courage and coolness with which Semmes pursued his chivalric resolve, and the result might well have been anticipated aside from the intervention of chance, when we r< licet that one • 1 was a merchantman in fact, as far as regards its pursuits, with a crew of common sailors with but one battle experience, while the other was a man-of-war with a crew trained especially and exclusively for this description of dnt}\ And yet the Yan- kees themselves admit that if a certain shell that penetrat* d their stern had exploded, Messrs. Winslow & Co. would have been very thankful to the Greyhound for any such little favors as were subsequently extended to the Confederates : while the French 66 PRISONER OF WAR. 4 * account adds that Capt. Semmes endeavored from the first to discard the element of accident from the fight, by getting to close quarters, and settling the question in a fair, stand up, hand to hand encounter — a manoeuvre that the Yank had no stomach for, and successfully used his superior sailing qualities to avoid. Still it is a great victory for Doodledom, and no higher compliment could be paid the Alabama and her gallant company, than is furnished in the extravagant joy of our enemies over the loss of the "great pirate." The "old flag" may again perchance steal up to the "top" of the boasted merchant marine, a half a mil- lion tons of which the dreaded "pirate" drove from the seas in six months ! The hundreds of pious frauds whereby nominal transfers of Boston and New York bottoms were made to Eng- lish and French owners, so that the "Yanks" might pocket the receipts without taking the risks of the carrying trade, will now be repented of and renounced — said frauds being no longer pro- fitable. Commodore Vanderbilt may make the run from Panama without a convoy, and Cape Cod may fish in peace. Meanwhile the Suabians in the Quaker State are hurrying off their beeves and blinding their horses,* and General Wallace is putting Baltimore in a state of defence, an operation that seems " always doing, never done." Started to-day on a literary hunt and fished up from the re* cesses of one of the cook-houses a promising looking volume ar- rayed in all the attractive gorgeousness of faultless typography and binding, and entitled "Miss Gilbert's Career." The title page announces that it was the 20th thousand, a circumstance I can only explain, in common justice to Yankee taste, by suppos- ing that the 20th thousand was printed before the first ditto. * This perfectly original barbarity was committed time and again on, the occasion of General Lee's entry into Pennsylvania, in June, 1863 p Rather than take the trouble to remove these horses, they would blind the poor brutes by puncturing their eyes with a needle, thus making them useless to us for ariny purposes,'while their value aa draft animals., or for farm uses was not very largely impaired. In many cases we found the poor beasts with their eyes still overflowing with tears and blood, from the merciless hands of their masters. FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 67 Such -a common place vulgarity as Miss Gilbert, I undertake to say, never could have been produced on any soil of earth other than ' ; Massachusetts Bay and Providence Plantations." There are situations, however, wherein anything in print is endurable, and I waded, with the patience of a professional proof-reader, through every sentence and syllable of the dreary platitudes of Miss Gilbert. I record this incident solely as a contribution to the next edition of Abercrombie on the Mind, since it estab- lishes beyond cavil the enormous vis inertiee of the human intel- lect, and I commend the book to all those who believe that the brain, like the muscles, can be strengthened by subjection to un- usual and repeated strains. Dr. Windship, the modern Hercules, boasts that he can raise 0G00 pounds — a capacity he has acquired by constant effort in that direction, and I have no doubt that equal diligence in the rsental line would ensure results equally marvellous. If any one wishes to try the experiment, I recom- mend mental calisthenics with a pair of such books as the afore- paid " Career," as I consider it about as heavy as the stout doc- tor's dumb-bells, (the source of all his marvellous strength,) which weigh as much as a flour barrel apiece. Y\'ednesday, July 6th. More rumors. Grant, say the cor- respondents, has demanded the surrender of Petersburg. Peui- ' Early is playing the wild with the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and, greatest grief of all to us, the sutler informs us that the further SLdc of articles of food to us will be suspended, as the authorities arc informed that our sutlers are prohibited from selling such things to their prisoners. On hen ring this announcement, I made my moan to the first acquaintance I met, who happened to be en old prisoner. He greatly calmed my fears by assuring me that this was an old dodge designed to bring in the sutler's checks in order tq the entire disposal of the slock on hand, which was probably larger than he desired to keep this hot weather. This was very reassuring, as I had just received notice that there was a "money letter" in the Major's hands for me, whose advent and use I anticipated with much watering of the mouth. The ruse of course succeeded, and the sutler's "powerful" 68 PRISONER OF WAR. butter, game herrings, animated cheese, and sour meal, began to disappear with a celerity that mast have been very satis- factory to him, if not to the deluded Confederates, who were thus seduced into an unusual quantity of purchases. Oh Yank, Yank, how art thou Yankeefied ? Thursday, July 7th. The supply of water is getting very scant, and the quality very- infamous. Guards have be'en placed over some of the pumps to prevent waste, and these beino- "negroes," it is necessary, in order to get a drop, to ask permission in respectful terms of the sable sentinels who, to do them justice, do not seem disposed to abuse their position. I attribute this to the circumstance that, these are negroes, who have been in service, and any soldier will tell you, that an active campaign is very humanizing. With every pre-' caution the amount is still so insufficient that a water-boat, had to be sent down from Baltimore to-day, to furnish a sup- ply to the hospitals, and a detail has been engaged must of the morning, wheeling in barrels of it for the use of the sick. There is. quite a contention for the privilege of working in this as on other details, there being some privileges attached thereto. Almost every day there is some description of labor to be performed outside of the pen, for which volunteers are sought and easily obtained among the prisoners, Those se- lected for the work are mustered into, a company, their names taken down, and under Yankee guards they are carried outside to the scene of their work. This consists principally in the unloading of vessels at the wharf, in building hospitals, commis- sary store-rooms, stables, &c, &o. The legitimate benefits of these details are, first, occupation, second, a little liberty, third, the chance to hear some news, and fourth, a small piece of to- bacco. The semi-'legitimate benefits are, the gathering up of refuse pieces of plank, old iron, nails and the like, which com- mand a high price (in tobacco or' hard tack,) within the " pen." The illegitimate, and I fear the most operative in- ducement with some of the unregenerate "rebs," is the oppor- tunity of pilfering along the wharf and among the vessels whose cargoes they are discharging, which the nature of FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 69 their duties frequently affords. From one cause or another — generally, I suppose, from a combination of several, the detail list is always full, and places thereon command a premium. In the earlier periods of Point Lookout history, there was an additional advantage in these details, inasmuch as the opportunity of escape was thereby frequently afforded and embraced, but the multiplication of the precautions which experience of "rebel" ingenuity occasioned, has rendered the blockade for several months past prett}' - effectual. Friday, July 8th. No newspapers permitted to be brought into camp to-day. . Earfy is doubtless frightening Father Abe prodigiously, and he fears the stimulating effect, on his mis- guided enemies in prison. The weather has been furiously hot for a week past, and as the earth is a sparkling sand, and everything about us is a glaring white, many besides myself are suffering with inflamed eyes, — a chronic disorder here. Saturday, July 9th. To-day is the first mensiversary of my imprisonment. Any super- fastidious reader who objects to my word-coinage, is hereby informed, that he is at perfect liberty to draw his pencil through the obnoxious poly- syllable and substitute therefor any word, or form of words, that will better please him, but I hold it, nevertheless, to be a perfectly defensible creation. At 10 this morning, the prisoners who arrived on the 14th of June, of whom we were a part, were summoned before the gate and in a short time we had gathered our few " traps," had made our adieu to the friends who were to be left behind, and having been formed into line and counted, we were inarched into the officer's pen, now empty. A couple of hours afterwards, we were ordered to the Provost Marshal's 3 where we were divided into companies, muster-rolls made out, and under a strong guard of the V. R. Corps, we were carried to the wharf which was the scene of our exceed- ing discomfort a few weeks before, and at 1 p. m., were stowed away, about three hundred of us, aboard a crazy craft, rejoicing in the sounding title "ElCid." Down the ladder, 70 PRISONER OF WAR. into a reeking hold where the heat and stench would have overpowered any other animal than a Confederate prisoner, we trooped along, packing ourselves away in the fashion which the mellifluous Wilberforce was so fond of expatiating on, under the name of " the horrors of the middle passage," until the last " Southern Confederate " crossed the taffrail, the gang-plank was drawn in, and at 2 p. m., we turned our backs on Point Lookout, we hoped forever. " iver iveis, etc." you'll find the rest in Schiller's Don Carlos, but lest the great German play may not be at hand, I recall a good, if true, translation in Kobby Burns' proverb, " The best laid scheme3 of mice an' men Aft gang agley." CHAPTER XII. Marine Moralizings — " El Cid" — A Disagreeable Passage — Gliding Up the Narrows — A Good Samaritan — New York - — Aboard the Cars — Secesh Sympathizers — Elmira. The man who first invented going to sea was hostis huma- ni generis, a super-eminent donkey, and should have been outlawed accordingly. The element is proverbially treacher- ous, the dangers are great, the inconveniences infinite, the results moonshine, and to crown all, beneficent Nature has implanted in every human stomach an instinctive and vigor- ous protest against the practice, which ought to satisfy any reasonable being, that it never was designed that a creature innocent of fins, tail or a shell, should go out of sight of land. I admit, that the whale oil supply was for a long time an ob- stacle to the general acceptance of my view of the case, but the vast fields of petroleum recently discovered, knocks the wind out of that argument and allows me to indulge the rea- FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 71 sonable hope, that before " my eyes turn to behold for the last time the sun in heaven," I shall have the satisfaction of participating, in a general auction of all marine properties," " on account of whom it may concern."' The fact is, there is nothing redeeming about the infernal sea-going system. You get up in the morning and there is no newspaper ; you stroll out to settle your bitter.-; and a dozen paces in any direction will introduce you to a shark; } t ou stagger in to breakfast, and the coffee slides into your beef steak, and both into your lap ; you get up, and in ten min- utes you discover in the language of the luckless yellow-plush, " wot tin basins was made for ; " the day passes and there is no post office, no business, no counting room, no children run over, no street cries, no omnibus, no dog fight, no civiliza- tion, it snows and you cant go sleighing, it is fair and you cant take a drive, it rains and you cant roll ten-pins, or get satisfactorily drunk ; pale spectres with pendant jaws and watery eyes, all by a strange centrifugal force, flying towards the outside of the ship, pass you at every instant, and after a day dismally dragged through in every conceivable discom- fort, you turn in at night to a closet not large enough to swing a cat in, and tumble into a berth which looks so much like a coffin, that you dream before } r ou are well asleep of attending your own funeral ! So your days creep along, if you have vitality enough to survive, destitute of fox hunts or flirtations, law or literature, politics or opera, fashion plates or scandal, telegrams or taxes, and if the old scythe-bearer comes to your relief, you are sewed up in a sack with a thirty-two pound shot at your heels, and tossed to the fishes as remorselessly as the beef bones from yesterday's soup ! Gonzalo was a very Solomon: "Now," he cries, and I whenever aboard ship, with him, "Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground : long heath, brown furze, anything : the wills above be done, but I would fain die a dry death." 72 PRISONER OF WAR. All these objections are sound and unexaggerated, if you are a first class passenger aboard a first class steamer. " Phancy our feelinx," then when you remember that we were packed like sheep on a cattle train, in the hold of a villainous tub in the middle of July, with no ventilation, except what was afforded by two narrow hatchways, (there being no side lights,) and permission to put our heads above the deck be- ing only accorded to two at a time, and then for five minutes, so that it required one hundred and fity times five minutes, or over half the day to elapse before you could get your second gasp of fresh air ! And then our ship was 'such a crazy and unseaworthy craft, that in the event of a storm, there was little prospect of our ever seeing land again ex- cept on the hypothesis of Pisanio that " Fortune brings in some beats that are not steered." In this delightful situation, the sun melting the pitch in the seams over our heads, and not air enough stirring to raise a ripple, we stretched ourselves on the lower deck in a desper- ate state of disgust, with only energy enough to pray for a short passage or a heavy gale — blessings craved in vain. Any- thing short of a wheel-barrow ought to make the run from Point Lookout to New York — our destination — in thirty hours or thirty-five at the most ; it took us just forty-six, al- though the sea was as calm as a river, nothing breaking the smoothness of its treacherous surface, except that infernal stomach-pump contrivance, known as the "ground swell," — a submarine wave which constantly beats from the shore, and was intended by beneficent nature to prevent her chil- dren from the folly of navigation, by circling the whole ocean with this (unheeded) warning against leaving land. From 10 a. m., Saturday the 9th, until we arrived in New York harbor, a period of over fifty hours, our only food was one ration of bread and a small piece of fat pork, and what with this and a slight dose of sea-sickness, I was consummately mis. erable by the time we got into " the Narrows " early Monday morning. I stole up on deck, and hunting up the officer commanding the guard, asked permission to purchase a cup FIVE MONTHS AMONG Till*: YANKEES. 7o of coffee from the cook, and leave also to remain on deck till I could drink it. lie assented readily, and having made the contract with the presiding genius of the galley, I took my seat on a "'bit"' forward, and drank my fill of the beautiful scene around me. Those who have entered New York har- bor by this channel — and what southron has not, in those days when Gotham was our Ostium and Piraeus ? — will remem- ber the ; and luxury of the Jei coast for thirty miles below the city. The land is high, ; idy wooded, and almost every summit is crowned with a stylish country villa — the urban residences of the princes of Wad street and Broadway, while in every re; where a surf breaks, a handsome hotel fronts the sea, and rows. of piquant little cottages dot the hill slopes to their tops. A approach the city, these evidences of wealth and taste increase in num- ber and in magnificence, and you are ushered into the teeming- port of the American Venice, through a highway of palaces, with here and there a powerful fortress interspersed, to give security to all this rural luxury and elegance. I was musing on all this, indulging my taste for the beauti- ful, but amazingly hungry and uncomfortable withal, when a Yankee corporal, a German Jew, named Bernstein, as I aft wards learned, came to where I sat, with a smoking cup of coffee in his hand, his own ration for breakfast, and with a courteous apology for having nothing better to offer, insisted on my drinking it. It was idle to tell him that I had engaged to get some from the cook, for he replied, that the cook might not have it t<> give me, and on my objecting that he would lose his own I I me that he could get another cup, and would be offended if I did not take it. So 1 accepted it very gratefully. Not ad the sherbets that ever Persian poets sung, not Byron*.- pern >rable thimble-full of essence fro- zen out of a bottle of champ it " Lachryma Christf," beloved of Sue, not Perkins- "best pale" to a Briton, nor Schwartz's imperial '" lager " to a Bavarian, nor poteen to a "Wexford man, nor usquebaugh to a Highlander, nor train-oil to a Laplander, nor spermaceti caudles to the late Czar, eouhl 10 74 PRISONER OF WAR. have matched in refreshment that half pint of black coffee to* me. " I grset it now, I gulped it then." There is no likelihood that these lines "will ever meet Lis eye, hut I could wish that such might be their fate, that my friend Bernstein might see that his little act of kindness is not and will not be forgotten. Before I had finished, he hunted ap his haversack and laid before me as many " hard tacks " as I could eat, so that when, a half an hour afterwards, the cook told me he had a breakfast for me, I was able to administer alimentary consolation to a co-pie of hungry "rcbs" below. It was near mid-clay when we hauled up in the channel just off and below the Jersey city end of the lower ferry to New York, and there we lay till the train on the Erie railroad, whoso eastern terminus is here, was ready. I am quite familiar with New York harbor, and many a spire of the city was as easily recognized as that of my Virginia home. Everything seemed as husy, as "alive," as stirring, as in the same month, four years before, when I last saw the gay city. The war was apparently little felt here. The docks were as crowded, the same unvarying hu.a filled the sultry air, the ferry boats passed with the same surcharged loads, the wharves were crowded with the same rush- ing hordes of porters, hackmen, stevedores, news-boys and thieves, and I doubt not Broadway echoed to the same endless tide of wheel and foot, and Wall street choked its crooked throat with as excited and thronging a congregation as have ever "bulled and beared" it in the shadow of old Trinity, on any July day this quarter of a century past. In the face of all this wealth, development, material, power — all these vast appliances of conquest, I felt a new pride in our beleaguered Confederacy, which has had nothing to oppose to this unexampled afiiuence of resource except the unconquerable gallantry of her children, and yet has fought this fight against such odds as have never yet stood in the way of Freedom, with a calm confidence in the cause, a noble acceptance of sacrifice, an undaunted courage, a patient hope, a chivalric devotion, that fearlessly challenge the comparisons of history. FIVS MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 75 A little boat is shooting out from shore, and in a moment more an officer boards us, who probably brings news that the train is now waiting, for our "tub" is now turned towards the dock. We arc soon along side, an officer stands at the hatchway to count us as we come up, lest some may conceal themselves in the ship. The count seems satisfactory, for we are marched into the depot, a few paces off, and put aboard a train of box and passenger cars, standing ready for us. Our advent is unexpected, or the Jerseyans arc not as curious as their compatriots elsewhere, for there is but a small crowd of spectators, and these gaze on us with a stolid air, which may mean pympathy; probably, however, indifference. By half past one all was in readiness, the locomotive gave that preliminary shriek, which, according to Sydney Smith, is most like the am an attorney may be expected to give when the devil gets hold of him, and off we started for Elmira. The Erie railroad, as I presume, every one used to know, runs through the northern counties of New Jersey, and the southern count ; es of central and western New York. It passes through some handsome towns and cities, but the country is considered far inferior to that which lines the Central road. At almost every station, we made a lengthy halt, to give way to some regu- lar train passing up or down, and, wherever we stopped, we were the subjects of very great, and. generally, respectful interest. The guards rigidly excluded the people from all intercourse with us, and forbade, under various sanguinary threats, any assistance being tendered us, still they found it impossible to guard every avenue of approach, and many apiece of tobacco, package of Iters, and the like, was handed us by the good people on the route. The gentler sex was conspicuous in these charities, and more than once surprised us by furtive exhibitions of little Con- federate flags which they had concealed about their persons. me point, there seemed to be a fair prospect of a difficulty between our guards, and the citizens, many of whom persisted, despite all orders, in making such contributions to our wan; accidentally lay in their power. Of course, these agreeable in- cidents were occasionally diversified by the insults of some sleek 70 PRISONER OF WAR. non-combatant, whose valiant soul found congenial occupation in fearful threats of our indiscriminate massacre, if he could only lay hands on us. These gentry were, in the main, of that phy- sical and sartorial type which we always associate with the idea of extreme orthodoxy — your sanctimonious, high-seat-in-the-sy. nagogue worthies, who " Compound for sins they are inclined to, By daninicg those they have no mind to," and from the serene heights of their suhlime self-conceit, hurl worse anathemas than thai jirolix profanity of bishop Ernulphus, at the forlorn publicans below. You know the canting breed, good reader mine, wherever you see them, and at home or abroad, in pulpit or tribune, in church or 'state, they everywhere exhibit the same harmonious blending of Heap's hypocricy with the villainy of Carker. Of these lovely lambs, Butler is the god and Kalloch the prophet. He would be a most unreasonable "reV win would look for anything but a snarl from these curs. And thus, amid friends and foes, through gorges and around bluffs, now skimming gaily along a level meadow, and anon "wiring in and wiring out," apparently in the absurd effort to avoid crossing the Susquehannah — a stream so crooked that the engineers who built the road seem to have fancied, that, by fol- to • ** lowing up one bank, they would, sooner or later, find themselves on the other — on we steamed till about 8 o'clock, Tuesday morn- ing, when we pulled up in the pretty little c'ty of Elmira, on the left bank of the Chemung, and, although about to enter our pri- son, a much happier party than when we left "El Cid." This beino- the last time I shall have occasion to mention this miracu- lous sample of naval architecture, I here deliberately devote it to the infernal gods, with as honest an unction as ever filled the bosom of the most patriotic Moor, in the times of its great name- sa j ce a o-ent'eman who must have served Moorish mothers with impracticable cherubs a good turn — he frightened the grown ones so prodigiously, according to the authentic histories of Bob Southey, and that unfortunate victim of a liver complant, and an uncongenial spouse, Mrs. Hemans. CHAPTER XIII. Statistics — Formation of a Prison Camp at Elmira — Our Entrance — Arrangement of T/ie Pen — Major Henry V. Colt — Clerical and Executive Officers — A Precious Trio — Number of Prisoners. I plainly foresee that this chapter is going to run into sta- tistics, and as I have had a reasonable horror of mathematics from the blessed days when my nose had to be held whenever the medicine chest required depletion, and every application of my mind to figures was followed by the application to my shoulders of something else, I will be excused for invoking the patience of the reader, assuring him — a favorite lie with flagellatory parents while " horsing " their heirs — that the pain I inflict causes me more suffering than it can possibly occasion him.. For more than a year before our arrival, Elmira was the site of the rendezvous for the drafted men of western Nov/ York. Here the gushing patriots were received and housed, trained to turn out their toes and survive "hard tack," and otherwise qualified to patch the rents in a certain lacerated Anaconda, which has been prowling around the cotton and tobacco coun- try with varying fortunes these four years back. These gay volunteers required three camps, which were severally deno- minated "barracks" 1, 2 and 3, and here they were kept till they graduated in the manual of arm-;, and squandered their bounty money, when they were incontinently bundled off to the front, a performance which, according I authentic averments, resulted in the absconding of i it. of the patriots before they ever came in sight of a camp sample of '• the old flag." Now it came to bat Mr. Stanton began to feel some apprehension that the " j numerous at 78 PRISONER OF WAR., Point Lookout, and offered too tempting a prize to the profane general, then menacing the sour-krout and smear-case (?) of the honest Deutschers in rural Pennsylvania, so he ordained* and established by imperial ukase a prison in the hyperborean re- gions of New York, where for at least four months of every year, anything short of a polar-bear would find locomotion im- practicable, and where, therefore, no apprehension need be be felt of trouble within, or assault without, for the same inter- val. Early in July, therefore, the " Yanks " were ousted from Barrcks No. 3, and preparations made for receiving the first instalment of prisoners, who arrived on the 6th of July, numbering three hundred and ninety-nine, the four hundreth man having escaped on the way. On the 11th, two hundred and forty-nine arrived, and the next day we were added to the list. We were escorted to the " pen," by a large concourse of admiring citizens, a number of whom were of the gentler sex, in every stage of development, curiosity being in Eimira, a failing of the sex. A march of about a mile, brought us to our prison. We filed in, were counted, divided into compan- ies of a hundred, the roil called, and we were led off to our quarters. These consisted of wooden buildings, about one hundred feet long, bj^ sixteen in width, and high enough for two rows of bunks. There were about thirty-five of these buildings in the enclosure, standing side by side, in a line parallel to the front of the pen, and about mid way the ground. I soon asserted a preemption claim to a top bunk, and having deposited my very modest " pack," started out to view my premises. I found a level plain of about thirty acres of land, situated as I have said, a mile or so west of Eimira, and immediately on the bank of the Chemung. The ground is unequally divided hy a long narrow lake or lagoon, which runs parallel to the river, into two sections, the one farthest from the en- * trance gate, being denominated the Trans-Mississippi Depart- ment, in the vernacular cf camp. This lake starts within twenty feet of the fence on one side of the pen, and flows un- FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 79 der the opposite fence, and the ground beyond the lake is a sandy[bottom, indicating what I found on enquiry to be the case, that the unruly Chemung occasionally gets uproarious, overflows its banks and floods the adjacent grounds. The whole site is a basin surrounded by hills which rise several hundred feet, and are covered richly and thiokly with the luxurious foliage of the hemlock, ash, poplar, and pine. This was the most grateful relief from our Point Lookout ex- perience, where nothing met the eve, in any direction ex- cept the sky, water, and prison fence. But a more available and practical improvement was in the Water, which was here pure, cool, and abundant, and the new comers luxuriated in the delicious beverage with the gusto of a lost traveller in Sahara, or a repentant legislator after a nocturnal spree. In the general arrangement ol' the guard detail there was little difference from Point Lookout, in the absence of the colored guards, and in the presence of the officers, all of whom spent a poi each day within the "pen." A row of tents running parallel with the front fence of the "pen," was assigned to these gentry, and until the approach of win- ter drove them into certain barracks outside, where ventila- ting arrangements were not so extensive, they continued to occupy them. Back of the o4 or 3f> barracks, already referred to, is a row of wooden buildings, containing the adjutant's office, dispensary, various rooms of Yankee sergeants, store-rooms, and the like, and hack again of these, the mess-rooms and cook-houses, which extend to the lagoon. These, with one or two other buildings, constituted all the appliances of the prison at that time, nor \ any change made until ti Qa from the lagoon sowed the seeds of febrile disease bo bat eight or ten hospitals had to be built, and the advent tiers by the thousand, exhaust- ed the sleeping a ks. The government of this o and is still, in the han of Major Henry . j mtleman about 38 years of i and a half feet high, with ailorid com- plexion, a comfortabl ; appear 80 PRISONER OF WAR. ance and manner/ and a chronic attack of cigar-smoking. I perform a very grateful duty in liere bearing testimony to the various admirable qualities of this gentleman as an officer and a man. Uniformly urbane and courteous in his demeanor, he dis- charged the varied, and often times annoying, offices of his post, ■with a degree of justice to his position and to the men under his charge, a patience, fidelity and humanity, that could not be sur- passed, and, I fancy, are seldom equalled, either side of the line, in similar positions. There was none of the slip-sbod indiffer- ence of Point Lookout regime. Major Colt either discharged in person, or superintended the execution of every duty respecting the prison, which appropriately claimed his attention, doing all with the thoroughness of a trained man of business, and although charged with duties, whose performance demanded almost every moment of his time, he was always ready to hear and redress any just complaints that were made to him, or to afford any in- formation or assistance, consistently with his position, to the humblest prisoner. It is a pleasant office to do this justice to an enemy, and to record 'this offset to the many cruelties which are charged, no doubt justly, to other officers in charge of our unfortunate prisoners. The Major's adjutant was Captain C. C. Barton, an active, smart, and rather consequential young gentleman, as adjutants are wont to be — and here I call attention to the fact that these officers constitute a class, sui generis, in every army — but, upon the whole, Barton was a good fellow, notwithstanding he consi- dered Abe Lincoln a gentleman, and accounted Grant a com- pound in about equal proportions of King Solomon and Alexan- der the Great. Captain B. was assisted by a young sergeant named Hopkins, who was promoted to an adjutant's place shortly after our arrival, but did not exchange his comfortable quarters for "the front" till the summer was over; and a youth, named Frank Earl'c, who, in a fit of spasmodic patriotism, joined a heavy , artillery company, before he was out of his teens, and straight- way perilled his invaluable life for his beloved country, as an ad- jutant's clerk, in the dangerous "Department of the Chemung." In the executive duties of his office, Major Colt was assisted FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 81 by fifteen or twenty officers, and as many npn-commissioned officers, chiefly of the militia or the veteran reserves. Among them were some characters which are worth a paragraph. There w&S a long nosed, long-faced, long-jawed, long-bearded long-bodied, long-legged, endless-footed, and long-skirted curi- osity, yclept Captain Peck, ostensibly engaged in taking charge of certain compani ."' bin really employed in turning a penny by hucksl the > arious products of prisoners' skill — an occupation very profitable to Peck, but generally unsatisfac- tory, in a pecuniary way, to the "rebs." Many of them have told me of the impossibility of getting their just dues from the prying, round-shouldered i who had a snarl and an oath for every one out of whom he was not, at that instant, making money, and exhibi lerally the characteristics of a lung an- cestry of Connecticut clock peddlers, lie diversified his specu- lations in cheap jewelry, by attentions to a handsome mare, of which he seemed quite proud, and who was far the.noblcr animal 1 suspect. Another rarity of the " pen. " was one Lieut. Jno. McConnell, a "braw chiel," who had eclipsed fiction in his noble deeds while hi the field, and whose bile was so grievously stirred up against the rebels that he could not keep his tongue or hands from them even here. lie had an oath and a drawn pistol on every occa- . and would iiy into a passion over the merest nothing, that ■would have been exceedingly amusing, but for a wicked habit he h;:d <>f laving about him with a stick, a tent pole — anything that fell into his hands. He was opening a trench one day, through the camp, when, for the crime of stepping across it, he forced a poor, sick boy, who was en his way to the dispensary for medi- cinei to leap backwards and forwards over it till he fell from ex- haustion amid the voluble oaths of. the valiant lieutenant. One lieutenant Richmond kept McC. in countenance by following closely his example. He is a little compound of fice and weasel, and having charge of the cleaning up of the camp, has abundant opportunities to bully and insult, but being, fortunately, very far short of grcn s not use his boot or fist as freely as his great exemplar, who is never idle. No one, however, was 11 82 . PRISONER OY WAR. safe from either of them, who, however accidentally and inno- cently, fell in their way, physically or metaphorically. Of the same block Captain Bowden was a chip : a fair-haired, light-moustached Saxon-faced "Yank" — far the worst type of man, let me tell you, yet discovered — whose whole intercourse with the prisoners was the essence of brutality. An illustration Avil 1 paint him more thoroughly than a philippic. A prisoner , named Hale, belonging to the old Stonewall brigade, was disco vered one day rather, less sober than was allowable to any but the loyal, and Bowden being officer of the guard, arrested him and demanded where he got his liquor. This he refused to tell, as it would compromise others, and any one but a Yankee would have put him in the guard house, compelled him to wear a bar- rel shirt, or inflicted some punishment ■proportionate to his offence* All this would have been very natural, but not Bowdenish, so this valorous Parolles determined to apply the torture to force a confession ! Hale, was accordingly tied up by the thumbs, that is, his thumbs were fastened seearely together behind his back, and a rope being attached to the cord uniting them, it Avas passed over a cross bar over his head and hauled down until it raised the sufferer so nearly off the ground that the entire weight of his body was sustained by his thumbs, strained in an unnatural posi- tion, his toes merely touching the ground. The torture of this at the wrists and shoulder joints is exquisite, but Hale persisted in refusing, and called on his fellow-prisoners, many of whom were witnesses of this refined villainy, to remember this when they get home. Bowden grew exasperated at his victim's forti- tude, and determined to gag him. This he essayed to accom- plish by fastening a heavy oak tent-pin in his mouth, and when he would not open his mouth sufficiently — not an easy operation — he struck him in the face with the oaken billet, a blow which broke several of his teeth and covered his mouth with blood I On the other hand, some of the officers were as humane and merciful as these wretches were brutal and cowardly, and all who were my fellow-prisoners, will recall, with grateful remem- brance, Captain Benj. Munger, Lieutenant Dalgleish, Sergeant- major Rudd, Lieutenant McKcc, Lieutenant Haggerty, commigsa- FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 83 ry of one of the regiments guarding us, a •whole-souled fellow, and one or two oth These officers were assigned in the proportion of one to every company at first, but to every three-hundred or four-hundred men afterwards, and were ehUrged with the duty of superintend- ing roll-calls, inspecting quarters, and seeing that the men under their charge got their rations, and the system "was excellent. During the month of July, 4,323 prisoners were entered on tho records of Elmira prison, and by the 29th of August, the date of the last arrivals, 9,607. The barrack accommodations did not suffice for quite half of them, and the remainder were provided "with "A" tents, in which they continued to be housed when I left the prison in tho middle of the following October, although the weather waa piercingly cold. Tim:'; : 9 they came from a summer's campaign, many of them without blankets, and without even a handful of straw between them and the frozen earth, it will surprise no one that the suffering, even at that early day, was considerable. CHAPTER XIV. I •' 'Doctor — Pride of Consistency — General I Arrangements — Commissariat — The Nations and the Rats — Punishma. .' I have spoken of the military govermont of Elmira Frison, it may not be inappropriate to pursue the statistical .'•. now that I am in it, by a brief chapter on the Medical and Con I resume the thread of the mor ' my narrative. £aj< »r B. L. Sanger, a gentleman who appeared very faithful, though not quite as 84 PRISONER OF WAR. industrious as the needs of such a post would seem to demand, in the discharge of the supervisory duties, especially falling under his charge. He was assisted by Dr. Eider, of Roches- ter, one of the few " Copperheads," whom I met in any office, great or small at the ISTorth. My association was rather more intimate with him than with any of the others, and I believe him to have been? competent and faithful officer. Personally I ac- knowledge his many kindnesses with gratitude. The rest of the '.' meds " were in truth, a motly crew in the main, most of them being selected from the impossibility, it would seem, of doing anything else with them. I remember one of the worth- ies, whose miraculous length of leg and. neck, suggested "crane" to all observers, whose innocence of medicine was quite refreshing. On being scut for to prescribe for a prison- er, who was said to have bilious fever, he asked the druggist, a "reb," in the most naive manner, what was the usual treat- ment for that disease ! Fortunately, during his stay at Blmi-. ra, which was not long, there were no drugs in the Dispensa- ry, or I shudder to picture the consequences. This depart- ment was constantly undergoing changes, and I suspect that the whole system was intended as part oi the education of the young doctors assigned to us, for as soon as they learned to distinguish between quinine and magnesia they were removed to another field of labor. The whole camp was divided into wards, to which physi- cians were assigned, among whom were three " rebel " pris- oners, Dr. Lynch of Baltimore, Dr. Martin of South Carolina, Dr. Graham, formerly of Stqnewall Jackson's Staff, and a fel- low townsman of the lamented hero. These ward physicians treated the simplest cases in their patient's Barrack, and trans- ferred the more dangerous ones to the Ilopitals, of which there were ten or twelve, capable of accommodating about eighty patients each. Here every arrangement was made that carpenters could make, to insure the patients against unneces- sary mortality, and indeed a system was professed, which would have delighted the heart of a Sister of Charity, but, ' alas, the practice was quite another thing. The most scan- FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 85 dalous neglect prevailed even in so simple a matter as provi- ding food for the sick, and I do not doubt that many of those who died, perished from actual starvation. Sometimes the fault would be, that a lazy doctor would not make out his provision return in time, in which case his whole ward must go without food, or with an inadequate supply till the next day. Another time there would be a difficulty between the Chief Surgeon and the Commissary, whose general relations were of the stripe characterized by S. P. Andrews, as " cat- nnd-dogamy," which would result in the latter refusing to furnish the former with bread for the sick ! In almost a'll cases the " spiritus frumenti" failed to get to the patients, or in so small a quantity after the various tolls, that it would not quicken the circulation of a canary. Another trouble was, the inexcusable deficiency of drugs. During several weeks in which Dysentery and Inflammation of the Bowels were the prevalent diseases in prison, there was not a grain of any pre- paration of opium in the Dispensary, and many a poor fellow died for the want of a common medicine, which no family is ordinarily without — that is if men ever die for want of drugs. There would be and is much excuse for such deficiencies in the South, and this is a matter, which the Yankees stud iously ignore — inasmuch as the blockade renders it impossible to pro- cure any luxuries even for our own sick, and curtails and enormously expensive the supply of drugs, of the simplest, kind, providing they arc exotics; but in a nation whose boast^it is that they do not feel the war, with the world open to them, and supplies of all onderfully abuudant, it is simply infamous to starve the y did there, and equally disc] leny them medicines — indispensable, accordii: i traditions. The result of the igno- ;e of the doc parseness of these supplies, was soon apparent in the sh mortality of tins camp, ling the healthfulness claimed for the situation. This exceeded, even the reported m »rtality of Andersonville, that was. rmd disgraceful as it was to ourgovernment 86 . PRISONER OF WAR. and to civilization, if it resulted from causes within the con- trol of our authorities. A published report made to Lincoln, by four returned Andersonville prisoners alleged, that out of a population of about 36,000 at that pen, six thousand or one sixth of the whole, died between the 1st of February and the .1st of August, 1864. Now at Elmira, the quota was not made up till the last of August, so that September was the first month during which any just proportion could be taken, and out of less than 9,500 prisoners there at that time, 386 died during that month. The same rate of mortality for six months, would give 2316 or nearly one fourth of the whole. A deduction must be made, arising from the fact, that as the whole number decreased by deaths, so the deaths might be expected to decrease, but making every allowance, the mor- tality will appear to be as great in this model prison as in the worst "pen" in the South, and at Elmira it resulted, in the majority of cases, from causes that the government could have controlled. Daring the last six weeks of my prison life, it was my duty to make out the morning report of the deaths, so I speak by the card as to these matters. And apropos of this Death Eecord, two facts therein were quite remarkable; so much so that I called the attention of many to them ; the first was the large number of North Carolinians who died, numbering generally nearly, if not quite half of. the whole number — a fact I turn over to Mr. Graclgrind, " without note or comment;" the second, the entire absence of deaths from intermittent fever, or any similar complaint. Now, I knew well that many of the sick died from this and kindred diseases produced by the miasma of the stagnant lake in our camp, but the reports which I consolidated every morning, contained no reference to them. I enquired at the Dispensary, where the reports were first handed in the cause of this anomaly, and learned that Dr. Sanger would sign no report, which. ascribed to any of these diseases, the death of the patient ! J! conclu- ded that he must have committed himself to the harmlessness of the lagoon in question, and determnied to preserve his con- sistency at the expense of our lives, very much after the fash- FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 87 ion of that illustrious oru anient of the profession, Dr. San- grado, who continued his warm water and phlebotomy, mere- ly because he had written a book in praise of that practice, although " in six weeks ho made more widows and orphans than the siege of Troy.'" I could hardly help visiting on Dr. Sanger the reproaches his predecessor received at the hands of the persecuted peo- ple of Valladolid, who "were son very brutal in their grief," and called the Doctor and Gil Bias no more euphonious name than "ignorant assassins." Any post in the Medical Department in a Yankee prison oamp is quite valuable on account of the opportunities of plunder it affords, and many of the virtuous "mods" made extensive use of their advantages. Vast quantities of qui- nine were prescribed that were never taken — the price, eight dollars an ounce, tempting the cupidity of the physicians be- yond all resistance, but the grand speculation was in whisky, which v died to the Dispensary in large quantities, and could be obtained for a consideration in any reasona- ble amount from a ^ steward" who pervaded that establish- ment. The Commissary Department was under the charge of a •, active ex-bank officer, Captain Gr. C. Whiton. The ra- tion of bread was usually a full pound per diem, forty -live barrels of flour being converted daily into loaves in the bake- shop on at ration, on the other hand, was invariably scanty, and I learned on enquiry, that the fresh beef sent to the prison usually fell short from one thou- l to twelve hi ument. The ex- pedients resorted, to by the men to supply this want of animal food were disgusting. Many found an acceptable substitute in rats, with which the place abounded, and these Chinese delicacies commanded an average price of about four cents ece — in green': [haves i ''thorn in various states of preparation, and have been assured by those who in- dulged in them, that ave been eaten — an E of their value thai 1 took on trust. 88 PRISONER OF WAR. Others found in the barrels of refuse fat, which were accu- mulated at the cook-house, and in the pickings of the bones, which were cut out of the meat and thrown out in a dirty heap back of the kitchen to be removed once a week, the means of satisfying the craving for meat, which rations would not satis- fy. I have seen a mob of hungry " rebs," besiege the bone- cart, and beg from the driver fragments on which an August sun had been burning for several days, until the impenetrable nose of a Congo could hardly have endured them. vVhile on the subject of rations I may refer to a substance used very generally here in the preparation of soup, which adds greatly to its healthfullness and which, as I have not heard of it from prisoners elsewhere, is, I suppose, peculiar to this prison — dessicated vegetables. A couple of hundred pounds of the matter — which consisted of all kinds of vegetables, kiln-dried -and compressed into cakes of about a foot square and two inches thick — would thicken soup for 9000 men, at a cost very insignificant. Twice a day the camp poured its thousands into the mess rooms where each man's ration was assigned him, and twice a day the aforesaid rations were characterized by disappointed " rebs " in language not to be found in a prayer book. Those whose appetite was stronger than their apprehensions fre- quently contrived to supply their wants by " flanking " — a performance which consisted in joining two or more compa- nies as they successively went to the mess-rooms, or in quietly sweeping up a ration as the company filed down the table. — As every ration so flanked was, however, obtained at the ex- pense of some helpless fellow prisoner, who must lose that meal, the practice was almost universally frowned upon, and the criminal when discovered, as was frequently the case was subjected to instant punishment. This was either confinement in the guard house, solitary confinement on bread and water, the " sweat box," or the bar- rel shirt. The war has made all these terms familiar, except the third perhaps : by it I mean a wooden btfx about seven feet high, twenty inches wide, and twelve deep} which was five months among the Yankees. SI by fifteen or twenty officers, and as many non-commissioned officers, chiefly of the militia or the veteran reserves. Among them were some characters which are worth a paragraph. There was a long-nosed, long-faced, long-jawed, long-bearded long-bodied, long-legged, endless-f ad long-skirted curi- osity, yclept Captain Peck, ostensibly engaged in taking charge of certain companies of ■ employed In turning a penny by huckstering the. various products of prisoners' skill — an occupation very profitable to Peck, but generally unsatisfac- tory, in a pecuniary way, to the "rebs." Many of them have told me oJ£ the impossibility of getting their just dues from the prying, round-shouldered captain, who had a snarl and an oath for eveiy one out of whom he was not, at that instant, making money, and exhibited generally the characteristics of a long an- cestry of Connecticut clock peddlers. He diversified his specu- lations in cheap jewelry, by attentions to a handsome marc, of which he seemed quite proud, and who was far the nobler animal I suspect. • Another rarity of the "pen " was one Lieut. Jno. McConnell, a "braw chiel," who had eclipsed fiction in his noble deeds whilo in the field, and whose bile was so grievously stirred up against the rebels that he could not keep his tongue or hands from them even here. He had an oath and a drawn pistol on every occa- sion, and would fly into a passion over the merest nothing, that would have been exceedingly amusing, but for a wicked habit ho had of laying about him with a stick, a tent pole — anything that fell into his hands. He was opening a trench one day, through the camp, when, for the crime of stepping across it, he forced a poor, sick boy, who was on his way to the dispensary for medi- cine, to leap backwards and forwards over it till he fell from ex- haustion amid the voluble oaths of the valiant lieutenant. One lieutenant llichmond kept McC. in countenance by following closely his example. lie is a little compound of fice and weasel, and havhi ge of the cleaning up of the camp, has abundant opportunities to bully and insult, but being, fortunately, very far short of grenadier size, he does not use his boot or fist as freely as his great exemplar, who is never idle. No one, however, was 11 82 PRISONER OF WAR. safe from either of them, who, however accidentally and inno- cently, fell in their way, physically or metaphorically. Of the same block Captain Bowcten was a chip : a fair-haired, light-moustached Saxon-faced "Yank" — far the worst type of man, let me tell you, yet discovered — whose whole intercourse with the prisoners was the essence of brutality. An illustration will paint him more thoroughly than a philippic. A prisoner named Hale, belonging to the old Stonewall brigade, was disco vered one day rather less sober than was allowable to any but the loyal, and Bowden being ofaper of the guard, arrested him and demanded where he got his liquor. This he refused to tell, as it would compromise others, and any one bat a Yankee would have put him in the guard house, compelled him to wear a bar- rel shirt, or inflicted some punishment proportionate to liis oifmcc. All this would have been very natural, but not Borden ish, so this valorous Parolles determined to apply the torture to force a confession ! Hale was accordingly tied up by the thumbs, that is, his thumbs were fastened securely together behind his back, and a rope being attached to the cord uniting them, i issed* over a cross bar over, his head and hauled down until it raised the sufferer so nearly off the ground that the entire weight of his body was sustained by his thui ined in an unnatural posi- tion, his toes merely toucL ground. The torture of this at the wrists and shoulder joints is exquisite, but Hale persisted in refusing, and culled on his fellow-prisoners, many of whom were witnesses of this refined villainy, to remember this when they get home. Bowden grew exasperated at his victim's forti- tude, and determined to gag him. This he essayed to accom- plish by fastening a h k tent-pin in his mouth, and when he would not open his mouth sufficiently — not an easy operation — he struck him in the face with the oaken billet, a blow which broke several of his teeth and covered his mouth with blood ! On the other hand, some of the officers were as humane and merciful as these wretches were brutal and cowardly, and all who were my fellow-prisoners, will recall, with grateful remem- brance, Captain Benj. Munger, Lieutenant Dalgleish, Sergeant- major Rudd, Lieutenant McRee, Lieutenant Ilaggcrty, commiesa- FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. S3 tj of one of the regiments , r us, a whole-souled fellow, and one or two otl These officers were assigned in tl rtion of one to every company at first, but to every three-hundred or four-hundred men afterwards, and were char b the duty of superintend- ing roll-calls, inspecting quarters, and seeing that the men under their charge got their rations, and the system was excellent, During the month of July, 4,823 prisoners were entered on the records of Elmira prison, and by the 20th of August, the date of the last arrivals. 9,607. The barrack accommodations did not suffice for quite half of them, and the remainder were provided with "A" tents, in which they continued to be housed when I left the prison in the middle of the following October, although the weather was piercingly cold. Thinly cl • from a summer's campaign, many of them without blanket . vithout even a handful of straw between them anil the frozen earth, it will surprise no one the suffering, even at that early day, was considerable. CHAPTER XIV. Medical — A Sage Doctor — Pride of Consistency — General Hospital Arrangements — Commissariat — The Rations and the Rats — Pun ishvi' As I have spoken of the military goverment of Elmira Priscfn, it may not be inappropriate to pursue the statistical view, now that I am in it, by a brief chapter on the Medical and Commissary Departments, before I resume the thread of the more personal portion of my narrative. The head of the Medical Staff was Major E. L. Sanger, a gentleman who y faithful, though not quite as 81 . PRISOXEH OF AVAR. industrious as the needs of such a post would seem to demand, in the discharge of the supervisory duties, especially falling under his charge. lie was assisted by Dr. Rider, of Roches- ter, one of the few " Copperheads," whom I met in any office, great or small at the North. My association was rather more intimate with him than with any of the others, and I believe him to have been a competent and faithful officer. Personally I ac- knowledge his many kindnesses with gratitude. The rest of the "meds" were in truth, a motly crew in the main, most of them being selected from the impossibility, it would seem, of doing anything else with them. I remember one of the worth- ies, whose miraculous length of leg and neck, suggested "crane" to all observers, whose innocence of medicine was quite refreshing. On being sent for to prescribe for a prison* er,*who was said to have bilious lever, he asked the druggist, a " reb," in the most naive manner, what was the usual treat- ment for that disease ! Fortunately, during his stay at Elmi- ra, which was not long, I re no drugs in the Dispensa- ry, or I shudder to picture the conseq This depart- ment was constantly undergoing changes, and I suspect that the whole system was intended as part of the education of the young doctors as ion as they learned to distinguish b nine and magnesia they were removed to another field of labor. The whole camp was divided into wards, to which physi- cians were assigned, among whom were three " rebel " pris- oners, Dr. Lynch of Baltimore, Dr. Martin of South Carolina, Dr. Graham, formerly of Stonewall Jackson's Staff, and a fel- low townsman of the lamented hero. These ward physicians treated the simplest cases in their patient's Barrack, and trans- ferred the more dangerous ones to the Hopitals, of which there were ten or twelve, capable of accommodating about eighty patients each. Here every arrangement was made that carpenters could make, to insure the patients against unneces- sary mortality, and indeed a system was professed, which would have delighted the heart of a* Sister of Charity, but, alas, the practice was quite another thing. The most scan- FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 85 dalous neglect prevailed even in so simple a matter as provi- ding food for the sick, and I do not doubt that many of those who died, perished from actual starvation. Sometimes the fault would be, that a lazy doctor would not make out his provision return in time, in which case his whole ward must go without food, or with an inadequate supply till the next day. Another time there would be a difficulty between the Chief Surgeon and the Commissary, whose general relations were of the stripe characterized by S. P. Andrews, as " cat- and-dogamy," which would result in the latter refusing to furnish the former with bread for the sick ! In almost all eases the " spiritus frumenti" failed to get to the patients, or in so small a quantity after the various tolls, that it would not quicken the circulation of a canary. Another trouble was, the inexcusable deficiency of drugs. Duri&g several weeks in which Dysentery and Inflammation of the Bowels were the prevalent diseases in prison, there was not a grain of any pre- paration of opium in the Dispensary, and man)'- a poor fellow died for the want of a common medicine, which no family is ordinarily without — that is if men ever die for want of drugs. There would be and is much excuse for such deficiencies in the South, and this is a matter, which the Yankees studiously ignore — inasmuch as the blockade renders it impossible to pro- cure any luxuries eveu for our own sick, and curtails aud renders enormously expensive the supply of drugs, of the simplest kind, providing they are exotics ; but in a nation whose boast it is that they do not feel the war, with the world open to them, and supplies of all sorts wonderfully abundant, it is simply infamous to starve the sick as they did there, and equally discreditable to deny them medicines — indispensable, according to Esculapian traditions. The result of the igno- re of the doctors, and of I rseness of these supplies, was soon apparent in the shocking mortality of this camp, notwithstanding the healthfulness claimed for the situation. i exceeded even the reported mortality of Andersonville, great as that was, and disgraceful as it was to our government 86 PRISONER OF WAB. and to civilization, if it resulted from causes within the con- trol of our authorities. A published report made to Lincoln, by four returned Andersonville prisoners alleged, that out of a population of about 36,000 at that pen, six thousand or one sixth of the whole, died between the^st of February and the 1st of August, 18G4. Now at Elmira, the quota was not made up till the last of August, so that September was the first month during which any just proportion could be taken, and out of less than 0,500 prisoners there at that time, 386 died during that month. The same rate of mortality for six months, would give 231G or nearly one fourth of the whole. A deduction must be made, arising from the fact, that as the whole number decreased by deaths, so the deaths might be expected to decrease, but making every allowance, the mor- tality will appear to be as great in this model prison as in the worst "pen" in the South, and at Elmira it resulted, in the majority of cases, from causes that the government could have controlled. During the last sis: weeks of my prison life, it wars my duty to make out the morning report of the deaths, so I speak by the card as to these matters. And apropos of this Death Record, two facts therein were quite remarkable; so much so that I called the attention of many to them ; the first was the large number of North Carolinians who died, numbering generally nearly, if not quite half of the whole number — a fact I turn over to Mr. G-radgrind, " without note or comment;" the second, the entire absence of deaths from intermittent fever, or any similar complaint. Now, I knew well that many of th ii d from this and kindred diseases produced by I sma of the stagnant lake in our camp, but the reports wrkich I consolidated ever rig, contained no pence to them. I enquired at the Dispensary, where the reports were first handed in the cause of this anomaly, and learned that Dr. Sanger would sign no report, which ascribed to any of these diseases, the death of the patient ! I conclu- ded that he must have committed himself to the harmles'sness of the lagoon in question, and determnied to preserve his con- sistency at the expense of cur lives,. \cry much after the fash- FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 87 ion of that illustrious ornament of the profession, Dr. San- grado, who continued his warm water and phlebotomy, mere- ly because he had written a book in praise of that practice, although " in six weeks he made more widows and orphans than the siege of Trov.'' I could hardly help visiting on Dr. Sanger the reproaches his predecessor received at the hands of the persecuted peo- ple of Valladolid, who "were sometimes very brutal in their grief," and called the Doctor aud Gil Bias no more euphonious name than " ignoranl ms." Any post in the Medic rtincnt in a Yankee prison camp is quite valuable on account of the opportunities of plunder it affords, and i the virtuous " meds " made extensive use of their advan Vass quantities of qui- nine were prescribed that were never taken — the price, eight dollars an ounce, temptin apidity of the physicians be- yond all resistance, but the grand speculation was in whisky, which was si:> ; ii id to the Dispensary in large quantities, and could be obtained for a consideration in any reasona- ble amount from a • vaded that establish- ment. , The Commissary Department was under the charge of a cute, active ex-bank officer, Captain Gr. U. Whiten. The ra- tion of bread was usually a full pound per diem, forty-five barrels of flour being converted daily into loaves in the bake- shop on the premises. The meat ration, on the other hand, was invariably scanty, and I learned on enquiry, that the fresh beef sent to the prison usually fell short from one thou- sand to twelve hundred pounds, in each consignment. The ex- pedients resorted to by the men to supply this want of animal food were disgusting. Many found an acceptable substitute in rats, with which the place abounded, and these Chinese delicacies commanded an average price of about.four cents apiece — in greenbacks. I have seen scores of them in various states of preparation, and have been assured by those who in- dulged in them, that worse things have been eaten — au esti- mate of their value that I took on trust. 88 PRISONER OF WAR. Others found in the barrels of refuse fat, which were accu- mulated at the cook-house, and in the pickings of the bones, which were cut out of the meat and thrown out in a dirt}" heap back of the kitchen to be removed once a week, the means of satisfying the craving for meat, which rations would not satis- fy. I have seen a mob of hungry " rebs," besiege the bone- cart, and beg from the.driver fragments on which an August sun had been burning for several days, until the impenetrable nose of # a Congo could hardly have endured them. "While on the subject of rations I may refer to a substance used very generally here in the preparation of soup, which adds greatly to its healthfulness and which, as I have not heard of it from prisoners elsewhere, is, I suppose, peculiar to this prison — dessicated vegetables. A couple of hundred pounds of the matter — which consisted of all kinds of vegetables, kiln-dried and compressed into cakes of about a foot square and two inches thick — would thicken soup for 9000 men, at a cost very in int. Twice a (lay the camp poured its thousands into the mess rooms where each man's ration was assigned him, and twice a day the aforesaid rations were characterized by disappointed " rebs " in language not to be found in a prayer book. Those whose appetite was stronger than their apprehensions fre- quently contrived to supply their wants by " flanking " — a performance which consisted in joining two or more compa- nies as they successively went to the mess-rooms, or in quietly sweeping up a ration as the company filed down the table. — As every ration so flanked was, however, obtained at the ex- pense of some helpless fellow prisoner, who must lose that meal, the practice was almost universally frowned upon, and the criminal when discovered, as was frequently the case was subjected to instant punishment. This wa^ either confinement in the guard house, solitary confinement on bread and water, the " sweat box," or the bar- rel shirt. The war has made all these terms familiar, except the third perhaps : by it I mean a wooden box about seven feet high, twenty inches wide, and twelve deep, which was FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 89 placed on end in front of the Major's tent. Few could stand in this, without elevating the shoulders considerably, and when the door was fastened, all motion was out of the ques- tion. The prisoner had to stand with his limbs rigid and im- movable, until the jailor opened the door, and it was far the most dreaded of the /< in et anres of the pen. In mid- summer I can fancy that a couple of hours in such acollin, would inspire TartuiVe himself with virtuous thoughts. CHAPTER XV. Historic Precedents — Adventures with the Doctor — Major Colt — My Duties — My Privileges — Promotion — Gomro. When the illustrious Anne of Austria entered the city of Paris, with her son Louis the Fourteenth, a, few words were spoken to her by the President de Bailleul, which, according to the ac- count of "solitary horseman," James, changed the whole after histor}' of France. So the Constitution of the United States, now considerably shattered by exposure in the trenches, sprang from no more dignified source than a canal project of that genu- ine Virginian. George Washington. So the fact that Charles I, of England, stammered, cost his Majesty his head. So certain architectural speculations of that bull-beaded Hanoverian, George III, cost Britain the brightest jewel in her crown. So the absurd weakness of Louis le Jcunc, for shaving his chin precipitated France into four centuries of warfare. In short, that venerable Romance, known by courtesy under the name of History, is crowded with illustrations about as veritable as anything else therein, of the fact that the most important of all matters may spring from causes the most absurdly insignifi- cant. I have not made these references, oh much-enduring reader of 12 • 'JO PRISONER OF WAR. mine, to convict you of incorrigible- ignorance in not having known them before, though that would be a laudable motive enough, no doubt ; nor to make a learned exordium to Chapter XV, though that would be entirely justifiable, since such things have an air of extreme respectability, and sugar-coat an essay very much as a flaming caption in a New York newspaper car- ries off «. whole litany of unimportant lies below. In good sooth, my only purpose was to claim credence for an averai>ent I am about to make, by showing that my experience was not excep- tional, and that there is nothing absolutely without a parallel, in the declaration, that I owe whatever of peculiar advantage I enjoyed, throughout my whole stay at Elmira, to a sudden at- tack of that undignified disorder which is treated with copious- libations of extract of anise-seed, in infantile victims, and Ja- maica ginger and paragoric Avhen the patient gets well out of long clothes, but which the mature wisdom of adult age finds most certain relief from, in Otard or Hennessey "straight." \ As Napoleon is said to have been a constant victim to this complaint, I need not blush to own that I was similarly afflicted on my arrival at Elmira, and soon wended my way to the drug store to seek a remedy. Such are the wiles of temperance peo- ple, that it will not do to ask, under such circumstances, for a dram : the subterfuges of the Maine Law men having destroyed human confidence to an alarming degree, so I suggested "gan- ger" to a mild-looking descendant — longe intervalle — of Escula- pius, whom I found the presiding genius of the dispensary. I must have made my request in a super professional tone, for he straightway inquired whether I were a practitioner of medicine. Being among enemies, I exhibited none of the indignation proper to such an imputation, and commanding my feelings, merely re- turned a decided "no," but the doctor evidently doubted me still, and seemed to infer that I must needs have a diploma, be- cause I knew the quant, suf. of Brown's Essence, so he insisted that I should consent to come and aid him in the daily augment- ing duties of his new post. As, however, I did not have quite impudence enough to undertake the bolus business, I stoutly re- sisted, to the mingled amazement and grief of the chief Surgeon- FIYS MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 91 nnd was about to leave with my close, when the Doctor intimated that I might obtain em ploy meat at Headquarters by making ap- plication, whereupon, I framed, in immaculate caiigraphy, a note to Major Colt, requesting.him to assign me to seme duty, which, without compromising my position as a hopeless "rebel," would give me employment — something to eke out the monotonous days of durance. This, the Doctor, in whose eyes I had evi- dently found favor — I do not suppose he meant an insult by sus- pecting me of medicine — undertook to deliver. Night soon came, and on a French bedstead, composed of a couple of planks, with no bed clothing of any description, I stretched myself for a nap. By about three o'clock, I found it necessary to turn out to the wood pile, and seek, in diligent chop- ping, the means of restoring the circulation, and, thereupon, I find the following entry: Elmira, July 13th. Chopping wood, disgusting. If I had been that "Woodman," it would have required deuced little sing- ing to have induced me to "spare that tree," or any other tree. Day broke at last, and by at last, I essay to express the fact, that it seemed about as hard to break as Colonel N's passion for wearing clothes that wont (it him — and shortly after roll-call, I received a summons to the Major's tent. He offered me a cigar, which, having no small vices, I declined, and soon entered into a free conversation in matters military, political, and personal, concluding by handing me a note, which I found to be an assign- meut to duty in the office of his Adjutant. I reported at once, and was soon at work transferring to a large "Dooms-day Book," the record of the name, regiment, company, place and time of capture, ward and number of each prisoner, a volume which finally swelled to colossal proportions. I subsequently found that nry position entitled me to a couple of cups of coffee, and a fee of — V ■ per diem ! The coffee was an anomalous pro- duction, made by suspending a bag of ground coffee (?) in a boi- ler holding, I presume, a hundred gallons, the water in which was renewed for three days, when the bag was taken out, empti- ed and re-fj led. The first day's boiling was fair, the second unfair, the third a mockery and a delusion, but such as it was, I 92 PRISONER OF WAR. accepted it very thankfully, and considered myself entitled to make no complaint, as the Yankee Sergeants, in the pen, were furnished with the same. In the course of a few days, the finances of the prisoners re- quired attention, as money began to be sent them, and the Ledger was entrusted to my keeping, and ere long this business became so onerous that a reorganization of the Department took place ; three professional book-keepers were employed, and a miscella- neous role of duty was assigned me — making out the morning death report, answering letters sent to the Major, making various enquiries respecting the camp, keeping the Sutler's daily accounts straight, and thrice a month, making out the "detail accounts" of the prison. As to this latter matter, Elmira forms an excep- tion, I believe, to other Yankee prisons. All duty performed by prisoners, except the police of the quarters, that is, the daily cleansing of the camp, is paid for at the rate of five cents a day for mere laborers, and ten cents for clerks and artificers. These, workmen arc divided into four heads, according as they report to the Adjutant, the Commissary, the Surgeon, or the officer com- manding the labor detail, and as many as four hundred men in all are thus provided with employment, which relieves them of the horrible ennui of imprisonment, and furnishes them with the means of securing a moderate supply of tobacco — the universal consolation of Lee's Miser ables. I may add that the wages thus earned, were, in all cases, as far as I had the opportunity of knowing, honestly paid. I have a thousand times entered the credits on the Ledger to various prisoners, and have seen them draw out their deposites in the form of orders. In the course of the various changes in my line of duty, I gradually acquired possession of a comfortable room, in which I soon rigged up a bunk, and, greatest blessing of all, formed, through the partiality of Capt. Whiton, an alimentary association with the Sergeant of the Cook-house, the chief Baker, and a pair of "rebs" engaged in those establishments, which secured me then, and thenceforth, against any apprehensions on the sub- ject of rations, or any interest in the rise of rats. * FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. . 93 This association with the officers commanding the prison, gave me, of course, many opportunities of assisting my fellow Con- federates, and I had the happiness of being the means of mak- ing the stay of many of them less irksome, and their restraints less grievous to bear, without any compromise of their or my principles or position, which was known to be that of a rebel, sans reproche. % CHAPTER XVI. Fearfu I Accident— Humanity of the Surgeons—The Main Chance — Preaching in Prison — Lynch Law — J. E. B. Stuart — Death in Prison — Scurvy — Neio Restrictions — Library — Digging Out. I resume my extracts from my Diary, anticipating, occasionally, events of subsequent date, referring to the same subjects : Saturday, July 16th. xln ugly rumor prevails in camp, that a fearful accident occurred yesterday on the Erie Railroad — the train bringing prisoners here colliding with a coal train going east, near a place called, I think, Shohola. The deaths, it is said, number over fifty, and among them are several cf the Yan- kee guards. To-night we were roused about mid-night, with a request that we would come and help the wounded in, the train having arrived with the surviving victims of the catastrophe. Many of them were in a horrible condition, and when I went to the Hospital, the following Monday, I found the wounds of many still undressed, even the blood not washed from their limbs, to which, in many instances, the clothing adhered, glued by the clotted gore; still, the "Advertiser," the Administration paper in Elinira, of this morning, proclaims to the world that the poor fellows were humanely cared for! Lieutenant II., who visited them Tuesday, and who expressed to mc his indignation in no 9-1 , PRISONER OF WAR. measured terms, at the'neglect, could tell a different story. An attempt was made to Court-Martial this officer, for acts of kind- ness to the prisoners, but he put a stop to all proceedings at once by intimating to the authorities, that in the event of a trial, he h&d a story to tell the Herald of the inhumanity of the Hospital treatment, at Elmira, which a trial would certainly force into print. He was not molested. For many weeks afterwards, friends and relatives tried to obtain admission into the prison to see and administer aid to the sufferers, but were denied the privilege. In one case, a very near female relative made a trip of hundreds of miles to see a prisoner, and the only indulgence she received was a permission to ascend an observatory near "the pen" on a certain hour in the afternoon, when her kinsman was alloyed to post himself under a tree in the enclosure with a white handkerchief around his arm, and thus, at a distance too great for any communication, they were allowed to gaze at each other for an hour! While I was at Elmira, I remember but two or three instances in which any one was allowed to visit a prisoner. A lady, by dint of great exertions, obtained from the authorities at Washington, permission to visit her son, who was badly wounded, and a cler- gyman, by officiating in "the pen," got the opportunity of a brief conversation witlihisson — one or two similar cases finished the chapter. Wednesday, July 20th. Our curiosity has been excited for some days past, by noticing a wooden structure, consisting of two large platform.?, one above the other, which has been going up across the road that bounds one face of our prison. I learn, to-day, that it is an "Observatory" where the sight-seeing pen- chant of the "Yanks" is to be made available, to put money in the purse "of an enterprising partnership, which proposes to turn our pen into a menagerie, and exhibit the inmates to the refined and valorous people of the Chemung valley, at the moderate fee of fifteen cents a head ! " Refreshments provided below" The event justified the wisdom of the venture, for one of the proprietors, who was part of the management in our pen, assur- ed me that the cone rn paid for itself in two weeks. I am sur- FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 95 prised that Barnum lias not taken the prisoners off the hands of Abe, divided them into companies, and carried them in caravans through the country, after the manner of Sesostris, and other antique heroes, turning an honest penny by the shovr. So profitable was this peculiarly Yankee ' ; institooshun," that a week or two thereafter a rival establishment, taller by a score of feet sprang up, and a grand "sight-seeing-and-spruce- beer" warfare began, which shook Elmira to its uttermost depths. Qne building was Radical, the other Copperhead; one was taller, the other older and more original — qualifica- tions considered important by Dr. Sands, and quite as apropos to sight-seeing as to Sarsaparilla. Heaven knows where it all would have ended, but that the Government confiscated the "Democratic Platform;'. 1 under the plea of military neces- sity, and its Abolition brother remained master of the situa- tion. , Here every summer afternoon, the population of Elmira — chiefly of the female persuasion — congregated to feast their eyes on their enemies, much after the fashion that the wor- shippers of Dagon, mocked the mighty son of Manoah. and until the days became so- cold, that exposure in so high a posi- tion was unpleasant, the shin plasters rolled in, and the lemon pop and ginger cakes rolled out of the orthodox observatory, to the great pecuniary comfort of the true-believers who own- ed it. Sunday, July 24th. Major Colt suggested yesterday, that it might be desired by some of the prisoners to have divine service regularly on Sunday, and added that if an application were made out, he would forward it to Colonel Eastman, who commanded the post, and who would doubtless approve it. This was done, and the clergymen of the city readily assented to the proposition to visit the prison alternately. Under this arrangement we had service this evening, and almost every Sunday afternoon thereafter. The abolition editor in Elmira, complained very bitterly of the alacrity with which the cleri- cal gentlemen accepted the proposal, and intimated that it was 96 PRISONER OF WAR. due to their curiosity, not their zeal — a little quarrel, I do not pretend to adjust. Most of the clergy, who thus obeyed the scriptural injunc- tion to " visit prisoners," conducted themselves properly, but we had a sample or two of the large lunatic wing of North- ern orthodox — worthies of the Barebones type, who would above all things delight "To prove their doctrines orthodox, By apostolic blows and knocks." Conspicuous among these was a fanatic named Brainerd, whose conduct was so disgusting that Lieutenant Richmond, heretofore, in this chronicle honorably mentioned, presented the worthy with ten dollars, in testimony of his appreciation! The joke was that Brainerd was fool enough to publish Rich- mond's letter in the Elmira B. R. organ — a gratuitous adver- tisement of a fool and a knave. Arcades ambo. » During the delivery of B.'s harangue some of his auditory quietly rose and left the presence of his abolitionship, where- upon Richmond arrested the non-comformists, and but for the intervention of another officer, would have clapped them -in the guard-house, for the unpardonable sin of unwillingness to re- ceive gratuitous insult. The clerical world in Puritan-dom, has not changed altogether from the happy days of Quaker whip- ping and Papist hanging, whereof the annals of Connecticut orthodoxy are rife. But while we may consider ourselves entitled to limited complaint on this score, it is proper to do justice to those who piously performed their functions, preach- ing, visiting the Hospitals, and furnishing those who desired them with religious books ; and as falling particularly under my own observation, I may appropriately make my acknowl- edgements here to Bishop Timon, of Buffalo, Rev. Mr. Kava- naugh, of Elmira, and Rev. Mr. Hitselberger of Washington, whose attentions of this description were worthy all praise. Rev. A. Hull, D. B. of Elmira, was also untiring in his efforts to supply the moral and material wants of the prisoners. Aside from these regular services, no evening passed without prayer • meetings, conducted by the prisoner,-: themselvc?, which were FIVE MONTHS AMONG TIIE YANKEES. 97 participated in with a decorum and devotion, which excited as much surprise as praise from our jailors, who during many- months of service, at the same place, among the drafted men, had never known the torrent of Yankee profanity and ob- scenity, interrupted by the voice of prayer or praise. Wednesday, July 27th. A sample of what used to be called in Scotia " Jeddart Justice/' — the ante-type of Lynch- law — amused us to-day. A miserable wretch was discovered picking the pocket of a dead man in one of the hospitals, when the "rebs" took him before Major Colt for punishment. The Major turned him over to his comrades, with carle blanche to inflict an}^ penalty short of killing or maiming him, so the Athenians met in the Agora, and soon resolved on his fate. A barrel-shirt was first procured, and the thief being invested with it, was trotted at a sharp double-quick up and down the camp, with hundreds of yelling followers, until he fell from exhaustion. He wa,s then rested [?] by being ridden on a rail for an hour, with the same vociferous procession at his heels, and the offended majesty of justice was still further and it is to be hoped, completely appeased, by launching him bodily at the end of this experiment into the filth}- pool in the middle of the camp. lie came out a much sadder, and infinitely dirtier, if not a better man. There has been a rumor prevalent in camp for several days past, that certain informal peace negotiations have been going on in hearing of Niagara. To-day I obtained " by under- ground " a copy of the Tribune of a late date, in which the story is all told. When the facts come to be known about this war, the South will be surprised to find that there has been but one black republican, of any prominence in the North, who ever dared to open his lips for peace, and that was Greeley — conduct quite of a piece with the general vaga- ries of that tenant of the white coat and shocking hat, who has performed for a third of a century the dry-nursing of all the isms in Christendom — so, at least, say has enemies. Wednesday, August 1st. Got an illustrated paper with a likeness and sketch of the life of General J. E. 13. Stuart, this i ° 98 PRISONER OF WAR. morning. A year ago to-day I was playing chess under a tree a mile or so to the left of Culpepper C. H., when a courier dashed up to General Mah one's, tent, a few yards off, and in a moment, orderlies were hastening to regimental head-quarters, and the " long-roll " soon brought the brigade under arms. We had heard cannonading frequently during the day, and learned that the Yankee cavalry had crossed the ' Rappahannock, and were engaging our troopers who had been left to cover the rear of Lee's army, then on its way to Orange. Anderson's Division brought up the rear of the infantry, and Makone's Brigade the rear of the Division, so that we expected to move in the morning. It turned out, however, that the Yankees were too numerous for our cavalry tp handle, and we were ordered to go to their relief. My own Regiment happened to this movement, and we were double quicked at a pa gether comfortable, at 97 Fahrenheit, in the direction of the cannonading, which was now growing quite distinct and. rapid. We soon came in sight of the belt of woods, which skirts on the West and South, that splendid plain on whicl great cavalry review was held the year before, and the Yankees in force appearing, my Reigment with one from Posey's Brigade, was ordered to de- ploy as skirmishers, and advance through the woods. Then, for the last time, I saw Stuart. Gai along in com- mand of the skirmishers, conspicuous from his line person and. horsemanship at all times — then, doubly so, since the only man on the field who was mounted — his coolness and good fortune attracted the attention of all. He i\ as everywhere along the line, foremost of the foremost, cheering all by hi s encouraging words and his fearless conduct — humming an air, or giving an order with equal nonchalance, he looked " From clanking spur to nodding pla A very star ' midst of a snow which fell on the 5th of October, without havii trace of the fugitives. They commenced digging in the middle of their tent, which was 102 PRISONER OF WAR. near an angle of the pen, and conveying the earth in blanket^ to the )agoon in the nigh'-, they avoided detection until a hole about thirty feet long and three feet in diameter was completed, under the fence, and on the first moon-less and cloudy night that offered they escaped. CHAPTER XVII. Exchange Rumors — Tlie .Negro Question — Too Healthy by Half — Application as Nurse — -Paroled — Off for Dixie — Good Bye to Major Colt October 1st. For several days past, the rumor has been cur- rent in camp that an exchange of the sick and wounded on both sides is on the carpet, and the knowing ones are rubbing up their old complaints, getting their asthmas, rheumatisms, lame legs, &c, in working order for the examination about to take place. What wonder that many a paling eye flashes up now with unusual fire, and many a poor, feeble pulse, that for weeks past has been fighting an unequal battle with fever, starvation, memory and despair, bounds now with a fresh impetus, as in the distance, not very remote, there looms up the enchanting vision of wife and child, mother, sister — HOME. Many, alas ! who are indulging themselves with this fair prospect will turn their trembling, tot- tering feet towards another home ere the light of the earthly one can answer their longings. Pulsat pede. To-day the rumor takes definite shape as the Surgeons make their rounds through the wards examining the sick, and exclud- ing from the roll all but those whose convalescence is apparent* and those who will never get better here ; and it leaks out that the order from Washington is that alis t must be made of those only who will be unfit for duly for sixty days. Haying beat up Ireland* FIVE 'MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 103 Germany, Switzerland and Africa for recruits, these invincible twenty millions of Yanks admit that they are- still not a match for five millions of Southerners, and they cling with the tenacity of Death to every able-bodied "reb" they can clutch, lest he mny again enter the Southern army, where they well know he will overmatch any Yank that could be exchanged for him. The negro question, v y plead as their excuse for declining a general exchi bbsh of the first water. The Northern people, and I speak from long acquaintance with them, care in- finitely less for negroes -than we. The instinctive aversion with which all wit: d the blacks — an aversion which begins with the traditions of infancy, when "the big black man" is the bug-a-boo wherewith rebellious babyhood is terrified into obe- dience — is in the South modified, if not conquered, by constant association and the interchange of mutually serviceable offices. In the North, and wherever the white and negro live together in the ordinary condition of society as rivals in labor, competitors for employment, claimants for equality of privilege or contest- ants for a share of public patronage of any kind, the interests and instincts of the whites coalesce to ii instinctive repul- sion into interested hate, and a degree of intolerance exists, of which we in the South have no conception. It is the free States which have made the most odioi ly di icri laws against the free blacks, and it is only in a free State that such bloody outbreaks against the negroes as have characterized Ohicag >and New Y'ork could possibly occur. It is not, therefore, black love but white fear, which is interposing difficulties -in the way of a general barter of prisoners, and so controlling is this latter mo- tive that the prisoners at Andersonville might f ve sung their sorrows to deaf ears, but for the advent of that crucible of parties and policies — election day. The McClcllan men have pro- claimed a general exchan plank in their platfor.a and Humanitarianistn — sorry I cai i tor word, but the ference between that and Humanity is as great as between mousion and Uomoiousion, which kept Christendom in hot w for generations — Hui q, I therefore op. So the ingei I make a compromise between 104 PEISOXElt OF WAB. ' Justice and Expediency by exchanging only those who will not be fit for fighting until the present campaign is over ! and thus take the wind out of the Democratic sails, without sending a man to that army which the veracious Grant affirms is deserting to him at the rate of a Regiment a day ! Individually, my case is pitiable indeed. Full rations of beef, a quiet conscience and a good digestion, have left me in an awk- ward exuberance of health which precludes all hope of dischai'ge on the ground of unfitness for duty for sixty days. Indeed, I am afraid that protracted residence here may induce a physical conditionjwhich even the example of Louis le Gros,* Sobieski and Dixon II. Lewis could not reconcile me to, and I am forced, therefore, to seek an occasion of deliverance on grounds not hygienic. It occurs to me that it is incredible that so many misera.bles will be sent on a voyage South without attendants as nurses, and I am resolved to try the effect of an appeal for per- mission to accompany the sick in that capacity. October 3rd. The hospital examinations completed, the search for unavailables began to-day in the wards. At 10 o'clock, the camp was mustered by companies, and Major Colt accompanied by the Medical Staff and a Clerk to record the names, made a careful inspection on this wise. The prisoners, by company, being in line, Major Colt gave notice, that all who desired to be examined, must step three paces to the front. Each man thus presenting himself was examined, and those found unfit by reason of age, or sickness or wounds, were re- corded, while the rest were sent back sorrowing. This oper- ation and the making out of the rolls occupied several days and nothing else was talked of, or thought of in camp. At last, on the 8th, the lists were completed, some fifteen hundred were found "unfit for duty for 60 days,"— one sixth of the whole — and on the morning of the 9th, notice was given that the " paroles " would be taken that day. No news had, up to- this time, reached me as to the result of my application for detail as a nurse, and my hopes of deliverance received sun- dry rude shocks during the week from the announcement, confidentially made by one or two of the Yankee officers, that- FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 105 I should bo " the last rebel that should leave that pen/' a dis- tinction I was supposed to have attained by unusual bitterness of hostility to Yanks and Yankeedom, — Major Colt even hon- oring me, as I understand from a friend, by his imprimatur as the worst " seccsh" in camp. October 9th. Io triumphe ! Evoe I A knock at my door ten minutes after 9 ; my friend D. calls me out with the gravity of a Lord Chancellor, and, soflo voce, announces "Major Colt has just put your name down on the list." Un- fortunately the sumptuary regulations of the pen preclude the orthodox American fashion of expressing unlimited gratifica- tion, sol content myself with feeling as much joy as is consis- tent with sanity, and straightway go about disposing of my various importable chattels among less favored friends — the universal concomitant of emigration. Little was now done or talked of by any one except the ap- proaching Hegira of the. lucky candidates for exchange. Many a brawny fellow with the thews of Alcides Would glad- ly exchange his exuberant health and perfect strength, for the most helpless frame and the puniest limbs in the hospital, and numberless expedients to elude the vigilance, or corrupt the integrity of the examiners were practiced — with what success I am not here to tell. * Numerous parole lists having been made out, the fortunate ones signed their names, either in person or by proxy, to an obligation whereby they bound themselves, not to take up arms against the United States, nor to perform any guard or other military duty in the field, or at any post or elsewhere, during the War until duly exchanged. On the morning of the 11th, all .being in readiness the fourteen hundred for exchange were called out alphabetically, and in three squadd at different hours of the day, marched through the city from the pen to the Erie Kailroad Depot, where two trains of box cars stood waiting. I took leave of my companions, with the regret with which intimate association, such as that of prison, is sure to tinge the parting of the most callous, and from none with more than 14 106 PRISONER OF WAR. the excellent officer and gentleman who commanded the pris- on. His eyes filled as he bade me good-by at parting, and I fear my own were not altogether dry, as for the last time I wrnng the hand of the true man, and humane, courteous offi- cial, Major Colt. He handed me a memorandum as we part- ed, asking my kind offices for Lieutenant-Colonel John E. Strang of his Regiment, and I almost felt regret at hearing of Colonel S.'s release subsequently, as it prevented me from re- ciprocating on my return home, in some slight degree, atten- tions and courtesies, which I in common with all my Peters- burg comrades, had constantly received at the hands of this excellent officer. CHAPTER XVIII. Off fo^ Baltimore — Contraband Communication — Point Look" out Again — Yankee Petty Larceny — Jackson's Valley Cam- paign — Diagnosis — Afloat — A Gallant Officer — -Hampton Roads — Prizes and Prize Money — Hilton Head — Mitchel-town — Sa- vannah — Home. Our passage through Blmira did not excite quite the atten- tion, which marked our journey through the same streets- three months before, the curiosity of the Chemung Athenians having become satiated with such sights. Many citizens who dared to approach us Avith expressions of sympathy accom- panied us to the cars, and ministered as they were able to the comfort of the most needy, but there was none of the obtru- sive following and staring, with which we were honored on our first appearance. It was nearly night fall when we were " all aboard/' the FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 107 engines screamed and oft' we started for Dixie. We would scarcely have felt as much exhilaration had we known that the trip would take a full month! The events of the next forty hours, consist in the dismal items of a creeping ride over the "Northern Central" Pennsyl- vania Railroad, which leaves the Erie Road at Southport, and traverses the mast barren and uninteresting region of the Keystone State, through Harrisburg to the Maryland line, and on to Baltimore. I remember nothing particularly of this trip, except that whenever the train stopped, the guards robbed the nearest orchards; that I slept the first night in a space of thi' y six inches; that I consumed fabulous quantities of crackers ; that when I got into Maryland, we found various flags living in honor of the vote for emancipa- tion, given the day before; that for slowness of movement, I'll match that ride against even the traditions of the "old City Point " road — a comparison which exhausts the resources of reproach ; and finally that, after jolting enough to have killed twenty fashionables, we arrived in Baltimore on the morning of the loth, about 10 o'clock, with seven corpses in the dead car— 'the first toll of the reaper. A few ladies and children were at the depot — those who dareato brave the fines and dungeons, the imprisonment and insult, and exile, with which humanity and the natural yearn- ings of kin-ship are crushed out in loyal Baltimore ; but, I doubt not, there were th of hearts in that fair town that day, who would have thought it the highest honor to have been allowed to minister to the sick and dying in our • trains, and were only restrained from coming by their unwillingness to witness sufferings that they could not allevi- ate, while the mere effort would compromise them, without aiding us. The train had hardly slopped, when a gorgeously caparisoned 1 Maj>>r dashed into the little crowd of ladii ■ around the car nearest the street, with enquire ir relatives, and the less noble animal forced tfeem with a brutal sneer and an intimation in decided terms, that a renewal of the experiment of speaking to 108 PRISONER OF WAR. us, would infallibly result in their being sent to the common guard-house ! I was particularly sorry for this, as I desired to send a message to a friend in the city, and I resolved to evade the order prohibiting intercourse. Tearing a leaf from my note- book, I jotted down a few lines and rolling the letter in as small a compass as possible, I watched my opportunity when the guards were not looking in my direction, to hold it up with a gesture that attracted one of the ladies. ' As soon as a fair opportunity offered, I shot the "paper pellet " toward her, and was much gratified to observe the diplomatic non- chalance with which she put her foot on the missive, quietly continuing her conversation with a female friend meanwhile. A moment or two afterwards she accidentally let fall her hand- kerchief and stooping to recover it, picked up my note with it, and conveyed both to her pocket — all this without a look towards me. It was several minutes before she honored me with a glance of intelligence, which satisfied me my commu- nication was in safer hands than any mail system in Christen- dom could furnish. During the day, for it required all day to get us from the depot to the dock, several ladies remained near us ; by strate- gem, entreaty — any means, and every means — conveying to the wretched inmates of our train, coffee, bread, cakes, fruit, tobacco — anything in short that money could buy, or woman's kindness of heart suggest. Among these a few were conspic- uous in their zeal to serve us, and I remember best a courage, ous woman, with a true Baltimore face, dark eyes, a Southern complexion, lithe, graceful form, and features radiant and mo- bile with intelligence and beauty, and the divine glory of charity, who spent the long day in these ministrations, unawed by frowns, undismayed by threats, and conquering her native womanly disgust at the vulgar hirelings, that outstripped even Yankee heartlessness in the cruelty and brutality, with which they repulsed all efforts at communication with us. Her name in two hemispheres Is the synonym of all that is FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 109 noble, true and good, and from Pope's day to our own, has formed the best antithesis to " kDaves and fools and cowards." The sun was setting as I jumped on an ambulance well fill- ed with hospital equipage, and rattled oft* to the wharf, where three steamers were awaiting us. That night about 10|, we started for Point Lookout, whence we are to be reshipped. It was nearly dawn when I awoke to find our craft har*3 aground off Point Lookout ; but soon the tide rose and we steamed up to the dock, — a heavy sea running. Now commenced the troublesome and dangerous operation of getting the helpless sick ashore. A gangway plank was stretched from the side of the ship to two flour barrels stand- ing on the dock, and down this " shute " the poor helpless, maimed creatures were slid like coal into a vault. Those of us who were able, spent our time in alleviating the roughness of tbis original process of debarkation, and assisted in placing the sick and wounded in the ambulances which conveyed them to the hospital a quarter of a mile distant. Between the arrival of the first ship and the second, I walked to the hospital and deposited in the steward's room of No. 8, my "pack," expecting to return and get it when my duties on the wliarf were over. Unluckily I did not get it for two days, and of course, when I recovered it, everything valuable was stolen. This petty larceny was committed by a smooth-faced innocent, with a downy upper lip, who at that time acted as orderly for Dr. Thompson, the Chief Surgeon of the post. Three weeks afterwards, Dr. Thompson returned me one or two of the articles stolen, but allowed (I presume) his underling to keep the rest. This at least I know, that I furnished Dr. Th with a full description of the stolen goods, some of which I saw his orderly wearing the day I finally left the Point, bu aceived ept a trifling proportion of the whole. All this I regretted, mainly, be- cause I lost thereby several beautiful specimens of prison work that I was bringing home to my friends — and the only 110 PRISONER OF WAR. comfort I received from my comrades, was a -sneer at my gul- libility in leaving anything valuable out of my sight when Yankee soldiers were about. Towards' night-fall, the sick and wounded who required treatment having all been removed to the hospitals, the re- mainder of the prisoners were marched to the old " officers' pen," and turned in with the suggestion that we make our- selves as comfortable as possible ! — a rather grim joke that. While in line and before dismissal, I asked an officer who came with us from Elmira, to request permission for me to go and get my clothing, &c„ left at the hospital. He was re- pulsed in so rude a manner by Major Brady, the command- ant of the post, that he expressed to me his apprehensions that my property would certainly be stolen — a comfortable prophecy, as disagreeable as Cassandra's — and as true. Three months had elapsed since I left this pen on my way to Elmira, and I congratulated myself no lttle on my early return, and on the near prospect of falsifying the prediction of the great representative thief, coward and brute of Massachu- setts — now happily reporting at Lowell. Day after day, and week after week passed by, however, with no prospect of a move. While here, man}'- prisoners came in from the army of General Early, in the Valley, whose demoralization was conspicuous. How different the story of this unfortunate campaign against Sheridan, with its long catalogue of robbery and disaster, from the glories with which the immortal Jack- son illumined every hill-side of that long vale of the Shenan- doah ! When will that k marvelous story be written? Is there no one with the genius to comprehend, and the book- craft to do justice to that wondrous episode in this wondrous war — unparalleled save in the dazzling marvels of "The Campaign in Italy." Who will tell, in language worthy of the theme, how, with a few thousand infantry, poorly supplied with everything but valor and leadership, this illustrious captain swept ar r. army out of the field, defying num- bers, annihilating distance, despising labor, regardless of odds, (airly revelling in the gaudia certammis— preferring to FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. HI have, it would seem, three armies to fight at the same time, that the glorious boys might not fust with idleness. Bravo as " Lion Heart," modest as Sydney, in action as impetuous as Ney, in counsel cautious as Fabius, reticent as Wellington magnetic as Napoleon — there is not a meadow or mountain, top in all that lovely valley that is not alive with tribute to thia matchless chieftain, and yet, "History" hardly accords his grand camgaign a paltry page, and his name which woke the echoes of two hemispheres seems doomed to find no more enduring monument than the ephemeral record of hasty pam- phleteering, or lli traditions o nip. fires! Mevenons / The days dragged very wearily befe. As wo were all nominally sick men, the facetious Yankees put us on sick diet or half rations, and as there was no sutler and no chance, therefore, of eking out our allowance, we began to fear our enemies were in a fair way of unfitting us for active service for the balance of the war. It seems that we are to be kept here until five thousand arc accumulated, and then* deported. Having no other occupation, I undertook some duties in connection with the hospital— for wc had a hospital within the pen — and thus managed to endure the tedium of my cage by pious exercises in the shape of administering hospital slops and allopathic bolus In tl^p. midst of the pen was a pile of logs which the pris- oners used ;. ervatory to get the earliest information of the arrival of the "New York," the truce boat of Colonel Mnlford, U. S. Commissioner of Exchange, whose coming, it was thought, would ensure a spe it: but the Yankees took it into their sapient heads that there was something "irregular" in this, and our logs were pulled doAvn and all spying pat under the ban. We '. October 28th. An order came to diagnose us to-day, and it became necessary that every one should have a disease forthwith — at least on paper; \\ accordingly called up and asked our various complaints: being still in a vulgar condition of health, it 1 necessary for me to catch a disease suddenly: accordingly, i; soon became paiu- 112 PRISONER OF WAR. fully afflicted, and when called on by the doctor, I drawled out a disease with a name as long as a Nantucket "sea sar- pint," and was passed nem. con. This looks as though we were about to move, and Dixie stock is rising. Sunday, October 31st. Saturday we had a false alarm. We were ordered out, inspected, examined, and marched down to the dock where, in the offing the Arctic, Baltic and Northern Light are lying, and " then marched back again," to our measureless and unspeakable disgust. But to-day, we are off in earnest. About 11 a. m., we were summoned into line, our names called, our blankets and all contraband cloth- ing stolen from us, except in a few instances where the articles- were worthless, and then we Avere conducted to the wharf where a small steamer received us "in lots," and conveyed us to the Northern Light, which, with steam up, was lying about a half a mile out. The other transports were already laden with the most helpless of the prisoners — those who in the first instance had been taken to the hospitals. We scrambled Up the side of the fine steamer, formerly a mail and passenger ship in the California trade, now a govern- ment transport in the employment of Uncle Abe, at one thou- sand dollars a day besides her coal, and were marched in va- rious directions to the two lower decks of the ship, where hammocks of canvas had been slung in sufficient nurnbers to accommodate nine hundred men. Some twenty or thirty were separated by the Surgeon and kept on deck, for what purpose we never knew, and our little tug steamed ashore for another load. It was near night-fall when she returned, and as many of the prisoners were victims of night-blindness, I asked and obtained permission to assist them aboard, the dangerous foot- ing of the ladder inspiring them with uncomfortable appre- hension of a plunge overboard — and altho' Friar Peyton, told Henry VIII that the road to Heaven was as short by water as by land, the same is not as true of the road to Dixie. I had helped the last one aboard when a handsome, frank- looking sailor with as genial a face as ever bent over a binnacle, tapped mc on the shoulder and informed me that he wanted to 1'IVtf MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 113 see me "foYrerd." My military habit of obedience, I presume it must have been, that induced my instant compliance and under the guide of Samuel II. Rich, 1st officer of the ship, I soon found myself in his cabio, scrutinizing the pattern of his furni- ture through an excellent glass — whose make, I never knew. From this time I, in common with all my fellow-prisoners who had any intercourse with him, had occasion to bless the day that we fell into the hands of so clever a gentleman and capital an officer. A young man but an old seaman, he had circumnavi- gated the globe a half a dozen times, be th i same more or less, knew every foot of sea from Fulton Ferry to Van Dicmnn's Land, and possessed that ease of manner, that cosmopolitan heart and large fund 0;f information and anecdote which, with thorough professional knowledge, forms the highest type of sailor — almost the highest type of the social man. The management of the ship devolved on Mr. Rich, daring our stay aboard, the. captain being sick, and I had thereby occasion to observe the universal respect and good will which he com- manded from the whole crew. These, by the way, were an ex- ceptional party. Theresas not a Yankee among them, as far' as I discovered, and a more liberal set of enemies would be hard to find. As I have spoken of the captain, (Lefebre) I may mention that he was the officer who commanded the Vanderbilt, when she was down in Hampton Roads, threatening destruction to our Mcrrimac. "When the Merrimac threw all Yankeedom into such confusion early in 18G2, Lincoln sent for Commodore Vanderbilt, to advise with him as to wdiat was to be done with the monster. The Commodore informed him that there was no use trying to fight her, and the only chance wad to run her down; but, as the United States possessed no vessel of sufficient tonnage for that achievement, he presented Lincoln with tho Vanderbilt, a magnificent steamer of six thousand tons, and hurried to New York to put her in order for the great work. She had her upper works at once taken eff, a formidable battery of heavy timber and cotton bales put in, enforcing her bows with thirty solid feet of structure, and a heavy casing of cotton 15 114 PRISONER OF WAR. * bales put around her boilers. In this trim she was sent clown to Hampton Roads, and there lay for sixty days ; but, as the Merri- mac challenged the whole Yankee fleet for two days after her arrival, in vain, I presume the naval commandant at Fortress Monroe did not have as much faith as Vandcrbilt, in the suc- cess of the running down project. Monday, October 31st. Arrived off Old Point this morning. The harbor is filled with vessels of war, among which, I recog- nize the Minnesota, Susquehanna, Wabash, Shenandoah, Iron- sides, and any number ol iron-clads, M double-enders," &c, the whole floating, I understand, two thousand guns ! Commodore Lee has been superseded, on account, it is said, of too much love for the rebels, and Porter reigns in his stead. On each side, the war seems to have eliminated natives of the other from its service, until it has become a war of race rather than of institutions. Porter's vessel, the Malvern, lies a milo West of us. We remained in Hampton Ttoads until Tuesday the 8th. The Atlantic and Baltic lay near us, and every morning we saw cof- fins going over the side in numbers, which suggested uncomfort- able reflections on the uncertain tenure of life on a prison-ship. On the Atlantic alone, there were forty deaths during our stay in the harbor — a stay obviously unnecessary, and therefore, shamefully cruel, since it compelled the confinement of hundreds of sick men in the filthy and unventilated holds of large ships without proper food, medicine, or attendance. Captain Grey, of the Atlantic, protests loudly against the inhumanity of the procecdure, but circumlocution must have time. On the 2nd and 3rd, we were visited by a furious t-torin, during which Com- modore Porter steamed up to Portsmouth, out of the reach of danger, and there remained until Saturday. On the 4th, But- ler left for New York, whither he goes to keep the peace! The crew of our ship ;;re from New York, principally, and all Mc- Clellan men — their indignation at having the Brute sent to overawe their friends of "the bloody Sixth," is quite- refreshing, FIVE MONTHS AMONG THE YANKEES. 115 and they freely promise him a merry time if he interferes. They arc mistaken — no race ever bowed the knee to bayonets with such edifying humility as the Yankees. Saturday, 5th. The New York, Colonel Miilford's " ex- change " boat is alongside the wharf to-day, and any number of rumors fill the ship, of speedy departure. These are con. firmed somewhat by the arrival of Mr. Beebee, Agent of the Sanitary Commission, with large supplies for the Yankee pri- soners, who will be received in exchange for us. Some of these supplies failed to reach Savannah,* as the guards broke into the treasure to-night, and all got gloriously drunk on the liquid contributions of the Commission. • Sunday Gth. A prize steamer loaded with cotton came in to-day, and two more during the week. These vessels with their cargoes arc sold after condemnation by a prize court, and half the proceeds, turned over to the government. One- twentieth of the remaining half goes to the commandant of the North Atlantic squadron, and the rest is divided among the officers and crew of the capturi ssel. Under this rule, it is estimated that Porter's share of prize-mouey, while on duty here up to this time — about twenty-live days—will amount to twenty thousand . Last night we were aroused by an indiscriminate firing throughout the fleet, and on getting" on deck, found the harbor ablaze with colored lights, and guns going oil" in ever}- direction — a sham naval battle at night. This, and the constant drilling at the guns, with the daily practice of launch drill, indicate an early and 3 naval attack in some direction — probably AViln ton, and as an arm accumulating her ly more powerful than any ever set afloat from the days of the Argo- nauts, we for a powerful blow, when it is delivered. Boat loads of soldiers are constantly passing down the river. These arc patriol itripe) who arc being furloughed to go home I > vote — "no other need apply," At4| on the (.'veiling of Tu • 8tb, wo weighed an- chor, and in company with the Atlantic, Baltic, Illinois, Her- 116 PRISONER OF WAR. man Livingstone, and two or three empty transports, we start- ed for Hilton Head, where Ave arrived about 9 o'clock Thurs- day night. This, as the world knows, is the^om^' appui of the military operations of the enemy in South Carolina. Quite a village has sprung up in the harbor, and about a mile north of this is Mitchell-town, named after the astrono- mer General, who left his app opriate star-gazing in the Cin- cinnati Observatory to civilize Southern barbarians. Bat their country r . 1 their wrongs, by poisoning his blood, and that of "many a tyrant since," with the deadly malaria of the coast, and so ended that and all other mundane business for the "astronomer-royal" of Porkopolis. Mitchell-town is quite an inl g locality, as the scene of a grand edn al and civilizing experiment on the blacks whereby the problem of the unprovability of that singular race was sought to be solved. And, singular, indeed they are. For at lea:', forty centuries they have held undisputed posses- sion of a continent, and yens met us, v*ho sixty days thereafter passed sue mely ." loyal '■' resolutions at the bidding of Tecumseh ian, it is not pleasant now to dwell upon. Sixty di y are an se >n in these ti. Our arrival was the signal for a general massacre of all bipeds furnished wit ?rs, in that v , and the pri- soners fared sumptuously once more. five months among the Yankees. 119 Savannah is the most beautiful Atlantic city of the South, and we found in her long level streets and her spacious and elegant squares agreeable means of passing our walking hours. An interview with General McLaws enabled me to obtain passes for my fellow " militia men " and myself, and the next evening I bade adieu to Georgia. After numberless and most perilous adventures, such as infallibly befall those who go down into the land in railroad cars, I arrived in Petersburg on the night of Thursday — tired, hungry and unkempt, bnt pro- foundly grateful withal to that over-ruling Providence who had preserved me unharmed amid the pci ids of Yankee prisons, the raging ocean, and the Piedmont Iiailroadw An imperial autumn moon was Hooding t&e earth with a of silver .sheen, chequering the city with it3 splendid con- trasts of dreamy lights and bold, deep shadows, as^^rod its deserted streets, mouglied in many a quarter with the track of the crushing. '. shot; and the sharp perpetual ring of the picket's rifle, gave its martial echo to every foot-fall that pressed the pavement. Everything suggested strife, con- test, and the wreck and desolation of war. I passed the churches and found that their yards had been converted into burial grounds — the public cemetery being within reach of the enemy's guns, and therefore unapproachable. In many private grounds I noticed embankments with which bomb- proofs were covered, for iyoftiic citizens during the frequent bombardments. Many of the lower stories of dwell- ings were protected by -barricades of cotton bales: on every side, in a word, were monuments at once of the perils and the fortitude of the gallant people, who, through a siege of nine months, during which they have suffered every extremity of war, save famine, and almost that, have nobly and without the first murmur of complaint, devoted themselves and their all to the cause, coveting, as it were, the honor of civic martyrdom, from which so many others have meanly shrunk. Well and worthily did the noble little town win her title of " Cockade'' in 1812 ; and nobler and more indisputable is her right to the distinction now. // 120 PRISONER OF WAR. How suggestive was all this ! In leaving prison, I found I had not come to peace, but to the presence and the centre of war, and I read in the melancholy but mute lessons of the solemn, silent tombs that started like unbidden ghosts out of the shadow of each house of worship, the record o£ mortal dangers, not to men alone, but to inoffensive and helpless wo- men and children. Still there required no subtle philosophy to find abundant consolation amid all this — was I not with each step of my hurrying feet, fast approaching, nearer and nearer, to '.he welcome and the warmth of the lips and hearts and hearth of Home ?