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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons, by 
+Homer B. Sprague
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons
+       A Personal Experience, 1864-5
+
+Author: Homer B. Sprague
+
+Release Date: January 21, 2008 [EBook #24385]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFEDERATE PRISONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ [Illustration: Portraits of Fellow Officers in Prison
+
+ Left to right--Top line: Capt. Cook, Capt. Burrage
+ Middle line: Adj't. Gardner, Col. Sprague, Capt. Howe
+ Lower line: Lieut. Estabrooks, Adj't. Putnam]
+
+
+
+
+           _"Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit"_
+
+
+                     Lights and Shadows in
+                      Confederate Prisons
+
+                     A Personal Experience
+                            1864-5
+
+
+                              By
+
+                    Homer B. Sprague, Ph.D.
+                 Bvt.-Colonel 13th Conn. Vols.
+
+ Sometime Professor in Cornell and President of the University
+                        of North Dakota
+
+   Author of "History of the 13th Conn. Inf. Vols.," "Right
+         and Wrong in our War between the States," and
+            "The European War, Its Cause and Cure"
+
+
+                       _With Portraits_
+
+
+                      G. P. Putnam's Sons
+                      New York and London
+                    The Knickerbocker Press
+                             1915
+
+
+
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1915
+ BY
+ HOMER B. SPRAGUE
+
+ The Knickerbocker Press, New York
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note, whilst
+    more significant amendments have been listed at the end of the text.
+    Dialect and archaic spellings have been retained. The letter 'e'
+    with a macron has been transcribed as [=e].
+
+
+
+
+                       TO
+                 THE ALUMNI OF
+              THE UNIVERSITIES OF
+        YALE, CORNELL, AND NORTH DAKOTA
+
+      IN WHICH RESPECTIVELY THE AUTHOR WAS
+         STUDENT, PROFESSOR, PRESIDENT;
+                       TO
+      THOUSANDS OF HIS PUPILS YET LIVING;
+                       TO
+      HIS COMPANIONS OF THE LOYAL LEGION,
+  COMRADES OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC,
+      ALL SURVIVING OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS
+             UNION OR CONFEDERATE;
+ ALL WHO CHERISH THE MEMORY OF THE PATRIOT DEAD
+             AND ALL WHO HATE WAR,
+         THIS RECORD IS AFFECTIONATELY
+                   DEDICATED
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This narrative of prison life differs from all others that I have seen,
+in that it is careful to put the best possible construction upon the
+treatment of Union prisoners by the Confederates, and to state and
+emphasize kindnesses and courtesies received by us from them.
+
+For the accuracy of the facts stated I am indebted to a diary kept from
+day to day during the whole of my imprisonment, and to the best
+obtainable records. The exact language of conversations cannot of course
+always be remembered, but I aim always to give correctly the substance.
+
+I am aware that the opinions I express in regard to Sheridan's strategy
+at the Battle of Winchester are not those generally entertained. But I
+give reasons. His own account of the battle is sadly imperfect. To
+capture but five guns and nine battle flags at a cost of four thousand
+six hundred and eighty killed and wounded, and leave almost the entire
+rebel army in shape to fight two great battles within a month, was not
+the programme he had planned. Early said "Sheridan should have been
+cashiered."
+
+I shall be blamed more for venturing to question Lincoln's policy of
+subjugation. He had proclaimed with great power and in the most
+unmistakable language in Congress that "any portion of any people had a
+perfect right to throw off their old government and establish a new
+one." But now, instead of standing strictly on the defensive, or
+attempting by diplomacy to settle the conflict which had become
+virtually international, he entered upon a war of conquest.
+
+I do not blame him for refusing to exchange prisoners, nor President
+Davis for allowing them to starve and freeze. Both were right, _if war
+is right_. It was expedient that thirty, fifty, or a hundred thousand of
+us should perish, or be rendered physically incapable of bearing arms
+again. The "deep damnation of the taking off" was due not to individual
+depravity but to military necessity.
+
+                                                              H. B. S.
+ BRIGHTON, MASS., U. S. A.,
+          _1915_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                                      PAGE
+ PREFACE                                                                 v
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+ The First, or Forenoon, Battle of Winchester, Indecisive--Sheridan's
+     and Early's Mistakes--The Capture                                   1
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+ At Winchester--On the Road thence to Tom's Brook, New Market, and
+     Staunton                                                           17
+
+                               CHAPTER III
+
+ At Staunton--Thence to Waynesboro, Meacham's, and Richmond             32
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+ At Libby--Thence to Clover, Danville, Greensboro, and
+     Salisbury--Effort to Pledge us not to Attempt Escape               43
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+ At Salisbury--Great Plot to Escape--How Frustrated                     60
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+
+ From Salisbury to Danville--The Forlorn Situation--Effort to
+     "Extract Sunshine from Cucumbers"--The Vermin--The Prison
+     Commandant a Yale Man--Proposed Theatricals--Rules
+     Adopted--Studies--Vote in Prison for Lincoln and
+     McClellan--Killing Time                                            77
+
+                               CHAPTER VII
+
+ Exact Record of Rations in Danville--Opportunity to Cook--Daily
+     Routine of Proceedings from Early Dawn till Late at Night          93
+
+                               CHAPTER VIII
+
+ Continual Hope of Exchange of Prisoners--"Flag-of-Truce
+     Fever!"--Attempted Escape by Tunneling--Repeated Escapes by
+     Members of Water Parties, and how we Made the Roll-Call
+     Sergeant's Count Come Out all Right every Time--Plot to Break
+     Out by Violence, and its Tragic End                               106
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+
+ Kind Clergymen Visit us and Preach Excellent Discourses--Colonel
+     Smith's Personal Good Will to me--His Offer--John F. Ficklin's
+     Charity--My Good Fortune--Supplies of Clothing
+     Distributed--Deaths in Prison                                     120
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+ Results and Reflections--The Right and the Wrong of it All            138
+
+ APPENDIX                                                              153
+
+ INDEX                                                                 157
+
+
+
+
+Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons
+
+
+
+
+Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+  The First, or Forenoon, Battle of Winchester, Indecisive--Sheridan's
+    and Early's Mistakes--The Capture.
+
+
+"War is Hell," said our great strategist, General W. T. Sherman.
+According to its latest code, with few or no exceptions, the end
+justifies the means, and, if necessary to success, it is right to do
+wrong.
+
+Fifty years ago one of the fairest regions on earth was that portion of
+Virginia extending southwesterly about a hundred and twenty miles from
+Harper's Ferry to the divide beyond Staunton, where rise the headwaters
+of the James. Walled in by the Blue Ridge on the southeast and parallel
+ranges of the Alleghanies on the northwest, it takes its name from the
+beautiful river which winds along its length, and which the Indians
+poetically christened Shenandoah (Daughter of the Stars!). When some
+three hundred of us prisoners of war walked wearily a hundred miles from
+Winchester to Staunton in September, 1864, it was still rich and lovely.
+A few weeks later, the necessities of war made it a scene of utter
+desolation.
+
+    Grant had rightly concluded [says Sheridan[1]], that it was time to
+    bring the war home to a people engaged in raising crops from a
+    prolific soil to feed the country's enemies, and devoting to the
+    Confederacy its best youth. I endorsed the program in all its parts;
+    for the stores of meat and grain that the valley provided, and the
+    men it furnished for Lee's depleted regiments, were the strongest
+    auxiliaries he possessed.
+
+Accordingly Grant issued orders with increasing emphasis, particularly
+in August and September, to make the whole region "a barren waste," to
+
+    destroy or carry off the crops and animals; do all possible damage
+    to railroads; seize stock of every description; take away all negro
+    laborers so as to prevent further planting; hold as prisoners of
+    war, if sympathizing with the rebellion, all male citizens under
+    fifty years of age capable of bearing arms, etc.
+
+In obedience to these commands, Sheridan engaged with alacrity in the
+work of destruction. In a few weeks he reported as follows:
+
+    I have destroyed 2000 barns filled with wheat, hay, and farming
+    implements; over 70 mills filled with flour and wheat; and driven in
+    front of my army 4000 head of stock.
+
+Said one of his officers who knew whereof he was speaking, "A crow
+flying through the valley would have to carry his own rations, for he
+could pick up nothing!"
+
+At Winchester, the principal town in the Shenandoah Valley, one hundred
+and fifty miles N. N. W. of Richmond, with a population of about four
+thousand, the 19th of that September was a day of glory but also of
+sorrow. Four thousand six hundred and eighty of the Union Army, killed
+and wounded, told how dearly Sheridan's first great victory was gained.
+
+The battle was fought over three, four, or five square miles, east and
+north from Winchester, for the most part near the Opequon Creek, from
+which it is sometimes called the "Battle of the Opequon." To reach the
+field, the bulk of Sheridan's army, starting at three o'clock in the
+morning from Berryville ten miles east, had to pass through a gorge in
+which for a considerable distance the turnpike extends towards
+Winchester. Sheridan's plan at first was to bring his army, except
+Merritt's and Averell's Divisions of Torbert's Cavalry, through the
+defile, post the Sixth Corps on the left, the Nineteenth on the right,
+throw Crook's Army of West Virginia across the Staunton turnpike
+(leading southwest from Winchester), and so cut off all retreat up the
+valley. Meanwhile those two cavalry divisions were to make a long detour
+on our right to the north from Berryville, and close in upon the
+Confederate left. Sheridan felt sure of victory, for we outnumbered the
+enemy nearly two to one. Had our army got into position early in the
+morning, we should have captured or destroyed the whole of them.
+
+At early dawn McIntosh's Brigade of Wilson's Division of Torbert's
+Cavalry dashed through the ravine, closely followed by Chapman's Brigade
+and five batteries of horse artillery. Sheridan and his staff followed.
+They surprised and captured a small earthwork, and, though fiercely
+assaulted, held it till the van of the Sixth Corps relieved them.
+
+The narrow pass of the Berryville pike was so obstructed by artillery,
+ambulances, ammunition wagons, etc., that it was nearly eight o'clock
+before the Sixth Corps, which should have been in position with Wilson's
+Cavalry at sunrise, began to arrive; and it was fully two hours later
+when the Nineteenth Corps debouched and deployed. Here was
+miscalculation or bad management or both.
+
+This long delay, which the quick-moving cavalry leader Sheridan had not
+foreseen nor provided for, gave time for Early to call in the strong
+divisions of Generals Gordon, Breckenridge, and Rodes, from the vicinity
+of Stephenson's Depot several miles away. They left Patton's Brigade of
+Infantry, and a part of Fitzhugh Lee's Cavalry to oppose Torbert.
+
+Hearing nothing from Torbert, who had now been gone seven or eight hours
+on his circuitous route, Sheridan suddenly changed his whole plan of
+action, a perilous maneuver in the face of an active enemy while the
+battle is already raging intermittently. Instead of flinging Crook's
+Army of West Virginia, 17 regiments and 3 batteries, across the Staunton
+pike, to front northeasterly and cut off all possible retreat of the
+Confederates, he determined to move it to our right and deploy it in
+line with the Nineteenth. Doubtless this was best under the
+circumstances, though it left to the enemy the broad smooth highway as a
+line of retreat up the valley.
+
+Grover's Division (2d of the Nineteenth Corps) in four brigades formed
+line of battle in front and to the right of the gorge. In touch on the
+left was Ricketts' Division of the Sixth Corps, and resting on Ricketts'
+left was Getty's Division of the same corps. Getty had 16 regiments in
+line; Ricketts, 12 with 6 batteries; Grover, 20 with 3 batteries.
+
+Had Sheridan been able to strike Early by half-past eight with the Sixth
+and Nineteenth, he would have crushed him in detail. Had Early massed
+the divisions of Gordon, Breckenridge, and Rodes, and hurled them at the
+mouth of the canyon at ten o'clock while half of the Nineteenth was
+still entangled in it, he would probably have split our army into three
+parts, and destroyed those already arrived.
+
+It was now eleven o'clock, and the Army of West Virginia at last emerged
+from the defile. To make room for its movement in our rear behind
+Grover's Division, and to hold the enemy in play until it should have
+taken its place on the right of the Nineteenth, and perhaps to await
+there the appearance of Torbert's Cavalry, it was desirable that Grover
+should advance. Sheridan of course meant the whole front of the Sixth
+and Nineteenth to keep in a continuous line. At first it seemed to me
+that the regiments of the Nineteenth overlapped; but the lines of
+advance were slightly divergent, and wide breaks began to appear between
+battalions. Especially on the left of the Nineteenth a large and
+widening gap appeared; for Ricketts had been instructed to guide on the
+Berryville pike, and that bore away to the left and south.
+
+My battalion, the veteran Thirteenth Conn. Infantry, should have been
+led by my Colonel, C. D. Blinn: but he was sick the night before, and in
+the morning, at the crossing of the Opequon, he fell out, and left the
+command to me. He had no part in the battle. Our Thirteenth deserves a
+passing notice. It was the favorite regiment of General Birge, its first
+colonel.[2] When he was made brigadier, the regiment entered the brigade
+commanded by Colonel E. L. Molineux. Birge was never so happy as when
+riding into action, and Molineux, who had been severely wounded in the
+same battle with me, was not over-cautious. My regiment and both
+brigades, the first and second of Grover's Division, had caught the
+spirit of those two commanders. Quite generally they mistook the
+forward movement for an immediate charge.
+
+We had been under an intermittent fire for some time, but now the
+advance intensified the conflict. The chief anxiety of good soldiers at
+such a time, as I often noticed, is to get at the enemy as soon as
+possible, and cease to be mere targets. Their enthusiasm now accelerated
+their pace to a double-quick, and was carrying them too far to the
+front. Birge and Molineux endeavored in vain to check their rapidity. My
+battalion, I think, was nearest the rebel line.
+
+Between eleven and twelve the divisions of Getty, Ricketts, and Grover,
+forty-eight regiments in all, to which were attached eight light
+batteries with reserve artillery, began to move forward. It was a grand
+spectacle. At first the movement was steady, and we thought of Scott's
+lines,
+
+    The host moves like a deep-sea wave,
+    Where rise no rocks its pride to brave,
+    High-swelling, dark, and slow.
+
+But all is quickly changed.
+
+Looking back upon that scene after the lapse of more than fifty years,
+its magnificence has not yet faded. I see as in a dream our long bending
+wave of blue rolling slowly at first but with increasing speed,
+foam-tipped with flags here and there and steel-crested with Birge's
+bayonets yonder; glimpses of cavalry in the distance moving as if on
+wings with the lightness of innumerable twinkling feet; numberless jets
+of smoke across the fields marking the first line of Confederate
+infantry, their musketry rattling precisely like exploding bunches of
+firecrackers; batteries galloping to position, the thunder of a dozen
+smiting the ear more rapidly than one could count; the buzz, hiss,
+whistle, shriek, crash, hurricane of projectiles; the big shot from
+batteries in front and from Braxton's artillery on our right ripping up
+the ground and bounding away to the rear and the left; horses and riders
+disappearing in the smoke of exploding shells; the constant shouting of
+our officers indistinctly heard, and now and then the peculiar
+well-known "rebel yell"; and finally the command, HALT! LIE DOWN!
+Molineux and Birge were too far to the front, and the line must be
+rectified. Ricketts, as we pressed forward, had thrown Keifer's Brigade
+(2d of Third Division, Sixth Corps), seven regiments, into the
+broadening interval directly in front of the mouth of the gorge; but it
+was not sufficient.
+
+It was now Early's opportunity; but he was hours too late, just as
+Sheridan had been. He had seen our Sixth Corps and Nineteenth emerge
+and deploy, had beheld our rapid and somewhat disorderly approach, had
+noted the widening spaces between our battalions and divisions, had
+observed the havoc wrought by his artillery and musketry, ten thousand
+of our soldiers seeming to sink under it; had had time to mass his
+forces; and now it was "up to him" to hurl them against our centre. It
+was the strategy inaugurated by Epaminondas at Leuctra and perfected by
+Napoleon in many a hard battle, breaking the enemy's centre by an
+irresistible charge, dividing and conquering. Rodes had been killed at a
+battery in front of our brigade. His veterans and Gordon's, six thousand
+strong[3] constituted the charging column. Neither Sheridan nor any
+other Federal historian appears to have done justice to this charge.
+Pickett's at Gettysburg was not more brilliant.
+
+With yells distinctly heard above the roar they advanced. The batteries
+on each side redoubled their discharges. From our irregular line of
+infantry extending more than a mile blazed incessant sheets and spurts
+of flame, the smoke at times hiding the combatants. Gordon was heading
+toward the now nearly empty ravine. My horse had just been shot under
+me. I lost two in that fight. Dismounted I walked from the right of my
+battalion to the left, cautioning my men against wasting their
+ammunition, bidding them take sure aim, pick out the rebel officers, and
+not fire too high. They were shooting from a recumbent position, or
+resting on one knee; lying flat on their backs to reload. As I reached
+the left, I glanced to the right and saw several of them starting to
+their feet, and a little further on, two or three began to run back. I
+rushed to the spot shouting, "Back to your places!" I saw the cause: the
+regiments on our right were retreating. I was astounded, for we were
+expecting an order to advance instantly. At that moment Lieutenant
+Handy, an aide of our brigade commander, rode up, pale, excited, his
+hands flung up as if in despair. My men were springing to their feet.
+
+"What are those orders?" I demanded.
+
+"Retreat, retreat! get to the rear as fast as possible," he replied.
+
+"Battalion, rise up; shoulder arms--" I commanded. Before I could finish
+the order, one of Sheridan's staff came on a swift gallop, his horse
+white with foam.
+
+"For God's sake, what does this mean?" said he; "this retreat must be
+stopped!"
+
+"Battalion, lie down," I shouted; "our brigade commander ordered
+retreat!"
+
+"It's all wrong. If this position's lost, all's lost. Here you have some
+cover. Hold it to the last. I'll bring supports immediately." Striking
+spurs into his steed, he vanished in the direction of the retreating
+regiments.
+
+Except the few who had heard my command and remained in position,
+perhaps seventy-five or a hundred, who kept blazing away at the
+Confederates, rising a little to kneel and fire, Grover's Division, and
+all we could see of that of Ricketts, had gone to pieces, swept away
+like chaff before a whirlwind. Not a Union flag now in sight, but plenty
+of the "Stars and Bars!" Our sputtering fire checked some directly in
+front; but most of the on-rushing masses were deflected by the nature of
+the ground.
+
+Out of our view and about half a mile in our rear was Dwight's Division,
+the First of the Nineteenth Corps. It had been left in reserve. It was
+in line of battle and ready for the onset. The confused fragments of
+Grover were rallied behind it. Had the ground been favorable, and had no
+unexpected opposition been encountered, Gordon would have crushed
+Dwight.
+
+But in fewer minutes than we have occupied in describing this charge, a
+tremendous and prolonged roar and rattle told us that the battle was on
+behind us more than in front. Amid the din arose a quick succession of
+deafening crashes, and shot and shell came singing and howling over us
+from the left. Russell's Division (First of the Sixth Corps) comprising
+eleven infantry regiments and one of heavy artillery, behind which the
+broken battalions of Ricketts had been reassembling, was now smiting the
+right flank of Gordon's six thousand. Although the charge came too late
+we cannot but admire the strategy that directed it, and the bravery of
+the infantry of Gordon, Rodes, and Ramseur, as well as that of the
+cavalry of Lomax, Jackson, and Johnson, and of Fitzhugh Lee who fell
+severely wounded. But they had not foreseen the terrible cross-fire from
+Russell, who died at the head of his division, a bullet piercing his
+breast and a piece of shell tearing through his heart. Nor had they
+calculated on confronting the long line of Dwight, nine regiments with
+the Fifth New York Battery, all of which stood like a stone breakwater.
+Against it Gordon's masses, broken by the irregularities of the ground,
+dashed in vain. Under the ceaseless fire of iron and lead the refluent
+waves came pouring back. Our army was saved.
+
+But we few, who, in obedience to explicit orders from headquarters, had
+held our position stiffly farthest to the front when all the rest of
+Grover's and Ricketts' thousands had retreated--we were lost. A column
+behind a rebel flag was advancing straight upon us unchecked by our
+vigorous fire. Seeing that they meant business, I commanded, "Fix
+Bayonets!" At that instant the gray surges converged upon us right and
+left and especially in our rear. We seemed in the middle of the rebel
+army. In the crater of such a volcano, fine-spun theories, poetic
+resolves to die rather than be captured--these are point-lace in a
+furnace. A Union officer, Capt. W. Frank Tiemann of the 159th N. Y.,
+Molineux's Brigade, was showing fight, and half a dozen Confederates
+with clubbed muskets were rushing upon him. I leaped to the spot, sword
+in hand, and shouted with all the semblance I could assume of fierce
+authority,
+
+"Down with those muskets! Stop! I command you." They lowered them.
+
+"Who the hell are you?" they asked.
+
+"I'll let you know." Turning instantly to four or five Confederate
+officers, I demanded: "Do you mean to massacre my men?"
+
+Two or three replied: "No. By G--! You've shown yourselves brave, and
+you shall be respected. Yes, you fought d--d well, seein' you had the
+d--dest brigade to fight against in the whole Confederate Army."
+
+"What brigade are you?" I asked.
+
+"Ramseur's old brigade; and there's nothin' this side o' hell can lick
+it."
+
+"You're brave enough," said another; "but damn you, you've killed our
+best general."
+
+"Who's that?" I asked.
+
+"Rodes; killed right in front of you."
+
+"I thought Early was your best General."
+
+"Not by a d-- sight. Old Jubal's drunk--drunk as a fool."
+
+I was never more highly complimented than at this moment; but the
+stunning consciousness of being a prisoner, the bitterest experience of
+my life, the unspeakable disappointment, the intense mortification--these
+are even to this day poorly mitigated, much less compensated, by the
+excessive praises heaped upon me by those Confederate officers for my
+supposed bravery. That they were sincere I cannot doubt; for it was
+customary on the battle-field for the rebels to strip prisoners of all
+valuables, but no one of the fifty or one hundred near me was robbed.
+Tiemann, whose life I had perhaps saved, was even privileged to keep his
+canteen of whiskey, of which he gave me a drink by and by to keep me in
+good spirits! I realized the truth of Burns's lines:
+
+    Inspiring bold _John Barleycorn_!
+    What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
+    Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;
+    Wi' usquebaugh, we'll face the devil!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] _Personal Memoirs_, vol. i., p. 487.
+
+[2] In New Orleans it was known as "Butler's Dandy Regiment"; for it was
+then better dressed than any other. It wore dark blue, which Birge had
+procured through his uncle, Buckingham, the war governor of Connecticut.
+At the siege of Port Hudson it had distinguished itself above all other
+regiments by furnishing as volunteers nearly one-fourth of the
+celebrated "Storming Column" of one thousand men called for by General
+N. P. Banks the second day after the disastrous assault on that fortress
+(June 14, 1863). Birge was selected by Banks to lead the forlorn hope.
+
+[3] Six thousand is Gordon's statement in his _Reminiscences_, page 320.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+  At Winchester--On the Road thence to Tom's Brook, New Market, and
+    Staunton.
+
+
+There were two battles that Monday between Sheridan and Early, the first
+indecisive, though bloody, a drawn game; the second, after a comparative
+lull of several hours, a fierce struggle in which the whole front of the
+Sixth, Nineteenth, and Crook's Corps simultaneously advanced, and
+Torbert's Cavalry, arriving at last after their unaccountable delay upon
+our extreme right, made a magnificent charge crumpling up all the
+enemy's left. The victory was real, but not so complete as it should
+have been. Sheridan ought to have captured or destroyed the whole of
+Early's army. Instead, he had left them an open line of retreat. He took
+only five pieces of artillery, nine battle-flags, and some twelve or
+fifteen hundred prisoners; and, to use his own words, "sent the
+Confederates whirling up the valley."
+
+In the recoil of Gordon's brilliant charge of six thousand about noon,
+we prisoners were swept along into Winchester, and then locked in the
+old Masonic Hall. The sociable guards took pains to emphasize the
+statement that George Washington, "glorious rebel" they called him, had
+presided as Grand Master in that very room!
+
+After several hours we heard a great noise in the streets. Looking out
+we saw men, women, children, moving rapidly hither and thither, the
+current for the most part setting toward the southwest. The din
+increased; the panic became general; the Union Army was advancing on
+Winchester!
+
+We were hustled into the street now filled with retreating hundreds, and
+were marched rapidly along the turnpike toward the setting sun. The road
+crowded with artillery, army wagons, common carriages, all pouring along
+in the stampede; a formidable provost guard enclosing us prisoners in a
+sort of hollow column; cavalry in front, flank, and rear; the fields on
+either side swarming with infantry, the whole of Early's army in
+retreat, we apparently in the middle of it; Sheridan's guns still
+booming in our rear--such was the scene as we two or three hundred
+prisoners were driven on. Our mingled emotions can be better imagined
+than described. The bitter regret that we had not been slain; the
+consciousness that we had done our whole duty in facing unflinchingly
+the storm of shot and shell, never retreating an inch; the evident
+respect and even courtesy with which I was personally treated; the
+inspiring certainty that our army was victorious, the unspeakable
+mortification of being ourselves prisoners of war!--we sorely needed all
+our philosophy and all our religion to sustain us.
+
+Marching moodily along I was aroused from a sort of reverie by an
+experience far too common in those days. I had been sick the night
+before, and had worn my overcoat into battle. My horse was shot. The
+blood was spurting from him. As he seemed likely to fall, I leaped down.
+We were in the midst of a rapid advance and I had not time to throw off
+my overcoat. I was now carrying it swung over my arm. It was growing
+dark. A mounted soldier, whom I took to be an officer, rode up to my
+side and seized hold of the coat. He said, "I want that overcoat." I
+replied, "You can't have it." "I must have it." "You shan't have it." He
+tugged and I tugged, and as I was on foot and sober I nearly dragged him
+from his horse before he let go. During the tussle I repeatedly shouted,
+"Captain of the Guard--Help! Help!" The provost captain instantly came
+riding to the spot. "What's the matter?" he asked. "That rascal has
+tried to rob me of my overcoat," I answered, pointing to the villain
+who was beginning to slink away. The captain appeared to recognize him,
+said not a word to him, but whispered to me a moment later, "You are
+entitled to keep your overcoat."
+
+We had had little breakfast and no dinner nor supper, but we suffered
+more from thirst than hunger. Can we ever forget it? Will the long
+flight never end? On through Kerrstown without halting we march, with
+promise of rest and water at Newtown; no rest nor water there. On from
+Newtown with assurance of water at Middletown. Five minutes at
+Middletown, and a little muddy water that seems to aggravate our thirst.
+Farther on we cross a bridge under which the water is dashing as if in
+mockery, and the cry "Water! water!" rises from a hundred lips, the
+guard joining, for they are suffering like ourselves. Some comfort in
+that! Past midnight we reach Strasburg and are halted around an old
+wooden pump. It is broken! No water there. Still on and on at a
+snail-pace, up and over the almost interminable stretch of Fisher's
+Hill. At three o'clock in the morning we arrive at a place known by the
+classical name of Tom's Brook about twenty-five miles from Winchester.
+Never was nectar more delicious than the water of this stream, nor downy
+pillow more welcome than the sod on its banks. Without blankets or
+covering we sank in each other's arms for mutual warmth on the
+dew-drenched grass; and blistered feet and aching limbs and hunger and
+thirst and suffocating despair are all forgotten!
+
+Morning came unnoticed, except by those whom the keen cold permitted to
+sleep no longer. Towards noon we rose, washed without soap or towel,
+were made to form line, had our names taken, and received as rations a
+pint of flour per man, with a little salt, nothing else. How to cook or
+prepare the flour? We learned of the rebel guards a process not laid
+down in the cook-books. Mixing with water they made a stiff paste or
+dough. This they put around the end of a stick about the size and half
+the length of a walking cane. The end thus thickly coated they hold over
+a little fire till the smoke and flame have sufficiently hardened it.
+Then pull out your stick and you have a thick chunk or cylinder of
+bread, not quite so tough as a gun-barrel, but substantial!
+
+I contrived to keep a little memorandum book. In it I noted down that
+there were three hundred and eleven of us prisoners; two
+lieutenant-colonels, two majors, four captains, nine lieutenants, and
+two hundred and ninety-four enlisted men. These were in the march from
+Winchester. A few may have been added to our number at Tom's Brook.
+
+I have stated how it happened that none of those near me were robbed
+when captured. Those at a distance were not so fortunate; for, if
+circumstances permitted, the Confederates, being themselves sadly in
+want, often improved the opportunity to grab every article of value. At
+Tom's Brook I noted in my diary the following:
+
+    Major A. W. Wakefield, 49th Pa. Cav., was robbed of hat, blanket,
+    and $100 in money. Adjt. J. A. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav., was robbed of
+    cap, boots, mug, pocket-book and money. Lieut. Harrison, 2d Regular
+    Cav., was robbed of gold watch and money. Capt. John R. Rouzer, 6th
+    Md. Inf., was robbed by an officer of hat and $20 in money. Lieut.
+    Wesley C. Howe, 2d Mass. Cav., who recently died at Kansas City,
+    Mo., was robbed by Lieut. Housel of the 6th Va. Cav., of silver
+    watch, spurs, gloves, and $10 in money. Major August Haurand, 4th N.
+    Y. Cav., was robbed of a watch and $60 in money.
+
+It was a common practice to snatch from a Union prisoner his cap, and
+clap on in lieu of it a worn-out slouched hat; pull off his boots, and
+substitute a pair of clumsy old shoes. The plundering was so thoroughly
+done that it was poetically termed "going through" a captive!
+
+As I was the senior officer among the prisoners, and we seemed likely to
+remain a long time there, I went to the Confederate commander and
+besought him to allow our three hundred prisoners to occupy a barn near
+by. He refused. I then asked that we be allowed to build wigwams for
+shelter, as there was abundant material at hand. This too was not
+permitted. I also begged in vain that a surgeon should be got to dress
+the wounds of some of the prisoners.
+
+The second morning after our arrival, the sleeping men were aroused by
+the loud voice of Lieutenant Sargent of the 14th New Hampshire Regiment
+exclaiming: "If you give me any more of your lip, I'll annihilate you!
+I've but one arm" (his right arm was disabled by a shot), "but even with
+one arm I'll annihilate you on the spot, if you give me any more of your
+lip!" This was exceedingly gratifying, for it proved that at least two
+of us were not yet "annihilated!"
+
+During our sojourn at Tom's Brook the Confederates labored hard to
+induce us to exchange our greenbacks for their paper currency. Our own
+was sadly depreciated, one dollar of silver or gold being equal to two
+of greenbacks; but one in United States paper was equal in purchasing
+power to eight of theirs. They argued that our money would certainly be
+forcibly taken from us by rapacious guards farther south, and kindly
+offered us four for one. Sergeant Reed of the Provost Guard was quite a
+character. Like Gratiano in _The Merchant of Venice_, he talked loud and
+long, speaking "an infinite deal of nothing." He had a mania for
+watches. He told me he now had twenty-seven which he had obtained from
+Yankee prisoners, always paying them in good Confederate money. He set
+his heart upon a little silver watch of mine, which he said he wished to
+buy and present to one of his lady admirers. I asked:
+
+"Why do they admire you?"
+
+"Because of my bravery," he replied; "none but the brave deserve the
+fair."
+
+"If you are so brave, why are you back here? Why are you not at the
+front?"
+
+"Colonel, I've been in the forefront of the hottest battles. I've been
+fearfully wounded. I'll be hanged if I haven't been one of the bravest
+of the brave. Twice, Colonel, I was shot all into inch pieces; and so
+now I'm put on light duty!"
+
+On Thursday, the third day after our arrival, two "india-rubber men,"
+circus performers, of the 22d Indiana Regiment, gave an exhibition of
+"ground and lofty tumbling" for the entertainment of their fellow
+prisoners. They had somehow contrived to retain the gaudy costume of the
+ring. They were really skillful. While we were watching with interest
+the acrobatic performance, a squadron of the Confederate General
+Imboden's Cavalry dashed past us. Sergeant Reed, who had just made me an
+offer for my watch, sprang to his feet, exclaiming: "I swear! there must
+be a battle going on in front, for there goes Jimboden's Cavalry to the
+rear! Sure sign! I'll be hanged if we ain't gettin' licked again!" We
+had heard the cannonading in the distance, but paid little attention to
+it. The Richmond papers, announcing that Fisher's Hill was impregnable
+to the whole Yankee army, were said to have been received about an hour
+before the heights were actually carried by storm. Again Early's army
+was not captured, but sent "whirling up the valley."
+
+We prisoners thoroughly enjoyed the changed aspect of affairs. At first
+they marched us directly back a short distance up the slope towards the
+advancing Yankees; but they seemed suddenly to discover their mistake;
+they halted, faced about, and marched down. Hilarious and saucy, our
+boys struck up the song and three hundred voices swelled the chorus:
+
+    Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
+    Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom--
+      The Union forever! hurrah, boys, hurrah!
+      Down with the traitor! up with the star! etc.
+
+till Captain Haslett of the provost guard came riding into the midst
+with savage oaths shouting, "_Silence!_ SILENCE! SILENCE!"
+
+Twenty-seven miles, first through stifling dust and then through pelting
+rain, past Hawkinstown, Woodstock, Edenburg, Mount Jackson, brought us
+to New Market. On the march Colonel Brinton of a Pennsylvania regiment,
+a new arrival, planned with me an escape. He had campaigned through the
+valley, was familiar with the lay of the land, and said he had friends
+among the inhabitants. Our plan was to run past the guards in the
+darkness. As a preliminary step I cut off my shoulder-straps which were
+very bright. Within half an hour Sergeant Reed came up to me and asked,
+"Colonel, where's your shoulder-straps?" I replied, "I don't wear
+shoulder-straps now I'm a prisoner." "But, Colonel," he answered, "I've
+been lookin' at them shoulder-straps since we left Tom's Brook. I wanted
+to buy 'em of you for a present to one of my girls. I'll be hanged if I
+don't believe you're goin' to try to escape, and so you've cut off your
+bright shoulder-straps. But, Colonel, it's impossible. I'll be hanged if
+I hadn't rather lose any six of the others than to lose you." The fellow
+stuck closer to me than a brother all the rest of that night; so close
+that he lost sight of Colonel Brinton, who actually escaped about
+midnight at a place called Edenburg! Almost immediately Sergeant Reed
+came to me and asked, "Colonel, where's that other Colonel?" I answered:
+"You ought to know; _I_ don't!"--"I'll be hanged," said he, "if I
+haven't lost him, a-watchin' you!"
+
+At New Market they put us into a dilapidated church building. "The
+wicked flea, when no man pursueth but the righteous, is bold as a lion,"
+was repeatedly misquoted from the _Book of Proverbs_, and not without
+reason. We concluded if that interpretation was correct, we had reason
+enough for obeying the injunction in _Ecclesiastes_, "Be not righteous
+overmuch"; for the little jumpers were fearless and countless. They were
+reinforced by a Confederate deacon, who recommended two things:
+Confederate paper and "gospel piety"; the one would carry us safely
+through this world; the other through the next. He would be only too
+happy to furnish us the currency in exchange for our greenbacks.
+"Confederate treasury bills and true religion" was the burden of his
+song, till one of our literary officers, it was said, squelched him:
+"Deacon, your recipe of happiness, rebel paper and godliness--Confederate
+money and a Christian spirit!--reminds me of what Byron says in one of
+his wicked poems:
+
+    'Beyond all doubt there's nought the spirit cheers
+    Like rum and true religion!'"
+
+He subsided.
+
+We left New Market at noon, Saturday, September 24th, and marched all
+the afternoon and all night, past Harrisonburg, Mount Crawford, Mount
+Sidney, and Willow Springs, reaching Staunton, Va., about nine in the
+morning. On the march, forty-three miles in twenty-one hours, we were
+hungry; for the morning ration at New Market was scanty, and they gave
+us nothing more, except a small loaf of wheat bread. Some of the guard
+were kind to us. One of them, private John Crew, Co. E, 11th Alabama
+Regiment, unsolicited by us, and, so far as I am aware, without hope of
+any reward, would endeavor to bring us apples or other food, whenever we
+halted. I was careful to write his name in my diary.
+
+As we trudged along, a lively discussion of slavery ensued. Lieutenant
+Howard of the provost guard was a learned champion of the "peculiar
+institution," and I was a pronounced abolitionist. He was an ardent
+"fire-eater," to use the term then in vogue, and I, who had lost my
+position as principal of the Worcester High School by my defense of John
+Brown, was equally intense. Both were pretty well "posted" on the
+subject. He seemed to be familiar with the Bible and the proslavery
+arguments, including drunken Noah's "Cursed Canaan!" Moses Stuart's
+_Conscience and the Constitution_, Nehemiah Adams's _Southside View of
+Slavery_, and Rev. Dr. ---- (the name is gone from me) of Baltimore's
+Sermons. I was fresh from reading the arguments of George B. Cheever,
+Horace Bushnell, Henry Ward Beecher, Garrison, Phillips, and the rest.
+He proved that slavery among the Hebrews was a divine institution. I
+answered they were commanded to "undo the heavy burdens, let the
+oppressed go free, and break every yoke." He said Paul sent back the
+fugitive slave Onesimus to his master Philemon; I rejoined, "Paul said,
+'I send him back, not as a servant, but above a servant, a brother
+beloved; receive him as myself.'" He quoted the Constitution of the
+United States, the article commanding that fugitive slaves should be
+delivered back to their masters; in reply I quoted from Deuteronomy the
+"Higher Law," "Thou shalt _not_ deliver unto his master the servant
+which is escaped from his master unto thee." He quoted from the great
+speech of the magnificent Webster in the Senate, March 7, 1850, in which
+he urged all good citizens to obey the Fugitive Slave Law "with
+alacrity." Waxing hot, I quoted from Beecher:
+
+    As to those provisions which concern aid to fugitive slaves, may God
+    do so to us, yea and more also, if we do not spurn them as we would
+    any other mandate of Satan! If in God's providence fugitives ask
+    bread or shelter, raiment or conveyance at my hands, my own children
+    shall lack bread ere they; my own flesh shall sting with cold ere
+    they shall lack raiment. And whatsoever defense I would put forth
+    for mine own children, that shall these poor, despised, persecuted
+    creatures have at my hands and on the road. The man that would do
+    otherwise, that would obey this law to the peril of his soul and the
+    loss of his manhood, were he brother, son, or father, shall never
+    pollute my hand with grasp of hideous friendship, nor cast his
+    swarthy shadow athwart my threshold!
+
+The lieutenant finally cited the examples of "those glorious southern
+patriots who led the rebellion against England during the first American
+Confederacy," Washington, Patrick Henry, Madison, Jefferson, "every one
+a slaveholder," he proudly exclaimed. I happened to be cognizant of
+their views, and responded with some vehemence: "But Washington's hands
+were tied so that he could not free slaves till his death. He said it
+was among his first wishes to see some plan adopted for putting an end
+to slavery. Patrick Henry declared, 'I will not, I cannot justify it.'
+Madison expressed strongly his unwillingness to admit in the national
+Constitution 'the idea that can hold property in man.'" In a rather
+loud voice I quoted Jefferson, who, in view of our inconsistency in
+violating the "self-evident truth" that "all men are created equal,"
+solemnly affirmed, "_I tremble for my country, when I remember that God
+is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever_!" I had some
+reputation as an elocutionist in those days, and Sergeant Reed, who was
+listening with open mouth, broke in with, "I'll be hanged, Colonel, if
+you warn't cut out for a preacher! By-- I should like to hear you
+preach." The best reply I could make was: "You'll undoubtedly be hanged
+sometime; and if I were a minister, nothing would give me more
+satisfaction than to be present at your execution and preach your
+funeral sermon." He replied: "Now, Colonel, you don't mean that. You
+don't think I'll ever be hanged!"--"Indeed I do, if you don't stop your
+profanity and general cussedness."--"I'll be hanged, if I will," was his
+last word to me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+  At Staunton--Thence to Waynesboro, Meacham's, and Richmond.
+
+
+At Staunton we got a little more light on the value of Confederate
+paper. A chivalrous surgeon who accompanied the provost guard
+(Fontleroy, I think, was his name[4]) politely invited Captain Dickerman
+of the 26th Massachusetts and myself to take breakfast with him in a
+restaurant. We needed no urging. The Provost Marshal gave consent. The
+saloon was kept by a negro named Jackson. His entire stock of provisions
+consisted of nine eggs, the toughest kind of neck beef, bread and salt,
+coffee very weak, butter very strong. As we sat waiting, the doctor
+remarked with a lordly air that under ordinary circumstances he would
+not deign to eat with Yankees. I answered good-naturedly: "I'm as much
+ashamed as you can be; and if _you'll_ never tell of it, _I_ won't!" The
+food, notwithstanding its toughness, rapidly disappeared. Near the last
+mouthful the doctor said: "You two will have to pay for this breakfast,
+for I've no money." I had fifteen Confederate dollars remaining of
+twenty which I had received for a five-dollar greenback at Tom's Brook,
+and I answered: "Give yourself no anxiety; I'll foot the bill."--"Well,
+Jackson," said I to the sable proprietor, "what's the damage?" He
+replied, "I shan't charge you-ones full price. Let's see! Beef, seven;
+eggs, two--nine; coffee, three--twelve; bread and butter,
+three--fifteen; three of you--forty-five. I'll call it only thirty-six
+dollars!" I paid my fifteen; Captain Dickerman pleaded poverty; and the
+dignified doctor, who had so cordially invited us to partake of his
+hospitality, promised the disappointed Jackson that he would pay the
+balance at some future day ("the futurest kind of a day," was added in
+an undertone).
+
+Rejoining the three or four hundred prisoners, we found, besides the
+Confederate guards, a great crowd of spectators swarming around us. One
+of them, a fine-looking young man, wearing the blue uniform of a United
+States captain, made his way through the group, and handed me a
+twenty-dollar Confederate bill! The following dialogue ensued:
+
+"Here, Colonel, take that."
+
+"I thank you much. Who are you, so kind to a stranger and an enemy?"
+
+"I'm one whom you Yanks would hang, if you could catch me."
+
+"Why so? Who are you?"
+
+"I'm one of Morgan's guerrillas; wouldn't you hang me?"
+
+"I think I should, if you had much of this stuff about you" (holding up
+the twenty-dollar bill); "I've just paid fifteen Confederate dollars for
+an imaginary breakfast."
+
+"Good for you, Colonel. Here, take another twenty. Now you've forty.
+That'll pay for an imaginary dinner. Good-bye, Colonel! I have an
+engagement--to meet some of your cavalry. Remember, Morgan's guerrillas
+are not rascals, but gentlemen. Good-bye!" He vanished.
+
+About noon those of us who appeared unable to march farther were put on
+top of freight cars, and carried about a dozen miles east to Waynesboro.
+Here the railway crosses a stream, which encircles a little island just
+north of the bridge. The majority had to walk. At dusk that Sunday
+evening all had come. They put us on the island carefully guarded on all
+sides. Never was I more thankful. I had had something good to eat at
+Staunton; had got rested riding on the roof of the car; and I had my
+overcoat. Davy Crockett preferred a heap of chestnut burs for a pillow;
+but I followed the patriarch's example and chose a flat stone. People
+never allowed me to sing; but I dropped asleep repeating the stanza in
+Mrs. Adams's exquisite hymn.
+
+    Though, like the wanderer,
+      The sun gone down,
+    Darkness be over me,
+      My rest a stone,
+    Yet in my dreams I'd be
+    Nearer, my God, to thee!
+
+Towards midnight the cold became so keen that I rose and went to the
+side of a flickering fire. Here excessive misery was for a moment
+hardening the hearts it should have softened. Several prisoners were
+quarreling for a position nearest the embers, each angrily claiming that
+he had brought the fagots that were burning! Two or three hours later
+several of us attempted to slip past the sentries in the darkness, but
+were stopped before we reached the water.
+
+At earliest streak of dawn we were marched away. About two miles brought
+us to the Blue Ridge where the railroad tunnel pierces its foundations.
+We toiled up and on in time to see the sun rise. An ocean of fog lay
+around us. Never shall we forget how royally the King of Day scaled the
+great wall that seemed to hem in on every side the wide valley, and how
+the sea of mist and cloud visibly fled before the inrolling flood of
+light, unveiling green and yellow fields, flocks and herds, dark
+woodlands, dwellings yet asleep in peace and plenty, here and there the
+silver thread of a winding stream with lakes that mirrored the sky, and
+yonder the long stretches of those titanic fortifications encompassing
+all. We were reminded of Shakespeare's sunrise:
+
+    Full many a glorious morning have I seen
+    Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
+    Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
+    Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.
+
+At that instant a train of cars from Charlottesville came sliding along,
+and shot
+
+    Into the tunnel, like a lightning wedge
+    By great Thor hammers driven through the rock!
+
+The scene startled us by its sublimity, and for a few minutes the hungry
+forgot their craving, the footsore their pain, the hopeless their
+despair.
+
+That day's march, though not so long was as severe as any; we were
+exhausted. Private Dolan, Co. K, 159th N. Y., was barefoot. His feet
+were blistered and bleeding. I begged the commander of the provost
+guard, Captain Haslett, to allow him to get into an ambulance. My
+request was not granted. But we soon afterwards passed a large mansion
+in front of which were several girls and women apparently making fun of
+the unwashed "Yank" and evidently enjoying the spectacle. We were halted
+just as Dolan came limping along supported on one side by a stronger
+comrade. They saw his miserable plight, his distress, his swollen feet,
+and they heard of the stern command to shoot any prisoner who fell out
+or lagged behind. Their faces changed. With tears one or two implored
+the Captain to let him ride in the ambulance. He yielded to their
+entreaties. Southern ladies almost always seemed handsome to us, but
+these in my memory have the fairest faces. I thought of Lady Clare in
+_Marmion_, and the words still recur:
+
+    O Woman! in our hours of ease,
+    Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
+    And variable as the shade
+    By the light quivering aspen made;
+    When pain and anguish wring the brow,
+    A ministering angel thou!
+
+Two miles before we reached our temporary destination, Meacham's
+Station, my own strength utterly failed. I had borne up so long, partly
+to set an example of cheerful endurance, and partly from something like
+Mark Tapley's pride at coming out strong and jolly under the most
+depressing circumstances. I lay beside the road, remarking to Captain
+Haslett, who immediately came riding to the spot, "Captain, here's a
+fine chance to try your marksmanship; I can't march any further; shan't
+try to."--"Colonel," he replied with something of pity in his tone and
+manner, "I'm sorry to see you so used up. I'm sorry to be obliged to
+march you prisoners so hard. I have to keep out of the way of your
+damned cavalry. You may get into the ambulance." So into the ambulance I
+climbed with some difficulty, and immediately commenced my freemasonry
+on the driver. He responded to the signs. He proved to be an
+acquaintance of the Redwoods, a family in Mobile, one of whom had been a
+classmate of mine at Yale. He gave me some nice milk and some fine wheat
+bread. "As a Mason," said he, "I'll feed you; share the last crumb with
+you; but as a Confederate soldier I'll fight you till the last drop of
+blood and the last ditch."--"I hardly know which to admire most, your
+spunk or your milk," I replied. Thereupon he gave me another drink, and
+insisted on my imbibing a little of what he called "apple-jack." I was a
+"teetotaler"; but thinking the occasion warranted, I "smiled" upon it,
+"strictly as a medicine!" "Apple-jack" seemed to me the same thing as
+"Jersey lightning." He became quite friendly, but was horribly profane.
+"Look here," said he, "you seem to be a sort of Christian; cuss me if
+you don't! What in h--l are you Yanks all comin' down here for?"--"You
+have a gift at swearing," I said; "did you, among your other oaths, ever
+swear to support the Constitution of the United States?"--"Well,
+yes."--"That's what's the matter with us," I said, "we're keeping our
+oaths and you are breaking yours."--"To h--l with the Constitution of
+the United States! Our first duty is to our own State. We've a right to
+be an independent nation, and we will. I'm a guerrilla. If our armies
+are defeated, I'll fight you on my own hook. I'll fire on you from
+behind every tree and every rock. I'll assassinate every invader. I want
+you to remember that I'm a guerrilla."--"I like your _spirits_," I said.
+"They are worthy of a better cause."--"Take another swallow of 'em," he
+replied, handing me the canteen. I toasted him: "Here's hoping you
+gorillas will outlive the Southern Confederacy!"--"A d--d equivocal
+sentiment," observed my fire-eating, fire-drinking Masonic brother; "but
+here we are at Meacham's Station. Good-bye, Yank!"
+
+After our nineteen miles' march it was a most welcome relief to be
+placed on platform cars, though packed so closely that we could hardly
+stir. We objected that the cars had no tops. "All the better opportunity
+to study astronomy," they replied.--"The cars have no sides to keep off
+the wind."--"The scenery is magnificent," they rejoined, "and they'll
+answer for 'observation cars'; you have an unobstructed view."--"But the
+nights are growing cold."--"You'll keep warm by contact with each
+other." Mad at this mockery, hungry, half-frozen, squeezed like fish in
+a basket, we took little note of scenery or stars; but it was a comfort
+to believe that our discomfort was caused by the rapid advance of
+Sheridan's cavalry.
+
+More dead than alive, though hardly dead enough to bury, having been
+jolted along all the afternoon and all night, we reached Richmond about
+sunrise, Tuesday, September 27th. Numbering now nearly four hundred we
+were escorted through the streets to the notorious Libby prison and
+halted in front. The Union officers inside thronged the windows to see
+us come. On every face was a sad, despondent, pitying look, the most
+discouraging sight I ever saw. No smiles there nor among us. Conspicuous
+among them was the sorrowful countenance of Lieut.-Col. Charles H.
+Hooper of the 24th Massachusetts Infantry, with his long handsome auburn
+beard. Some one inside whispered loud enough for several of our "Four
+Hundred" to hear, "Hide your greenbacks!" We passed the word down the
+column, "Hide your greenbacks!"
+
+A few minutes revealed its significance. We were taken in a body in upon
+the lower floor. There Major Nat. Turner, prison inspector, cousin of
+the celebrated Dick Turner of unlovely reputation, made us a speech.
+
+    You will empty your pockets of all valuables. Such as are not
+    contraband of war, you will be allowed to retain. You will deliver
+    up all your Federal money. An equivalent amount in Confederate money
+    will be given you in instalments from time to time, or the whole
+    will be returned to you when you are exchanged. You will turn
+    pockets inside out. If you attempt to conceal anything, it will be
+    confiscated.
+
+We were made to step forward singly, and were searched. Our coats and
+vests were taken off, also our boots and shoes; and a Confederate
+officer felt very carefully of all our clothing to make sure that
+nothing was hidden. I "remembered to forget" that I had two ten-dollar
+greenbacks compressed into a little wad in one corner of my watch fob;
+and that corner escaped inspection. Dick Turpin never was the richer for
+that money. They examined suspiciously a pocket edition of the New
+Testament in the original Greek; but I assured them it was not some
+diabolical Yankee cipher, and they allowed me to keep it. I made the
+most of my freemasonry, and they permitted me to retain my overcoat. One
+of our prisoners, it was whispered, had secretly stuffed $1300 in
+greenbacks into his canteen, but all canteens were taken from us as
+contraband of war, and nobody but "Uncle Sam" profited by the
+concealment.
+
+Having "gone through" us, they incarcerated the officers in one room,
+the enlisted men in another.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] Dr. Fontleroy was a brother of Mrs. Major Whittlesey, one of my
+fellow professors, instructor in military tactics, at Cornell
+University. Whittlesey was a graduate of West Point, and, while there,
+had had cadet U. S. Grant under his command!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+  At Libby--Thence to Clover, Danville, Greensboro, and
+    Salisbury--Effort to Pledge us not to Attempt Escape.
+
+
+The two rooms at Libby adjoined each other on the second floor, but a
+solid brick wall was between them. When we entered, about a hundred and
+fifty officers were already there. The first thing that attracted my
+attention was an officer putting a loaf of bread through a small hole in
+the partition where one or two bricks were removable. He was feeding a
+hungry prisoner. A cap or hat nicely concealed the perforation.
+
+Libby has a hard name, but it was the most comfortable of the six
+Confederate prisons of which I saw the interior. With all his alleged
+brutal severity, of which I saw no manifestation, and his ravenous
+appetite for greenbacks, for which we could not blame him, Dick Turner
+seemed an excellent disciplinarian. Everything went like clockwork. We
+knew what to expect or rather what not to expect, and _when_! My diary
+for Wednesday, September 28, 1864, the day after our arrival, reads as
+follows:
+
+    The issue to us daily is
+                One gill of boiled beans,
+                One quarter gill of bean broth,
+                One half loaf of soft bread,
+                (Four ounces meat) and
+                A little salt.
+
+There was one inestimable boon, a copious supply of pure water.
+
+There were at this time no panes of glass, in fact no sashes, in the
+windows, and the wind swept freely through. The nights were becoming
+cold. Confederate sentries were on the lower floor and outside. They
+kept up a custom rather unusual, I think, during the war, of calling out
+in sing-song tones every hour the number of the post and the time, with
+occasional variations; _e. g._: "Post number fourteen, two o'clock, and
+all's well." Then the next sentinel would sing out, "Post number
+fifteen, two o'clock, and all's well." Then the melodious voice of the
+next, farther away and sadly unorthodox, "Post number sixteen, two
+o'clock, and cold as h--l!"
+
+Except one or two rickety tables and two or three old chairs, there was
+no furniture in the prison. Some of the officers had contrived to save
+a little money when searched, and with money it was possible to procure
+small articles slyly smuggled in contrary to orders; but most of us were
+disposed to sing with old Isaac Watts,
+
+    Dear Lord, and shall we ever live
+    At this poor dying rate?
+
+From the rear windows we were occasionally entertained with the sight of
+exploding shells, which the indefatigable Grant was daily projecting
+towards Richmond. Particularly was this the case on the thirtieth of the
+month, when the boys in blue captured Fort Harrison, and the next day
+when the Confederates made several gallant but unsuccessful attempts to
+retake it. At such times we could see some of the steeples or high roofs
+in Richmond thronged with non-combatants gazing anxiously towards
+Petersburg. The belief that our prison was undermined, a vast quantity
+of gunpowder stored in the cellar, and that Dick Turner had threatened
+and was desperate enough to blow us all into eternity in case of a
+sudden dash of our cavalry into Richmond, somewhat marred the
+satisfaction with which we contemplated the evident progress of the
+siege. We could sympathize with the Philadelphia Friend, who said to his
+wife on the introduction of gun-cotton, "What comfort can thee take,
+even when sitting in thy easy chair, when thee knows not but the very
+cushion underneath thee is an enormous bomb-shell, ready upon the
+slightest concussion to blow thee to everlasting glory?"
+
+At three o'clock, Sunday morning, October 2d, we were roused by the
+entry of armed men with lanterns. They furnished each of us with a dirty
+haversack containing what they called two days' rations of corn bread
+and meat. Then they moved us single-file down stairs. As we passed, they
+took from each his blanket, even those the officers had just bought and
+paid for. If we expostulated, we were told we were going to a place
+where we should not need blankets! For my freemasonry or some other
+unexpressed reason, they allowed me to pass, wearing my overcoat. Then
+they took us by bridge across the James River, packed us in box-cars on
+the railway, forty to sixty in each car, and started the train southwest
+towards Danville.
+
+The road-bed was bad and the fences on either side were gone. We made
+but four or five miles an hour. One of our officers declared that they
+kept a boy running ahead of the engine with hammer and nails to repair
+the track! also that they put the cow-catcher on behind the last car to
+prevent cattle from running over the train! At nine o'clock in the
+evening we reached a place called Clover. We passed the night in Clover!
+on the bank beside the railroad, where we studied astronomy! and
+meditated!
+
+Next morning they repacked us, and we were transported seventy miles
+farther to Danville. My memorandum book mentions a conversation I had on
+the way with a very young and handsome rebel, one of the guard. He was
+evidently ingenuous and sincere, pious and lovable. After a few pleasant
+remarks he suddenly asked:
+
+"What are you Northerners fighting for?"
+
+"In defense of the Constitution and the Union. What are _you_ fighting
+for?"
+
+"Every right that is sacred and dear to man."
+
+"What right that is sacred and dear to man had the United States ever
+violated before you fired on Fort Sumter?"
+
+Of course he fell back on the Declaration of American Independence, that
+"Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed";
+also on the doctrine so emphatically expressed by Abraham Lincoln in his
+speech in Congress in 1846; viz.:
+
+    Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the
+    right to raise up and shake off the existing government, and form a
+    new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most
+    sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the
+    world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people
+    of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of
+    such people, that can, may revolutionize and make their own of as
+    much territory as they inhabit.
+
+We arrived at Danville at noon. A heavy rain began to fall. Having been
+two days without opportunity to wash, we were drenched for an hour or
+two by the sweet shower that seemed to pour from the open windows of
+heaven. When our thoughtful guards concluded that we were sufficiently
+cleansed and bleached, they sheltered us by putting us into coal cars,
+where the black dust was an inch deep. That dust was fine! but the
+thought seemed to strike them that our nicely laundered garments might
+get soiled. So in half an hour they took us out and placed us in corn
+cars. It rather went against the grain, but finally I sat down with the
+other kernels on the floor. The weather being inclement, they felt it
+their duty to keep us in doors, lest we should catch cold!
+
+In these elegant and commodious vehicles we were transported next day
+till we reached Greensboro, North Carolina, about fifty miles southwest
+from Danville. Disgorged like poor old Jonah after three days' living
+burial, we were placed in the beautiful open square, and never before
+did air, earth, trees, and skies seem lovelier. Here they gave each of
+us three horny crackers, "rebel hardtack," out of which some of us
+carved finger rings that might have passed for bone.
+
+In those days I was too much addicted to making public speeches, a habit
+which I had contracted in Yale College. On the edge of the public green,
+backed by a hundred prisoners, I was haranguing a crowd of curious
+spectators, telling them how abominably we were treated, exhibiting to
+them our single ration of flinty biscuit, and consigning them all to
+everlasting perdition, when a well-dressed young man elbowed his way to
+me at the fence. He had a large black shiny haversack swung under his
+left arm. Patting it with his right hand, he asked:
+
+"Will you have a snack?"
+
+"A what?" I answered.
+
+"A snack, a snack," he said.
+
+"I don't know what a 'snack' is, unless it's a _snake_. Yes, I think I
+could eat a copperhead--_cooked_. Snake for one, if you please; well
+done."
+
+He thrust his hand into his haversack; took out and gave me the most
+delicious sandwich I ever tasted. Seeing how I enjoyed it, he emptied
+the satchel, giving all his food to my hungry fellow prisoners. He told
+me he was just starting on a long journey, and had laid in a good stock
+of provisions. I took pains to write in my journal his name and
+residence--"George W. Swepson, Alamance, North Carolina. Lives near the
+Court House." To which I added "_Vir et Amicus_."--"The blessing of him
+that was ready to perish" was upon George W. Swepson.
+
+That night we slept again on the ground and without covering under the
+open sky; and again several prisoners, Captain Howe and myself among
+them, attempted in vain to slip past the sentinels.
+
+Next morning we reëntered the freight cars. A twelve hours' ride brought
+us at nine o'clock, Wednesday evening, October 5th, to our destination,
+Salisbury, North Carolina. As the "Four Hundred" passed into the dark
+enclosure, we were greeted with the cry, "Fresh fish! Fresh fish!" which
+in those days announced the arrival of a new lot of prisoners. We field
+officers were quartered that night in a brick building near the
+entrance, where we passed an hour of horrors. We were attacked by what
+appeared to be an organized gang of desperadoes, made up of thieves,
+robbers, Yankee deserters, rebel deserters, and villains generally,
+maddened by hunger, or bent on plunder, who rejoiced in the euphonious
+appellation of _Muggers_! We had been warned against them by kindly
+disposed guards, and were not wholly unprepared. They attacked us with
+clubs, fists, and knives, but were repeatedly driven off, pitched
+headlong downstairs. "_Muggers!_"
+
+Salisbury prison, then commonly called "Salisbury penitentiary," was in
+the general form of a right-angled triangle with base of thirty or forty
+rods, perpendicular eighty or ninety. In a row parallel to the base and
+four or five rods from it were four empty log houses with a space of
+about four rods between each two. These, a story and a half high, had
+formerly been negro quarters. On each side of the great triangle was a
+stout tight board fence twelve or fifteen feet high. Some two or three
+feet from the top of this, but out of our sight because on the other
+side, there was evidently a board walk, on which sentinels, four or five
+rods apart, perpetually paced their beats, each being able to see the
+whole inside of the enclosure. At each angle of the base was a shotted
+field-piece pointing through the narrow opening. We could see that
+behind each cannon there was a number of muskets stacked and vigilant
+soldiers watching every movement inside. Close to the fence outside
+there were three camps of Confederates, variously estimated to contain
+from seven hundred to two thousand in all.
+
+The number of Union officers in prison after our arrival was about three
+hundred and twenty; the number of non-commissioned officers and privates
+was suddenly increased from about two thousand to some eight thousand.
+Among these were non-combatants, refugees, lighthouse keepers, and other
+government employees. Albert D. Richardson, then well-known as a
+correspondent of the New York _Tribune_, whose romantic marriage to Abby
+Sage by Henry Ward Beecher and whose tragic death created a sensation in
+the newspaper world, had been held as a prisoner there for several
+months. He told us he had found Salisbury a comfortable place. It
+immediately ceased to be such.
+
+There stood the empty log houses. We besought the rebel commandant,
+Major Gee, to allow us officers to occupy those buildings. He said he
+would permit it on condition that we should sign a stringent parole,
+binding us on our honor not to attempt to escape! We objected to it as a
+preposterous requirement that, remaining under strict guard and wholly
+cut off from communication with the outside world, we should sign such
+a pledge as the only condition on which we could receive decent shelter.
+I asked Major Gee if the rigor of our confinement would be in any way
+relaxed. He answered bluntly, "No."--"Well, where's the reciprocity?" I
+demanded; "what are you giving up?"--"Well," he replied, "if you don't
+choose to sign the parole, you can't have the buildings. Other Federal
+officers have not objected to signing it." He showed us the signature of
+Gen. Michael Corcoran, who had been colonel of the 69th New York, was
+captured at the first battle of Bull Run, was promoted to be brigadier,
+and who raised the so-called "Corcoran Legion." Our senior officer,
+Brig.-Gen. Joseph Hayes of the Fifth Corps, now called a meeting of the
+field officers, and submitted the question, "Shall we sign the parole,
+and so obtain shelter? Or shall we hold ourselves free to escape if we
+can, and so share the privations of our enlisted men, who have no bed
+but the ground and no covering but the sky?" I spoke strongly against
+making any promise. We voted almost unanimously against it.
+
+General Hayes and others then urged upon the commandant the absurdity
+and meanness of requiring it. It was clear to us and must have been so
+to him that it was for his interest to separate the three or four
+hundred officers from the thousands of prisoners accustomed to obey our
+orders. He finally consented that we should occupy the houses without
+imposing any conditions.
+
+Parallel to the front of these buildings, about five rods from them and
+extending across the enclosure, was a so-called "dead line," on which
+nine sentinels paced their beats. Another "dead line" about four rods
+from the high fence paralleled the whole length of each side of the
+prison. It was death to come near these.
+
+About eighty officers were assigned to each of the four houses. In each
+an officer was elected to serve as house-commissary. His duty was to
+receive the rations from Lieutenant-Colonel Hooper, already mentioned,
+acting as commissary-general, to whom the Confederate authorities
+delivered them in bulk. The house-commissary distributed the food and
+acted as agent representing the house in all communications with
+Confederate headquarters. Col. Gilbert G. Prey of the 104th N. Y. Vols.
+was elected commissary of house number one; Capt. D. Tarbell, of Groton,
+N. Y., commissary of house number two; Lieutenant Reilly of
+Philadelphia, of house number three; and I of house four.
+
+Each house contained but two rooms, a lower and an upper, both empty,
+for the most part without glass windows or even sashes; the spaces
+between the crooked logs not stopped up; a single fireplace in each
+house, but not half enough wood to keep a blaze; without tables,
+benches, or chairs; without cooking utensils; without table, knife,
+fork, spoon, or plate; often without cup or dish; without blankets, or
+any clothing but the scantiest summer outfit; without books or papers;
+without water sufficient for washing, or soap, if we could possibly get
+water; we were in a sorry plight as the nights grew colder. And if the
+prospect was bad for us, how much worse for our soldiers across the
+"dead line," who had no shelter, hardly a scrap of blanket! Every rain
+made their beds a pool or mass of mire. It is not pleasant, but it is a
+duty to record some of the shadows of our prison life, "lest we forget."
+
+On the open ground outside of what was called the "hospital," October
+8th, a sergeant-major was found dead; October 9th, two private soldiers;
+October 13th, five; October 14th, two; October 16th, eleven; October
+17th, seven; October 18th, nine. We could tell how severe the weather
+had been at night by the number found dead in the morning.
+
+Not far from the prison enclosure was an abundance of growing timber.
+More than once I besought Major Gee to allow our men to go, under guard
+on parole, to get wood for fires and for barracks. He refused. He said
+he was intending to build barracks for the prisoners as soon as he could
+procure lumber. I presume that he was sincere in this. I asked in vain
+for blankets for the men; for tents, but none came till December, and
+then but one "Sibley" tent and one "A" tent per hundred prisoners, not
+enough for one-third of them.
+
+We procured water from a deep well on the grounds. The supply was so
+scanty for the thousands of prisoners that it was always exhausted
+before sunrise. Soon after we came the Confederates commenced digging
+two new wells. At their rate of progress we reckoned it would take
+several months to finish either.
+
+My memorandum book shows that the issue of food daily at Salisbury,
+though sometimes partly withheld, was for each prisoner "one half loaf
+of soft bread; two, three, four, or five ounces of meat; a gill of
+boiled rice, and a little salt." I have no doubt that Major Gee meant to
+deal fairly with us; but he was unprepared for the avalanche that had
+descended upon him. We are too much in the habit of blaming individual
+combatants for severities and cruelties that are inherent in the whole
+business of war, either civil or international, and inseparable from it.
+Said our Lieut.-Gen. S. M. B. Young at a banquet in Philadelphia, "War
+is necessarily cruel; it is kill and burn, and burn and kill, and again
+kill and burn." The truth was more bluntly expressed by the British
+Rear-Admiral Lord Fisher, now the first sea lord of the British
+Admiralty:
+
+    Humanizing war? [said he]; you might as well talk of humanizing
+    hell! When a silly ass got up at the first Hague Peace Conference in
+    1899, and talked about the "amenities of warfare" and putting your
+    prisoners' feet in warm water and giving them gruel, my reply, I
+    regret to say, was considered brutally unfit for publication. As if
+    war could be "civilized"! If I am in command when war breaks out, I
+    shall issue as my orders, "The essence of war is violence.
+    Moderation is imbecility. _Hit first, hit hard, hit everywhere._"
+
+In this light we may view more charitably the slaying, on the 16th of
+October at Salisbury, of Second Lieutenant John Davis of the 155th N. Y.
+It was a Sunday morning about half-past ten o'clock. One of our fellow
+prisoners, Rev. Mr. Emerson, chaplain of a Vermont regiment, had
+circulated notice that he would conduct religious services in the open
+air between houses number three and four. The officers were beginning to
+assemble when the sharp report of a musket near by was heard. Rushing to
+the spot, we found the lieutenant lying on his back dying at the "dead
+line." The sentinel on the fence, a mere boy, had fired upon him, and
+was now reloading. One of our number, Captain William Cook, unable to
+restrain his anger, hurled a large stone at him. But the hundreds of
+Confederates in the camps just beyond the fence had sprung to arms at
+the sound of the firing; the top of the fence was being lined with
+soldiers; and the vigilant cannoneers at the angles were training their
+artillery upon our dense mass of officers. We prisoners regarded the
+shooting as a brutal murder. The religious exercises were turned into a
+funeral service. Chaplain Emerson prayed, "O God! our only refuge in
+this dark hour, avenge the atrocious murder of our beloved comrade;
+protect that widow so cruelly robbed of one dearer to her than life; and
+especially grant that this accursed Confederacy may speedily sink into
+its native hell!" His text was from _Isaiah_ viii, 12: "Say ye not a
+Confederacy!" Next day I asked the officer of the guard if any
+punishment was to be inflicted upon the sentinel. He answered: "No; we
+don't punish men for doing their duty."
+
+So vitally important is the point of view in deciding upon the right or
+wrong of an act.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+  At Salisbury--Great Plot to Escape--How Frustrated.
+
+
+When we arrived at Salisbury early in October, we found there a brave
+and sagacious officer, Lieut. Wm. C. Manning of the 2d Massachusetts
+Cavalry. He told us he had been held as a hostage in solitary
+confinement, and would have starved but for the rats he caught and ate.
+He had been notified that his own life depended upon the fate of a
+person held in federal hands as a spy. He determined to attempt an
+escape. He was assigned to my house. Taking up a part of the floor, he
+commenced digging a tunnel. He wrote a solemn pledge which all the
+officers in the house signed, binding them not to divulge the scheme.
+The tunnel would have had to be about eight rods long, and its outlet
+would necessarily have been near a group of rebel tents. Of course it
+would have been discovered on the morning after its completion, and not
+all could hope to find egress that way. But he believed that his life
+was still in special danger, and he at once began excavating. The house
+had no cellar, but there was plenty of room under it for stowing away
+the loose earth. The ground was not hard, yet it was quite firm, and on
+the whole favorable for such operations. The work was progressing
+finely, till the officers were suddenly removed from Salisbury in
+consequence of the discovery of a great plot.
+
+I had become a good deal interested in Manning and his tunnel plan, and
+on the morning of Wednesday, October 12th, I introduced him to General
+Hayes, our senior officer. He told us he had for several days been
+considering the possibility of organizing the three or four hundred
+officers, and the five to ten thousand soldiers. He believed that by a
+simultaneous assault at many points we could seize the artillery, break
+the fence, capture the three rebel camps, then arm and ration this
+extemporized army, and march away. He showed us a good map of North
+Carolina. He invited all of the field officers to meet that evening in
+the garret of house number two. All of them accordingly, about thirty in
+number, were present. Posting sentinels to keep out intruders, and
+stopping the open windows so that the faint light of a tallow candle
+might not betray us or create suspicion, we sat down in the gloom.
+
+The general had modestly absented himself, in order that we might be
+uninfluenced by him in reaching a decision; but our first step was to
+send for him, and then insist on his taking the chair--_the_ chair, for
+we had but one! As he had made a careful study of the subject, we
+pressed him to give his views. He proceeded to state the grounds of his
+belief that it was practicable to strike an effective blow for our
+liberation. He told us that he had communicated with a Union man
+outside, and had learned the number and location of the Confederate
+troops we should be likely to encounter on our march to East Tennessee.
+He explained at some length the details of his plan, the obstacles we
+should encounter, and how to overcome them. I shall never forget the
+conclusion of his speech. These were almost exactly his words:
+
+    We must organize; organize victory. The sooner we act the better,
+    provided we have a well-arranged plan. We can capture this town,
+    ration our men, provide them with shoes, clothing, and muskets, and
+    have a formidable army right here at once. It need not take more
+    than half a day. Certainly we can march off within twenty-four hours
+    after the first blow is struck, if we begin right. The enemy have a
+    few guns on the hill, but they are not "in battery". We can take
+    these and take the artillery here right along with us. The
+    principal obstacle is here; make the beginning right; master these
+    prisons and these camps, and we are safe. Organize is the word;
+    _organize_. If any one shall betray us, or aid the rebels, or be
+    guilty of robbery or other outrage, I am in favor of a drumhead
+    court martial and a summary execution. Now, gentlemen, I am ready to
+    serve in any capacity, whether to lead or to follow.
+
+Colonel Ralston of the 24th N. Y. "dismounted cavalry," as they were
+called, spoke next. He was an energetic and dashing officer who fell
+near me in an attempt to break out of Danville prison on the tenth of
+the following December. He entered into the particulars of a plan of
+action, showing how easy it would be, with the probable loss of but few
+lives, to capture the three camps with the Salisbury arsenal and the
+artillery. As his particular share in the work, he said he would
+undertake with a small company to disarm the twenty or thirty sentinels
+inside the enclosure, and instantly thereupon to capture the
+headquarters of Major Gee.
+
+Other officers gave valuable suggestions. Being called upon for my
+opinion, I spoke of the duty we owed our enlisted men to extricate them
+from their shocking condition, for they were beginning to die every
+night on the bare ground, and would soon be perishing by scores. I urged
+the effect the escape of some eight thousand prisoners would have upon
+the nation, being equivalent to a great victory; and, better than
+victory, it would add so many thousands of trained soldiers at once to
+our armies in the field. I insisted that this success would be cheaply
+bought, even if it cost, as it probably would, a hundred lives.
+
+Of all our thirty field officers, only one opposed the scheme
+(Lieut.-Col. G----). He was acknowledged to be brave,[5] but seemingly
+lacking in enterprise. He said in substance, "I have carefully examined
+the situation, and have come to the conclusion that it is utterly
+useless to attempt to escape by force. It can't be done at present. We
+should be slaughtered by the hundred. If you all vote to try it, I will
+join you; but in my opinion it is perfect madness."
+
+With but one dissenting voice it was resolved to go ahead. A committee
+of five was immediately appointed to prepare and present a plan of
+action. This committee were Colonel Ralston; Col. W. Ross Hartshorne,
+190th Pa. (the famous "Bucktail Regiment," whose first colonel, O'Neil,
+my Yale classmate, was killed at Antietam); Col. James Carle, 191st Pa.;
+Major John Byrne, 155th N. Y.; and myself, Lieutenant-Colonel of the
+13th Conn. We were supposed to be fighting men, and had all been wounded
+in battle.
+
+A similar meeting of field officers was held the following evening. For
+two days the committee was almost continually in consultation with
+General Hayes. Great pains was taken to have the plans fully understood
+by all the officers and to secure their hearty coöperation. By ingenious
+methods frequent communication was had with the enlisted men across the
+"dead line"; sometimes by hurling written communications ballasted with
+stone; several times by Lieutenant Manning and others running swiftly
+past the sentinels in the dark; best of all, because least liable to
+discovery, by the use of the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. We were suffering
+for want of water, and several officers got permission to go outside the
+enclosure ostensibly to procure it, but really to reconnoitre.
+
+The committee reported the following plan, which was unanimously
+adopted:
+
+The first object in the movement being to get into a hand-to-hand fight
+as soon as possible; seven columns, each several hundred strong, were to
+make simultaneous assaults upon six or seven different points. The fence
+being the first impediment, every man's haversack and pockets were to
+be filled with stones to keep down the sentinels who would fire on us
+from the top. Some got levers to wrench off boards, others logs to serve
+as rude battering rams, others sharpened stakes which Ralston called
+"Irish pikes," others clubs, or any possible weapon. I had a rusty old
+bayonet.
+
+Major David Sadler, 2d Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery, with his battalion
+was to rush and seize the cannon and muskets at the angle on the right;
+Major John Byrne and his column at the same instant were to pounce upon
+the big gun and muskets at the angle on our left; simultaneously Colonel
+Ralston and his men are to dash upon the nine sentinels on the "dead
+line" in front of the officers' houses, in a moment disarming them and
+the nine of the relief just arriving; then spring to the assistance of
+Major August Haurand of the 4th N. Y. Cavalry and his battalion who are
+capturing Major Gee's headquarters and guards and camp on our right.
+Col. James Carle, 191st Pa., with his hundreds is breaking through the
+fence and capturing the rebel camp in rear of the officers' quarters.
+Colonel, afterwards General, W. Ross Hartshorne and his 330 men of the
+190th Pa. are to break the fence just above the main rebel camp which is
+on our left. My own column of about three hundred men of the Nineteenth
+Corps are to break the fence just below the rebel camp; then Hartshorne
+and I are to leap from opposite sides upon this, the main camp. These
+seven battalions were to some extent organized with field, staff, and
+company officers. Every officer and soldier was to be on the _qui vive_
+a little before five o'clock in the morning, watching intently for the
+signal. This was to be the waving of a fire-brand by General Hayes in
+front of house number two.
+
+Quite a number of officers had no faith in the plot, and they regarded
+it with indifference. A few expressed hostility to it. One captain, who
+had been a prisoner before and seemed glad to have been captured again,
+a bloated, overgrown, swaggering, filthy bully, of course a coward,
+formerly a keeper of a low groggery and said to have been commissioned for
+political reasons, was repeatedly heard to say in sneering tones in the
+hearing of rebel sentries, "_Some of our officers have got escape on the
+brain_," with other words to the like effect. Colonel Hartshorne finally
+stopped such traitorous language by saying with tremendous emphasis:
+"Captain D----, I've heard a good deal of your attempts to discourage
+officers from escaping, and your loud talk about officers having 'escape
+on the brain.' Now, sir, I give you notice that if you're again guilty of
+anything of the sort, I'LL--BREAK--YOUR--HEAD--WITH--A--CLUB!"
+
+The time agreed upon for the seven simultaneous attacks was about an
+hour before sunrise the morning of October 15th.
+
+As we had feared, the rebel authorities, whether through suspected
+treachery or otherwise, got wind of our purpose. Towards evening of
+October 14th extraordinary vigilance on their part became apparent.
+Troops were paraded, posts strengthened, guards doubled, privileges
+restricted, and word was passed around in our hearing that a battalion
+of Confederates had just arrived. Their watchfulness seemed unrelaxed
+through the night. The shooting of Lieutenant Davis next morning was
+doubtless in obedience to orders for a more rigorous enforcement of
+rules.
+
+Our outbreak was countermanded and postponed, but preparations
+continued. The delay enabled us to perfect our plans, and make our
+organizations more complete. The early morning of October 20th, the 19th
+being the anniversary of my birth, was now fixed upon for the
+"insurrection." We essayed to disarm suspicion by an air of quiet
+acquiescence in the lazy routine of prison life, or absorption in the
+simplest and most innocent occupations whenever any Confederate might
+be looking on.
+
+We recognized united and instantaneous action at the signal on the part
+of three hundred officers and several thousand men as the most vitally
+important element of success. It was necessary that this should be
+thoroughly understood and emphasized, so that every soldier should be in
+perfect readiness at the critical moment.
+
+Several of us had formed a class for oral instruction in French. Our
+teacher was Captain Cook of the 9th U. S. colored troops, a graduate of
+Yale. About ten o'clock in the morning of October 18th, as we were
+seated on the ground near house number four, loudly imitating Professor
+Cook's _parlez-vous_, Lieut. Wm. C. Gardner, adjutant of one of those
+extemporized battalions of prisoners, brought me a letter he was
+intending to throw across the "dead line" to Sergt. Wallace W. Smith,
+requesting him to notify all enlisted men of the battalion when and
+where to assemble silently next morning in the dark, how to arm
+themselves, from whom to take orders, what signal to watch for, and
+other important matters. I glanced through it, and immediately said:
+"You'd better not entrust the communication to so hazardous a channel;
+wait an hour till I've done with my French lesson, and I'll cause it to
+be transmitted by the deaf-and-dumb alphabet." If I recollect rightly,
+either Lieutenant Tobey or Lieutenant Morton, both of the 58th
+Massachusetts, was in the class, and promised to convey the contents of
+the letter safely across to the soldiers by adroit finger manipulation.
+We were just finishing the French exercise, when Adjutant Gardner came
+greatly excited, and this conversation followed:
+
+
+"Good God, Colonel, the rebs have got that letter! I tied it to a stone
+and flung it a long ways over the 'dead line' to Wallace Smith. He
+appeared afraid to pick it up. A reb sentinel stepped away from his beat
+and got it."
+
+"I requested you to wait till I'd done reciting French, and I told you
+I'd then communicate it by the deaf-and-dumb alphabet."
+
+"Well, Colonel, I ought to have done so; but I was anxious to have the
+work done promptly, and I thought it was perfectly safe. I've tossed
+letters over to Smith several times. I'm worried to death about it.
+What's best to do?"
+
+"Was your name signed to it?"
+
+"No; but my name was on the envelope--an old letter envelope that I had
+when we came here."
+
+"Well, Gardner, this is a pretty piece of business! That letter of
+course will go very soon to Major Gee's headquarters, and then--there'll
+be the devil to pay!"
+
+"The sentinel handed the letter to the officer of the guard. What had I
+better say, if they send for me?"
+
+"Say you intended the letter to fall into their hands; that you meant it
+as a practical joke, wanted to get up another scare, and see the
+Johnnies prick up their ears again."
+
+"But, Colonel, like a fust-class fool I put a ten-dollar Confederate
+bill in the envelope. I wanted to give it to Sergeant Smith. That don't
+look as if I meant it to fall into their hands--does it?"
+
+"Gardner, this thing has an ugly look. You've knocked our plans of
+escape in the head--at least for the present. You've got yourself into a
+fix. They'll haul you up to headquarters. They'll prove by the letter
+that you've been deep in a plot that would have cost a good many lives.
+They're feeling ugly. They may hang or shoot you before sundown, as a
+warning to the rest of us to stop these plots to escape. They may send
+for you at any minute."
+
+"What had I better say or do?"
+
+"You'd better make yourself scarce for a while, till you've got a
+plausible story made up. Better disguise yourself and pass yourself off
+as somebody else; so gain time."
+
+"I have it, Colonel; I'll pass myself off as Estabrooks."
+
+
+Estabrooks was an officer of the 26th Mass., who had escaped at the
+crossing of the river Yadkin two weeks previously when we came from
+Richmond. Gardner was a handsome man and perhaps the best-dressed
+officer in prison; but he now disguised himself.[6] The transformation
+was complete. In half an hour a man came to me wearing a slouched hat
+and a very ragged suit of Confederate gray. He had been a play-actor
+before the war and knew how to conceal his identity. By his voice I
+recognized him as Gardner! "Well, Gardner," said I, "this surpasses His
+Satanic Majesty; or, as you would say, beats the devil!"--"Colonel," he
+replied, "I'm not Gardner. Gardner escaped; escaped at the crossing of
+the Yadkin River. I'm Estabrooks, H. L. Estabrooks, 2d Lieutenant, 26th
+Mass. Call me Estabrooks if you please."--"All right, Estabrooks it is."
+
+Hardly had we had time to whisper around this change of name, when the
+Confederate officer of the guard made his appearance with two or three
+soldiers, inquiring for the commissary of house number four. I was
+pointed out to him. In substance and almost in the exact words this
+dialogue ensued:
+
+
+"Colonel Sprague, are you commissary of this house?"
+
+"I have that honor."
+
+"I want to find Lieutenant Gardner."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Lieutenant Gardner."
+
+"Who's Lieutenant Gardner?"
+
+"I am told he's an officer in house number four; and as you are
+commissary, you can probably tell me where he is _at_."
+
+"Where he's what?"
+
+"Where he's _at_."
+
+
+This was the first time I had ever heard the word _at_ so used at the
+end of a sentence; but it expresses the meaning with admirable
+precision. I had a slight qualm at lying; but I remembered that even
+George Washington could tell a lie if necessary in war. Pacifying my
+conscience with the fact that we were _outside_ the house at the time, I
+said:
+
+
+"There's no such officer in house four. But I remember an officer of
+that name at Libby, handsomely dressed, a perfect dandy. I heard that he
+escaped at the crossing of the Yadkin River two weeks ago. Has he been
+recaptured, and is he going to be shot or hanged? Or have you a letter
+for him? What's the good news about Gardner?"
+
+"I only know," he replied, "that he's wanted at Major Gee's office, and
+he's an officer in house number four."
+
+"Estabrooks," said I to the man at my side, "do you know of a Lieutenant
+Gardner?"
+
+"I did know slightly such a man at Libby. You have described him well; a
+fop, a beau, a dandy; just about my size, but he didn't wear rags like I
+do."
+
+
+"Come with me," said I to the Confederate. "We'll go into the house and
+inquire if any one knows of a Lieutenant Gardner." We went in. There
+were perhaps thirty or forty inside who had got wind of what was going
+on. As we entered, I asked in a loud voice, "Does any officer in this
+house know anything of a Lieutenant Gardner?" Several smiled and
+declared it a very singular name. One wanted to know how it was spelled!
+A number were speaking at once. One said he escaped at the Yadkin; he
+knew he got away, for he "watched him till he got a long distance out of
+sight." Another knew a Henry J. Gardner, "a Know-Nothing" governor of
+Massachusetts, who knew enough to keep out of the army. Another affirmed
+that Gardner was dead; he had heard him say "I'm a dead man," and he
+wouldn't tell a lie! My memory is somewhat indistinct of all that was
+said; but Gardner is alleged to have whispered the officer thus: "I have
+been a gardener myself; and if Major Gee will parole me and give me good
+clothes and something to eat, I wouldn't mind becoming again a gardener
+in his employ." I recollect distinctly that the officer grew impatient
+and he finally asked me, "Do you say on your honor, Colonel, that you
+don't know a Lieut. Wm. O. Gardner in this house?" I answered, "I do";
+but I left him to guess whether I meant "I do _know_" or "I do _say_!" I
+quieted my conscientious scruples by remembering that the lieutenant's
+true name was not Wm. O. but Wm. C.! The baffled officer left very
+angry, and "_Where's Gardner at?_" passed into a conundrum.
+
+Late that afternoon, as I was engaged in the delightful employment of
+washing my fall-and-winter shirt, having for the first time since our
+arrival in Salisbury obtained sufficient water for that purpose, the
+order came for all officers to fall in and take the cars for Danville,
+Va. The juxtaposition of three or four hundred Yankee officers with
+eight thousand of their enlisted comrades-in-arms was getting
+dangerous.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] He had killed three men with his sword at the time of his capture.
+
+[6] "We run the boy into one of the houses, clipped his hair, shaved
+him, and placed a new robe on him."--_Letter_ of Capt. Wesley C. Howe to
+Colonel Sprague, Jan. 30, 1914.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+  From Salisbury to Danville--The Forlorn Situation--Effort to "Extract
+    Sunshine from Cucumbers"--The Vermin--The Prison Commandant a Yale
+    Man--Proposed Theatricals--Rules Adopted--Studies--Vote in Prison
+    for Lincoln and McClellan--Killing Time.
+
+
+At six o'clock, Wednesday evening, October 19, 1864, we officers, about
+350 in number, were packed in five freight cars, and the train was
+started for Danville, Va. The tops of the cars were covered with armed
+guards, two or three being also stationed within at the side door of
+each car. In the darkness about half-past nine Lieut. Joseph B. Simpson
+of the 11th Indiana slyly stole all the food from the haversacks of the
+guards at the door of our car and passed it round to us, while we loudly
+"cussed and discussed" slavery and secession! About midnight Captain
+Lockwood, Lieutenant Driscoll, and eight or ten other officers leaped
+from the cars. The guards opened fire upon them. Lockwood was shot dead.
+Several were recaptured, and some probably reached the Union lines in
+safety. We arrived at Danville at noon October 20th.
+
+The town at this time contained four, formerly six, military prisons,
+each a tobacco house about eighty to a hundred feet long by forty to
+fifty wide, three stories high, built of brick, low between joints. The
+officers were put into the building known as prison number three. We
+were informed by the guards that it had formerly contained about two
+hundred negro prisoners; but that some had died, others had been
+delivered to their masters or set at work on fortifications, and the
+number remaining just before our arrival was only sixty-four. These were
+removed to make room for us.
+
+Except about twenty large stout wooden boxes called spittoons, there was
+no furniture whatever in prison number three. Conjecture was rife as to
+the purpose of the Confederates in supplying us with spittoons and
+nothing else. They were too short for coffins, too large for wash bowls,
+too shallow for bathing tubs, too deep for tureens! To me much
+meditating on final causes, a vague suspicion at length arose that there
+was some mysterious relation between those twenty oblong boxes and a
+score of hogsheads of plug tobacco, said to be stored in the basement. A
+_tertium_ QUID, a solution of the tobacco, might afford a solution of
+the spittoon mystery!
+
+A dozen water buckets were put into each of the two upper rooms to which
+all the officers were restricted; also a small cylinder coal stove;
+nothing else until December, when another small stove was placed there.
+Winter came early and unusually cold. The river Dan froze thick. It was
+some weeks before we prevailed upon the prison commandant to replace
+with wood the broken-out glass in the upper rooms. The first floor was
+uninhabitable.
+
+So with no bed nor blanket; no chairs, benches, nor tables; no
+table-ware nor cooking utensils; not even shovel, poker, or coal-scoop;
+most of us were in a sorry plight. The little stoves, heated white-hot,
+would have been entirely inadequate to warm those rooms; but the coal
+was miserably deficient in quality as well as quantity. The fire often
+went out. To rekindle it, there was no other way than to upset the
+whole, emptying ashes and cinders on the floor. At best, the heat was
+obstructed by a compact ring of shivering officers, who had preëmpted
+positions nearest the stoves. They had taken upon themselves to "run"
+the thing; and they did it well. We called them "The Stove Brigade." In
+spite of their efforts, they like the rest suffered from cold.
+
+Three or four of us, as a sanitary measure, made it a point to see, if
+possible, the funny, or at least the bright side of everything, turn
+melancholy to mirth, shadow to sunshine. When every officer complained
+of cold, we claimed to anticipate the philosophers, Tyndall, Huxley, and
+the other physicists, in declaring that "heat is a mode of _motion_,"
+and brisk bodily exercise will infallibly demonstrate the fact! When, as
+was usually the case, all were hungry, we announced as a sure cure for
+indigestion, "stop _eating_!" When our prisoner chaplain Emerson on a
+Sunday afternoon prayed for the dear ones we expected to see no more,
+and even the roughest and most profane were in tears, we said with old
+Homer, "_Agathoi aridakrues andres_" ("Gallant men are easily moved to
+tears"), or with Bayard Taylor, "The bravest are the tenderest, the
+loving are the daring."
+
+Most humiliating of all was the inevitable plague of vermin. "Hard
+indeed," one officer was accustomed to say, "must have been Pharaoh's
+heart, and tougher yet his epidermis, if the lice of the third Egyptian
+plague were like those of Danville, and yet he would not 'let Israel
+go.'" Wearing the same clothing night and day, sitting on the bare
+floors, sleeping there in contact with companions not over-nice, no
+patient labor, no exterminating unguent, afforded much relief. We lost
+all squeamishness, all delicacy on the subject, all inclination for
+concealment. It was not a returned Danville prisoner who was reported to
+have gone into a drug store in New York stealthily scratching and
+saying, "I want some unguentum; don't want it for myself; only want it
+for a friend." But it was reported and believed that in April one of
+them entered an apothecary shop in Annapolis plying his finger-nails and
+hurriedly asking, "Have you any bmsquintum?"--"From your manner,"
+answered the courteous druggist, "I think what you want is
+unguentum."--"Yes, _run git 'em_; I guess that _is_ the true
+name."--"Unguentum, sir"; said the shopkeeper. "How much unguentum do
+you want?"--"Well, I reckon about two pound!"--"My dear sir, two pounds
+would kill all the lice in Maryland."--"Well, I vow I believe I've got
+'em!"
+
+Lieut.-Col. Robert C. Smith of Baltimore, who took command of the
+Danville prisons soon after our arrival, appeared to be kind-hearted,
+compassionate, but woefully destitute of what Mrs. Stowe calls
+"faculty." He was of medium height, spare build, fair complexion, sandy
+hair, blue eyes, of slightly stooping figure; on the whole rather
+good-looking. He was slow of speech, with a nasal twang that reminded me
+of Dr. Horace Bushnell. His face always wore a sad expression. He had
+been a student at Yale in the forties a few years before me. Once a
+prisoner himself in our hands and fairly treated, he sympathized with
+us. He had been wounded, shot through the right shoulder. When I visited
+on parole the other Danville prisons in February, a Yankee soldier was
+pointed out to me as wearing Colonel Smith's blood-stained coat, and
+another was said to be wearing his vest. I had repeated interviews with
+him, in which he expressed regret at not being able to make us more
+comfortable. He said more than once to me, "I have no heart for this
+business. It requires a man without any heart to keep a military prison.
+I have several times asked to be relieved and sent to the front." An
+officer of forceful executive ability might have procured for us lumber
+for benches, more coal or wood for the stoves, some straw or hay for
+bedding, blankets or cast-off clothing for the half naked; possibly a
+little food, certainly a supply of reading matter from the charitably
+disposed. Single instances of his compassion I have mentioned. I shall
+have occasion to speak of another. But the spectacle of the hopeless
+mass of misery in the four Danville prisons seemed to render him
+powerless, if not indifferent. As Mrs. Browning puts it:
+
+                            A red-haired child,
+    Sick in a fever, if you touch him once,
+    Though but so little as with a finger-tip,
+    Will set you weeping; but a million sick!
+    You could as soon weep for the rule of three,
+    Or compound fractions!
+
+Like too many officers both Union and Confederate, he was often in
+liquor; liquor was always in him. This "knight of the rueful
+countenance," of the sad heart, the mourning voice, the disabled right
+arm, and the weakness for apple-jack!--his only hope was to have an
+exchange of prisoners; but Lincoln and Stanton and Grant would not
+consent to that. The last I heard of him was when a letter of his was
+shown me by Lieutenant Washington, a Confederate, a distant relative of
+the great George. In it Smith, who had been absent a week from Danville,
+complained that he had had "no liquor for three days," and that he was
+"painfully sober"!
+
+"Necessity," says the old apothegm, "is the mother of invention." It was
+surprising, how much we accomplished in a few weeks towards making
+ourselves comfortable. Bone or wood was carved into knives, forks,
+spoons, buttons, finger-rings, masonic or army badges, tooth-picks,
+bosom pins, and other ornaments; corn-cobs were made into smoking
+pipes; scraps of tin or sheet-iron were fashioned into plates for eating
+or dishes for cooking; shelves were made by tying long wood splinters
+together; and many "spittoons," which were soon rendered superfluous,
+because the two entire rooms were transformed into vast spittoons, were
+inverted, and made useful as seats which we called sofas.
+
+Many ingeniously wrought specimens of Yankee ingenuity were sold
+clandestinely to the rebel guards, who ventured to disobey strict
+orders. No skinflint vender of wooden nutmegs, leather pumpkin-seeds,
+horn gunflints, shoe-peg oats, huckleberry-leaf tea, bass-wood cheeses,
+or white-oak hams, ever hankered more for a trade. Besides the products
+of our prison industry, they craved watches, rings, gold chains, silver
+spurs, gilt buttons, genuine breast-pins, epaulets; anything that was
+not manufactured in the Confederacy. Most of all, they longed for
+greenbacks in exchange for rebel currency. So in one way or another many
+of us contrived to get a little money of some sort. With it we could buy
+of the sutler, who visited us from time to time, rice, flour, beans,
+bacon, onions, dried apple, red peppers, sorghum syrup, vinegar, etc.
+
+Perhaps the best result of our engaging in handicraft work was the
+relief from unspeakable depression of spirits. Some of us saw the
+importance of making diversion on a large scale. To this end we planned
+to start a theatre. Major Wm. H. Fry, of the 16th Pa. Cavalry, who knew
+all about vaudeville in Philadelphia, was a wise adviser. Young Gardner,
+who had been an actor, heartily joined in the movement. I procured a
+worn-out copy of Shakespeare. It seemed best to begin with the
+presentation of the first act in _Hamlet_. Colonel Smith and other rebel
+officers promised to aid us. We assigned the parts and commenced
+studying and rehearsing. Gardner was to be Hamlet; Lieut.-Col. Theodore
+Gregg, 45th Pa., was to be Claudius, the usurping king; the smooth-faced
+Capt. William Cook was to be the queen-mother Gertrude; Capt. W. F.
+Tiemann, 159th N. Y., was to personate Marcellus; Lieut. C. H. Morton of
+Fairhaven, Mass., I think, was Horatio; and I, having lost about forty
+pounds of flesh since my capture--it was thought most appropriate that I
+should be the Ghost! Every morning for some weeks on the empty first
+floor we read and rehearsed, and really made fine progress. But when we
+got ready to produce in theatric style, with slight omissions, the first
+act, the rebels seemed suspicious of some ulterior design. They refused
+to furnish a sword for Hamlet, a halberd for Marcellus, muskets for
+Bernardo and Francisco, a calico gown for the queen, or even a white
+shirt for the Ghost. This was discouraging. When the lovely queen-mother
+Gertrude appealed to her son--
+
+    Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off,--
+
+he answered, "I swear I can't do it!" One November morning, as we were
+rehearsing and shivering on the windy first floor, he ejaculated with
+some emphasis, and with ungentle expletives not found in the original
+text,
+
+    The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold;
+
+"I move, Colonel, that we 'bust up' this theatre." So the "legitimate
+drama" vanished from Danville.
+
+About this time my copy of the Greek New Testament was stolen from me,
+an instance, perhaps, of piety run mad.
+
+A week or two before this, the lower room, in which I then lodged,
+containing about a hundred and seventy officers, was getting into such a
+condition that I felt it my duty to call a meeting to see what measures
+could be adopted to promote comfort and decency. I was not the senior in
+rank, but Colonel Carle did not feel himself authorized to issue
+orders. Some sort of government must be instituted at once. Nearly all
+recognized the necessity of prompt action and strict discipline. A
+committee was appointed consisting of myself, Major John W. Byron, 88th
+N. Y., and another officer whose name escapes me, to draw up rules and
+regulations. We presented the following:
+
+    RULES UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED IN THE LOWER ROOM,
+    DANVILLE, VA., PRISON, OCT. 26, 1864:
+
+    1. The room shall be thoroughly policed (swept, etc.) four times
+        each day by the messes in succession; viz., at sunrise and
+        sunset, and immediately after breakfast and dinner.
+
+    2. There shall be no washing in this room.
+
+    3. No emptying slops into spittoons.
+
+    4. No washing in the soup buckets or water buckets.
+
+    5. No shaking of clothes or blankets in this room.
+
+    6. No cooking inside the stoves.
+
+    7. No loitering in the yard to the inconvenience of others.
+
+    8. No person shall be evidently filthy or infested with vermin.
+
+    9. No indecent, profane, or ungentlemanly language in this room.
+
+    10. No conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman about these
+        premises.
+
+    11. No talking aloud at night after nine o'clock.
+
+    12. An officer of the day shall be appointed daily by the senior
+        officer, whose duty shall be to see that these rules are
+        strictly enforced, and to report to the senior officer any
+        violation thereof.
+
+    13. In case of any alleged violation of any of these rules, the
+        senior officer of the room shall appoint a Court[7] to consist
+        of thirteen disinterested officers, who shall fairly try and
+        determine the matter, and in case of conviction the offender's
+        rations shall be stopped, or the commander of the prison be
+        requested to confine the offender in a cell according to the
+        sentence of the Court; and it shall be the duty of every officer
+        to have such offender court-martialed after rejoining his
+        command.
+
+        For the Committee. H. B. Sprague, Oct, 26, 1864.
+
+The prison commandant promised that he would execute any sentence short
+of capital punishment. But one case was tried by such court. The offense
+was a gross violation of rule 9. The culprit was let off with a sharp
+reprimand by General Hayes; but my first act after the exchange of
+prisoners was to prefer charges and specifications against him. The
+beast was court-martialed at Annapolis in the latter part of July, '65.
+
+The observance of these rules wrought wonders in correcting evils which
+had become almost unendurable, and in promoting cheerfulness, good
+behavior, and mutual esteem.
+
+Many letters were written to us. Few of them reached their destination.
+The first I received was from Miss Martha Russell, a lady of fine
+literary ability, a friend of Edgar A. Poe, living at North Branford,
+Conn. In raising my company (Co. H., 13th Conn.), I had enlisted her
+brother Alfred. Under strict military discipline he had become a
+valuable soldier, and I had appointed him my first sergeant. At the
+battle of Irish Bend, La., in which I was myself wounded, he was shot
+through the neck. The wound seemed mortal, but I secured special care
+for him, and his life was spared as by miracle. His sister's letter
+brought a ray of sunshine to several of us. It assured us that we were
+tenderly cared for at home. She quoted to cheer us the fine lines of the
+Cavalier poet Lovelace,
+
+    Stone walls do not a prison make,
+      Nor iron bars a cage;
+    Minds innocent and quiet take
+      That for a hermitage.
+
+A well-grounded conviction prevailed among the prisoners that the
+Confederate government was anxious to secure an exchange of prisoners,
+but that the Federal government would not consent. The reason was
+evident enough. The Confederate prisoners in the North, as a rule, were
+fit for military duty; the Union prisoners in the South were physically
+unfit. A general exchange would have placed at once, say, more than
+forty thousand fresh soldiers in the rebel ranks, but very few in ours.
+Conscription for military service had been tried in the North with
+results so bitter that it seemed unwise to attempt it again. Better let
+the unfortunates in southern prisons perish in silence--that appeared
+the wisest policy. But to us prisoners it appeared a mistake and gross
+neglect of duty. Between our keen sense of the wrong in allowing us to
+starve, and our love for Lincoln and the Union, there was a struggle.
+Our patriotism was put to the test on the day of the Presidential
+election, Tuesday, November 8th. Discouraging as was the outlook for us
+personally, we had confidence in the government and in the justice of
+our cause. Pains was taken to obtain a full and fair vote in the
+officers' prison. There were two hundred seventy-six for Lincoln;
+ninety-one for McClellan. Under the circumstances the result was
+satisfactory.
+
+Very earnest, if not acrimonious, were the discussions that immediately
+preceded and followed. Some of us realized their importance, not so much
+in arriving at a correct decision on the questions at issue, as in
+preventing mental stagnation likely to result in imbecility if not
+actual idiocy. By the stimulus of employment of some kind we must fight
+against the apathy, the hopeless loss of will power, into which several
+of our comrades seemed sinking. Mrs. Browning well says:
+
+                        Get leave to work
+    In this world,--'tis the best you get at all.
+                    ... Get work; get work;
+    Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get!
+
+Some of us started historical debates, and new views were presented
+which furnished both amusement and instruction. One colonel, more
+redoubtable in battle than in dialectics, who had been shot through from
+breast to back, gravely informed us that the geometer Euclid was an
+early English writer! A kindly visitor, Dr. Holbrook, made me a present
+of Hitchcock's _Elementary Geology_. It was not quite up to date, having
+been published about twenty-five years before, but I found the study
+interesting. Grieved at having lost from my books three years in
+military service, I endeavored with three or four companions to make up
+for the deficiency by taking lessons in French. Our teacher was Captain
+Cook, already mentioned as teaching us French at Salisbury. As we had no
+books, the instruction was oral. I was delighted to observe how much a
+knowledge of Latin facilitated the acquisition of the modern tongue. A
+few weeks later upon the arrival of Major George Haven Putnam, Adjutant
+at that time of the 176th N. Y., several of us commenced under him the
+study of German. Here too the teaching was oral; but I was able to buy
+Oehlschläger's _German Reader_; took special pleasure in memorizing some
+of the selections, particularly from the poets Gleim, Claudius, Goethe,
+Schiller, and Uhland; and I was already familiar with some stanzas of
+Arndt's noble _The German Fatherland_, sung so often to me by my
+Lieutenant Meisner, slain by my side in battle. Some of those songs
+still ring in my ears. General Hayes, Major Putnam, and two or three
+others took lessons in Spanish from a native of Mexico, 2d Lieut. John
+Gayetti (I think that was his name), of Battery B, 2d Pa. Artillery.
+
+Checkerboards and chessboards were prepared from the rudest materials,
+and many were the games with which some of our comrades sought to
+beguile the weary hours. Capt. Frank H. Mason of the 12th Cavalry had
+the reputation of being our best chess player and young Adjutant Putnam
+was his most persistent opponent.
+
+No one needs to be told that old soldiers are great story-tellers,
+drawing upon their imagination for facts. This talent was assiduously
+cultivated in our prison.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] See Appendix.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+  Exact Record of Rations in Danville--Opportunity to Cook--Daily
+    Routine of Proceedings from Early Dawn till Late at Night.
+
+
+Our imprisonment at Danville lasted from October 20, '64, to February
+17, '65, one hundred and twenty days. I kept a careful daily record of
+the rations issued to us, as did also Lieut. Watson W. Bush, 2d N. Y.
+"Mounted Rifles." After our removal from Danville to Richmond for
+exchange, we compared our memoranda, and found they substantially
+agreed. During the one hundred and twenty days the issues were as
+follows:
+
+    _Bread._ A loaf every morning. It was made of unsifted corn-meal,
+    ground "cobs and all." Pieces several inches in length of cobs
+    unground were sometimes contained in it. It always seemed wholesome,
+    though moist, almost watery. Its dimensions were a little less than
+    7 inches long, 3 or 4 wide, and 3 thick. I managed to bring home a
+    loaf, and we were amazed at the shrinkage to a quarter of its
+    original size. It had become very hard. We broke it in two, and
+    found inside what appeared to be a dishcloth!
+
+    _Meat._ Forty-three times. I estimated the weight at from 2 to 5 or
+    6 ounces. In it sometimes were hides, brains, heads, tails, jaws
+    with teeth, lights, livers, kidneys, intestines, and nameless
+    portions of the animal economy.
+
+    _Soup._ Sixty-two times; viz., bean soup forty-seven times; cabbage
+    nine times; gruel six. It was the thinnest decoction of small black
+    beans, the slightest infusion of cabbage, or the most attenuated
+    gruel of corn-cob meal, that a poetic imagination ever dignified
+    with the name of _soup_!
+
+    _Potatoes._ Seven times. Seldom was one over an inch in diameter.
+
+    _Salt fish._ Five times. They call it "hake." It was good. "Hunger
+    the best sauce."
+
+    _Sorghum syrup._ Three times. It was known as "corn-stalk molasses."
+    It was not bad.
+
+Nothing else was given us for food by the Confederates at Danville. The
+rations appeared to deteriorate and diminish as the winter advanced. My
+diary shows that in the fifty-three days after Christmas we received
+meat only three times.
+
+Manifestly such supplies are insufficient to sustain life very long. By
+purchase from the rebel sutler who occasionally visited us, or by
+surreptitious trading with the guards, we might make additions to our
+scanty allowance. I recollect that two dollars of irredeemable treasury
+notes would buy a gill of rice or beans or corn, a turnip, onion,
+parsnip, or small pickled cucumber!
+
+The Confederate cooking needed to be supplemented. Here the cylinder
+coal-stoves were made useful. The tops of them were often covered with
+toasting corn bread. Tin pails and iron kettles of various capacities,
+from a pint to several quarts, suspended from the top by wooden hooks a
+foot or two in length, each vessel resting against the hot stove and
+containing rice, beans, Indian corn, dried apple, crust coffee, or other
+delicacy potable or edible slowly preparing, made the whole look like a
+big black chandelier with pendants. We were rather proud of our prison
+cuisine. Cooking was also performed on and in an old worn-out
+cook-stove, which a few of our millionaires, forming a joint-stock
+company for the purpose, had bought for two hundred Confederate dollars
+late in the season, and which the kind prison commander had permitted
+them to place near the southwest end of the upper room, running the pipe
+out of a window. Culinary operations were extensively carried on also in
+the open yard outside, about forty feet by twenty, at the northeast end
+of the building. Here the officer would build a diminutive fire of chips
+or splinters between bricks, and boil or toast or roast his allowance.
+We were grouped in messes of five to ten or twelve each. Happy the club
+of half a dozen that could get money enough and a big enough kettle to
+have their meal prepared jointly.
+
+Such was the case with my own group after the lapse of about two months.
+We had been pinched; but one morning Captain Cook came to me with
+radiant face and said: "Colonel, I have good news for you. _I_'m going
+to run this mess. My folks in New York have made arrangement with
+friends in England to supply me with money, and I've just received
+through the lines a hundred dollars. We'll live like fighting-cocks!"
+Adjt. J. A. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav., was our delighted cook. Shivering for
+an hour over the big kettle amid the ice and snow of the back yard, he
+would send up word, "Colonel, set the table for dinner." To "set the
+table" consisted in sweeping a space six or eight feet square, and
+depositing there the plates, wood, tin, or earthen (mine was of wood; it
+had cost me a week's labor in carving). The officers already mentioned,
+Cook, Clark, Bush, Sprague, with Lieut. E. H. Wilder, 9th N. Y. Cav.,
+sit around in the elegant Turkish fashion, or more classical recline
+like the ancients in their symposia, each resting on his left elbow,
+with face as near as possible to the steaming kettle, that not a smell
+may be lost!
+
+Wood was scarce. It was used with most rigid economy. Many joists
+overhead had been sawed off by Lieut. Lewis R. Titus of the _Corps
+D'Afrique_, using a notched table-knife for a saw. In this way the
+Vermont Yankee obtained pieces for cooking, but he weakened the
+structure till some officers really feared the roof might come tumbling
+about our heads; and I remember that the prison commandant, visiting the
+upper room and gazing heavenward, more than once ejaculated irreverently
+the name of the opposite region!
+
+Through the kindness of a Confederate officer or bribing the guards a
+log four or five feet in length is sometimes brought in. Two or three
+instantly attack it with a blunt piece of iron hoop to start the
+cleaving, and in less time than one could expect such a work to be done
+with axes it is split fine with wooden wedges.
+
+Naturally one of the ever-recurring topics of discussion was the
+glorious dishes we could prepare, if we but had the materials, or of
+which we would partake if we ever got home again. In our memorandum
+books we are careful to note down the street and number of the most
+famous restaurant in each of the largest cities, like Delmonico's in New
+York or Young's in Boston.
+
+With few exceptions one day is like another. At earliest dawn each of
+the two floors is covered with about a hundred and seventy-five
+prostrate forms of officers who have been trying to sleep. Soon some one
+of them calls in a loud voice. "_Buckets for water!_" The call is
+repeated. Five or six, who have predetermined to go early to the river
+Dan that seemed nearly a quarter of a mile distant, start up and seize
+large wooden pails. They pass to the lower floor. One of them says to
+the sentinel on duty at the southwest corner door, "Sentry, call the
+sergeant of the guard; we want to go for water." He complies. In five,
+ten, or fifteen minutes, a non-commissioned officer, with some half a
+dozen heavily armed soldiers, comes, the bolts slide, the doors swing,
+our squad passes out. They are escorted down the hill to the river, and
+back to prison. By this time it is broad daylight. Many are still lying
+silent on the floor. Most have risen. Some are washing, or rather wiping
+with wet handkerchief, face and hands; others are preparing to cook,
+splitting small blocks of wood for a fire of splinters; a few are
+nibbling corn bread; here and there one is reading the New Testament.
+There is no change or adjustment of clothing, for the night dress is the
+same as the day dress. We no longer wonder how the cured paralytic in
+Scripture could obey the command, "Take up thy bed and walk"; for at
+heaviest the bed is but a blanket!
+
+Now, for a half-hour, vengeance on vermin that have plagued us during
+the night! We daily solve the riddle of the fishermen's answer to "What
+luck?" the question which puzzled to death
+
+    "The blind old bard of Scio's rocky isle,"
+
+    "_As many as we caught we left; as many as we could not catch we
+    carry with us_!"
+
+About eight o'clock the cry is heard from the southwest end of the room,
+"Fall in for roll-call! fall in!" to which several would impudently add,
+"Here he comes! here he is!" A tall, slim, stooping, beardless,
+light-haired phenomenon, known as "the roll-call sergeant," enters with
+two musketeers. We officers having formed in two ranks on the northwest
+side of the room, he passes down the front from left to right slowly
+counting. Setting down the number in a memorandum book, he commands in a
+squeaky feminine voice, "Break ranks," which most of us have already
+done. Much speculation arose as to the nature and status of this
+singular being. His face was smooth and childlike, yet dry and wrinkled,
+so that it was impossible to tell whether he was fifteen or fifty. A
+committee was said to have waited upon him, and with much apparent
+deference asked him as to his nativity, his age, and whether he was
+human or divine, married or single, man or woman. They said he answered
+sadly, "Alas! I'm no angel, but a married man, thirty-seven years old,
+from South Carolina. I have three children who resemble me."
+
+Immediately after roll-call, corn bread is brought in for breakfast. It
+is in large squares about two feet in length and breadth, the top of
+each square being marked for cutting into twenty or twenty-five rations.
+Colonel Hooper and Capt. D. Tarbell receive the whole from the rebel
+commissary, and then distribute to each mess its portion. The mess
+commissary endeavors to cut it into equal oblong loaves. To make sure of
+a fair distribution, one officer turns his back, and one after another
+lays his hand upon a loaf and asks, "Whose is this?" The officer who has
+faced about names some one as the recipient.
+
+Clear the way now for sweepers. From one end of the room to the other
+they ply their coarse wooden brooms. Some officers are remarkably neat,
+and will scrape their floor space with pieces of glass from the broken
+windows; a few are listless, sullen, utterly despondent, regardless of
+surroundings, apparently sinking into imbecility; the majority are
+taking pains to keep up an appearance of respectability.
+
+Many who have been kept awake through the night by cold or rheumatism
+now huddle around the stoves and try to sleep. Most of the remainder, as
+the weeks pass, glide into something like a routine of occupations. For
+several weeks I spent an hour or two every day carving with a broken
+knife-blade a spoon from a block of hard wood. Sporadic wood-splitting
+is going on, and cooking appears to be one of the fine arts. An hour
+daily of oral exercises in French, German, Spanish, Latin, or Italian,
+under competent teachers, after the Sauveur or Berlitz method, amused
+and to some extent instructed many. Our cavalry adjutant, Dutch Clark,
+so called from his skill in the "Pennsylvania Dutch" dialect made
+perhaps a hundred familiar with the morning salutation, "_Haben Sie gut
+geschlafen?_" ("Have you slept well?") Lieut. Henry Vander Weyde, A. D.
+C., 1st Div., 6th Corps, the artist chum of our principal German
+instructor, amused many by his pencil portraits of "Slim Jim," the
+nondescript "roll-call sergeant" of uncertain age and gender; also of
+some of the sentries, and one or two of his fellow prisoners. A worn-out
+pack of fifty-two cards, two or three chess and checker boards of our
+manufacture, and twenty-four rudely carved checker-men and thirty-two
+fantastic chess-men, furnished frequent amusement to those who
+understood the games.
+
+On an average once in two days we received about one o'clock what was
+called soup. We were told, and we believed it to be true, that all the
+rich nitrogenous portion had been carefully skimmed off for use
+elsewhere; not thrown away as the fresh maid threw the "scum" that
+formed on top of the milk!
+
+The topic of most frequent discussion was the prospect of an exchange of
+prisoners. Our would-be German conversationalists never forgot to ask,
+"_Haben Sie etwas gehörten von Auswechseln der Gefangenen?_" ("Have you
+heard anything of exchange of prisoners?") It was hard to believe that
+our government would leave us to die of starvation.
+
+At the close of the soup hour and after another turn at sweeping, almost
+every officer again sat down or sat up to rid himself of the _pediculidæ
+vestimenti_. We called it "skirmishing"; it was rather a pitched battle.
+The humblest soldier and the brevet major-general must daily strip and
+fight. Ludicrous, were it not so abominable, was this mortifying
+necessity. No account of prison life in Danville would be complete
+without it. Pass by it hereafter in sorrow and silence, as one of those
+duties which Cicero says are to be done but not talked about.
+
+The occupations of the morning are now largely resumed, but many prefer
+to lie quiet on the floor for an hour.
+
+An interesting incident that might happen at any time is the arrival in
+prison of a Confederate newspaper. A commotion near the stairway! Fifty
+or a hundred cluster around an officer with a clear strong voice, and
+listen as he reads aloud the news, the editorials, and the selections.
+The rebels are represented as continually gaining victories, but
+singularly enough the northern armies are always drawing nearer!
+
+Toward sunset many officers walk briskly half an hour to and fro the
+length of the room for exercise.
+
+Another roll-call by the mysterious heterogeneous if not
+hermaphroditical Carolina sergeant!
+
+Brooms again by the mess on duty. Again oral language-lessons by Cook
+and Putnam. Then discussions or story-telling.
+
+It is growing dark. A candle is lighted making darkness visible. We have
+many skilful singers, who every evening "discourse most excellent
+music." They sing _Just before the battle, mother; Do they miss me at
+home? We shall meet, but we shall miss him_ (a song composed on the
+death of one of my Worcester pupils by Hon. Charles Washburn); _Nearer,
+My God, to thee_, etc. From the sweet strains of affection or devotion,
+which suffuse the eyes as we begin to lie down for the night, the music
+passes to the _Star-spangled Banner_, _Rally round the flag_, _John
+Brown's body lies a'mouldering in the grave_, and the like. Often the
+"concert" concludes with a comic Dutch song by Captain Cafferty, Co. D,
+1st N. Y. Cav.
+
+Sleep begins to seal many eyelids, when someone with a loud voice heard
+through the whole room starts a series of sharp critical questions,
+amusing or censorious, thus:
+
+
+"Who don't skirmish?" This is answered loudly from another quarter.
+
+"Slim Jim." The catechism proceeds, sometimes with two or three distinct
+responses.
+
+"Who cheats the graveyard?"
+
+"Colonel Sprague."
+
+"Who sketched Fort Darling?"
+
+"Captain Tripp." (He was caught sketching long before, and was refused
+exchange.)
+
+"Who never washes?"
+
+"Lieutenant Screw-my-upper-jaw-off." (His was an unpronounceable foreign
+name.)
+
+"Who knows everything?"
+
+"General Duffié." (Duffié was a brave officer, of whom more anon.)
+
+"Who don't know anything?"
+
+"The fools that talk when they should be asleep." (The querists subside
+at last.)
+
+
+For warmth we lie in contact with each other "spoon-fashion," in groups
+of three or more. I had bought a heavy woolen shawl for twenty
+Confederate dollars, and under it were Captain Cook, Adjutant Clark, and
+Lieutenant Wilder; I myself wearing my overcoat, and snuggling up to my
+friend Cook. All four lay as close as possible facing in the same
+direction. The night wears slowly away. When the floor seemed
+intolerably hard, one of us would say aloud, "Spoon!" and all four would
+flop over, and rest on the other side. So we vibrated back and forth
+from nine o'clock till dawn. We were not comfortable, but in far better
+circumstances than most of the prisoners. Indeed Captain Cook repeatedly
+declared he owed his life to our blanket.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+  Continual Hope of Exchange of Prisoners--"Flag-of-Truce
+    Fever!"--Attempted Escape by Tunneling--Repeated Escapes by Members
+    of Water Parties, and how we Made the Roll-Call Sergeant's Count
+    Come Out all Right every Time--Plot to Break Out by Violence, and
+    its Tragic End.
+
+
+Our principal hope for relief from the increasing privations of prison
+life and from probable exhaustion, sickness, and death, lay in a
+possible exchange of prisoners. A belief was prevalent that the patients
+in hospital would be the first so favored. Hence strenuous efforts were
+sometimes made to convince the apothecary whom we called doctor, and who
+often visited us, that a prisoner was ill enough to require removal.
+Once in the institution, the patients got better food, something like a
+bed, medical attendance daily, and a more comfortable room. Some of them
+were shamming, lying in two senses and groaning when the physicians were
+present, but able to sit up and play euchre the rest of the day and half
+the night. This peculiar disease, this eagerness to get into hospital or
+remain there till exchanged by flag of truce, was known as the
+"flag-of-truce fever" or "flag-of-truce-on-the-brain!"
+
+I recall one striking instance. Lieutenant Gardner, already mentioned,
+had received six or eight hundred dollars in Confederate currency as the
+price of a gold watch. But like the prodigal in Scripture he was now in
+a far country, and had wasted his substance in what he called
+"righteous" living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty
+famine in that corner of the lower room, and he began to be in want. And
+he would fain have filled his belly with corn-cob-meal bread, or spoiled
+black beans, or the little potatoes which the swine didn't eat. And no
+man gave him enough. And he determined to go to hospital. He gave out
+that he was desperately sick. I at this time had "quarters" on the floor
+above. Word was brought to me that my friend was mortally ill, and would
+thank me to come down and take his last message to his relatives.
+Alarmed, I instantly went down. I found him with two or three splitting
+a small log of wood!
+
+
+"Gardner, I hear you are a little 'under the weather.'"
+
+"Dying, Colonel, dying!"
+
+"What appears to be your disease?"
+
+"Flag-o'-truce-on-the-brain!"
+
+"Ah, you've got the exchange fever?"
+
+"Yes; bad."
+
+"Pulse run high?"
+
+"Three hundred a minute."
+
+"Anything I can do for you?"
+
+"Yes, Colonel, beseech that fool doctor to send me to hospital. Tell him
+I'm on my last legs. Tell him I only want to die there. Appeal to him in
+behalf of my poor wife and babies." (Gardner, as I well knew, was a
+bachelor, and had no children--to speak of.)
+
+"Well, Lieutenant, I'll do anything I properly can for you. Is there
+anything else?"
+
+"Yes, Colonel; lend me your overcoat to wear to hospital; I'll send it
+back at once."
+
+"But, Lieutenant, you can't get into the hospital. Your cheeks are too
+rosy; you're the picture of health."
+
+"I'm glad you mentioned that, Colonel. I'll fix that. You'll see."
+
+
+Next morning he watched at the window, and when he saw the doctor
+coming, he swallowed a large pill of plug tobacco. The effect was more
+serious than he expected. In a few minutes he became sick in earnest,
+and was frightened. A deathlike pallor supervened. When the doctor
+reached him, there was a genuine fit of vomiting. The story runs that
+Captain Tiemann made a pathetic appeal in behalf of the imaginary twin
+babies, that the doctor diagnosed it as a clear case of puerperal (which
+he pronounced "puerp[=e]rial") fever complicated with symptoms of
+cholera infantum, and ordered him to hospital at once! I loaned the
+patient my overcoat, which he sent back directly. His recovery seemed
+miraculous. In a week or two he returned from his delightful outing.
+This was in the latter part of November.
+
+Previously, for some weeks, Captain Howe and three or four other strong
+and determined officers managed to get into the cellar of a one-story
+building contiguous to ours and thence to excavate a tunnel out beyond
+the line on which the sentinels were perpetually pacing to and fro. I
+was too feeble to join in the enterprise, but hoped to improve the
+opportunity to escape when the work was done. Unfortunately the arching
+top of the tunnel was too near the surface of the ground, and the thin
+crust gave way under the weight of a sentry. He yelled "Murder!" Two or
+three of our diggers came scurrying back. The guard next to him shouted,
+"You Yanks! you G--d d--d Yanks!" and fired into the deep hole. No more
+tunneling at Danville.[8]
+
+More successful and more amusing were several attempts by individual
+officers one at a time. The water parties of four to eight went under a
+strong guard two or three times a day down a long hill to the river Dan.
+On the slope alongside the path were a number of large brick ovens,[9]
+in which, we were told, the Confederates used to bake those big squares
+of corn bread. The iron doors when we passed were usually open. On the
+way back from the river, one officer on some pretense or other would lag
+behind the rearmost soldier of the guard, who would turn to hurry him
+up. The next officer, as soon as the soldier's back was turned, would
+dodge into an open oven, and the careless guards now engaged in a loud
+and passionate controversy about slavery or secession would not miss
+him! Then, as night came on, the negroes in the vicinity, who, like all
+the rest of the colored people, were friendly to us, would supply the
+escaped officer with food and clothing, and pilot him on his way
+rejoicing toward the Union lines. One by one, six officers escaped in
+that way, and many of us began to look forward to the time when our turn
+would come to try the baking virtues of those ovens!
+
+But it was important that the escaped officer should not be missed. How
+should we deceive the nondescript that we called "the roll-call
+sergeant"? Morning and evening he carefully counted every one. How make
+the census tally with the former enumerations? Yankee ingenuity was here
+put to a severe test; but Lieutenant Titus, before mentioned, solved the
+problem. With his table-knife saw he cut a hole about two feet square in
+the floor near the northeast corner of the upper room. A nicely fitting
+trapdoor completed the arrangement. Through this hole, helped by a rude
+rope ladder of strips of rags, and hoisted to the shoulders of a tall
+man by strong arms from below, a nimble officer could quickly ascend.
+Now those in the lower room were counted first. When they broke ranks,
+and the human automaton faced to the west and moved slowly towards the
+stairs with three or four "Yanks" clustering at his side in earnest
+conversation, the requisite number of spry young prisoners would "shin
+up" the ladder, emerge, "deploy," and be counted over again in the upper
+room! The thing worked to a charm. Not one of the six was missed.
+
+Unfortunately, however, two or three of them were recaptured and again
+incarcerated in Libby. The Richmond authorities thereupon telegraphed to
+Colonel Smith, asking how those officers escaped from Danville. Smith,
+surprised, ordered a recount. The trapdoor did its duty. "All present!"
+Finally he answered, "No prisoner has escaped from Danville." The rebel
+commissary of prisons at Richmond, Gen. J. H. Winder, then telegraphed
+the names of the recaptured officers. Smith looks on his books: there
+are those names, sure enough! The mystery must be solved. He now sends
+his adjutant to count us about noon. We asked him what it meant. He told
+us it was reported that several officers had escaped. We replied,
+"That's too good to be true." He counted very slowly and with
+extraordinary precision. He kept his eye on the staircase as he
+approached it. Six officers flew up the ladder as we huddled around him.
+It was almost impossible to suppress laughter at the close, when he
+declared, "I'll take my oath no prisoner has escaped from this prison."
+But there were those names of the missing, and there was our
+ill-disguised mirth. Smith resorted to heroic measures. He came in with
+two or three of his staff and a man who was said to be a professor of
+mathematics. This was on the 8th of November, 1864. He made all officers
+of the lower room move for a half-hour into the upper room, and there
+fall in line with the rest. His adjutant called the roll in reality.
+Each as his name was read aloud was made to step forward and cross to
+the other side. Of course no one could answer for the absent six. I
+doubt if he ever learned the secret of that trapdoor. The professor of
+mathematics promised to bring me a Geometry. About two weeks later,
+November 24th, he brought me a copy of Davies's _Legendre_.
+
+On the 9th of December, while our senior officer, General Hayes, was
+sick in hospital, the next in rank, Gen. A. N. Duffié, of the First
+Cavalry Division of Sheridan's army, fresh from the French service, with
+which he had campaigned in Algeria, where he was wounded nine times,
+suddenly conceived a plot to break out and escape. Two companies of
+infantry had arrived in the forenoon and stacked their arms in plain
+sight on the level ground about twenty rods distant. Duffié's plan was
+to rush through the large open door when a water party returning with
+filled buckets should be entering, seize those muskets, overpower the
+guard, immediately liberate the thousand or fifteen hundred Union
+prisoners in the three other Danville prisons, and push off to our lines
+in East Tennessee. He had Sheridan's _élan_, not Grant's cool-headed
+strategy. With proper preparation and organization, such as Hayes would
+have insisted upon, it might have been a success. He called us, field
+officers about twenty, together and laid the matter before us. No vote
+was taken, but I think a majority were opposed to the whole scheme. He
+was disposed to consider himself, though a prisoner, as still vested
+with authority to command all of lower rank, and he expected them to
+obey him without question. In this view many acquiesced, but others
+dissented. By his request, though doubtful of his right to command and
+in feeble health, I drew up a pledge for those to sign who were willing
+to engage in the projected rising and would promise to obey. It was
+found that at least one hundred and fifty could be counted on. Colonel
+Ralston, previously mentioned, was the chief opponent of the outbreak,
+but he recognized Duffié's authority and insisted upon our submission
+to it. Similar appeared to be the attitude of the following colonels:
+
+Gilbert H. Prey, 104th N. Y.
+
+James Carle, 191st Pa.
+
+T. B. Kaufman, 209th Pa.
+
+W. Ross Hartshorne, 190th Pa.
+
+Of the lieutenant-colonels, most of the following doubted the success,
+but would do their best to promote it, if commanded:
+
+Charles H. Tay, 10th N. J.
+
+Theodore Gregg, 45th Pa.
+
+G. A. Moffett, 94th N. Y.
+
+J. S. Warner, 121st Pa.
+
+George Hamett, 147th N. Y.
+
+Charles H. Hooper, 24th Mass.
+
+Homer B. Sprague, 13th Conn.
+
+So the following majors: A. W. Wakefield, 49th Pa.; G. S. Horton, 58th
+Mass.; E. F. Cooke, 2d N. Y. Cav.; John G. Wright, 51st N. Y.; J. V.
+Peale, 4th Pa. Cav.; John W. Byron, 88th N. Y.; David Sadler, 2d Pa.
+Heavy Art.; John Byrne, 155th N. Y.; E. O. Shepard, 32d Mass.; J. A.
+Sonders, 8th Ohio Cav.; Charles P. Mattocks, 17th Maine; E. S. Moore,
+Paymaster; Wm. H. Fry, 16th Pa. Cav.; Milton Wendler, 191st Pa.; James
+E. Deakins, 8th Tenn. Cav.; Geo. Haven Putnam, Adjt. and later
+Bvt.-Major, 176th N. Y.
+
+All of the foregoing then present and not on the sick list should have
+been most thoroughly instructed as to their duties, and should have been
+enabled to communicate all needed information to the forty-six captains
+and one hundred and thirty-three lieutenants, who, though many were
+sadly reduced in vitality, were accounted fit for active service. I had
+repeatedly noticed in battle the perplexity of company, regimental, or
+even brigade commanders, from lack of information as to the necessary
+movements in unforeseen emergencies. It is not enough to say, as one
+corps commander (Hancock?) is said to have done during the Battle of the
+Wilderness in May, 1864, to a newly arrived colonel with his regiment,
+who inquired, "Where shall I go in?" "Oh, anywhere; there's lovely
+fighting all along the line!"
+
+Here the step most vital to success, the _sine qua non_, was to keep
+that outside door open for the outrush of two hundred men. To this end,
+eight of our strongest and most determined, under a dashing leader like
+Colonel Hartshorne or Lieutenant-Colonel Gregg, should have been sent
+out as a water party. Instead, Captain Cook, who was brave enough, but
+then physically weak, hardly able to carry a pail of water, was the
+leader of an average small squad, "the spirit indeed willing, but the
+flesh weak."
+
+Hardly less important was it to select a dozen or twenty of the most
+fierce and energetic, to be at the head of the stairs in perfect
+readiness to dash instantly through the opening door and assist the
+water party in disarming their guards, and, without a moment's pause,
+followed by the whole two hundred, pounce upon the guard house. Ralston
+or Duffié himself should have headed this band. Simultaneously, without
+a second's interval, three or four desperate, fiery, powerful officers,
+detailed for the purpose, should have grappled with the sentinel on duty
+in the middle of the lower room and disarmed and gagged him.
+
+Besides the field officers, we had with us many subordinates of great
+intelligence like Capt. Henry S. Burrage of the 36th Mass., Lieut. W. C.
+B. Goff of the 1st D. C. Cav., Lieut. W. C. Howe, 2d Mass. Cav., Adjt.
+James A. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav., and the artist, Lieut. Henry Vander
+Weyde; and nothing would have been easier than for Duffié to communicate
+through them to every officer the most complete and precise information
+and instructions.
+
+Scarcely any of these precautions were taken. The general was impatient.
+The next day, December 10th, he issued his command in these words: "I
+order the attempt to be made, and I call upon all of you, who have not
+forgotten how to obey orders, to follow." The water party was
+immediately sent out, and its return was watched for. He and Ralston,
+without the help of a third, made the mistake of personally grappling
+with the floor sentry, a brave, strong, red-headed fellow, and they
+tackled him a moment too soon. He stoutly resisted. They wrested his
+musket from him. He yelled. They tried to stop his mouth. Instantly the
+door began to swing open a little. The water party, too few and too
+weak, paralyzed, failed to act. The foremost of us sprang from the
+stairs to the door. Before we could reach it, it was slammed to, bolted
+and barred against us! With several others I rushed to the windows and
+tried to tear off the heavy bars. In vain. The soldiers outside began
+firing through the broken panes. Ralston was shot through the body. We
+assisted him up the stairs while the bullets were flying. In less than
+five minutes from the moment when he and Duffié seized the sentinel, it
+was all over. In about a quarter of an hour, Colonel Smith came in with
+his adjutant and two or three guards, and ordered Ralston removed to
+hospital. As he was carried out, one of us expressed the hope that the
+wound was not serious. He answered in the language of Mercutio, "No,
+'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis
+enough, 'twill serve." He knew it was mortal, and expressed a
+willingness to die for his country in the line of duty. He passed away
+next morning. Colonel Smith expressed sorrow for him, and surprise at
+the ingratitude of us who had been guilty of insurrection against his
+gentle sway!
+
+A strict search for possible weapons followed during which we were told
+we must give up our United States money. I saved a ten-dollar greenback
+by concealing it in my mouth "as an ape doth nuts in the corner of his
+jaw," all the while munching corn bread, gnawing two holes in the bill!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] "You will doubtless recall the man-hole worked through the heavy
+brick wall, made during the 'stilly nights,' opening into the attic of
+an annex to the main building. We found our way down by means of a rope
+ladder, and started our tunnel under the basement floor. But for the
+exposure we would have emptied the prison. To find the way down we gave
+them a lively hunt!--And those _epithets_!--I have a blouse with a rent
+in the back made in going through that hole in the wall."--Howe's
+_Letter_ of Jan. 30, 1914.
+
+For further particulars of this attempt to tunnel out, see Major
+Putnam's _A Prisoner of War in Virginia_, pp. 55-60.
+
+[9] Putnam describes them as disused furnaces. They may have been both.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+  Kind Clergymen Visit us and Preach Excellent Discourses--Colonel
+    Smith's Personal Good Will to me--His Offer--John F. Ficklin's
+    Charity--My Good Fortune--Supplies of Clothing Distributed--Deaths
+    in Prison.
+
+
+Union men never looked upon Confederates as mortal enemies. Whenever a
+flag of truce was flying, both were disposed to shake hands and exchange
+favors. I recollect that our Captain Burrage complained that he was
+unfairly captured when he was engaged in a friendly deal with a
+Confederate between the lines. At Port Hudson, when the white signal was
+to go down, we gave the "Johnnies" fair warning, shouting, "RATS! TO
+YOUR HOLES!" before we fired on them. But war cannot be conducted on
+peace principles, and in a flash a man acts like a devil. In an open
+window near the spot where I slept, an officer upset a cup of water, and
+a few drops fell on the head of the guard outside. Instantly he fired.
+The bullet missed, passed through the window below and the floor above,
+and lodged in the hand or arm of another officer. I had an opportunity
+to express to Colonel Smith my angry disgust at such savagery. He
+agreed that the fellow ought to be punished--"at least for not being
+able to shoot straighter!"[10]
+
+Kindly visits were sometimes paid us. Two young men from the Richmond
+Young Men's Christian Association came. The wicked said, "One came 'to
+pray with us all right,' the other 'to prey upon us all wrong'"; for the
+latter tried to induce us to exchange greenbacks for rebel currency!
+
+Several times we were visited by kind clergymen who preached excellent
+sermons. The first was Rev. ---- Dame of Danville. He was, I think, an
+Episcopal minister. He was a high Mason, a gentleman of very striking
+appearance, with a beautiful flowing beard, that would have done honor
+to Moses or Aaron. As we sat on the hard floor, two hundred listening
+reverently to his choice language, he seemed to foresee the doom which
+many of us had begun to fear, and he very appropriately and with much
+earnestness bade us consider our latter end. Mentioning his name with
+gratitude some thirty years afterwards in a lecture at the Mountain Lake
+Chautauqua, Md., one of my audience gave me a photograph of the
+minister's handsome face, and told me he was greatly beloved. I doubt
+not he deserved it.
+
+Rev. Charles K. Hall of Danville, a Methodist Episcopal clergyman, came
+to us a little later. His first sermon was an eloquent discourse on
+Charity. He practiced what he preached; for he never came empty-handed.
+On his first visit he brought armfuls of tobacco, each plug wrapped in a
+pious tract. He asked us to fall in line, for he had something for each.
+When he came to me in the distribution, I declined it, saying "I never
+use tobacco in any form." "Oh take it," said he; "you read the tract,
+and give the tobacco to your neighbor." On subsequent Sundays he brought
+eggs and other delicacies for the sick. We admired him as a preacher,
+and regarded him with affection as a man. Secession and slavery aside,
+for he believed in the rightfulness of both, as we learned on arguing
+with him, it would be hard to find a more lovable character than Charles
+K. Hall. And the South was full of such, who would have been glad, if
+permitted and opportunity offered, to be good Samaritans, neighbors to
+him who had fallen among foes; pure, gentle, kindly spirits, to whom it
+will be said in the last great day, "I was an hungred and ye gave me
+meat; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto
+me."
+
+From the lack of sufficient and proper food, clothing, and exercise, the
+health of all suffered. Much of the time it was impossible to keep warm.
+The most prevalent diseases, I think, were rheumatism and scurvy. I
+suffered from both. Anti-scorbutics were scarce. The pain from
+rheumatism was slight during the day; but at evening it began in the
+joints of the fingers and became more severe as night advanced,
+ascending from the hands to the wrists, arms, and shoulders. It was
+worst at midnight and through the small hours, then gradually diminished
+till daylight. The prison physician did his best to help us with
+liniment, but in those winter nights the treatment was ineffective.
+
+Upon the total failure of our attempt to break out on the 10th of
+December, and having come reluctantly to the conclusion that Colonel
+Smith had told us the truth when he said that Lincoln and Grant would
+not consent to an exchange of prisoners, I foresaw that death was
+inevitable after a few months, perhaps a few weeks, unless the situation
+should materially change for the better. I determined, though without
+much hope of success, to appeal to Colonel Smith for personal favor. On
+the 15th of December I sent word to him that I wished an interview with
+him. He immediately sent a soldier to bring me to his office. He
+received me courteously; for he was a gentleman. I told him it was
+necessary for me, if I was to live much longer, that I should at least
+have better food and more of it. I asked him if it would not be possible
+for an arrangement to be effected whereby some of my relatives in the
+north should furnish a Confederate prisoner with food, clothing, and
+comforts, and that prisoner's relatives in the south should reciprocate
+by supplying me. He answered that it might be possible, but he did not
+know of any such southern captive's friends likely to respond. After a
+few minutes of silence he said:
+
+"Colonel Sprague, I'd like to do something for you, and I'll make you an
+offer."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Your government has adopted the devilish policy of no exchange of
+prisoners."
+
+"I am afraid it's true."
+
+"I know it's true."
+
+"Well, what's your proposition?"
+
+"I am overworked here. I must do my duty to my government. Our cause is
+just."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I should like to have you assist me by doing writing regularly for me
+at these headquarters. I would parole you. You shall have a room to
+yourself, a good bed, plenty of food, and a good deal of liberty. You
+must give me your word of honor not to attempt to escape."
+
+"Colonel Smith, I thank you. I appreciate the friendly spirit in which
+you make the offer, and I am very grateful for it. But I can't
+conscientiously accept it. I am in the Union Army, bound to do
+everything in my power to destroy your government. I must do nothing to
+help it. If Lincoln refuses to exchange us prisoners, it may be best for
+the United States, though hard on us. What happens to us is a minor
+matter. It's a soldier's business to die for his country rather than
+help its enemies in the slightest degree. I can't entertain your
+proposal."
+
+So the conference ended sadly. As I was leaving his office he introduced
+me to a Confederate soldier who sat there and who had heard the whole
+conversation. Next day this soldier entered the prison by permission of
+Colonel Smith and brought me some nice wheat bread, some milk, pickles,
+and other food, a pair of thick woolen stockings, and a hundred dollars
+in Confederate money. He gave me his name, John F. Ficklin, of the
+Virginia _Black Horse Cavalry_. He whispered to me that he was at heart
+a Union man, but had been forced by circumstances to enter the
+Confederate service; that by simulating illness he had got relieved from
+duty at the front and assigned to service at Colonel Smith's
+headquarters; that he was confident he could bring about such an
+arrangement for reciprocal supplies as I had proposed, and had so
+informed Smith, who approved of the plan; that until such a plan should
+be put in operation he would furnish me from his own table. He said to
+me very privately that he was greatly moved by what I had said the day
+before. "But," he added, "I am not entirely unselfish in this. I foresee
+that the Confederacy can't last very long; certainly not a year. I give
+it till next September; and, frankly, when it goes to smash, I want to
+stand well with you officers." At my suggestion he gave a few other
+prisoners food and money.
+
+In a few days I was again called to headquarters to meet a Mr. Jordan,
+who, through Ficklin's efforts, had been invited to meet me. His son,
+Henry T. Jordan, Adjutant of the 55th North Carolina Regiment, was at
+that time a prisoner at Johnson's Island, Ohio. Mr. Jordan agreed to
+make out a list of articles which he wished my relatives to send to his
+son. In a day or two he did so. I likewise made out a statement of my
+immediate wants, as follows:
+
+    Wood for cooking;
+    Cup, plate, knife, fork, spoon;
+    Turnips, salt, pepper, rice, vinegar;
+    Pickled cucumbers, dried apple, molasses;
+    Or any other substantial food.
+
+I asked Jordan to send me those things _at once_. He answered after some
+delay that he would do so immediately on receiving an acknowledgment
+from his son that my friends had furnished him what he wanted; and he
+would await such a message! As my relatives were in Massachusetts and
+Connecticut, it would take considerable time for them to negotiate with
+the prison commandant and other parties in Ohio and have the
+stipulations distinctly understood and carried into effect there.
+Besides, there were likely to be provoking delays in communicating by
+mail between the north and the south, and it might be a month or six
+weeks before he got assurances from his son; by which time I should
+probably be in a better world than Danville, and in no need of wood,
+food, or table-ware. I wrote him to that effect, and requested him to
+make haste, but received no reply.
+
+My friend Mr. Ficklin came to the rescue. As a pretext to deceive, if
+need were, the prison authorities, and furnish to them and others a
+sufficient reason for bringing me supplies, he pretended that he had a
+friend, a Confederate prisoner of war at Camp Douglas near Chicago, and
+that Colonel Sprague's friends had been exceedingly kind to him,
+ministering most liberally to his wants! The name of this imaginary
+friend was J. H. Holland, a private soldier of the 30th Virginia
+Cavalry. Ficklin forged a letter purporting to come from Holland to him,
+which he showed to Colonel Smith, in which he spoke with much gratitude
+of my friends' bounty, and besought Ficklin to look tenderly after my
+comfort in return! The ruse succeeded. Ficklin's generosity to me was
+repeated from time to time, and perhaps saved my life.
+
+A year after the close of the war Ficklin wrote to me that he wished to
+secure a position in the Treasury Department of the United States, and
+he thought it would aid him if I would certify to what I knew of his
+kindness to Union prisoners. I accordingly drew up a strong detailed
+statement of his timely and invaluable charities to us in our distress.
+I accompanied it with vouchers for my credibility signed by Hon. N. D.
+Sperry, General Wm. H. Russell, and President Theodore D. Woolsey, all
+of New Haven, and Governor Wm. A. Buckingham of Norwich, Conn. These
+documents I forwarded to Ficklin. I do not know the result.
+
+From Sergeant Wilson F. Smith, chief clerk at Colonel Smith's
+headquarters, a paroled prisoner, member of Co. F., 6th Pa. Cav., the
+company of Captain Furness, son or brother of my Shakespearian friend,
+Dr. Horace Howard Furness, and from Mr. Strickland, undertaker, who
+furnished the coffins and buried the dead of the Danville prisons, both
+of whom I talked with when I was on parole in February, '65, I obtained
+statistics mutually corroborative of the number of deaths in the
+Danville prisons. In November there were 130; in December, 140; from
+January 1st to January 24th, 105. The negro soldiers suffered most.
+There were sixty-four of them living in prison when we reached Danville,
+October 20, '64. Fifty-seven of them were dead on the 12th of February,
+'65, when I saw and talked with the seven survivors in Prison No. Six.
+From one of the officers (I think it was Captain Stuart) paroled like
+myself in February to distribute supplies of clothing sent by the United
+States through the lines, and who performed that duty in Salisbury, and
+from soldiers of my own regiment there imprisoned, I learned that in the
+hundred days ending February 1st, out of eight or ten thousand
+prisoners, more than thirty a day, more than three thousand in all, had
+died! Of Colonel Hartshorne's splendid "Bucktail Regiment," the 190th
+Pa., formerly commanded by my Yale classmate Colonel O'Neil who fell at
+Antietam, there were 330 at Salisbury, October 19th, the day we left;
+116 of them were dead before February 1st, one company losing 22 out of
+33 men.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Why this fearful mortality? Men do not die by scores, hundreds,
+thousands, without some extraordinary cause. It was partly for want of
+clothing. They were thinly clad when captured.
+
+Pursuant to agreement entered into early in December, 1864, between the
+Federal and Confederate authorities, supplies of clothing for Union
+prisoners in Richmond, Danville, and Salisbury, were sent through the
+lines. They did not reach Danville till February. Colonel Carle, 191st
+Pa. and myself, with another officer (I think he was Colonel Gilbert G.
+Prey, 104th N. Y.) were paroled to distribute coats (or blouses),
+trousers, and shoes, among the enlisted men in their three prisons. Then
+for the first time Union officers saw the interior of those jails. By
+permission of Colonel Smith, Mr. Ficklin accompanied us on one of these
+visits, and I saw him give fifty dollars in Confederate money to one of
+our suffering soldiers. My part in the distribution was to sign as
+witness opposite the name of each one receiving. Those rolls should be
+in the archives at Washington.
+
+On the 12th of February we issued shoes and clothing in the jail known
+as Prison No. Six. It contained that day 308 of our men. There were the
+seven surviving colored soldiers, and the one wearing our prison
+commander's coat. We requested them all to form line, and each as his
+name was called to come forward and receive what he most needed. Some of
+them were so feeble that they had to be assisted in coming down from the
+upper floor, almost carried in the arms of stronger comrades. Many were
+unable to remain standing long, and sank helpless on the floor. Nearly
+all were half-clad, or wearing only the thinnest of garments. Some were
+white with vermin. Several were so far gone that they had forgotten
+their company or regiment. Every one seemed emaciated. Many kept asking
+me why our government did not exchange prisoners; for they were told
+every day the truth that the Confederate government desired it. There
+was a stove, but no fuel. The big rooms were not heated. The cold was
+severe. About a third of them had apparently given up all hope of
+keeping their limbs and bodies warm; but they kept their heads, necks,
+shoulders, and chests, carefully wrapped. The dismal coughing at times
+drowned all other sounds, and made it difficult to proceed with our work
+of distribution. There were two little fires of chips and splinters on
+bricks, one of them near the middle, the other near the far end. In
+contact with these were tin or earthen cups containing what passed for
+food or drink. There was no outlet for smoke. It blackened the hands and
+faces of those nearest, and irritated the lungs of all.
+
+This prison was the worst. It was colder than the others. But all were
+uncomfortably cold. All were filled with smoke and lice. From each there
+went every day to the hospital a wagon-load of half-starved and
+broken-hearted soldiers who would never return. I visited the hospital
+to deliver to two of the patients letters which Colonel Smith had handed
+to me for them. They were both dead. I looked down the long list. The
+word "Died," with the date, was opposite most of the names. As I left
+the hospital I involuntarily glanced up at the lintel, half expecting to
+see inscribed there as over the gate to Dante's Hell,
+
+    ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE!
+
+At the rate our enlisted men were dying at Danville and Salisbury during
+the winter of 1864-65, all would have passed away in a few months,
+certainly in less than a year; AND THEY KNEW IT.
+
+Is it any wonder that some of them, believing our government had
+abandoned them to starvation rather than again risk its popularity by
+resorting to conscription for the enrollment of recruits and by possibly
+stirring up draft riots such as had cost more than a thousand lives in
+the city of New York in July, 1863, accepted at last the terms which the
+Confederates constantly held out to them, took the oath of allegiance to
+the Confederacy, and enlisted in the rebel army? I was credibly informed
+that more than forty did it in Prison No. Four at Danville, and more
+than eleven hundred at Salisbury. Confederate recruiting officers and
+sergeants were busy in those prisons, offering them the choice between
+death and life. No doubt multitudes so enlisted under the Confederate
+flag with full determination to desert to our lines at the first
+convenient opportunity. Such was the case with private J. J. Lloyd, Co.
+A, of my battalion, who rejoined us in North Carolina. _The great
+majority chose to die._
+
+The last communication that I received from enlisted men of my
+battalion, fellow prisoners with me at Salisbury, whom I had exhorted
+not to accept the offers of the Confederates, but to be true to their
+country and their flag, read thus: "Colonel, don't be discouraged. Our
+boys all say they'll starve to death in prison sooner than take the oath
+of allegiance to the Confederacy." And true to this resolve did indeed
+starve or freeze to death Sergeant Welch, Sergeant Twichell, Privates
+Vogel, Plaum, Barnes, Geise, Andrews, Bishop, Weldon, who had stood by
+me in many a battle, and who died at last for the cause they loved.
+
+It is comparatively easy to face death in battle. No great courage or
+merit in that. The soldier is swept along with the mass. Often he cannot
+shirk if he would. The chances usually are that he will come out alive.
+He may be inspired with heroism,
+
+    And the stern joy which warriors feel
+    In foeman worthy of their steel.
+
+There is a consciousness of irresistible strength as he beholds the
+gleaming lines, the dense columns, the smoking batteries, the dancing
+flags, the cavalry with flying feet.
+
+    'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life,
+    One glance at their array.
+
+Or nobler, he feels that he represents a nation or a grand cause, and
+that upon his arm depends victory. In his enthusiasm he even fancies
+himself a vicegerent of the Almighty, commissioned to fight in His
+cause, to work His will, to save His earth from becoming a hell. "From
+the heights of yonder pyramids," said Napoleon to the French battling
+against the Mamelukes, "forty centuries are looking down upon you." Our
+soldier in battle imagined the world looking on, that for him there was
+fame undying; should he fall wounded, his comrades would gently care for
+him; if slain, his country's flag would be his shroud.
+
+By no such considerations were our imprisoned comrades cheered. Not in
+the glorious rush and shock of battle; not in hope of victory or
+fadeless laurels; no angel charities, or parting kiss, or sympathetic
+voice bidding the soul look heavenward while the eye was growing dim; no
+dear star-spangled banner for a winding sheet. But wrapped in rags;
+unseen, unnoticed, dying by inches, in the cold, in the darkness, often
+in rain or sleet, houseless, homeless, friendless, on the hard floor or
+the bare ground, starving, freezing, broken-hearted.
+
+    O the long and dreary winter!
+    O the cold and cruel winter!
+
+It swept them away at Salisbury by tens, twenties, even fifties in a
+single night.
+
+These men preferred death to dishonor. When we are told that our people
+are not patriotic, or sigh of America as Burke did of France a century
+and a quarter ago, that the age of chivalry is gone, we may point to
+this great martyrdom, the brightest painting on the darkest background
+in all our history--thousands choosing to die for the country which
+seemed to disown them!
+
+My diary records, and I believe it correct, that on the 17th of
+February, there were ten deaths in the Danville prisons. A little before
+midnight of that day the Danville prisoners were loaded into box cars,
+and the train was started for Richmond. Three, it was reported, died in
+the cars that night, and one next morning in the street on the way to
+Libby.
+
+During the next three days I obtained the autographs of two hundred and
+fifteen of my fellow officers there. The little book is precious. A few
+still survive; but the great majority have joined the faithful whom they
+commanded.
+
+    On Fame's eternal camping ground
+      Their silent tents are spread,
+    And Glory guards with solemn round
+      The bivouac of the dead!
+
+On the twenty-second we were taken for exchange down the James. As we
+passed through the lines into what we were accustomed fondly to call
+"God's Country," salvos of artillery and signs of universal rejoicing
+greeted us. Our reception made us imagine for an hour that our arrival
+perceptibly heightened the general joy of the Washington anniversary.
+But many of us could not help wishing we were asleep with the thousands
+who were filling nameless graves at Danville and Salisbury.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] See Putnam's account of this incident in his _A Prisoner of War in
+Virginia_, p. 67.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+  Results and Reflections--The Right and the Wrong of it All.
+
+
+A few days of waiting in the buildings of the Naval Academy at Annapolis
+while exchange papers were preparing gave us opportunity for a
+much-needed transformation. Our old clothing, encrusted with dirt and
+infested with vermin, in many cases had to be destroyed. One of our
+number especially unkempt, Captain T., who gave up for an hour or two
+his beloved trousers, found to his surprise and horror when he called
+for their return that they had been burned with four hundred dollars in
+greenbacks sewed up in the lining! We smiled at his irrepressible grief;
+it was poetic justice. He had carefully concealed the fact of his being
+flush, pretending all along to be like the rest _in forma pauperis_, and
+contriving, it was said, to transfer in crooked ways our pennies into
+his pockets!
+
+Fumigated, parboiled, scrubbed, barbered, decently clothed, "the
+deformed transformed" were once more presentable in civilized society.
+Then followed a brief leave of absence if desired, to visit relatives.
+To them it seemed a veritable resurrection after our months of living
+burial; yet the joy of reunion was sometimes tinged with sorrow. I
+learned that in the very week in which the tidings of my capture came
+our home circle had been sadly broken by the death of a beloved sister,
+and just then the telegraph told of the loss by fever in the army at
+Newbern of our household darling,
+
+    Younger by fifteen years than myself,
+    Brother at once and son.
+
+As previously stated we who held commissions fared better on the whole
+than the non-commissioned officers and privates, though receiving from
+the commissary rations exactly equal to theirs. Commonly older and
+therefore of larger experience and superior intelligence, a good officer
+is as a father looking out for the physical welfare of his men as well
+as himself. Then there were some who, like Gardner, had been fortunate
+in keeping clothing, money, or other valuable at the instant of capture
+or in hiding it when searched by Dick Turpin at Libby. Several like
+Captain Cook had obtained pecuniary assistance from influential friends
+across the lines, or in a few instances had been favored by brother
+freemasons or by charitably disposed visitors who gave us a little food,
+a few old books, or even Confederate currency. Several sold to the
+sentinels watches, rings, chains, breast-pins, society badges, silver
+spurs, military boots, or curiously wrought specimens of Yankee
+ingenuity carved with infinite pains. The "Johnnies" appeared to hanker
+for any article not produced in the Confederacy. An officer of the guard
+offered Putnam three hundred dollars for a nearly worn-out tooth-brush!
+
+The educational standard among our officers was quite respectable. I
+think that West Point had a representative among us, as well as Bowdoin
+and several other colleges. Certainly we had ex-students from at least
+five universities, Brown, Yale, Harvard, the Sorbonne, and Göttingen.
+
+To afford diversion and as an antidote to depression, as well as for
+intellectual improvement, some of us studied mathematics[11] or
+_Shakespeare_. Three or four classes were formed in modern languages.
+We had card-playing with packs soiled and worn; checkers and chess on
+extemporized boards with rudely whittled "pieces"; occasional
+discussions historical, literary, political, or religious; many of us
+quite regular physical exercises in brisk walks on the empty lowest
+floor; story-telling; at times, though not often, the reading aloud of a
+Confederate newspaper, to a group of fifty or more listeners; at
+evening, sweet singing, riddles, jests, or loud-voiced sarcastic
+conundrums and satirical responses. Many found interest and pleasure in
+carving with the utmost nicety wood or bone.[12]
+
+Something like military discipline prevailed among the two hundred in
+the upper room where the superior rank of General Hayes was often
+recognized. Among a hundred and fifty or more in the lower room, where
+for a month or two I was the senior but was unwilling to assume
+precedence, I secured with the aid of Major Byron, Captain Howe, and a
+few others a sort of civil government with semi-military features.
+
+These measures and the favoring circumstances that have been mentioned
+tended of course to the preservation of health among the officers. There
+was severe suffering from hunger, cold, rheumatism, and scurvy, from all
+of which I was for weeks a victim and at one time seemed doomed to
+perish. I recall, however, the names of but two officers (there were
+said to be four) who died at Danville. Some of us, though enfeebled,
+were soon able to rejoin our commands; as Putnam his at Newbern in
+April, Gardner and I ours at Morehead City the day after Lee's surrender
+at Appomattox.
+
+Of the effect in after-life of these strange experiences it is safe to
+say that to some extent they were a spur to intellectual effort. At
+least they should have made all sadder and wiser; and they certainly
+were in some cases an equipment for descriptive authorship. Major (Adner
+A.) Small wrote a valuable account of prison life. Dr. Burrage's
+narratives of his capture and its results are entertaining and
+instructive. Major Putnam's _A Prisoner of War in Virginia_ (reprinted
+in his _Memories of My Youth_) is an important contribution to our
+military history.[13] Lieutenant Estabrooks's _Adrift in Dixie_ is
+charmingly told.[14] "Dutch Clark" (Adjutant James A. Clark, 17th Pa.
+Cav.), one of the four who nightly tried to sleep under my blanket,
+started and edited with ability at Scranton _The Public Code_, for which
+I was glad to furnish literary material. He afterwards became prominent
+in theosophic circles. Others distinguished themselves. Captain (Frank
+H.) Mason, in prison our best chess player, was long Consul-General at
+Paris. Cook studied five or six years in Germany, France, and Italy,
+then was for eight or ten years assistant professor in German at
+Harvard, and afterwards for two years, until his untimely death,
+professor in the same department at the Institute of Technology in
+Boston. In addressing a Sunday-school in Brooklyn, 1871, I unexpectedly
+lighted upon Captain Tiemann doing good work as a teacher. Captain
+Gardner continued for many months a model military officer in
+Georgia.[15] I remained in the service a full year, often on
+courts-martial, military commissions, and "reconstruction" duty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As already described, the condition of the enlisted men strongly
+contrasted with ours. The Report of the Confederate Inspector of Prisons
+now on file in the _War Records_ of our government, though the reports
+of his subordinate officers are significantly missing, covers the few
+months next preceding January, 1865. It sharply censures the immediate
+prison authorities, stating, as the result of the privations, that the
+deaths at Danville were at the rate of about five per day! I think they
+were more numerous in January and February. None of my battalion were
+there, but at Salisbury three-sevenths of them died in less than three
+months!
+
+It is hard to refrain from the expression of passionate indignation at
+the treatment accorded to our non-commissioned officers and privates in
+those southern hells. For years we were accustomed to ask, "In what
+military prison of the north, in what common jail of Europe, in what
+dungeon of the civilized or savage world, have captives taken in
+war--nay, condemned criminals--been systematically exposed to a
+lingering death by cold and hunger? The foulest felon--his soul black
+with sacrilege, his hands reeking with parricide--has enough of food, of
+clothing, of shelter; a chair to sit in, a fire to warm him, a blanket
+to hide his nakedness, a bed of straw to die on!"
+
+But listen a moment to the other side. Alexander H. Stephens,
+Vice-President of the Confederacy, afterwards for eight years a
+representative in our Congress, a man of unquestioned integrity, shows
+in his _War between the States_ (pub. 1868-70) by quotation from the
+Report of our then Secretary of War (July 19, 1866) that only 22,576
+Federal prisoners died in Confederate hands during the war, whilst
+26,436 Confederate prisoners died in Federal hands. He shows also from
+the United States Surgeon-General Joseph K. Barnes's Report that the
+number of Federal prisoners in southern prisons was about 270,000, but
+the number of Confederate prisoners in northern prisons was about
+220,000; so that the percentage of deaths in southern prisons was under
+nine, while the percentage of deaths in northern prisons was over
+twelve![16]
+
+Had there been, from the first, prompt exchanges of prisoners between
+the north and the south, few of these forty-nine thousand lives would
+have been lost. _Who, then, blocked the exchange?_
+
+Stephens declares (_War between the States_, vol. ii):
+
+    "It is now well understood to have been a part of the settled policy
+    of the Washington authorities in conducting the war, not to exchange
+    prisoners. The grounds upon which this extraordinary course was
+    adopted were, that it was humanity to the northern men in the field
+    to let their captured comrades perish in prison rather than to let
+    an equal number of Confederate soldiers be released on exchange to
+    meet them in battle."
+
+To the same effect our Secretary Stanton in one of his letters in 1864
+pointed out "that it would not be good policy to send back to be placed
+on the firing line 70,000 able-bodied Confederates, and to receive in
+exchange men who, with but few exceptions, were not strong enough to
+hold their muskets."
+
+The responsibility, then, for this refusal and the consequent enormous
+sacrifice of life with all the accompanying miseries, must rest in part
+upon the Government of the United States.[17]
+
+Blame not the tender-hearted Lincoln for this.
+
+Did he not judge wisely? Was it not best for the nation that we
+prisoners should starve and freeze?
+
+The pivotal question for him and Grant and Stanton was, "Shall we
+exchange and thereby enable the South to reinforce their armies with
+fifty to a hundred thousand trained soldiers?
+
+"If yes, then we must draft many more than that; for they being on the
+defensive we must outnumber them in battle. If no, then we must either
+stop their cruelties by equally cruel retaliation, as Washington hung
+André for the execution of Hale, or we must, more cruelly still, leave
+myriads of our soldiers to sink into imbecility and death."
+
+The North had not the excuse of destitution which the South had, and it
+could not bring itself to make reprisals in kind. To draft again, as
+evinced in the terrible riots of July, 1863, would have been extremely
+unpopular and perhaps overthrown the administration and defeated the
+policy of the government. To exchange would pretty surely have prolonged
+the war, and might have resulted in permanent disunion.
+
+As to the right or wrong of the refusal to exchange, it is hardly
+relevant to insist that the triumph of the South would have perpetuated
+slavery. Lincoln's Proclamation, January 1, 1863, did not touch slavery
+in the Border States. And from the southern nation, denuded of slaves by
+their escape to the North and confronted by the growing anti-slavery
+sentiment of the civilized world, the "peculiar institution" would soon
+have died out.
+
+Need we attempt, as is often done, to justify our government's attitude
+in this matter by affirming that the nation was in a life-and-death
+struggle for its very existence? Did that existence depend upon its
+territorial limits? Would it have gone to pieces if the victorious North
+had relinquished its hold on the defeated South? Had a boundary line
+been drawn half-way across the continent, separating the twenty-three
+loyal States from the eleven seceding, the twenty-two millions of the
+North from the nine or ten millions of the South, would it not have
+remained a mighty nation with no cause for further disunion, and able as
+the war had shown to place in the field more than two million fighting
+men?
+
+Is it not equally unnecessary to urge, as if it were a valid excuse for
+our government's refusal to exchange, that between the two nations there
+would have been frequent if not perpetual hostilities? Why so, any more
+than between the United States and Canada, where for fifty (it is now a
+hundred) years, along a boundary line of thirty-eight hundred miles,
+there had been unbroken peace and no fort nor warship?
+
+Let us not raise the question whether Lincoln made a colossal blunder
+when he renounced his favorite doctrine so emphatically set forth in his
+Congressional speech (page 47). The die was cast when Sumter was fired
+on. The question which confronted him in 1863-64--What to do with the
+perishing Union prisoners?--was simply one of military necessity.
+
+According to the ethics of war was he not fully justified in sacrificing
+us rather than imperiling the great cause which he had at heart?
+
+Are we, then, to blame President Davis, or the Confederate Commissioner
+Robert Ould, or Gen. John H. Winder, Superintendent of Military Prisons,
+for allowing the Federal prisoners to starve and freeze and die by
+thousands? Must we not admit the truth of their contention that their
+soldiers needed the food, clothing, and medical care for want of which
+their prisoners were suffering? And if the shocking conditions at
+Andersonville, Salisbury, Danville, and other prisons could easily have
+been avoided, or even if they were made more distressing by the
+deliberate inhumanity of those in immediate charge, ought not such facts
+to have intensified a desire on the part of both governments to effect a
+speedy exchange?
+
+The southern people were threatened with subjugation, their government
+with annihilation. In such a critical situation, what measures are
+allowable?
+
+We endeavor to look at the matter from both standpoints.
+
+This brings up the whole question of the rightfulness of war. If it must
+be waged, is success the highest duty? If military necessity demands,
+may any and every law of God and man be disregarded?
+
+While we write these concluding pages, the European conflict is raging,
+and the voice of the most warlike nation on the globe is heard
+continually affirming that war is useful and highly honorable, and that
+any means, however frightful, if necessary to ensure or hasten victory
+is praise-worthy!
+
+Then both presidents were right!
+
+But is not international war murder on a great scale? It is glorious to
+die for one's country; but how about killing for our country? killing
+innocent men, too? for the soldiers on either side honestly believe they
+are doing their duty in shooting and stabbing as many as possible! "The
+business of war," said John Wesley, "is the business of devils." So it
+would seem; but at heart few are enemies, none devils.
+
+It has been a pleasure in this narrative to record instances of a very
+different spirit. Surely, in proportion to population such were not
+fewer in the South than in the North. Like Whittier's _Angels of Buena
+Vista_ they rescue us from pessimism. They are prophetic of a better
+day.
+
+    Not wholly lost, O Father, is this evil world of ours!
+    Upward through the blood and ashes spring afresh the Eden flowers:
+    From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer,
+    And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] I still possess the copy of Davies's _Legendre_ which I bought on
+the 8th of November for twenty Confederate dollars, and of which I
+memorized three books in prison. As to the _Shakespeare_, see _ante_, p.
+85.
+
+[12] I retain with pride the wooden spoon which did me good service when
+I was _in limbo_. It cost me over two weeks' labor in shaping it with
+half a knife-blade and pieces of broken glass. For the little block of
+wood I paid the sentry one "rebel dollar!"
+
+[13] Many years after the war he rendered financial aid to fellow
+prisoners, his chum, artist Vander Weyde, and General Hayes. Author of
+several valuable works, he is now head of the publishing house of G. P.
+Putnam's Sons.
+
+[14] It was a special pleasure after the lapse of fifty years to meet
+Estabrooks at the Massachusetts Commandery of the Loyal Legion, where,
+without knowing of his presence, I had just made honorable mention of
+him in an address on prison life.
+
+[15] In my own case the prison experience was peculiar: it changed the
+course of my whole subsequent life. I had studied law, been admitted to
+the bar in two states, and "practiced" with fair success, "though," as a
+friend was accustomed to remark, "not enough to do much harm!" Many
+times one of the best men I ever knew, my father, had said to me at
+parting, "Do all the good you can." Much meditating while in the army
+and especially while in prison, I finally resolved to pursue an
+educational career. Of course I felt sadly the loss of years of study
+that might have better equipped me; but it seemed a duty. I had had some
+experience which, I thought, proved me not wholly unqualified. While a
+student in college and while reading law I had partly supported myself
+by giving instruction to private pupils and in the schools of General
+Russell and Mayor Skinner. Afterwards, before the war, I had taught
+Greek in the Worcester (Mass.) Academy; and English literature, Greek,
+and Latin for more than three years as principal of the Worcester public
+high school. I knew the vocation would be congenial. So I became
+principal of a state normal school, of two high schools, of a large
+academy; house chairman of a (Conn.) legislative committee securing the
+enactment of three school measures of importance; later, president of a
+college, professor in a theological seminary and in Cornell University;
+founder and for three years first president of the earliest and long the
+largest of the world's general _summer_ schools (which now in the United
+States number nearly 700); lecturer in many Chautauqua assemblies,
+colleges, vacation schools, and university extension centres; President
+of the State University of North Dakota; editor, with biographic
+sketches and copious notes, of many masterpieces as text-books in higher
+English literature; author of a history of my regiment; also of a
+treatise on _Voice and Gesture_, of many monographs and magazine
+articles mostly educational; associate founder and first president of
+_The Watch and Ward Society_; one of the directors and executive
+committee of the _American Peace Society_; director of the
+_Massachusetts Peace Society_; president of _The American Institute of
+Instruction_; translator, annotator, and essayist of _The Book of Job_;
+etc.
+
+It may be proper to add that among those indebted in some degree to my
+instruction or training were several who captured Yale's highest prize
+for rhetorical excellence (the hundred dollar gold medal of which I was
+the first recipient): one college president; six college professors;
+three university presidents; two governors of states; two United States
+Senators; and many others eminent as clergymen, authors, judges,
+editors, and business men.
+
+[16] The higher death-rate (if that be conceded) of southern soldiers is
+easily accounted for. The northern soldiers had been carefully selected
+by competent surgeons. They were physically perfect, or nearly so. They
+were in the bloom of early manhood or the strength of middle age--not an
+old man among them, not a diseased man among them, not a broken-down
+constitution among them. But multitudes of the southern, enrolled by
+conscription, were physically unfit. Many were much too old or too
+young. Said our General Grant, "To fill their ranks, they have robbed
+the cradle and the grave!"
+
+[17] The exchange is said to have been stopped in 1862-63 by the refusal
+of the Confederates to give up captured negro soldiers in return for
+southern captives in the North, the United States properly insisting
+upon perfect equality in the treatment of black and white. But early in
+1864, if not previously, the Confederates yielded the point and were
+anxious to surrender man for man.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+
+(From the original record. See p. 88.)
+
+Proceedings of a Court Martial convened at Danville Mil. Pris. by virtue
+of the following Order:
+
+                                  DANVILLE MIL. PRISON, Oct. 29, 1864.
+
+General Order
+
+No. 1.
+
+Pursuant to the Regulations adopted by the Union Officers of the 2d
+Floor Military Prison, Danville, Va., Oct. 26, 1864, a Court Martial is
+hereby appointed to convene at 10 o'clock A.M. on the 29th inst. or as
+soon thereafter as may be practicable, for the Trial of Captain [I omit
+from the record the name of the accused], 104th N. Y. Vols., and such
+other officers as may be brought before it.
+
+               Detail for the Court.
+
+ Lt. Col. W. A. LEACH,      [Here follow the names
+   90th P. V.               of Captains Bryant,
+ Lt. Col. THEO. GREGG,      Black, Clapp, Burkart,
+   45th P. V.               Weiss (?), Reilly (?),
+ Major J. W. BYRON,         Moody, and the name
+   88th N. Y. V.            of the Judge Advocate,
+ Capt. G. M. DICKERMAN,     Lt. and Adjt. James A.
+   26th Mass. V.            Clark, 17th Pa. Cav.]
+
+                           By order of the Officers of the 2d Floor,
+                                                 JAMES CARLE,
+                                 Col. 190th Pa. Vols., Senior Officer.
+
+
+DANVILLE MIL. PRISON, VA., 10 o'clock A.M., 31st, Oct. 1864.
+
+The Court met pursuant to the foregoing order. Present all the members.
+The Court then proceeded to the trial of Capt. [we again omit the name
+of the accused], 104th N. Y. Vols.
+
+The Judge Advocate stated that he had acquainted the accused of the
+order convening the Court, to which he replied in the words following,
+to wit: "What is that to do with me? I recognize no authority in this
+prison to convene a court martial," or words to that effect.
+
+The accused having refused to appear, the members of the Court were duly
+sworn by the Judge Advocate, and the Judge Advocate was duly sworn by
+the President of the Court. The accused, Capt. [again we omit the name],
+104th N. Y. Vols., was arraigned on the following charges and
+specifications:
+
+Charge--Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.
+
+Specification--In this: That Capt. [we again omit], 104th N. Y. Vols.,
+without provocation, did say in the hearing of several officers to
+Lieut. Col. Homer B. Sprague, 13th C. V., speaking in coarse and
+ungentlemanly manner the words following, to wit: [here we omit the
+language uttered as being too vile and filthy to print]; that he did
+several times repeat the same in a coarse and angry tone, and used other
+vulgar and indecent expressions in an insulting tone and manner. This at
+Danville Mil. Prison, Va., in the lower room thereof on the 29th day of
+October, 1864.
+
+The accused refusing to appear, the Judge Advocate was directed by the
+President to enter the plea of Not Guilty.
+
+    To the Specification,  Not Guilty.
+    To the Charge,         Not Guilty.
+
+Lieut. G. C. Wilson, 2d P. Artillery, and Lieut. Wm. Shuler, 107th P.
+Vols., witnesses for the prosecution, stated that they had cognizance of
+the facts set forth in the Specification.
+
+The proceedings of the Court having been reviewed by the Judge Advocate,
+he submitted the case without argument. The Court was then cleared for
+deliberation, and having maturely considered the evidence adduced find
+the accused
+
+On the Specification, Guilty; with the exception of the words "and used
+other vulgar and indecent expressions."
+
+Of the Charge, Guilty. And do therefore sentence him to be reprimanded
+by the Senior Officer.
+
+The Court is thus lenient owing to this being the first case of the kind
+brought before it.
+
+ WM. A. LEACH, Lt. Col. 90th Regt. Pa. Vols., Pres.;
+ JAS. A. CLARK, Adjt. 17th Pa. Cavalry, Judge Advocate.
+
+The Proceedings and Findings in the foregoing case are hereby
+respectfully submitted to Brig.-Gen. Hayes for his consideration.
+
+JAMES CARLE, Col. 191st Pa. Vols., Senior Officer, 2d Floor.
+
+
+CONFED. MIL. PRISON, DANVILLE, VA., Nov. 1, 1864.
+
+The Proceedings and Findings of the Court Martial of which Lt. Col. W.
+A. Leach, 90th Pa. Vols., was President, having been submitted to
+Brig.-Gen. Hayes, the Senior Officer present, are approved. The extreme
+leniency of the Court must be apparent to all, and can only be excused
+by the novelty of the case brought before it. Language fails to convey
+censure adequate to the gross vulgarity and ungentlemanly conduct of the
+accused. Captain [we omit the name] seems to forget or misconceive his
+responsibility in his present circumstances. An officer being a prisoner
+of war is not relieved from his responsibility to his government nor
+from his liability to the regulations of the service as far as may be
+applied to his dishonor by ungentlemanly and unofficer-like conduct; and
+many other offenses committed by an officer when a prisoner of war are
+as punishable as if that officer were serving with his command. And it
+is well the officers in the prison have organized a Court for the
+summary punishment of those of their number, who, forgetful of their
+position and their honor, would bring shame upon themselves and their
+associates.
+
+It is to be hoped that Capt. [name we omit]'s conduct in the future will
+be such as will cause to be forgotten his mistakes of the past.
+
+                                  JOSEPH HAYES, Brig. Gen. U. S. Vols.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+A
+
+ Adams, Dr. Nehemiah, 29
+
+ Adams, Sarah F., quoted, 35
+
+ ambulance, 37, 38
+
+ annihilation threatened, 23
+
+ apothecary doctor, 108, 109
+
+ Appendix, court record, 153-156
+
+ apple-jack, 39
+
+ Army of West Va., 4, 5, 6
+
+ artillery, trained on us, 51, 58
+
+ _at_ in "Where is he at?" 73, 75
+
+ attempt to break out, 113, 118
+
+ autographs, officers', 136
+
+
+B
+
+ Barnes, J. K., Surgeon-Gen., 146
+
+ battle, pomp of, 8, 134
+
+ battle-field, Winchester, 3 +
+
+ beans, soup of, ration, 44, 94, 102
+
+ Beecher, Henry Ward, quoted, 30
+
+ Beecher, married by, 52
+
+ Berryville, 3
+
+ Berryville pike, 3, 4, 7
+
+ Birge, Gen. H. W., 7, 9
+
+ blanket for several, 105
+
+ blankets "confiscated," 46
+
+ blankets, not to be shaken, 87
+
+ Blinn, Col. C. D., ill, 7
+
+ Blue Ridge, 1, 35, 36
+
+ Braxton's Confed. artillery, 9
+
+ bread, corn-cob-meal, 44, 93, 100
+
+ breakfast at Staunton, 32, 33
+
+ breakfast at Tom's Brook, 21
+
+ Breckenridge, Confed. Gen., 5
+
+ Brinton, Col., escape of, 26, 27
+
+ brooms in prison, 100, 102
+
+ Brown, John, defended, 28
+
+ Brownell, H. H., quoted, 137
+
+ Browning, Mrs., quoted, 36, 83, 91
+
+ buckets for water, 98, 110, 116
+
+ Buckingham, Gov. of Conn., 7, 129
+
+ "Bucktail Regiment," 64, 130
+
+ burning $400, 138
+
+ Burrage, Major H. S., 117, 120, 142
+
+ Bush, Lieut. W. W., 93, 96
+
+ "Butler's dandy regiment," 7 (note)
+
+ Byron, Lord, quoted, 28
+
+ Byron, Major John W., 87
+
+ Byrne, Major John, 64, 66, 141
+
+
+C
+
+ cards, playing, 102, 106, 141
+
+ Carle, Col. James, 64, 66, 80
+
+ carving in prison, 49, 83, 101, 141
+
+ cavalry, 4, 5, 6, 13, 25, 34, 40, 45
+
+ chaplain, prisoner, 57, 58, 80
+
+ charge, Gordon's brilliant, 10, 12
+
+ Chautauqua, Mountain Lake, 121
+
+ checkers, 92, 102, 141
+
+ Cheever, Dr. Geo. B., 29
+
+ chess, 92, 102, 141
+
+ choosing death, 124, 125, 133, 134, 136, 143, 153
+
+ Clarke, Adjt. James A., 22, 96, 101, 117, 143, 153
+
+ clergymen's visits, 121, 122
+
+ Clover, in it at night, 47
+
+ coal, poor and scanty, 79
+
+ coal dust, very fine! 48
+
+ cold, severe and fatal, 79, 132, 142
+
+ communication, finger signs, 65, 70
+
+ communication, secret, 43, 70
+
+ Confederate currency, 27, 32, 33, 34, 94, 121, 140
+
+ Cook, Capt. William, 58, 85, 96, 103, 105, 143
+
+ cooking, how and where, 21, 95
+
+ Constitution, U. S., 29, 39, 47
+
+ Corcoran, Gen. Michael, 53
+
+ corn-cob-meal bread, 44, 93, 100, 107
+
+ corn-cob-meal soup, 94, 102
+
+ court martial in prison, 88; and Appendix, 153
+
+ Crew, John, a kind enemy, 28
+
+ Crook, Gen. George, 4
+
+
+D
+
+ daily routine, Danville, 97-105, 140, 141
+
+ Dame, Rev., preaches to us, 121
+
+ Dan river, 79, 98
+
+ Danville, arrival at, 47, 48;
+   again, 77
+
+ Danville death record, 129, 132, 142, 144
+
+ Danville prisons, 98, 129
+
+ Davies's _Legendre_, 140 (note)
+
+ Davis, Jefferson, 150
+
+ Davis, Lieut., death of, 57, 58, 68
+
+ dead lines, Salisbury, 54
+
+ deaf-and-dumb alphabet, 65, 70
+
+ deaths at Salisbury, 55, 130, 134, 136, 145
+
+ deaths of Confederates in northern prisons, 146
+
+ deaths at Danville, 129, 132, 136, 145
+
+ Declaration of Independence, 47
+
+ defile, Berryville, 3, 4, 7
+
+ devastation by Sheridan, 2, 3
+
+ diary kept, 22, 28, 44
+
+ Dickerman, Capt. G. M., 32
+
+ discussion with Lieut. Howard, 28, 29, 30
+
+ discussions in prison, 47, 90, 91, 102, 110, 141
+
+ distribution of rations, 54, 100
+
+ Dolan, pitied by Confederate ladies, 37
+
+ Duffié, Gen. O. N., 113-117
+
+ Dwight, Gen. William, 12, 13
+
+
+E
+
+ Early, Gen. Jubal A., 5, 9, 14, 17
+
+ Edenburg village, 26
+
+ education in prison, 69, 70, 91, 92, 140
+
+ Eighth Corps, W. Va. Army, 4, 5, 6
+
+ Election votes in prison, 90
+
+ Emerson, Rev., prison chaplain, 58, 80
+
+ enlist or die, choice to, 133, 134
+
+ Epaminondas, strategy at Leuctra, 10
+
+ "escape on the brain," 67
+
+ escapes attempted, 26, 50, 110
+
+ Estabrooks, Lieut. H. L., 72, 74, 142, 143 (note)
+
+ exchange of prisoners, 83, 89, 102, 131
+
+ exchange blocked, 89, 90, 106, 107, 124, 131, 147-151
+
+
+F
+
+ Ficklin, J. F., his kindness, 125-129, 131
+
+ Fisher, First Sea Lord, quoted, 57
+
+ Fisher's Hill, battle, 25
+
+ Fisher's Hill reached, 20
+
+ "flag-of-truce fever," 106, 107, 108
+
+ fleas, wicked, 27
+
+ flour ration, how cooked, 21
+
+ Fontleroy, Dr., his hospitality, 32, 33
+
+ freemasonry, very useful, 38, 40, 42, 46
+
+ French, oral lessons in, 69, 70
+
+ Fry, Major W. H., 85
+
+ fugitive slave law, 29, 30
+
+ fun, critical and sarcastic, 104, 105
+
+ fun, sanitary, 79, 80
+
+ furnace way of escape, 110
+
+ Furness, Horace Howard, 129
+
+
+G
+
+ Gardner, Adjt. W. C., 69, 70, 71, 74, 85, 107, 108, 109, 142, 143
+
+ Gee, Confed. Major, 52, 53, 56, 74
+
+ German, oral lessons in, 92
+
+ Ghost in _Hamlet_, 85, 86
+
+ "God's Country," 137
+
+ God's fugitive slave law, 29
+
+ "going through" prisoners, 22
+
+ Gordon, Confed. Gen. J. B., 5, 10, 17
+
+ Gordon's brilliant charge, 10, 13
+
+ gorge of Berryville pike, 3, 4, 10
+
+ gorilla or guerrilla, which? 39, 40
+
+ grain cars at Danville, 48
+
+ Grant's merciless orders, 2
+
+ Greek Testament, kept, 42;
+   stolen, 80
+
+ greenbacks burned, 138
+
+ greenbacks, relative value of, 23, 24, 41, 140
+
+ Greensboro, N. Carolina, 48
+
+ Gregg, Lieut.-Col. Theodore, 64, 85
+
+ Grover, Gen. Cuvier, 5, 6, 8, 12
+
+ guerrilla, "I'm a guerrilla," 59
+
+ guerrilla, Morgan's, a kind gentleman, 34
+
+ gun cotton, cushion suspected, 45, 46
+
+
+H
+
+ hake, issued in rations, 94
+
+ Hall, Rev. Charles K., kind, 122
+
+ _Hamlet_, rehearsal, 85, 86
+
+ Handy, Lieut., aide to Molineux, 11
+
+ Hartshorne, Col. W. Ross, 64, 66, 67, 68, 115, 130
+
+ Haslett, Capt., Provost Marshal, 26, 37, 38
+
+ Haurand, Major August, 22, 66
+
+ Hayes, Gen. Joseph, 53, 61, 65, 67, 92, 141
+
+ Hayes, Gen., on court martial, Appendix, 156
+
+ health, surely failing, 123
+
+ Henry, Patrick, cited, 30
+
+ "Hide your greenbacks," 41
+
+ hole in the brick wall, 43
+
+ Holland, J. H., imaginary, 128
+
+ Homer, quoted, 80;
+   puzzled to death, 99
+
+ Hooper, Lieut.-Col. C. H., 41, 54, 100, 115
+
+ horse lost in battle, 10, 11, 19
+
+ hospital in Danville, 106, 132
+
+ hostage, Lt. Manning held as, 60
+
+ Howard, Confed. Lieut., 28, 29, 30
+
+ Howe, Capt. Wesley C., 22, 50, 72, 109, 110, 141
+
+
+I
+
+ Imboden, J. D., Confed. Gen., 25
+
+ Indiana soldiers, acrobats, 24
+
+ innocent deliberately slain, 152
+
+ international war, 152
+
+ Irish Bend, La., battle, wounded in, 89
+
+
+J
+
+ James river, 46, 137
+
+ Jefferson, Thomas, quoted, 31
+
+ Jersey lightning, apple-jack? 39
+
+ Johnson's Island prison, 126
+
+ Jonah, disgorged like, 49
+
+ Jordan, H. T., 126, 127
+
+
+K
+
+ Keifer, Gen. J. W., 9
+
+ Kerrstown, 20
+
+
+L
+
+ Ladies, Confed., kind and handsome, 37
+
+ Lee, Gen. Fitzhugh, 5;
+   wounded, 13
+
+ _Legendre_, Davies's, 113, 140 (note)
+
+ letters from outside, 88, 89, 96, 132
+
+ Libby prison, 40-44, 112, 144
+
+ lice in prison, 102, 103, 132
+
+ lice of Egypt, not "in it," 80
+
+ Lincoln, Abraham, quoted, 47, 48
+
+ Lincoln on exchange of prisoners, 89, 90, 125
+
+ Lincoln on right of revolution, 47, 48
+
+ Lloyd, J. J., returns from desertion, 133
+
+ Lockwood, Capt., killed, 77
+
+ log houses for officers, 52, 53
+
+ Longfellow, quoted, 136
+
+ Lovelace, poet, quoted, 89
+
+
+M
+
+ Manning, Lieut. W. C., tunnel, 60, 61, 65
+
+ Mark Tapley's "jolly" example, 38
+
+ _Marmion_, Scott's, quoted, 37
+
+ martyrs in reality, 133, 134, 136
+
+ Mason, Capt. Frank H., 92, 143
+
+ Masonic Hall, Winchester, 18
+
+ McIntosh's cavalry, 4
+
+ Meacham's Station, 38, 40
+
+ meat ration, 44, 93, 94
+
+ Mercutio's wound, 118, 119
+
+ Middletown in Shenandoah Valley, 20
+
+ Molineux, Col. E. L., 7, 9, 14
+
+ money concealed, 42, 119, 138
+
+ money, Confederate, 23, 32, 33, 34, 113, 140
+
+ Morgan's guerrillas, 34
+
+ Mortality in prison. _See_ under "deaths"
+
+ "Muggers," 51
+
+
+N
+
+ Napoleon, his strategy, 10;
+   quoted, 135
+
+ nationality, northern, 149, 150
+
+ nationality, southern, 39, 150, 151
+
+ necessity, military, defies every law, 151
+
+ negroes, loyal and kind, 111
+
+ negroes, prisoners of war, 78, 129
+
+ New Market, Va., 26, 27, 28
+
+ Newtown, V., 20
+
+ Nineteenth Corps, 4, 5, 6, 10, 66, 67
+
+
+O
+
+ occupations, 83, 84, 85, 91, 92; 97-105
+
+ O'Neil, Col., Yale classmate, killed, 64, 130
+
+ Opequon battle, 3-15
+
+ Opequon Creek, 3, 7
+
+ order to retreat, 11
+
+ Ould, R., Confed. Agt. for exchange, 151
+
+ ovens for baking, 110
+
+ overcoat saved, 19, 20, 42, 46, 105, 108, 109
+
+
+P
+
+ "painfully sober," 85
+
+ parole given, 53, 129
+
+ parole rejected, 53
+
+ _pediculidæ vestimenti, non capitis_, 99, 100
+
+ Petersburg shelled, 45
+
+ Pharaoh's epidermis and obstinacy, 80
+
+ Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, 10
+
+ plots to break out, 61-75; 113-119
+
+ policing prison, 87, 100
+
+ prayer of chaplain Emerson, 58, 80
+
+ prey and pray, 121
+
+ Prey, Col. Gilbert G., 54, 115, 130
+
+ prison number 3, officers', 78, +
+
+ prison 6, the worst of all, 131, 132
+
+ prison rules adopted, 87, 88
+
+ profanity of soldiers, 14, 15, 39, 87
+
+ Putnam, Adjt. G. Haven, 91, 92, 101, 110, 121, 140, 142
+
+
+Q
+
+ questions, amusing or ugly, 104, 105, 141
+
+
+R
+
+ Ralston, Col., killed, 61, 64, 66, 114, 118
+
+ Ramseur, S. D., Confed. Gen., 13, 15
+
+ rations, 44, 49, 56, 93, 94, 100, 102, 107, 124, 139
+
+ recapture of escaped officers, 112
+
+ recount made futile by trick, 111, 112
+
+ Redwood of Mobile, Yale classmate, 38
+
+ Reed, "shot into inch pieces," 24, 25, 26, 31
+
+ retaliation threatened, 60;
+   done, 148
+
+ rheumatism, 123, 142
+
+ Richardson, Albert D., of _Tribune_, 52
+
+ Richmond, arrival at, 40, 136
+
+ Richmond, watching exploding shells, 45
+
+ Ricketts' Division, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12
+
+ riddle, fatal to the old poet, 99
+
+ riots in July, 1863, 133, 149
+
+ robbery of captives, 15, 22, 46
+
+ Rodes, Confed. General, 5;
+   killed, 10, 13
+
+ roll-call nullified, 111, 112
+
+ roll-call sergt., queer, 99-103, 111, 112
+
+ rope ladder, twisted rags, 111, 112
+
+ rules adopted in prison, 87, 88, 141, 153
+
+ Russell, Sergt. Alfred, 89
+
+ Russell, Gen. D. A., killed, 13
+
+ Russell, Martha, 89
+
+ Russell, Gen. W. H., 128
+
+
+S
+
+ Sadler, Major David, 66
+
+ Salisbury prison, 50-55; 61, 130, 133, 134, 136
+
+ sandwiches, G. W. Swepson's, 49
+
+ sanitary measures, 79, 80, 103, 141, 142
+
+ Sargent, Lieut, of 14th N. H., 23
+
+ Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 8, 37, 134, 135
+
+ scurvy prevalent, 123, 142
+
+ searching of prisoners, 41, 42, 119
+
+ seceded states, a real nation? 150, 151
+
+ sentries' sing-song call, 44
+
+ sermons in prison, 57, 58, 121, 122
+
+ "Set the table for dinner," 96
+
+ Shakespeare, quoted, 36, 118, 119
+
+ Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, 85, 140
+
+ shelter, lack of at Salisbury, 53, 55, 136
+
+ Shenandoah river and valley, 1, 2
+
+ Sheridan's devastation, 1, 2, 3
+
+ Sherman, Gen. W. T., quoted, 1
+
+ "shot twice into inch pieces," 24
+
+ Simpson, Lieut. J. B.; his sly trick, 77
+
+ singing at evening at Danville, 104, 141
+
+ Sixth Corps, 4, 5, 6, 10, 13
+
+ "skirmishing" a misnomer, 102, 103
+
+ slavery doomed in any event, 149
+
+ "Slim Jim," 101
+
+ Small, Major Adner A., 142
+
+ Smith, Robert C., Confed. commandant, 81, 82
+
+ Smith, Col. Robert C., Yale man, kind, 82, +
+
+ Smith, Sergt. W. F., clerk, 129
+
+ "snack?" or snake? 49
+
+ sorghum syrup issued, 94
+
+ soup, so called (or broth), 44, 94, 102
+
+ spittoon mystery, solved? 78
+
+ spoon, carving of, 83, 141 (note)
+
+ "spoon fashion," lying in, 105
+
+ "_Spoon_"! significance of, 105
+
+ Sprague, Bvt. Col. H. B., _passim_, and 143 (note)
+
+ stampede, Yankee, 11, 12;
+   Confederate, 18, 23
+
+ Stanton, E. M., War Secretary, 147, 148
+
+ State, allegiance to, 39
+
+ Staunton, Va., march to, 2, 28
+
+ Staunton, arrival and breakfast at, 32, 33
+
+ Staunton, Morgan's guerrilla kind at, 33, 34
+
+ stealing rations from guards, haversacks, 77
+
+ Stephens, Hon. Alexander H., 146, 147
+
+ "Storming Column" at Port Hudson, 7
+
+ "Stove Brigade," at Danville, 79
+
+ stoves in prison at Danville, 79, 95
+
+ Strasburg, Va., 20
+
+ Strickland, undertaker, 129
+
+ Stuart, Dr. Moses, on slavery, 29
+
+ subjugation policy, Lincoln's, 151
+
+ sunrise on the Blue Ridge, 36
+
+ sutler, Confederate, 84
+
+ swearing, copious, of two kinds, 14, 15, 39
+
+ sweeping the floors, 87, 100
+
+ Swepson, George W., very kind, 49, 50
+
+
+T
+
+ table-knife saw, Lieut. Titus's, 97, 111
+
+ Tarbell, Capt. Doctor, assistant commissary, 54, 100
+
+ Taylor, Bayard, quoted, 80
+
+ _tertium quid_, solution of mystery, 78
+
+ theatrical collapse at Danville, 85, 86
+
+ Thirteenth Conn. Regt., very patriotic, 7
+
+ Tiemann, Capt. W. F., 14, 15, 85, 109, 143
+
+ Titus, Lieut. L. B., invents useful saw, 97, 111
+
+ tobacco and the spittoon mystery, 78
+
+ tobacco given us by kind clergyman, 122
+
+ Tom's Brook, 20, 22, 23
+
+ tooth-brush, second-hand, $300 offered, 140
+
+ Torbert, Gen. Alfred T., 3, 4, 5, 6, 17
+
+ trading with Confed. sentinels, 54, 120
+
+ tunnel through the Blue Ridge, 35, 36
+
+ tunneling at Salisbury, 60, 61;
+   Danville, 109, 110
+
+ Turner, Nathaniel, inspector, Libby, 41
+
+ Turner, Richard, commandant at Libby, 41, 45
+
+
+U
+
+ unguentum, two pounds called for, 81
+
+ university students in prison at Danville, 140
+
+
+V
+
+ Vander Weyde, Lieut. Henry, artist, 101, 117
+
+ vermin at Danville, 80, 81, 87, 131, 132
+
+ view-point, all-important, 57
+
+ votes in prison for President, Nov. 8, 90
+
+
+W
+
+ war, Admiral Fisher on its essence, 57
+
+ war, Lieut. Gen. S. B. M. Young, quoted on, 57
+
+ war, Gen. Wm. T. Sherman's "War is hell," 1
+
+ Washington, George, Commander-in-chief, 73, 148
+
+ Washington, Lieutenant, a Confederate, 83
+
+ Washington, President, a Mason at Winchester, 18
+
+ Washington wished slavery somehow ended, 30
+
+ water parties under guard, 98, 110
+
+ water scarce _en route_, 20;
+   at Salisbury, 56, 65, 75
+
+ Watts, Isaac, quoted, 45
+
+ Waynesboro, Va., 34, 35
+
+ Webster, Daniel, 29
+
+ Wesley, John, quoted, 152
+
+ West Virginia, Army of, 4, 5
+
+ "Where is he at?" 73
+
+ Whittier, John G., quoted, 152
+
+ Wilson, Cav. Gen. J. H., 4
+
+ Winchester, Va., battle of, 3-15
+
+ Winder, Confed. Gen. J. H., Supt. Prisons, 112
+
+ wood, split without edge-tools, 97, 107
+
+ Woolsey, T. D., President of Yale, 128
+
+
+Y
+
+ Yadkin river crossing, 72, 75
+
+ Yale College men, 38, 49, 64, 69, 82
+
+ Yankee ingenuity and skill, 83, 84, 97
+
+ Y. M. C. A., of Richmond, 121
+
+ Young, Lieut.-Gen. S. B. M., on war, 57
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Endnotes:
+
+    The following significant errors have been corrected:
+
+      Portrait Caption, "Gardiner" to _Gardner_.
+
+      Page 102 & 160, "peculidæ" to _pediculidæ_, could be amended to
+        _pediculus_ however the former seems more in keeping with the
+        original intent.
+
+      Spelling errors occurring solely in the Index have been corrected
+        to match the main text.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lights and Shadows in Confederate
+Prisons, by Homer B. Sprague
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFEDERATE PRISONS ***
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons, by 
+Homer B. Sprague
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons
+       A Personal Experience, 1864-5
+
+Author: Homer B. Sprague
+
+Release Date: January 21, 2008 [EBook #24385]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFEDERATE PRISONS ***
+
+
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+
+Produced by Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="PORTRAIT" id="PORTRAIT"></a><img src="images/001.jpg" width="410" height="500" alt="" title="" />
+Portraits of Fellow Officers in Prison<br /><br />
+Left to right&mdash;Top line: Capt. Cook, Capt. Burrage<br />
+Middle line: Adj't. Gardner, Col. Sprague, Capt. Howe<br />
+Lower line: Lieut. Estabrooks, Adj't. Putnam</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="hd1"><i>"Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit"</i></div>
+
+<h1><span class="sp1"><big>Lights and Shadows in<br />
+Confederate Prisons</big></span></h1>
+
+<div class="hd2"><b>A Personal Experience<br />
+1864-5</b></div>
+
+<div class="hd3"><b>By</b></div>
+
+<h2>Homer B. Sprague, Ph.D.</h2>
+
+<div class="hd4">Bvt.-Colonel 13th Conn. Vols.</div>
+
+<div class="hd4" style="margin-bottom: .5em;">Sometime Professor in Cornell and President of the University<br />
+of North Dakota</div>
+
+<div class="pad2"><p class="hd4">Author of "History of the 13th Conn. Inf. Vols.," "Right<br />
+and Wrong in our War between the States," and<br />
+"The European War, Its Cause and Cure"</p></div>
+
+<div class="hd3"><i>With Portraits</i></div>
+
+<div class="pad1"><p class="center"><b>G. P. Putnam's Sons</b><br />
+New York and London<br />
+The Knickerbocker Press<br />
+1915</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="pad2"><p class="hd1"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1915</span><br />
+BY<br />
+HOMER B. SPRAGUE</p></div>
+
+<div class="hd1"><b>The Knickerbocker Press, New York</b></div>
+<hr />
+<div class="hd5">To<br />
+the ALUMNI of<br />
+the UNIVERSITIES of<br />
+YALE, CORNELL, and NORTH DAKOTA<br />
+<br />
+in which respectively the author was<br />
+student, professor, president;<br />
+to<br />
+thousands of his pupils yet living;<br />
+to<br />
+his companions of the loyal legion,<br />
+comrades of the grand army of the republic,<br />
+all surviving officers and soldiers<br />
+union or confederate;<br />
+all who cherish the memory of the patriot dead<br />
+and all who HATE WAR,<br />
+this record is affectionately<br />
+dedicated</div>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> narrative of prison life differs from all
+others that I have seen, in that it is careful to put
+the best possible construction upon the treatment
+of Union prisoners by the Confederates, and
+to state and emphasize kindnesses and courtesies
+received by us from them.</p>
+
+<p>For the accuracy of the facts stated I am
+indebted to a diary kept from day to day during
+the whole of my imprisonment, and to the best
+obtainable records. The exact language of conversations
+cannot of course always be remembered,
+but I aim always to give correctly the substance.</p>
+
+<p>I am aware that the opinions I express in regard
+to Sheridan's strategy at the Battle of Winchester
+are not those generally entertained. But I give
+reasons. His own account of the battle is sadly
+imperfect. To capture but five guns and nine
+battle flags at a cost of four thousand six hundred
+and eighty killed and wounded, and leave almost
+the entire rebel army in shape to fight two great
+battles within a month, was not the programme
+he had planned. Early said "Sheridan should
+have been cashiered."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I shall be blamed more for venturing to question
+Lincoln's policy of subjugation. He had proclaimed
+with great power and in the most unmistakable
+language in Congress that "any portion of
+any people had a perfect right to throw off their
+old government and establish a new one." But
+now, instead of standing strictly on the defensive,
+or attempting by diplomacy to settle the
+conflict which had become virtually international,
+he entered upon a war of conquest.</p>
+
+<p>I do not blame him for refusing to exchange
+prisoners, nor President Davis for allowing them to
+starve and freeze. Both were right, <i>if war is right</i>.
+It was expedient that thirty, fifty, or a hundred
+thousand of us should perish, or be rendered
+physically incapable of bearing arms again. The
+"deep damnation of the taking off" was due not
+to individual depravity but to military necessity.</p>
+
+<div class="author">H. B. S.</div>
+<p class="loc1">Brighton, Mass., U. S. A.,<br />
+<i>1915</i>.</p>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table class="tab1" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td class="td2" colspan="2"><small><b>PAGE</b></small></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td4">Preface</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_v">v</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td3" colspan="2">CHAPTER I</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">The First, or Forenoon, Battle of Winchester, Indecisive&mdash;Sheridan's
+and Early's Mistakes&mdash;The Capture</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td3" colspan="2">CHAPTER II</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">At Winchester&mdash;On the Road thence to Tom's Brook, New Market, and
+Staunton</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3" colspan="2">CHAPTER III</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">At Staunton&mdash;Thence to Waynesboro, Meacham's, and Richmond</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">At Libby&mdash;Thence to Clover, Danville, Greensboro, and
+Salisbury&mdash;Effort to Pledge us not to Attempt Escape</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3" colspan="2">CHAPTER V</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">At Salisbury&mdash;Great Plot to Escape&mdash;How Frustrated</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3" colspan="2">CHAPTER VI</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">From Salisbury to Danville&mdash;The Forlorn Situation&mdash;Effort to
+"Extract Sunshine from Cucumbers"&mdash;The Vermin&mdash;The Prison
+Commandant a Yale Man&mdash;Proposed Theatricals&mdash;Rules
+Adopted&mdash;Studies&mdash;Vote in Prison for Lincoln and
+McClellan&mdash;Killing Time</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td3" colspan="2">CHAPTER VII</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Exact Record of Rations in Danville&mdash;Opportunity to Cook&mdash;Daily
+Routine of Proceedings from Early Dawn till Late at Night</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_93">93</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3" colspan="2">CHAPTER VIII</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Continual Hope of Exchange of Prisoners&mdash;"Flag-of-Truce
+Fever!"&mdash;Attempted Escape by Tunneling&mdash;Repeated Escapes by
+Members of Water Parties, and how we Made the Roll-Call
+Sergeant's Count Come Out all Right every Time&mdash;Plot to Break
+Out by Violence, and its Tragic End</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td3" colspan="2">CHAPTER IX</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Kind Clergymen Visit us and Preach Excellent Discourses&mdash;Colonel
+Smith's Personal Good Will to me&mdash;His Offer&mdash;John F. Ficklin's
+Charity&mdash;My Good Fortune&mdash;Supplies of Clothing
+Distributed&mdash;Deaths in Prison</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td3" colspan="2">CHAPTER X</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Results and Reflections&mdash;The Right and the Wrong of it All</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_138">138</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td4">Appendix</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td4">Index</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr />
+<h1><small>Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons</small></h1>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<h1 class="pad2">Lights and Shadows in
+Confederate Prisons</h1>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>The First, or Forenoon, Battle of Winchester, Indecisive&mdash;Sheridan's
+and Early's Mistakes&mdash;The Capture.</p></div>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">War is Hell</span>," said our great strategist,
+General W. T. Sherman. According to its latest
+code, with few or no exceptions, the end justifies
+the means, and, if necessary to success, it is right
+to do wrong.</p>
+
+<p>Fifty years ago one of the fairest regions on
+earth was that portion of Virginia extending southwesterly
+about a hundred and twenty miles from
+Harper's Ferry to the divide beyond Staunton,
+where rise the headwaters of the James. Walled
+in by the Blue Ridge on the southeast and parallel
+ranges of the Alleghanies on the northwest, it
+takes its name from the beautiful river which
+winds along its length, and which the Indians<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+poetically christened Shenandoah (Daughter of
+the Stars!). When some three hundred of us
+prisoners of war walked wearily a hundred miles
+from Winchester to Staunton in September, 1864,
+it was still rich and lovely. A few weeks later,
+the necessities of war made it a scene of utter
+desolation.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="inde">Grant had rightly concluded [says Sheridan<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>],
+that it was time to bring the war home to a people
+engaged in raising crops from a prolific soil to feed the
+country's enemies, and devoting to the Confederacy
+its best youth. I endorsed the program in all its
+parts; for the stores of meat and grain that the valley
+provided, and the men it furnished for Lee's
+depleted regiments, were the strongest auxiliaries
+he possessed.</p></div>
+
+<p class="noin">Accordingly Grant issued orders with increasing
+emphasis, particularly in August and September,
+to make the whole region "a barren waste," to</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>destroy or carry off the crops and animals; do all
+possible damage to railroads; seize stock of every
+description; take away all negro laborers so as to
+prevent further planting; hold as prisoners of war, if
+sympathizing with the rebellion, all male citizens
+under fifty years of age capable of bearing arms, etc.</p></div>
+
+<p>In obedience to these commands, Sheridan
+engaged with alacrity in the work of destruction.
+In a few weeks he reported as follows:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="inde">I have destroyed 2000 barns filled with wheat, hay,
+and farming implements; over 70 mills filled with
+flour and wheat; and driven in front of my army 4000
+head of stock.</p></div>
+
+<p>Said one of his officers who knew whereof he was
+speaking, "A crow flying through the valley would
+have to carry his own rations, for he could pick
+up nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>At Winchester, the principal town in the
+Shenandoah Valley, one hundred and fifty miles
+N. N. W. of Richmond, with a population of about
+four thousand, the 19th of that September was a
+day of glory but also of sorrow. Four thousand
+six hundred and eighty of the Union Army, killed
+and wounded, told how dearly Sheridan's first
+great victory was gained.</p>
+
+<p>The battle was fought over three, four, or five
+square miles, east and north from Winchester,
+for the most part near the Opequon Creek, from
+which it is sometimes called the "Battle of the
+Opequon." To reach the field, the bulk of
+Sheridan's army, starting at three o'clock in the
+morning from Berryville ten miles east, had to
+pass through a gorge in which for a considerable
+distance the turnpike extends towards Winchester.
+Sheridan's plan at first was to bring his army,
+except Merritt's and Averell's Divisions of Torbert's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+Cavalry, through the defile, post the Sixth
+Corps on the left, the Nineteenth on the right,
+throw Crook's Army of West Virginia across the
+Staunton turnpike (leading southwest from Winchester),
+and so cut off all retreat up the valley.
+Meanwhile those two cavalry divisions were to
+make a long detour on our right to the north from
+Berryville, and close in upon the Confederate left.
+Sheridan felt sure of victory, for we outnumbered
+the enemy nearly two to one. Had our army got
+into position early in the morning, we should have
+captured or destroyed the whole of them.</p>
+
+<p>At early dawn McIntosh's Brigade of Wilson's
+Division of Torbert's Cavalry dashed through the
+ravine, closely followed by Chapman's Brigade
+and five batteries of horse artillery. Sheridan and
+his staff followed. They surprised and captured
+a small earthwork, and, though fiercely assaulted,
+held it till the van of the Sixth Corps relieved them.</p>
+
+<p>The narrow pass of the Berryville pike was so
+obstructed by artillery, ambulances, ammunition
+wagons, etc., that it was nearly eight o'clock before
+the Sixth Corps, which should have been in position
+with Wilson's Cavalry at sunrise, began to
+arrive; and it was fully two hours later when the
+Nineteenth Corps debouched and deployed. Here
+was miscalculation or bad management or both.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This long delay, which the quick-moving cavalry
+leader Sheridan had not foreseen nor provided for,
+gave time for Early to call in the strong divisions
+of Generals Gordon, Breckenridge, and Rodes,
+from the vicinity of Stephenson's Depot several
+miles away. They left Patton's Brigade of Infantry,
+and a part of Fitzhugh Lee's Cavalry to
+oppose Torbert.</p>
+
+<p>Hearing nothing from Torbert, who had now
+been gone seven or eight hours on his circuitous
+route, Sheridan suddenly changed his whole plan
+of action, a perilous maneuver in the face of an
+active enemy while the battle is already raging
+intermittently. Instead of flinging Crook's Army
+of West Virginia, 17 regiments and 3 batteries,
+across the Staunton pike, to front northeasterly
+and cut off all possible retreat of the Confederates,
+he determined to move it to our right and deploy
+it in line with the Nineteenth. Doubtless this
+was best under the circumstances, though it left
+to the enemy the broad smooth highway as a line
+of retreat up the valley.</p>
+
+<p>Grover's Division (2d of the Nineteenth Corps)
+in four brigades formed line of battle in front and
+to the right of the gorge. In touch on the left
+was Ricketts' Division of the Sixth Corps, and
+resting on Ricketts' left was Getty's Division of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+the same corps. Getty had 16 regiments in line;
+Ricketts, 12 with 6 batteries; Grover, 20 with 3
+batteries.</p>
+
+<p>Had Sheridan been able to strike Early by half-past
+eight with the Sixth and Nineteenth, he would
+have crushed him in detail. Had Early massed
+the divisions of Gordon, Breckenridge, and Rodes,
+and hurled them at the mouth of the canyon at
+ten o'clock while half of the Nineteenth was still
+entangled in it, he would probably have split our
+army into three parts, and destroyed those already
+arrived.</p>
+
+<p>It was now eleven o'clock, and the Army of
+West Virginia at last emerged from the defile.
+To make room for its movement in our rear behind
+Grover's Division, and to hold the enemy in play
+until it should have taken its place on the right of
+the Nineteenth, and perhaps to await there the
+appearance of Torbert's Cavalry, it was desirable
+that Grover should advance. Sheridan of course
+meant the whole front of the Sixth and Nineteenth
+to keep in a continuous line. At first it seemed to
+me that the regiments of the Nineteenth overlapped;
+but the lines of advance were slightly
+divergent, and wide breaks began to appear
+between battalions. Especially on the left of the
+Nineteenth a large and widening gap appeared; for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+Ricketts had been instructed to guide on the
+Berryville pike, and that bore away to the left
+and south.</p>
+
+<p>My battalion, the veteran Thirteenth Conn.
+Infantry, should have been led by my Colonel,
+C. D. Blinn: but he was sick the night before, and
+in the morning, at the crossing of the Opequon, he
+fell out, and left the command to me. He had
+no part in the battle. Our Thirteenth deserves a
+passing notice. It was the favorite regiment of
+General Birge, its first colonel.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> When he was
+made brigadier, the regiment entered the brigade
+commanded by Colonel E. L. Molineux. Birge
+was never so happy as when riding into action,
+and Molineux, who had been severely wounded
+in the same battle with me, was not over-cautious.
+My regiment and both brigades, the first and
+second of Grover's Division, had caught the spirit
+of those two commanders. Quite generally they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+mistook the forward movement for an immediate
+charge.</p>
+
+<p>We had been under an intermittent fire for some
+time, but now the advance intensified the conflict.
+The chief anxiety of good soldiers at such a time,
+as I often noticed, is to get at the enemy as soon
+as possible, and cease to be mere targets. Their
+enthusiasm now accelerated their pace to a double-quick,
+and was carrying them too far to the front.
+Birge and Molineux endeavored in vain to check
+their rapidity. My battalion, I think, was nearest
+the rebel line.</p>
+
+<p>Between eleven and twelve the divisions of
+Getty, Ricketts, and Grover, forty-eight regiments
+in all, to which were attached eight light batteries
+with reserve artillery, began to move forward.
+It was a grand spectacle. At first the movement
+was steady, and we thought of Scott's lines,</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 17em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The host moves like a deep-sea wave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where rise no rocks its pride to brave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">High-swelling, dark, and slow.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noin">But all is quickly changed.</p>
+
+<p>Looking back upon that scene after the lapse of
+more than fifty years, its magnificence has not yet
+faded. I see as in a dream our long bending wave
+of blue rolling slowly at first but with increasing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+speed, foam-tipped with flags here and there
+and steel-crested with Birge's bayonets yonder;
+glimpses of cavalry in the distance moving as if on
+wings with the lightness of innumerable twinkling
+feet; numberless jets of smoke across the fields
+marking the first line of Confederate infantry,
+their musketry rattling precisely like exploding
+bunches of firecrackers; batteries galloping to
+position, the thunder of a dozen smiting the ear
+more rapidly than one could count; the buzz, hiss,
+whistle, shriek, crash, hurricane of projectiles; the
+big shot from batteries in front and from Braxton's
+artillery on our right ripping up the ground and
+bounding away to the rear and the left; horses
+and riders disappearing in the smoke of exploding
+shells; the constant shouting of our officers indistinctly
+heard, and now and then the peculiar
+well-known "rebel yell"; and finally the command,
+<span class="smcapl">HALT! LIE DOWN!</span> Molineux and Birge were
+too far to the front, and the line must be rectified.
+Ricketts, as we pressed forward, had thrown
+Keifer's Brigade (2d of Third Division, Sixth
+Corps), seven regiments, into the broadening interval
+directly in front of the mouth of the gorge;
+but it was not sufficient.</p>
+
+<p>It was now Early's opportunity; but he was
+hours too late, just as Sheridan had been. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+had seen our Sixth Corps and Nineteenth emerge
+and deploy, had beheld our rapid and somewhat
+disorderly approach, had noted the widening
+spaces between our battalions and divisions, had
+observed the havoc wrought by his artillery and
+musketry, ten thousand of our soldiers seeming to
+sink under it; had had time to mass his forces;
+and now it was "up to him" to hurl them against
+our centre. It was the strategy inaugurated by
+Epaminondas at Leuctra and perfected by Napoleon
+in many a hard battle, breaking the enemy's
+centre by an irresistible charge, dividing and
+conquering. Rodes had been killed at a battery in
+front of our brigade. His veterans and Gordon's,
+six thousand strong<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> constituted the charging column.
+Neither Sheridan nor any other Federal historian
+appears to have done justice to this charge.
+Pickett's at Gettysburg was not more brilliant.</p>
+
+<p>With yells distinctly heard above the roar they
+advanced. The batteries on each side redoubled
+their discharges. From our irregular line of
+infantry extending more than a mile blazed incessant
+sheets and spurts of flame, the smoke at times
+hiding the combatants. Gordon was heading
+toward the now nearly empty ravine. My horse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+had just been shot under me. I lost two in that
+fight. Dismounted I walked from the right of my
+battalion to the left, cautioning my men against
+wasting their ammunition, bidding them take
+sure aim, pick out the rebel officers, and not fire
+too high. They were shooting from a recumbent
+position, or resting on one knee; lying flat on their
+backs to reload. As I reached the left, I glanced to
+the right and saw several of them starting to their
+feet, and a little further on, two or three began
+to run back. I rushed to the spot shouting,
+"Back to your places!" I saw the cause: the
+regiments on our right were retreating. I was
+astounded, for we were expecting an order to
+advance instantly. At that moment Lieutenant
+Handy, an aide of our brigade commander,
+rode up, pale, excited, his hands flung up as if in
+despair. My men were springing to their feet.</p>
+
+<p>"What are those orders?" I demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Retreat, retreat! get to the rear as fast as
+possible," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Battalion, rise up; shoulder arms&mdash;" I commanded.
+Before I could finish the order, one of
+Sheridan's staff came on a swift gallop, his horse
+white with foam.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, what does this mean?" said
+he; "this retreat must be stopped!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Battalion, lie down," I shouted; "our brigade
+commander ordered retreat!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all wrong. If this position's lost, all's lost.
+Here you have some cover. Hold it to the last.
+I'll bring supports immediately." Striking spurs
+into his steed, he vanished in the direction of the
+retreating regiments.</p>
+
+<p>Except the few who had heard my command
+and remained in position, perhaps seventy-five
+or a hundred, who kept blazing away at the Confederates,
+rising a little to kneel and fire, Grover's
+Division, and all we could see of that of Ricketts,
+had gone to pieces, swept away like chaff before a
+whirlwind. Not a Union flag now in sight, but
+plenty of the "Stars and Bars!" Our sputtering
+fire checked some directly in front; but most of
+the on-rushing masses were deflected by the nature
+of the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Out of our view and about half a mile in our
+rear was Dwight's Division, the First of the
+Nineteenth Corps. It had been left in reserve.
+It was in line of battle and ready for the onset.
+The confused fragments of Grover were rallied
+behind it. Had the ground been favorable, and
+had no unexpected opposition been encountered,
+Gordon would have crushed Dwight.</p>
+
+<p>But in fewer minutes than we have occupied in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+describing this charge, a tremendous and prolonged
+roar and rattle told us that the battle was on
+behind us more than in front. Amid the din
+arose a quick succession of deafening crashes,
+and shot and shell came singing and howling over
+us from the left. Russell's Division (First of the
+Sixth Corps) comprising eleven infantry regiments
+and one of heavy artillery, behind which the broken
+battalions of Ricketts had been reassembling,
+was now smiting the right flank of Gordon's six
+thousand. Although the charge came too late
+we cannot but admire the strategy that directed
+it, and the bravery of the infantry of Gordon,
+Rodes, and Ramseur, as well as that of the cavalry
+of Lomax, Jackson, and Johnson, and of Fitzhugh
+Lee who fell severely wounded. But they had not
+foreseen the terrible cross-fire from Russell, who
+died at the head of his division, a bullet piercing
+his breast and a piece of shell tearing through his
+heart. Nor had they calculated on confronting
+the long line of Dwight, nine regiments with the
+Fifth New York Battery, all of which stood like a
+stone breakwater. Against it Gordon's masses,
+broken by the irregularities of the ground, dashed
+in vain. Under the ceaseless fire of iron and lead
+the refluent waves came pouring back. Our army
+was saved.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But we few, who, in obedience to explicit orders
+from headquarters, had held our position stiffly
+farthest to the front when all the rest of Grover's
+and Ricketts' thousands had retreated&mdash;we were
+lost. A column behind a rebel flag was advancing
+straight upon us unchecked by our vigorous fire.
+Seeing that they meant business, I commanded,
+"Fix Bayonets!" At that instant the gray surges
+converged upon us right and left and especially
+in our rear. We seemed in the middle of the
+rebel army. In the crater of such a volcano, fine-spun
+theories, poetic resolves to die rather than be
+captured&mdash;these are point-lace in a furnace. A
+Union officer, Capt. W. Frank Tiemann of the
+159th N. Y., Molineux's Brigade, was showing
+fight, and half a dozen Confederates with clubbed
+muskets were rushing upon him. I leaped to the
+spot, sword in hand, and shouted with all the semblance
+I could assume of fierce authority,</p>
+
+<p>"Down with those muskets! Stop! I command
+you." They lowered them.</p>
+
+<p>"Who the hell are you?" they asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll let you know." Turning instantly to four
+or five Confederate officers, I demanded: "Do you
+mean to massacre my men?"</p>
+
+<p>Two or three replied: "No. By G&mdash;! You've
+shown yourselves brave, and you shall be respected.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+Yes, you fought d&mdash;d well, seein' you had
+the d&mdash;dest brigade to fight against in the whole
+Confederate Army."</p>
+
+<p>"What brigade are you?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Ramseur's old brigade; and there's nothin'
+this side o' hell can lick it."</p>
+
+<p>"You're brave enough," said another; "but
+damn you, you've killed our best general."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's that?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Rodes; killed right in front of you."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought Early was your best General."</p>
+
+<p>"Not by a d&mdash; sight. Old Jubal's drunk&mdash;drunk
+as a fool."</p>
+
+<p>I was never more highly complimented than at
+this moment; but the stunning consciousness of
+being a prisoner, the bitterest experience of my
+life, the unspeakable disappointment, the intense
+mortification&mdash;these are even to this day poorly
+mitigated, much less compensated, by the excessive
+praises heaped upon me by those Confederate
+officers for my supposed bravery. That they
+were sincere I cannot doubt; for it was customary
+on the battle-field for the rebels to strip prisoners
+of all valuables, but no one of the fifty or one
+hundred near me was robbed. Tiemann, whose
+life I had perhaps saved, was even privileged to
+keep his canteen of whiskey, of which he gave me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+a drink by and by to keep me in good spirits! I
+realized the truth of Burns's lines:</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 18em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Inspiring bold <i>John Barleycorn</i>!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What dangers thou canst make us scorn!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wi' usquebaugh, we'll face the devil!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Personal Memoirs</i>, vol. i., p. 487.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> In New Orleans it was known as "Butler's Dandy Regiment";
+for it was then better dressed than any other. It wore dark blue,
+which Birge had procured through his uncle, Buckingham, the
+war governor of Connecticut. At the siege of Port Hudson it
+had distinguished itself above all other regiments by furnishing
+as volunteers nearly one-fourth of the celebrated "Storming
+Column" of one thousand men called for by General N. P.
+Banks the second day after the disastrous assault on that fortress
+(June 14, 1863). Birge was selected by Banks to lead the forlorn
+hope.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Six thousand is Gordon's statement in his <i>Reminiscences</i>,
+page 320.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>At Winchester&mdash;On the Road thence to Tom's Brook, New
+Market, and Staunton.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> were two battles that Monday between
+Sheridan and Early, the first indecisive, though
+bloody, a drawn game; the second, after a comparative
+lull of several hours, a fierce struggle in
+which the whole front of the Sixth, Nineteenth,
+and Crook's Corps simultaneously advanced, and
+Torbert's Cavalry, arriving at last after their
+unaccountable delay upon our extreme right, made
+a magnificent charge crumpling up all the enemy's
+left. The victory was real, but not so complete
+as it should have been. Sheridan ought to have
+captured or destroyed the whole of Early's army.
+Instead, he had left them an open line of retreat.
+He took only five pieces of artillery, nine
+battle-flags, and some twelve or fifteen hundred
+prisoners; and, to use his own words, "sent the
+Confederates whirling up the valley."</p>
+
+<p>In the recoil of Gordon's brilliant charge of six
+thousand about noon, we prisoners were swept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+along into Winchester, and then locked in the old
+Masonic Hall. The sociable guards took pains to
+emphasize the statement that George Washington,
+"glorious rebel" they called him, had presided
+as Grand Master in that very room!</p>
+
+<p>After several hours we heard a great noise in the
+streets. Looking out we saw men, women, children,
+moving rapidly hither and thither, the current for
+the most part setting toward the southwest. The
+din increased; the panic became general; the Union
+Army was advancing on Winchester!</p>
+
+<p>We were hustled into the street now filled with
+retreating hundreds, and were marched rapidly
+along the turnpike toward the setting sun. The
+road crowded with artillery, army wagons, common
+carriages, all pouring along in the stampede;
+a formidable provost guard enclosing us prisoners
+in a sort of hollow column; cavalry in front, flank,
+and rear; the fields on either side swarming with
+infantry, the whole of Early's army in retreat, we
+apparently in the middle of it; Sheridan's guns
+still booming in our rear&mdash;such was the scene as
+we two or three hundred prisoners were driven
+on. Our mingled emotions can be better imagined
+than described. The bitter regret that we had
+not been slain; the consciousness that we had
+done our whole duty in facing unflinchingly the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+storm of shot and shell, never retreating an inch;
+the evident respect and even courtesy with which
+I was personally treated; the inspiring certainty
+that our army was victorious, the unspeakable
+mortification of being ourselves prisoners of
+war!&mdash;we sorely needed all our philosophy and all
+our religion to sustain us.</p>
+
+<p>Marching moodily along I was aroused from a
+sort of reverie by an experience far too common
+in those days. I had been sick the night before,
+and had worn my overcoat into battle. My horse
+was shot. The blood was spurting from him. As
+he seemed likely to fall, I leaped down. We were
+in the midst of a rapid advance and I had not time
+to throw off my overcoat. I was now carrying
+it swung over my arm. It was growing dark. A
+mounted soldier, whom I took to be an officer,
+rode up to my side and seized hold of the coat.
+He said, "I want that overcoat." I replied,
+"You can't have it." "I must have it." "You
+shan't have it." He tugged and I tugged, and as
+I was on foot and sober I nearly dragged him from
+his horse before he let go. During the tussle I
+repeatedly shouted, "Captain of the Guard&mdash;Help!
+Help!" The provost captain instantly
+came riding to the spot. "What's the matter?"
+he asked. "That rascal has tried to rob me of my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+overcoat," I answered, pointing to the villain
+who was beginning to slink away. The captain
+appeared to recognize him, said not a word to him,
+but whispered to me a moment later, "You are
+entitled to keep your overcoat."</p>
+
+<p>We had had little breakfast and no dinner nor
+supper, but we suffered more from thirst than
+hunger. Can we ever forget it? Will the long
+flight never end? On through Kerrstown without
+halting we march, with promise of rest and water
+at Newtown; no rest nor water there. On from
+Newtown with assurance of water at Middletown.
+Five minutes at Middletown, and a little muddy
+water that seems to aggravate our thirst. Farther
+on we cross a bridge under which the water
+is dashing as if in mockery, and the cry "Water!
+water!" rises from a hundred lips, the guard joining,
+for they are suffering like ourselves. Some
+comfort in that! Past midnight we reach Strasburg
+and are halted around an old wooden pump.
+It is broken! No water there. Still on and on at
+a snail-pace, up and over the almost interminable
+stretch of Fisher's Hill. At three o'clock in the
+morning we arrive at a place known by the classical
+name of Tom's Brook about twenty-five miles
+from Winchester. Never was nectar more delicious
+than the water of this stream, nor downy pillow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+more welcome than the sod on its banks. Without
+blankets or covering we sank in each other's
+arms for mutual warmth on the dew-drenched
+grass; and blistered feet and aching limbs and
+hunger and thirst and suffocating despair are all
+forgotten!</p>
+
+<p>Morning came unnoticed, except by those whom
+the keen cold permitted to sleep no longer. Towards
+noon we rose, washed without soap or towel,
+were made to form line, had our names taken, and
+received as rations a pint of flour per man, with a
+little salt, nothing else. How to cook or prepare
+the flour? We learned of the rebel guards a process
+not laid down in the cook-books. Mixing
+with water they made a stiff paste or dough.
+This they put around the end of a stick about the
+size and half the length of a walking cane. The
+end thus thickly coated they hold over a little fire
+till the smoke and flame have sufficiently hardened
+it. Then pull out your stick and you have
+a thick chunk or cylinder of bread, not quite so
+tough as a gun-barrel, but substantial!</p>
+
+<p>I contrived to keep a little memorandum book.
+In it I noted down that there were three hundred
+and eleven of us prisoners; two lieutenant-colonels,
+two majors, four captains, nine lieutenants, and
+two hundred and ninety-four enlisted men. These<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+were in the march from Winchester. A few may
+have been added to our number at Tom's Brook.</p>
+
+<p>I have stated how it happened that none of those
+near me were robbed when captured. Those at a
+distance were not so fortunate; for, if circumstances
+permitted, the Confederates, being themselves
+sadly in want, often improved the opportunity to
+grab every article of value. At Tom's Brook I
+noted in my diary the following:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="inde">Major A. W. Wakefield, 49th Pa. Cav., was robbed
+of hat, blanket, and $100 in money. Adjt. J. A.
+Clark, 17th Pa. Cav., was robbed of cap, boots, mug,
+pocket-book and money. Lieut. Harrison, 2d Regular
+Cav., was robbed of gold watch and money. Capt.
+John R. Rouzer, 6th Md. Inf., was robbed by an
+officer of hat and $20 in money. Lieut. Wesley C.
+Howe, 2d Mass. Cav., who recently died at Kansas
+City, Mo., was robbed by Lieut. Housel of the 6th
+Va. Cav., of silver watch, spurs, gloves, and $10 in
+money. Major August Haurand, 4th N. Y. Cav.,
+was robbed of a watch and $60 in money.</p></div>
+
+<p>It was a common practice to snatch from a Union
+prisoner his cap, and clap on in lieu of it a worn-out
+slouched hat; pull off his boots, and substitute a
+pair of clumsy old shoes. The plundering was so
+thoroughly done that it was poetically termed
+"going through" a captive!</p>
+
+<p>As I was the senior officer among the prisoners,
+and we seemed likely to remain a long time there,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+I went to the Confederate commander and besought
+him to allow our three hundred prisoners
+to occupy a barn near by. He refused. I then
+asked that we be allowed to build wigwams for
+shelter, as there was abundant material at hand.
+This too was not permitted. I also begged in
+vain that a surgeon should be got to dress the
+wounds of some of the prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>The second morning after our arrival, the sleeping
+men were aroused by the loud voice of
+Lieutenant Sargent of the 14th New Hampshire
+Regiment exclaiming: "If you give me any more
+of your lip, I'll annihilate you! I've but one
+arm" (his right arm was disabled by a shot),
+"but even with one arm I'll annihilate you on
+the spot, if you give me any more of your lip!"
+This was exceedingly gratifying, for it proved that
+at least two of us were not yet "annihilated!"</p>
+
+<p>During our sojourn at Tom's Brook the Confederates
+labored hard to induce us to exchange our
+greenbacks for their paper currency. Our own
+was sadly depreciated, one dollar of silver or gold
+being equal to two of greenbacks; but one in
+United States paper was equal in purchasing power
+to eight of theirs. They argued that our money
+would certainly be forcibly taken from us by
+rapacious guards farther south, and kindly offered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+us four for one. Sergeant Reed of the Provost
+Guard was quite a character. Like Gratiano
+in <i>The Merchant of Venice</i>, he talked loud and long,
+speaking "an infinite deal of nothing." He had a
+mania for watches. He told me he now had
+twenty-seven which he had obtained from Yankee
+prisoners, always paying them in good Confederate
+money. He set his heart upon a little silver watch
+of mine, which he said he wished to buy and
+present to one of his lady admirers. I asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Why do they admire you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because of my bravery," he replied; "none
+but the brave deserve the fair."</p>
+
+<p>"If you are so brave, why are you back here?
+Why are you not at the front?"</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel, I've been in the forefront of the
+hottest battles. I've been fearfully wounded.
+I'll be hanged if I haven't been one of the bravest
+of the brave. Twice, Colonel, I was shot all into
+inch pieces; and so now I'm put on light duty!"</p>
+
+<p>On Thursday, the third day after our arrival,
+two "india-rubber men," circus performers, of the
+22d Indiana Regiment, gave an exhibition of
+"ground and lofty tumbling" for the entertainment
+of their fellow prisoners. They had somehow
+contrived to retain the gaudy costume of the
+ring. They were really skillful. While we were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+watching with interest the acrobatic performance,
+a squadron of the Confederate General Imboden's
+Cavalry dashed past us. Sergeant Reed, who had
+just made me an offer for my watch, sprang to
+his feet, exclaiming: "I swear! there must be a
+battle going on in front, for there goes Jimboden's
+Cavalry to the rear! Sure sign! I'll be hanged
+if we ain't gettin' licked again!" We had heard
+the cannonading in the distance, but paid little
+attention to it. The Richmond papers, announcing
+that Fisher's Hill was impregnable to the
+whole Yankee army, were said to have been received
+about an hour before the heights were actually
+carried by storm. Again Early's army was
+not captured, but sent "whirling up the valley."</p>
+
+<p>We prisoners thoroughly enjoyed the changed
+aspect of affairs. At first they marched us directly
+back a short distance up the slope towards the
+advancing Yankees; but they seemed suddenly to
+discover their mistake; they halted, faced about,
+and marched down. Hilarious and saucy, our
+boys struck up the song and three hundred voices
+swelled the chorus:</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 21em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Union forever! hurrah, boys, hurrah!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Down with the traitor! up with the star! etc.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noin"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>till Captain Haslett of the provost guard came
+riding into the midst with savage oaths shouting,
+"<i>Silence!</i> <span class="smcapl">SILENCE!</span> SILENCE!"</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-seven miles, first through stifling dust
+and then through pelting rain, past Hawkinstown,
+Woodstock, Edenburg, Mount Jackson, brought
+us to New Market. On the march Colonel Brinton
+of a Pennsylvania regiment, a new arrival, planned
+with me an escape. He had campaigned through
+the valley, was familiar with the lay of the land,
+and said he had friends among the inhabitants.
+Our plan was to run past the guards in the darkness.
+As a preliminary step I cut off my shoulder-straps
+which were very bright. Within half an
+hour Sergeant Reed came up to me and asked,
+"Colonel, where's your shoulder-straps?" I replied,
+"I don't wear shoulder-straps now I'm a
+prisoner." "But, Colonel," he answered, "I've
+been lookin' at them shoulder-straps since we left
+Tom's Brook. I wanted to buy 'em of you for a
+present to one of my girls. I'll be hanged if I
+don't believe you're goin' to try to escape, and so
+you've cut off your bright shoulder-straps. But,
+Colonel, it's impossible. I'll be hanged if I hadn't
+rather lose any six of the others than to lose you."
+The fellow stuck closer to me than a brother all the
+rest of that night; so close that he lost sight of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+Colonel Brinton, who actually escaped about midnight
+at a place called Edenburg! Almost immediately
+Sergeant Reed came to me and asked,
+"Colonel, where's that other Colonel?" I answered:
+"You ought to know; <i>I</i> don't!"&mdash;"I'll be hanged,"
+said he, "if I haven't lost him, a-watchin' you!"</p>
+
+<p>At New Market they put us into a dilapidated
+church building. "The wicked flea, when no man
+pursueth but the righteous, is bold as a lion," was
+repeatedly misquoted from the <i>Book of Proverbs</i>,
+and not without reason. We concluded if that
+interpretation was correct, we had reason enough
+for obeying the injunction in <i>Ecclesiastes</i>, "Be not
+righteous overmuch"; for the little jumpers were
+fearless and countless. They were reinforced by a
+Confederate deacon, who recommended two things:
+Confederate paper and "gospel piety"; the one
+would carry us safely through this world; the other
+through the next. He would be only too happy
+to furnish us the currency in exchange for our
+greenbacks. "Confederate treasury bills and true
+religion" was the burden of his song, till one of
+our literary officers, it was said, squelched him:
+"Deacon, your recipe of happiness, rebel paper
+and godliness&mdash;Confederate money and a Christian
+spirit!&mdash;reminds me of what Byron says in
+one of his wicked poems:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 21em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Beyond all doubt there's nought the spirit cheers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like rum and true religion!'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noin">He subsided.</p>
+
+<p>We left New Market at noon, Saturday, September
+24th, and marched all the afternoon and all
+night, past Harrisonburg, Mount Crawford, Mount
+Sidney, and Willow Springs, reaching Staunton, Va.,
+about nine in the morning. On the march, forty-three
+miles in twenty-one hours, we were hungry;
+for the morning ration at New Market was scanty,
+and they gave us nothing more, except a small
+loaf of wheat bread. Some of the guard were kind
+to us. One of them, private John Crew, Co. E,
+11th Alabama Regiment, unsolicited by us, and,
+so far as I am aware, without hope of any reward,
+would endeavor to bring us apples or other food,
+whenever we halted. I was careful to write his
+name in my diary.</p>
+
+<p>As we trudged along, a lively discussion of
+slavery ensued. Lieutenant Howard of the provost
+guard was a learned champion of the "peculiar
+institution," and I was a pronounced abolitionist.
+He was an ardent "fire-eater," to use the term
+then in vogue, and I, who had lost my position
+as principal of the Worcester High School by
+my defense of John Brown, was equally intense.
+Both were pretty well "posted" on the subject.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+He seemed to be familiar with the Bible and the
+proslavery arguments, including drunken Noah's
+"Cursed Canaan!" Moses Stuart's <i>Conscience and
+the Constitution</i>, Nehemiah Adams's <i>Southside View
+of Slavery</i>, and Rev. Dr. &mdash;&mdash; (the name is gone from
+me) of Baltimore's Sermons. I was fresh from
+reading the arguments of George B. Cheever,
+Horace Bushnell, Henry Ward Beecher, Garrison,
+Phillips, and the rest. He proved that slavery
+among the Hebrews was a divine institution. I
+answered they were commanded to "undo the
+heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, and break
+every yoke." He said Paul sent back the fugitive
+slave Onesimus to his master Philemon; I rejoined,
+"Paul said, 'I send him back, not as a
+servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved;
+receive him as myself.'" He quoted the Constitution
+of the United States, the article commanding
+that fugitive slaves should be delivered back to
+their masters; in reply I quoted from Deuteronomy
+the "Higher Law," "Thou shalt <i>not</i> deliver unto
+his master the servant which is escaped from
+his master unto thee." He quoted from the
+great speech of the magnificent Webster in the
+Senate, March 7, 1850, in which he urged all
+good citizens to obey the Fugitive Slave Law "with
+alacrity." Waxing hot, I quoted from Beecher:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>As to those provisions which concern aid to fugitive
+slaves, may God do so to us, yea and more also, if we
+do not spurn them as we would any other mandate of
+Satan! If in God's providence fugitives ask bread
+or shelter, raiment or conveyance at my hands, my
+own children shall lack bread ere they; my own flesh
+shall sting with cold ere they shall lack raiment. And
+whatsoever defense I would put forth for mine own
+children, that shall these poor, despised, persecuted
+creatures have at my hands and on the road. The
+man that would do otherwise, that would obey this
+law to the peril of his soul and the loss of his manhood,
+were he brother, son, or father, shall never
+pollute my hand with grasp of hideous friendship,
+nor cast his swarthy shadow athwart my threshold!</p></div>
+
+<p>The lieutenant finally cited the examples of
+"those glorious southern patriots who led the rebellion
+against England during the first American
+Confederacy," Washington, Patrick Henry, Madison,
+Jefferson, "every one a slaveholder," he
+proudly exclaimed. I happened to be cognizant of
+their views, and responded with some vehemence:
+"But Washington's hands were tied so that he
+could not free slaves till his death. He said
+it was among his first wishes to see some plan
+adopted for putting an end to slavery. Patrick
+Henry declared, 'I will not, I cannot justify it.'
+Madison expressed strongly his unwillingness to
+admit in the national Constitution 'the idea that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+can hold property in man.'" In a rather loud
+voice I quoted Jefferson, who, in view of our
+inconsistency in violating the "self-evident truth"
+that "all men are created equal," solemnly affirmed,
+"<i>I tremble for my country, when I remember
+that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep
+forever</i>!" I had some reputation as an elocutionist
+in those days, and Sergeant Reed, who was listening
+with open mouth, broke in with, "I'll be
+hanged, Colonel, if you warn't cut out for a preacher!
+By&mdash; I should like to hear you preach."
+The best reply I could make was: "You'll undoubtedly
+be hanged sometime; and if I were a
+minister, nothing would give me more satisfaction
+than to be present at your execution and
+preach your funeral sermon." He replied: "Now,
+Colonel, you don't mean that. You don't think
+I'll ever be hanged!"&mdash;"Indeed I do, if you don't
+stop your profanity and general cussedness."&mdash;"I'll
+be hanged, if I will," was his last word to me.</p>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>At Staunton&mdash;Thence to Waynesboro, Meacham's, and
+Richmond.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">At</span> Staunton we got a little more light on the
+value of Confederate paper. A chivalrous surgeon
+who accompanied the provost guard (Fontleroy,
+I think, was his name<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>) politely invited Captain
+Dickerman of the 26th Massachusetts and myself
+to take breakfast with him in a restaurant. We
+needed no urging. The Provost Marshal gave
+consent. The saloon was kept by a negro named
+Jackson. His entire stock of provisions consisted
+of nine eggs, the toughest kind of neck beef, bread
+and salt, coffee very weak, butter very strong. As
+we sat waiting, the doctor remarked with a lordly
+air that under ordinary circumstances he would not
+deign to eat with Yankees. I answered good-naturedly:
+"I'm as much ashamed as you can be;
+and if <i>you'll</i> never tell of it, <i>I</i> won't!" The food,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
+notwithstanding its toughness, rapidly disappeared.
+Near the last mouthful the doctor said: "You two
+will have to pay for this breakfast, for I've no
+money." I had fifteen Confederate dollars remaining
+of twenty which I had received for a five-dollar
+greenback at Tom's Brook, and I answered:
+"Give yourself no anxiety; I'll foot the bill."&mdash;"Well,
+Jackson," said I to the sable proprietor,
+"what's the damage?" He replied, "I shan't
+charge you-ones full price. Let's see! Beef, seven;
+eggs, two&mdash;nine; coffee, three&mdash;twelve; bread and
+butter, three&mdash;fifteen; three of you&mdash;forty-five.
+I'll call it only thirty-six dollars!" I paid my
+fifteen; Captain Dickerman pleaded poverty; and
+the dignified doctor, who had so cordially invited
+us to partake of his hospitality, promised the
+disappointed Jackson that he would pay the balance
+at some future day ("the futurest kind of a
+day," was added in an undertone).</p>
+
+<p>Rejoining the three or four hundred prisoners,
+we found, besides the Confederate guards, a great
+crowd of spectators swarming around us. One
+of them, a fine-looking young man, wearing the
+blue uniform of a United States captain, made
+his way through the group, and handed me a
+twenty-dollar Confederate bill! The following
+dialogue ensued:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Here, Colonel, take that."</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you much. Who are you, so kind to a
+stranger and an enemy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm one whom you Yanks would hang, if you
+could catch me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why so? Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm one of Morgan's guerrillas; wouldn't you
+hang me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I should, if you had much of this stuff
+about you" (holding up the twenty-dollar bill);
+"I've just paid fifteen Confederate dollars for an
+imaginary breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"Good for you, Colonel. Here, take another
+twenty. Now you've forty. That'll pay for an
+imaginary dinner. Good-bye, Colonel! I have
+an engagement&mdash;to meet some of your cavalry.
+Remember, Morgan's guerrillas are not rascals,
+but gentlemen. Good-bye!" He vanished.</p>
+
+<p>About noon those of us who appeared unable to
+march farther were put on top of freight cars, and
+carried about a dozen miles east to Waynesboro.
+Here the railway crosses a stream, which encircles
+a little island just north of the bridge. The
+majority had to walk. At dusk that Sunday
+evening all had come. They put us on the island
+carefully guarded on all sides. Never was I more
+thankful. I had had something good to eat at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+Staunton; had got rested riding on the roof of the
+car; and I had my overcoat. Davy Crockett
+preferred a heap of chestnut burs for a pillow;
+but I followed the patriarch's example and chose a
+flat stone. People never allowed me to sing; but
+I dropped asleep repeating the stanza in Mrs.
+Adams's exquisite hymn.</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 13em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Though, like the wanderer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sun gone down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Darkness be over me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My rest a stone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet in my dreams I'd be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nearer, my God, to thee!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noin">Towards midnight the cold became so keen that I
+rose and went to the side of a flickering fire. Here
+excessive misery was for a moment hardening the
+hearts it should have softened. Several prisoners
+were quarreling for a position nearest the embers,
+each angrily claiming that he had brought the
+fagots that were burning! Two or three hours
+later several of us attempted to slip past the
+sentries in the darkness, but were stopped before
+we reached the water.</p>
+
+<p>At earliest streak of dawn we were marched
+away. About two miles brought us to the Blue
+Ridge where the railroad tunnel pierces its foundations.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+We toiled up and on in time to see the sun
+rise. An ocean of fog lay around us. Never shall
+we forget how royally the King of Day scaled the
+great wall that seemed to hem in on every side the
+wide valley, and how the sea of mist and cloud visibly
+fled before the inrolling flood of light, unveiling
+green and yellow fields, flocks and herds, dark woodlands,
+dwellings yet asleep in peace and plenty,
+here and there the silver thread of a winding
+stream with lakes that mirrored the sky, and
+yonder the long stretches of those titanic fortifications
+encompassing all. We were reminded
+of Shakespeare's sunrise:</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 19em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Full many a glorious morning have I seen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kissing with golden face the meadows green,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>At that instant a train of cars from Charlottesville
+came sliding along, and shot</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 21em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Into the tunnel, like a lightning wedge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By great Thor hammers driven through the rock!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noin">The scene startled us by its sublimity, and for a
+few minutes the hungry forgot their craving,
+the footsore their pain, the hopeless their despair.</p>
+
+<p>That day's march, though not so long was as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+severe as any; we were exhausted. Private Dolan,
+Co. K, 159th N. Y., was barefoot. His feet were
+blistered and bleeding. I begged the commander of
+the provost guard, Captain Haslett, to allow him
+to get into an ambulance. My request was not
+granted. But we soon afterwards passed a large
+mansion in front of which were several girls and
+women apparently making fun of the unwashed
+"Yank" and evidently enjoying the spectacle.
+We were halted just as Dolan came limping along
+supported on one side by a stronger comrade.
+They saw his miserable plight, his distress, his
+swollen feet, and they heard of the stern command
+to shoot any prisoner who fell out or lagged
+behind. Their faces changed. With tears one
+or two implored the Captain to let him ride in
+the ambulance. He yielded to their entreaties.
+Southern ladies almost always seemed handsome to
+us, but these in my memory have the fairest faces.
+I thought of Lady Clare in <i>Marmion</i>, and the
+words still recur:</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 17em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O Woman! in our hours of ease,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And variable as the shade<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the light quivering aspen made;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When pain and anguish wring the brow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A ministering angel thou!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>Two miles before we reached our temporary
+destination, Meacham's Station, my own strength
+utterly failed. I had borne up so long, partly
+to set an example of cheerful endurance, and
+partly from something like Mark Tapley's pride
+at coming out strong and jolly under the most
+depressing circumstances. I lay beside the road,
+remarking to Captain Haslett, who immediately
+came riding to the spot, "Captain, here's a fine
+chance to try your marksmanship; I can't march
+any further; shan't try to."&mdash;"Colonel," he
+replied with something of pity in his tone and
+manner, "I'm sorry to see you so used up. I'm
+sorry to be obliged to march you prisoners so hard.
+I have to keep out of the way of your damned
+cavalry. You may get into the ambulance."
+So into the ambulance I climbed with some difficulty,
+and immediately commenced my freemasonry
+on the driver. He responded to the signs.
+He proved to be an acquaintance of the Redwoods,
+a family in Mobile, one of whom had been a classmate
+of mine at Yale. He gave me some nice
+milk and some fine wheat bread. "As a Mason,"
+said he, "I'll feed you; share the last crumb with
+you; but as a Confederate soldier I'll fight you till
+the last drop of blood and the last ditch."&mdash;"I
+hardly know which to admire most, your spunk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+or your milk," I replied. Thereupon he gave me
+another drink, and insisted on my imbibing a little
+of what he called "apple-jack." I was a "teetotaler";
+but thinking the occasion warranted,
+I "smiled" upon it, "strictly as a medicine!"
+"Apple-jack" seemed to me the same thing as
+"Jersey lightning." He became quite friendly,
+but was horribly profane. "Look here," said he,
+"you seem to be a sort of Christian; cuss me if you
+don't! What in h&mdash;l are you Yanks all comin'
+down here for?"&mdash;"You have a gift at swearing,"
+I said; "did you, among your other oaths, ever
+swear to support the Constitution of the United
+States?"&mdash;"Well, yes."&mdash;"That's what's the
+matter with us," I said, "we're keeping our oaths
+and you are breaking yours."&mdash;"To h&mdash;l with the
+Constitution of the United States! Our first duty
+is to our own State. We've a right to be an
+independent nation, and we will. I'm a guerrilla.
+If our armies are defeated, I'll fight you on my own
+hook. I'll fire on you from behind every tree
+and every rock. I'll assassinate every invader. I
+want you to remember that I'm a guerrilla."&mdash;"I
+like your <i>spirits</i>," I said. "They are worthy of a
+better cause."&mdash;"Take another swallow of 'em,"
+he replied, handing me the canteen. I toasted
+him: "Here's hoping you gorillas will outlive the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+Southern Confederacy!"&mdash;"A d&mdash;d equivocal
+sentiment," observed my fire-eating, fire-drinking
+Masonic brother; "but here we are at Meacham's
+Station. Good-bye, Yank!"</p>
+
+<p>After our nineteen miles' march it was a most
+welcome relief to be placed on platform cars,
+though packed so closely that we could hardly stir.
+We objected that the cars had no tops. "All
+the better opportunity to study astronomy,"
+they replied.&mdash;"The cars have no sides to keep
+off the wind."&mdash;"The scenery is magnificent," they
+rejoined, "and they'll answer for 'observation
+cars'; you have an unobstructed view."&mdash;"But
+the nights are growing cold."&mdash;"You'll keep warm
+by contact with each other." Mad at this
+mockery, hungry, half-frozen, squeezed like fish
+in a basket, we took little note of scenery or stars;
+but it was a comfort to believe that our discomfort
+was caused by the rapid advance of Sheridan's
+cavalry.</p>
+
+<p>More dead than alive, though hardly dead
+enough to bury, having been jolted along all the
+afternoon and all night, we reached Richmond
+about sunrise, Tuesday, September 27th. Numbering
+now nearly four hundred we were escorted
+through the streets to the notorious Libby prison
+and halted in front. The Union officers inside<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+thronged the windows to see us come. On every
+face was a sad, despondent, pitying look, the most
+discouraging sight I ever saw. No smiles there
+nor among us. Conspicuous among them was the
+sorrowful countenance of Lieut.-Col. Charles H.
+Hooper of the 24th Massachusetts Infantry, with
+his long handsome auburn beard. Some one inside
+whispered loud enough for several of our "Four
+Hundred" to hear, "Hide your greenbacks!" We
+passed the word down the column, "Hide your
+greenbacks!"</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes revealed its significance. We
+were taken in a body in upon the lower floor.
+There Major Nat. Turner, prison inspector,
+cousin of the celebrated Dick Turner of unlovely
+reputation, made us a speech.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="inde">You will empty your pockets of all valuables. Such
+as are not contraband of war, you will be allowed to
+retain. You will deliver up all your Federal money.
+An equivalent amount in Confederate money will be
+given you in instalments from time to time, or the
+whole will be returned to you when you are exchanged.
+You will turn pockets inside out. If you attempt
+to conceal anything, it will be confiscated.</p></div>
+
+<p>We were made to step forward singly, and were
+searched. Our coats and vests were taken off,
+also our boots and shoes; and a Confederate officer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+felt very carefully of all our clothing to make sure
+that nothing was hidden. I "remembered to forget"
+that I had two ten-dollar greenbacks compressed
+into a little wad in one corner of my watch
+fob; and that corner escaped inspection. Dick
+Turpin never was the richer for that money.
+They examined suspiciously a pocket edition of
+the New Testament in the original Greek; but I
+assured them it was not some diabolical Yankee
+cipher, and they allowed me to keep it. I made
+the most of my freemasonry, and they permitted
+me to retain my overcoat. One of our prisoners,
+it was whispered, had secretly stuffed $1300 in
+greenbacks into his canteen, but all canteens were
+taken from us as contraband of war, and nobody
+but "Uncle Sam" profited by the concealment.</p>
+
+<p>Having "gone through" us, they incarcerated
+the officers in one room, the enlisted men in
+another.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Dr. Fontleroy was a brother of Mrs. Major Whittlesey, one
+of my fellow professors, instructor in military tactics, at Cornell
+University. Whittlesey was a graduate of West Point, and,
+while there, had had cadet U. S. Grant under his command!</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>At Libby&mdash;Thence to Clover, Danville, Greensboro, and Salisbury&mdash;Effort
+to Pledge us not to Attempt Escape.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> two rooms at Libby adjoined each other
+on the second floor, but a solid brick wall was
+between them. When we entered, about a hundred
+and fifty officers were already there. The
+first thing that attracted my attention was an
+officer putting a loaf of bread through a small
+hole in the partition where one or two bricks
+were removable. He was feeding a hungry
+prisoner. A cap or hat nicely concealed the
+perforation.</p>
+
+<p>Libby has a hard name, but it was the most
+comfortable of the six Confederate prisons of
+which I saw the interior. With all his alleged
+brutal severity, of which I saw no manifestation,
+and his ravenous appetite for greenbacks, for
+which we could not blame him, Dick Turner
+seemed an excellent disciplinarian. Everything
+went like clockwork. We knew what to expect
+or rather what not to expect, and <i>when</i>! My<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+diary for Wednesday, September 28, 1864, the
+day after our arrival, reads as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 18em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The issue to us daily is<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">One gill of boiled beans,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">One quarter gill of bean broth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">One half loaf of soft bread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">(Four ounces meat) and<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A little salt.<br /></span></div></div>
+
+<p>There was one inestimable boon, a copious
+supply of pure water.</p>
+
+<p>There were at this time no panes of glass, in
+fact no sashes, in the windows, and the wind swept
+freely through. The nights were becoming cold.
+Confederate sentries were on the lower floor and
+outside. They kept up a custom rather unusual,
+I think, during the war, of calling out in sing-song
+tones every hour the number of the post and the
+time, with occasional variations; <i>e. g.</i>: "Post
+number fourteen, two o'clock, and all's well."
+Then the next sentinel would sing out, "Post number
+fifteen, two o'clock, and all's well." Then the
+melodious voice of the next, farther away and
+sadly unorthodox, "Post number sixteen, two
+o'clock, and cold as h&mdash;l!"</p>
+
+<p>Except one or two rickety tables and two or
+three old chairs, there was no furniture in the
+prison. Some of the officers had contrived to save<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+a little money when searched, and with money it
+was possible to procure small articles slyly smuggled
+in contrary to orders; but most of us were disposed
+to sing with old Isaac Watts,</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 15em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dear Lord, and shall we ever live<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At this poor dying rate?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>From the rear windows we were occasionally
+entertained with the sight of exploding shells,
+which the indefatigable Grant was daily projecting
+towards Richmond. Particularly was this the
+case on the thirtieth of the month, when the boys
+in blue captured Fort Harrison, and the next day
+when the Confederates made several gallant but
+unsuccessful attempts to retake it. At such times
+we could see some of the steeples or high roofs in
+Richmond thronged with non-combatants gazing
+anxiously towards Petersburg. The belief that
+our prison was undermined, a vast quantity of
+gunpowder stored in the cellar, and that Dick
+Turner had threatened and was desperate enough
+to blow us all into eternity in case of a sudden dash
+of our cavalry into Richmond, somewhat marred
+the satisfaction with which we contemplated the
+evident progress of the siege. We could sympathize
+with the Philadelphia Friend, who said
+to his wife on the introduction of gun-cotton,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+"What comfort can thee take, even when sitting
+in thy easy chair, when thee knows not but the
+very cushion underneath thee is an enormous
+bomb-shell, ready upon the slightest concussion
+to blow thee to everlasting glory?"</p>
+
+<p>At three o'clock, Sunday morning, October 2d,
+we were roused by the entry of armed men with
+lanterns. They furnished each of us with a dirty
+haversack containing what they called two days'
+rations of corn bread and meat. Then they moved
+us single-file down stairs. As we passed, they
+took from each his blanket, even those the officers
+had just bought and paid for. If we expostulated,
+we were told we were going to a place where we
+should not need blankets! For my freemasonry
+or some other unexpressed reason, they allowed
+me to pass, wearing my overcoat. Then they took
+us by bridge across the James River, packed us in
+box-cars on the railway, forty to sixty in each car,
+and started the train southwest towards Danville.</p>
+
+<p>The road-bed was bad and the fences on either
+side were gone. We made but four or five miles
+an hour. One of our officers declared that they
+kept a boy running ahead of the engine with hammer
+and nails to repair the track! also that they
+put the cow-catcher on behind the last car to prevent
+cattle from running over the train! At nine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+o'clock in the evening we reached a place called
+Clover. We passed the night in Clover! on the
+bank beside the railroad, where we studied
+astronomy! and meditated!</p>
+
+<p>Next morning they repacked us, and we were
+transported seventy miles farther to Danville.
+My memorandum book mentions a conversation I
+had on the way with a very young and handsome
+rebel, one of the guard. He was evidently ingenuous
+and sincere, pious and lovable. After a
+few pleasant remarks he suddenly asked:</p>
+
+<p>"What are you Northerners fighting for?"</p>
+
+<p>"In defense of the Constitution and the Union.
+What are <i>you</i> fighting for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every right that is sacred and dear to man."</p>
+
+<p>"What right that is sacred and dear to man had
+the United States ever violated before you fired
+on Fort Sumter?"</p>
+
+<p>Of course he fell back on the Declaration of
+American Independence, that "Governments derive
+their just powers from the consent of the
+governed"; also on the doctrine so emphatically
+expressed by Abraham Lincoln in his speech in
+Congress in 1846; viz.:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="inde">Any people anywhere, being inclined and having
+the power, have the right to raise up and shake off
+the existing government, and form a new one that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most
+sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to
+liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases
+in which the whole people of an existing government
+may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people,
+that can, may revolutionize and make their own of as
+much territory as they inhabit.</p></div>
+
+<p>We arrived at Danville at noon. A heavy rain
+began to fall. Having been two days without
+opportunity to wash, we were drenched for an hour
+or two by the sweet shower that seemed to pour
+from the open windows of heaven. When our
+thoughtful guards concluded that we were sufficiently
+cleansed and bleached, they sheltered us
+by putting us into coal cars, where the black dust
+was an inch deep. That dust was fine! but the
+thought seemed to strike them that our nicely
+laundered garments might get soiled. So in half
+an hour they took us out and placed us in corn
+cars. It rather went against the grain, but finally
+I sat down with the other kernels on the floor.
+The weather being inclement, they felt it their
+duty to keep us in doors, lest we should catch
+cold!</p>
+
+<p>In these elegant and commodious vehicles we
+were transported next day till we reached Greensboro,
+North Carolina, about fifty miles southwest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+from Danville. Disgorged like poor old Jonah after
+three days' living burial, we were placed in the
+beautiful open square, and never before did air,
+earth, trees, and skies seem lovelier. Here they
+gave each of us three horny crackers, "rebel hardtack,"
+out of which some of us carved finger rings
+that might have passed for bone.</p>
+
+<p>In those days I was too much addicted to making
+public speeches, a habit which I had contracted
+in Yale College. On the edge of the public green,
+backed by a hundred prisoners, I was haranguing
+a crowd of curious spectators, telling them how
+abominably we were treated, exhibiting to them
+our single ration of flinty biscuit, and consigning
+them all to everlasting perdition, when a well-dressed
+young man elbowed his way to me at the
+fence. He had a large black shiny haversack
+swung under his left arm. Patting it with his
+right hand, he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Will you have a snack?"</p>
+
+<p>"A what?" I answered.</p>
+
+<p>"A snack, a snack," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what a 'snack' is, unless it's a
+<i>snake</i>. Yes, I think I could eat a copperhead&mdash;<i>cooked</i>.
+Snake for one, if you please; well done."</p>
+
+<p>He thrust his hand into his haversack; took out
+and gave me the most delicious sandwich I ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+tasted. Seeing how I enjoyed it, he emptied
+the satchel, giving all his food to my hungry fellow
+prisoners. He told me he was just starting on a
+long journey, and had laid in a good stock of
+provisions. I took pains to write in my journal
+his name and residence&mdash;"George W. Swepson,
+Alamance, North Carolina. Lives near the Court
+House." To which I added "<i>Vir et Amicus</i>."&mdash;"The
+blessing of him that was ready to perish"
+was upon George W. Swepson.</p>
+
+<p>That night we slept again on the ground and
+without covering under the open sky; and again
+several prisoners, Captain Howe and myself among
+them, attempted in vain to slip past the sentinels.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning we re&euml;ntered the freight cars.
+A twelve hours' ride brought us at nine o'clock,
+Wednesday evening, October 5th, to our destination,
+Salisbury, North Carolina. As the "Four
+Hundred" passed into the dark enclosure, we were
+greeted with the cry, "Fresh fish! Fresh fish!"
+which in those days announced the arrival of a
+new lot of prisoners. We field officers were
+quartered that night in a brick building near the
+entrance, where we passed an hour of horrors.
+We were attacked by what appeared to be an
+organized gang of desperadoes, made up of thieves,
+robbers, Yankee deserters, rebel deserters, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+villains generally, maddened by hunger, or bent on
+plunder, who rejoiced in the euphonious appellation
+of <i>Muggers</i>! We had been warned against
+them by kindly disposed guards, and were not
+wholly unprepared. They attacked us with clubs,
+fists, and knives, but were repeatedly driven off,
+pitched headlong downstairs. "<i>Muggers!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Salisbury prison, then commonly called "Salisbury
+penitentiary," was in the general form of a
+right-angled triangle with base of thirty or forty
+rods, perpendicular eighty or ninety. In a row
+parallel to the base and four or five rods from it
+were four empty log houses with a space of about
+four rods between each two. These, a story and
+a half high, had formerly been negro quarters.
+On each side of the great triangle was a stout
+tight board fence twelve or fifteen feet high.
+Some two or three feet from the top of this, but
+out of our sight because on the other side, there
+was evidently a board walk, on which sentinels,
+four or five rods apart, perpetually paced their
+beats, each being able to see the whole inside of
+the enclosure. At each angle of the base was a
+shotted field-piece pointing through the narrow
+opening. We could see that behind each cannon
+there was a number of muskets stacked and vigilant
+soldiers watching every movement inside.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+Close to the fence outside there were three camps
+of Confederates, variously estimated to contain
+from seven hundred to two thousand in all.</p>
+
+<p>The number of Union officers in prison after our
+arrival was about three hundred and twenty; the
+number of non-commissioned officers and privates
+was suddenly increased from about two
+thousand to some eight thousand. Among these
+were non-combatants, refugees, lighthouse keepers,
+and other government employees. Albert D.
+Richardson, then well-known as a correspondent
+of the New York <i>Tribune</i>, whose romantic marriage
+to Abby Sage by Henry Ward Beecher and
+whose tragic death created a sensation in the
+newspaper world, had been held as a prisoner
+there for several months. He told us he had
+found Salisbury a comfortable place. It immediately
+ceased to be such.</p>
+
+<p>There stood the empty log houses. We besought
+the rebel commandant, Major Gee, to allow
+us officers to occupy those buildings. He said he
+would permit it on condition that we should sign
+a stringent parole, binding us on our honor not
+to attempt to escape! We objected to it as a
+preposterous requirement that, remaining under
+strict guard and wholly cut off from communication
+with the outside world, we should sign such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+a pledge as the only condition on which we could
+receive decent shelter. I asked Major Gee if the
+rigor of our confinement would be in any way
+relaxed. He answered bluntly, "No."&mdash;"Well,
+where's the reciprocity?" I demanded; "what
+are you giving up?"&mdash;"Well," he replied, "if
+you don't choose to sign the parole, you can't
+have the buildings. Other Federal officers have
+not objected to signing it." He showed us the
+signature of Gen. Michael Corcoran, who had
+been colonel of the 69th New York, was captured
+at the first battle of Bull Run, was
+promoted to be brigadier, and who raised the
+so-called "Corcoran Legion." Our senior officer,
+Brig.-Gen. Joseph Hayes of the Fifth Corps,
+now called a meeting of the field officers, and
+submitted the question, "Shall we sign the parole,
+and so obtain shelter? Or shall we hold ourselves
+free to escape if we can, and so share the privations
+of our enlisted men, who have no bed but the
+ground and no covering but the sky?" I spoke
+strongly against making any promise. We voted
+almost unanimously against it.</p>
+
+<p>General Hayes and others then urged upon the
+commandant the absurdity and meanness of
+requiring it. It was clear to us and must have
+been so to him that it was for his interest to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+separate the three or four hundred officers from
+the thousands of prisoners accustomed to obey
+our orders. He finally consented that we should
+occupy the houses without imposing any conditions.</p>
+
+<p>Parallel to the front of these buildings, about
+five rods from them and extending across the
+enclosure, was a so-called "dead line," on which
+nine sentinels paced their beats. Another "dead
+line" about four rods from the high fence paralleled
+the whole length of each side of the prison.
+It was death to come near these.</p>
+
+<p>About eighty officers were assigned to each of the
+four houses. In each an officer was elected to serve
+as house-commissary. His duty was to receive the
+rations from Lieutenant-Colonel Hooper, already
+mentioned, acting as commissary-general, to whom
+the Confederate authorities delivered them in
+bulk. The house-commissary distributed the food
+and acted as agent representing the house in all
+communications with Confederate headquarters.
+Col. Gilbert G. Prey of the 104th N. Y. Vols.
+was elected commissary of house number one;
+Capt. D. Tarbell, of Groton, N. Y., commissary
+of house number two; Lieutenant Reilly of
+Philadelphia, of house number three; and I of
+house four.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Each house contained but two rooms, a lower
+and an upper, both empty, for the most part without
+glass windows or even sashes; the spaces
+between the crooked logs not stopped up; a single
+fireplace in each house, but not half enough wood
+to keep a blaze; without tables, benches, or chairs;
+without cooking utensils; without table, knife, fork,
+spoon, or plate; often without cup or dish; without
+blankets, or any clothing but the scantiest summer
+outfit; without books or papers; without
+water sufficient for washing, or soap, if we could
+possibly get water; we were in a sorry plight as
+the nights grew colder. And if the prospect was
+bad for us, how much worse for our soldiers across
+the "dead line," who had no shelter, hardly a
+scrap of blanket! Every rain made their beds
+a pool or mass of mire. It is not pleasant, but it
+is a duty to record some of the shadows of our
+prison life, "lest we forget."</p>
+
+<p>On the open ground outside of what was called
+the "hospital," October 8th, a sergeant-major
+was found dead; October 9th, two private soldiers;
+October 13th, five; October 14th, two;
+October 16th, eleven; October 17th, seven; October
+18th, nine. We could tell how severe the weather
+had been at night by the number found dead in
+the morning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Not far from the prison enclosure was an
+abundance of growing timber. More than once
+I besought Major Gee to allow our men to go,
+under guard on parole, to get wood for fires and
+for barracks. He refused. He said he was
+intending to build barracks for the prisoners as
+soon as he could procure lumber. I presume that
+he was sincere in this. I asked in vain for blankets
+for the men; for tents, but none came till December,
+and then but one "Sibley" tent and one
+"A" tent per hundred prisoners, not enough for
+one-third of them.</p>
+
+<p>We procured water from a deep well on the
+grounds. The supply was so scanty for the
+thousands of prisoners that it was always exhausted
+before sunrise. Soon after we came the Confederates
+commenced digging two new wells. At their
+rate of progress we reckoned it would take several
+months to finish either.</p>
+
+<p>My memorandum book shows that the issue
+of food daily at Salisbury, though sometimes
+partly withheld, was for each prisoner "one half
+loaf of soft bread; two, three, four, or five ounces
+of meat; a gill of boiled rice, and a little salt." I
+have no doubt that Major Gee meant to deal
+fairly with us; but he was unprepared for the avalanche
+that had descended upon him. We are too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+much in the habit of blaming individual combatants
+for severities and cruelties that are inherent
+in the whole business of war, either civil or
+international, and inseparable from it. Said our
+Lieut.-Gen. S. M. B. Young at a banquet in
+Philadelphia, "War is necessarily cruel; it is
+kill and burn, and burn and kill, and again
+kill and burn." The truth was more bluntly
+expressed by the British Rear-Admiral Lord
+Fisher, now the first sea lord of the British
+Admiralty:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="inde">Humanizing war? [said he]; you might as well talk
+of humanizing hell! When a silly ass got up at the
+first Hague Peace Conference in 1899, and talked
+about the "amenities of warfare" and putting your
+prisoners' feet in warm water and giving them gruel,
+my reply, I regret to say, was considered brutally
+unfit for publication. As if war could be "civilized"!
+If I am in command when war breaks out, I shall
+issue as my orders, "The essence of war is violence.
+Moderation is imbecility. <i>Hit first, hit hard, hit
+everywhere.</i>"</p></div>
+
+<p>In this light we may view more charitably the
+slaying, on the 16th of October at Salisbury, of
+Second Lieutenant John Davis of the 155th N. Y.
+It was a Sunday morning about half-past ten
+o'clock. One of our fellow prisoners, Rev. Mr.
+Emerson, chaplain of a Vermont regiment, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+circulated notice that he would conduct religious
+services in the open air between houses number
+three and four. The officers were beginning to assemble
+when the sharp report of a musket near by
+was heard. Rushing to the spot, we found the lieutenant
+lying on his back dying at the "dead line."
+The sentinel on the fence, a mere boy, had fired
+upon him, and was now reloading. One of our
+number, Captain William Cook, unable to restrain
+his anger, hurled a large stone at him. But the
+hundreds of Confederates in the camps just beyond
+the fence had sprung to arms at the sound of the
+firing; the top of the fence was being lined with
+soldiers; and the vigilant cannoneers at the angles
+were training their artillery upon our dense mass
+of officers. We prisoners regarded the shooting
+as a brutal murder. The religious exercises were
+turned into a funeral service. Chaplain Emerson
+prayed, "O God! our only refuge in this dark hour,
+avenge the atrocious murder of our beloved comrade;
+protect that widow so cruelly robbed of one
+dearer to her than life; and especially grant that
+this accursed Confederacy may speedily sink into
+its native hell!" His text was from <i>Isaiah</i> viii, 12:
+"Say ye not a Confederacy!" Next day I asked
+the officer of the guard if any punishment was
+to be inflicted upon the sentinel. He answered:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
+"No; we don't punish men for doing their
+duty."</p>
+
+<p>So vitally important is the point of view in
+deciding upon the right or wrong of an act.</p>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>At Salisbury&mdash;Great Plot to Escape&mdash;How Frustrated.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> we arrived at Salisbury early in October,
+we found there a brave and sagacious officer,
+Lieut. Wm. C. Manning of the 2d Massachusetts
+Cavalry. He told us he had been held as a
+hostage in solitary confinement, and would have
+starved but for the rats he caught and ate. He
+had been notified that his own life depended upon
+the fate of a person held in federal hands as a spy.
+He determined to attempt an escape. He was
+assigned to my house. Taking up a part of the
+floor, he commenced digging a tunnel. He wrote
+a solemn pledge which all the officers in the house
+signed, binding them not to divulge the scheme.
+The tunnel would have had to be about eight rods
+long, and its outlet would necessarily have been
+near a group of rebel tents. Of course it would
+have been discovered on the morning after its
+completion, and not all could hope to find egress
+that way. But he believed that his life was still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+in special danger, and he at once began excavating.
+The house had no cellar, but there was plenty
+of room under it for stowing away the loose
+earth. The ground was not hard, yet it was quite
+firm, and on the whole favorable for such operations.
+The work was progressing finely, till
+the officers were suddenly removed from Salisbury
+in consequence of the discovery of a great plot.</p>
+
+<p>I had become a good deal interested in Manning
+and his tunnel plan, and on the morning of Wednesday,
+October 12th, I introduced him to General
+Hayes, our senior officer. He told us he had for
+several days been considering the possibility of
+organizing the three or four hundred officers, and
+the five to ten thousand soldiers. He believed
+that by a simultaneous assault at many points we
+could seize the artillery, break the fence, capture
+the three rebel camps, then arm and ration this
+extemporized army, and march away. He showed
+us a good map of North Carolina. He invited all
+of the field officers to meet that evening in the
+garret of house number two. All of them accordingly,
+about thirty in number, were present.
+Posting sentinels to keep out intruders, and stopping
+the open windows so that the faint light of
+a tallow candle might not betray us or create suspicion,
+we sat down in the gloom.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The general had modestly absented himself, in
+order that we might be uninfluenced by him in
+reaching a decision; but our first step was to
+send for him, and then insist on his taking the
+chair&mdash;<i>the</i> chair, for we had but one! As he had
+made a careful study of the subject, we pressed
+him to give his views. He proceeded to state the
+grounds of his belief that it was practicable to
+strike an effective blow for our liberation. He told
+us that he had communicated with a Union man
+outside, and had learned the number and location
+of the Confederate troops we should be likely to
+encounter on our march to East Tennessee. He
+explained at some length the details of his plan,
+the obstacles we should encounter, and how to
+overcome them. I shall never forget the conclusion
+of his speech. These were almost exactly his
+words:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="inde">We must organize; organize victory. The sooner
+we act the better, provided we have a well-arranged
+plan. We can capture this town, ration our men,
+provide them with shoes, clothing, and muskets, and
+have a formidable army right here at once. It need
+not take more than half a day. Certainly we can march
+off within twenty-four hours after the first blow is
+struck, if we begin right. The enemy have a few guns
+on the hill, but they are not "in battery". We can
+take these and take the artillery here right along with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+us. The principal obstacle is here; make the beginning
+right; master these prisons and these camps, and we
+are safe. Organize is the word; <i>organize</i>. If any one
+shall betray us, or aid the rebels, or be guilty of robbery
+or other outrage, I am in favor of a drumhead
+court martial and a summary execution. Now, gentlemen,
+I am ready to serve in any capacity, whether
+to lead or to follow.</p></div>
+
+<p>Colonel Ralston of the 24th N. Y. "dismounted
+cavalry," as they were called, spoke next. He
+was an energetic and dashing officer who fell near
+me in an attempt to break out of Danville prison
+on the tenth of the following December. He
+entered into the particulars of a plan of action,
+showing how easy it would be, with the probable
+loss of but few lives, to capture the three camps
+with the Salisbury arsenal and the artillery. As
+his particular share in the work, he said he would
+undertake with a small company to disarm the
+twenty or thirty sentinels inside the enclosure,
+and instantly thereupon to capture the headquarters
+of Major Gee.</p>
+
+<p>Other officers gave valuable suggestions. Being
+called upon for my opinion, I spoke of the duty we
+owed our enlisted men to extricate them from their
+shocking condition, for they were beginning to die
+every night on the bare ground, and would soon be
+perishing by scores. I urged the effect the escape<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+of some eight thousand prisoners would have upon
+the nation, being equivalent to a great victory;
+and, better than victory, it would add so many
+thousands of trained soldiers at once to our armies
+in the field. I insisted that this success would
+be cheaply bought, even if it cost, as it probably
+would, a hundred lives.</p>
+
+<p>Of all our thirty field officers, only one opposed
+the scheme (Lieut.-Col. G&mdash;&mdash;). He was acknowledged
+to be brave,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> but seemingly lacking in
+enterprise. He said in substance, "I have carefully
+examined the situation, and have come to the
+conclusion that it is utterly useless to attempt to
+escape by force. It can't be done at present. We
+should be slaughtered by the hundred. If you all
+vote to try it, I will join you; but in my opinion
+it is perfect madness."</p>
+
+<p>With but one dissenting voice it was resolved to
+go ahead. A committee of five was immediately
+appointed to prepare and present a plan of action.
+This committee were Colonel Ralston; Col. W.
+Ross Hartshorne, 190th Pa. (the famous "Bucktail
+Regiment," whose first colonel, O'Neil, my Yale
+classmate, was killed at Antietam); Col. James
+Carle, 191st Pa.; Major John Byrne, 155th N. Y.;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+and myself, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 13th Conn.
+We were supposed to be fighting men, and had all
+been wounded in battle.</p>
+
+<p>A similar meeting of field officers was held the
+following evening. For two days the committee was
+almost continually in consultation with General
+Hayes. Great pains was taken to have the plans
+fully understood by all the officers and to secure
+their hearty co&ouml;peration. By ingenious methods
+frequent communication was had with the enlisted
+men across the "dead line"; sometimes by hurling
+written communications ballasted with stone;
+several times by Lieutenant Manning and others
+running swiftly past the sentinels in the dark; best
+of all, because least liable to discovery, by the
+use of the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. We were
+suffering for want of water, and several officers got
+permission to go outside the enclosure ostensibly
+to procure it, but really to reconnoitre.</p>
+
+<p>The committee reported the following plan,
+which was unanimously adopted:</p>
+
+<p>The first object in the movement being to get
+into a hand-to-hand fight as soon as possible; seven
+columns, each several hundred strong, were to
+make simultaneous assaults upon six or seven
+different points. The fence being the first impediment,
+every man's haversack and pockets were to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+be filled with stones to keep down the sentinels
+who would fire on us from the top. Some got
+levers to wrench off boards, others logs to serve
+as rude battering rams, others sharpened stakes
+which Ralston called "Irish pikes," others clubs,
+or any possible weapon. I had a rusty old
+bayonet.</p>
+
+<p>Major David Sadler, 2d Pennsylvania Heavy
+Artillery, with his battalion was to rush and seize
+the cannon and muskets at the angle on the right;
+Major John Byrne and his column at the same
+instant were to pounce upon the big gun and muskets
+at the angle on our left; simultaneously Colonel
+Ralston and his men are to dash upon the nine sentinels
+on the "dead line" in front of the officers'
+houses, in a moment disarming them and the nine of
+the relief just arriving; then spring to the assistance
+of Major August Haurand of the 4th N. Y. Cavalry
+and his battalion who are capturing Major Gee's
+headquarters and guards and camp on our right.
+Col. James Carle, 191st Pa., with his hundreds is
+breaking through the fence and capturing the rebel
+camp in rear of the officers' quarters. Colonel, afterwards
+General, W. Ross Hartshorne and his 330 men
+of the 190th Pa. are to break the fence just above
+the main rebel camp which is on our left. My own
+column of about three hundred men of the Nineteenth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+Corps are to break the fence just below the
+rebel camp; then Hartshorne and I are to leap from
+opposite sides upon this, the main camp. These
+seven battalions were to some extent organized
+with field, staff, and company officers. Every
+officer and soldier was to be on the <i>qui vive</i> a
+little before five o'clock in the morning, watching
+intently for the signal. This was to be the waving
+of a fire-brand by General Hayes in front of
+house number two.</p>
+
+<p>Quite a number of officers had no faith in the
+plot, and they regarded it with indifference. A
+few expressed hostility to it. One captain, who
+had been a prisoner before and seemed glad
+to have been captured again, a bloated, overgrown,
+swaggering, filthy bully, of course a coward,
+formerly a keeper of a low groggery and said
+to have been commissioned for political reasons,
+was repeatedly heard to say in sneering tones in
+the hearing of rebel sentries, "<i>Some of our officers
+have got escape on the brain</i>," with other words
+to the like effect. Colonel Hartshorne finally
+stopped such traitorous language by saying with
+tremendous emphasis: "Captain D&mdash;&mdash;, I've heard
+a good deal of your attempts to discourage officers
+from escaping, and your loud talk about officers
+having 'escape on the brain.' Now, sir, I give<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+you notice that if you're again guilty of anything
+of the sort, <span class="smcapl">I'LL&mdash;BREAK&mdash;YOUR&mdash;HEAD&mdash;WITH&mdash;A&mdash;CLUB</span>!"</p>
+
+<p>The time agreed upon for the seven simultaneous
+attacks was about an hour before sunrise the morning
+of October 15th.</p>
+
+<p>As we had feared, the rebel authorities, whether
+through suspected treachery or otherwise, got
+wind of our purpose. Towards evening of October
+14th extraordinary vigilance on their part
+became apparent. Troops were paraded, posts
+strengthened, guards doubled, privileges restricted,
+and word was passed around in our hearing that
+a battalion of Confederates had just arrived.
+Their watchfulness seemed unrelaxed through the
+night. The shooting of Lieutenant Davis next
+morning was doubtless in obedience to orders for a
+more rigorous enforcement of rules.</p>
+
+<p>Our outbreak was countermanded and postponed,
+but preparations continued. The delay
+enabled us to perfect our plans, and make our
+organizations more complete. The early morning
+of October 20th, the 19th being the anniversary
+of my birth, was now fixed upon for the "insurrection."
+We essayed to disarm suspicion by an
+air of quiet acquiescence in the lazy routine of
+prison life, or absorption in the simplest and most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+innocent occupations whenever any Confederate
+might be looking on.</p>
+
+<p>We recognized united and instantaneous action
+at the signal on the part of three hundred officers
+and several thousand men as the most vitally
+important element of success. It was necessary
+that this should be thoroughly understood and
+emphasized, so that every soldier should be in
+perfect readiness at the critical moment.</p>
+
+<p>Several of us had formed a class for oral instruction
+in French. Our teacher was Captain Cook
+of the 9th U. S. colored troops, a graduate of Yale.
+About ten o'clock in the morning of October 18th,
+as we were seated on the ground near house number
+four, loudly imitating Professor Cook's <i>parlez-vous</i>,
+Lieut. Wm. C. Gardner, adjutant of one
+of those extemporized battalions of prisoners,
+brought me a letter he was intending to throw
+across the "dead line" to Sergt. Wallace W. Smith,
+requesting him to notify all enlisted men of the
+battalion when and where to assemble silently
+next morning in the dark, how to arm themselves,
+from whom to take orders, what signal to watch
+for, and other important matters. I glanced
+through it, and immediately said: "You'd better
+not entrust the communication to so hazardous
+a channel; wait an hour till I've done with my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+French lesson, and I'll cause it to be transmitted
+by the deaf-and-dumb alphabet." If I recollect
+rightly, either Lieutenant Tobey or Lieutenant
+Morton, both of the 58th Massachusetts, was in
+the class, and promised to convey the contents of
+the letter safely across to the soldiers by adroit
+finger manipulation. We were just finishing the
+French exercise, when Adjutant Gardner came
+greatly excited, and this conversation followed:</p>
+
+<p class="pad1">"Good God, Colonel, the rebs have got that
+letter! I tied it to a stone and flung it a long ways
+over the 'dead line' to Wallace Smith. He appeared
+afraid to pick it up. A reb sentinel stepped
+away from his beat and got it."</p>
+
+<p>"I requested you to wait till I'd done reciting
+French, and I told you I'd then communicate it
+by the deaf-and-dumb alphabet."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Colonel, I ought to have done so; but I
+was anxious to have the work done promptly, and
+I thought it was perfectly safe. I've tossed letters
+over to Smith several times. I'm worried to death
+about it. What's best to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Was your name signed to it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but my name was on the envelope&mdash;an old
+letter envelope that I had when we came here."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Gardner, this is a pretty piece of business!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+That letter of course will go very soon
+to Major Gee's headquarters, and then&mdash;there'll
+be the devil to pay!"</p>
+
+<p>"The sentinel handed the letter to the officer
+of the guard. What had I better say, if they
+send for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say you intended the letter to fall into their
+hands; that you meant it as a practical joke,
+wanted to get up another scare, and see the
+Johnnies prick up their ears again."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Colonel, like a fust-class fool I put a ten-dollar
+Confederate bill in the envelope. I wanted
+to give it to Sergeant Smith. That don't look as
+if I meant it to fall into their hands&mdash;does it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gardner, this thing has an ugly look. You've
+knocked our plans of escape in the head&mdash;at least
+for the present. You've got yourself into a fix.
+They'll haul you up to headquarters. They'll
+prove by the letter that you've been deep in a
+plot that would have cost a good many lives.
+They're feeling ugly. They may hang or shoot
+you before sundown, as a warning to the rest of
+us to stop these plots to escape. They may send
+for you at any minute."</p>
+
+<p>"What had I better say or do?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better make yourself scarce for a while,
+till you've got a plausible story made up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+Better disguise yourself and pass yourself off as
+somebody else; so gain time."</p>
+
+<p class="pad2">"I have it, Colonel; I'll pass myself off as
+Estabrooks."</p>
+
+<p>Estabrooks was an officer of the 26th Mass., who
+had escaped at the crossing of the river Yadkin
+two weeks previously when we came from Richmond.
+Gardner was a handsome man and perhaps
+the best-dressed officer in prison; but he now
+disguised himself.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> The transformation was complete.
+In half an hour a man came to me wearing
+a slouched hat and a very ragged suit of Confederate
+gray. He had been a play-actor before the
+war and knew how to conceal his identity. By
+his voice I recognized him as Gardner! "Well,
+Gardner," said I, "this surpasses His Satanic
+Majesty; or, as you would say, beats the devil!"&mdash;"Colonel,"
+he replied, "I'm not Gardner. Gardner
+escaped; escaped at the crossing of the Yadkin
+River. I'm Estabrooks, H. L. Estabrooks, 2d
+Lieutenant, 26th Mass. Call me Estabrooks
+if you please."&mdash;"All right, Estabrooks it is."</p>
+
+<p>Hardly had we had time to whisper around this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+change of name, when the Confederate officer of
+the guard made his appearance with two or three
+soldiers, inquiring for the commissary of house
+number four. I was pointed out to him. In substance
+and almost in the exact words this dialogue
+ensued:</p>
+
+<p class="pad1">"Colonel Sprague, are you commissary of this
+house?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have that honor."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to find Lieutenant Gardner."</p>
+
+<p>"Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant Gardner."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's Lieutenant Gardner?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am told he's an officer in house number four;
+and as you are commissary, you can probably tell
+me where he is <i>at</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Where he's what?"</p>
+
+<p class="pad2">"Where he's <i>at</i>."</p>
+
+<p>This was the first time I had ever heard the word
+<i>at</i> so used at the end of a sentence; but it expresses
+the meaning with admirable precision. I had a
+slight qualm at lying; but I remembered that even
+George Washington could tell a lie if necessary in
+war. Pacifying my conscience with the fact that
+we were <i>outside</i> the house at the time, I said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="pad1">"There's no such officer in house four. But I
+remember an officer of that name at Libby, handsomely
+dressed, a perfect dandy. I heard that
+he escaped at the crossing of the Yadkin River two
+weeks ago. Has he been recaptured, and is he
+going to be shot or hanged? Or have you a letter
+for him? What's the good news about Gardner?"</p>
+
+<p>"I only know," he replied, "that he's wanted
+at Major Gee's office, and he's an officer in house
+number four."</p>
+
+<p>"Estabrooks," said I to the man at my side,
+"do you know of a Lieutenant Gardner?"</p>
+
+<p class="pad2">"I did know slightly such a man at Libby. You
+have described him well; a fop, a beau, a dandy;
+just about my size, but he didn't wear rags like I
+do."</p>
+
+<p>"Come with me," said I to the Confederate.
+"We'll go into the house and inquire if any one
+knows of a Lieutenant Gardner." We went in.
+There were perhaps thirty or forty inside who had
+got wind of what was going on. As we entered,
+I asked in a loud voice, "Does any officer in this
+house know anything of a Lieutenant Gardner?"
+Several smiled and declared it a very singular
+name. One wanted to know how it was spelled!
+A number were speaking at once. One said he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+escaped at the Yadkin; he knew he got away, for
+he "watched him till he got a long distance out
+of sight." Another knew a Henry J. Gardner, "a
+Know-Nothing" governor of Massachusetts, who
+knew enough to keep out of the army. Another
+affirmed that Gardner was dead; he had heard him
+say "I'm a dead man," and he wouldn't tell a lie!
+My memory is somewhat indistinct of all that
+was said; but Gardner is alleged to have whispered
+the officer thus: "I have been a gardener myself;
+and if Major Gee will parole me and give me good
+clothes and something to eat, I wouldn't mind
+becoming again a gardener in his employ." I
+recollect distinctly that the officer grew impatient
+and he finally asked me, "Do you say on your
+honor, Colonel, that you don't know a Lieut.
+Wm. O. Gardner in this house?" I answered, "I
+do"; but I left him to guess whether I meant "I
+do <i>know</i>" or "I do <i>say</i>!" I quieted my conscientious
+scruples by remembering that the lieutenant's
+true name was not Wm. O. but Wm. C.!
+The baffled officer left very angry, and "<i>Where's
+Gardner at?</i>" passed into a conundrum.</p>
+
+<p>Late that afternoon, as I was engaged in the
+delightful employment of washing my fall-and-winter
+shirt, having for the first time since our
+arrival in Salisbury obtained sufficient water for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+that purpose, the order came for all officers to fall
+in and take the cars for Danville, Va. The juxtaposition
+of three or four hundred Yankee officers
+with eight thousand of their enlisted comrades-in-arms
+was getting dangerous.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> He had killed three men with his sword at the time of his
+capture.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> "We run the boy into one of the houses, clipped his hair,
+shaved him, and placed a new robe on him."&mdash;<i>Letter</i> of Capt.
+Wesley C. Howe to Colonel Sprague, Jan. 30, 1914.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>From Salisbury to Danville&mdash;The Forlorn Situation&mdash;Effort to
+"Extract Sunshine from Cucumbers"&mdash;The Vermin&mdash;The
+Prison Commandant a Yale Man&mdash;Proposed Theatricals&mdash;Rules
+Adopted&mdash;Studies&mdash;Vote in Prison for Lincoln and
+McClellan&mdash;Killing Time.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">At</span> six o'clock, Wednesday evening, October
+19, 1864, we officers, about 350 in number, were
+packed in five freight cars, and the train was
+started for Danville, Va. The tops of the cars
+were covered with armed guards, two or three
+being also stationed within at the side door of
+each car. In the darkness about half-past nine
+Lieut. Joseph B. Simpson of the 11th Indiana
+slyly stole all the food from the haversacks of the
+guards at the door of our car and passed it round
+to us, while we loudly "cussed and discussed"
+slavery and secession! About midnight Captain
+Lockwood, Lieutenant Driscoll, and eight or ten
+other officers leaped from the cars. The guards
+opened fire upon them. Lockwood was shot dead.
+Several were recaptured, and some probably
+reached the Union lines in safety. We arrived
+at Danville at noon October 20th.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The town at this time contained four, formerly
+six, military prisons, each a tobacco house about
+eighty to a hundred feet long by forty to fifty
+wide, three stories high, built of brick, low between
+joints. The officers were put into the building
+known as prison number three. We were informed
+by the guards that it had formerly contained
+about two hundred negro prisoners; but that some
+had died, others had been delivered to their
+masters or set at work on fortifications, and the
+number remaining just before our arrival was only
+sixty-four. These were removed to make room
+for us.</p>
+
+<p>Except about twenty large stout wooden boxes
+called spittoons, there was no furniture whatever
+in prison number three. Conjecture was rife as
+to the purpose of the Confederates in supplying us
+with spittoons and nothing else. They were too
+short for coffins, too large for wash bowls, too
+shallow for bathing tubs, too deep for tureens!
+To me much meditating on final causes, a vague
+suspicion at length arose that there was some
+mysterious relation between those twenty oblong
+boxes and a score of hogsheads of plug tobacco,
+said to be stored in the basement. A <i>tertium</i> <span class="smcapl">QUID</span>,
+a solution of the tobacco, might afford a solution
+of the spittoon mystery!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A dozen water buckets were put into each of the
+two upper rooms to which all the officers were
+restricted; also a small cylinder coal stove; nothing
+else until December, when another small stove
+was placed there. Winter came early and unusually
+cold. The river Dan froze thick. It was
+some weeks before we prevailed upon the prison
+commandant to replace with wood the broken-out
+glass in the upper rooms. The first floor was
+uninhabitable.</p>
+
+<p>So with no bed nor blanket; no chairs, benches,
+nor tables; no table-ware nor cooking utensils;
+not even shovel, poker, or coal-scoop; most of us
+were in a sorry plight. The little stoves, heated
+white-hot, would have been entirely inadequate
+to warm those rooms; but the coal was miserably
+deficient in quality as well as quantity. The fire
+often went out. To rekindle it, there was no
+other way than to upset the whole, emptying ashes
+and cinders on the floor. At best, the heat was
+obstructed by a compact ring of shivering officers,
+who had pre&euml;mpted positions nearest the stoves.
+They had taken upon themselves to "run" the
+thing; and they did it well. We called them "The
+Stove Brigade." In spite of their efforts, they
+like the rest suffered from cold.</p>
+
+<p>Three or four of us, as a sanitary measure, made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+it a point to see, if possible, the funny, or at least
+the bright side of everything, turn melancholy to
+mirth, shadow to sunshine. When every officer
+complained of cold, we claimed to anticipate the
+philosophers, Tyndall, Huxley, and the other
+physicists, in declaring that "heat is a mode of
+<i>motion</i>," and brisk bodily exercise will infallibly
+demonstrate the fact! When, as was usually the
+case, all were hungry, we announced as a sure cure
+for indigestion, "stop <i>eating</i>!" When our prisoner
+chaplain Emerson on a Sunday afternoon prayed
+for the dear ones we expected to see no more, and
+even the roughest and most profane were in tears,
+we said with old Homer, "<i>Agathoi aridakrues
+andres</i>" ("Gallant men are easily moved to tears"),
+or with Bayard Taylor, "The bravest are the
+tenderest, the loving are the daring."</p>
+
+<p>Most humiliating of all was the inevitable plague
+of vermin. "Hard indeed," one officer was accustomed
+to say, "must have been Pharaoh's
+heart, and tougher yet his epidermis, if the lice of
+the third Egyptian plague were like those of Danville,
+and yet he would not 'let Israel go.'" Wearing
+the same clothing night and day, sitting on the
+bare floors, sleeping there in contact with companions
+not over-nice, no patient labor, no exterminating
+unguent, afforded much relief. We lost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+all squeamishness, all delicacy on the subject, all
+inclination for concealment. It was not a returned
+Danville prisoner who was reported to have gone
+into a drug store in New York stealthily scratching
+and saying, "I want some unguentum; don't
+want it for myself; only want it for a friend."
+But it was reported and believed that in April one
+of them entered an apothecary shop in Annapolis
+plying his finger-nails and hurriedly asking,
+"Have you any bmsquintum?"&mdash;"From your
+manner," answered the courteous druggist, "I
+think what you want is unguentum."&mdash;"Yes,
+<i>run git 'em</i>; I guess that <i>is</i> the true name."&mdash;"Unguentum,
+sir"; said the shopkeeper. "How much
+unguentum do you want?"&mdash;"Well, I reckon
+about two pound!"&mdash;"My dear sir, two pounds
+would kill all the lice in Maryland."&mdash;"Well, I
+vow I believe I've got 'em!"</p>
+
+<p>Lieut.-Col. Robert C. Smith of Baltimore, who
+took command of the Danville prisons soon after
+our arrival, appeared to be kind-hearted, compassionate,
+but woefully destitute of what Mrs.
+Stowe calls "faculty." He was of medium height,
+spare build, fair complexion, sandy hair, blue
+eyes, of slightly stooping figure; on the whole rather
+good-looking. He was slow of speech, with a
+nasal twang that reminded me of Dr. Horace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+Bushnell. His face always wore a sad expression.
+He had been a student at Yale in the forties a few
+years before me. Once a prisoner himself in our
+hands and fairly treated, he sympathized with us.
+He had been wounded, shot through the right
+shoulder. When I visited on parole the other
+Danville prisons in February, a Yankee soldier
+was pointed out to me as wearing Colonel Smith's
+blood-stained coat, and another was said to be
+wearing his vest. I had repeated interviews with
+him, in which he expressed regret at not being
+able to make us more comfortable. He said more
+than once to me, "I have no heart for this business.
+It requires a man without any heart to keep a military
+prison. I have several times asked to be relieved
+and sent to the front." An officer of forceful
+executive ability might have procured for us
+lumber for benches, more coal or wood for the
+stoves, some straw or hay for bedding, blankets or
+cast-off clothing for the half naked; possibly a little
+food, certainly a supply of reading matter from
+the charitably disposed. Single instances of his
+compassion I have mentioned. I shall have
+occasion to speak of another. But the spectacle
+of the hopeless mass of misery in the four Danville
+prisons seemed to render him powerless, if not
+indifferent. As Mrs. Browning puts it:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 20em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">A red-haired child,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sick in a fever, if you touch him once,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though but so little as with a finger-tip,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will set you weeping; but a million sick!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You could as soon weep for the rule of three,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or compound fractions!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Like too many officers both Union and Confederate,
+he was often in liquor; liquor was always in him.
+This "knight of the rueful countenance," of the
+sad heart, the mourning voice, the disabled right
+arm, and the weakness for apple-jack!&mdash;his only
+hope was to have an exchange of prisoners; but
+Lincoln and Stanton and Grant would not consent
+to that. The last I heard of him was when a letter
+of his was shown me by Lieutenant Washington, a
+Confederate, a distant relative of the great George.
+In it Smith, who had been absent a week from
+Danville, complained that he had had "no liquor
+for three days," and that he was "painfully
+sober"!</p>
+
+<p>"Necessity," says the old apothegm, "is the
+mother of invention." It was surprising, how
+much we accomplished in a few weeks towards
+making ourselves comfortable. Bone or wood was
+carved into knives, forks, spoons, buttons, finger-rings,
+masonic or army badges, tooth-picks, bosom
+pins, and other ornaments; corn-cobs were made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+into smoking pipes; scraps of tin or sheet-iron
+were fashioned into plates for eating or dishes for
+cooking; shelves were made by tying long wood
+splinters together; and many "spittoons," which
+were soon rendered superfluous, because the two
+entire rooms were transformed into vast spittoons,
+were inverted, and made useful as seats which we
+called sofas.</p>
+
+<p>Many ingeniously wrought specimens of Yankee
+ingenuity were sold clandestinely to the rebel
+guards, who ventured to disobey strict orders. No
+skinflint vender of wooden nutmegs, leather
+pumpkin-seeds, horn gunflints, shoe-peg oats,
+huckleberry-leaf tea, bass-wood cheeses, or white-oak
+hams, ever hankered more for a trade. Besides
+the products of our prison industry, they craved
+watches, rings, gold chains, silver spurs, gilt
+buttons, genuine breast-pins, epaulets; anything
+that was not manufactured in the Confederacy.
+Most of all, they longed for greenbacks in exchange
+for rebel currency. So in one way or another many
+of us contrived to get a little money of some sort.
+With it we could buy of the sutler, who visited us
+from time to time, rice, flour, beans, bacon, onions,
+dried apple, red peppers, sorghum syrup, vinegar,
+etc.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the best result of our engaging in handicraft<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+work was the relief from unspeakable depression
+of spirits. Some of us saw the importance of
+making diversion on a large scale. To this end we
+planned to start a theatre. Major Wm. H. Fry,
+of the 16th Pa. Cavalry, who knew all about
+vaudeville in Philadelphia, was a wise adviser.
+Young Gardner, who had been an actor, heartily
+joined in the movement. I procured a worn-out
+copy of Shakespeare. It seemed best to begin with
+the presentation of the first act in <i>Hamlet</i>. Colonel
+Smith and other rebel officers promised to aid us.
+We assigned the parts and commenced studying
+and rehearsing. Gardner was to be Hamlet;
+Lieut.-Col. Theodore Gregg, 45th Pa., was to be
+Claudius, the usurping king; the smooth-faced
+Capt. William Cook was to be the queen-mother
+Gertrude; Capt. W. F. Tiemann, 159th N. Y.,
+was to personate Marcellus; Lieut. C. H. Morton
+of Fairhaven, Mass., I think, was Horatio; and
+I, having lost about forty pounds of flesh since my
+capture&mdash;it was thought most appropriate that I
+should be the Ghost! Every morning for some
+weeks on the empty first floor we read and rehearsed,
+and really made fine progress. But when
+we got ready to produce in theatric style, with slight
+omissions, the first act, the rebels seemed suspicious
+of some ulterior design. They refused to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+furnish a sword for Hamlet, a halberd for Marcellus,
+muskets for Bernardo and Francisco, a calico
+gown for the queen, or even a white shirt for the
+Ghost. This was discouraging. When the lovely
+queen-mother Gertrude appealed to her son&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 19em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off,&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noin">he answered, "I swear I can't do it!" One
+November morning, as we were rehearsing and
+shivering on the windy first floor, he ejaculated
+with some emphasis, and with ungentle expletives
+not found in the original text,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"I move, Colonel, that we 'bust up' this
+theatre." So the "legitimate drama" vanished
+from Danville.</p>
+
+<p>About this time my copy of the Greek New
+Testament was stolen from me, an instance, perhaps,
+of piety run mad.</p>
+
+<p>A week or two before this, the lower room, in
+which I then lodged, containing about a hundred
+and seventy officers, was getting into such a
+condition that I felt it my duty to call a meeting
+to see what measures could be adopted to promote
+comfort and decency. I was not the senior in
+rank, but Colonel Carle did not feel himself authorized<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+to issue orders. Some sort of government
+must be instituted at once. Nearly all recognized
+the necessity of prompt action and strict discipline.
+A committee was appointed consisting of myself,
+Major John W. Byron, 88th N. Y., and another
+officer whose name escapes me, to draw up rules
+and regulations. We presented the following:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">RULES UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED IN THE LOWER ROOM,<br />
+DANVILLE, VA., PRISON, OCT. 26, 1864:</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<ol><li>The room shall be thoroughly policed (swept,
+etc.) four times each day by the messes in
+succession; viz., at sunrise and sunset, and
+immediately after breakfast and dinner.</li>
+
+<li>There shall be no washing in this room.</li>
+
+<li>No emptying slops into spittoons.</li>
+
+<li>No washing in the soup buckets or water buckets.</li>
+
+<li>No shaking of clothes or blankets in this room.</li>
+
+<li>No cooking inside the stoves.</li>
+
+<li>No loitering in the yard to the inconvenience of
+others.</li>
+
+<li>No person shall be evidently filthy or infested
+with vermin.</li>
+
+<li>No indecent, profane, or ungentlemanly language
+in this room.</li>
+
+<li>No conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman
+about these premises.</li>
+
+<li>No talking aloud at night after nine o'clock.</li>
+
+<li>An officer of the day shall be appointed daily by
+the senior officer, whose duty shall be to see
+that these rules are strictly enforced, and to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+report to the senior officer any violation
+thereof.</li>
+
+<li>In case of any alleged violation of any of these rules,
+the senior officer of the room shall appoint a
+Court<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> to consist of thirteen disinterested
+officers, who shall fairly try and determine the
+matter, and in case of conviction the offender's
+rations shall be stopped, or the commander of
+the prison be requested to confine the offender
+in a cell according to the sentence of the Court;
+and it shall be the duty of every officer to
+have such offender court-martialed after rejoining
+his command.<br /><br />For the Committee. H. B. Sprague, Oct, 26, 1864.</li></ol>
+</div>
+
+<p>The prison commandant promised that he would
+execute any sentence short of capital punishment.
+But one case was tried by such court. The offense
+was a gross violation of rule 9. The culprit was let
+off with a sharp reprimand by General Hayes; but
+my first act after the exchange of prisoners was
+to prefer charges and specifications against him.
+The beast was court-martialed at Annapolis in the
+latter part of July, '65.</p>
+
+<p>The observance of these rules wrought wonders
+in correcting evils which had become almost unendurable,
+and in promoting cheerfulness, good
+behavior, and mutual esteem.</p>
+
+<p>Many letters were written to us. Few of them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
+reached their destination. The first I received
+was from Miss Martha Russell, a lady of fine literary
+ability, a friend of Edgar A. Poe, living at
+North Branford, Conn. In raising my company
+(Co. H., 13th Conn.), I had enlisted her brother
+Alfred. Under strict military discipline he had
+become a valuable soldier, and I had appointed
+him my first sergeant. At the battle of Irish
+Bend, La., in which I was myself wounded, he
+was shot through the neck. The wound seemed
+mortal, but I secured special care for him, and his
+life was spared as by miracle. His sister's letter
+brought a ray of sunshine to several of us. It
+assured us that we were tenderly cared for at
+home. She quoted to cheer us the fine lines of
+the Cavalier poet Lovelace,</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 15em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Stone walls do not a prison make,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor iron bars a cage;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Minds innocent and quiet take<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That for a hermitage.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A well-grounded conviction prevailed among the
+prisoners that the Confederate government was
+anxious to secure an exchange of prisoners, but
+that the Federal government would not consent.
+The reason was evident enough. The Confederate
+prisoners in the North, as a rule, were fit for military
+duty; the Union prisoners in the South were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+physically unfit. A general exchange would have
+placed at once, say, more than forty thousand
+fresh soldiers in the rebel ranks, but very few in
+ours. Conscription for military service had been
+tried in the North with results so bitter that it
+seemed unwise to attempt it again. Better let the
+unfortunates in southern prisons perish in silence&mdash;that
+appeared the wisest policy. But to us prisoners
+it appeared a mistake and gross neglect of duty.
+Between our keen sense of the wrong in allowing us
+to starve, and our love for Lincoln and the Union,
+there was a struggle. Our patriotism was put to
+the test on the day of the Presidential election,
+Tuesday, November 8th. Discouraging as was the
+outlook for us personally, we had confidence in the
+government and in the justice of our cause. Pains
+was taken to obtain a full and fair vote in the
+officers' prison. There were two hundred seventy-six
+for Lincoln; ninety-one for McClellan. Under
+the circumstances the result was satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>Very earnest, if not acrimonious, were the discussions
+that immediately preceded and followed.
+Some of us realized their importance, not so much
+in arriving at a correct decision on the questions
+at issue, as in preventing mental stagnation likely
+to result in imbecility if not actual idiocy. By
+the stimulus of employment of some kind we must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+fight against the apathy, the hopeless loss of will
+power, into which several of our comrades seemed
+sinking. Mrs. Browning well says:</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 19em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">Get leave to work<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In this world,&mdash;'tis the best you get at all.<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">... Get work; get work;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Some of us started historical debates, and new
+views were presented which furnished both amusement
+and instruction. One colonel, more redoubtable
+in battle than in dialectics, who had been
+shot through from breast to back, gravely informed
+us that the geometer Euclid was an early English
+writer! A kindly visitor, Dr. Holbrook, made me
+a present of Hitchcock's <i>Elementary Geology</i>. It
+was not quite up to date, having been published
+about twenty-five years before, but I found the
+study interesting. Grieved at having lost from
+my books three years in military service, I endeavored
+with three or four companions to make up
+for the deficiency by taking lessons in French.
+Our teacher was Captain Cook, already mentioned
+as teaching us French at Salisbury. As we had no
+books, the instruction was oral. I was delighted to
+observe how much a knowledge of Latin facilitated
+the acquisition of the modern tongue. A few
+weeks later upon the arrival of Major George<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+Haven Putnam, Adjutant at that time of the
+176th N. Y., several of us commenced under
+him the study of German. Here too the teaching
+was oral; but I was able to buy Oehlschl&auml;ger's
+<i>German Reader</i>; took special pleasure in memorizing
+some of the selections, particularly from the
+poets Gleim, Claudius, Goethe, Schiller, and Uhland;
+and I was already familiar with some stanzas
+of Arndt's noble <i>The German Fatherland</i>, sung so
+often to me by my Lieutenant Meisner, slain by my
+side in battle. Some of those songs still ring in
+my ears. General Hayes, Major Putnam, and two
+or three others took lessons in Spanish from a
+native of Mexico, 2d Lieut. John Gayetti (I think
+that was his name), of Battery B, 2d Pa. Artillery.</p>
+
+<p>Checkerboards and chessboards were prepared
+from the rudest materials, and many were the
+games with which some of our comrades sought to
+beguile the weary hours. Capt. Frank H. Mason
+of the 12th Cavalry had the reputation of being
+our best chess player and young Adjutant Putnam
+was his most persistent opponent.</p>
+
+<p>No one needs to be told that old soldiers are
+great story-tellers, drawing upon their imagination
+for facts. This talent was assiduously
+cultivated in our prison.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See <a href="#APPENDIX">Appendix</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>Exact Record of Rations in Danville&mdash;Opportunity to Cook&mdash;Daily
+Routine of Proceedings from Early Dawn till Late
+at Night.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Our</span> imprisonment at Danville lasted from
+October 20, '64, to February 17, '65, one hundred
+and twenty days. I kept a careful daily record of
+the rations issued to us, as did also Lieut. Watson
+W. Bush, 2d N. Y. "Mounted Rifles." After
+our removal from Danville to Richmond for exchange,
+we compared our memoranda, and found
+they substantially agreed. During the one hundred
+and twenty days the issues were as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="inde"><i>Bread.</i> A loaf every morning. It was made of
+unsifted corn-meal, ground "cobs and all." Pieces
+several inches in length of cobs unground were sometimes
+contained in it. It always seemed wholesome,
+though moist, almost watery. Its dimensions
+were a little less than 7 inches long, 3 or 4 wide, and
+3 thick. I managed to bring home a loaf, and we were
+amazed at the shrinkage to a quarter of its original
+size. It had become very hard. We broke it in two,
+and found inside what appeared to be a dishcloth!</p>
+
+<p class="inde"><i>Meat.</i> Forty-three times. I estimated the weight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+at from 2 to 5 or 6 ounces. In it sometimes were
+hides, brains, heads, tails, jaws with teeth, lights,
+livers, kidneys, intestines, and nameless portions of the
+animal economy.</p>
+
+<p class="inde"><i>Soup.</i> Sixty-two times; viz., bean soup forty-seven
+times; cabbage nine times; gruel six. It was the thinnest
+decoction of small black beans, the slightest
+infusion of cabbage, or the most attenuated gruel of
+corn-cob meal, that a poetic imagination ever dignified
+with the name of <i>soup</i>!</p>
+
+<p class="inde"><i>Potatoes.</i> Seven times. Seldom was one over an
+inch in diameter.</p>
+
+<p class="inde"><i>Salt fish.</i> Five times. They call it "hake." It
+was good. "Hunger the best sauce."</p>
+
+<p class="inde"><i>Sorghum syrup.</i> Three times. It was known as
+"corn-stalk molasses." It was not bad.</p></div>
+
+<p>Nothing else was given us for food by the Confederates
+at Danville. The rations appeared to
+deteriorate and diminish as the winter advanced.
+My diary shows that in the fifty-three days after
+Christmas we received meat only three times.</p>
+
+<p>Manifestly such supplies are insufficient to sustain
+life very long. By purchase from the rebel sutler
+who occasionally visited us, or by surreptitious
+trading with the guards, we might make additions
+to our scanty allowance. I recollect that two
+dollars of irredeemable treasury notes would buy
+a gill of rice or beans or corn, a turnip, onion,
+parsnip, or small pickled cucumber!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Confederate cooking needed to be supplemented.
+Here the cylinder coal-stoves were
+made useful. The tops of them were often covered
+with toasting corn bread. Tin pails and iron
+kettles of various capacities, from a pint to several
+quarts, suspended from the top by wooden hooks
+a foot or two in length, each vessel resting against
+the hot stove and containing rice, beans, Indian
+corn, dried apple, crust coffee, or other delicacy
+potable or edible slowly preparing, made the whole
+look like a big black chandelier with pendants.
+We were rather proud of our prison cuisine. Cooking
+was also performed on and in an old worn-out
+cook-stove, which a few of our millionaires, forming
+a joint-stock company for the purpose, had
+bought for two hundred Confederate dollars late in
+the season, and which the kind prison commander
+had permitted them to place near the southwest
+end of the upper room, running the pipe out of a
+window. Culinary operations were extensively
+carried on also in the open yard outside, about
+forty feet by twenty, at the northeast end of the
+building. Here the officer would build a diminutive
+fire of chips or splinters between bricks, and
+boil or toast or roast his allowance. We were
+grouped in messes of five to ten or twelve each.
+Happy the club of half a dozen that could get<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+money enough and a big enough kettle to have
+their meal prepared jointly.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the case with my own group after the
+lapse of about two months. We had been pinched;
+but one morning Captain Cook came to me with
+radiant face and said: "Colonel, I have good
+news for you. <i>I</i>'m going to run this mess. My
+folks in New York have made arrangement with
+friends in England to supply me with money, and
+I've just received through the lines a hundred
+dollars. We'll live like fighting-cocks!" Adjt.
+J. A. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav., was our delighted cook.
+Shivering for an hour over the big kettle amid the
+ice and snow of the back yard, he would send up
+word, "Colonel, set the table for dinner." To
+"set the table" consisted in sweeping a space six
+or eight feet square, and depositing there the
+plates, wood, tin, or earthen (mine was of wood;
+it had cost me a week's labor in carving). The
+officers already mentioned, Cook, Clark, Bush,
+Sprague, with Lieut. E. H. Wilder, 9th N. Y.
+Cav., sit around in the elegant Turkish fashion, or
+more classical recline like the ancients in their
+symposia, each resting on his left elbow, with face
+as near as possible to the steaming kettle, that not
+a smell may be lost!</p>
+
+<p>Wood was scarce. It was used with most rigid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+economy. Many joists overhead had been sawed
+off by Lieut. Lewis R. Titus of the <i>Corps D'Afrique</i>,
+using a notched table-knife for a saw. In this
+way the Vermont Yankee obtained pieces for
+cooking, but he weakened the structure till some
+officers really feared the roof might come tumbling
+about our heads; and I remember that the prison
+commandant, visiting the upper room and gazing
+heavenward, more than once ejaculated irreverently
+the name of the opposite region!</p>
+
+<p>Through the kindness of a Confederate officer
+or bribing the guards a log four or five feet in
+length is sometimes brought in. Two or three
+instantly attack it with a blunt piece of iron hoop
+to start the cleaving, and in less time than one
+could expect such a work to be done with axes it
+is split fine with wooden wedges.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally one of the ever-recurring topics
+of discussion was the glorious dishes we could
+prepare, if we but had the materials, or of which
+we would partake if we ever got home again.
+In our memorandum books we are careful to
+note down the street and number of the most
+famous restaurant in each of the largest cities,
+like Delmonico's in New York or Young's in
+Boston.</p>
+
+<p>With few exceptions one day is like another.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+At earliest dawn each of the two floors is covered
+with about a hundred and seventy-five prostrate
+forms of officers who have been trying to sleep.
+Soon some one of them calls in a loud voice.
+"<i>Buckets for water!</i>" The call is repeated. Five
+or six, who have predetermined to go early to
+the river Dan that seemed nearly a quarter of a
+mile distant, start up and seize large wooden
+pails. They pass to the lower floor. One of
+them says to the sentinel on duty at the southwest
+corner door, "Sentry, call the sergeant of the
+guard; we want to go for water." He complies.
+In five, ten, or fifteen minutes, a non-commissioned
+officer, with some half a dozen heavily armed
+soldiers, comes, the bolts slide, the doors swing,
+our squad passes out. They are escorted down
+the hill to the river, and back to prison. By this
+time it is broad daylight. Many are still lying
+silent on the floor. Most have risen. Some are
+washing, or rather wiping with wet handkerchief,
+face and hands; others are preparing to cook,
+splitting small blocks of wood for a fire of splinters;
+a few are nibbling corn bread; here and there one
+is reading the New Testament. There is no change
+or adjustment of clothing, for the night dress is the
+same as the day dress. We no longer wonder how
+the cured paralytic in Scripture could obey the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+command, "Take up thy bed and walk"; for at
+heaviest the bed is but a blanket!</p>
+
+<p>Now, for a half-hour, vengeance on vermin
+that have plagued us during the night! We daily
+solve the riddle of the fishermen's answer to
+"What luck?" the question which puzzled to
+death</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">"The blind old bard of Scio's rocky isle,"</p>
+
+<p class="center">"<i>As many as we caught we left; as many as we could
+not catch we carry with us</i>!"</p></div>
+
+<p>About eight o'clock the cry is heard from the
+southwest end of the room, "Fall in for roll-call!
+fall in!" to which several would impudently add,
+"Here he comes! here he is!" A tall, slim, stooping,
+beardless, light-haired phenomenon, known as
+"the roll-call sergeant," enters with two musketeers.
+We officers having formed in two ranks
+on the northwest side of the room, he passes
+down the front from left to right slowly counting.
+Setting down the number in a memorandum
+book, he commands in a squeaky feminine voice,
+"Break ranks," which most of us have already
+done. Much speculation arose as to the nature
+and status of this singular being. His face was
+smooth and childlike, yet dry and wrinkled, so
+that it was impossible to tell whether he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
+fifteen or fifty. A committee was said to have
+waited upon him, and with much apparent deference
+asked him as to his nativity, his age, and
+whether he was human or divine, married or single,
+man or woman. They said he answered sadly,
+"Alas! I'm no angel, but a married man, thirty-seven
+years old, from South Carolina. I have
+three children who resemble me."</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after roll-call, corn bread is brought
+in for breakfast. It is in large squares about two
+feet in length and breadth, the top of each square
+being marked for cutting into twenty or twenty-five
+rations. Colonel Hooper and Capt. D. Tarbell
+receive the whole from the rebel commissary, and
+then distribute to each mess its portion. The
+mess commissary endeavors to cut it into equal
+oblong loaves. To make sure of a fair distribution,
+one officer turns his back, and one after another
+lays his hand upon a loaf and asks, "Whose is
+this?" The officer who has faced about names
+some one as the recipient.</p>
+
+<p>Clear the way now for sweepers. From one
+end of the room to the other they ply their coarse
+wooden brooms. Some officers are remarkably
+neat, and will scrape their floor space with pieces
+of glass from the broken windows; a few are listless,
+sullen, utterly despondent, regardless of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+surroundings, apparently sinking into imbecility;
+the majority are taking pains to keep up an
+appearance of respectability.</p>
+
+<p>Many who have been kept awake through the
+night by cold or rheumatism now huddle around
+the stoves and try to sleep. Most of the remainder,
+as the weeks pass, glide into something like
+a routine of occupations. For several weeks I
+spent an hour or two every day carving with a
+broken knife-blade a spoon from a block of hard
+wood. Sporadic wood-splitting is going on, and
+cooking appears to be one of the fine arts. An
+hour daily of oral exercises in French, German,
+Spanish, Latin, or Italian, under competent
+teachers, after the Sauveur or Berlitz method,
+amused and to some extent instructed many.
+Our cavalry adjutant, Dutch Clark, so called from
+his skill in the "Pennsylvania Dutch" dialect
+made perhaps a hundred familiar with the morning
+salutation, "<i>Haben Sie gut geschlafen?</i>" ("Have
+you slept well?") Lieut. Henry Vander Weyde,
+A. D. C., 1st Div., 6th Corps, the artist chum of
+our principal German instructor, amused many by
+his pencil portraits of "Slim Jim," the nondescript
+"roll-call sergeant" of uncertain age and gender;
+also of some of the sentries, and one or two of his
+fellow prisoners. A worn-out pack of fifty-two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+cards, two or three chess and checker boards of
+our manufacture, and twenty-four rudely carved
+checker-men and thirty-two fantastic chess-men,
+furnished frequent amusement to those who understood
+the games.</p>
+
+<p>On an average once in two days we received
+about one o'clock what was called soup. We
+were told, and we believed it to be true, that all
+the rich nitrogenous portion had been carefully
+skimmed off for use elsewhere; not thrown away
+as the fresh maid threw the "scum" that formed
+on top of the milk!</p>
+
+<p>The topic of most frequent discussion was the
+prospect of an exchange of prisoners. Our would-be
+German conversationalists never forgot to
+ask, "<i>Haben Sie etwas geh&ouml;rten von Auswechseln der
+Gefangenen?</i>" ("Have you heard anything of
+exchange of prisoners?") It was hard to believe
+that our government would leave us to die of
+starvation.</p>
+
+<p>At the close of the soup hour and after another
+turn at sweeping, almost every officer again sat
+down or sat up to rid himself of the <i>pediculid&aelig; vestimenti</i>.
+We called it "skirmishing"; it was rather
+a pitched battle. The humblest soldier and the
+brevet major-general must daily strip and fight.
+Ludicrous, were it not so abominable, was this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+mortifying necessity. No account of prison life
+in Danville would be complete without it. Pass
+by it hereafter in sorrow and silence, as one of
+those duties which Cicero says are to be done
+but not talked about.</p>
+
+<p>The occupations of the morning are now largely
+resumed, but many prefer to lie quiet on the floor
+for an hour.</p>
+
+<p>An interesting incident that might happen at
+any time is the arrival in prison of a Confederate
+newspaper. A commotion near the stairway!
+Fifty or a hundred cluster around an officer with a
+clear strong voice, and listen as he reads aloud
+the news, the editorials, and the selections. The
+rebels are represented as continually gaining
+victories, but singularly enough the northern
+armies are always drawing nearer!</p>
+
+<p>Toward sunset many officers walk briskly half an
+hour to and fro the length of the room for exercise.</p>
+
+<p>Another roll-call by the mysterious heterogeneous
+if not hermaphroditical Carolina sergeant!</p>
+
+<p>Brooms again by the mess on duty. Again
+oral language-lessons by Cook and Putnam. Then
+discussions or story-telling.</p>
+
+<p>It is growing dark. A candle is lighted making
+darkness visible. We have many skilful singers,
+who every evening "discourse most excellent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+music." They sing <i>Just before the battle, mother;
+Do they miss me at home? We shall meet, but
+we shall miss him</i> (a song composed on the death
+of one of my Worcester pupils by Hon. Charles
+Washburn); <i>Nearer, My God, to thee</i>, etc. From
+the sweet strains of affection or devotion, which
+suffuse the eyes as we begin to lie down for the
+night, the music passes to the <i>Star-spangled Banner</i>,
+<i>Rally round the flag</i>, <i>John Brown's body lies
+a'mouldering in the grave</i>, and the like. Often the
+"concert" concludes with a comic Dutch song by
+Captain Cafferty, Co. D, 1st N. Y. Cav.</p>
+
+<p>Sleep begins to seal many eyelids, when someone
+with a loud voice heard through the whole
+room starts a series of sharp critical questions,
+amusing or censorious, thus:</p>
+
+<p class="pad1">"Who don't skirmish?" This is answered
+loudly from another quarter.</p>
+
+<p>"Slim Jim." The catechism proceeds, sometimes
+with two or three distinct responses.</p>
+
+<p>"Who cheats the graveyard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Sprague."</p>
+
+<p>"Who sketched Fort Darling?"</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Tripp." (He was caught sketching
+long before, and was refused exchange.)</p>
+
+<p>"Who never washes?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant Screw-my-upper-jaw-off." (His was
+an unpronounceable foreign name.)</p>
+
+<p>"Who knows everything?"</p>
+
+<p>"General Duffi&eacute;." (Duffi&eacute; was a brave officer,
+of whom more anon.)</p>
+
+<p>"Who don't know anything?"</p>
+
+<p class="pad2">"The fools that talk when they should be
+asleep." (The querists subside at last.)</p>
+
+<p>For warmth we lie in contact with each other
+"spoon-fashion," in groups of three or more. I
+had bought a heavy woolen shawl for twenty
+Confederate dollars, and under it were Captain
+Cook, Adjutant Clark, and Lieutenant Wilder; I
+myself wearing my overcoat, and snuggling up to
+my friend Cook. All four lay as close as possible
+facing in the same direction. The night wears
+slowly away. When the floor seemed intolerably
+hard, one of us would say aloud, "Spoon!" and
+all four would flop over, and rest on the other side.
+So we vibrated back and forth from nine o'clock
+till dawn. We were not comfortable, but in far
+better circumstances than most of the prisoners.
+Indeed Captain Cook repeatedly declared he owed
+his life to our blanket.</p>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>Continual Hope of Exchange of Prisoners&mdash;"Flag-of-Truce
+Fever!"&mdash;Attempted Escape by Tunneling&mdash;Repeated
+Escapes by Members of Water Parties, and how we Made
+the Roll-Call Sergeant's Count Come Out all Right every
+Time&mdash;Plot to Break Out by Violence, and its Tragic End.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Our</span> principal hope for relief from the increasing
+privations of prison life and from probable
+exhaustion, sickness, and death, lay in a
+possible exchange of prisoners. A belief was
+prevalent that the patients in hospital would be
+the first so favored. Hence strenuous efforts were
+sometimes made to convince the apothecary
+whom we called doctor, and who often visited
+us, that a prisoner was ill enough to require
+removal. Once in the institution, the patients got
+better food, something like a bed, medical attendance
+daily, and a more comfortable room. Some
+of them were shamming, lying in two senses and
+groaning when the physicians were present, but
+able to sit up and play euchre the rest of the day
+and half the night. This peculiar disease, this
+eagerness to get into hospital or remain there till<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+exchanged by flag of truce, was known as the
+"flag-of-truce fever" or "flag-of-truce-on-the-brain!"</p>
+
+<p>I recall one striking instance. Lieutenant Gardner,
+already mentioned, had received six or eight
+hundred dollars in Confederate currency as the
+price of a gold watch. But like the prodigal in
+Scripture he was now in a far country, and had
+wasted his substance in what he called "righteous"
+living. And when he had spent all, there arose
+a mighty famine in that corner of the lower room,
+and he began to be in want. And he would fain
+have filled his belly with corn-cob-meal bread, or
+spoiled black beans, or the little potatoes which
+the swine didn't eat. And no man gave him
+enough. And he determined to go to hospital.
+He gave out that he was desperately sick. I at
+this time had "quarters" on the floor above.
+Word was brought to me that my friend was mortally
+ill, and would thank me to come down and
+take his last message to his relatives. Alarmed, I
+instantly went down. I found him with two or
+three splitting a small log of wood!</p>
+
+<p class="pad1">"Gardner, I hear you are a little 'under the
+weather.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Dying, Colonel, dying!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What appears to be your disease?"</p>
+
+<p>"Flag-o'-truce-on-the-brain!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you've got the exchange fever?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; bad."</p>
+
+<p>"Pulse run high?"</p>
+
+<p>"Three hundred a minute."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything I can do for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Colonel, beseech that fool doctor to send
+me to hospital. Tell him I'm on my last legs.
+Tell him I only want to die there. Appeal to him
+in behalf of my poor wife and babies." (Gardner,
+as I well knew, was a bachelor, and had no children&mdash;to
+speak of.)</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Lieutenant, I'll do anything I properly
+can for you. Is there anything else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Colonel; lend me your overcoat to wear
+to hospital; I'll send it back at once."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Lieutenant, you can't get into the hospital.
+Your cheeks are too rosy; you're the picture of
+health."</p>
+
+<p class="pad2">"I'm glad you mentioned that, Colonel. I'll fix
+that. You'll see."</p>
+
+<p>Next morning he watched at the window, and
+when he saw the doctor coming, he swallowed a
+large pill of plug tobacco. The effect was more
+serious than he expected. In a few minutes he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+became sick in earnest, and was frightened. A
+deathlike pallor supervened. When the doctor
+reached him, there was a genuine fit of vomiting.
+The story runs that Captain Tiemann made a
+pathetic appeal in behalf of the imaginary twin
+babies, that the doctor diagnosed it as a clear case
+of puerperal (which he pronounced "puerp&#275;rial")
+fever complicated with symptoms of cholera
+infantum, and ordered him to hospital at once!
+I loaned the patient my overcoat, which he sent
+back directly. His recovery seemed miraculous.
+In a week or two he returned from his delightful
+outing. This was in the latter part of November.</p>
+
+<p>Previously, for some weeks, Captain Howe and
+three or four other strong and determined officers
+managed to get into the cellar of a one-story building
+contiguous to ours and thence to excavate a
+tunnel out beyond the line on which the sentinels
+were perpetually pacing to and fro. I was too
+feeble to join in the enterprise, but hoped to
+improve the opportunity to escape when the work
+was done. Unfortunately the arching top of the
+tunnel was too near the surface of the ground, and
+the thin crust gave way under the weight of a
+sentry. He yelled "Murder!" Two or three of
+our diggers came scurrying back. The guard
+next to him shouted, "You Yanks! you G&mdash;d<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+d&mdash;d Yanks!" and fired into the deep hole. No
+more tunneling at Danville.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+<p>More successful and more amusing were several
+attempts by individual officers one at a time. The
+water parties of four to eight went under a strong
+guard two or three times a day down a long hill to
+the river Dan. On the slope alongside the path
+were a number of large brick ovens,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> in which,
+we were told, the Confederates used to bake those
+big squares of corn bread. The iron doors when
+we passed were usually open. On the way back
+from the river, one officer on some pretense or
+other would lag behind the rearmost soldier of the
+guard, who would turn to hurry him up. The next
+officer, as soon as the soldier's back was turned,
+would dodge into an open oven, and the careless
+guards now engaged in a loud and passionate
+controversy about slavery or secession would not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+miss him! Then, as night came on, the negroes
+in the vicinity, who, like all the rest of the colored
+people, were friendly to us, would supply the
+escaped officer with food and clothing, and pilot
+him on his way rejoicing toward the Union lines.
+One by one, six officers escaped in that way, and
+many of us began to look forward to the time when
+our turn would come to try the baking virtues
+of those ovens!</p>
+
+<p>But it was important that the escaped officer
+should not be missed. How should we deceive the
+nondescript that we called "the roll-call sergeant"?
+Morning and evening he carefully counted every
+one. How make the census tally with the former
+enumerations? Yankee ingenuity was here put to
+a severe test; but Lieutenant Titus, before mentioned,
+solved the problem. With his table-knife
+saw he cut a hole about two feet square in the floor
+near the northeast corner of the upper room. A
+nicely fitting trapdoor completed the arrangement.
+Through this hole, helped by a rude rope
+ladder of strips of rags, and hoisted to the shoulders
+of a tall man by strong arms from below, a
+nimble officer could quickly ascend. Now those
+in the lower room were counted first. When
+they broke ranks, and the human automaton
+faced to the west and moved slowly towards the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+stairs with three or four "Yanks" clustering at his
+side in earnest conversation, the requisite number
+of spry young prisoners would "shin up" the
+ladder, emerge, "deploy," and be counted over
+again in the upper room! The thing worked to a
+charm. Not one of the six was missed.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, however, two or three of them
+were recaptured and again incarcerated in Libby.
+The Richmond authorities thereupon telegraphed
+to Colonel Smith, asking how those officers escaped
+from Danville. Smith, surprised, ordered
+a recount. The trapdoor did its duty. "All
+present!" Finally he answered, "No prisoner has
+escaped from Danville." The rebel commissary
+of prisons at Richmond, Gen. J. H. Winder, then
+telegraphed the names of the recaptured officers.
+Smith looks on his books: there are those names,
+sure enough! The mystery must be solved. He
+now sends his adjutant to count us about noon.
+We asked him what it meant. He told us it was
+reported that several officers had escaped. We
+replied, "That's too good to be true." He
+counted very slowly and with extraordinary precision.
+He kept his eye on the staircase as he
+approached it. Six officers flew up the ladder as
+we huddled around him. It was almost impossible
+to suppress laughter at the close, when he declared,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+"I'll take my oath no prisoner has escaped
+from this prison." But there were those names of
+the missing, and there was our ill-disguised mirth.
+Smith resorted to heroic measures. He came in
+with two or three of his staff and a man who was
+said to be a professor of mathematics. This was
+on the 8th of November, 1864. He made all
+officers of the lower room move for a half-hour
+into the upper room, and there fall in line with the
+rest. His adjutant called the roll in reality.
+Each as his name was read aloud was made to step
+forward and cross to the other side. Of course no
+one could answer for the absent six. I doubt if he
+ever learned the secret of that trapdoor. The
+professor of mathematics promised to bring me
+a Geometry. About two weeks later, November
+24th, he brought me a copy of Davies's
+<i>Legendre</i>.</p>
+
+<p>On the 9th of December, while our senior officer,
+General Hayes, was sick in hospital, the next in
+rank, Gen. A. N. Duffi&eacute;, of the First Cavalry
+Division of Sheridan's army, fresh from the French
+service, with which he had campaigned in Algeria,
+where he was wounded nine times, suddenly conceived
+a plot to break out and escape. Two companies
+of infantry had arrived in the forenoon
+and stacked their arms in plain sight on the level<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+ground about twenty rods distant. Duffi&eacute;'s plan
+was to rush through the large open door when
+a water party returning with filled buckets should
+be entering, seize those muskets, overpower the
+guard, immediately liberate the thousand or
+fifteen hundred Union prisoners in the three other
+Danville prisons, and push off to our lines in East
+Tennessee. He had Sheridan's <i>&eacute;lan</i>, not Grant's
+cool-headed strategy. With proper preparation
+and organization, such as Hayes would have
+insisted upon, it might have been a success. He
+called us, field officers about twenty, together and
+laid the matter before us. No vote was taken, but
+I think a majority were opposed to the whole
+scheme. He was disposed to consider himself,
+though a prisoner, as still vested with authority to
+command all of lower rank, and he expected them
+to obey him without question. In this view
+many acquiesced, but others dissented. By his
+request, though doubtful of his right to command
+and in feeble health, I drew up a pledge for those
+to sign who were willing to engage in the projected
+rising and would promise to obey. It was found
+that at least one hundred and fifty could be
+counted on. Colonel Ralston, previously mentioned,
+was the chief opponent of the outbreak, but
+he recognized Duffi&eacute;'s authority and insisted upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
+our submission to it. Similar appeared to be the
+attitude of the following colonels:</p>
+
+<p>Gilbert H. Prey, 104th N. Y.</p>
+<p>James Carle, 191st Pa.</p>
+<p>T. B. Kaufman, 209th Pa.</p>
+<p>W. Ross Hartshorne, 190th Pa.</p>
+
+<p>Of the lieutenant-colonels, most of the following
+doubted the success, but would do their best to
+promote it, if commanded:</p>
+
+<p>Charles H. Tay, 10th N. J.</p>
+<p>Theodore Gregg, 45th Pa.</p>
+<p>G. A. Moffett, 94th N. Y.</p>
+<p>J. S. Warner, 121st Pa.</p>
+<p>George Hamett, 147th N. Y.</p>
+<p>Charles H. Hooper, 24th Mass.</p>
+<p>Homer B. Sprague, 13th Conn.</p>
+
+<p>So the following majors: A. W. Wakefield, 49th
+Pa.; G. S. Horton, 58th Mass.; E. F. Cooke, 2d
+N. Y. Cav.; John G. Wright, 51st N. Y.; J. V.
+Peale, 4th Pa. Cav.; John W. Byron, 88th N. Y.;
+David Sadler, 2d Pa. Heavy Art.; John Byrne,
+155th N. Y.; E. O. Shepard, 32d Mass.; J. A.
+Sonders, 8th Ohio Cav.; Charles P. Mattocks,
+17th Maine; E. S. Moore, Paymaster; Wm. H.
+Fry, 16th Pa. Cav.; Milton Wendler, 191st Pa.;
+James E. Deakins, 8th Tenn. Cav.; Geo. Haven
+Putnam, Adjt. and later Bvt.-Major, 176th N. Y.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All of the foregoing then present and not on the
+sick list should have been most thoroughly instructed
+as to their duties, and should have been enabled
+to communicate all needed information to the
+forty-six captains and one hundred and thirty-three
+lieutenants, who, though many were sadly reduced
+in vitality, were accounted fit for active service. I
+had repeatedly noticed in battle the perplexity of
+company, regimental, or even brigade commanders,
+from lack of information as to the necessary movements
+in unforeseen emergencies. It is not enough to
+say, as one corps commander (Hancock?) is said to
+have done during the Battle of the Wilderness in
+May, 1864, to a newly arrived colonel with his regiment,
+who inquired, "Where shall I go in?" "Oh,
+anywhere; there's lovely fighting all along the line!"</p>
+
+<p>Here the step most vital to success, the <i>sine qua
+non</i>, was to keep that outside door open for the
+outrush of two hundred men. To this end, eight
+of our strongest and most determined, under a
+dashing leader like Colonel Hartshorne or Lieutenant-Colonel
+Gregg, should have been sent out
+as a water party. Instead, Captain Cook, who
+was brave enough, but then physically weak,
+hardly able to carry a pail of water, was the leader
+of an average small squad, "the spirit indeed
+willing, but the flesh weak."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Hardly less important was it to select a dozen
+or twenty of the most fierce and energetic, to be
+at the head of the stairs in perfect readiness to
+dash instantly through the opening door and
+assist the water party in disarming their guards,
+and, without a moment's pause, followed by the
+whole two hundred, pounce upon the guard house.
+Ralston or Duffi&eacute; himself should have headed
+this band. Simultaneously, without a second's
+interval, three or four desperate, fiery, powerful
+officers, detailed for the purpose, should have
+grappled with the sentinel on duty in the middle
+of the lower room and disarmed and gagged him.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the field officers, we had with us many
+subordinates of great intelligence like Capt.
+Henry S. Burrage of the 36th Mass., Lieut. W. C.
+B. Goff of the 1st D. C. Cav., Lieut. W. C.
+Howe, 2d Mass. Cav., Adjt. James A. Clark, 17th
+Pa. Cav., and the artist, Lieut. Henry Vander
+Weyde; and nothing would have been easier than
+for Duffi&eacute; to communicate through them to every
+officer the most complete and precise information
+and instructions.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely any of these precautions were taken.
+The general was impatient. The next day, December
+10th, he issued his command in these words: "I
+order the attempt to be made, and I call upon all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+of you, who have not forgotten how to obey orders,
+to follow." The water party was immediately
+sent out, and its return was watched for. He and
+Ralston, without the help of a third, made the
+mistake of personally grappling with the floor
+sentry, a brave, strong, red-headed fellow, and
+they tackled him a moment too soon. He stoutly
+resisted. They wrested his musket from him.
+He yelled. They tried to stop his mouth. Instantly
+the door began to swing open a little.
+The water party, too few and too weak, paralyzed,
+failed to act. The foremost of us sprang from the
+stairs to the door. Before we could reach it, it was
+slammed to, bolted and barred against us! With
+several others I rushed to the windows and tried to
+tear off the heavy bars. In vain. The soldiers
+outside began firing through the broken panes.
+Ralston was shot through the body. We assisted
+him up the stairs while the bullets were flying.
+In less than five minutes from the moment when
+he and Duffi&eacute; seized the sentinel, it was all over.
+In about a quarter of an hour, Colonel Smith came
+in with his adjutant and two or three guards, and
+ordered Ralston removed to hospital. As he was
+carried out, one of us expressed the hope that
+the wound was not serious. He answered in the
+language of Mercutio, "No, 'tis not so deep as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough,
+'twill serve." He knew it was mortal, and
+expressed a willingness to die for his country in the
+line of duty. He passed away next morning.
+Colonel Smith expressed sorrow for him, and surprise
+at the ingratitude of us who had been guilty
+of insurrection against his gentle sway!</p>
+
+<p>A strict search for possible weapons followed
+during which we were told we must give up our
+United States money. I saved a ten-dollar greenback
+by concealing it in my mouth "as an ape
+doth nuts in the corner of his jaw," all the while
+munching corn bread, gnawing two holes in the bill!</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> "You will doubtless recall the man-hole worked through the
+heavy brick wall, made during the 'stilly nights,' opening into the
+attic of an annex to the main building. We found our way down
+by means of a rope ladder, and started our tunnel under the
+basement floor. But for the exposure we would have emptied
+the prison. To find the way down we gave them a lively hunt!&mdash;And
+those <i>epithets</i>!&mdash;I have a blouse with a rent in the back made
+in going through that hole in the wall."&mdash;Howe's <i>Letter</i> of Jan. 30,
+1914.
+</p><p>
+For further particulars of this attempt to tunnel out, see Major
+Putnam's <i>A Prisoner of War in Virginia</i>, pp. 55-60.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Putnam describes them as disused furnaces. They may have
+been both.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>Kind Clergymen Visit us and Preach Excellent Discourses&mdash;Colonel
+Smith's Personal Good Will to me&mdash;His Offer&mdash;John
+F. Ficklin's Charity&mdash;My Good Fortune&mdash;Supplies of
+Clothing Distributed&mdash;Deaths in Prison.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Union</span> men never looked upon Confederates
+as mortal enemies. Whenever a flag of truce
+was flying, both were disposed to shake hands
+and exchange favors. I recollect that our Captain
+Burrage complained that he was unfairly
+captured when he was engaged in a friendly deal
+with a Confederate between the lines. At Port
+Hudson, when the white signal was to go down, we
+gave the "Johnnies" fair warning, shouting,
+"<span class="smcapl">RATS! TO YOUR HOLES!</span>" before we fired on them.
+But war cannot be conducted on peace principles,
+and in a flash a man acts like a devil. In an open
+window near the spot where I slept, an officer upset
+a cup of water, and a few drops fell on the head
+of the guard outside. Instantly he fired. The
+bullet missed, passed through the window below
+and the floor above, and lodged in the hand or arm
+of another officer. I had an opportunity to express<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+to Colonel Smith my angry disgust at such savagery.
+He agreed that the fellow ought to be
+punished&mdash;"at least for not being able to shoot
+straighter!"<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p>Kindly visits were sometimes paid us. Two
+young men from the Richmond Young Men's
+Christian Association came. The wicked said,
+"One came 'to pray with us all right,' the other
+'to prey upon us all wrong'"; for the latter tried
+to induce us to exchange greenbacks for rebel
+currency!</p>
+
+<p>Several times we were visited by kind clergymen
+who preached excellent sermons. The first
+was Rev. &mdash;&mdash; Dame of Danville. He was, I think,
+an Episcopal minister. He was a high Mason, a
+gentleman of very striking appearance, with a
+beautiful flowing beard, that would have done
+honor to Moses or Aaron. As we sat on the hard
+floor, two hundred listening reverently to his choice
+language, he seemed to foresee the doom which
+many of us had begun to fear, and he very appropriately
+and with much earnestness bade us consider
+our latter end. Mentioning his name with gratitude
+some thirty years afterwards in a lecture
+at the Mountain Lake Chautauqua, Md., one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+my audience gave me a photograph of the minister's
+handsome face, and told me he was greatly
+beloved. I doubt not he deserved it.</p>
+
+<p>Rev. Charles K. Hall of Danville, a Methodist
+Episcopal clergyman, came to us a little later.
+His first sermon was an eloquent discourse on
+Charity. He practiced what he preached; for he
+never came empty-handed. On his first visit he
+brought armfuls of tobacco, each plug wrapped in
+a pious tract. He asked us to fall in line, for he
+had something for each. When he came to me in
+the distribution, I declined it, saying "I never
+use tobacco in any form." "Oh take it," said he;
+"you read the tract, and give the tobacco to your
+neighbor." On subsequent Sundays he brought
+eggs and other delicacies for the sick. We admired
+him as a preacher, and regarded him with affection
+as a man. Secession and slavery aside, for he
+believed in the rightfulness of both, as we learned
+on arguing with him, it would be hard to find a
+more lovable character than Charles K. Hall.
+And the South was full of such, who would have
+been glad, if permitted and opportunity offered,
+to be good Samaritans, neighbors to him who had
+fallen among foes; pure, gentle, kindly spirits, to
+whom it will be said in the last great day, "I was
+an hungred and ye gave me meat; I was sick, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto
+me."</p>
+
+<p>From the lack of sufficient and proper food,
+clothing, and exercise, the health of all suffered.
+Much of the time it was impossible to keep warm.
+The most prevalent diseases, I think, were
+rheumatism and scurvy. I suffered from both.
+Anti-scorbutics were scarce. The pain from rheumatism
+was slight during the day; but at evening
+it began in the joints of the fingers and became
+more severe as night advanced, ascending from
+the hands to the wrists, arms, and shoulders. It
+was worst at midnight and through the small
+hours, then gradually diminished till daylight.
+The prison physician did his best to help us with
+liniment, but in those winter nights the treatment
+was ineffective.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the total failure of our attempt to break
+out on the 10th of December, and having come
+reluctantly to the conclusion that Colonel Smith
+had told us the truth when he said that Lincoln
+and Grant would not consent to an exchange of
+prisoners, I foresaw that death was inevitable after
+a few months, perhaps a few weeks, unless the
+situation should materially change for the better.
+I determined, though without much hope of success,
+to appeal to Colonel Smith for personal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+favor. On the 15th of December I sent word to
+him that I wished an interview with him. He
+immediately sent a soldier to bring me to his
+office. He received me courteously; for he was a
+gentleman. I told him it was necessary for me,
+if I was to live much longer, that I should at least
+have better food and more of it. I asked him if
+it would not be possible for an arrangement to be
+effected whereby some of my relatives in the north
+should furnish a Confederate prisoner with food,
+clothing, and comforts, and that prisoner's relatives
+in the south should reciprocate by supplying
+me. He answered that it might be possible, but
+he did not know of any such southern captive's
+friends likely to respond. After a few minutes of
+silence he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Sprague, I'd like to do something for
+you, and I'll make you an offer."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your government has adopted the devilish
+policy of no exchange of prisoners."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid it's true."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it's true."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what's your proposition?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am overworked here. I must do my duty to
+my government. Our cause is just."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I should like to have you assist me by doing
+writing regularly for me at these headquarters. I
+would parole you. You shall have a room to yourself,
+a good bed, plenty of food, and a good deal of
+liberty. You must give me your word of honor
+not to attempt to escape."</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Smith, I thank you. I appreciate the
+friendly spirit in which you make the offer, and I
+am very grateful for it. But I can't conscientiously
+accept it. I am in the Union Army, bound
+to do everything in my power to destroy your
+government. I must do nothing to help it. If
+Lincoln refuses to exchange us prisoners, it may
+be best for the United States, though hard on us.
+What happens to us is a minor matter. It's a
+soldier's business to die for his country rather than
+help its enemies in the slightest degree. I can't
+entertain your proposal."</p>
+
+<p>So the conference ended sadly. As I was leaving
+his office he introduced me to a Confederate
+soldier who sat there and who had heard the whole
+conversation. Next day this soldier entered the
+prison by permission of Colonel Smith and brought
+me some nice wheat bread, some milk, pickles, and
+other food, a pair of thick woolen stockings, and a
+hundred dollars in Confederate money. He gave
+me his name, John F. Ficklin, of the Virginia<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+<i>Black Horse Cavalry</i>. He whispered to me that
+he was at heart a Union man, but had been forced
+by circumstances to enter the Confederate service;
+that by simulating illness he had got relieved from
+duty at the front and assigned to service at Colonel
+Smith's headquarters; that he was confident he
+could bring about such an arrangement for reciprocal
+supplies as I had proposed, and had so
+informed Smith, who approved of the plan; that
+until such a plan should be put in operation he
+would furnish me from his own table. He said
+to me very privately that he was greatly moved by
+what I had said the day before. "But," he added,
+"I am not entirely unselfish in this. I foresee
+that the Confederacy can't last very long; certainly
+not a year. I give it till next September;
+and, frankly, when it goes to smash, I want to
+stand well with you officers." At my suggestion
+he gave a few other prisoners food and money.</p>
+
+<p>In a few days I was again called to headquarters
+to meet a Mr. Jordan, who, through Ficklin's
+efforts, had been invited to meet me. His son,
+Henry T. Jordan, Adjutant of the 55th North
+Carolina Regiment, was at that time a prisoner
+at Johnson's Island, Ohio. Mr. Jordan agreed to
+make out a list of articles which he wished my
+relatives to send to his son. In a day or two he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+did so. I likewise made out a statement of my
+immediate wants, as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 18em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Wood for cooking;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cup, plate, knife, fork, spoon;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turnips, salt, pepper, rice, vinegar;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pickled cucumbers, dried apple, molasses;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or any other substantial food.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I asked Jordan to send me those things <i>at once</i>.
+He answered after some delay that he would do so
+immediately on receiving an acknowledgment
+from his son that my friends had furnished him
+what he wanted; and he would await such a message!
+As my relatives were in Massachusetts and
+Connecticut, it would take considerable time for
+them to negotiate with the prison commandant
+and other parties in Ohio and have the stipulations
+distinctly understood and carried into
+effect there. Besides, there were likely to be
+provoking delays in communicating by mail between
+the north and the south, and it might be a
+month or six weeks before he got assurances from
+his son; by which time I should probably be in a
+better world than Danville, and in no need of
+wood, food, or table-ware. I wrote him to that
+effect, and requested him to make haste, but
+received no reply.</p>
+
+<p>My friend Mr. Ficklin came to the rescue. As<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+a pretext to deceive, if need were, the prison
+authorities, and furnish to them and others a
+sufficient reason for bringing me supplies, he
+pretended that he had a friend, a Confederate
+prisoner of war at Camp Douglas near Chicago,
+and that Colonel Sprague's friends had been
+exceedingly kind to him, ministering most liberally
+to his wants! The name of this imaginary
+friend was J. H. Holland, a private soldier of the
+30th Virginia Cavalry. Ficklin forged a letter
+purporting to come from Holland to him, which
+he showed to Colonel Smith, in which he spoke
+with much gratitude of my friends' bounty, and
+besought Ficklin to look tenderly after my comfort
+in return! The ruse succeeded. Ficklin's generosity
+to me was repeated from time to time, and
+perhaps saved my life.</p>
+
+<p>A year after the close of the war Ficklin wrote
+to me that he wished to secure a position in the
+Treasury Department of the United States, and
+he thought it would aid him if I would certify
+to what I knew of his kindness to Union prisoners.
+I accordingly drew up a strong detailed statement
+of his timely and invaluable charities to us in our
+distress. I accompanied it with vouchers for my
+credibility signed by Hon. N. D. Sperry, General
+Wm. H. Russell, and President Theodore D.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+Woolsey, all of New Haven, and Governor Wm. A.
+Buckingham of Norwich, Conn. These documents
+I forwarded to Ficklin. I do not know the result.</p>
+
+<p>From Sergeant Wilson F. Smith, chief clerk at
+Colonel Smith's headquarters, a paroled prisoner,
+member of Co. F., 6th Pa. Cav., the company
+of Captain Furness, son or brother of my
+Shakespearian friend, Dr. Horace Howard Furness,
+and from Mr. Strickland, undertaker, who furnished
+the coffins and buried the dead of the
+Danville prisons, both of whom I talked with
+when I was on parole in February, '65, I obtained
+statistics mutually corroborative of the number
+of deaths in the Danville prisons. In November
+there were 130; in December, 140; from January
+1st to January 24th, 105. The negro soldiers suffered
+most. There were sixty-four of them living in
+prison when we reached Danville, October 20, '64.
+Fifty-seven of them were dead on the 12th of
+February, '65, when I saw and talked with the seven
+survivors in Prison No. Six. From one of the
+officers (I think it was Captain Stuart) paroled
+like myself in February to distribute supplies
+of clothing sent by the United States through the
+lines, and who performed that duty in Salisbury,
+and from soldiers of my own regiment there
+imprisoned, I learned that in the hundred days<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+ending February 1st, out of eight or ten thousand
+prisoners, more than thirty a day, more than
+three thousand in all, had died! Of Colonel
+Hartshorne's splendid "Bucktail Regiment," the
+190th Pa., formerly commanded by my Yale
+classmate Colonel O'Neil who fell at Antietam,
+there were 330 at Salisbury, October 19th, the
+day we left; 116 of them were dead before February
+1st, one company losing 22 out of 33 men.</p>
+
+<hr class="min" />
+
+<p>Why this fearful mortality? Men do not die
+by scores, hundreds, thousands, without some
+extraordinary cause. It was partly for want of
+clothing. They were thinly clad when captured.</p>
+
+<p>Pursuant to agreement entered into early in
+December, 1864, between the Federal and Confederate
+authorities, supplies of clothing for
+Union prisoners in Richmond, Danville, and
+Salisbury, were sent through the lines. They
+did not reach Danville till February. Colonel
+Carle, 191st Pa. and myself, with another
+officer (I think he was Colonel Gilbert G. Prey,
+104th N. Y.) were paroled to distribute coats
+(or blouses), trousers, and shoes, among the
+enlisted men in their three prisons. Then for the
+first time Union officers saw the interior of those
+jails. By permission of Colonel Smith, Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+Ficklin accompanied us on one of these visits, and
+I saw him give fifty dollars in Confederate money
+to one of our suffering soldiers. My part in the
+distribution was to sign as witness opposite the
+name of each one receiving. Those rolls should be
+in the archives at Washington.</p>
+
+<p>On the 12th of February we issued shoes and
+clothing in the jail known as Prison No. Six.
+It contained that day 308 of our men. There
+were the seven surviving colored soldiers, and the
+one wearing our prison commander's coat. We
+requested them all to form line, and each as his
+name was called to come forward and receive
+what he most needed. Some of them were so
+feeble that they had to be assisted in coming down
+from the upper floor, almost carried in the arms
+of stronger comrades. Many were unable to
+remain standing long, and sank helpless on the
+floor. Nearly all were half-clad, or wearing only
+the thinnest of garments. Some were white
+with vermin. Several were so far gone that they
+had forgotten their company or regiment. Every
+one seemed emaciated. Many kept asking me
+why our government did not exchange prisoners;
+for they were told every day the truth that the
+Confederate government desired it. There was
+a stove, but no fuel. The big rooms were not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+heated. The cold was severe. About a third of
+them had apparently given up all hope of keeping
+their limbs and bodies warm; but they kept their
+heads, necks, shoulders, and chests, carefully
+wrapped. The dismal coughing at times drowned
+all other sounds, and made it difficult to proceed
+with our work of distribution. There were two
+little fires of chips and splinters on bricks, one of
+them near the middle, the other near the far end.
+In contact with these were tin or earthen cups containing
+what passed for food or drink. There was
+no outlet for smoke. It blackened the hands and
+faces of those nearest, and irritated the lungs of all.</p>
+
+<p>This prison was the worst. It was colder than
+the others. But all were uncomfortably cold.
+All were filled with smoke and lice. From each
+there went every day to the hospital a wagon-load
+of half-starved and broken-hearted soldiers
+who would never return. I visited the hospital
+to deliver to two of the patients letters which
+Colonel Smith had handed to me for them. They
+were both dead. I looked down the long list.
+The word "Died," with the date, was opposite
+most of the names. As I left the hospital I
+involuntarily glanced up at the lintel, half expecting
+to see inscribed there as over the gate to
+Dante's Hell,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE!</p></div>
+
+<p>At the rate our enlisted men were dying at Danville
+and Salisbury during the winter of 1864-65,
+all would have passed away in a few months, certainly
+in less than a year; <span class="smcapl">AND THEY KNEW IT</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Is it any wonder that some of them, believing
+our government had abandoned them to starvation
+rather than again risk its popularity by
+resorting to conscription for the enrollment of
+recruits and by possibly stirring up draft riots
+such as had cost more than a thousand lives in the
+city of New York in July, 1863, accepted at last
+the terms which the Confederates constantly held
+out to them, took the oath of allegiance to the
+Confederacy, and enlisted in the rebel army? I was
+credibly informed that more than forty did it in
+Prison No. Four at Danville, and more than eleven
+hundred at Salisbury. Confederate recruiting officers
+and sergeants were busy in those prisons,
+offering them the choice between death and life.
+No doubt multitudes so enlisted under the Confederate
+flag with full determination to desert to
+our lines at the first convenient opportunity.
+Such was the case with private J. J. Lloyd, Co.
+A, of my battalion, who rejoined us in North
+Carolina. <i>The great majority chose to die.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The last communication that I received from
+enlisted men of my battalion, fellow prisoners with
+me at Salisbury, whom I had exhorted not to
+accept the offers of the Confederates, but to be
+true to their country and their flag, read thus:
+"Colonel, don't be discouraged. Our boys all
+say they'll starve to death in prison sooner than
+take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy."
+And true to this resolve did indeed starve or freeze
+to death Sergeant Welch, Sergeant Twichell,
+Privates Vogel, Plaum, Barnes, Geise, Andrews,
+Bishop, Weldon, who had stood by me in many a
+battle, and who died at last for the cause they
+loved.</p>
+
+<p>It is comparatively easy to face death in battle.
+No great courage or merit in that. The soldier
+is swept along with the mass. Often he cannot
+shirk if he would. The chances usually are that
+he will come out alive. He may be inspired with
+heroism,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the stern joy which warriors feel<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In foeman worthy of their steel.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noin">There is a consciousness of irresistible strength
+as he beholds the gleaming lines, the dense columns,
+the smoking batteries, the dancing flags, the
+cavalry with flying feet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 17em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One glance at their array.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noin">Or nobler, he feels that he represents a nation or
+a grand cause, and that upon his arm depends
+victory. In his enthusiasm he even fancies himself
+a vicegerent of the Almighty, commissioned
+to fight in His cause, to work His will, to save His
+earth from becoming a hell. "From the heights
+of yonder pyramids," said Napoleon to the French
+battling against the Mamelukes, "forty centuries
+are looking down upon you." Our soldier in
+battle imagined the world looking on, that for
+him there was fame undying; should he fall
+wounded, his comrades would gently care for
+him; if slain, his country's flag would be his
+shroud.</p>
+
+<p>By no such considerations were our imprisoned
+comrades cheered. Not in the glorious rush and
+shock of battle; not in hope of victory or fadeless
+laurels; no angel charities, or parting kiss, or
+sympathetic voice bidding the soul look heavenward
+while the eye was growing dim; no dear
+star-spangled banner for a winding sheet. But
+wrapped in rags; unseen, unnoticed, dying by
+inches, in the cold, in the darkness, often in
+rain or sleet, houseless, homeless, friendless, on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+hard floor or the bare ground, starving, freezing,
+broken-hearted.</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 14em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O the long and dreary winter!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O the cold and cruel winter!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noin">It swept them away at Salisbury by tens, twenties,
+even fifties in a single night.</p>
+
+<p>These men preferred death to dishonor. When
+we are told that our people are not patriotic, or
+sigh of America as Burke did of France a century
+and a quarter ago, that the age of chivalry is gone,
+we may point to this great martyrdom, the brightest
+painting on the darkest background in all our
+history&mdash;thousands choosing to die for the
+country which seemed to disown them!</p>
+
+<p>My diary records, and I believe it correct, that
+on the 17th of February, there were ten deaths
+in the Danville prisons. A little before midnight
+of that day the Danville prisoners were loaded
+into box cars, and the train was started for Richmond.
+Three, it was reported, died in the cars
+that night, and one next morning in the street on
+the way to Libby.</p>
+
+<p>During the next three days I obtained the
+autographs of two hundred and fifteen of my
+fellow officers there. The little book is precious.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+A few still survive; but the great majority have
+joined the faithful whom they commanded.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">On Fame's eternal camping ground<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their silent tents are spread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Glory guards with solemn round<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The bivouac of the dead!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>On the twenty-second we were taken for exchange
+down the James. As we passed through
+the lines into what we were accustomed fondly to
+call "God's Country," salvos of artillery and signs
+of universal rejoicing greeted us. Our reception
+made us imagine for an hour that our arrival
+perceptibly heightened the general joy of the
+Washington anniversary. But many of us could
+not help wishing we were asleep with the thousands
+who were filling nameless graves at Danville
+and Salisbury.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> See Putnam's account of this incident in his <i>A Prisoner of
+War in Virginia</i>, p. 67.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>Results and Reflections&mdash;The Right and the Wrong of it All.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A few</span> days of waiting in the buildings of the
+Naval Academy at Annapolis while exchange
+papers were preparing gave us opportunity for a
+much-needed transformation. Our old clothing,
+encrusted with dirt and infested with vermin,
+in many cases had to be destroyed. One of our
+number especially unkempt, Captain T., who gave
+up for an hour or two his beloved trousers, found
+to his surprise and horror when he called for their
+return that they had been burned with four hundred
+dollars in greenbacks sewed up in the lining!
+We smiled at his irrepressible grief; it was poetic
+justice. He had carefully concealed the fact of
+his being flush, pretending all along to be like
+the rest <i>in forma pauperis</i>, and contriving, it was
+said, to transfer in crooked ways our pennies into
+his pockets!</p>
+
+<p>Fumigated, parboiled, scrubbed, barbered, decently
+clothed, "the deformed transformed" were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+once more presentable in civilized society. Then
+followed a brief leave of absence if desired, to visit
+relatives. To them it seemed a veritable resurrection
+after our months of living burial; yet the
+joy of reunion was sometimes tinged with sorrow.
+I learned that in the very week in which the tidings
+of my capture came our home circle had been
+sadly broken by the death of a beloved sister, and
+just then the telegraph told of the loss by fever
+in the army at Newbern of our household
+darling,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Younger by fifteen years than myself,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brother at once and son.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As previously stated we who held commissions
+fared better on the whole than the non-commissioned
+officers and privates, though receiving
+from the commissary rations exactly equal to
+theirs. Commonly older and therefore of larger
+experience and superior intelligence, a good
+officer is as a father looking out for the physical
+welfare of his men as well as himself. Then there
+were some who, like Gardner, had been fortunate
+in keeping clothing, money, or other valuable at the
+instant of capture or in hiding it when searched by
+Dick Turpin at Libby. Several like Captain Cook<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+had obtained pecuniary assistance from influential
+friends across the lines, or in a few instances had
+been favored by brother freemasons or by charitably
+disposed visitors who gave us a little food, a
+few old books, or even Confederate currency.
+Several sold to the sentinels watches, rings, chains,
+breast-pins, society badges, silver spurs, military
+boots, or curiously wrought specimens of Yankee
+ingenuity carved with infinite pains. The "Johnnies"
+appeared to hanker for any article not produced
+in the Confederacy. An officer of the
+guard offered Putnam three hundred dollars for
+a nearly worn-out tooth-brush!</p>
+
+<p>The educational standard among our officers
+was quite respectable. I think that West Point
+had a representative among us, as well as Bowdoin
+and several other colleges. Certainly we had
+ex-students from at least five universities, Brown,
+Yale, Harvard, the Sorbonne, and G&ouml;ttingen.</p>
+
+<p>To afford diversion and as an antidote to depression,
+as well as for intellectual improvement, some
+of us studied mathematics<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> or <i>Shakespeare</i>. Three
+or four classes were formed in modern languages.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+We had card-playing with packs soiled and worn;
+checkers and chess on extemporized boards with
+rudely whittled "pieces"; occasional discussions
+historical, literary, political, or religious; many
+of us quite regular physical exercises in brisk
+walks on the empty lowest floor; story-telling;
+at times, though not often, the reading aloud of
+a Confederate newspaper, to a group of fifty or
+more listeners; at evening, sweet singing, riddles,
+jests, or loud-voiced sarcastic conundrums and
+satirical responses. Many found interest and
+pleasure in carving with the utmost nicety wood
+or bone.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>
+
+<p>Something like military discipline prevailed
+among the two hundred in the upper room where
+the superior rank of General Hayes was often
+recognized. Among a hundred and fifty or more
+in the lower room, where for a month or two I
+was the senior but was unwilling to assume precedence,
+I secured with the aid of Major Byron,
+Captain Howe, and a few others a sort of civil
+government with semi-military features.</p>
+
+<p>These measures and the favoring circumstances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+that have been mentioned tended of course to
+the preservation of health among the officers.
+There was severe suffering from hunger, cold,
+rheumatism, and scurvy, from all of which I was
+for weeks a victim and at one time seemed doomed
+to perish. I recall, however, the names of but two
+officers (there were said to be four) who died at
+Danville. Some of us, though enfeebled, were
+soon able to rejoin our commands; as Putnam
+his at Newbern in April, Gardner and I ours at
+Morehead City the day after Lee's surrender at
+Appomattox.</p>
+
+<p>Of the effect in after-life of these strange experiences
+it is safe to say that to some extent they were
+a spur to intellectual effort. At least they should
+have made all sadder and wiser; and they certainly
+were in some cases an equipment for descriptive
+authorship. Major (Adner A.) Small wrote a valuable
+account of prison life. Dr. Burrage's narratives
+of his capture and its results are entertaining
+and instructive. Major Putnam's <i>A Prisoner of
+War in Virginia</i> (reprinted in his <i>Memories of My
+Youth</i>) is an important contribution to our military
+history.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> Lieutenant Estabrooks's <i>Adrift in Dixie</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+is charmingly told.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> "Dutch Clark" (Adjutant
+James A. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav.), one of the four
+who nightly tried to sleep under my blanket, started
+and edited with ability at Scranton <i>The Public
+Code</i>, for which I was glad to furnish literary
+material. He afterwards became prominent in
+theosophic circles. Others distinguished themselves.
+Captain (Frank H.) Mason, in prison our
+best chess player, was long Consul-General at
+Paris. Cook studied five or six years in Germany,
+France, and Italy, then was for eight or ten years
+assistant professor in German at Harvard, and
+afterwards for two years, until his untimely death,
+professor in the same department at the Institute
+of Technology in Boston. In addressing a
+Sunday-school in Brooklyn, 1871, I unexpectedly
+lighted upon Captain Tiemann doing good work
+as a teacher. Captain Gardner continued for
+many months a model military officer in Georgia.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a>
+I remained in the service a full year, often on courts-martial,
+military commissions, and "reconstruction"
+duty.</p>
+
+<hr class="min" />
+
+<p>As already described, the condition of the
+enlisted men strongly contrasted with ours. The
+Report of the Confederate Inspector of Prisons
+now on file in the <i>War Records</i> of our government,
+though the reports of his subordinate officers are
+significantly missing, covers the few months next
+preceding January, 1865. It sharply censures
+the immediate prison authorities, stating, as
+the result of the privations, that the deaths at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+Danville were at the rate of about five per day!
+I think they were more numerous in January and
+February. None of my battalion were there, but
+at Salisbury three-sevenths of them died in less
+than three months!</p>
+
+<p>It is hard to refrain from the expression of
+passionate indignation at the treatment accorded
+to our non-commissioned officers and privates
+in those southern hells. For years we were
+accustomed to ask, "In what military prison of
+the north, in what common jail of Europe, in
+what dungeon of the civilized or savage world,
+have captives taken in war&mdash;nay, condemned
+criminals&mdash;been systematically exposed to a lingering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+death by cold and hunger? The foulest felon&mdash;his
+soul black with sacrilege, his hands reeking
+with parricide&mdash;has enough of food, of clothing, of
+shelter; a chair to sit in, a fire to warm him, a
+blanket to hide his nakedness, a bed of straw to
+die on!"</p>
+
+<p>But listen a moment to the other side. Alexander
+H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy,
+afterwards for eight years a representative
+in our Congress, a man of unquestioned integrity,
+shows in his <i>War between the States</i> (pub. 1868-70)
+by quotation from the Report of our then
+Secretary of War (July 19, 1866) that only 22,576
+Federal prisoners died in Confederate hands
+during the war, whilst 26,436 Confederate prisoners
+died in Federal hands. He shows also from
+the United States Surgeon-General Joseph K.
+Barnes's Report that the number of Federal
+prisoners in southern prisons was about 270,000,
+but the number of Confederate prisoners in northern
+prisons was about 220,000; so that the percentage
+of deaths in southern prisons was under
+nine, while the percentage of deaths in northern
+prisons was over twelve!<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>
+<p>Had there been, from the first, prompt exchanges
+of prisoners between the north and the south, few
+of these forty-nine thousand lives would have
+been lost. <i>Who, then, blocked the exchange?</i></p>
+
+<p>Stephens declares (<i>War between the States</i>, vol.
+ii):</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="inde">"It is now well understood to have been a part of the
+settled policy of the Washington authorities in conducting
+the war, not to exchange prisoners. The
+grounds upon which this extraordinary course was
+adopted were, that it was humanity to the northern
+men in the field to let their captured comrades perish
+in prison rather than to let an equal number of Confederate
+soldiers be released on exchange to meet them
+in battle."</p></div>
+
+<p>To the same effect our Secretary Stanton in one
+of his letters in 1864 pointed out "that it would
+not be good policy to send back to be placed on the
+firing line 70,000 able-bodied Confederates, and
+to receive in exchange men who, with but few
+exceptions, were not strong enough to hold their
+muskets."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The responsibility, then, for this refusal and the
+consequent enormous sacrifice of life with all the
+accompanying miseries, must rest in part upon
+the Government of the United States.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<p>Blame not the tender-hearted Lincoln for this.</p>
+
+<p>Did he not judge wisely? Was it not best for
+the nation that we prisoners should starve and
+freeze?</p>
+
+<p>The pivotal question for him and Grant and
+Stanton was, "Shall we exchange and thereby
+enable the South to reinforce their armies with
+fifty to a hundred thousand trained soldiers?</p>
+
+<p>"If yes, then we must draft many more than
+that; for they being on the defensive we must
+outnumber them in battle. If no, then we must
+either stop their cruelties by equally cruel retaliation,
+as Washington hung Andr&eacute; for the execution
+of Hale, or we must, more cruelly still, leave
+myriads of our soldiers to sink into imbecility and
+death."</p>
+
+<p>The North had not the excuse of destitution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+which the South had, and it could not bring itself
+to make reprisals in kind. To draft again, as
+evinced in the terrible riots of July, 1863, would
+have been extremely unpopular and perhaps
+overthrown the administration and defeated the
+policy of the government. To exchange would
+pretty surely have prolonged the war, and might
+have resulted in permanent disunion.</p>
+
+<p>As to the right or wrong of the refusal to exchange,
+it is hardly relevant to insist that the
+triumph of the South would have perpetuated
+slavery. Lincoln's Proclamation, January 1, 1863,
+did not touch slavery in the Border States. And
+from the southern nation, denuded of slaves by
+their escape to the North and confronted by the
+growing anti-slavery sentiment of the civilized
+world, the "peculiar institution" would soon
+have died out.</p>
+
+<p>Need we attempt, as is often done, to justify
+our government's attitude in this matter by
+affirming that the nation was in a life-and-death
+struggle for its very existence? Did that existence
+depend upon its territorial limits? Would it
+have gone to pieces if the victorious North had
+relinquished its hold on the defeated South? Had
+a boundary line been drawn half-way across the
+continent, separating the twenty-three loyal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+States from the eleven seceding, the twenty-two
+millions of the North from the nine or ten millions
+of the South, would it not have remained a mighty
+nation with no cause for further disunion, and able
+as the war had shown to place in the field more
+than two million fighting men?</p>
+
+<p>Is it not equally unnecessary to urge, as if it
+were a valid excuse for our government's refusal
+to exchange, that between the two nations there
+would have been frequent if not perpetual hostilities?
+Why so, any more than between the United
+States and Canada, where for fifty (it is now a
+hundred) years, along a boundary line of thirty-eight
+hundred miles, there had been unbroken
+peace and no fort nor warship?</p>
+
+<p>Let us not raise the question whether Lincoln
+made a colossal blunder when he renounced his
+favorite doctrine so emphatically set forth in his
+Congressional speech (page 47). The die was cast
+when Sumter was fired on. The question which
+confronted him in 1863-64&mdash;What to do with the
+perishing Union prisoners?&mdash;was simply one of
+military necessity.</p>
+
+<p>According to the ethics of war was he not fully
+justified in sacrificing us rather than imperiling
+the great cause which he had at heart?</p>
+
+<p>Are we, then, to blame President Davis, or the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+Confederate Commissioner Robert Ould, or
+Gen. John H. Winder, Superintendent of Military
+Prisons, for allowing the Federal prisoners
+to starve and freeze and die by thousands? Must
+we not admit the truth of their contention that
+their soldiers needed the food, clothing, and medical
+care for want of which their prisoners were
+suffering? And if the shocking conditions at Andersonville,
+Salisbury, Danville, and other prisons
+could easily have been avoided, or even if they
+were made more distressing by the deliberate inhumanity
+of those in immediate charge, ought
+not such facts to have intensified a desire on
+the part of both governments to effect a speedy
+exchange?</p>
+
+<p>The southern people were threatened with subjugation,
+their government with annihilation.
+In such a critical situation, what measures are
+allowable?</p>
+
+<p>We endeavor to look at the matter from both
+standpoints.</p>
+
+<p>This brings up the whole question of the rightfulness
+of war. If it must be waged, is success
+the highest duty? If military necessity demands,
+may any and every law of God and man be disregarded?</p>
+
+<p>While we write these concluding pages, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+European conflict is raging, and the voice of the
+most warlike nation on the globe is heard continually
+affirming that war is useful and highly honorable,
+and that any means, however frightful, if necessary
+to ensure or hasten victory is praise-worthy!</p>
+
+<p>Then both presidents were right!</p>
+
+<p>But is not international war murder on a great
+scale? It is glorious to die for one's country; but
+how about killing for our country? killing innocent
+men, too? for the soldiers on either side
+honestly believe they are doing their duty in shooting
+and stabbing as many as possible! "The
+business of war," said John Wesley, "is the business
+of devils." So it would seem; but at heart few
+are enemies, none devils.</p>
+
+<p>It has been a pleasure in this narrative to record
+instances of a very different spirit. Surely, in
+proportion to population such were not fewer
+in the South than in the North. Like Whittier's
+<i>Angels of Buena Vista</i> they rescue us from pessimism.
+They are prophetic of a better day.</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 28em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not wholly lost, O Father, is this evil world of ours!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upward through the blood and ashes spring afresh the Eden flowers:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> I still possess the copy of Davies's <i>Legendre</i> which I bought on
+the 8th of November for twenty Confederate dollars, and of
+which I memorized three books in prison. As to the <i>Shakespeare</i>,
+see <i>ante</i>, p. 85.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> I retain with pride the wooden spoon which did me good service
+when I was <i>in limbo</i>. It cost me over two weeks' labor in
+shaping it with half a knife-blade and pieces of broken glass.
+For the little block of wood I paid the sentry one "rebel dollar!"</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Many years after the war he rendered financial aid to fellow
+prisoners, his chum, artist Vander Weyde, and General Hayes.
+Author of several valuable works, he is now head of the publishing
+house of G. P. Putnam's Sons.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> It was a special pleasure after the lapse of fifty years to meet
+Estabrooks at the Massachusetts Commandery of the Loyal
+Legion, where, without knowing of his presence, I had just made
+honorable mention of him in an address on prison life.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> In my own case the prison experience was peculiar: it changed
+the course of my whole subsequent life. I had studied law, been
+admitted to the bar in two states, and "practiced" with fair success,
+"though," as a friend was accustomed to remark, "not
+enough to do much harm!" Many times one of the best men I
+ever knew, my father, had said to me at parting, "Do all the good
+you can." Much meditating while in the army and especially
+while in prison, I finally resolved to pursue an educational career.
+Of course I felt sadly the loss of years of study that might have
+better equipped me; but it seemed a duty. I had had some
+experience which, I thought, proved me not wholly unqualified.
+While a student in college and while reading law I had
+partly supported myself by giving instruction to private pupils
+and in the schools of General Russell and Mayor Skinner. Afterwards,
+before the war, I had taught Greek in the Worcester
+(Mass.) Academy; and English literature, Greek, and Latin for
+more than three years as principal of the Worcester public
+high school. I knew the vocation would be congenial. So I
+became principal of a state normal school, of two high schools,
+of a large academy; house chairman of a (Conn.) legislative
+committee securing the enactment of three school measures of
+importance; later, president of a college, professor in a theological
+seminary and in Cornell University; founder and for
+three years first president of the earliest and long the largest
+of the world's general <i>summer</i> schools (which now in the United
+States number nearly 700); lecturer in many Chautauqua assemblies,
+colleges, vacation schools, and university extension
+centres; President of the State University of North Dakota;
+editor, with biographic sketches and copious notes, of many
+masterpieces as text-books in higher English literature; author
+of a history of my regiment; also of a treatise on <i>Voice and
+Gesture</i>, of many monographs and magazine articles mostly
+educational; associate founder and first president of <i>The
+Watch and Ward Society</i>; one of the directors and executive
+committee of the <i>American Peace Society</i>; director of the <i>Massachusetts
+Peace Society</i>; president of <i>The American Institute of
+Instruction</i>; translator, annotator, and essayist of <i>The Book of
+Job</i>; etc.
+</p><p>
+It may be proper to add that among those indebted in some
+degree to my instruction or training were several who captured
+Yale's highest prize for rhetorical excellence (the hundred dollar
+gold medal of which I was the first recipient): one college president;
+six college professors; three university presidents; two
+governors of states; two United States Senators; and many others
+eminent as clergymen, authors, judges, editors, and business
+men.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> The higher death-rate (if that be conceded) of southern
+soldiers is easily accounted for. The northern soldiers had been
+carefully selected by competent surgeons. They were physically
+perfect, or nearly so. They were in the bloom of early manhood
+or the strength of middle age&mdash;not an old man among them, not a
+diseased man among them, not a broken-down constitution
+among them. But multitudes of the southern, enrolled by conscription,
+were physically unfit. Many were much too old or too
+young. Said our General Grant, "To fill their ranks, they have
+robbed the cradle and the grave!"</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The exchange is said to have been stopped in 1862-63 by the
+refusal of the Confederates to give up captured negro soldiers in
+return for southern captives in the North, the United States
+properly insisting upon perfect equality in the treatment of
+black and white. But early in 1864, if not previously, the
+Confederates yielded the point and were anxious to surrender
+man for man.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="APPENDIX" id="APPENDIX"></a>APPENDIX</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(From the original record. See p. <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.)</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Proceedings</span> of a Court Martial convened at
+Danville Mil. Pris. by virtue of the following Order:</p>
+
+<div class="pad1"><p class="rgt"><span class="smcap">Danville Mil. Prison</span>, Oct. 29, 1864.</p></div>
+<p class="noin">General Order</p>
+
+<p>No. 1.</p>
+
+<p>Pursuant to the Regulations adopted by the Union
+Officers of the 2d Floor Military Prison, Danville, Va.,
+Oct. 26, 1864, a Court Martial is hereby appointed to
+convene at 10 o'clock <span class="smcapl">A.M.</span> on the 29th inst. or as soon
+thereafter as may be practicable, for the Trial of
+Captain [I omit from the record the name of the
+accused], 104th N. Y. Vols., and such other officers
+as may be brought before it.</p>
+
+<div class='center'><p class="center">Detail for the Court.</p>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td class="ap1">Lt. Col. <span class="smcap">W. A. Leach</span>,</td><td class="ap3" rowspan="8">[Here follow the names
+of Captains Bryant,
+Black, Clapp, Burkart,
+Weiss (?), Reilly (?),
+Moody, and the name
+of the Judge Advocate,
+Lt. and Adjt. James A.
+Clark, 17th Pa. Cav.]</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="ap2">90th P. V.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="ap1">Lt. Col. <span class="smcap">Theo. Gregg</span>,</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="ap2">45th P. V.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="ap1">Major <span class="smcap">J. W. Byron</span>,</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="ap2">88th N. Y. V.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="ap1">Capt. <span class="smcap">G. M. Dickerman</span>,</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="ap2">26th Mass. V.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p class="rgt"><span style="margin-right: 2em;">By order of the Officers of the 2d Floor,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;"><span class="smcap">James Carle</span>,</span><br />
+Col. 190th Pa. Vols., Senior Officer.<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="pad1"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span><span class="smcap">Danville Mil. Prison, Va.</span>, 10 o'clock <span class="smcapl">A.M.</span>, 31st,
+Oct. 1864.</div>
+
+<p>The Court met pursuant to the foregoing order.
+Present all the members. The Court then proceeded
+to the trial of Capt. [we again omit the name of the
+accused], 104th N. Y. Vols.</p>
+
+<p>The Judge Advocate stated that he had acquainted
+the accused of the order convening the Court, to
+which he replied in the words following, to wit: "What
+is that to do with me? I recognize no authority
+in this prison to convene a court martial," or words
+to that effect.</p>
+
+<p>The accused having refused to appear, the members
+of the Court were duly sworn by the Judge Advocate,
+and the Judge Advocate was duly sworn by the President
+of the Court. The accused, Capt. [again we
+omit the name], 104th N. Y. Vols., was arraigned on
+the following charges and specifications:</p>
+
+<p>Charge&mdash;Conduct unbecoming an officer and a
+gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>Specification&mdash;In this: That Capt. [we again
+omit], 104th N. Y. Vols., without provocation, did say
+in the hearing of several officers to Lieut. Col. Homer
+B. Sprague, 13th C. V., speaking in coarse and ungentlemanly
+manner the words following, to wit: [here
+we omit the language uttered as being too vile and
+filthy to print]; that he did several times repeat
+the same in a coarse and angry tone, and used other
+vulgar and indecent expressions in an insulting tone
+and manner. This at Danville Mil. Prison, Va.,
+in the lower room thereof on the 29th day of October,
+1864.</p>
+
+<p>The accused refusing to appear, the Judge Advocate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+was directed by the President to enter the plea of
+Not Guilty.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td class="ap4">To the Specification,</td><td class="ap2">Not Guilty.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="ap4">To the Charge,</td><td class="ap2">Not Guilty.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Lieut. G. C. Wilson, 2d P. Artillery, and Lieut.
+Wm. Shuler, 107th P. Vols., witnesses for the prosecution,
+stated that they had cognizance of the facts
+set forth in the Specification.</p>
+
+<p>The proceedings of the Court having been reviewed
+by the Judge Advocate, he submitted the case without
+argument. The Court was then cleared for deliberation,
+and having maturely considered the evidence
+adduced find the accused</p>
+
+<p>On the Specification, Guilty; with the exception of
+the words "and used other vulgar and indecent
+expressions."</p>
+
+<p>Of the Charge, Guilty. And do therefore sentence
+him to be reprimanded by the Senior Officer.</p>
+
+<p>The Court is thus lenient owing to this being the
+first case of the kind brought before it.</p>
+
+<p class="pad1"><span class="smcap">Wm. A. Leach</span>, Lt. Col. 90th Regt. Pa. Vols., Pres.;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><span class="smcap">Jas. A. Clark</span>, Adjt. 17th Pa. Cavalry, Judge Advocate.</span></p>
+
+<p class="pad1">The Proceedings and Findings in the foregoing case
+are hereby respectfully submitted to Brig.-Gen. Hayes
+for his consideration.</p>
+
+<p class="pad2"><span class="smcap">James Carle</span>, Col. 191st Pa. Vols., Senior Officer,
+2d Floor.</p>
+
+<div class="pad1"><span class="smcap">Confed. Mil. Prison, Danville, Va.</span>, Nov. 1, 1864.</div>
+
+<p>The Proceedings and Findings of the Court Martial
+of which Lt. Col. W. A. Leach, 90th Pa. Vols., was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+President, having been submitted to Brig.-Gen.
+Hayes, the Senior Officer present, are approved. The
+extreme leniency of the Court must be apparent to all,
+and can only be excused by the novelty of the case
+brought before it. Language fails to convey censure
+adequate to the gross vulgarity and ungentlemanly
+conduct of the accused. Captain [we omit the name]
+seems to forget or misconceive his responsibility in his
+present circumstances. An officer being a prisoner
+of war is not relieved from his responsibility to his
+government nor from his liability to the regulations of
+the service as far as may be applied to his dishonor by
+ungentlemanly and unofficer-like conduct; and many
+other offenses committed by an officer when a prisoner
+of war are as punishable as if that officer were serving
+with his command. And it is well the officers in the
+prison have organized a Court for the summary punishment
+of those of their number, who, forgetful of
+their position and their honor, would bring shame
+upon themselves and their associates.</p>
+
+<p>It is to be hoped that Capt. [name we omit]'s conduct
+in the future will be such as will cause to be
+forgotten his mistakes of the past.</p>
+
+<p class="rgt"><span class="smcap">Joseph Hayes</span>, Brig. Gen. U. S. Vols.</p>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p>
+<h2>INDEX</h2>
+
+<p class="inx">A</p>
+
+<ul><li>Adams, Dr. Nehemiah, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
+
+<li>Adams, Sarah F., quoted, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
+
+<li>ambulance, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li>
+
+<li>annihilation threatened, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
+
+<li>apothecary doctor, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+
+<li>Appendix, court record, <a href="#Page_153">153-156</a></li>
+
+<li>apple-jack, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
+
+<li>Army of West Va., <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li>
+
+<li>artillery, trained on us, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li>
+
+<li><i>at</i> in "Where is he at?" <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li>
+
+<li>attempt to break out, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li>
+
+<li>autographs, officers', <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">B</p>
+
+<ul><li>Barnes, J. K., Surgeon-Gen., <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+
+<li>battle, pomp of, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+
+<li>battle-field, Winchester, <a href="#Page_3">3</a> +</li>
+
+<li>beans, soup of, ration, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
+
+<li>Beecher, Henry Ward, quoted, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li>Beecher, married by, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li>
+
+<li>Berryville, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li>
+
+<li>Berryville pike, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li>Birge, Gen. H. W., <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li>
+
+<li>blanket for several, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li>blankets "confiscated," <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
+
+<li>blankets, not to be shaken, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li>
+
+<li>Blinn, Col. C. D., ill, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li>Blue Ridge, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li>
+
+<li>Braxton's Confed. artillery, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li>
+
+<li>bread, corn-cob-meal, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+
+<li>breakfast at Staunton, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+
+<li>breakfast at Tom's Brook, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+
+<li>Breckenridge, Confed. Gen., <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li>
+
+<li>Brinton, Col., escape of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li>
+
+<li>brooms in prison, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
+
+<li>Brown, John, defended, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+
+<li>Brownell, H. H., quoted, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li>
+
+<li>Browning, Mrs., quoted, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li>
+
+<li>buckets for water, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>
+
+<li>Buckingham, Gov. of Conn., <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+
+<li>"Bucktail Regiment," <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
+
+<li>burning $400, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
+
+<li>Burrage, Major H. S., <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li>Bush, Lieut. W. W., <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
+
+<li>"Butler's dandy regiment," <a href="#Page_7">7</a> <a href="#Footnote_2_2">(note)</a></li>
+
+<li>Byron, Lord, quoted, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+
+<li>Byron, Major John W., <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li>
+
+<li>Byrne, Major John, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">C</p>
+
+<ul><li>cards, playing, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+
+<li>Carle, Col. James, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
+
+<li>carving in prison, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+
+<li>cavalry, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+
+<li>chaplain, prisoner, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
+
+<li>charge, Gordon's brilliant, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+
+<li>Chautauqua, Mountain Lake, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li>
+
+<li>checkers, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+
+<li>Cheever, Dr. Geo. B., <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
+
+<li>chess, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+
+<li>choosing death, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>Clarke, Adjt. James A., <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li>clergymen's visits, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li>Clover, in it at night, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li>
+
+<li>coal, poor and scanty, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li>
+
+<li>coal dust, very fine! <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+
+<li>cold, severe and fatal, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li>communication, finger signs, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li>
+
+<li>communication, secret, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li>
+
+<li>Confederate currency, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+
+<li>Cook, Capt. William, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li>
+
+<li>cooking, how and where, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li>
+
+<li>Constitution, U. S., <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li>
+
+<li>Corcoran, Gen. Michael, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
+
+<li>corn-cob-meal bread, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>
+
+<li>corn-cob-meal soup, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
+
+<li>court martial in prison, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>; and Appendix, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li>Crew, John, a kind enemy, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+
+<li>Crook, Gen. George, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">D</p>
+
+<ul><li>daily routine, Danville, <a href="#Page_97">97-105</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+
+<li>Dame, Rev., preaches to us, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li>
+
+<li>Dan river, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li>
+
+<li>Danville, arrival at, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;<ul>
+<li>again, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li>Danville death record, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li>
+
+<li>Danville prisons, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+
+<li>Davies's <i>Legendre</i>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a> <a href="#Footnote_11_11">(note)</a></li>
+
+<li>Davis, Jefferson, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li>
+
+<li>Davis, Lieut., death of, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li>
+
+<li>dead lines, Salisbury, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li>
+
+<li>deaf-and-dumb alphabet, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li>
+
+<li><a name="deaths" id="deaths"></a>deaths at Salisbury, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
+
+<li>deaths of Confederates in northern prisons, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+
+<li>deaths at Danville, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
+
+<li>Declaration of Independence, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li>
+
+<li>defile, Berryville, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li>devastation by Sheridan, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li>
+
+<li>diary kept, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
+
+<li>Dickerman, Capt. G. M., <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>
+
+<li>discussion with Lieut. Howard, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li>discussions in prison, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+
+<li>distribution of rations, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+
+<li>Dolan, pitied by Confederate ladies, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li>
+
+<li>Duffi&eacute;, Gen. O. N., <a href="#Page_113">113-117</a></li>
+
+<li>Dwight, Gen. William, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">E</p>
+
+<ul><li>Early, Gen. Jubal A., <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li>
+
+<li>Edenburg village, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li>
+
+<li>education in prison, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+
+<li>Eighth Corps, W. Va. Army, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li>
+
+<li>Election votes in prison, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li>
+
+<li>Emerson, Rev., prison chaplain, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
+
+<li>enlist or die, choice to, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+
+<li>Epaminondas, strategy at Leuctra, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li>
+
+<li>"escape on the brain," <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+
+<li>escapes attempted, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li>Estabrooks, Lieut. H. L., <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a> <a href="#Footnote_14_14">(note)</a></li>
+
+<li>exchange of prisoners, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
+
+<li>exchange blocked, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147-151</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">F</p>
+
+<ul><li>Ficklin, J. F., his kindness, <a href="#Page_125">125-129</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
+
+<li>Fisher, First Sea Lord, quoted, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+
+<li>Fisher's Hill, battle, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li>
+
+<li>Fisher's Hill reached, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+
+<li>"flag-of-truce fever," <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>fleas, wicked, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li>
+
+<li>flour ration, how cooked, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+
+<li>Fontleroy, Dr., his hospitality, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+
+<li>freemasonry, very useful, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
+
+<li>French, oral lessons in, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li>
+
+<li>Fry, Major W. H., <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li>
+
+<li>fugitive slave law, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li>fun, critical and sarcastic, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li>fun, sanitary, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
+
+<li>furnace way of escape, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li>Furness, Horace Howard, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">G</p>
+
+<ul><li>Gardner, Adjt. W. C., <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li>
+
+<li>Gee, Confed. Major, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li>
+
+<li>German, oral lessons in, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li>
+
+<li>Ghost in <i>Hamlet</i>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
+
+<li>"God's Country," <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li>
+
+<li>God's fugitive slave law, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
+
+<li>"going through" prisoners, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>
+
+<li>Gordon, Confed. Gen. J. B., <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li>
+
+<li>Gordon's brilliant charge, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li>
+
+<li>gorge of Berryville pike, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li>
+
+<li>gorilla or guerrilla, which? <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li>
+
+<li>grain cars at Danville, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+
+<li>Grant's merciless orders, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li>
+
+<li>Greek Testament, kept, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;<ul>
+<li>stolen, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li>greenbacks burned, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
+
+<li>greenbacks, relative value of, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+
+<li>Greensboro, N. Carolina, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+
+<li>Gregg, Lieut.-Col. Theodore, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li>
+
+<li>Grover, Gen. Cuvier, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+
+<li>guerrilla, "I'm a guerrilla," <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li>
+
+<li>guerrilla, Morgan's, a kind gentleman, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li>
+
+<li>gun cotton, cushion suspected, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">H</p>
+
+<ul><li>hake, issued in rations, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>
+
+<li>Hall, Rev. Charles K., kind, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Hamlet</i>, rehearsal, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
+
+<li>Handy, Lieut., aide to Molineux, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li>
+
+<li>Hartshorne, Col. W. Ross, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
+
+<li>Haslett, Capt., Provost Marshal, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li>
+
+<li>Haurand, Major August, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li>
+
+<li>Hayes, Gen. Joseph, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+
+<li>Hayes, Gen., on court martial, Appendix, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+
+<li>health, surely failing, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li>
+
+<li>Henry, Patrick, cited, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li>"Hide your greenbacks," <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li>
+
+<li>hole in the brick wall, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li>
+
+<li>Holland, J. H., imaginary, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li>
+
+<li>Homer, quoted, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;<ul>
+<li>puzzled to death, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li>Hooper, Lieut.-Col. C. H., <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li>
+
+<li>horse lost in battle, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li>
+
+<li>hospital in Danville, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li>
+
+<li>hostage, Lt. Manning held as, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li>
+
+<li>Howard, Confed. Lieut., <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li>Howe, Capt. Wesley C., <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">I</p>
+
+<ul><li>Imboden, J. D., Confed. Gen., <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li>
+
+<li>Indiana soldiers, acrobats, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+
+<li>innocent deliberately slain, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li>international war, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li>Irish Bend, La., battle, wounded in, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">J</p>
+
+<ul><li>James river, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li>
+
+<li>Jefferson, Thomas, quoted, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li>
+
+<li>Jersey lightning, apple-jack? <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>Johnson's Island prison, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>
+
+<li>Jonah, disgorged like, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li>Jordan, H. T., <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">K</p>
+
+<ul><li>Keifer, Gen. J. W., <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li>
+
+<li>Kerrstown, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">L</p>
+
+<ul><li>Ladies, Confed., kind and handsome, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li>
+
+<li>Lee, Gen. Fitzhugh, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;<ul>
+<li>wounded, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><i>Legendre</i>, Davies's, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a> <a href="#Footnote_11_11">(note)</a></li>
+
+<li>letters from outside, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li>
+
+<li>Libby prison, <a href="#Page_40">40-44</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li>
+
+<li>lice in prison, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li>
+
+<li>lice of Egypt, not "in it," <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
+
+<li>Lincoln, Abraham, quoted, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+
+<li>Lincoln on exchange of prisoners, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
+
+<li>Lincoln on right of revolution, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+
+<li>Lloyd, J. J., returns from desertion, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
+
+<li>Lockwood, Capt., killed, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li>
+
+<li>log houses for officers, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
+
+<li>Longfellow, quoted, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+
+<li>Lovelace, poet, quoted, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">M</p>
+
+<ul><li>Manning, Lieut. W. C., tunnel, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li>
+
+<li>Mark Tapley's "jolly" example, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Marmion</i>, Scott's, quoted, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li>
+
+<li>martyrs in reality, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+
+<li>Mason, Capt. Frank H., <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li>
+
+<li>Masonic Hall, Winchester, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
+
+<li>McIntosh's cavalry, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li>
+
+<li>Meacham's Station, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li>
+
+<li>meat ration, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>
+
+<li>Mercutio's wound, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li>
+
+<li>Middletown in Shenandoah Valley, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+
+<li>Molineux, Col. E. L., <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li>
+
+<li>money concealed, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
+
+<li>money, Confederate, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+
+<li>Morgan's guerrillas, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li>
+
+<li>Mortality in prison. <i>See</i> under "<a href="#deaths">deaths</a>"</li>
+
+<li>"Muggers," <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">N</p>
+
+<ul><li>Napoleon, his strategy, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;<ul>
+<li>quoted, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li>nationality, northern, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li>
+
+<li>nationality, southern, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li>necessity, military, defies every law, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li>negroes, loyal and kind, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>negroes, prisoners of war, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+
+<li>New Market, Va., <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+
+<li>Newtown, V., <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+
+<li>Nineteenth Corps, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">O</p>
+
+<ul><li>occupations, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>; <a href="#Page_97">97-105</a></li>
+
+<li>O'Neil, Col., Yale classmate, killed, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
+
+<li>Opequon battle, <a href="#Page_3">3-15</a></li>
+
+<li>Opequon Creek, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li>order to retreat, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li>
+
+<li>Ould, R., Confed. Agt. for exchange, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li>ovens for baking, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li>overcoat saved, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">P</p>
+
+<ul><li>"painfully sober," <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li>
+
+<li>parole given, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+
+<li>parole rejected, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
+
+<li><i>pediculid&aelig; vestimenti, non capitis</i>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>Petersburg shelled, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+
+<li>Pharaoh's epidermis and obstinacy, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
+
+<li>Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li>
+
+<li>plots to break out, <a href="#Page_61">61-75</a>; <a href="#Page_113">113-119</a></li>
+
+<li>policing prison, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+
+<li>prayer of chaplain Emerson, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
+
+<li>prey and pray, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li>
+
+<li>Prey, Col. Gilbert G., <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
+
+<li>prison number 3, officers', <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, +</li>
+
+<li>prison 6, the worst of all, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li>
+
+<li>prison rules adopted, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li>
+
+<li>profanity of soldiers, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li>
+
+<li>Putnam, Adjt. G. Haven, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">Q</p>
+
+<ul><li>questions, amusing or ugly, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">R</p>
+
+<ul><li>Ralston, Col., killed, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li>
+
+<li>Ramseur, S. D., Confed. Gen., <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+
+<li>rations, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li>
+
+<li>recapture of escaped officers, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+
+<li>recount made futile by trick, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+
+<li>Redwood of Mobile, Yale classmate, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li>
+
+<li>Reed, "shot into inch pieces," <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li>
+
+<li>retaliation threatened, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;<ul>
+<li>done, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li>rheumatism, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li>Richardson, Albert D., of <i>Tribune</i>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li>
+
+<li>Richmond, arrival at, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+
+<li>Richmond, watching exploding shells, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+
+<li>Ricketts' Division, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+
+<li>riddle, fatal to the old poet, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
+
+<li>riots in July, 1863, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+
+<li>robbery of captives, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
+
+<li>Rodes, Confed. General, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;<ul>
+<li>killed, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li>roll-call nullified, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+
+<li>roll-call sergt., queer, <a href="#Page_99">99-103</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+
+<li>rope ladder, twisted rags, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+
+<li>rules adopted in prison, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li>Russell, Sergt. Alfred, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
+
+<li>Russell, Gen. D. A., killed, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li>
+
+<li>Russell, Martha, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
+
+<li>Russell, Gen. W. H., <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">S</p>
+
+<ul><li>Sadler, Major David, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li>
+
+<li>Salisbury prison, <a href="#Page_50">50-55</a>; <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+
+<li>sandwiches, G. W. Swepson's, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li>sanitary measures, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li>Sargent, Lieut, of 14th N. H., <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
+
+<li>Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
+
+<li>scurvy prevalent, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li>searching of prisoners, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li>
+
+<li>seceded states, a real nation? <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li>sentries' sing-song call, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
+
+<li>sermons in prison, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li>"Set the table for dinner," <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
+
+<li>Shakespeare, quoted, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li>
+
+<li>Shakespeare's <i>Hamlet</i>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+
+<li>shelter, lack of at Salisbury, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+
+<li>Shenandoah river and valley, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li>
+
+<li>Sheridan's devastation, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>Sherman, Gen. W. T., quoted, <a href="#Page_1">1</a></li>
+
+<li>"shot twice into inch pieces," <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+
+<li>Simpson, Lieut. J. B.; his sly trick, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li>
+
+<li>singing at evening at Danville, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+
+<li>Sixth Corps, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li>
+
+<li>"skirmishing" a misnomer, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+
+<li>slavery doomed in any event, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+
+<li>"Slim Jim," <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li>
+
+<li>Small, Major Adner A., <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li>Smith, Robert C., Confed. commandant, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li>
+
+<li>Smith, Col. Robert C., Yale man, kind, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, +</li>
+
+<li>Smith, Sergt. W. F., clerk, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+
+<li>"snack?" or snake? <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li>sorghum syrup issued, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>
+
+<li>soup, so called (or broth), <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
+
+<li>spittoon mystery, solved? <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li>
+
+<li>spoon, carving of, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a> <a href="#FNanchor_12_12">(note)</a></li>
+
+<li>"spoon fashion," lying in, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li>"<i>Spoon</i>"! significance of, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li>Sprague, Bvt. Col. H. B., <i>passim</i>, and <a href="#Page_143">143</a> <a href="#Footnote_15_15">(note)</a></li>
+
+<li>stampede, Yankee, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;<ul>
+<li>Confederate, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li>Stanton, E. M., War Secretary, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li>
+
+<li>State, allegiance to, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
+
+<li>Staunton, Va., march to, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+
+<li>Staunton, arrival and breakfast at, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+
+<li>Staunton, Morgan's guerrilla kind at, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li>
+
+<li>stealing rations from guards, haversacks, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li>
+
+<li>Stephens, Hon. Alexander H., <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li>"Storming Column" at Port Hudson, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li>"Stove Brigade," at Danville, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li>
+
+<li>stoves in prison at Danville, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li>
+
+<li>Strasburg, Va., <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+
+<li>Strickland, undertaker, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+
+<li>Stuart, Dr. Moses, on slavery, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
+
+<li>subjugation policy, Lincoln's, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li>sunrise on the Blue Ridge, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li>
+
+<li>sutler, Confederate, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li>
+
+<li>swearing, copious, of two kinds, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
+
+<li>sweeping the floors, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+
+<li>Swepson, George W., very kind, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">T</p>
+
+<ul><li>table-knife saw, Lieut. Titus's, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>Tarbell, Capt. Doctor, assistant commissary, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+
+<li>Taylor, Bayard, quoted, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
+
+<li><i>tertium quid</i>, solution of mystery, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li>
+
+<li>theatrical collapse at Danville, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
+
+<li>Thirteenth Conn. Regt., very patriotic, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li>Tiemann, Capt. W. F., <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li>
+
+<li>Titus, Lieut. L. B., invents useful saw, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>tobacco and the spittoon mystery, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li>
+
+<li>tobacco given us by kind clergyman, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li>Tom's Brook, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
+
+<li>tooth-brush, second-hand, $300 offered, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+
+<li>Torbert, Gen. Alfred T., <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li>
+
+<li>trading with Confed. sentinels, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li>
+
+<li>tunnel through the Blue Ridge, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li>
+
+<li>tunneling at Salisbury, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;<ul>
+<li>Danville, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li>Turner, Nathaniel, inspector, Libby, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li>
+
+<li>Turner, Richard, commandant at Libby, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="inx">U</p>
+
+<ul><li>unguentum, two pounds called for, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li>
+
+<li>university students in prison at Danville, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">V</p>
+
+<ul><li>Vander Weyde, Lieut. Henry, artist, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
+
+<li>vermin at Danville, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li>
+
+<li>view-point, all-important, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+
+<li>votes in prison for President, Nov. 8, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">W</p>
+
+<ul><li>war, Admiral Fisher on its essence, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+
+<li>war, Lieut. Gen. S. B. M. Young, quoted on, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+
+<li>war, Gen. Wm. T. Sherman's "War is hell," <a href="#Page_1">1</a></li>
+
+<li>Washington, George, Commander-in-chief, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li>
+
+<li>Washington, Lieutenant, a Confederate, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>
+
+<li>Washington, President, a Mason at Winchester, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
+
+<li>Washington wished slavery somehow ended, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li>water parties under guard, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li>water scarce <i>en route</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;<ul>
+<li>at Salisbury, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li>Watts, Isaac, quoted, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+
+<li>Waynesboro, Va., <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
+
+<li>Webster, Daniel, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
+
+<li>Wesley, John, quoted, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li>West Virginia, Army of, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li>
+
+<li>"Where is he at?" <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
+
+<li>Whittier, John G., quoted, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li>Wilson, Cav. Gen. J. H., <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li>
+
+<li>Winchester, Va., battle of, <a href="#Page_3">3-15</a></li>
+
+<li>Winder, Confed. Gen. J. H., Supt. Prisons, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+
+<li>wood, split without edge-tools, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>
+
+<li>Woolsey, T. D., President of Yale, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="inx">Y</p>
+
+<ul><li>Yadkin river crossing, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li>
+
+<li>Yale College men, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li>
+
+<li>Yankee ingenuity and skill, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
+
+<li>Y. M. C. A., of Richmond, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li>
+
+<li>Young, Lieut.-Gen. S. B. M., on war, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<div class="trans1"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b>
+Dialect and archaic spellings have been retained. Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note, whilst more
+significant amendments have been corrected as follows:
+
+<div class="block1"><p><a href="#PORTRAIT">Portrait Caption</a>, "Gardiner" to <i>Gardner</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_102">102</a> &amp; <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, "peculid&aelig;" to <i>pediculid&aelig;</i>, could be amended to
+<i>pediculus</i> however the former seems more in keeping with the
+original intent.</p>
+
+<p>Spelling errors occurring solely in the Index have been corrected
+to match the main text.</p></div></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lights and Shadows in Confederate
+Prisons, by Homer B. Sprague
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons, by
+Homer B. Sprague
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons
+       A Personal Experience, 1864-5
+
+Author: Homer B. Sprague
+
+Release Date: January 21, 2008 [EBook #24385]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFEDERATE PRISONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ [Illustration: Portraits of Fellow Officers in Prison
+
+ Left to right--Top line: Capt. Cook, Capt. Burrage
+ Middle line: Adj't. Gardner, Col. Sprague, Capt. Howe
+ Lower line: Lieut. Estabrooks, Adj't. Putnam]
+
+
+
+
+           _"Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit"_
+
+
+                     Lights and Shadows in
+                      Confederate Prisons
+
+                     A Personal Experience
+                            1864-5
+
+
+                              By
+
+                    Homer B. Sprague, Ph.D.
+                 Bvt.-Colonel 13th Conn. Vols.
+
+ Sometime Professor in Cornell and President of the University
+                        of North Dakota
+
+   Author of "History of the 13th Conn. Inf. Vols.," "Right
+         and Wrong in our War between the States," and
+            "The European War, Its Cause and Cure"
+
+
+                       _With Portraits_
+
+
+                      G. P. Putnam's Sons
+                      New York and London
+                    The Knickerbocker Press
+                             1915
+
+
+
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1915
+ BY
+ HOMER B. SPRAGUE
+
+ The Knickerbocker Press, New York
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note, whilst
+    more significant amendments have been listed at the end of the text.
+    Dialect and archaic spellings have been retained. The letter 'e'
+    with a macron has been transcribed as [=e].
+
+
+
+
+                       TO
+                 THE ALUMNI OF
+              THE UNIVERSITIES OF
+        YALE, CORNELL, AND NORTH DAKOTA
+
+      IN WHICH RESPECTIVELY THE AUTHOR WAS
+         STUDENT, PROFESSOR, PRESIDENT;
+                       TO
+      THOUSANDS OF HIS PUPILS YET LIVING;
+                       TO
+      HIS COMPANIONS OF THE LOYAL LEGION,
+  COMRADES OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC,
+      ALL SURVIVING OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS
+             UNION OR CONFEDERATE;
+ ALL WHO CHERISH THE MEMORY OF THE PATRIOT DEAD
+             AND ALL WHO HATE WAR,
+         THIS RECORD IS AFFECTIONATELY
+                   DEDICATED
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This narrative of prison life differs from all others that I have seen,
+in that it is careful to put the best possible construction upon the
+treatment of Union prisoners by the Confederates, and to state and
+emphasize kindnesses and courtesies received by us from them.
+
+For the accuracy of the facts stated I am indebted to a diary kept from
+day to day during the whole of my imprisonment, and to the best
+obtainable records. The exact language of conversations cannot of course
+always be remembered, but I aim always to give correctly the substance.
+
+I am aware that the opinions I express in regard to Sheridan's strategy
+at the Battle of Winchester are not those generally entertained. But I
+give reasons. His own account of the battle is sadly imperfect. To
+capture but five guns and nine battle flags at a cost of four thousand
+six hundred and eighty killed and wounded, and leave almost the entire
+rebel army in shape to fight two great battles within a month, was not
+the programme he had planned. Early said "Sheridan should have been
+cashiered."
+
+I shall be blamed more for venturing to question Lincoln's policy of
+subjugation. He had proclaimed with great power and in the most
+unmistakable language in Congress that "any portion of any people had a
+perfect right to throw off their old government and establish a new
+one." But now, instead of standing strictly on the defensive, or
+attempting by diplomacy to settle the conflict which had become
+virtually international, he entered upon a war of conquest.
+
+I do not blame him for refusing to exchange prisoners, nor President
+Davis for allowing them to starve and freeze. Both were right, _if war
+is right_. It was expedient that thirty, fifty, or a hundred thousand of
+us should perish, or be rendered physically incapable of bearing arms
+again. The "deep damnation of the taking off" was due not to individual
+depravity but to military necessity.
+
+                                                              H. B. S.
+ BRIGHTON, MASS., U. S. A.,
+          _1915_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                                      PAGE
+ PREFACE                                                                 v
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+ The First, or Forenoon, Battle of Winchester, Indecisive--Sheridan's
+     and Early's Mistakes--The Capture                                   1
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+ At Winchester--On the Road thence to Tom's Brook, New Market, and
+     Staunton                                                           17
+
+                               CHAPTER III
+
+ At Staunton--Thence to Waynesboro, Meacham's, and Richmond             32
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+ At Libby--Thence to Clover, Danville, Greensboro, and
+     Salisbury--Effort to Pledge us not to Attempt Escape               43
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+ At Salisbury--Great Plot to Escape--How Frustrated                     60
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+
+ From Salisbury to Danville--The Forlorn Situation--Effort to
+     "Extract Sunshine from Cucumbers"--The Vermin--The Prison
+     Commandant a Yale Man--Proposed Theatricals--Rules
+     Adopted--Studies--Vote in Prison for Lincoln and
+     McClellan--Killing Time                                            77
+
+                               CHAPTER VII
+
+ Exact Record of Rations in Danville--Opportunity to Cook--Daily
+     Routine of Proceedings from Early Dawn till Late at Night          93
+
+                               CHAPTER VIII
+
+ Continual Hope of Exchange of Prisoners--"Flag-of-Truce
+     Fever!"--Attempted Escape by Tunneling--Repeated Escapes by
+     Members of Water Parties, and how we Made the Roll-Call
+     Sergeant's Count Come Out all Right every Time--Plot to Break
+     Out by Violence, and its Tragic End                               106
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+
+ Kind Clergymen Visit us and Preach Excellent Discourses--Colonel
+     Smith's Personal Good Will to me--His Offer--John F. Ficklin's
+     Charity--My Good Fortune--Supplies of Clothing
+     Distributed--Deaths in Prison                                     120
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+ Results and Reflections--The Right and the Wrong of it All            138
+
+ APPENDIX                                                              153
+
+ INDEX                                                                 157
+
+
+
+
+Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons
+
+
+
+
+Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+  The First, or Forenoon, Battle of Winchester, Indecisive--Sheridan's
+    and Early's Mistakes--The Capture.
+
+
+"War is Hell," said our great strategist, General W. T. Sherman.
+According to its latest code, with few or no exceptions, the end
+justifies the means, and, if necessary to success, it is right to do
+wrong.
+
+Fifty years ago one of the fairest regions on earth was that portion of
+Virginia extending southwesterly about a hundred and twenty miles from
+Harper's Ferry to the divide beyond Staunton, where rise the headwaters
+of the James. Walled in by the Blue Ridge on the southeast and parallel
+ranges of the Alleghanies on the northwest, it takes its name from the
+beautiful river which winds along its length, and which the Indians
+poetically christened Shenandoah (Daughter of the Stars!). When some
+three hundred of us prisoners of war walked wearily a hundred miles from
+Winchester to Staunton in September, 1864, it was still rich and lovely.
+A few weeks later, the necessities of war made it a scene of utter
+desolation.
+
+    Grant had rightly concluded [says Sheridan[1]], that it was time to
+    bring the war home to a people engaged in raising crops from a
+    prolific soil to feed the country's enemies, and devoting to the
+    Confederacy its best youth. I endorsed the program in all its parts;
+    for the stores of meat and grain that the valley provided, and the
+    men it furnished for Lee's depleted regiments, were the strongest
+    auxiliaries he possessed.
+
+Accordingly Grant issued orders with increasing emphasis, particularly
+in August and September, to make the whole region "a barren waste," to
+
+    destroy or carry off the crops and animals; do all possible damage
+    to railroads; seize stock of every description; take away all negro
+    laborers so as to prevent further planting; hold as prisoners of
+    war, if sympathizing with the rebellion, all male citizens under
+    fifty years of age capable of bearing arms, etc.
+
+In obedience to these commands, Sheridan engaged with alacrity in the
+work of destruction. In a few weeks he reported as follows:
+
+    I have destroyed 2000 barns filled with wheat, hay, and farming
+    implements; over 70 mills filled with flour and wheat; and driven in
+    front of my army 4000 head of stock.
+
+Said one of his officers who knew whereof he was speaking, "A crow
+flying through the valley would have to carry his own rations, for he
+could pick up nothing!"
+
+At Winchester, the principal town in the Shenandoah Valley, one hundred
+and fifty miles N. N. W. of Richmond, with a population of about four
+thousand, the 19th of that September was a day of glory but also of
+sorrow. Four thousand six hundred and eighty of the Union Army, killed
+and wounded, told how dearly Sheridan's first great victory was gained.
+
+The battle was fought over three, four, or five square miles, east and
+north from Winchester, for the most part near the Opequon Creek, from
+which it is sometimes called the "Battle of the Opequon." To reach the
+field, the bulk of Sheridan's army, starting at three o'clock in the
+morning from Berryville ten miles east, had to pass through a gorge in
+which for a considerable distance the turnpike extends towards
+Winchester. Sheridan's plan at first was to bring his army, except
+Merritt's and Averell's Divisions of Torbert's Cavalry, through the
+defile, post the Sixth Corps on the left, the Nineteenth on the right,
+throw Crook's Army of West Virginia across the Staunton turnpike
+(leading southwest from Winchester), and so cut off all retreat up the
+valley. Meanwhile those two cavalry divisions were to make a long detour
+on our right to the north from Berryville, and close in upon the
+Confederate left. Sheridan felt sure of victory, for we outnumbered the
+enemy nearly two to one. Had our army got into position early in the
+morning, we should have captured or destroyed the whole of them.
+
+At early dawn McIntosh's Brigade of Wilson's Division of Torbert's
+Cavalry dashed through the ravine, closely followed by Chapman's Brigade
+and five batteries of horse artillery. Sheridan and his staff followed.
+They surprised and captured a small earthwork, and, though fiercely
+assaulted, held it till the van of the Sixth Corps relieved them.
+
+The narrow pass of the Berryville pike was so obstructed by artillery,
+ambulances, ammunition wagons, etc., that it was nearly eight o'clock
+before the Sixth Corps, which should have been in position with Wilson's
+Cavalry at sunrise, began to arrive; and it was fully two hours later
+when the Nineteenth Corps debouched and deployed. Here was
+miscalculation or bad management or both.
+
+This long delay, which the quick-moving cavalry leader Sheridan had not
+foreseen nor provided for, gave time for Early to call in the strong
+divisions of Generals Gordon, Breckenridge, and Rodes, from the vicinity
+of Stephenson's Depot several miles away. They left Patton's Brigade of
+Infantry, and a part of Fitzhugh Lee's Cavalry to oppose Torbert.
+
+Hearing nothing from Torbert, who had now been gone seven or eight hours
+on his circuitous route, Sheridan suddenly changed his whole plan of
+action, a perilous maneuver in the face of an active enemy while the
+battle is already raging intermittently. Instead of flinging Crook's
+Army of West Virginia, 17 regiments and 3 batteries, across the Staunton
+pike, to front northeasterly and cut off all possible retreat of the
+Confederates, he determined to move it to our right and deploy it in
+line with the Nineteenth. Doubtless this was best under the
+circumstances, though it left to the enemy the broad smooth highway as a
+line of retreat up the valley.
+
+Grover's Division (2d of the Nineteenth Corps) in four brigades formed
+line of battle in front and to the right of the gorge. In touch on the
+left was Ricketts' Division of the Sixth Corps, and resting on Ricketts'
+left was Getty's Division of the same corps. Getty had 16 regiments in
+line; Ricketts, 12 with 6 batteries; Grover, 20 with 3 batteries.
+
+Had Sheridan been able to strike Early by half-past eight with the Sixth
+and Nineteenth, he would have crushed him in detail. Had Early massed
+the divisions of Gordon, Breckenridge, and Rodes, and hurled them at the
+mouth of the canyon at ten o'clock while half of the Nineteenth was
+still entangled in it, he would probably have split our army into three
+parts, and destroyed those already arrived.
+
+It was now eleven o'clock, and the Army of West Virginia at last emerged
+from the defile. To make room for its movement in our rear behind
+Grover's Division, and to hold the enemy in play until it should have
+taken its place on the right of the Nineteenth, and perhaps to await
+there the appearance of Torbert's Cavalry, it was desirable that Grover
+should advance. Sheridan of course meant the whole front of the Sixth
+and Nineteenth to keep in a continuous line. At first it seemed to me
+that the regiments of the Nineteenth overlapped; but the lines of
+advance were slightly divergent, and wide breaks began to appear between
+battalions. Especially on the left of the Nineteenth a large and
+widening gap appeared; for Ricketts had been instructed to guide on the
+Berryville pike, and that bore away to the left and south.
+
+My battalion, the veteran Thirteenth Conn. Infantry, should have been
+led by my Colonel, C. D. Blinn: but he was sick the night before, and in
+the morning, at the crossing of the Opequon, he fell out, and left the
+command to me. He had no part in the battle. Our Thirteenth deserves a
+passing notice. It was the favorite regiment of General Birge, its first
+colonel.[2] When he was made brigadier, the regiment entered the brigade
+commanded by Colonel E. L. Molineux. Birge was never so happy as when
+riding into action, and Molineux, who had been severely wounded in the
+same battle with me, was not over-cautious. My regiment and both
+brigades, the first and second of Grover's Division, had caught the
+spirit of those two commanders. Quite generally they mistook the
+forward movement for an immediate charge.
+
+We had been under an intermittent fire for some time, but now the
+advance intensified the conflict. The chief anxiety of good soldiers at
+such a time, as I often noticed, is to get at the enemy as soon as
+possible, and cease to be mere targets. Their enthusiasm now accelerated
+their pace to a double-quick, and was carrying them too far to the
+front. Birge and Molineux endeavored in vain to check their rapidity. My
+battalion, I think, was nearest the rebel line.
+
+Between eleven and twelve the divisions of Getty, Ricketts, and Grover,
+forty-eight regiments in all, to which were attached eight light
+batteries with reserve artillery, began to move forward. It was a grand
+spectacle. At first the movement was steady, and we thought of Scott's
+lines,
+
+    The host moves like a deep-sea wave,
+    Where rise no rocks its pride to brave,
+    High-swelling, dark, and slow.
+
+But all is quickly changed.
+
+Looking back upon that scene after the lapse of more than fifty years,
+its magnificence has not yet faded. I see as in a dream our long bending
+wave of blue rolling slowly at first but with increasing speed,
+foam-tipped with flags here and there and steel-crested with Birge's
+bayonets yonder; glimpses of cavalry in the distance moving as if on
+wings with the lightness of innumerable twinkling feet; numberless jets
+of smoke across the fields marking the first line of Confederate
+infantry, their musketry rattling precisely like exploding bunches of
+firecrackers; batteries galloping to position, the thunder of a dozen
+smiting the ear more rapidly than one could count; the buzz, hiss,
+whistle, shriek, crash, hurricane of projectiles; the big shot from
+batteries in front and from Braxton's artillery on our right ripping up
+the ground and bounding away to the rear and the left; horses and riders
+disappearing in the smoke of exploding shells; the constant shouting of
+our officers indistinctly heard, and now and then the peculiar
+well-known "rebel yell"; and finally the command, HALT! LIE DOWN!
+Molineux and Birge were too far to the front, and the line must be
+rectified. Ricketts, as we pressed forward, had thrown Keifer's Brigade
+(2d of Third Division, Sixth Corps), seven regiments, into the
+broadening interval directly in front of the mouth of the gorge; but it
+was not sufficient.
+
+It was now Early's opportunity; but he was hours too late, just as
+Sheridan had been. He had seen our Sixth Corps and Nineteenth emerge
+and deploy, had beheld our rapid and somewhat disorderly approach, had
+noted the widening spaces between our battalions and divisions, had
+observed the havoc wrought by his artillery and musketry, ten thousand
+of our soldiers seeming to sink under it; had had time to mass his
+forces; and now it was "up to him" to hurl them against our centre. It
+was the strategy inaugurated by Epaminondas at Leuctra and perfected by
+Napoleon in many a hard battle, breaking the enemy's centre by an
+irresistible charge, dividing and conquering. Rodes had been killed at a
+battery in front of our brigade. His veterans and Gordon's, six thousand
+strong[3] constituted the charging column. Neither Sheridan nor any
+other Federal historian appears to have done justice to this charge.
+Pickett's at Gettysburg was not more brilliant.
+
+With yells distinctly heard above the roar they advanced. The batteries
+on each side redoubled their discharges. From our irregular line of
+infantry extending more than a mile blazed incessant sheets and spurts
+of flame, the smoke at times hiding the combatants. Gordon was heading
+toward the now nearly empty ravine. My horse had just been shot under
+me. I lost two in that fight. Dismounted I walked from the right of my
+battalion to the left, cautioning my men against wasting their
+ammunition, bidding them take sure aim, pick out the rebel officers, and
+not fire too high. They were shooting from a recumbent position, or
+resting on one knee; lying flat on their backs to reload. As I reached
+the left, I glanced to the right and saw several of them starting to
+their feet, and a little further on, two or three began to run back. I
+rushed to the spot shouting, "Back to your places!" I saw the cause: the
+regiments on our right were retreating. I was astounded, for we were
+expecting an order to advance instantly. At that moment Lieutenant
+Handy, an aide of our brigade commander, rode up, pale, excited, his
+hands flung up as if in despair. My men were springing to their feet.
+
+"What are those orders?" I demanded.
+
+"Retreat, retreat! get to the rear as fast as possible," he replied.
+
+"Battalion, rise up; shoulder arms--" I commanded. Before I could finish
+the order, one of Sheridan's staff came on a swift gallop, his horse
+white with foam.
+
+"For God's sake, what does this mean?" said he; "this retreat must be
+stopped!"
+
+"Battalion, lie down," I shouted; "our brigade commander ordered
+retreat!"
+
+"It's all wrong. If this position's lost, all's lost. Here you have some
+cover. Hold it to the last. I'll bring supports immediately." Striking
+spurs into his steed, he vanished in the direction of the retreating
+regiments.
+
+Except the few who had heard my command and remained in position,
+perhaps seventy-five or a hundred, who kept blazing away at the
+Confederates, rising a little to kneel and fire, Grover's Division, and
+all we could see of that of Ricketts, had gone to pieces, swept away
+like chaff before a whirlwind. Not a Union flag now in sight, but plenty
+of the "Stars and Bars!" Our sputtering fire checked some directly in
+front; but most of the on-rushing masses were deflected by the nature of
+the ground.
+
+Out of our view and about half a mile in our rear was Dwight's Division,
+the First of the Nineteenth Corps. It had been left in reserve. It was
+in line of battle and ready for the onset. The confused fragments of
+Grover were rallied behind it. Had the ground been favorable, and had no
+unexpected opposition been encountered, Gordon would have crushed
+Dwight.
+
+But in fewer minutes than we have occupied in describing this charge, a
+tremendous and prolonged roar and rattle told us that the battle was on
+behind us more than in front. Amid the din arose a quick succession of
+deafening crashes, and shot and shell came singing and howling over us
+from the left. Russell's Division (First of the Sixth Corps) comprising
+eleven infantry regiments and one of heavy artillery, behind which the
+broken battalions of Ricketts had been reassembling, was now smiting the
+right flank of Gordon's six thousand. Although the charge came too late
+we cannot but admire the strategy that directed it, and the bravery of
+the infantry of Gordon, Rodes, and Ramseur, as well as that of the
+cavalry of Lomax, Jackson, and Johnson, and of Fitzhugh Lee who fell
+severely wounded. But they had not foreseen the terrible cross-fire from
+Russell, who died at the head of his division, a bullet piercing his
+breast and a piece of shell tearing through his heart. Nor had they
+calculated on confronting the long line of Dwight, nine regiments with
+the Fifth New York Battery, all of which stood like a stone breakwater.
+Against it Gordon's masses, broken by the irregularities of the ground,
+dashed in vain. Under the ceaseless fire of iron and lead the refluent
+waves came pouring back. Our army was saved.
+
+But we few, who, in obedience to explicit orders from headquarters, had
+held our position stiffly farthest to the front when all the rest of
+Grover's and Ricketts' thousands had retreated--we were lost. A column
+behind a rebel flag was advancing straight upon us unchecked by our
+vigorous fire. Seeing that they meant business, I commanded, "Fix
+Bayonets!" At that instant the gray surges converged upon us right and
+left and especially in our rear. We seemed in the middle of the rebel
+army. In the crater of such a volcano, fine-spun theories, poetic
+resolves to die rather than be captured--these are point-lace in a
+furnace. A Union officer, Capt. W. Frank Tiemann of the 159th N. Y.,
+Molineux's Brigade, was showing fight, and half a dozen Confederates
+with clubbed muskets were rushing upon him. I leaped to the spot, sword
+in hand, and shouted with all the semblance I could assume of fierce
+authority,
+
+"Down with those muskets! Stop! I command you." They lowered them.
+
+"Who the hell are you?" they asked.
+
+"I'll let you know." Turning instantly to four or five Confederate
+officers, I demanded: "Do you mean to massacre my men?"
+
+Two or three replied: "No. By G--! You've shown yourselves brave, and
+you shall be respected. Yes, you fought d--d well, seein' you had the
+d--dest brigade to fight against in the whole Confederate Army."
+
+"What brigade are you?" I asked.
+
+"Ramseur's old brigade; and there's nothin' this side o' hell can lick
+it."
+
+"You're brave enough," said another; "but damn you, you've killed our
+best general."
+
+"Who's that?" I asked.
+
+"Rodes; killed right in front of you."
+
+"I thought Early was your best General."
+
+"Not by a d-- sight. Old Jubal's drunk--drunk as a fool."
+
+I was never more highly complimented than at this moment; but the
+stunning consciousness of being a prisoner, the bitterest experience of
+my life, the unspeakable disappointment, the intense mortification--these
+are even to this day poorly mitigated, much less compensated, by the
+excessive praises heaped upon me by those Confederate officers for my
+supposed bravery. That they were sincere I cannot doubt; for it was
+customary on the battle-field for the rebels to strip prisoners of all
+valuables, but no one of the fifty or one hundred near me was robbed.
+Tiemann, whose life I had perhaps saved, was even privileged to keep his
+canteen of whiskey, of which he gave me a drink by and by to keep me in
+good spirits! I realized the truth of Burns's lines:
+
+    Inspiring bold _John Barleycorn_!
+    What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
+    Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;
+    Wi' usquebaugh, we'll face the devil!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] _Personal Memoirs_, vol. i., p. 487.
+
+[2] In New Orleans it was known as "Butler's Dandy Regiment"; for it was
+then better dressed than any other. It wore dark blue, which Birge had
+procured through his uncle, Buckingham, the war governor of Connecticut.
+At the siege of Port Hudson it had distinguished itself above all other
+regiments by furnishing as volunteers nearly one-fourth of the
+celebrated "Storming Column" of one thousand men called for by General
+N. P. Banks the second day after the disastrous assault on that fortress
+(June 14, 1863). Birge was selected by Banks to lead the forlorn hope.
+
+[3] Six thousand is Gordon's statement in his _Reminiscences_, page 320.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+  At Winchester--On the Road thence to Tom's Brook, New Market, and
+    Staunton.
+
+
+There were two battles that Monday between Sheridan and Early, the first
+indecisive, though bloody, a drawn game; the second, after a comparative
+lull of several hours, a fierce struggle in which the whole front of the
+Sixth, Nineteenth, and Crook's Corps simultaneously advanced, and
+Torbert's Cavalry, arriving at last after their unaccountable delay upon
+our extreme right, made a magnificent charge crumpling up all the
+enemy's left. The victory was real, but not so complete as it should
+have been. Sheridan ought to have captured or destroyed the whole of
+Early's army. Instead, he had left them an open line of retreat. He took
+only five pieces of artillery, nine battle-flags, and some twelve or
+fifteen hundred prisoners; and, to use his own words, "sent the
+Confederates whirling up the valley."
+
+In the recoil of Gordon's brilliant charge of six thousand about noon,
+we prisoners were swept along into Winchester, and then locked in the
+old Masonic Hall. The sociable guards took pains to emphasize the
+statement that George Washington, "glorious rebel" they called him, had
+presided as Grand Master in that very room!
+
+After several hours we heard a great noise in the streets. Looking out
+we saw men, women, children, moving rapidly hither and thither, the
+current for the most part setting toward the southwest. The din
+increased; the panic became general; the Union Army was advancing on
+Winchester!
+
+We were hustled into the street now filled with retreating hundreds, and
+were marched rapidly along the turnpike toward the setting sun. The road
+crowded with artillery, army wagons, common carriages, all pouring along
+in the stampede; a formidable provost guard enclosing us prisoners in a
+sort of hollow column; cavalry in front, flank, and rear; the fields on
+either side swarming with infantry, the whole of Early's army in
+retreat, we apparently in the middle of it; Sheridan's guns still
+booming in our rear--such was the scene as we two or three hundred
+prisoners were driven on. Our mingled emotions can be better imagined
+than described. The bitter regret that we had not been slain; the
+consciousness that we had done our whole duty in facing unflinchingly
+the storm of shot and shell, never retreating an inch; the evident
+respect and even courtesy with which I was personally treated; the
+inspiring certainty that our army was victorious, the unspeakable
+mortification of being ourselves prisoners of war!--we sorely needed all
+our philosophy and all our religion to sustain us.
+
+Marching moodily along I was aroused from a sort of reverie by an
+experience far too common in those days. I had been sick the night
+before, and had worn my overcoat into battle. My horse was shot. The
+blood was spurting from him. As he seemed likely to fall, I leaped down.
+We were in the midst of a rapid advance and I had not time to throw off
+my overcoat. I was now carrying it swung over my arm. It was growing
+dark. A mounted soldier, whom I took to be an officer, rode up to my
+side and seized hold of the coat. He said, "I want that overcoat." I
+replied, "You can't have it." "I must have it." "You shan't have it." He
+tugged and I tugged, and as I was on foot and sober I nearly dragged him
+from his horse before he let go. During the tussle I repeatedly shouted,
+"Captain of the Guard--Help! Help!" The provost captain instantly came
+riding to the spot. "What's the matter?" he asked. "That rascal has
+tried to rob me of my overcoat," I answered, pointing to the villain
+who was beginning to slink away. The captain appeared to recognize him,
+said not a word to him, but whispered to me a moment later, "You are
+entitled to keep your overcoat."
+
+We had had little breakfast and no dinner nor supper, but we suffered
+more from thirst than hunger. Can we ever forget it? Will the long
+flight never end? On through Kerrstown without halting we march, with
+promise of rest and water at Newtown; no rest nor water there. On from
+Newtown with assurance of water at Middletown. Five minutes at
+Middletown, and a little muddy water that seems to aggravate our thirst.
+Farther on we cross a bridge under which the water is dashing as if in
+mockery, and the cry "Water! water!" rises from a hundred lips, the
+guard joining, for they are suffering like ourselves. Some comfort in
+that! Past midnight we reach Strasburg and are halted around an old
+wooden pump. It is broken! No water there. Still on and on at a
+snail-pace, up and over the almost interminable stretch of Fisher's
+Hill. At three o'clock in the morning we arrive at a place known by the
+classical name of Tom's Brook about twenty-five miles from Winchester.
+Never was nectar more delicious than the water of this stream, nor downy
+pillow more welcome than the sod on its banks. Without blankets or
+covering we sank in each other's arms for mutual warmth on the
+dew-drenched grass; and blistered feet and aching limbs and hunger and
+thirst and suffocating despair are all forgotten!
+
+Morning came unnoticed, except by those whom the keen cold permitted to
+sleep no longer. Towards noon we rose, washed without soap or towel,
+were made to form line, had our names taken, and received as rations a
+pint of flour per man, with a little salt, nothing else. How to cook or
+prepare the flour? We learned of the rebel guards a process not laid
+down in the cook-books. Mixing with water they made a stiff paste or
+dough. This they put around the end of a stick about the size and half
+the length of a walking cane. The end thus thickly coated they hold over
+a little fire till the smoke and flame have sufficiently hardened it.
+Then pull out your stick and you have a thick chunk or cylinder of
+bread, not quite so tough as a gun-barrel, but substantial!
+
+I contrived to keep a little memorandum book. In it I noted down that
+there were three hundred and eleven of us prisoners; two
+lieutenant-colonels, two majors, four captains, nine lieutenants, and
+two hundred and ninety-four enlisted men. These were in the march from
+Winchester. A few may have been added to our number at Tom's Brook.
+
+I have stated how it happened that none of those near me were robbed
+when captured. Those at a distance were not so fortunate; for, if
+circumstances permitted, the Confederates, being themselves sadly in
+want, often improved the opportunity to grab every article of value. At
+Tom's Brook I noted in my diary the following:
+
+    Major A. W. Wakefield, 49th Pa. Cav., was robbed of hat, blanket,
+    and $100 in money. Adjt. J. A. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav., was robbed of
+    cap, boots, mug, pocket-book and money. Lieut. Harrison, 2d Regular
+    Cav., was robbed of gold watch and money. Capt. John R. Rouzer, 6th
+    Md. Inf., was robbed by an officer of hat and $20 in money. Lieut.
+    Wesley C. Howe, 2d Mass. Cav., who recently died at Kansas City,
+    Mo., was robbed by Lieut. Housel of the 6th Va. Cav., of silver
+    watch, spurs, gloves, and $10 in money. Major August Haurand, 4th N.
+    Y. Cav., was robbed of a watch and $60 in money.
+
+It was a common practice to snatch from a Union prisoner his cap, and
+clap on in lieu of it a worn-out slouched hat; pull off his boots, and
+substitute a pair of clumsy old shoes. The plundering was so thoroughly
+done that it was poetically termed "going through" a captive!
+
+As I was the senior officer among the prisoners, and we seemed likely to
+remain a long time there, I went to the Confederate commander and
+besought him to allow our three hundred prisoners to occupy a barn near
+by. He refused. I then asked that we be allowed to build wigwams for
+shelter, as there was abundant material at hand. This too was not
+permitted. I also begged in vain that a surgeon should be got to dress
+the wounds of some of the prisoners.
+
+The second morning after our arrival, the sleeping men were aroused by
+the loud voice of Lieutenant Sargent of the 14th New Hampshire Regiment
+exclaiming: "If you give me any more of your lip, I'll annihilate you!
+I've but one arm" (his right arm was disabled by a shot), "but even with
+one arm I'll annihilate you on the spot, if you give me any more of your
+lip!" This was exceedingly gratifying, for it proved that at least two
+of us were not yet "annihilated!"
+
+During our sojourn at Tom's Brook the Confederates labored hard to
+induce us to exchange our greenbacks for their paper currency. Our own
+was sadly depreciated, one dollar of silver or gold being equal to two
+of greenbacks; but one in United States paper was equal in purchasing
+power to eight of theirs. They argued that our money would certainly be
+forcibly taken from us by rapacious guards farther south, and kindly
+offered us four for one. Sergeant Reed of the Provost Guard was quite a
+character. Like Gratiano in _The Merchant of Venice_, he talked loud and
+long, speaking "an infinite deal of nothing." He had a mania for
+watches. He told me he now had twenty-seven which he had obtained from
+Yankee prisoners, always paying them in good Confederate money. He set
+his heart upon a little silver watch of mine, which he said he wished to
+buy and present to one of his lady admirers. I asked:
+
+"Why do they admire you?"
+
+"Because of my bravery," he replied; "none but the brave deserve the
+fair."
+
+"If you are so brave, why are you back here? Why are you not at the
+front?"
+
+"Colonel, I've been in the forefront of the hottest battles. I've been
+fearfully wounded. I'll be hanged if I haven't been one of the bravest
+of the brave. Twice, Colonel, I was shot all into inch pieces; and so
+now I'm put on light duty!"
+
+On Thursday, the third day after our arrival, two "india-rubber men,"
+circus performers, of the 22d Indiana Regiment, gave an exhibition of
+"ground and lofty tumbling" for the entertainment of their fellow
+prisoners. They had somehow contrived to retain the gaudy costume of the
+ring. They were really skillful. While we were watching with interest
+the acrobatic performance, a squadron of the Confederate General
+Imboden's Cavalry dashed past us. Sergeant Reed, who had just made me an
+offer for my watch, sprang to his feet, exclaiming: "I swear! there must
+be a battle going on in front, for there goes Jimboden's Cavalry to the
+rear! Sure sign! I'll be hanged if we ain't gettin' licked again!" We
+had heard the cannonading in the distance, but paid little attention to
+it. The Richmond papers, announcing that Fisher's Hill was impregnable
+to the whole Yankee army, were said to have been received about an hour
+before the heights were actually carried by storm. Again Early's army
+was not captured, but sent "whirling up the valley."
+
+We prisoners thoroughly enjoyed the changed aspect of affairs. At first
+they marched us directly back a short distance up the slope towards the
+advancing Yankees; but they seemed suddenly to discover their mistake;
+they halted, faced about, and marched down. Hilarious and saucy, our
+boys struck up the song and three hundred voices swelled the chorus:
+
+    Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
+    Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom--
+      The Union forever! hurrah, boys, hurrah!
+      Down with the traitor! up with the star! etc.
+
+till Captain Haslett of the provost guard came riding into the midst
+with savage oaths shouting, "_Silence!_ SILENCE! SILENCE!"
+
+Twenty-seven miles, first through stifling dust and then through pelting
+rain, past Hawkinstown, Woodstock, Edenburg, Mount Jackson, brought us
+to New Market. On the march Colonel Brinton of a Pennsylvania regiment,
+a new arrival, planned with me an escape. He had campaigned through the
+valley, was familiar with the lay of the land, and said he had friends
+among the inhabitants. Our plan was to run past the guards in the
+darkness. As a preliminary step I cut off my shoulder-straps which were
+very bright. Within half an hour Sergeant Reed came up to me and asked,
+"Colonel, where's your shoulder-straps?" I replied, "I don't wear
+shoulder-straps now I'm a prisoner." "But, Colonel," he answered, "I've
+been lookin' at them shoulder-straps since we left Tom's Brook. I wanted
+to buy 'em of you for a present to one of my girls. I'll be hanged if I
+don't believe you're goin' to try to escape, and so you've cut off your
+bright shoulder-straps. But, Colonel, it's impossible. I'll be hanged if
+I hadn't rather lose any six of the others than to lose you." The fellow
+stuck closer to me than a brother all the rest of that night; so close
+that he lost sight of Colonel Brinton, who actually escaped about
+midnight at a place called Edenburg! Almost immediately Sergeant Reed
+came to me and asked, "Colonel, where's that other Colonel?" I answered:
+"You ought to know; _I_ don't!"--"I'll be hanged," said he, "if I
+haven't lost him, a-watchin' you!"
+
+At New Market they put us into a dilapidated church building. "The
+wicked flea, when no man pursueth but the righteous, is bold as a lion,"
+was repeatedly misquoted from the _Book of Proverbs_, and not without
+reason. We concluded if that interpretation was correct, we had reason
+enough for obeying the injunction in _Ecclesiastes_, "Be not righteous
+overmuch"; for the little jumpers were fearless and countless. They were
+reinforced by a Confederate deacon, who recommended two things:
+Confederate paper and "gospel piety"; the one would carry us safely
+through this world; the other through the next. He would be only too
+happy to furnish us the currency in exchange for our greenbacks.
+"Confederate treasury bills and true religion" was the burden of his
+song, till one of our literary officers, it was said, squelched him:
+"Deacon, your recipe of happiness, rebel paper and godliness--Confederate
+money and a Christian spirit!--reminds me of what Byron says in one of
+his wicked poems:
+
+    'Beyond all doubt there's nought the spirit cheers
+    Like rum and true religion!'"
+
+He subsided.
+
+We left New Market at noon, Saturday, September 24th, and marched all
+the afternoon and all night, past Harrisonburg, Mount Crawford, Mount
+Sidney, and Willow Springs, reaching Staunton, Va., about nine in the
+morning. On the march, forty-three miles in twenty-one hours, we were
+hungry; for the morning ration at New Market was scanty, and they gave
+us nothing more, except a small loaf of wheat bread. Some of the guard
+were kind to us. One of them, private John Crew, Co. E, 11th Alabama
+Regiment, unsolicited by us, and, so far as I am aware, without hope of
+any reward, would endeavor to bring us apples or other food, whenever we
+halted. I was careful to write his name in my diary.
+
+As we trudged along, a lively discussion of slavery ensued. Lieutenant
+Howard of the provost guard was a learned champion of the "peculiar
+institution," and I was a pronounced abolitionist. He was an ardent
+"fire-eater," to use the term then in vogue, and I, who had lost my
+position as principal of the Worcester High School by my defense of John
+Brown, was equally intense. Both were pretty well "posted" on the
+subject. He seemed to be familiar with the Bible and the proslavery
+arguments, including drunken Noah's "Cursed Canaan!" Moses Stuart's
+_Conscience and the Constitution_, Nehemiah Adams's _Southside View of
+Slavery_, and Rev. Dr. ---- (the name is gone from me) of Baltimore's
+Sermons. I was fresh from reading the arguments of George B. Cheever,
+Horace Bushnell, Henry Ward Beecher, Garrison, Phillips, and the rest.
+He proved that slavery among the Hebrews was a divine institution. I
+answered they were commanded to "undo the heavy burdens, let the
+oppressed go free, and break every yoke." He said Paul sent back the
+fugitive slave Onesimus to his master Philemon; I rejoined, "Paul said,
+'I send him back, not as a servant, but above a servant, a brother
+beloved; receive him as myself.'" He quoted the Constitution of the
+United States, the article commanding that fugitive slaves should be
+delivered back to their masters; in reply I quoted from Deuteronomy the
+"Higher Law," "Thou shalt _not_ deliver unto his master the servant
+which is escaped from his master unto thee." He quoted from the great
+speech of the magnificent Webster in the Senate, March 7, 1850, in which
+he urged all good citizens to obey the Fugitive Slave Law "with
+alacrity." Waxing hot, I quoted from Beecher:
+
+    As to those provisions which concern aid to fugitive slaves, may God
+    do so to us, yea and more also, if we do not spurn them as we would
+    any other mandate of Satan! If in God's providence fugitives ask
+    bread or shelter, raiment or conveyance at my hands, my own children
+    shall lack bread ere they; my own flesh shall sting with cold ere
+    they shall lack raiment. And whatsoever defense I would put forth
+    for mine own children, that shall these poor, despised, persecuted
+    creatures have at my hands and on the road. The man that would do
+    otherwise, that would obey this law to the peril of his soul and the
+    loss of his manhood, were he brother, son, or father, shall never
+    pollute my hand with grasp of hideous friendship, nor cast his
+    swarthy shadow athwart my threshold!
+
+The lieutenant finally cited the examples of "those glorious southern
+patriots who led the rebellion against England during the first American
+Confederacy," Washington, Patrick Henry, Madison, Jefferson, "every one
+a slaveholder," he proudly exclaimed. I happened to be cognizant of
+their views, and responded with some vehemence: "But Washington's hands
+were tied so that he could not free slaves till his death. He said it
+was among his first wishes to see some plan adopted for putting an end
+to slavery. Patrick Henry declared, 'I will not, I cannot justify it.'
+Madison expressed strongly his unwillingness to admit in the national
+Constitution 'the idea that can hold property in man.'" In a rather
+loud voice I quoted Jefferson, who, in view of our inconsistency in
+violating the "self-evident truth" that "all men are created equal,"
+solemnly affirmed, "_I tremble for my country, when I remember that God
+is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever_!" I had some
+reputation as an elocutionist in those days, and Sergeant Reed, who was
+listening with open mouth, broke in with, "I'll be hanged, Colonel, if
+you warn't cut out for a preacher! By-- I should like to hear you
+preach." The best reply I could make was: "You'll undoubtedly be hanged
+sometime; and if I were a minister, nothing would give me more
+satisfaction than to be present at your execution and preach your
+funeral sermon." He replied: "Now, Colonel, you don't mean that. You
+don't think I'll ever be hanged!"--"Indeed I do, if you don't stop your
+profanity and general cussedness."--"I'll be hanged, if I will," was his
+last word to me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+  At Staunton--Thence to Waynesboro, Meacham's, and Richmond.
+
+
+At Staunton we got a little more light on the value of Confederate
+paper. A chivalrous surgeon who accompanied the provost guard
+(Fontleroy, I think, was his name[4]) politely invited Captain Dickerman
+of the 26th Massachusetts and myself to take breakfast with him in a
+restaurant. We needed no urging. The Provost Marshal gave consent. The
+saloon was kept by a negro named Jackson. His entire stock of provisions
+consisted of nine eggs, the toughest kind of neck beef, bread and salt,
+coffee very weak, butter very strong. As we sat waiting, the doctor
+remarked with a lordly air that under ordinary circumstances he would
+not deign to eat with Yankees. I answered good-naturedly: "I'm as much
+ashamed as you can be; and if _you'll_ never tell of it, _I_ won't!" The
+food, notwithstanding its toughness, rapidly disappeared. Near the last
+mouthful the doctor said: "You two will have to pay for this breakfast,
+for I've no money." I had fifteen Confederate dollars remaining of
+twenty which I had received for a five-dollar greenback at Tom's Brook,
+and I answered: "Give yourself no anxiety; I'll foot the bill."--"Well,
+Jackson," said I to the sable proprietor, "what's the damage?" He
+replied, "I shan't charge you-ones full price. Let's see! Beef, seven;
+eggs, two--nine; coffee, three--twelve; bread and butter,
+three--fifteen; three of you--forty-five. I'll call it only thirty-six
+dollars!" I paid my fifteen; Captain Dickerman pleaded poverty; and the
+dignified doctor, who had so cordially invited us to partake of his
+hospitality, promised the disappointed Jackson that he would pay the
+balance at some future day ("the futurest kind of a day," was added in
+an undertone).
+
+Rejoining the three or four hundred prisoners, we found, besides the
+Confederate guards, a great crowd of spectators swarming around us. One
+of them, a fine-looking young man, wearing the blue uniform of a United
+States captain, made his way through the group, and handed me a
+twenty-dollar Confederate bill! The following dialogue ensued:
+
+"Here, Colonel, take that."
+
+"I thank you much. Who are you, so kind to a stranger and an enemy?"
+
+"I'm one whom you Yanks would hang, if you could catch me."
+
+"Why so? Who are you?"
+
+"I'm one of Morgan's guerrillas; wouldn't you hang me?"
+
+"I think I should, if you had much of this stuff about you" (holding up
+the twenty-dollar bill); "I've just paid fifteen Confederate dollars for
+an imaginary breakfast."
+
+"Good for you, Colonel. Here, take another twenty. Now you've forty.
+That'll pay for an imaginary dinner. Good-bye, Colonel! I have an
+engagement--to meet some of your cavalry. Remember, Morgan's guerrillas
+are not rascals, but gentlemen. Good-bye!" He vanished.
+
+About noon those of us who appeared unable to march farther were put on
+top of freight cars, and carried about a dozen miles east to Waynesboro.
+Here the railway crosses a stream, which encircles a little island just
+north of the bridge. The majority had to walk. At dusk that Sunday
+evening all had come. They put us on the island carefully guarded on all
+sides. Never was I more thankful. I had had something good to eat at
+Staunton; had got rested riding on the roof of the car; and I had my
+overcoat. Davy Crockett preferred a heap of chestnut burs for a pillow;
+but I followed the patriarch's example and chose a flat stone. People
+never allowed me to sing; but I dropped asleep repeating the stanza in
+Mrs. Adams's exquisite hymn.
+
+    Though, like the wanderer,
+      The sun gone down,
+    Darkness be over me,
+      My rest a stone,
+    Yet in my dreams I'd be
+    Nearer, my God, to thee!
+
+Towards midnight the cold became so keen that I rose and went to the
+side of a flickering fire. Here excessive misery was for a moment
+hardening the hearts it should have softened. Several prisoners were
+quarreling for a position nearest the embers, each angrily claiming that
+he had brought the fagots that were burning! Two or three hours later
+several of us attempted to slip past the sentries in the darkness, but
+were stopped before we reached the water.
+
+At earliest streak of dawn we were marched away. About two miles brought
+us to the Blue Ridge where the railroad tunnel pierces its foundations.
+We toiled up and on in time to see the sun rise. An ocean of fog lay
+around us. Never shall we forget how royally the King of Day scaled the
+great wall that seemed to hem in on every side the wide valley, and how
+the sea of mist and cloud visibly fled before the inrolling flood of
+light, unveiling green and yellow fields, flocks and herds, dark
+woodlands, dwellings yet asleep in peace and plenty, here and there the
+silver thread of a winding stream with lakes that mirrored the sky, and
+yonder the long stretches of those titanic fortifications encompassing
+all. We were reminded of Shakespeare's sunrise:
+
+    Full many a glorious morning have I seen
+    Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
+    Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
+    Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.
+
+At that instant a train of cars from Charlottesville came sliding along,
+and shot
+
+    Into the tunnel, like a lightning wedge
+    By great Thor hammers driven through the rock!
+
+The scene startled us by its sublimity, and for a few minutes the hungry
+forgot their craving, the footsore their pain, the hopeless their
+despair.
+
+That day's march, though not so long was as severe as any; we were
+exhausted. Private Dolan, Co. K, 159th N. Y., was barefoot. His feet
+were blistered and bleeding. I begged the commander of the provost
+guard, Captain Haslett, to allow him to get into an ambulance. My
+request was not granted. But we soon afterwards passed a large mansion
+in front of which were several girls and women apparently making fun of
+the unwashed "Yank" and evidently enjoying the spectacle. We were halted
+just as Dolan came limping along supported on one side by a stronger
+comrade. They saw his miserable plight, his distress, his swollen feet,
+and they heard of the stern command to shoot any prisoner who fell out
+or lagged behind. Their faces changed. With tears one or two implored
+the Captain to let him ride in the ambulance. He yielded to their
+entreaties. Southern ladies almost always seemed handsome to us, but
+these in my memory have the fairest faces. I thought of Lady Clare in
+_Marmion_, and the words still recur:
+
+    O Woman! in our hours of ease,
+    Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
+    And variable as the shade
+    By the light quivering aspen made;
+    When pain and anguish wring the brow,
+    A ministering angel thou!
+
+Two miles before we reached our temporary destination, Meacham's
+Station, my own strength utterly failed. I had borne up so long, partly
+to set an example of cheerful endurance, and partly from something like
+Mark Tapley's pride at coming out strong and jolly under the most
+depressing circumstances. I lay beside the road, remarking to Captain
+Haslett, who immediately came riding to the spot, "Captain, here's a
+fine chance to try your marksmanship; I can't march any further; shan't
+try to."--"Colonel," he replied with something of pity in his tone and
+manner, "I'm sorry to see you so used up. I'm sorry to be obliged to
+march you prisoners so hard. I have to keep out of the way of your
+damned cavalry. You may get into the ambulance." So into the ambulance I
+climbed with some difficulty, and immediately commenced my freemasonry
+on the driver. He responded to the signs. He proved to be an
+acquaintance of the Redwoods, a family in Mobile, one of whom had been a
+classmate of mine at Yale. He gave me some nice milk and some fine wheat
+bread. "As a Mason," said he, "I'll feed you; share the last crumb with
+you; but as a Confederate soldier I'll fight you till the last drop of
+blood and the last ditch."--"I hardly know which to admire most, your
+spunk or your milk," I replied. Thereupon he gave me another drink, and
+insisted on my imbibing a little of what he called "apple-jack." I was a
+"teetotaler"; but thinking the occasion warranted, I "smiled" upon it,
+"strictly as a medicine!" "Apple-jack" seemed to me the same thing as
+"Jersey lightning." He became quite friendly, but was horribly profane.
+"Look here," said he, "you seem to be a sort of Christian; cuss me if
+you don't! What in h--l are you Yanks all comin' down here for?"--"You
+have a gift at swearing," I said; "did you, among your other oaths, ever
+swear to support the Constitution of the United States?"--"Well,
+yes."--"That's what's the matter with us," I said, "we're keeping our
+oaths and you are breaking yours."--"To h--l with the Constitution of
+the United States! Our first duty is to our own State. We've a right to
+be an independent nation, and we will. I'm a guerrilla. If our armies
+are defeated, I'll fight you on my own hook. I'll fire on you from
+behind every tree and every rock. I'll assassinate every invader. I want
+you to remember that I'm a guerrilla."--"I like your _spirits_," I said.
+"They are worthy of a better cause."--"Take another swallow of 'em," he
+replied, handing me the canteen. I toasted him: "Here's hoping you
+gorillas will outlive the Southern Confederacy!"--"A d--d equivocal
+sentiment," observed my fire-eating, fire-drinking Masonic brother; "but
+here we are at Meacham's Station. Good-bye, Yank!"
+
+After our nineteen miles' march it was a most welcome relief to be
+placed on platform cars, though packed so closely that we could hardly
+stir. We objected that the cars had no tops. "All the better opportunity
+to study astronomy," they replied.--"The cars have no sides to keep off
+the wind."--"The scenery is magnificent," they rejoined, "and they'll
+answer for 'observation cars'; you have an unobstructed view."--"But the
+nights are growing cold."--"You'll keep warm by contact with each
+other." Mad at this mockery, hungry, half-frozen, squeezed like fish in
+a basket, we took little note of scenery or stars; but it was a comfort
+to believe that our discomfort was caused by the rapid advance of
+Sheridan's cavalry.
+
+More dead than alive, though hardly dead enough to bury, having been
+jolted along all the afternoon and all night, we reached Richmond about
+sunrise, Tuesday, September 27th. Numbering now nearly four hundred we
+were escorted through the streets to the notorious Libby prison and
+halted in front. The Union officers inside thronged the windows to see
+us come. On every face was a sad, despondent, pitying look, the most
+discouraging sight I ever saw. No smiles there nor among us. Conspicuous
+among them was the sorrowful countenance of Lieut.-Col. Charles H.
+Hooper of the 24th Massachusetts Infantry, with his long handsome auburn
+beard. Some one inside whispered loud enough for several of our "Four
+Hundred" to hear, "Hide your greenbacks!" We passed the word down the
+column, "Hide your greenbacks!"
+
+A few minutes revealed its significance. We were taken in a body in upon
+the lower floor. There Major Nat. Turner, prison inspector, cousin of
+the celebrated Dick Turner of unlovely reputation, made us a speech.
+
+    You will empty your pockets of all valuables. Such as are not
+    contraband of war, you will be allowed to retain. You will deliver
+    up all your Federal money. An equivalent amount in Confederate money
+    will be given you in instalments from time to time, or the whole
+    will be returned to you when you are exchanged. You will turn
+    pockets inside out. If you attempt to conceal anything, it will be
+    confiscated.
+
+We were made to step forward singly, and were searched. Our coats and
+vests were taken off, also our boots and shoes; and a Confederate
+officer felt very carefully of all our clothing to make sure that
+nothing was hidden. I "remembered to forget" that I had two ten-dollar
+greenbacks compressed into a little wad in one corner of my watch fob;
+and that corner escaped inspection. Dick Turpin never was the richer for
+that money. They examined suspiciously a pocket edition of the New
+Testament in the original Greek; but I assured them it was not some
+diabolical Yankee cipher, and they allowed me to keep it. I made the
+most of my freemasonry, and they permitted me to retain my overcoat. One
+of our prisoners, it was whispered, had secretly stuffed $1300 in
+greenbacks into his canteen, but all canteens were taken from us as
+contraband of war, and nobody but "Uncle Sam" profited by the
+concealment.
+
+Having "gone through" us, they incarcerated the officers in one room,
+the enlisted men in another.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] Dr. Fontleroy was a brother of Mrs. Major Whittlesey, one of my
+fellow professors, instructor in military tactics, at Cornell
+University. Whittlesey was a graduate of West Point, and, while there,
+had had cadet U. S. Grant under his command!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+  At Libby--Thence to Clover, Danville, Greensboro, and
+    Salisbury--Effort to Pledge us not to Attempt Escape.
+
+
+The two rooms at Libby adjoined each other on the second floor, but a
+solid brick wall was between them. When we entered, about a hundred and
+fifty officers were already there. The first thing that attracted my
+attention was an officer putting a loaf of bread through a small hole in
+the partition where one or two bricks were removable. He was feeding a
+hungry prisoner. A cap or hat nicely concealed the perforation.
+
+Libby has a hard name, but it was the most comfortable of the six
+Confederate prisons of which I saw the interior. With all his alleged
+brutal severity, of which I saw no manifestation, and his ravenous
+appetite for greenbacks, for which we could not blame him, Dick Turner
+seemed an excellent disciplinarian. Everything went like clockwork. We
+knew what to expect or rather what not to expect, and _when_! My diary
+for Wednesday, September 28, 1864, the day after our arrival, reads as
+follows:
+
+    The issue to us daily is
+                One gill of boiled beans,
+                One quarter gill of bean broth,
+                One half loaf of soft bread,
+                (Four ounces meat) and
+                A little salt.
+
+There was one inestimable boon, a copious supply of pure water.
+
+There were at this time no panes of glass, in fact no sashes, in the
+windows, and the wind swept freely through. The nights were becoming
+cold. Confederate sentries were on the lower floor and outside. They
+kept up a custom rather unusual, I think, during the war, of calling out
+in sing-song tones every hour the number of the post and the time, with
+occasional variations; _e. g._: "Post number fourteen, two o'clock, and
+all's well." Then the next sentinel would sing out, "Post number
+fifteen, two o'clock, and all's well." Then the melodious voice of the
+next, farther away and sadly unorthodox, "Post number sixteen, two
+o'clock, and cold as h--l!"
+
+Except one or two rickety tables and two or three old chairs, there was
+no furniture in the prison. Some of the officers had contrived to save
+a little money when searched, and with money it was possible to procure
+small articles slyly smuggled in contrary to orders; but most of us were
+disposed to sing with old Isaac Watts,
+
+    Dear Lord, and shall we ever live
+    At this poor dying rate?
+
+From the rear windows we were occasionally entertained with the sight of
+exploding shells, which the indefatigable Grant was daily projecting
+towards Richmond. Particularly was this the case on the thirtieth of the
+month, when the boys in blue captured Fort Harrison, and the next day
+when the Confederates made several gallant but unsuccessful attempts to
+retake it. At such times we could see some of the steeples or high roofs
+in Richmond thronged with non-combatants gazing anxiously towards
+Petersburg. The belief that our prison was undermined, a vast quantity
+of gunpowder stored in the cellar, and that Dick Turner had threatened
+and was desperate enough to blow us all into eternity in case of a
+sudden dash of our cavalry into Richmond, somewhat marred the
+satisfaction with which we contemplated the evident progress of the
+siege. We could sympathize with the Philadelphia Friend, who said to his
+wife on the introduction of gun-cotton, "What comfort can thee take,
+even when sitting in thy easy chair, when thee knows not but the very
+cushion underneath thee is an enormous bomb-shell, ready upon the
+slightest concussion to blow thee to everlasting glory?"
+
+At three o'clock, Sunday morning, October 2d, we were roused by the
+entry of armed men with lanterns. They furnished each of us with a dirty
+haversack containing what they called two days' rations of corn bread
+and meat. Then they moved us single-file down stairs. As we passed, they
+took from each his blanket, even those the officers had just bought and
+paid for. If we expostulated, we were told we were going to a place
+where we should not need blankets! For my freemasonry or some other
+unexpressed reason, they allowed me to pass, wearing my overcoat. Then
+they took us by bridge across the James River, packed us in box-cars on
+the railway, forty to sixty in each car, and started the train southwest
+towards Danville.
+
+The road-bed was bad and the fences on either side were gone. We made
+but four or five miles an hour. One of our officers declared that they
+kept a boy running ahead of the engine with hammer and nails to repair
+the track! also that they put the cow-catcher on behind the last car to
+prevent cattle from running over the train! At nine o'clock in the
+evening we reached a place called Clover. We passed the night in Clover!
+on the bank beside the railroad, where we studied astronomy! and
+meditated!
+
+Next morning they repacked us, and we were transported seventy miles
+farther to Danville. My memorandum book mentions a conversation I had on
+the way with a very young and handsome rebel, one of the guard. He was
+evidently ingenuous and sincere, pious and lovable. After a few pleasant
+remarks he suddenly asked:
+
+"What are you Northerners fighting for?"
+
+"In defense of the Constitution and the Union. What are _you_ fighting
+for?"
+
+"Every right that is sacred and dear to man."
+
+"What right that is sacred and dear to man had the United States ever
+violated before you fired on Fort Sumter?"
+
+Of course he fell back on the Declaration of American Independence, that
+"Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed";
+also on the doctrine so emphatically expressed by Abraham Lincoln in his
+speech in Congress in 1846; viz.:
+
+    Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the
+    right to raise up and shake off the existing government, and form a
+    new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most
+    sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the
+    world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people
+    of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of
+    such people, that can, may revolutionize and make their own of as
+    much territory as they inhabit.
+
+We arrived at Danville at noon. A heavy rain began to fall. Having been
+two days without opportunity to wash, we were drenched for an hour or
+two by the sweet shower that seemed to pour from the open windows of
+heaven. When our thoughtful guards concluded that we were sufficiently
+cleansed and bleached, they sheltered us by putting us into coal cars,
+where the black dust was an inch deep. That dust was fine! but the
+thought seemed to strike them that our nicely laundered garments might
+get soiled. So in half an hour they took us out and placed us in corn
+cars. It rather went against the grain, but finally I sat down with the
+other kernels on the floor. The weather being inclement, they felt it
+their duty to keep us in doors, lest we should catch cold!
+
+In these elegant and commodious vehicles we were transported next day
+till we reached Greensboro, North Carolina, about fifty miles southwest
+from Danville. Disgorged like poor old Jonah after three days' living
+burial, we were placed in the beautiful open square, and never before
+did air, earth, trees, and skies seem lovelier. Here they gave each of
+us three horny crackers, "rebel hardtack," out of which some of us
+carved finger rings that might have passed for bone.
+
+In those days I was too much addicted to making public speeches, a habit
+which I had contracted in Yale College. On the edge of the public green,
+backed by a hundred prisoners, I was haranguing a crowd of curious
+spectators, telling them how abominably we were treated, exhibiting to
+them our single ration of flinty biscuit, and consigning them all to
+everlasting perdition, when a well-dressed young man elbowed his way to
+me at the fence. He had a large black shiny haversack swung under his
+left arm. Patting it with his right hand, he asked:
+
+"Will you have a snack?"
+
+"A what?" I answered.
+
+"A snack, a snack," he said.
+
+"I don't know what a 'snack' is, unless it's a _snake_. Yes, I think I
+could eat a copperhead--_cooked_. Snake for one, if you please; well
+done."
+
+He thrust his hand into his haversack; took out and gave me the most
+delicious sandwich I ever tasted. Seeing how I enjoyed it, he emptied
+the satchel, giving all his food to my hungry fellow prisoners. He told
+me he was just starting on a long journey, and had laid in a good stock
+of provisions. I took pains to write in my journal his name and
+residence--"George W. Swepson, Alamance, North Carolina. Lives near the
+Court House." To which I added "_Vir et Amicus_."--"The blessing of him
+that was ready to perish" was upon George W. Swepson.
+
+That night we slept again on the ground and without covering under the
+open sky; and again several prisoners, Captain Howe and myself among
+them, attempted in vain to slip past the sentinels.
+
+Next morning we reentered the freight cars. A twelve hours' ride brought
+us at nine o'clock, Wednesday evening, October 5th, to our destination,
+Salisbury, North Carolina. As the "Four Hundred" passed into the dark
+enclosure, we were greeted with the cry, "Fresh fish! Fresh fish!" which
+in those days announced the arrival of a new lot of prisoners. We field
+officers were quartered that night in a brick building near the
+entrance, where we passed an hour of horrors. We were attacked by what
+appeared to be an organized gang of desperadoes, made up of thieves,
+robbers, Yankee deserters, rebel deserters, and villains generally,
+maddened by hunger, or bent on plunder, who rejoiced in the euphonious
+appellation of _Muggers_! We had been warned against them by kindly
+disposed guards, and were not wholly unprepared. They attacked us with
+clubs, fists, and knives, but were repeatedly driven off, pitched
+headlong downstairs. "_Muggers!_"
+
+Salisbury prison, then commonly called "Salisbury penitentiary," was in
+the general form of a right-angled triangle with base of thirty or forty
+rods, perpendicular eighty or ninety. In a row parallel to the base and
+four or five rods from it were four empty log houses with a space of
+about four rods between each two. These, a story and a half high, had
+formerly been negro quarters. On each side of the great triangle was a
+stout tight board fence twelve or fifteen feet high. Some two or three
+feet from the top of this, but out of our sight because on the other
+side, there was evidently a board walk, on which sentinels, four or five
+rods apart, perpetually paced their beats, each being able to see the
+whole inside of the enclosure. At each angle of the base was a shotted
+field-piece pointing through the narrow opening. We could see that
+behind each cannon there was a number of muskets stacked and vigilant
+soldiers watching every movement inside. Close to the fence outside
+there were three camps of Confederates, variously estimated to contain
+from seven hundred to two thousand in all.
+
+The number of Union officers in prison after our arrival was about three
+hundred and twenty; the number of non-commissioned officers and privates
+was suddenly increased from about two thousand to some eight thousand.
+Among these were non-combatants, refugees, lighthouse keepers, and other
+government employees. Albert D. Richardson, then well-known as a
+correspondent of the New York _Tribune_, whose romantic marriage to Abby
+Sage by Henry Ward Beecher and whose tragic death created a sensation in
+the newspaper world, had been held as a prisoner there for several
+months. He told us he had found Salisbury a comfortable place. It
+immediately ceased to be such.
+
+There stood the empty log houses. We besought the rebel commandant,
+Major Gee, to allow us officers to occupy those buildings. He said he
+would permit it on condition that we should sign a stringent parole,
+binding us on our honor not to attempt to escape! We objected to it as a
+preposterous requirement that, remaining under strict guard and wholly
+cut off from communication with the outside world, we should sign such
+a pledge as the only condition on which we could receive decent shelter.
+I asked Major Gee if the rigor of our confinement would be in any way
+relaxed. He answered bluntly, "No."--"Well, where's the reciprocity?" I
+demanded; "what are you giving up?"--"Well," he replied, "if you don't
+choose to sign the parole, you can't have the buildings. Other Federal
+officers have not objected to signing it." He showed us the signature of
+Gen. Michael Corcoran, who had been colonel of the 69th New York, was
+captured at the first battle of Bull Run, was promoted to be brigadier,
+and who raised the so-called "Corcoran Legion." Our senior officer,
+Brig.-Gen. Joseph Hayes of the Fifth Corps, now called a meeting of the
+field officers, and submitted the question, "Shall we sign the parole,
+and so obtain shelter? Or shall we hold ourselves free to escape if we
+can, and so share the privations of our enlisted men, who have no bed
+but the ground and no covering but the sky?" I spoke strongly against
+making any promise. We voted almost unanimously against it.
+
+General Hayes and others then urged upon the commandant the absurdity
+and meanness of requiring it. It was clear to us and must have been so
+to him that it was for his interest to separate the three or four
+hundred officers from the thousands of prisoners accustomed to obey our
+orders. He finally consented that we should occupy the houses without
+imposing any conditions.
+
+Parallel to the front of these buildings, about five rods from them and
+extending across the enclosure, was a so-called "dead line," on which
+nine sentinels paced their beats. Another "dead line" about four rods
+from the high fence paralleled the whole length of each side of the
+prison. It was death to come near these.
+
+About eighty officers were assigned to each of the four houses. In each
+an officer was elected to serve as house-commissary. His duty was to
+receive the rations from Lieutenant-Colonel Hooper, already mentioned,
+acting as commissary-general, to whom the Confederate authorities
+delivered them in bulk. The house-commissary distributed the food and
+acted as agent representing the house in all communications with
+Confederate headquarters. Col. Gilbert G. Prey of the 104th N. Y. Vols.
+was elected commissary of house number one; Capt. D. Tarbell, of Groton,
+N. Y., commissary of house number two; Lieutenant Reilly of
+Philadelphia, of house number three; and I of house four.
+
+Each house contained but two rooms, a lower and an upper, both empty,
+for the most part without glass windows or even sashes; the spaces
+between the crooked logs not stopped up; a single fireplace in each
+house, but not half enough wood to keep a blaze; without tables,
+benches, or chairs; without cooking utensils; without table, knife,
+fork, spoon, or plate; often without cup or dish; without blankets, or
+any clothing but the scantiest summer outfit; without books or papers;
+without water sufficient for washing, or soap, if we could possibly get
+water; we were in a sorry plight as the nights grew colder. And if the
+prospect was bad for us, how much worse for our soldiers across the
+"dead line," who had no shelter, hardly a scrap of blanket! Every rain
+made their beds a pool or mass of mire. It is not pleasant, but it is a
+duty to record some of the shadows of our prison life, "lest we forget."
+
+On the open ground outside of what was called the "hospital," October
+8th, a sergeant-major was found dead; October 9th, two private soldiers;
+October 13th, five; October 14th, two; October 16th, eleven; October
+17th, seven; October 18th, nine. We could tell how severe the weather
+had been at night by the number found dead in the morning.
+
+Not far from the prison enclosure was an abundance of growing timber.
+More than once I besought Major Gee to allow our men to go, under guard
+on parole, to get wood for fires and for barracks. He refused. He said
+he was intending to build barracks for the prisoners as soon as he could
+procure lumber. I presume that he was sincere in this. I asked in vain
+for blankets for the men; for tents, but none came till December, and
+then but one "Sibley" tent and one "A" tent per hundred prisoners, not
+enough for one-third of them.
+
+We procured water from a deep well on the grounds. The supply was so
+scanty for the thousands of prisoners that it was always exhausted
+before sunrise. Soon after we came the Confederates commenced digging
+two new wells. At their rate of progress we reckoned it would take
+several months to finish either.
+
+My memorandum book shows that the issue of food daily at Salisbury,
+though sometimes partly withheld, was for each prisoner "one half loaf
+of soft bread; two, three, four, or five ounces of meat; a gill of
+boiled rice, and a little salt." I have no doubt that Major Gee meant to
+deal fairly with us; but he was unprepared for the avalanche that had
+descended upon him. We are too much in the habit of blaming individual
+combatants for severities and cruelties that are inherent in the whole
+business of war, either civil or international, and inseparable from it.
+Said our Lieut.-Gen. S. M. B. Young at a banquet in Philadelphia, "War
+is necessarily cruel; it is kill and burn, and burn and kill, and again
+kill and burn." The truth was more bluntly expressed by the British
+Rear-Admiral Lord Fisher, now the first sea lord of the British
+Admiralty:
+
+    Humanizing war? [said he]; you might as well talk of humanizing
+    hell! When a silly ass got up at the first Hague Peace Conference in
+    1899, and talked about the "amenities of warfare" and putting your
+    prisoners' feet in warm water and giving them gruel, my reply, I
+    regret to say, was considered brutally unfit for publication. As if
+    war could be "civilized"! If I am in command when war breaks out, I
+    shall issue as my orders, "The essence of war is violence.
+    Moderation is imbecility. _Hit first, hit hard, hit everywhere._"
+
+In this light we may view more charitably the slaying, on the 16th of
+October at Salisbury, of Second Lieutenant John Davis of the 155th N. Y.
+It was a Sunday morning about half-past ten o'clock. One of our fellow
+prisoners, Rev. Mr. Emerson, chaplain of a Vermont regiment, had
+circulated notice that he would conduct religious services in the open
+air between houses number three and four. The officers were beginning to
+assemble when the sharp report of a musket near by was heard. Rushing to
+the spot, we found the lieutenant lying on his back dying at the "dead
+line." The sentinel on the fence, a mere boy, had fired upon him, and
+was now reloading. One of our number, Captain William Cook, unable to
+restrain his anger, hurled a large stone at him. But the hundreds of
+Confederates in the camps just beyond the fence had sprung to arms at
+the sound of the firing; the top of the fence was being lined with
+soldiers; and the vigilant cannoneers at the angles were training their
+artillery upon our dense mass of officers. We prisoners regarded the
+shooting as a brutal murder. The religious exercises were turned into a
+funeral service. Chaplain Emerson prayed, "O God! our only refuge in
+this dark hour, avenge the atrocious murder of our beloved comrade;
+protect that widow so cruelly robbed of one dearer to her than life; and
+especially grant that this accursed Confederacy may speedily sink into
+its native hell!" His text was from _Isaiah_ viii, 12: "Say ye not a
+Confederacy!" Next day I asked the officer of the guard if any
+punishment was to be inflicted upon the sentinel. He answered: "No; we
+don't punish men for doing their duty."
+
+So vitally important is the point of view in deciding upon the right or
+wrong of an act.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+  At Salisbury--Great Plot to Escape--How Frustrated.
+
+
+When we arrived at Salisbury early in October, we found there a brave
+and sagacious officer, Lieut. Wm. C. Manning of the 2d Massachusetts
+Cavalry. He told us he had been held as a hostage in solitary
+confinement, and would have starved but for the rats he caught and ate.
+He had been notified that his own life depended upon the fate of a
+person held in federal hands as a spy. He determined to attempt an
+escape. He was assigned to my house. Taking up a part of the floor, he
+commenced digging a tunnel. He wrote a solemn pledge which all the
+officers in the house signed, binding them not to divulge the scheme.
+The tunnel would have had to be about eight rods long, and its outlet
+would necessarily have been near a group of rebel tents. Of course it
+would have been discovered on the morning after its completion, and not
+all could hope to find egress that way. But he believed that his life
+was still in special danger, and he at once began excavating. The house
+had no cellar, but there was plenty of room under it for stowing away
+the loose earth. The ground was not hard, yet it was quite firm, and on
+the whole favorable for such operations. The work was progressing
+finely, till the officers were suddenly removed from Salisbury in
+consequence of the discovery of a great plot.
+
+I had become a good deal interested in Manning and his tunnel plan, and
+on the morning of Wednesday, October 12th, I introduced him to General
+Hayes, our senior officer. He told us he had for several days been
+considering the possibility of organizing the three or four hundred
+officers, and the five to ten thousand soldiers. He believed that by a
+simultaneous assault at many points we could seize the artillery, break
+the fence, capture the three rebel camps, then arm and ration this
+extemporized army, and march away. He showed us a good map of North
+Carolina. He invited all of the field officers to meet that evening in
+the garret of house number two. All of them accordingly, about thirty in
+number, were present. Posting sentinels to keep out intruders, and
+stopping the open windows so that the faint light of a tallow candle
+might not betray us or create suspicion, we sat down in the gloom.
+
+The general had modestly absented himself, in order that we might be
+uninfluenced by him in reaching a decision; but our first step was to
+send for him, and then insist on his taking the chair--_the_ chair, for
+we had but one! As he had made a careful study of the subject, we
+pressed him to give his views. He proceeded to state the grounds of his
+belief that it was practicable to strike an effective blow for our
+liberation. He told us that he had communicated with a Union man
+outside, and had learned the number and location of the Confederate
+troops we should be likely to encounter on our march to East Tennessee.
+He explained at some length the details of his plan, the obstacles we
+should encounter, and how to overcome them. I shall never forget the
+conclusion of his speech. These were almost exactly his words:
+
+    We must organize; organize victory. The sooner we act the better,
+    provided we have a well-arranged plan. We can capture this town,
+    ration our men, provide them with shoes, clothing, and muskets, and
+    have a formidable army right here at once. It need not take more
+    than half a day. Certainly we can march off within twenty-four hours
+    after the first blow is struck, if we begin right. The enemy have a
+    few guns on the hill, but they are not "in battery". We can take
+    these and take the artillery here right along with us. The
+    principal obstacle is here; make the beginning right; master these
+    prisons and these camps, and we are safe. Organize is the word;
+    _organize_. If any one shall betray us, or aid the rebels, or be
+    guilty of robbery or other outrage, I am in favor of a drumhead
+    court martial and a summary execution. Now, gentlemen, I am ready to
+    serve in any capacity, whether to lead or to follow.
+
+Colonel Ralston of the 24th N. Y. "dismounted cavalry," as they were
+called, spoke next. He was an energetic and dashing officer who fell
+near me in an attempt to break out of Danville prison on the tenth of
+the following December. He entered into the particulars of a plan of
+action, showing how easy it would be, with the probable loss of but few
+lives, to capture the three camps with the Salisbury arsenal and the
+artillery. As his particular share in the work, he said he would
+undertake with a small company to disarm the twenty or thirty sentinels
+inside the enclosure, and instantly thereupon to capture the
+headquarters of Major Gee.
+
+Other officers gave valuable suggestions. Being called upon for my
+opinion, I spoke of the duty we owed our enlisted men to extricate them
+from their shocking condition, for they were beginning to die every
+night on the bare ground, and would soon be perishing by scores. I urged
+the effect the escape of some eight thousand prisoners would have upon
+the nation, being equivalent to a great victory; and, better than
+victory, it would add so many thousands of trained soldiers at once to
+our armies in the field. I insisted that this success would be cheaply
+bought, even if it cost, as it probably would, a hundred lives.
+
+Of all our thirty field officers, only one opposed the scheme
+(Lieut.-Col. G----). He was acknowledged to be brave,[5] but seemingly
+lacking in enterprise. He said in substance, "I have carefully examined
+the situation, and have come to the conclusion that it is utterly
+useless to attempt to escape by force. It can't be done at present. We
+should be slaughtered by the hundred. If you all vote to try it, I will
+join you; but in my opinion it is perfect madness."
+
+With but one dissenting voice it was resolved to go ahead. A committee
+of five was immediately appointed to prepare and present a plan of
+action. This committee were Colonel Ralston; Col. W. Ross Hartshorne,
+190th Pa. (the famous "Bucktail Regiment," whose first colonel, O'Neil,
+my Yale classmate, was killed at Antietam); Col. James Carle, 191st Pa.;
+Major John Byrne, 155th N. Y.; and myself, Lieutenant-Colonel of the
+13th Conn. We were supposed to be fighting men, and had all been wounded
+in battle.
+
+A similar meeting of field officers was held the following evening. For
+two days the committee was almost continually in consultation with
+General Hayes. Great pains was taken to have the plans fully understood
+by all the officers and to secure their hearty cooeperation. By ingenious
+methods frequent communication was had with the enlisted men across the
+"dead line"; sometimes by hurling written communications ballasted with
+stone; several times by Lieutenant Manning and others running swiftly
+past the sentinels in the dark; best of all, because least liable to
+discovery, by the use of the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. We were suffering
+for want of water, and several officers got permission to go outside the
+enclosure ostensibly to procure it, but really to reconnoitre.
+
+The committee reported the following plan, which was unanimously
+adopted:
+
+The first object in the movement being to get into a hand-to-hand fight
+as soon as possible; seven columns, each several hundred strong, were to
+make simultaneous assaults upon six or seven different points. The fence
+being the first impediment, every man's haversack and pockets were to
+be filled with stones to keep down the sentinels who would fire on us
+from the top. Some got levers to wrench off boards, others logs to serve
+as rude battering rams, others sharpened stakes which Ralston called
+"Irish pikes," others clubs, or any possible weapon. I had a rusty old
+bayonet.
+
+Major David Sadler, 2d Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery, with his battalion
+was to rush and seize the cannon and muskets at the angle on the right;
+Major John Byrne and his column at the same instant were to pounce upon
+the big gun and muskets at the angle on our left; simultaneously Colonel
+Ralston and his men are to dash upon the nine sentinels on the "dead
+line" in front of the officers' houses, in a moment disarming them and
+the nine of the relief just arriving; then spring to the assistance of
+Major August Haurand of the 4th N. Y. Cavalry and his battalion who are
+capturing Major Gee's headquarters and guards and camp on our right.
+Col. James Carle, 191st Pa., with his hundreds is breaking through the
+fence and capturing the rebel camp in rear of the officers' quarters.
+Colonel, afterwards General, W. Ross Hartshorne and his 330 men of the
+190th Pa. are to break the fence just above the main rebel camp which is
+on our left. My own column of about three hundred men of the Nineteenth
+Corps are to break the fence just below the rebel camp; then Hartshorne
+and I are to leap from opposite sides upon this, the main camp. These
+seven battalions were to some extent organized with field, staff, and
+company officers. Every officer and soldier was to be on the _qui vive_
+a little before five o'clock in the morning, watching intently for the
+signal. This was to be the waving of a fire-brand by General Hayes in
+front of house number two.
+
+Quite a number of officers had no faith in the plot, and they regarded
+it with indifference. A few expressed hostility to it. One captain, who
+had been a prisoner before and seemed glad to have been captured again,
+a bloated, overgrown, swaggering, filthy bully, of course a coward,
+formerly a keeper of a low groggery and said to have been commissioned for
+political reasons, was repeatedly heard to say in sneering tones in the
+hearing of rebel sentries, "_Some of our officers have got escape on the
+brain_," with other words to the like effect. Colonel Hartshorne finally
+stopped such traitorous language by saying with tremendous emphasis:
+"Captain D----, I've heard a good deal of your attempts to discourage
+officers from escaping, and your loud talk about officers having 'escape
+on the brain.' Now, sir, I give you notice that if you're again guilty of
+anything of the sort, I'LL--BREAK--YOUR--HEAD--WITH--A--CLUB!"
+
+The time agreed upon for the seven simultaneous attacks was about an
+hour before sunrise the morning of October 15th.
+
+As we had feared, the rebel authorities, whether through suspected
+treachery or otherwise, got wind of our purpose. Towards evening of
+October 14th extraordinary vigilance on their part became apparent.
+Troops were paraded, posts strengthened, guards doubled, privileges
+restricted, and word was passed around in our hearing that a battalion
+of Confederates had just arrived. Their watchfulness seemed unrelaxed
+through the night. The shooting of Lieutenant Davis next morning was
+doubtless in obedience to orders for a more rigorous enforcement of
+rules.
+
+Our outbreak was countermanded and postponed, but preparations
+continued. The delay enabled us to perfect our plans, and make our
+organizations more complete. The early morning of October 20th, the 19th
+being the anniversary of my birth, was now fixed upon for the
+"insurrection." We essayed to disarm suspicion by an air of quiet
+acquiescence in the lazy routine of prison life, or absorption in the
+simplest and most innocent occupations whenever any Confederate might
+be looking on.
+
+We recognized united and instantaneous action at the signal on the part
+of three hundred officers and several thousand men as the most vitally
+important element of success. It was necessary that this should be
+thoroughly understood and emphasized, so that every soldier should be in
+perfect readiness at the critical moment.
+
+Several of us had formed a class for oral instruction in French. Our
+teacher was Captain Cook of the 9th U. S. colored troops, a graduate of
+Yale. About ten o'clock in the morning of October 18th, as we were
+seated on the ground near house number four, loudly imitating Professor
+Cook's _parlez-vous_, Lieut. Wm. C. Gardner, adjutant of one of those
+extemporized battalions of prisoners, brought me a letter he was
+intending to throw across the "dead line" to Sergt. Wallace W. Smith,
+requesting him to notify all enlisted men of the battalion when and
+where to assemble silently next morning in the dark, how to arm
+themselves, from whom to take orders, what signal to watch for, and
+other important matters. I glanced through it, and immediately said:
+"You'd better not entrust the communication to so hazardous a channel;
+wait an hour till I've done with my French lesson, and I'll cause it to
+be transmitted by the deaf-and-dumb alphabet." If I recollect rightly,
+either Lieutenant Tobey or Lieutenant Morton, both of the 58th
+Massachusetts, was in the class, and promised to convey the contents of
+the letter safely across to the soldiers by adroit finger manipulation.
+We were just finishing the French exercise, when Adjutant Gardner came
+greatly excited, and this conversation followed:
+
+
+"Good God, Colonel, the rebs have got that letter! I tied it to a stone
+and flung it a long ways over the 'dead line' to Wallace Smith. He
+appeared afraid to pick it up. A reb sentinel stepped away from his beat
+and got it."
+
+"I requested you to wait till I'd done reciting French, and I told you
+I'd then communicate it by the deaf-and-dumb alphabet."
+
+"Well, Colonel, I ought to have done so; but I was anxious to have the
+work done promptly, and I thought it was perfectly safe. I've tossed
+letters over to Smith several times. I'm worried to death about it.
+What's best to do?"
+
+"Was your name signed to it?"
+
+"No; but my name was on the envelope--an old letter envelope that I had
+when we came here."
+
+"Well, Gardner, this is a pretty piece of business! That letter of
+course will go very soon to Major Gee's headquarters, and then--there'll
+be the devil to pay!"
+
+"The sentinel handed the letter to the officer of the guard. What had I
+better say, if they send for me?"
+
+"Say you intended the letter to fall into their hands; that you meant it
+as a practical joke, wanted to get up another scare, and see the
+Johnnies prick up their ears again."
+
+"But, Colonel, like a fust-class fool I put a ten-dollar Confederate
+bill in the envelope. I wanted to give it to Sergeant Smith. That don't
+look as if I meant it to fall into their hands--does it?"
+
+"Gardner, this thing has an ugly look. You've knocked our plans of
+escape in the head--at least for the present. You've got yourself into a
+fix. They'll haul you up to headquarters. They'll prove by the letter
+that you've been deep in a plot that would have cost a good many lives.
+They're feeling ugly. They may hang or shoot you before sundown, as a
+warning to the rest of us to stop these plots to escape. They may send
+for you at any minute."
+
+"What had I better say or do?"
+
+"You'd better make yourself scarce for a while, till you've got a
+plausible story made up. Better disguise yourself and pass yourself off
+as somebody else; so gain time."
+
+"I have it, Colonel; I'll pass myself off as Estabrooks."
+
+
+Estabrooks was an officer of the 26th Mass., who had escaped at the
+crossing of the river Yadkin two weeks previously when we came from
+Richmond. Gardner was a handsome man and perhaps the best-dressed
+officer in prison; but he now disguised himself.[6] The transformation
+was complete. In half an hour a man came to me wearing a slouched hat
+and a very ragged suit of Confederate gray. He had been a play-actor
+before the war and knew how to conceal his identity. By his voice I
+recognized him as Gardner! "Well, Gardner," said I, "this surpasses His
+Satanic Majesty; or, as you would say, beats the devil!"--"Colonel," he
+replied, "I'm not Gardner. Gardner escaped; escaped at the crossing of
+the Yadkin River. I'm Estabrooks, H. L. Estabrooks, 2d Lieutenant, 26th
+Mass. Call me Estabrooks if you please."--"All right, Estabrooks it is."
+
+Hardly had we had time to whisper around this change of name, when the
+Confederate officer of the guard made his appearance with two or three
+soldiers, inquiring for the commissary of house number four. I was
+pointed out to him. In substance and almost in the exact words this
+dialogue ensued:
+
+
+"Colonel Sprague, are you commissary of this house?"
+
+"I have that honor."
+
+"I want to find Lieutenant Gardner."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Lieutenant Gardner."
+
+"Who's Lieutenant Gardner?"
+
+"I am told he's an officer in house number four; and as you are
+commissary, you can probably tell me where he is _at_."
+
+"Where he's what?"
+
+"Where he's _at_."
+
+
+This was the first time I had ever heard the word _at_ so used at the
+end of a sentence; but it expresses the meaning with admirable
+precision. I had a slight qualm at lying; but I remembered that even
+George Washington could tell a lie if necessary in war. Pacifying my
+conscience with the fact that we were _outside_ the house at the time, I
+said:
+
+
+"There's no such officer in house four. But I remember an officer of
+that name at Libby, handsomely dressed, a perfect dandy. I heard that he
+escaped at the crossing of the Yadkin River two weeks ago. Has he been
+recaptured, and is he going to be shot or hanged? Or have you a letter
+for him? What's the good news about Gardner?"
+
+"I only know," he replied, "that he's wanted at Major Gee's office, and
+he's an officer in house number four."
+
+"Estabrooks," said I to the man at my side, "do you know of a Lieutenant
+Gardner?"
+
+"I did know slightly such a man at Libby. You have described him well; a
+fop, a beau, a dandy; just about my size, but he didn't wear rags like I
+do."
+
+
+"Come with me," said I to the Confederate. "We'll go into the house and
+inquire if any one knows of a Lieutenant Gardner." We went in. There
+were perhaps thirty or forty inside who had got wind of what was going
+on. As we entered, I asked in a loud voice, "Does any officer in this
+house know anything of a Lieutenant Gardner?" Several smiled and
+declared it a very singular name. One wanted to know how it was spelled!
+A number were speaking at once. One said he escaped at the Yadkin; he
+knew he got away, for he "watched him till he got a long distance out of
+sight." Another knew a Henry J. Gardner, "a Know-Nothing" governor of
+Massachusetts, who knew enough to keep out of the army. Another affirmed
+that Gardner was dead; he had heard him say "I'm a dead man," and he
+wouldn't tell a lie! My memory is somewhat indistinct of all that was
+said; but Gardner is alleged to have whispered the officer thus: "I have
+been a gardener myself; and if Major Gee will parole me and give me good
+clothes and something to eat, I wouldn't mind becoming again a gardener
+in his employ." I recollect distinctly that the officer grew impatient
+and he finally asked me, "Do you say on your honor, Colonel, that you
+don't know a Lieut. Wm. O. Gardner in this house?" I answered, "I do";
+but I left him to guess whether I meant "I do _know_" or "I do _say_!" I
+quieted my conscientious scruples by remembering that the lieutenant's
+true name was not Wm. O. but Wm. C.! The baffled officer left very
+angry, and "_Where's Gardner at?_" passed into a conundrum.
+
+Late that afternoon, as I was engaged in the delightful employment of
+washing my fall-and-winter shirt, having for the first time since our
+arrival in Salisbury obtained sufficient water for that purpose, the
+order came for all officers to fall in and take the cars for Danville,
+Va. The juxtaposition of three or four hundred Yankee officers with
+eight thousand of their enlisted comrades-in-arms was getting
+dangerous.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] He had killed three men with his sword at the time of his capture.
+
+[6] "We run the boy into one of the houses, clipped his hair, shaved
+him, and placed a new robe on him."--_Letter_ of Capt. Wesley C. Howe to
+Colonel Sprague, Jan. 30, 1914.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+  From Salisbury to Danville--The Forlorn Situation--Effort to "Extract
+    Sunshine from Cucumbers"--The Vermin--The Prison Commandant a Yale
+    Man--Proposed Theatricals--Rules Adopted--Studies--Vote in Prison
+    for Lincoln and McClellan--Killing Time.
+
+
+At six o'clock, Wednesday evening, October 19, 1864, we officers, about
+350 in number, were packed in five freight cars, and the train was
+started for Danville, Va. The tops of the cars were covered with armed
+guards, two or three being also stationed within at the side door of
+each car. In the darkness about half-past nine Lieut. Joseph B. Simpson
+of the 11th Indiana slyly stole all the food from the haversacks of the
+guards at the door of our car and passed it round to us, while we loudly
+"cussed and discussed" slavery and secession! About midnight Captain
+Lockwood, Lieutenant Driscoll, and eight or ten other officers leaped
+from the cars. The guards opened fire upon them. Lockwood was shot dead.
+Several were recaptured, and some probably reached the Union lines in
+safety. We arrived at Danville at noon October 20th.
+
+The town at this time contained four, formerly six, military prisons,
+each a tobacco house about eighty to a hundred feet long by forty to
+fifty wide, three stories high, built of brick, low between joints. The
+officers were put into the building known as prison number three. We
+were informed by the guards that it had formerly contained about two
+hundred negro prisoners; but that some had died, others had been
+delivered to their masters or set at work on fortifications, and the
+number remaining just before our arrival was only sixty-four. These were
+removed to make room for us.
+
+Except about twenty large stout wooden boxes called spittoons, there was
+no furniture whatever in prison number three. Conjecture was rife as to
+the purpose of the Confederates in supplying us with spittoons and
+nothing else. They were too short for coffins, too large for wash bowls,
+too shallow for bathing tubs, too deep for tureens! To me much
+meditating on final causes, a vague suspicion at length arose that there
+was some mysterious relation between those twenty oblong boxes and a
+score of hogsheads of plug tobacco, said to be stored in the basement. A
+_tertium_ QUID, a solution of the tobacco, might afford a solution of
+the spittoon mystery!
+
+A dozen water buckets were put into each of the two upper rooms to which
+all the officers were restricted; also a small cylinder coal stove;
+nothing else until December, when another small stove was placed there.
+Winter came early and unusually cold. The river Dan froze thick. It was
+some weeks before we prevailed upon the prison commandant to replace
+with wood the broken-out glass in the upper rooms. The first floor was
+uninhabitable.
+
+So with no bed nor blanket; no chairs, benches, nor tables; no
+table-ware nor cooking utensils; not even shovel, poker, or coal-scoop;
+most of us were in a sorry plight. The little stoves, heated white-hot,
+would have been entirely inadequate to warm those rooms; but the coal
+was miserably deficient in quality as well as quantity. The fire often
+went out. To rekindle it, there was no other way than to upset the
+whole, emptying ashes and cinders on the floor. At best, the heat was
+obstructed by a compact ring of shivering officers, who had preempted
+positions nearest the stoves. They had taken upon themselves to "run"
+the thing; and they did it well. We called them "The Stove Brigade." In
+spite of their efforts, they like the rest suffered from cold.
+
+Three or four of us, as a sanitary measure, made it a point to see, if
+possible, the funny, or at least the bright side of everything, turn
+melancholy to mirth, shadow to sunshine. When every officer complained
+of cold, we claimed to anticipate the philosophers, Tyndall, Huxley, and
+the other physicists, in declaring that "heat is a mode of _motion_,"
+and brisk bodily exercise will infallibly demonstrate the fact! When, as
+was usually the case, all were hungry, we announced as a sure cure for
+indigestion, "stop _eating_!" When our prisoner chaplain Emerson on a
+Sunday afternoon prayed for the dear ones we expected to see no more,
+and even the roughest and most profane were in tears, we said with old
+Homer, "_Agathoi aridakrues andres_" ("Gallant men are easily moved to
+tears"), or with Bayard Taylor, "The bravest are the tenderest, the
+loving are the daring."
+
+Most humiliating of all was the inevitable plague of vermin. "Hard
+indeed," one officer was accustomed to say, "must have been Pharaoh's
+heart, and tougher yet his epidermis, if the lice of the third Egyptian
+plague were like those of Danville, and yet he would not 'let Israel
+go.'" Wearing the same clothing night and day, sitting on the bare
+floors, sleeping there in contact with companions not over-nice, no
+patient labor, no exterminating unguent, afforded much relief. We lost
+all squeamishness, all delicacy on the subject, all inclination for
+concealment. It was not a returned Danville prisoner who was reported to
+have gone into a drug store in New York stealthily scratching and
+saying, "I want some unguentum; don't want it for myself; only want it
+for a friend." But it was reported and believed that in April one of
+them entered an apothecary shop in Annapolis plying his finger-nails and
+hurriedly asking, "Have you any bmsquintum?"--"From your manner,"
+answered the courteous druggist, "I think what you want is
+unguentum."--"Yes, _run git 'em_; I guess that _is_ the true
+name."--"Unguentum, sir"; said the shopkeeper. "How much unguentum do
+you want?"--"Well, I reckon about two pound!"--"My dear sir, two pounds
+would kill all the lice in Maryland."--"Well, I vow I believe I've got
+'em!"
+
+Lieut.-Col. Robert C. Smith of Baltimore, who took command of the
+Danville prisons soon after our arrival, appeared to be kind-hearted,
+compassionate, but woefully destitute of what Mrs. Stowe calls
+"faculty." He was of medium height, spare build, fair complexion, sandy
+hair, blue eyes, of slightly stooping figure; on the whole rather
+good-looking. He was slow of speech, with a nasal twang that reminded me
+of Dr. Horace Bushnell. His face always wore a sad expression. He had
+been a student at Yale in the forties a few years before me. Once a
+prisoner himself in our hands and fairly treated, he sympathized with
+us. He had been wounded, shot through the right shoulder. When I visited
+on parole the other Danville prisons in February, a Yankee soldier was
+pointed out to me as wearing Colonel Smith's blood-stained coat, and
+another was said to be wearing his vest. I had repeated interviews with
+him, in which he expressed regret at not being able to make us more
+comfortable. He said more than once to me, "I have no heart for this
+business. It requires a man without any heart to keep a military prison.
+I have several times asked to be relieved and sent to the front." An
+officer of forceful executive ability might have procured for us lumber
+for benches, more coal or wood for the stoves, some straw or hay for
+bedding, blankets or cast-off clothing for the half naked; possibly a
+little food, certainly a supply of reading matter from the charitably
+disposed. Single instances of his compassion I have mentioned. I shall
+have occasion to speak of another. But the spectacle of the hopeless
+mass of misery in the four Danville prisons seemed to render him
+powerless, if not indifferent. As Mrs. Browning puts it:
+
+                            A red-haired child,
+    Sick in a fever, if you touch him once,
+    Though but so little as with a finger-tip,
+    Will set you weeping; but a million sick!
+    You could as soon weep for the rule of three,
+    Or compound fractions!
+
+Like too many officers both Union and Confederate, he was often in
+liquor; liquor was always in him. This "knight of the rueful
+countenance," of the sad heart, the mourning voice, the disabled right
+arm, and the weakness for apple-jack!--his only hope was to have an
+exchange of prisoners; but Lincoln and Stanton and Grant would not
+consent to that. The last I heard of him was when a letter of his was
+shown me by Lieutenant Washington, a Confederate, a distant relative of
+the great George. In it Smith, who had been absent a week from Danville,
+complained that he had had "no liquor for three days," and that he was
+"painfully sober"!
+
+"Necessity," says the old apothegm, "is the mother of invention." It was
+surprising, how much we accomplished in a few weeks towards making
+ourselves comfortable. Bone or wood was carved into knives, forks,
+spoons, buttons, finger-rings, masonic or army badges, tooth-picks,
+bosom pins, and other ornaments; corn-cobs were made into smoking
+pipes; scraps of tin or sheet-iron were fashioned into plates for eating
+or dishes for cooking; shelves were made by tying long wood splinters
+together; and many "spittoons," which were soon rendered superfluous,
+because the two entire rooms were transformed into vast spittoons, were
+inverted, and made useful as seats which we called sofas.
+
+Many ingeniously wrought specimens of Yankee ingenuity were sold
+clandestinely to the rebel guards, who ventured to disobey strict
+orders. No skinflint vender of wooden nutmegs, leather pumpkin-seeds,
+horn gunflints, shoe-peg oats, huckleberry-leaf tea, bass-wood cheeses,
+or white-oak hams, ever hankered more for a trade. Besides the products
+of our prison industry, they craved watches, rings, gold chains, silver
+spurs, gilt buttons, genuine breast-pins, epaulets; anything that was
+not manufactured in the Confederacy. Most of all, they longed for
+greenbacks in exchange for rebel currency. So in one way or another many
+of us contrived to get a little money of some sort. With it we could buy
+of the sutler, who visited us from time to time, rice, flour, beans,
+bacon, onions, dried apple, red peppers, sorghum syrup, vinegar, etc.
+
+Perhaps the best result of our engaging in handicraft work was the
+relief from unspeakable depression of spirits. Some of us saw the
+importance of making diversion on a large scale. To this end we planned
+to start a theatre. Major Wm. H. Fry, of the 16th Pa. Cavalry, who knew
+all about vaudeville in Philadelphia, was a wise adviser. Young Gardner,
+who had been an actor, heartily joined in the movement. I procured a
+worn-out copy of Shakespeare. It seemed best to begin with the
+presentation of the first act in _Hamlet_. Colonel Smith and other rebel
+officers promised to aid us. We assigned the parts and commenced
+studying and rehearsing. Gardner was to be Hamlet; Lieut.-Col. Theodore
+Gregg, 45th Pa., was to be Claudius, the usurping king; the smooth-faced
+Capt. William Cook was to be the queen-mother Gertrude; Capt. W. F.
+Tiemann, 159th N. Y., was to personate Marcellus; Lieut. C. H. Morton of
+Fairhaven, Mass., I think, was Horatio; and I, having lost about forty
+pounds of flesh since my capture--it was thought most appropriate that I
+should be the Ghost! Every morning for some weeks on the empty first
+floor we read and rehearsed, and really made fine progress. But when we
+got ready to produce in theatric style, with slight omissions, the first
+act, the rebels seemed suspicious of some ulterior design. They refused
+to furnish a sword for Hamlet, a halberd for Marcellus, muskets for
+Bernardo and Francisco, a calico gown for the queen, or even a white
+shirt for the Ghost. This was discouraging. When the lovely queen-mother
+Gertrude appealed to her son--
+
+    Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off,--
+
+he answered, "I swear I can't do it!" One November morning, as we were
+rehearsing and shivering on the windy first floor, he ejaculated with
+some emphasis, and with ungentle expletives not found in the original
+text,
+
+    The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold;
+
+"I move, Colonel, that we 'bust up' this theatre." So the "legitimate
+drama" vanished from Danville.
+
+About this time my copy of the Greek New Testament was stolen from me,
+an instance, perhaps, of piety run mad.
+
+A week or two before this, the lower room, in which I then lodged,
+containing about a hundred and seventy officers, was getting into such a
+condition that I felt it my duty to call a meeting to see what measures
+could be adopted to promote comfort and decency. I was not the senior in
+rank, but Colonel Carle did not feel himself authorized to issue
+orders. Some sort of government must be instituted at once. Nearly all
+recognized the necessity of prompt action and strict discipline. A
+committee was appointed consisting of myself, Major John W. Byron, 88th
+N. Y., and another officer whose name escapes me, to draw up rules and
+regulations. We presented the following:
+
+    RULES UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED IN THE LOWER ROOM,
+    DANVILLE, VA., PRISON, OCT. 26, 1864:
+
+    1. The room shall be thoroughly policed (swept, etc.) four times
+        each day by the messes in succession; viz., at sunrise and
+        sunset, and immediately after breakfast and dinner.
+
+    2. There shall be no washing in this room.
+
+    3. No emptying slops into spittoons.
+
+    4. No washing in the soup buckets or water buckets.
+
+    5. No shaking of clothes or blankets in this room.
+
+    6. No cooking inside the stoves.
+
+    7. No loitering in the yard to the inconvenience of others.
+
+    8. No person shall be evidently filthy or infested with vermin.
+
+    9. No indecent, profane, or ungentlemanly language in this room.
+
+    10. No conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman about these
+        premises.
+
+    11. No talking aloud at night after nine o'clock.
+
+    12. An officer of the day shall be appointed daily by the senior
+        officer, whose duty shall be to see that these rules are
+        strictly enforced, and to report to the senior officer any
+        violation thereof.
+
+    13. In case of any alleged violation of any of these rules, the
+        senior officer of the room shall appoint a Court[7] to consist
+        of thirteen disinterested officers, who shall fairly try and
+        determine the matter, and in case of conviction the offender's
+        rations shall be stopped, or the commander of the prison be
+        requested to confine the offender in a cell according to the
+        sentence of the Court; and it shall be the duty of every officer
+        to have such offender court-martialed after rejoining his
+        command.
+
+        For the Committee. H. B. Sprague, Oct, 26, 1864.
+
+The prison commandant promised that he would execute any sentence short
+of capital punishment. But one case was tried by such court. The offense
+was a gross violation of rule 9. The culprit was let off with a sharp
+reprimand by General Hayes; but my first act after the exchange of
+prisoners was to prefer charges and specifications against him. The
+beast was court-martialed at Annapolis in the latter part of July, '65.
+
+The observance of these rules wrought wonders in correcting evils which
+had become almost unendurable, and in promoting cheerfulness, good
+behavior, and mutual esteem.
+
+Many letters were written to us. Few of them reached their destination.
+The first I received was from Miss Martha Russell, a lady of fine
+literary ability, a friend of Edgar A. Poe, living at North Branford,
+Conn. In raising my company (Co. H., 13th Conn.), I had enlisted her
+brother Alfred. Under strict military discipline he had become a
+valuable soldier, and I had appointed him my first sergeant. At the
+battle of Irish Bend, La., in which I was myself wounded, he was shot
+through the neck. The wound seemed mortal, but I secured special care
+for him, and his life was spared as by miracle. His sister's letter
+brought a ray of sunshine to several of us. It assured us that we were
+tenderly cared for at home. She quoted to cheer us the fine lines of the
+Cavalier poet Lovelace,
+
+    Stone walls do not a prison make,
+      Nor iron bars a cage;
+    Minds innocent and quiet take
+      That for a hermitage.
+
+A well-grounded conviction prevailed among the prisoners that the
+Confederate government was anxious to secure an exchange of prisoners,
+but that the Federal government would not consent. The reason was
+evident enough. The Confederate prisoners in the North, as a rule, were
+fit for military duty; the Union prisoners in the South were physically
+unfit. A general exchange would have placed at once, say, more than
+forty thousand fresh soldiers in the rebel ranks, but very few in ours.
+Conscription for military service had been tried in the North with
+results so bitter that it seemed unwise to attempt it again. Better let
+the unfortunates in southern prisons perish in silence--that appeared
+the wisest policy. But to us prisoners it appeared a mistake and gross
+neglect of duty. Between our keen sense of the wrong in allowing us to
+starve, and our love for Lincoln and the Union, there was a struggle.
+Our patriotism was put to the test on the day of the Presidential
+election, Tuesday, November 8th. Discouraging as was the outlook for us
+personally, we had confidence in the government and in the justice of
+our cause. Pains was taken to obtain a full and fair vote in the
+officers' prison. There were two hundred seventy-six for Lincoln;
+ninety-one for McClellan. Under the circumstances the result was
+satisfactory.
+
+Very earnest, if not acrimonious, were the discussions that immediately
+preceded and followed. Some of us realized their importance, not so much
+in arriving at a correct decision on the questions at issue, as in
+preventing mental stagnation likely to result in imbecility if not
+actual idiocy. By the stimulus of employment of some kind we must fight
+against the apathy, the hopeless loss of will power, into which several
+of our comrades seemed sinking. Mrs. Browning well says:
+
+                        Get leave to work
+    In this world,--'tis the best you get at all.
+                    ... Get work; get work;
+    Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get!
+
+Some of us started historical debates, and new views were presented
+which furnished both amusement and instruction. One colonel, more
+redoubtable in battle than in dialectics, who had been shot through from
+breast to back, gravely informed us that the geometer Euclid was an
+early English writer! A kindly visitor, Dr. Holbrook, made me a present
+of Hitchcock's _Elementary Geology_. It was not quite up to date, having
+been published about twenty-five years before, but I found the study
+interesting. Grieved at having lost from my books three years in
+military service, I endeavored with three or four companions to make up
+for the deficiency by taking lessons in French. Our teacher was Captain
+Cook, already mentioned as teaching us French at Salisbury. As we had no
+books, the instruction was oral. I was delighted to observe how much a
+knowledge of Latin facilitated the acquisition of the modern tongue. A
+few weeks later upon the arrival of Major George Haven Putnam, Adjutant
+at that time of the 176th N. Y., several of us commenced under him the
+study of German. Here too the teaching was oral; but I was able to buy
+Oehlschlaeger's _German Reader_; took special pleasure in memorizing some
+of the selections, particularly from the poets Gleim, Claudius, Goethe,
+Schiller, and Uhland; and I was already familiar with some stanzas of
+Arndt's noble _The German Fatherland_, sung so often to me by my
+Lieutenant Meisner, slain by my side in battle. Some of those songs
+still ring in my ears. General Hayes, Major Putnam, and two or three
+others took lessons in Spanish from a native of Mexico, 2d Lieut. John
+Gayetti (I think that was his name), of Battery B, 2d Pa. Artillery.
+
+Checkerboards and chessboards were prepared from the rudest materials,
+and many were the games with which some of our comrades sought to
+beguile the weary hours. Capt. Frank H. Mason of the 12th Cavalry had
+the reputation of being our best chess player and young Adjutant Putnam
+was his most persistent opponent.
+
+No one needs to be told that old soldiers are great story-tellers,
+drawing upon their imagination for facts. This talent was assiduously
+cultivated in our prison.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] See Appendix.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+  Exact Record of Rations in Danville--Opportunity to Cook--Daily
+    Routine of Proceedings from Early Dawn till Late at Night.
+
+
+Our imprisonment at Danville lasted from October 20, '64, to February
+17, '65, one hundred and twenty days. I kept a careful daily record of
+the rations issued to us, as did also Lieut. Watson W. Bush, 2d N. Y.
+"Mounted Rifles." After our removal from Danville to Richmond for
+exchange, we compared our memoranda, and found they substantially
+agreed. During the one hundred and twenty days the issues were as
+follows:
+
+    _Bread._ A loaf every morning. It was made of unsifted corn-meal,
+    ground "cobs and all." Pieces several inches in length of cobs
+    unground were sometimes contained in it. It always seemed wholesome,
+    though moist, almost watery. Its dimensions were a little less than
+    7 inches long, 3 or 4 wide, and 3 thick. I managed to bring home a
+    loaf, and we were amazed at the shrinkage to a quarter of its
+    original size. It had become very hard. We broke it in two, and
+    found inside what appeared to be a dishcloth!
+
+    _Meat._ Forty-three times. I estimated the weight at from 2 to 5 or
+    6 ounces. In it sometimes were hides, brains, heads, tails, jaws
+    with teeth, lights, livers, kidneys, intestines, and nameless
+    portions of the animal economy.
+
+    _Soup._ Sixty-two times; viz., bean soup forty-seven times; cabbage
+    nine times; gruel six. It was the thinnest decoction of small black
+    beans, the slightest infusion of cabbage, or the most attenuated
+    gruel of corn-cob meal, that a poetic imagination ever dignified
+    with the name of _soup_!
+
+    _Potatoes._ Seven times. Seldom was one over an inch in diameter.
+
+    _Salt fish._ Five times. They call it "hake." It was good. "Hunger
+    the best sauce."
+
+    _Sorghum syrup._ Three times. It was known as "corn-stalk molasses."
+    It was not bad.
+
+Nothing else was given us for food by the Confederates at Danville. The
+rations appeared to deteriorate and diminish as the winter advanced. My
+diary shows that in the fifty-three days after Christmas we received
+meat only three times.
+
+Manifestly such supplies are insufficient to sustain life very long. By
+purchase from the rebel sutler who occasionally visited us, or by
+surreptitious trading with the guards, we might make additions to our
+scanty allowance. I recollect that two dollars of irredeemable treasury
+notes would buy a gill of rice or beans or corn, a turnip, onion,
+parsnip, or small pickled cucumber!
+
+The Confederate cooking needed to be supplemented. Here the cylinder
+coal-stoves were made useful. The tops of them were often covered with
+toasting corn bread. Tin pails and iron kettles of various capacities,
+from a pint to several quarts, suspended from the top by wooden hooks a
+foot or two in length, each vessel resting against the hot stove and
+containing rice, beans, Indian corn, dried apple, crust coffee, or other
+delicacy potable or edible slowly preparing, made the whole look like a
+big black chandelier with pendants. We were rather proud of our prison
+cuisine. Cooking was also performed on and in an old worn-out
+cook-stove, which a few of our millionaires, forming a joint-stock
+company for the purpose, had bought for two hundred Confederate dollars
+late in the season, and which the kind prison commander had permitted
+them to place near the southwest end of the upper room, running the pipe
+out of a window. Culinary operations were extensively carried on also in
+the open yard outside, about forty feet by twenty, at the northeast end
+of the building. Here the officer would build a diminutive fire of chips
+or splinters between bricks, and boil or toast or roast his allowance.
+We were grouped in messes of five to ten or twelve each. Happy the club
+of half a dozen that could get money enough and a big enough kettle to
+have their meal prepared jointly.
+
+Such was the case with my own group after the lapse of about two months.
+We had been pinched; but one morning Captain Cook came to me with
+radiant face and said: "Colonel, I have good news for you. _I_'m going
+to run this mess. My folks in New York have made arrangement with
+friends in England to supply me with money, and I've just received
+through the lines a hundred dollars. We'll live like fighting-cocks!"
+Adjt. J. A. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav., was our delighted cook. Shivering for
+an hour over the big kettle amid the ice and snow of the back yard, he
+would send up word, "Colonel, set the table for dinner." To "set the
+table" consisted in sweeping a space six or eight feet square, and
+depositing there the plates, wood, tin, or earthen (mine was of wood; it
+had cost me a week's labor in carving). The officers already mentioned,
+Cook, Clark, Bush, Sprague, with Lieut. E. H. Wilder, 9th N. Y. Cav.,
+sit around in the elegant Turkish fashion, or more classical recline
+like the ancients in their symposia, each resting on his left elbow,
+with face as near as possible to the steaming kettle, that not a smell
+may be lost!
+
+Wood was scarce. It was used with most rigid economy. Many joists
+overhead had been sawed off by Lieut. Lewis R. Titus of the _Corps
+D'Afrique_, using a notched table-knife for a saw. In this way the
+Vermont Yankee obtained pieces for cooking, but he weakened the
+structure till some officers really feared the roof might come tumbling
+about our heads; and I remember that the prison commandant, visiting the
+upper room and gazing heavenward, more than once ejaculated irreverently
+the name of the opposite region!
+
+Through the kindness of a Confederate officer or bribing the guards a
+log four or five feet in length is sometimes brought in. Two or three
+instantly attack it with a blunt piece of iron hoop to start the
+cleaving, and in less time than one could expect such a work to be done
+with axes it is split fine with wooden wedges.
+
+Naturally one of the ever-recurring topics of discussion was the
+glorious dishes we could prepare, if we but had the materials, or of
+which we would partake if we ever got home again. In our memorandum
+books we are careful to note down the street and number of the most
+famous restaurant in each of the largest cities, like Delmonico's in New
+York or Young's in Boston.
+
+With few exceptions one day is like another. At earliest dawn each of
+the two floors is covered with about a hundred and seventy-five
+prostrate forms of officers who have been trying to sleep. Soon some one
+of them calls in a loud voice. "_Buckets for water!_" The call is
+repeated. Five or six, who have predetermined to go early to the river
+Dan that seemed nearly a quarter of a mile distant, start up and seize
+large wooden pails. They pass to the lower floor. One of them says to
+the sentinel on duty at the southwest corner door, "Sentry, call the
+sergeant of the guard; we want to go for water." He complies. In five,
+ten, or fifteen minutes, a non-commissioned officer, with some half a
+dozen heavily armed soldiers, comes, the bolts slide, the doors swing,
+our squad passes out. They are escorted down the hill to the river, and
+back to prison. By this time it is broad daylight. Many are still lying
+silent on the floor. Most have risen. Some are washing, or rather wiping
+with wet handkerchief, face and hands; others are preparing to cook,
+splitting small blocks of wood for a fire of splinters; a few are
+nibbling corn bread; here and there one is reading the New Testament.
+There is no change or adjustment of clothing, for the night dress is the
+same as the day dress. We no longer wonder how the cured paralytic in
+Scripture could obey the command, "Take up thy bed and walk"; for at
+heaviest the bed is but a blanket!
+
+Now, for a half-hour, vengeance on vermin that have plagued us during
+the night! We daily solve the riddle of the fishermen's answer to "What
+luck?" the question which puzzled to death
+
+    "The blind old bard of Scio's rocky isle,"
+
+    "_As many as we caught we left; as many as we could not catch we
+    carry with us_!"
+
+About eight o'clock the cry is heard from the southwest end of the room,
+"Fall in for roll-call! fall in!" to which several would impudently add,
+"Here he comes! here he is!" A tall, slim, stooping, beardless,
+light-haired phenomenon, known as "the roll-call sergeant," enters with
+two musketeers. We officers having formed in two ranks on the northwest
+side of the room, he passes down the front from left to right slowly
+counting. Setting down the number in a memorandum book, he commands in a
+squeaky feminine voice, "Break ranks," which most of us have already
+done. Much speculation arose as to the nature and status of this
+singular being. His face was smooth and childlike, yet dry and wrinkled,
+so that it was impossible to tell whether he was fifteen or fifty. A
+committee was said to have waited upon him, and with much apparent
+deference asked him as to his nativity, his age, and whether he was
+human or divine, married or single, man or woman. They said he answered
+sadly, "Alas! I'm no angel, but a married man, thirty-seven years old,
+from South Carolina. I have three children who resemble me."
+
+Immediately after roll-call, corn bread is brought in for breakfast. It
+is in large squares about two feet in length and breadth, the top of
+each square being marked for cutting into twenty or twenty-five rations.
+Colonel Hooper and Capt. D. Tarbell receive the whole from the rebel
+commissary, and then distribute to each mess its portion. The mess
+commissary endeavors to cut it into equal oblong loaves. To make sure of
+a fair distribution, one officer turns his back, and one after another
+lays his hand upon a loaf and asks, "Whose is this?" The officer who has
+faced about names some one as the recipient.
+
+Clear the way now for sweepers. From one end of the room to the other
+they ply their coarse wooden brooms. Some officers are remarkably neat,
+and will scrape their floor space with pieces of glass from the broken
+windows; a few are listless, sullen, utterly despondent, regardless of
+surroundings, apparently sinking into imbecility; the majority are
+taking pains to keep up an appearance of respectability.
+
+Many who have been kept awake through the night by cold or rheumatism
+now huddle around the stoves and try to sleep. Most of the remainder, as
+the weeks pass, glide into something like a routine of occupations. For
+several weeks I spent an hour or two every day carving with a broken
+knife-blade a spoon from a block of hard wood. Sporadic wood-splitting
+is going on, and cooking appears to be one of the fine arts. An hour
+daily of oral exercises in French, German, Spanish, Latin, or Italian,
+under competent teachers, after the Sauveur or Berlitz method, amused
+and to some extent instructed many. Our cavalry adjutant, Dutch Clark,
+so called from his skill in the "Pennsylvania Dutch" dialect made
+perhaps a hundred familiar with the morning salutation, "_Haben Sie gut
+geschlafen?_" ("Have you slept well?") Lieut. Henry Vander Weyde, A. D.
+C., 1st Div., 6th Corps, the artist chum of our principal German
+instructor, amused many by his pencil portraits of "Slim Jim," the
+nondescript "roll-call sergeant" of uncertain age and gender; also of
+some of the sentries, and one or two of his fellow prisoners. A worn-out
+pack of fifty-two cards, two or three chess and checker boards of our
+manufacture, and twenty-four rudely carved checker-men and thirty-two
+fantastic chess-men, furnished frequent amusement to those who
+understood the games.
+
+On an average once in two days we received about one o'clock what was
+called soup. We were told, and we believed it to be true, that all the
+rich nitrogenous portion had been carefully skimmed off for use
+elsewhere; not thrown away as the fresh maid threw the "scum" that
+formed on top of the milk!
+
+The topic of most frequent discussion was the prospect of an exchange of
+prisoners. Our would-be German conversationalists never forgot to ask,
+"_Haben Sie etwas gehoerten von Auswechseln der Gefangenen?_" ("Have you
+heard anything of exchange of prisoners?") It was hard to believe that
+our government would leave us to die of starvation.
+
+At the close of the soup hour and after another turn at sweeping, almost
+every officer again sat down or sat up to rid himself of the _pediculidae
+vestimenti_. We called it "skirmishing"; it was rather a pitched battle.
+The humblest soldier and the brevet major-general must daily strip and
+fight. Ludicrous, were it not so abominable, was this mortifying
+necessity. No account of prison life in Danville would be complete
+without it. Pass by it hereafter in sorrow and silence, as one of those
+duties which Cicero says are to be done but not talked about.
+
+The occupations of the morning are now largely resumed, but many prefer
+to lie quiet on the floor for an hour.
+
+An interesting incident that might happen at any time is the arrival in
+prison of a Confederate newspaper. A commotion near the stairway! Fifty
+or a hundred cluster around an officer with a clear strong voice, and
+listen as he reads aloud the news, the editorials, and the selections.
+The rebels are represented as continually gaining victories, but
+singularly enough the northern armies are always drawing nearer!
+
+Toward sunset many officers walk briskly half an hour to and fro the
+length of the room for exercise.
+
+Another roll-call by the mysterious heterogeneous if not
+hermaphroditical Carolina sergeant!
+
+Brooms again by the mess on duty. Again oral language-lessons by Cook
+and Putnam. Then discussions or story-telling.
+
+It is growing dark. A candle is lighted making darkness visible. We have
+many skilful singers, who every evening "discourse most excellent
+music." They sing _Just before the battle, mother; Do they miss me at
+home? We shall meet, but we shall miss him_ (a song composed on the
+death of one of my Worcester pupils by Hon. Charles Washburn); _Nearer,
+My God, to thee_, etc. From the sweet strains of affection or devotion,
+which suffuse the eyes as we begin to lie down for the night, the music
+passes to the _Star-spangled Banner_, _Rally round the flag_, _John
+Brown's body lies a'mouldering in the grave_, and the like. Often the
+"concert" concludes with a comic Dutch song by Captain Cafferty, Co. D,
+1st N. Y. Cav.
+
+Sleep begins to seal many eyelids, when someone with a loud voice heard
+through the whole room starts a series of sharp critical questions,
+amusing or censorious, thus:
+
+
+"Who don't skirmish?" This is answered loudly from another quarter.
+
+"Slim Jim." The catechism proceeds, sometimes with two or three distinct
+responses.
+
+"Who cheats the graveyard?"
+
+"Colonel Sprague."
+
+"Who sketched Fort Darling?"
+
+"Captain Tripp." (He was caught sketching long before, and was refused
+exchange.)
+
+"Who never washes?"
+
+"Lieutenant Screw-my-upper-jaw-off." (His was an unpronounceable foreign
+name.)
+
+"Who knows everything?"
+
+"General Duffie." (Duffie was a brave officer, of whom more anon.)
+
+"Who don't know anything?"
+
+"The fools that talk when they should be asleep." (The querists subside
+at last.)
+
+
+For warmth we lie in contact with each other "spoon-fashion," in groups
+of three or more. I had bought a heavy woolen shawl for twenty
+Confederate dollars, and under it were Captain Cook, Adjutant Clark, and
+Lieutenant Wilder; I myself wearing my overcoat, and snuggling up to my
+friend Cook. All four lay as close as possible facing in the same
+direction. The night wears slowly away. When the floor seemed
+intolerably hard, one of us would say aloud, "Spoon!" and all four would
+flop over, and rest on the other side. So we vibrated back and forth
+from nine o'clock till dawn. We were not comfortable, but in far better
+circumstances than most of the prisoners. Indeed Captain Cook repeatedly
+declared he owed his life to our blanket.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+  Continual Hope of Exchange of Prisoners--"Flag-of-Truce
+    Fever!"--Attempted Escape by Tunneling--Repeated Escapes by Members
+    of Water Parties, and how we Made the Roll-Call Sergeant's Count
+    Come Out all Right every Time--Plot to Break Out by Violence, and
+    its Tragic End.
+
+
+Our principal hope for relief from the increasing privations of prison
+life and from probable exhaustion, sickness, and death, lay in a
+possible exchange of prisoners. A belief was prevalent that the patients
+in hospital would be the first so favored. Hence strenuous efforts were
+sometimes made to convince the apothecary whom we called doctor, and who
+often visited us, that a prisoner was ill enough to require removal.
+Once in the institution, the patients got better food, something like a
+bed, medical attendance daily, and a more comfortable room. Some of them
+were shamming, lying in two senses and groaning when the physicians were
+present, but able to sit up and play euchre the rest of the day and half
+the night. This peculiar disease, this eagerness to get into hospital or
+remain there till exchanged by flag of truce, was known as the
+"flag-of-truce fever" or "flag-of-truce-on-the-brain!"
+
+I recall one striking instance. Lieutenant Gardner, already mentioned,
+had received six or eight hundred dollars in Confederate currency as the
+price of a gold watch. But like the prodigal in Scripture he was now in
+a far country, and had wasted his substance in what he called
+"righteous" living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty
+famine in that corner of the lower room, and he began to be in want. And
+he would fain have filled his belly with corn-cob-meal bread, or spoiled
+black beans, or the little potatoes which the swine didn't eat. And no
+man gave him enough. And he determined to go to hospital. He gave out
+that he was desperately sick. I at this time had "quarters" on the floor
+above. Word was brought to me that my friend was mortally ill, and would
+thank me to come down and take his last message to his relatives.
+Alarmed, I instantly went down. I found him with two or three splitting
+a small log of wood!
+
+
+"Gardner, I hear you are a little 'under the weather.'"
+
+"Dying, Colonel, dying!"
+
+"What appears to be your disease?"
+
+"Flag-o'-truce-on-the-brain!"
+
+"Ah, you've got the exchange fever?"
+
+"Yes; bad."
+
+"Pulse run high?"
+
+"Three hundred a minute."
+
+"Anything I can do for you?"
+
+"Yes, Colonel, beseech that fool doctor to send me to hospital. Tell him
+I'm on my last legs. Tell him I only want to die there. Appeal to him in
+behalf of my poor wife and babies." (Gardner, as I well knew, was a
+bachelor, and had no children--to speak of.)
+
+"Well, Lieutenant, I'll do anything I properly can for you. Is there
+anything else?"
+
+"Yes, Colonel; lend me your overcoat to wear to hospital; I'll send it
+back at once."
+
+"But, Lieutenant, you can't get into the hospital. Your cheeks are too
+rosy; you're the picture of health."
+
+"I'm glad you mentioned that, Colonel. I'll fix that. You'll see."
+
+
+Next morning he watched at the window, and when he saw the doctor
+coming, he swallowed a large pill of plug tobacco. The effect was more
+serious than he expected. In a few minutes he became sick in earnest,
+and was frightened. A deathlike pallor supervened. When the doctor
+reached him, there was a genuine fit of vomiting. The story runs that
+Captain Tiemann made a pathetic appeal in behalf of the imaginary twin
+babies, that the doctor diagnosed it as a clear case of puerperal (which
+he pronounced "puerp[=e]rial") fever complicated with symptoms of
+cholera infantum, and ordered him to hospital at once! I loaned the
+patient my overcoat, which he sent back directly. His recovery seemed
+miraculous. In a week or two he returned from his delightful outing.
+This was in the latter part of November.
+
+Previously, for some weeks, Captain Howe and three or four other strong
+and determined officers managed to get into the cellar of a one-story
+building contiguous to ours and thence to excavate a tunnel out beyond
+the line on which the sentinels were perpetually pacing to and fro. I
+was too feeble to join in the enterprise, but hoped to improve the
+opportunity to escape when the work was done. Unfortunately the arching
+top of the tunnel was too near the surface of the ground, and the thin
+crust gave way under the weight of a sentry. He yelled "Murder!" Two or
+three of our diggers came scurrying back. The guard next to him shouted,
+"You Yanks! you G--d d--d Yanks!" and fired into the deep hole. No more
+tunneling at Danville.[8]
+
+More successful and more amusing were several attempts by individual
+officers one at a time. The water parties of four to eight went under a
+strong guard two or three times a day down a long hill to the river Dan.
+On the slope alongside the path were a number of large brick ovens,[9]
+in which, we were told, the Confederates used to bake those big squares
+of corn bread. The iron doors when we passed were usually open. On the
+way back from the river, one officer on some pretense or other would lag
+behind the rearmost soldier of the guard, who would turn to hurry him
+up. The next officer, as soon as the soldier's back was turned, would
+dodge into an open oven, and the careless guards now engaged in a loud
+and passionate controversy about slavery or secession would not miss
+him! Then, as night came on, the negroes in the vicinity, who, like all
+the rest of the colored people, were friendly to us, would supply the
+escaped officer with food and clothing, and pilot him on his way
+rejoicing toward the Union lines. One by one, six officers escaped in
+that way, and many of us began to look forward to the time when our turn
+would come to try the baking virtues of those ovens!
+
+But it was important that the escaped officer should not be missed. How
+should we deceive the nondescript that we called "the roll-call
+sergeant"? Morning and evening he carefully counted every one. How make
+the census tally with the former enumerations? Yankee ingenuity was here
+put to a severe test; but Lieutenant Titus, before mentioned, solved the
+problem. With his table-knife saw he cut a hole about two feet square in
+the floor near the northeast corner of the upper room. A nicely fitting
+trapdoor completed the arrangement. Through this hole, helped by a rude
+rope ladder of strips of rags, and hoisted to the shoulders of a tall
+man by strong arms from below, a nimble officer could quickly ascend.
+Now those in the lower room were counted first. When they broke ranks,
+and the human automaton faced to the west and moved slowly towards the
+stairs with three or four "Yanks" clustering at his side in earnest
+conversation, the requisite number of spry young prisoners would "shin
+up" the ladder, emerge, "deploy," and be counted over again in the upper
+room! The thing worked to a charm. Not one of the six was missed.
+
+Unfortunately, however, two or three of them were recaptured and again
+incarcerated in Libby. The Richmond authorities thereupon telegraphed to
+Colonel Smith, asking how those officers escaped from Danville. Smith,
+surprised, ordered a recount. The trapdoor did its duty. "All present!"
+Finally he answered, "No prisoner has escaped from Danville." The rebel
+commissary of prisons at Richmond, Gen. J. H. Winder, then telegraphed
+the names of the recaptured officers. Smith looks on his books: there
+are those names, sure enough! The mystery must be solved. He now sends
+his adjutant to count us about noon. We asked him what it meant. He told
+us it was reported that several officers had escaped. We replied,
+"That's too good to be true." He counted very slowly and with
+extraordinary precision. He kept his eye on the staircase as he
+approached it. Six officers flew up the ladder as we huddled around him.
+It was almost impossible to suppress laughter at the close, when he
+declared, "I'll take my oath no prisoner has escaped from this prison."
+But there were those names of the missing, and there was our
+ill-disguised mirth. Smith resorted to heroic measures. He came in with
+two or three of his staff and a man who was said to be a professor of
+mathematics. This was on the 8th of November, 1864. He made all officers
+of the lower room move for a half-hour into the upper room, and there
+fall in line with the rest. His adjutant called the roll in reality.
+Each as his name was read aloud was made to step forward and cross to
+the other side. Of course no one could answer for the absent six. I
+doubt if he ever learned the secret of that trapdoor. The professor of
+mathematics promised to bring me a Geometry. About two weeks later,
+November 24th, he brought me a copy of Davies's _Legendre_.
+
+On the 9th of December, while our senior officer, General Hayes, was
+sick in hospital, the next in rank, Gen. A. N. Duffie, of the First
+Cavalry Division of Sheridan's army, fresh from the French service, with
+which he had campaigned in Algeria, where he was wounded nine times,
+suddenly conceived a plot to break out and escape. Two companies of
+infantry had arrived in the forenoon and stacked their arms in plain
+sight on the level ground about twenty rods distant. Duffie's plan was
+to rush through the large open door when a water party returning with
+filled buckets should be entering, seize those muskets, overpower the
+guard, immediately liberate the thousand or fifteen hundred Union
+prisoners in the three other Danville prisons, and push off to our lines
+in East Tennessee. He had Sheridan's _elan_, not Grant's cool-headed
+strategy. With proper preparation and organization, such as Hayes would
+have insisted upon, it might have been a success. He called us, field
+officers about twenty, together and laid the matter before us. No vote
+was taken, but I think a majority were opposed to the whole scheme. He
+was disposed to consider himself, though a prisoner, as still vested
+with authority to command all of lower rank, and he expected them to
+obey him without question. In this view many acquiesced, but others
+dissented. By his request, though doubtful of his right to command and
+in feeble health, I drew up a pledge for those to sign who were willing
+to engage in the projected rising and would promise to obey. It was
+found that at least one hundred and fifty could be counted on. Colonel
+Ralston, previously mentioned, was the chief opponent of the outbreak,
+but he recognized Duffie's authority and insisted upon our submission
+to it. Similar appeared to be the attitude of the following colonels:
+
+Gilbert H. Prey, 104th N. Y.
+
+James Carle, 191st Pa.
+
+T. B. Kaufman, 209th Pa.
+
+W. Ross Hartshorne, 190th Pa.
+
+Of the lieutenant-colonels, most of the following doubted the success,
+but would do their best to promote it, if commanded:
+
+Charles H. Tay, 10th N. J.
+
+Theodore Gregg, 45th Pa.
+
+G. A. Moffett, 94th N. Y.
+
+J. S. Warner, 121st Pa.
+
+George Hamett, 147th N. Y.
+
+Charles H. Hooper, 24th Mass.
+
+Homer B. Sprague, 13th Conn.
+
+So the following majors: A. W. Wakefield, 49th Pa.; G. S. Horton, 58th
+Mass.; E. F. Cooke, 2d N. Y. Cav.; John G. Wright, 51st N. Y.; J. V.
+Peale, 4th Pa. Cav.; John W. Byron, 88th N. Y.; David Sadler, 2d Pa.
+Heavy Art.; John Byrne, 155th N. Y.; E. O. Shepard, 32d Mass.; J. A.
+Sonders, 8th Ohio Cav.; Charles P. Mattocks, 17th Maine; E. S. Moore,
+Paymaster; Wm. H. Fry, 16th Pa. Cav.; Milton Wendler, 191st Pa.; James
+E. Deakins, 8th Tenn. Cav.; Geo. Haven Putnam, Adjt. and later
+Bvt.-Major, 176th N. Y.
+
+All of the foregoing then present and not on the sick list should have
+been most thoroughly instructed as to their duties, and should have been
+enabled to communicate all needed information to the forty-six captains
+and one hundred and thirty-three lieutenants, who, though many were
+sadly reduced in vitality, were accounted fit for active service. I had
+repeatedly noticed in battle the perplexity of company, regimental, or
+even brigade commanders, from lack of information as to the necessary
+movements in unforeseen emergencies. It is not enough to say, as one
+corps commander (Hancock?) is said to have done during the Battle of the
+Wilderness in May, 1864, to a newly arrived colonel with his regiment,
+who inquired, "Where shall I go in?" "Oh, anywhere; there's lovely
+fighting all along the line!"
+
+Here the step most vital to success, the _sine qua non_, was to keep
+that outside door open for the outrush of two hundred men. To this end,
+eight of our strongest and most determined, under a dashing leader like
+Colonel Hartshorne or Lieutenant-Colonel Gregg, should have been sent
+out as a water party. Instead, Captain Cook, who was brave enough, but
+then physically weak, hardly able to carry a pail of water, was the
+leader of an average small squad, "the spirit indeed willing, but the
+flesh weak."
+
+Hardly less important was it to select a dozen or twenty of the most
+fierce and energetic, to be at the head of the stairs in perfect
+readiness to dash instantly through the opening door and assist the
+water party in disarming their guards, and, without a moment's pause,
+followed by the whole two hundred, pounce upon the guard house. Ralston
+or Duffie himself should have headed this band. Simultaneously, without
+a second's interval, three or four desperate, fiery, powerful officers,
+detailed for the purpose, should have grappled with the sentinel on duty
+in the middle of the lower room and disarmed and gagged him.
+
+Besides the field officers, we had with us many subordinates of great
+intelligence like Capt. Henry S. Burrage of the 36th Mass., Lieut. W. C.
+B. Goff of the 1st D. C. Cav., Lieut. W. C. Howe, 2d Mass. Cav., Adjt.
+James A. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav., and the artist, Lieut. Henry Vander
+Weyde; and nothing would have been easier than for Duffie to communicate
+through them to every officer the most complete and precise information
+and instructions.
+
+Scarcely any of these precautions were taken. The general was impatient.
+The next day, December 10th, he issued his command in these words: "I
+order the attempt to be made, and I call upon all of you, who have not
+forgotten how to obey orders, to follow." The water party was
+immediately sent out, and its return was watched for. He and Ralston,
+without the help of a third, made the mistake of personally grappling
+with the floor sentry, a brave, strong, red-headed fellow, and they
+tackled him a moment too soon. He stoutly resisted. They wrested his
+musket from him. He yelled. They tried to stop his mouth. Instantly the
+door began to swing open a little. The water party, too few and too
+weak, paralyzed, failed to act. The foremost of us sprang from the
+stairs to the door. Before we could reach it, it was slammed to, bolted
+and barred against us! With several others I rushed to the windows and
+tried to tear off the heavy bars. In vain. The soldiers outside began
+firing through the broken panes. Ralston was shot through the body. We
+assisted him up the stairs while the bullets were flying. In less than
+five minutes from the moment when he and Duffie seized the sentinel, it
+was all over. In about a quarter of an hour, Colonel Smith came in with
+his adjutant and two or three guards, and ordered Ralston removed to
+hospital. As he was carried out, one of us expressed the hope that the
+wound was not serious. He answered in the language of Mercutio, "No,
+'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis
+enough, 'twill serve." He knew it was mortal, and expressed a
+willingness to die for his country in the line of duty. He passed away
+next morning. Colonel Smith expressed sorrow for him, and surprise at
+the ingratitude of us who had been guilty of insurrection against his
+gentle sway!
+
+A strict search for possible weapons followed during which we were told
+we must give up our United States money. I saved a ten-dollar greenback
+by concealing it in my mouth "as an ape doth nuts in the corner of his
+jaw," all the while munching corn bread, gnawing two holes in the bill!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] "You will doubtless recall the man-hole worked through the heavy
+brick wall, made during the 'stilly nights,' opening into the attic of
+an annex to the main building. We found our way down by means of a rope
+ladder, and started our tunnel under the basement floor. But for the
+exposure we would have emptied the prison. To find the way down we gave
+them a lively hunt!--And those _epithets_!--I have a blouse with a rent
+in the back made in going through that hole in the wall."--Howe's
+_Letter_ of Jan. 30, 1914.
+
+For further particulars of this attempt to tunnel out, see Major
+Putnam's _A Prisoner of War in Virginia_, pp. 55-60.
+
+[9] Putnam describes them as disused furnaces. They may have been both.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+  Kind Clergymen Visit us and Preach Excellent Discourses--Colonel
+    Smith's Personal Good Will to me--His Offer--John F. Ficklin's
+    Charity--My Good Fortune--Supplies of Clothing Distributed--Deaths
+    in Prison.
+
+
+Union men never looked upon Confederates as mortal enemies. Whenever a
+flag of truce was flying, both were disposed to shake hands and exchange
+favors. I recollect that our Captain Burrage complained that he was
+unfairly captured when he was engaged in a friendly deal with a
+Confederate between the lines. At Port Hudson, when the white signal was
+to go down, we gave the "Johnnies" fair warning, shouting, "RATS! TO
+YOUR HOLES!" before we fired on them. But war cannot be conducted on
+peace principles, and in a flash a man acts like a devil. In an open
+window near the spot where I slept, an officer upset a cup of water, and
+a few drops fell on the head of the guard outside. Instantly he fired.
+The bullet missed, passed through the window below and the floor above,
+and lodged in the hand or arm of another officer. I had an opportunity
+to express to Colonel Smith my angry disgust at such savagery. He
+agreed that the fellow ought to be punished--"at least for not being
+able to shoot straighter!"[10]
+
+Kindly visits were sometimes paid us. Two young men from the Richmond
+Young Men's Christian Association came. The wicked said, "One came 'to
+pray with us all right,' the other 'to prey upon us all wrong'"; for the
+latter tried to induce us to exchange greenbacks for rebel currency!
+
+Several times we were visited by kind clergymen who preached excellent
+sermons. The first was Rev. ---- Dame of Danville. He was, I think, an
+Episcopal minister. He was a high Mason, a gentleman of very striking
+appearance, with a beautiful flowing beard, that would have done honor
+to Moses or Aaron. As we sat on the hard floor, two hundred listening
+reverently to his choice language, he seemed to foresee the doom which
+many of us had begun to fear, and he very appropriately and with much
+earnestness bade us consider our latter end. Mentioning his name with
+gratitude some thirty years afterwards in a lecture at the Mountain Lake
+Chautauqua, Md., one of my audience gave me a photograph of the
+minister's handsome face, and told me he was greatly beloved. I doubt
+not he deserved it.
+
+Rev. Charles K. Hall of Danville, a Methodist Episcopal clergyman, came
+to us a little later. His first sermon was an eloquent discourse on
+Charity. He practiced what he preached; for he never came empty-handed.
+On his first visit he brought armfuls of tobacco, each plug wrapped in a
+pious tract. He asked us to fall in line, for he had something for each.
+When he came to me in the distribution, I declined it, saying "I never
+use tobacco in any form." "Oh take it," said he; "you read the tract,
+and give the tobacco to your neighbor." On subsequent Sundays he brought
+eggs and other delicacies for the sick. We admired him as a preacher,
+and regarded him with affection as a man. Secession and slavery aside,
+for he believed in the rightfulness of both, as we learned on arguing
+with him, it would be hard to find a more lovable character than Charles
+K. Hall. And the South was full of such, who would have been glad, if
+permitted and opportunity offered, to be good Samaritans, neighbors to
+him who had fallen among foes; pure, gentle, kindly spirits, to whom it
+will be said in the last great day, "I was an hungred and ye gave me
+meat; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto
+me."
+
+From the lack of sufficient and proper food, clothing, and exercise, the
+health of all suffered. Much of the time it was impossible to keep warm.
+The most prevalent diseases, I think, were rheumatism and scurvy. I
+suffered from both. Anti-scorbutics were scarce. The pain from
+rheumatism was slight during the day; but at evening it began in the
+joints of the fingers and became more severe as night advanced,
+ascending from the hands to the wrists, arms, and shoulders. It was
+worst at midnight and through the small hours, then gradually diminished
+till daylight. The prison physician did his best to help us with
+liniment, but in those winter nights the treatment was ineffective.
+
+Upon the total failure of our attempt to break out on the 10th of
+December, and having come reluctantly to the conclusion that Colonel
+Smith had told us the truth when he said that Lincoln and Grant would
+not consent to an exchange of prisoners, I foresaw that death was
+inevitable after a few months, perhaps a few weeks, unless the situation
+should materially change for the better. I determined, though without
+much hope of success, to appeal to Colonel Smith for personal favor. On
+the 15th of December I sent word to him that I wished an interview with
+him. He immediately sent a soldier to bring me to his office. He
+received me courteously; for he was a gentleman. I told him it was
+necessary for me, if I was to live much longer, that I should at least
+have better food and more of it. I asked him if it would not be possible
+for an arrangement to be effected whereby some of my relatives in the
+north should furnish a Confederate prisoner with food, clothing, and
+comforts, and that prisoner's relatives in the south should reciprocate
+by supplying me. He answered that it might be possible, but he did not
+know of any such southern captive's friends likely to respond. After a
+few minutes of silence he said:
+
+"Colonel Sprague, I'd like to do something for you, and I'll make you an
+offer."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Your government has adopted the devilish policy of no exchange of
+prisoners."
+
+"I am afraid it's true."
+
+"I know it's true."
+
+"Well, what's your proposition?"
+
+"I am overworked here. I must do my duty to my government. Our cause is
+just."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I should like to have you assist me by doing writing regularly for me
+at these headquarters. I would parole you. You shall have a room to
+yourself, a good bed, plenty of food, and a good deal of liberty. You
+must give me your word of honor not to attempt to escape."
+
+"Colonel Smith, I thank you. I appreciate the friendly spirit in which
+you make the offer, and I am very grateful for it. But I can't
+conscientiously accept it. I am in the Union Army, bound to do
+everything in my power to destroy your government. I must do nothing to
+help it. If Lincoln refuses to exchange us prisoners, it may be best for
+the United States, though hard on us. What happens to us is a minor
+matter. It's a soldier's business to die for his country rather than
+help its enemies in the slightest degree. I can't entertain your
+proposal."
+
+So the conference ended sadly. As I was leaving his office he introduced
+me to a Confederate soldier who sat there and who had heard the whole
+conversation. Next day this soldier entered the prison by permission of
+Colonel Smith and brought me some nice wheat bread, some milk, pickles,
+and other food, a pair of thick woolen stockings, and a hundred dollars
+in Confederate money. He gave me his name, John F. Ficklin, of the
+Virginia _Black Horse Cavalry_. He whispered to me that he was at heart
+a Union man, but had been forced by circumstances to enter the
+Confederate service; that by simulating illness he had got relieved from
+duty at the front and assigned to service at Colonel Smith's
+headquarters; that he was confident he could bring about such an
+arrangement for reciprocal supplies as I had proposed, and had so
+informed Smith, who approved of the plan; that until such a plan should
+be put in operation he would furnish me from his own table. He said to
+me very privately that he was greatly moved by what I had said the day
+before. "But," he added, "I am not entirely unselfish in this. I foresee
+that the Confederacy can't last very long; certainly not a year. I give
+it till next September; and, frankly, when it goes to smash, I want to
+stand well with you officers." At my suggestion he gave a few other
+prisoners food and money.
+
+In a few days I was again called to headquarters to meet a Mr. Jordan,
+who, through Ficklin's efforts, had been invited to meet me. His son,
+Henry T. Jordan, Adjutant of the 55th North Carolina Regiment, was at
+that time a prisoner at Johnson's Island, Ohio. Mr. Jordan agreed to
+make out a list of articles which he wished my relatives to send to his
+son. In a day or two he did so. I likewise made out a statement of my
+immediate wants, as follows:
+
+    Wood for cooking;
+    Cup, plate, knife, fork, spoon;
+    Turnips, salt, pepper, rice, vinegar;
+    Pickled cucumbers, dried apple, molasses;
+    Or any other substantial food.
+
+I asked Jordan to send me those things _at once_. He answered after some
+delay that he would do so immediately on receiving an acknowledgment
+from his son that my friends had furnished him what he wanted; and he
+would await such a message! As my relatives were in Massachusetts and
+Connecticut, it would take considerable time for them to negotiate with
+the prison commandant and other parties in Ohio and have the
+stipulations distinctly understood and carried into effect there.
+Besides, there were likely to be provoking delays in communicating by
+mail between the north and the south, and it might be a month or six
+weeks before he got assurances from his son; by which time I should
+probably be in a better world than Danville, and in no need of wood,
+food, or table-ware. I wrote him to that effect, and requested him to
+make haste, but received no reply.
+
+My friend Mr. Ficklin came to the rescue. As a pretext to deceive, if
+need were, the prison authorities, and furnish to them and others a
+sufficient reason for bringing me supplies, he pretended that he had a
+friend, a Confederate prisoner of war at Camp Douglas near Chicago, and
+that Colonel Sprague's friends had been exceedingly kind to him,
+ministering most liberally to his wants! The name of this imaginary
+friend was J. H. Holland, a private soldier of the 30th Virginia
+Cavalry. Ficklin forged a letter purporting to come from Holland to him,
+which he showed to Colonel Smith, in which he spoke with much gratitude
+of my friends' bounty, and besought Ficklin to look tenderly after my
+comfort in return! The ruse succeeded. Ficklin's generosity to me was
+repeated from time to time, and perhaps saved my life.
+
+A year after the close of the war Ficklin wrote to me that he wished to
+secure a position in the Treasury Department of the United States, and
+he thought it would aid him if I would certify to what I knew of his
+kindness to Union prisoners. I accordingly drew up a strong detailed
+statement of his timely and invaluable charities to us in our distress.
+I accompanied it with vouchers for my credibility signed by Hon. N. D.
+Sperry, General Wm. H. Russell, and President Theodore D. Woolsey, all
+of New Haven, and Governor Wm. A. Buckingham of Norwich, Conn. These
+documents I forwarded to Ficklin. I do not know the result.
+
+From Sergeant Wilson F. Smith, chief clerk at Colonel Smith's
+headquarters, a paroled prisoner, member of Co. F., 6th Pa. Cav., the
+company of Captain Furness, son or brother of my Shakespearian friend,
+Dr. Horace Howard Furness, and from Mr. Strickland, undertaker, who
+furnished the coffins and buried the dead of the Danville prisons, both
+of whom I talked with when I was on parole in February, '65, I obtained
+statistics mutually corroborative of the number of deaths in the
+Danville prisons. In November there were 130; in December, 140; from
+January 1st to January 24th, 105. The negro soldiers suffered most.
+There were sixty-four of them living in prison when we reached Danville,
+October 20, '64. Fifty-seven of them were dead on the 12th of February,
+'65, when I saw and talked with the seven survivors in Prison No. Six.
+From one of the officers (I think it was Captain Stuart) paroled like
+myself in February to distribute supplies of clothing sent by the United
+States through the lines, and who performed that duty in Salisbury, and
+from soldiers of my own regiment there imprisoned, I learned that in the
+hundred days ending February 1st, out of eight or ten thousand
+prisoners, more than thirty a day, more than three thousand in all, had
+died! Of Colonel Hartshorne's splendid "Bucktail Regiment," the 190th
+Pa., formerly commanded by my Yale classmate Colonel O'Neil who fell at
+Antietam, there were 330 at Salisbury, October 19th, the day we left;
+116 of them were dead before February 1st, one company losing 22 out of
+33 men.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Why this fearful mortality? Men do not die by scores, hundreds,
+thousands, without some extraordinary cause. It was partly for want of
+clothing. They were thinly clad when captured.
+
+Pursuant to agreement entered into early in December, 1864, between the
+Federal and Confederate authorities, supplies of clothing for Union
+prisoners in Richmond, Danville, and Salisbury, were sent through the
+lines. They did not reach Danville till February. Colonel Carle, 191st
+Pa. and myself, with another officer (I think he was Colonel Gilbert G.
+Prey, 104th N. Y.) were paroled to distribute coats (or blouses),
+trousers, and shoes, among the enlisted men in their three prisons. Then
+for the first time Union officers saw the interior of those jails. By
+permission of Colonel Smith, Mr. Ficklin accompanied us on one of these
+visits, and I saw him give fifty dollars in Confederate money to one of
+our suffering soldiers. My part in the distribution was to sign as
+witness opposite the name of each one receiving. Those rolls should be
+in the archives at Washington.
+
+On the 12th of February we issued shoes and clothing in the jail known
+as Prison No. Six. It contained that day 308 of our men. There were the
+seven surviving colored soldiers, and the one wearing our prison
+commander's coat. We requested them all to form line, and each as his
+name was called to come forward and receive what he most needed. Some of
+them were so feeble that they had to be assisted in coming down from the
+upper floor, almost carried in the arms of stronger comrades. Many were
+unable to remain standing long, and sank helpless on the floor. Nearly
+all were half-clad, or wearing only the thinnest of garments. Some were
+white with vermin. Several were so far gone that they had forgotten
+their company or regiment. Every one seemed emaciated. Many kept asking
+me why our government did not exchange prisoners; for they were told
+every day the truth that the Confederate government desired it. There
+was a stove, but no fuel. The big rooms were not heated. The cold was
+severe. About a third of them had apparently given up all hope of
+keeping their limbs and bodies warm; but they kept their heads, necks,
+shoulders, and chests, carefully wrapped. The dismal coughing at times
+drowned all other sounds, and made it difficult to proceed with our work
+of distribution. There were two little fires of chips and splinters on
+bricks, one of them near the middle, the other near the far end. In
+contact with these were tin or earthen cups containing what passed for
+food or drink. There was no outlet for smoke. It blackened the hands and
+faces of those nearest, and irritated the lungs of all.
+
+This prison was the worst. It was colder than the others. But all were
+uncomfortably cold. All were filled with smoke and lice. From each there
+went every day to the hospital a wagon-load of half-starved and
+broken-hearted soldiers who would never return. I visited the hospital
+to deliver to two of the patients letters which Colonel Smith had handed
+to me for them. They were both dead. I looked down the long list. The
+word "Died," with the date, was opposite most of the names. As I left
+the hospital I involuntarily glanced up at the lintel, half expecting to
+see inscribed there as over the gate to Dante's Hell,
+
+    ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE!
+
+At the rate our enlisted men were dying at Danville and Salisbury during
+the winter of 1864-65, all would have passed away in a few months,
+certainly in less than a year; AND THEY KNEW IT.
+
+Is it any wonder that some of them, believing our government had
+abandoned them to starvation rather than again risk its popularity by
+resorting to conscription for the enrollment of recruits and by possibly
+stirring up draft riots such as had cost more than a thousand lives in
+the city of New York in July, 1863, accepted at last the terms which the
+Confederates constantly held out to them, took the oath of allegiance to
+the Confederacy, and enlisted in the rebel army? I was credibly informed
+that more than forty did it in Prison No. Four at Danville, and more
+than eleven hundred at Salisbury. Confederate recruiting officers and
+sergeants were busy in those prisons, offering them the choice between
+death and life. No doubt multitudes so enlisted under the Confederate
+flag with full determination to desert to our lines at the first
+convenient opportunity. Such was the case with private J. J. Lloyd, Co.
+A, of my battalion, who rejoined us in North Carolina. _The great
+majority chose to die._
+
+The last communication that I received from enlisted men of my
+battalion, fellow prisoners with me at Salisbury, whom I had exhorted
+not to accept the offers of the Confederates, but to be true to their
+country and their flag, read thus: "Colonel, don't be discouraged. Our
+boys all say they'll starve to death in prison sooner than take the oath
+of allegiance to the Confederacy." And true to this resolve did indeed
+starve or freeze to death Sergeant Welch, Sergeant Twichell, Privates
+Vogel, Plaum, Barnes, Geise, Andrews, Bishop, Weldon, who had stood by
+me in many a battle, and who died at last for the cause they loved.
+
+It is comparatively easy to face death in battle. No great courage or
+merit in that. The soldier is swept along with the mass. Often he cannot
+shirk if he would. The chances usually are that he will come out alive.
+He may be inspired with heroism,
+
+    And the stern joy which warriors feel
+    In foeman worthy of their steel.
+
+There is a consciousness of irresistible strength as he beholds the
+gleaming lines, the dense columns, the smoking batteries, the dancing
+flags, the cavalry with flying feet.
+
+    'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life,
+    One glance at their array.
+
+Or nobler, he feels that he represents a nation or a grand cause, and
+that upon his arm depends victory. In his enthusiasm he even fancies
+himself a vicegerent of the Almighty, commissioned to fight in His
+cause, to work His will, to save His earth from becoming a hell. "From
+the heights of yonder pyramids," said Napoleon to the French battling
+against the Mamelukes, "forty centuries are looking down upon you." Our
+soldier in battle imagined the world looking on, that for him there was
+fame undying; should he fall wounded, his comrades would gently care for
+him; if slain, his country's flag would be his shroud.
+
+By no such considerations were our imprisoned comrades cheered. Not in
+the glorious rush and shock of battle; not in hope of victory or
+fadeless laurels; no angel charities, or parting kiss, or sympathetic
+voice bidding the soul look heavenward while the eye was growing dim; no
+dear star-spangled banner for a winding sheet. But wrapped in rags;
+unseen, unnoticed, dying by inches, in the cold, in the darkness, often
+in rain or sleet, houseless, homeless, friendless, on the hard floor or
+the bare ground, starving, freezing, broken-hearted.
+
+    O the long and dreary winter!
+    O the cold and cruel winter!
+
+It swept them away at Salisbury by tens, twenties, even fifties in a
+single night.
+
+These men preferred death to dishonor. When we are told that our people
+are not patriotic, or sigh of America as Burke did of France a century
+and a quarter ago, that the age of chivalry is gone, we may point to
+this great martyrdom, the brightest painting on the darkest background
+in all our history--thousands choosing to die for the country which
+seemed to disown them!
+
+My diary records, and I believe it correct, that on the 17th of
+February, there were ten deaths in the Danville prisons. A little before
+midnight of that day the Danville prisoners were loaded into box cars,
+and the train was started for Richmond. Three, it was reported, died in
+the cars that night, and one next morning in the street on the way to
+Libby.
+
+During the next three days I obtained the autographs of two hundred and
+fifteen of my fellow officers there. The little book is precious. A few
+still survive; but the great majority have joined the faithful whom they
+commanded.
+
+    On Fame's eternal camping ground
+      Their silent tents are spread,
+    And Glory guards with solemn round
+      The bivouac of the dead!
+
+On the twenty-second we were taken for exchange down the James. As we
+passed through the lines into what we were accustomed fondly to call
+"God's Country," salvos of artillery and signs of universal rejoicing
+greeted us. Our reception made us imagine for an hour that our arrival
+perceptibly heightened the general joy of the Washington anniversary.
+But many of us could not help wishing we were asleep with the thousands
+who were filling nameless graves at Danville and Salisbury.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] See Putnam's account of this incident in his _A Prisoner of War in
+Virginia_, p. 67.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+  Results and Reflections--The Right and the Wrong of it All.
+
+
+A few days of waiting in the buildings of the Naval Academy at Annapolis
+while exchange papers were preparing gave us opportunity for a
+much-needed transformation. Our old clothing, encrusted with dirt and
+infested with vermin, in many cases had to be destroyed. One of our
+number especially unkempt, Captain T., who gave up for an hour or two
+his beloved trousers, found to his surprise and horror when he called
+for their return that they had been burned with four hundred dollars in
+greenbacks sewed up in the lining! We smiled at his irrepressible grief;
+it was poetic justice. He had carefully concealed the fact of his being
+flush, pretending all along to be like the rest _in forma pauperis_, and
+contriving, it was said, to transfer in crooked ways our pennies into
+his pockets!
+
+Fumigated, parboiled, scrubbed, barbered, decently clothed, "the
+deformed transformed" were once more presentable in civilized society.
+Then followed a brief leave of absence if desired, to visit relatives.
+To them it seemed a veritable resurrection after our months of living
+burial; yet the joy of reunion was sometimes tinged with sorrow. I
+learned that in the very week in which the tidings of my capture came
+our home circle had been sadly broken by the death of a beloved sister,
+and just then the telegraph told of the loss by fever in the army at
+Newbern of our household darling,
+
+    Younger by fifteen years than myself,
+    Brother at once and son.
+
+As previously stated we who held commissions fared better on the whole
+than the non-commissioned officers and privates, though receiving from
+the commissary rations exactly equal to theirs. Commonly older and
+therefore of larger experience and superior intelligence, a good officer
+is as a father looking out for the physical welfare of his men as well
+as himself. Then there were some who, like Gardner, had been fortunate
+in keeping clothing, money, or other valuable at the instant of capture
+or in hiding it when searched by Dick Turpin at Libby. Several like
+Captain Cook had obtained pecuniary assistance from influential friends
+across the lines, or in a few instances had been favored by brother
+freemasons or by charitably disposed visitors who gave us a little food,
+a few old books, or even Confederate currency. Several sold to the
+sentinels watches, rings, chains, breast-pins, society badges, silver
+spurs, military boots, or curiously wrought specimens of Yankee
+ingenuity carved with infinite pains. The "Johnnies" appeared to hanker
+for any article not produced in the Confederacy. An officer of the guard
+offered Putnam three hundred dollars for a nearly worn-out tooth-brush!
+
+The educational standard among our officers was quite respectable. I
+think that West Point had a representative among us, as well as Bowdoin
+and several other colleges. Certainly we had ex-students from at least
+five universities, Brown, Yale, Harvard, the Sorbonne, and Goettingen.
+
+To afford diversion and as an antidote to depression, as well as for
+intellectual improvement, some of us studied mathematics[11] or
+_Shakespeare_. Three or four classes were formed in modern languages.
+We had card-playing with packs soiled and worn; checkers and chess on
+extemporized boards with rudely whittled "pieces"; occasional
+discussions historical, literary, political, or religious; many of us
+quite regular physical exercises in brisk walks on the empty lowest
+floor; story-telling; at times, though not often, the reading aloud of a
+Confederate newspaper, to a group of fifty or more listeners; at
+evening, sweet singing, riddles, jests, or loud-voiced sarcastic
+conundrums and satirical responses. Many found interest and pleasure in
+carving with the utmost nicety wood or bone.[12]
+
+Something like military discipline prevailed among the two hundred in
+the upper room where the superior rank of General Hayes was often
+recognized. Among a hundred and fifty or more in the lower room, where
+for a month or two I was the senior but was unwilling to assume
+precedence, I secured with the aid of Major Byron, Captain Howe, and a
+few others a sort of civil government with semi-military features.
+
+These measures and the favoring circumstances that have been mentioned
+tended of course to the preservation of health among the officers. There
+was severe suffering from hunger, cold, rheumatism, and scurvy, from all
+of which I was for weeks a victim and at one time seemed doomed to
+perish. I recall, however, the names of but two officers (there were
+said to be four) who died at Danville. Some of us, though enfeebled,
+were soon able to rejoin our commands; as Putnam his at Newbern in
+April, Gardner and I ours at Morehead City the day after Lee's surrender
+at Appomattox.
+
+Of the effect in after-life of these strange experiences it is safe to
+say that to some extent they were a spur to intellectual effort. At
+least they should have made all sadder and wiser; and they certainly
+were in some cases an equipment for descriptive authorship. Major (Adner
+A.) Small wrote a valuable account of prison life. Dr. Burrage's
+narratives of his capture and its results are entertaining and
+instructive. Major Putnam's _A Prisoner of War in Virginia_ (reprinted
+in his _Memories of My Youth_) is an important contribution to our
+military history.[13] Lieutenant Estabrooks's _Adrift in Dixie_ is
+charmingly told.[14] "Dutch Clark" (Adjutant James A. Clark, 17th Pa.
+Cav.), one of the four who nightly tried to sleep under my blanket,
+started and edited with ability at Scranton _The Public Code_, for which
+I was glad to furnish literary material. He afterwards became prominent
+in theosophic circles. Others distinguished themselves. Captain (Frank
+H.) Mason, in prison our best chess player, was long Consul-General at
+Paris. Cook studied five or six years in Germany, France, and Italy,
+then was for eight or ten years assistant professor in German at
+Harvard, and afterwards for two years, until his untimely death,
+professor in the same department at the Institute of Technology in
+Boston. In addressing a Sunday-school in Brooklyn, 1871, I unexpectedly
+lighted upon Captain Tiemann doing good work as a teacher. Captain
+Gardner continued for many months a model military officer in
+Georgia.[15] I remained in the service a full year, often on
+courts-martial, military commissions, and "reconstruction" duty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As already described, the condition of the enlisted men strongly
+contrasted with ours. The Report of the Confederate Inspector of Prisons
+now on file in the _War Records_ of our government, though the reports
+of his subordinate officers are significantly missing, covers the few
+months next preceding January, 1865. It sharply censures the immediate
+prison authorities, stating, as the result of the privations, that the
+deaths at Danville were at the rate of about five per day! I think they
+were more numerous in January and February. None of my battalion were
+there, but at Salisbury three-sevenths of them died in less than three
+months!
+
+It is hard to refrain from the expression of passionate indignation at
+the treatment accorded to our non-commissioned officers and privates in
+those southern hells. For years we were accustomed to ask, "In what
+military prison of the north, in what common jail of Europe, in what
+dungeon of the civilized or savage world, have captives taken in
+war--nay, condemned criminals--been systematically exposed to a
+lingering death by cold and hunger? The foulest felon--his soul black
+with sacrilege, his hands reeking with parricide--has enough of food, of
+clothing, of shelter; a chair to sit in, a fire to warm him, a blanket
+to hide his nakedness, a bed of straw to die on!"
+
+But listen a moment to the other side. Alexander H. Stephens,
+Vice-President of the Confederacy, afterwards for eight years a
+representative in our Congress, a man of unquestioned integrity, shows
+in his _War between the States_ (pub. 1868-70) by quotation from the
+Report of our then Secretary of War (July 19, 1866) that only 22,576
+Federal prisoners died in Confederate hands during the war, whilst
+26,436 Confederate prisoners died in Federal hands. He shows also from
+the United States Surgeon-General Joseph K. Barnes's Report that the
+number of Federal prisoners in southern prisons was about 270,000, but
+the number of Confederate prisoners in northern prisons was about
+220,000; so that the percentage of deaths in southern prisons was under
+nine, while the percentage of deaths in northern prisons was over
+twelve![16]
+
+Had there been, from the first, prompt exchanges of prisoners between
+the north and the south, few of these forty-nine thousand lives would
+have been lost. _Who, then, blocked the exchange?_
+
+Stephens declares (_War between the States_, vol. ii):
+
+    "It is now well understood to have been a part of the settled policy
+    of the Washington authorities in conducting the war, not to exchange
+    prisoners. The grounds upon which this extraordinary course was
+    adopted were, that it was humanity to the northern men in the field
+    to let their captured comrades perish in prison rather than to let
+    an equal number of Confederate soldiers be released on exchange to
+    meet them in battle."
+
+To the same effect our Secretary Stanton in one of his letters in 1864
+pointed out "that it would not be good policy to send back to be placed
+on the firing line 70,000 able-bodied Confederates, and to receive in
+exchange men who, with but few exceptions, were not strong enough to
+hold their muskets."
+
+The responsibility, then, for this refusal and the consequent enormous
+sacrifice of life with all the accompanying miseries, must rest in part
+upon the Government of the United States.[17]
+
+Blame not the tender-hearted Lincoln for this.
+
+Did he not judge wisely? Was it not best for the nation that we
+prisoners should starve and freeze?
+
+The pivotal question for him and Grant and Stanton was, "Shall we
+exchange and thereby enable the South to reinforce their armies with
+fifty to a hundred thousand trained soldiers?
+
+"If yes, then we must draft many more than that; for they being on the
+defensive we must outnumber them in battle. If no, then we must either
+stop their cruelties by equally cruel retaliation, as Washington hung
+Andre for the execution of Hale, or we must, more cruelly still, leave
+myriads of our soldiers to sink into imbecility and death."
+
+The North had not the excuse of destitution which the South had, and it
+could not bring itself to make reprisals in kind. To draft again, as
+evinced in the terrible riots of July, 1863, would have been extremely
+unpopular and perhaps overthrown the administration and defeated the
+policy of the government. To exchange would pretty surely have prolonged
+the war, and might have resulted in permanent disunion.
+
+As to the right or wrong of the refusal to exchange, it is hardly
+relevant to insist that the triumph of the South would have perpetuated
+slavery. Lincoln's Proclamation, January 1, 1863, did not touch slavery
+in the Border States. And from the southern nation, denuded of slaves by
+their escape to the North and confronted by the growing anti-slavery
+sentiment of the civilized world, the "peculiar institution" would soon
+have died out.
+
+Need we attempt, as is often done, to justify our government's attitude
+in this matter by affirming that the nation was in a life-and-death
+struggle for its very existence? Did that existence depend upon its
+territorial limits? Would it have gone to pieces if the victorious North
+had relinquished its hold on the defeated South? Had a boundary line
+been drawn half-way across the continent, separating the twenty-three
+loyal States from the eleven seceding, the twenty-two millions of the
+North from the nine or ten millions of the South, would it not have
+remained a mighty nation with no cause for further disunion, and able as
+the war had shown to place in the field more than two million fighting
+men?
+
+Is it not equally unnecessary to urge, as if it were a valid excuse for
+our government's refusal to exchange, that between the two nations there
+would have been frequent if not perpetual hostilities? Why so, any more
+than between the United States and Canada, where for fifty (it is now a
+hundred) years, along a boundary line of thirty-eight hundred miles,
+there had been unbroken peace and no fort nor warship?
+
+Let us not raise the question whether Lincoln made a colossal blunder
+when he renounced his favorite doctrine so emphatically set forth in his
+Congressional speech (page 47). The die was cast when Sumter was fired
+on. The question which confronted him in 1863-64--What to do with the
+perishing Union prisoners?--was simply one of military necessity.
+
+According to the ethics of war was he not fully justified in sacrificing
+us rather than imperiling the great cause which he had at heart?
+
+Are we, then, to blame President Davis, or the Confederate Commissioner
+Robert Ould, or Gen. John H. Winder, Superintendent of Military Prisons,
+for allowing the Federal prisoners to starve and freeze and die by
+thousands? Must we not admit the truth of their contention that their
+soldiers needed the food, clothing, and medical care for want of which
+their prisoners were suffering? And if the shocking conditions at
+Andersonville, Salisbury, Danville, and other prisons could easily have
+been avoided, or even if they were made more distressing by the
+deliberate inhumanity of those in immediate charge, ought not such facts
+to have intensified a desire on the part of both governments to effect a
+speedy exchange?
+
+The southern people were threatened with subjugation, their government
+with annihilation. In such a critical situation, what measures are
+allowable?
+
+We endeavor to look at the matter from both standpoints.
+
+This brings up the whole question of the rightfulness of war. If it must
+be waged, is success the highest duty? If military necessity demands,
+may any and every law of God and man be disregarded?
+
+While we write these concluding pages, the European conflict is raging,
+and the voice of the most warlike nation on the globe is heard
+continually affirming that war is useful and highly honorable, and that
+any means, however frightful, if necessary to ensure or hasten victory
+is praise-worthy!
+
+Then both presidents were right!
+
+But is not international war murder on a great scale? It is glorious to
+die for one's country; but how about killing for our country? killing
+innocent men, too? for the soldiers on either side honestly believe they
+are doing their duty in shooting and stabbing as many as possible! "The
+business of war," said John Wesley, "is the business of devils." So it
+would seem; but at heart few are enemies, none devils.
+
+It has been a pleasure in this narrative to record instances of a very
+different spirit. Surely, in proportion to population such were not
+fewer in the South than in the North. Like Whittier's _Angels of Buena
+Vista_ they rescue us from pessimism. They are prophetic of a better
+day.
+
+    Not wholly lost, O Father, is this evil world of ours!
+    Upward through the blood and ashes spring afresh the Eden flowers:
+    From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer,
+    And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] I still possess the copy of Davies's _Legendre_ which I bought on
+the 8th of November for twenty Confederate dollars, and of which I
+memorized three books in prison. As to the _Shakespeare_, see _ante_, p.
+85.
+
+[12] I retain with pride the wooden spoon which did me good service when
+I was _in limbo_. It cost me over two weeks' labor in shaping it with
+half a knife-blade and pieces of broken glass. For the little block of
+wood I paid the sentry one "rebel dollar!"
+
+[13] Many years after the war he rendered financial aid to fellow
+prisoners, his chum, artist Vander Weyde, and General Hayes. Author of
+several valuable works, he is now head of the publishing house of G. P.
+Putnam's Sons.
+
+[14] It was a special pleasure after the lapse of fifty years to meet
+Estabrooks at the Massachusetts Commandery of the Loyal Legion, where,
+without knowing of his presence, I had just made honorable mention of
+him in an address on prison life.
+
+[15] In my own case the prison experience was peculiar: it changed the
+course of my whole subsequent life. I had studied law, been admitted to
+the bar in two states, and "practiced" with fair success, "though," as a
+friend was accustomed to remark, "not enough to do much harm!" Many
+times one of the best men I ever knew, my father, had said to me at
+parting, "Do all the good you can." Much meditating while in the army
+and especially while in prison, I finally resolved to pursue an
+educational career. Of course I felt sadly the loss of years of study
+that might have better equipped me; but it seemed a duty. I had had some
+experience which, I thought, proved me not wholly unqualified. While a
+student in college and while reading law I had partly supported myself
+by giving instruction to private pupils and in the schools of General
+Russell and Mayor Skinner. Afterwards, before the war, I had taught
+Greek in the Worcester (Mass.) Academy; and English literature, Greek,
+and Latin for more than three years as principal of the Worcester public
+high school. I knew the vocation would be congenial. So I became
+principal of a state normal school, of two high schools, of a large
+academy; house chairman of a (Conn.) legislative committee securing the
+enactment of three school measures of importance; later, president of a
+college, professor in a theological seminary and in Cornell University;
+founder and for three years first president of the earliest and long the
+largest of the world's general _summer_ schools (which now in the United
+States number nearly 700); lecturer in many Chautauqua assemblies,
+colleges, vacation schools, and university extension centres; President
+of the State University of North Dakota; editor, with biographic
+sketches and copious notes, of many masterpieces as text-books in higher
+English literature; author of a history of my regiment; also of a
+treatise on _Voice and Gesture_, of many monographs and magazine
+articles mostly educational; associate founder and first president of
+_The Watch and Ward Society_; one of the directors and executive
+committee of the _American Peace Society_; director of the
+_Massachusetts Peace Society_; president of _The American Institute of
+Instruction_; translator, annotator, and essayist of _The Book of Job_;
+etc.
+
+It may be proper to add that among those indebted in some degree to my
+instruction or training were several who captured Yale's highest prize
+for rhetorical excellence (the hundred dollar gold medal of which I was
+the first recipient): one college president; six college professors;
+three university presidents; two governors of states; two United States
+Senators; and many others eminent as clergymen, authors, judges,
+editors, and business men.
+
+[16] The higher death-rate (if that be conceded) of southern soldiers is
+easily accounted for. The northern soldiers had been carefully selected
+by competent surgeons. They were physically perfect, or nearly so. They
+were in the bloom of early manhood or the strength of middle age--not an
+old man among them, not a diseased man among them, not a broken-down
+constitution among them. But multitudes of the southern, enrolled by
+conscription, were physically unfit. Many were much too old or too
+young. Said our General Grant, "To fill their ranks, they have robbed
+the cradle and the grave!"
+
+[17] The exchange is said to have been stopped in 1862-63 by the refusal
+of the Confederates to give up captured negro soldiers in return for
+southern captives in the North, the United States properly insisting
+upon perfect equality in the treatment of black and white. But early in
+1864, if not previously, the Confederates yielded the point and were
+anxious to surrender man for man.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+
+(From the original record. See p. 88.)
+
+Proceedings of a Court Martial convened at Danville Mil. Pris. by virtue
+of the following Order:
+
+                                  DANVILLE MIL. PRISON, Oct. 29, 1864.
+
+General Order
+
+No. 1.
+
+Pursuant to the Regulations adopted by the Union Officers of the 2d
+Floor Military Prison, Danville, Va., Oct. 26, 1864, a Court Martial is
+hereby appointed to convene at 10 o'clock A.M. on the 29th inst. or as
+soon thereafter as may be practicable, for the Trial of Captain [I omit
+from the record the name of the accused], 104th N. Y. Vols., and such
+other officers as may be brought before it.
+
+               Detail for the Court.
+
+ Lt. Col. W. A. LEACH,      [Here follow the names
+   90th P. V.               of Captains Bryant,
+ Lt. Col. THEO. GREGG,      Black, Clapp, Burkart,
+   45th P. V.               Weiss (?), Reilly (?),
+ Major J. W. BYRON,         Moody, and the name
+   88th N. Y. V.            of the Judge Advocate,
+ Capt. G. M. DICKERMAN,     Lt. and Adjt. James A.
+   26th Mass. V.            Clark, 17th Pa. Cav.]
+
+                           By order of the Officers of the 2d Floor,
+                                                 JAMES CARLE,
+                                 Col. 190th Pa. Vols., Senior Officer.
+
+
+DANVILLE MIL. PRISON, VA., 10 o'clock A.M., 31st, Oct. 1864.
+
+The Court met pursuant to the foregoing order. Present all the members.
+The Court then proceeded to the trial of Capt. [we again omit the name
+of the accused], 104th N. Y. Vols.
+
+The Judge Advocate stated that he had acquainted the accused of the
+order convening the Court, to which he replied in the words following,
+to wit: "What is that to do with me? I recognize no authority in this
+prison to convene a court martial," or words to that effect.
+
+The accused having refused to appear, the members of the Court were duly
+sworn by the Judge Advocate, and the Judge Advocate was duly sworn by
+the President of the Court. The accused, Capt. [again we omit the name],
+104th N. Y. Vols., was arraigned on the following charges and
+specifications:
+
+Charge--Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.
+
+Specification--In this: That Capt. [we again omit], 104th N. Y. Vols.,
+without provocation, did say in the hearing of several officers to
+Lieut. Col. Homer B. Sprague, 13th C. V., speaking in coarse and
+ungentlemanly manner the words following, to wit: [here we omit the
+language uttered as being too vile and filthy to print]; that he did
+several times repeat the same in a coarse and angry tone, and used other
+vulgar and indecent expressions in an insulting tone and manner. This at
+Danville Mil. Prison, Va., in the lower room thereof on the 29th day of
+October, 1864.
+
+The accused refusing to appear, the Judge Advocate was directed by the
+President to enter the plea of Not Guilty.
+
+    To the Specification,  Not Guilty.
+    To the Charge,         Not Guilty.
+
+Lieut. G. C. Wilson, 2d P. Artillery, and Lieut. Wm. Shuler, 107th P.
+Vols., witnesses for the prosecution, stated that they had cognizance of
+the facts set forth in the Specification.
+
+The proceedings of the Court having been reviewed by the Judge Advocate,
+he submitted the case without argument. The Court was then cleared for
+deliberation, and having maturely considered the evidence adduced find
+the accused
+
+On the Specification, Guilty; with the exception of the words "and used
+other vulgar and indecent expressions."
+
+Of the Charge, Guilty. And do therefore sentence him to be reprimanded
+by the Senior Officer.
+
+The Court is thus lenient owing to this being the first case of the kind
+brought before it.
+
+ WM. A. LEACH, Lt. Col. 90th Regt. Pa. Vols., Pres.;
+ JAS. A. CLARK, Adjt. 17th Pa. Cavalry, Judge Advocate.
+
+The Proceedings and Findings in the foregoing case are hereby
+respectfully submitted to Brig.-Gen. Hayes for his consideration.
+
+JAMES CARLE, Col. 191st Pa. Vols., Senior Officer, 2d Floor.
+
+
+CONFED. MIL. PRISON, DANVILLE, VA., Nov. 1, 1864.
+
+The Proceedings and Findings of the Court Martial of which Lt. Col. W.
+A. Leach, 90th Pa. Vols., was President, having been submitted to
+Brig.-Gen. Hayes, the Senior Officer present, are approved. The extreme
+leniency of the Court must be apparent to all, and can only be excused
+by the novelty of the case brought before it. Language fails to convey
+censure adequate to the gross vulgarity and ungentlemanly conduct of the
+accused. Captain [we omit the name] seems to forget or misconceive his
+responsibility in his present circumstances. An officer being a prisoner
+of war is not relieved from his responsibility to his government nor
+from his liability to the regulations of the service as far as may be
+applied to his dishonor by ungentlemanly and unofficer-like conduct; and
+many other offenses committed by an officer when a prisoner of war are
+as punishable as if that officer were serving with his command. And it
+is well the officers in the prison have organized a Court for the
+summary punishment of those of their number, who, forgetful of their
+position and their honor, would bring shame upon themselves and their
+associates.
+
+It is to be hoped that Capt. [name we omit]'s conduct in the future will
+be such as will cause to be forgotten his mistakes of the past.
+
+                                  JOSEPH HAYES, Brig. Gen. U. S. Vols.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+A
+
+ Adams, Dr. Nehemiah, 29
+
+ Adams, Sarah F., quoted, 35
+
+ ambulance, 37, 38
+
+ annihilation threatened, 23
+
+ apothecary doctor, 108, 109
+
+ Appendix, court record, 153-156
+
+ apple-jack, 39
+
+ Army of West Va., 4, 5, 6
+
+ artillery, trained on us, 51, 58
+
+ _at_ in "Where is he at?" 73, 75
+
+ attempt to break out, 113, 118
+
+ autographs, officers', 136
+
+
+B
+
+ Barnes, J. K., Surgeon-Gen., 146
+
+ battle, pomp of, 8, 134
+
+ battle-field, Winchester, 3 +
+
+ beans, soup of, ration, 44, 94, 102
+
+ Beecher, Henry Ward, quoted, 30
+
+ Beecher, married by, 52
+
+ Berryville, 3
+
+ Berryville pike, 3, 4, 7
+
+ Birge, Gen. H. W., 7, 9
+
+ blanket for several, 105
+
+ blankets "confiscated," 46
+
+ blankets, not to be shaken, 87
+
+ Blinn, Col. C. D., ill, 7
+
+ Blue Ridge, 1, 35, 36
+
+ Braxton's Confed. artillery, 9
+
+ bread, corn-cob-meal, 44, 93, 100
+
+ breakfast at Staunton, 32, 33
+
+ breakfast at Tom's Brook, 21
+
+ Breckenridge, Confed. Gen., 5
+
+ Brinton, Col., escape of, 26, 27
+
+ brooms in prison, 100, 102
+
+ Brown, John, defended, 28
+
+ Brownell, H. H., quoted, 137
+
+ Browning, Mrs., quoted, 36, 83, 91
+
+ buckets for water, 98, 110, 116
+
+ Buckingham, Gov. of Conn., 7, 129
+
+ "Bucktail Regiment," 64, 130
+
+ burning $400, 138
+
+ Burrage, Major H. S., 117, 120, 142
+
+ Bush, Lieut. W. W., 93, 96
+
+ "Butler's dandy regiment," 7 (note)
+
+ Byron, Lord, quoted, 28
+
+ Byron, Major John W., 87
+
+ Byrne, Major John, 64, 66, 141
+
+
+C
+
+ cards, playing, 102, 106, 141
+
+ Carle, Col. James, 64, 66, 80
+
+ carving in prison, 49, 83, 101, 141
+
+ cavalry, 4, 5, 6, 13, 25, 34, 40, 45
+
+ chaplain, prisoner, 57, 58, 80
+
+ charge, Gordon's brilliant, 10, 12
+
+ Chautauqua, Mountain Lake, 121
+
+ checkers, 92, 102, 141
+
+ Cheever, Dr. Geo. B., 29
+
+ chess, 92, 102, 141
+
+ choosing death, 124, 125, 133, 134, 136, 143, 153
+
+ Clarke, Adjt. James A., 22, 96, 101, 117, 143, 153
+
+ clergymen's visits, 121, 122
+
+ Clover, in it at night, 47
+
+ coal, poor and scanty, 79
+
+ coal dust, very fine! 48
+
+ cold, severe and fatal, 79, 132, 142
+
+ communication, finger signs, 65, 70
+
+ communication, secret, 43, 70
+
+ Confederate currency, 27, 32, 33, 34, 94, 121, 140
+
+ Cook, Capt. William, 58, 85, 96, 103, 105, 143
+
+ cooking, how and where, 21, 95
+
+ Constitution, U. S., 29, 39, 47
+
+ Corcoran, Gen. Michael, 53
+
+ corn-cob-meal bread, 44, 93, 100, 107
+
+ corn-cob-meal soup, 94, 102
+
+ court martial in prison, 88; and Appendix, 153
+
+ Crew, John, a kind enemy, 28
+
+ Crook, Gen. George, 4
+
+
+D
+
+ daily routine, Danville, 97-105, 140, 141
+
+ Dame, Rev., preaches to us, 121
+
+ Dan river, 79, 98
+
+ Danville, arrival at, 47, 48;
+   again, 77
+
+ Danville death record, 129, 132, 142, 144
+
+ Danville prisons, 98, 129
+
+ Davies's _Legendre_, 140 (note)
+
+ Davis, Jefferson, 150
+
+ Davis, Lieut., death of, 57, 58, 68
+
+ dead lines, Salisbury, 54
+
+ deaf-and-dumb alphabet, 65, 70
+
+ deaths at Salisbury, 55, 130, 134, 136, 145
+
+ deaths of Confederates in northern prisons, 146
+
+ deaths at Danville, 129, 132, 136, 145
+
+ Declaration of Independence, 47
+
+ defile, Berryville, 3, 4, 7
+
+ devastation by Sheridan, 2, 3
+
+ diary kept, 22, 28, 44
+
+ Dickerman, Capt. G. M., 32
+
+ discussion with Lieut. Howard, 28, 29, 30
+
+ discussions in prison, 47, 90, 91, 102, 110, 141
+
+ distribution of rations, 54, 100
+
+ Dolan, pitied by Confederate ladies, 37
+
+ Duffie, Gen. O. N., 113-117
+
+ Dwight, Gen. William, 12, 13
+
+
+E
+
+ Early, Gen. Jubal A., 5, 9, 14, 17
+
+ Edenburg village, 26
+
+ education in prison, 69, 70, 91, 92, 140
+
+ Eighth Corps, W. Va. Army, 4, 5, 6
+
+ Election votes in prison, 90
+
+ Emerson, Rev., prison chaplain, 58, 80
+
+ enlist or die, choice to, 133, 134
+
+ Epaminondas, strategy at Leuctra, 10
+
+ "escape on the brain," 67
+
+ escapes attempted, 26, 50, 110
+
+ Estabrooks, Lieut. H. L., 72, 74, 142, 143 (note)
+
+ exchange of prisoners, 83, 89, 102, 131
+
+ exchange blocked, 89, 90, 106, 107, 124, 131, 147-151
+
+
+F
+
+ Ficklin, J. F., his kindness, 125-129, 131
+
+ Fisher, First Sea Lord, quoted, 57
+
+ Fisher's Hill, battle, 25
+
+ Fisher's Hill reached, 20
+
+ "flag-of-truce fever," 106, 107, 108
+
+ fleas, wicked, 27
+
+ flour ration, how cooked, 21
+
+ Fontleroy, Dr., his hospitality, 32, 33
+
+ freemasonry, very useful, 38, 40, 42, 46
+
+ French, oral lessons in, 69, 70
+
+ Fry, Major W. H., 85
+
+ fugitive slave law, 29, 30
+
+ fun, critical and sarcastic, 104, 105
+
+ fun, sanitary, 79, 80
+
+ furnace way of escape, 110
+
+ Furness, Horace Howard, 129
+
+
+G
+
+ Gardner, Adjt. W. C., 69, 70, 71, 74, 85, 107, 108, 109, 142, 143
+
+ Gee, Confed. Major, 52, 53, 56, 74
+
+ German, oral lessons in, 92
+
+ Ghost in _Hamlet_, 85, 86
+
+ "God's Country," 137
+
+ God's fugitive slave law, 29
+
+ "going through" prisoners, 22
+
+ Gordon, Confed. Gen. J. B., 5, 10, 17
+
+ Gordon's brilliant charge, 10, 13
+
+ gorge of Berryville pike, 3, 4, 10
+
+ gorilla or guerrilla, which? 39, 40
+
+ grain cars at Danville, 48
+
+ Grant's merciless orders, 2
+
+ Greek Testament, kept, 42;
+   stolen, 80
+
+ greenbacks burned, 138
+
+ greenbacks, relative value of, 23, 24, 41, 140
+
+ Greensboro, N. Carolina, 48
+
+ Gregg, Lieut.-Col. Theodore, 64, 85
+
+ Grover, Gen. Cuvier, 5, 6, 8, 12
+
+ guerrilla, "I'm a guerrilla," 59
+
+ guerrilla, Morgan's, a kind gentleman, 34
+
+ gun cotton, cushion suspected, 45, 46
+
+
+H
+
+ hake, issued in rations, 94
+
+ Hall, Rev. Charles K., kind, 122
+
+ _Hamlet_, rehearsal, 85, 86
+
+ Handy, Lieut., aide to Molineux, 11
+
+ Hartshorne, Col. W. Ross, 64, 66, 67, 68, 115, 130
+
+ Haslett, Capt., Provost Marshal, 26, 37, 38
+
+ Haurand, Major August, 22, 66
+
+ Hayes, Gen. Joseph, 53, 61, 65, 67, 92, 141
+
+ Hayes, Gen., on court martial, Appendix, 156
+
+ health, surely failing, 123
+
+ Henry, Patrick, cited, 30
+
+ "Hide your greenbacks," 41
+
+ hole in the brick wall, 43
+
+ Holland, J. H., imaginary, 128
+
+ Homer, quoted, 80;
+   puzzled to death, 99
+
+ Hooper, Lieut.-Col. C. H., 41, 54, 100, 115
+
+ horse lost in battle, 10, 11, 19
+
+ hospital in Danville, 106, 132
+
+ hostage, Lt. Manning held as, 60
+
+ Howard, Confed. Lieut., 28, 29, 30
+
+ Howe, Capt. Wesley C., 22, 50, 72, 109, 110, 141
+
+
+I
+
+ Imboden, J. D., Confed. Gen., 25
+
+ Indiana soldiers, acrobats, 24
+
+ innocent deliberately slain, 152
+
+ international war, 152
+
+ Irish Bend, La., battle, wounded in, 89
+
+
+J
+
+ James river, 46, 137
+
+ Jefferson, Thomas, quoted, 31
+
+ Jersey lightning, apple-jack? 39
+
+ Johnson's Island prison, 126
+
+ Jonah, disgorged like, 49
+
+ Jordan, H. T., 126, 127
+
+
+K
+
+ Keifer, Gen. J. W., 9
+
+ Kerrstown, 20
+
+
+L
+
+ Ladies, Confed., kind and handsome, 37
+
+ Lee, Gen. Fitzhugh, 5;
+   wounded, 13
+
+ _Legendre_, Davies's, 113, 140 (note)
+
+ letters from outside, 88, 89, 96, 132
+
+ Libby prison, 40-44, 112, 144
+
+ lice in prison, 102, 103, 132
+
+ lice of Egypt, not "in it," 80
+
+ Lincoln, Abraham, quoted, 47, 48
+
+ Lincoln on exchange of prisoners, 89, 90, 125
+
+ Lincoln on right of revolution, 47, 48
+
+ Lloyd, J. J., returns from desertion, 133
+
+ Lockwood, Capt., killed, 77
+
+ log houses for officers, 52, 53
+
+ Longfellow, quoted, 136
+
+ Lovelace, poet, quoted, 89
+
+
+M
+
+ Manning, Lieut. W. C., tunnel, 60, 61, 65
+
+ Mark Tapley's "jolly" example, 38
+
+ _Marmion_, Scott's, quoted, 37
+
+ martyrs in reality, 133, 134, 136
+
+ Mason, Capt. Frank H., 92, 143
+
+ Masonic Hall, Winchester, 18
+
+ McIntosh's cavalry, 4
+
+ Meacham's Station, 38, 40
+
+ meat ration, 44, 93, 94
+
+ Mercutio's wound, 118, 119
+
+ Middletown in Shenandoah Valley, 20
+
+ Molineux, Col. E. L., 7, 9, 14
+
+ money concealed, 42, 119, 138
+
+ money, Confederate, 23, 32, 33, 34, 113, 140
+
+ Morgan's guerrillas, 34
+
+ Mortality in prison. _See_ under "deaths"
+
+ "Muggers," 51
+
+
+N
+
+ Napoleon, his strategy, 10;
+   quoted, 135
+
+ nationality, northern, 149, 150
+
+ nationality, southern, 39, 150, 151
+
+ necessity, military, defies every law, 151
+
+ negroes, loyal and kind, 111
+
+ negroes, prisoners of war, 78, 129
+
+ New Market, Va., 26, 27, 28
+
+ Newtown, V., 20
+
+ Nineteenth Corps, 4, 5, 6, 10, 66, 67
+
+
+O
+
+ occupations, 83, 84, 85, 91, 92; 97-105
+
+ O'Neil, Col., Yale classmate, killed, 64, 130
+
+ Opequon battle, 3-15
+
+ Opequon Creek, 3, 7
+
+ order to retreat, 11
+
+ Ould, R., Confed. Agt. for exchange, 151
+
+ ovens for baking, 110
+
+ overcoat saved, 19, 20, 42, 46, 105, 108, 109
+
+
+P
+
+ "painfully sober," 85
+
+ parole given, 53, 129
+
+ parole rejected, 53
+
+ _pediculidae vestimenti, non capitis_, 99, 100
+
+ Petersburg shelled, 45
+
+ Pharaoh's epidermis and obstinacy, 80
+
+ Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, 10
+
+ plots to break out, 61-75; 113-119
+
+ policing prison, 87, 100
+
+ prayer of chaplain Emerson, 58, 80
+
+ prey and pray, 121
+
+ Prey, Col. Gilbert G., 54, 115, 130
+
+ prison number 3, officers', 78, +
+
+ prison 6, the worst of all, 131, 132
+
+ prison rules adopted, 87, 88
+
+ profanity of soldiers, 14, 15, 39, 87
+
+ Putnam, Adjt. G. Haven, 91, 92, 101, 110, 121, 140, 142
+
+
+Q
+
+ questions, amusing or ugly, 104, 105, 141
+
+
+R
+
+ Ralston, Col., killed, 61, 64, 66, 114, 118
+
+ Ramseur, S. D., Confed. Gen., 13, 15
+
+ rations, 44, 49, 56, 93, 94, 100, 102, 107, 124, 139
+
+ recapture of escaped officers, 112
+
+ recount made futile by trick, 111, 112
+
+ Redwood of Mobile, Yale classmate, 38
+
+ Reed, "shot into inch pieces," 24, 25, 26, 31
+
+ retaliation threatened, 60;
+   done, 148
+
+ rheumatism, 123, 142
+
+ Richardson, Albert D., of _Tribune_, 52
+
+ Richmond, arrival at, 40, 136
+
+ Richmond, watching exploding shells, 45
+
+ Ricketts' Division, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12
+
+ riddle, fatal to the old poet, 99
+
+ riots in July, 1863, 133, 149
+
+ robbery of captives, 15, 22, 46
+
+ Rodes, Confed. General, 5;
+   killed, 10, 13
+
+ roll-call nullified, 111, 112
+
+ roll-call sergt., queer, 99-103, 111, 112
+
+ rope ladder, twisted rags, 111, 112
+
+ rules adopted in prison, 87, 88, 141, 153
+
+ Russell, Sergt. Alfred, 89
+
+ Russell, Gen. D. A., killed, 13
+
+ Russell, Martha, 89
+
+ Russell, Gen. W. H., 128
+
+
+S
+
+ Sadler, Major David, 66
+
+ Salisbury prison, 50-55; 61, 130, 133, 134, 136
+
+ sandwiches, G. W. Swepson's, 49
+
+ sanitary measures, 79, 80, 103, 141, 142
+
+ Sargent, Lieut, of 14th N. H., 23
+
+ Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 8, 37, 134, 135
+
+ scurvy prevalent, 123, 142
+
+ searching of prisoners, 41, 42, 119
+
+ seceded states, a real nation? 150, 151
+
+ sentries' sing-song call, 44
+
+ sermons in prison, 57, 58, 121, 122
+
+ "Set the table for dinner," 96
+
+ Shakespeare, quoted, 36, 118, 119
+
+ Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, 85, 140
+
+ shelter, lack of at Salisbury, 53, 55, 136
+
+ Shenandoah river and valley, 1, 2
+
+ Sheridan's devastation, 1, 2, 3
+
+ Sherman, Gen. W. T., quoted, 1
+
+ "shot twice into inch pieces," 24
+
+ Simpson, Lieut. J. B.; his sly trick, 77
+
+ singing at evening at Danville, 104, 141
+
+ Sixth Corps, 4, 5, 6, 10, 13
+
+ "skirmishing" a misnomer, 102, 103
+
+ slavery doomed in any event, 149
+
+ "Slim Jim," 101
+
+ Small, Major Adner A., 142
+
+ Smith, Robert C., Confed. commandant, 81, 82
+
+ Smith, Col. Robert C., Yale man, kind, 82, +
+
+ Smith, Sergt. W. F., clerk, 129
+
+ "snack?" or snake? 49
+
+ sorghum syrup issued, 94
+
+ soup, so called (or broth), 44, 94, 102
+
+ spittoon mystery, solved? 78
+
+ spoon, carving of, 83, 141 (note)
+
+ "spoon fashion," lying in, 105
+
+ "_Spoon_"! significance of, 105
+
+ Sprague, Bvt. Col. H. B., _passim_, and 143 (note)
+
+ stampede, Yankee, 11, 12;
+   Confederate, 18, 23
+
+ Stanton, E. M., War Secretary, 147, 148
+
+ State, allegiance to, 39
+
+ Staunton, Va., march to, 2, 28
+
+ Staunton, arrival and breakfast at, 32, 33
+
+ Staunton, Morgan's guerrilla kind at, 33, 34
+
+ stealing rations from guards, haversacks, 77
+
+ Stephens, Hon. Alexander H., 146, 147
+
+ "Storming Column" at Port Hudson, 7
+
+ "Stove Brigade," at Danville, 79
+
+ stoves in prison at Danville, 79, 95
+
+ Strasburg, Va., 20
+
+ Strickland, undertaker, 129
+
+ Stuart, Dr. Moses, on slavery, 29
+
+ subjugation policy, Lincoln's, 151
+
+ sunrise on the Blue Ridge, 36
+
+ sutler, Confederate, 84
+
+ swearing, copious, of two kinds, 14, 15, 39
+
+ sweeping the floors, 87, 100
+
+ Swepson, George W., very kind, 49, 50
+
+
+T
+
+ table-knife saw, Lieut. Titus's, 97, 111
+
+ Tarbell, Capt. Doctor, assistant commissary, 54, 100
+
+ Taylor, Bayard, quoted, 80
+
+ _tertium quid_, solution of mystery, 78
+
+ theatrical collapse at Danville, 85, 86
+
+ Thirteenth Conn. Regt., very patriotic, 7
+
+ Tiemann, Capt. W. F., 14, 15, 85, 109, 143
+
+ Titus, Lieut. L. B., invents useful saw, 97, 111
+
+ tobacco and the spittoon mystery, 78
+
+ tobacco given us by kind clergyman, 122
+
+ Tom's Brook, 20, 22, 23
+
+ tooth-brush, second-hand, $300 offered, 140
+
+ Torbert, Gen. Alfred T., 3, 4, 5, 6, 17
+
+ trading with Confed. sentinels, 54, 120
+
+ tunnel through the Blue Ridge, 35, 36
+
+ tunneling at Salisbury, 60, 61;
+   Danville, 109, 110
+
+ Turner, Nathaniel, inspector, Libby, 41
+
+ Turner, Richard, commandant at Libby, 41, 45
+
+
+U
+
+ unguentum, two pounds called for, 81
+
+ university students in prison at Danville, 140
+
+
+V
+
+ Vander Weyde, Lieut. Henry, artist, 101, 117
+
+ vermin at Danville, 80, 81, 87, 131, 132
+
+ view-point, all-important, 57
+
+ votes in prison for President, Nov. 8, 90
+
+
+W
+
+ war, Admiral Fisher on its essence, 57
+
+ war, Lieut. Gen. S. B. M. Young, quoted on, 57
+
+ war, Gen. Wm. T. Sherman's "War is hell," 1
+
+ Washington, George, Commander-in-chief, 73, 148
+
+ Washington, Lieutenant, a Confederate, 83
+
+ Washington, President, a Mason at Winchester, 18
+
+ Washington wished slavery somehow ended, 30
+
+ water parties under guard, 98, 110
+
+ water scarce _en route_, 20;
+   at Salisbury, 56, 65, 75
+
+ Watts, Isaac, quoted, 45
+
+ Waynesboro, Va., 34, 35
+
+ Webster, Daniel, 29
+
+ Wesley, John, quoted, 152
+
+ West Virginia, Army of, 4, 5
+
+ "Where is he at?" 73
+
+ Whittier, John G., quoted, 152
+
+ Wilson, Cav. Gen. J. H., 4
+
+ Winchester, Va., battle of, 3-15
+
+ Winder, Confed. Gen. J. H., Supt. Prisons, 112
+
+ wood, split without edge-tools, 97, 107
+
+ Woolsey, T. D., President of Yale, 128
+
+
+Y
+
+ Yadkin river crossing, 72, 75
+
+ Yale College men, 38, 49, 64, 69, 82
+
+ Yankee ingenuity and skill, 83, 84, 97
+
+ Y. M. C. A., of Richmond, 121
+
+ Young, Lieut.-Gen. S. B. M., on war, 57
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Endnotes:
+
+    The following significant errors have been corrected:
+
+      Portrait Caption, "Gardiner" to _Gardner_.
+
+      Page 102 & 160, "peculidae" to _pediculidae_, could be amended to
+        _pediculus_ however the former seems more in keeping with the
+        original intent.
+
+      Spelling errors occurring solely in the Index have been corrected
+        to match the main text.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lights and Shadows in Confederate
+Prisons, by Homer B. Sprague
+
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