The Secret Service, the Field, the Dungeon, and the Escape

by Albert D. Richardson

CHAPTER XXIV.

——Our doubts are traitors.
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.

Measure for Measure.

In a lull of the musketry, during the battle of Antietam, McClellan rode forward toward the front. On the way, he met a Massachusetts general, who was his old friend and class-mate.

"Gordon," he asked, "how are your men?"

"They have behaved admirably," replied Gordon; "but they are now somewhat scattered."

"Collect them at once. We must fight to-night and fight to-morrow. This is our golden opportunity. If we cannot whip the Rebels here, we may just as well all die on the field."

The Day After the Battle.

That was the spirit of the whole army. It was universally expected that McClellan would renew the attack at daylight the next morning; but, though he had many thousand fresh men, and defeat could only be repulse to him, while to the enemy, with the river in his rear, it would be ruin, his constitutional timidity prevented. It was the costliest of mistakes.

Thursday proved a day of rest—such rest as can be found with three miles of dead men to bury, and thousands of wounded to bring from the field. It was a day of standing on the line where the battle closed—of intermittent sharp-shooting and discharges of artillery, but no general skirmishing, or attempt to advance on either side.

Riding out to the front of General Couch's line, I found the Rebels and our own soldiers mingling freely on the disputed ground, bearing away the wounded. I was scanning a Rebel battery with my field-glass, at the distance of a quarter of a mile, when one of our pickets exclaimed:

"Put up your glass, sir! The Johnnies will shoot in a minute, if they see you using it."

In front of Hancock's lines, a flag of truce was raised. Hancock—erect and soldierly, with smooth face, light eyes, and brown hair, the finest-looking general in our service—accompanied by Meagher, rode forward into a corn-field, and met the young fire-eating brigadier of the Rebels, Roger A. Pryor. Pryor insisted that he had seen a white flag on our front, and asked if we desired permission to remove our dead and wounded. Hancock indignantly denied that we had asked for a truce, as we claimed the ground, stating that, through the whole day, we had been removing and ministering to both Union and Rebel wounded. He suggested a cessation of sharp-shooting until this work could be completed. Pryor declined this, and in ten minutes the firing reopened.

"A great victory," said Wellington, "is the most awful thing in the world, except a great defeat." Antietam, though not an entire victory, had all its terrific features. Our casualties footed up to twelve thousand three hundred and fifty-two, of whom about two thousand were killed on the field.

Down Among the Dead Men.

Between the fences of a road immediately beyond the corn-field, in a space one hundred yards long, I counted more than two hundred Rebel dead, lying where they fell. Elsewhere, over many acres, they were strewn singly, in groups, and occasionally in masses, piled up almost like cord-wood. They were lying—some with the human form undistinguishable, others with no outward indication of wounds—in all the strange positions of violent death. All had blackened faces. There were forms with every rigid muscle strained in fierce agony, and those with hands folded peacefully upon the bosom; some still clutching their guns, others with arm upraised, and one with a single open finger pointing to heaven. Several remained hanging over a fence which they were climbing when the fatal shot struck them.

It was several days before all the wounded were removed from the field. Many were shockingly mutilated; but the most revolting spectacle I saw was that of a soldier, with three fingers cut off by a bullet, leaving ragged, bloody shreds of flesh.

Lee Permitted to Escape.

On Thursday night the sun went down with the opposing forces face to face, and their pickets within stone's throw of each other. On Friday morning the Rebel army was in Virginia, the National army in Maryland. Between dark and daylight, Lee evacuated the position, and carried his whole army across the river. He had no empty breastworks with which to endow us; but he left a field plowed with shot, watered with blood, and sown thick with dead. We found the débris of his late camps, two disabled pieces of artillery, a few hundred of his stragglers, two thousand of his wounded, and as many more of his unburied dead; but not a single field-piece or caisson, ambulance or wagon, not a tent, a box of stores, or a pound of ammunition. He carried with him the supplies gathered in Maryland and the rich spoils of Harper's Ferry.

It was a very bitter disappointment to the army and the country.

The John Brown Engine-House.

Bolivar Hights, Md., September 25, 1862.

Adieu to western Maryland, with the stanch loyalty of its suffering people! Adieu to Sharpsburg, which, cut to pieces by our own shot and shell as no other village in America ever was, gave us the warm welcome that comes from the heart! Adieu to the drenched field of Antietam, with its glorious Wednesday, writing for our army a record than which nothing brighter shines through history; with its fatal Thursday, permitting the clean, leisurely escape of the foe down into the valley, across the difficult ford, and up the Virginia Hights! Our army might have been driven back; it could never have been captured or cut to pieces. Failure was only repulse; success was crowning, decisive, final victory. The enemy saw this, and walked undisturbed out of the snare.

Three days ago, our army moved down the left bank of the Potomac, climbing the narrow, tortuous road that winds around the foot of the mountains; under Maryland Hights; across the long, crooked ford above the blackened timbers of the railroad bridge; then up among the long, bare, deserted walls of the ruined Government Armory, past the engine-house which Old John Brown made historic; up through the dingy, antique, oriental looking town of Harper's Ferry, sadly worn, almost washed away by the ebb and flow of war; up through the village of Bolivar to these Hights, where we pitched our tents.

Behind and below us rushed the gleaming river, till its dark, shining surface was broken by rocks. Across it came a line of our stragglers, wading to the knees with staggering steps. Beyond it, the broad forest-clad Maryland Hights rose gloomy and somber. Down behind me, to the river, winding across it like a slender S, then extending for half a mile on the other side, far up along the Maryland hill, stretched a division-train of snowy wagons, standing out in strong relief from the dark background of water and mountain.

Two weeks ago shots exchanged between the army of Slavery and the army of Freedom shrieked and screamed over the engine-house, where, for two days, Old John Brown held the State of Virginia at bay. A week ago its walls were again shaken by the thunders of cannonade, when the armies met in fruitless battle. Last night, within rifle-shot of it, the President's Proclamation of Emancipation was heard gladly among thirty thousand soldiers.

President Lincoln Reviews the Army.

October 2.

President Lincoln arrived here yesterday, and reviewed the troops, accompanied by McClellan, Sumner, Hancock, Meagher, and other generals. He appeared in black, wearing a silk hat; and his tall, slender form, and plain clothing, contrasted strangely with the broad shoulders and the blue and gold of the major-general commanding.

He is unusually thin and silent, and looks weary and careworn. He regarded the old engine-house with great interest. It reminded him, he said, of the Illinois custom of naming locomotives after fleet animals, such as the "Reindeer," the "Antelope," the "Flying Dutchman," etc. At the time of the John Brown raid, a new locomotive was named the "Scared Virginians."

The troops everywhere cheered him with warm enthusiasm.

October 13.

The cavalry raid of the Rebel General Stuart, around our entire army, into Maryland and Pennsylvania, and back again, crossing the Potomac without serious loss, is the one theme of conversation. It was audacious and brilliant. On his return, Stuart passed within five miles of McClellan's head-quarters, which were separated from the rest of the troops by half a mile, and guarded only by a New York regiment. Some of the staff officers are very indignant when they are told that Stuart knew the interest of the Rebels too well to capture our commander.

Charlestown, Virginia, October 16.

A reconnoissance to the front, commanded by General Hancock. The column moved briskly over the broad turnpike, through ample fields rich with shocks of corn, past stately farm-houses, with deep shade-trees and orchards, by gray barns, surrounded by hay and grain stacks—beyond our lines, over the debatable ground, past the Rebel picket-stations, in sight of Charlestown, and yet no enemy appeared.

Dodging Rebel Cannon-Balls.

We began to think Confederates a myth. But suddenly a gun belched forth in front of us; another, and yet another, and rifled shot came singing by, cutting through the tree-branches with sharp, incisive music.

Two of our batteries instantly unlimbered, and replied. Our column filled the road. Nearly all the Rebel missiles struck in an apple-orchard within twenty yards of the turnpike; but our men would persist in climbing the trees and gathering the fruit, in spite of the shrieking shells.

I have not yet learned to avoid bowing my head instinctively as a shot screams by; but some old stagers sit perfectly erect, and laughingly remind me of Napoleon's remark to a young officer: "My friend, if that shell were really your fate, it would hit you and kill you if you were a hundred feet underground."

We could plainly see the Rebel cavalry. Far in advance of all others, was a rider on a milk-white horse, which made him a conspicuous mark. The sharpshooters tried in vain to pick him off, while he sat viewing the artillery drill as complacently as if enjoying a pantomime. Some of our officers declare that they have seen that identical steed and rider on the Rebel front in every fight from Yorktown to Antietam.

After an artillery fire of an hour, in which we lost eight or ten men, the Rebels evacuated Charlestown, and we entered.

"His Soul is Marching On."

The troops take a very keen interest in every thing connected with the historic old man, who, two years ago, yielded up his life in a field which is near our camp. They visit it by hundreds, and pour into the court-house, now open and deserted, where he was tried, and made that wonderful speech which will never die. They scan closely the jail, where he wrote and spoke so many electric words. As our column passed it, one countenance only was visible within—that of a negro, looking through a grated window. How his dusky face lit up behind its prison-bars at the sight of our column, and the words—

"His soul is marching on!"

sung by a Pennsylvania regiment!

An Eminently "Intelligent Contraband."

Our pickets descried a solitary horseman, with a basket on his arm, jogging soberly toward them. He proved a dark mulatto of about thirty-five, and halted at their order.

"Where are you from?"

"Southern army, Cap'n."

"Where are you going?"

"Goin' to you'se all."

"What do you want?"

"Protection, boss. You won't send me back, will you?"

"No, come in. Whose servant are you?"

"Cap'n Rhett's, of South Caroliny. You'se heard of Mr. Barnwell Rhett, Editor of The Charleston Mercury; Cap'n is his brother, and commands a battery."

"How did you get away?"

"Cap'n gave me fifteen dollars this morning. He said: 'John, go out and forage for butter and eggs.' So you see, boss" (with a broad grin), "I'se out foraging. I pulled my hat over my eyes, and jogged along on the cap'n's horse, with this basket on my arm, right by our pickets. They never challenged me once. If they had I should have shown them this."

And he produced from his pocket an order in pencil from Captain Rhett to pass his servant John, on horseback, in search of butter and eggs.

"Why did you expect protection?"

"Heard so in Maryland, before the Proclamation."

"What do you know about the Proclamation?"

"Read it, sir, in a Richmond paper."

"What is it?"

"That every slave is to be emancipated after the first day of next January. Isn't that it, boss?"

"Something like it. How did you learn to read?"

"A New York lady stopping at the hotel taught me."

"Did you ever hear of Old John Brown?"

"Hear of him! Lord bless you, yes; I've his life now in my trunk in Charleston. I've read it to heaps of colored folks. They think John Brown was almost a god. Just say you are a friend of his, and any slave will kiss your feet, if you will let him. They think, if he was only alive now, he would be king. How he did frighten the white folks! It was Sunday morning. I was waiter at the Mills House, in Charleston. A lady from Massachusetts breakfasted at my table. 'John,' she says, 'I want to see a negro church. Where is the best one?' 'Not any open to-day, Missus,' I told her. 'Why not?' 'Because a Mr. John Brown has raised an insurrection in Virginny, and they don't let the negroes go into the street to-day.' 'Well,' she says, 'they had better look out, or they will get their white churches shut up, too, one of these days.'"

"The Lord Bless You, General!"

This truly intelligent contraband, being taken to McClellan, replied very modestly and intelligently to questions about the numbers and organization of the Rebel army. At the close of the interview, he asked anxiously:

"General, you won't send me back, will you?"

"Yes," replied McClellan, with a smile, "I believe I will."

"I hope you won't, General" (with great earnestness). "I come to you'se all for protection, and I hope you won't."

"Well, then, John, you are at liberty to stay with the army, if you like, or to go where you please. No one can ever make you a slave again."

"May the Lord bless you, General! I thought you wouldn't drive me out. You'se the best friend I ever had. I shall never forget you till I die."

Bolivar Hights, October 25.

"The view from the mountains at Harper's Ferry," said Thomas Jefferson, "is worth a journey across the Atlantic."

Curiosities of the Signal-Corps.

Let us approach it at the lower price of climbing Maryland Hights. The air is soft and wooing to-day. It is the time—

——"just ere the frost Prepares to pave old Winter's way, When Autumn, in a reverie lost, The mellow daylight dreams away; When Summer comes in musing mind To gaze once more on hill and dell, To mark how many sheaves they bind, And see if all are ripened well."

Half way up the mountain, you rest your panting horse at a battery, among bottle-shaped Dahlgrens, sure at thirty-five hundred yards, and capable at their utmost elevation of a range of three miles and a half; black, solemn Parrotts, with iron-banded breech, and shining howitzers of brass. Far up, accessible only to footmen, is a long breast-work, where two of our companies repulsed a Rebel regiment. How high the tide of war must run, when its waves wash this mountain-top! Here, on the extreme summit, is an open tent of the Signal-Corps. It is labeled:

"Don't touch the instruments. Ask no questions."

Inside, two operators are gazing at the distant hights, through fixed telescopes, calling out, "45," "169," "81," etc., which the clerk records. Each number represents a letter, syllable, or abbreviated word.

Looking through the long glass toward one of the seven signal-stations, from four to twenty miles away, communicating with this, you see a flag, with some large black figure upon a white foreground. It rises; so many waves to the right; so many to the left. Then a different flag takes its place, and rises and falls in turn.

By these combinations, from one to three words per minute are telegraphed. The operator slowly reads the distant signal to you: "Two— hundred— Rebel— cavalry— riding— out— of— Charlestown— this— way— field-piece— on—road," and it occupies five minutes. Five miles is an easy distance to communicate, but messages can be sent twenty miles. The Signal-Corps keep on the front; their services are of great value. Several of the members have been wounded and some killed.

Beautiful View from Maryland Hights.

You are on the highest point of the Blue Ridge, four thousand feet above the sea, one thousand above the Potomac.

Along the path by which you came, climbs a pony; on the pony's back a negro; on the negro's head a bucket of water; then a mule, bearing a coffee-sack, containing at each end a keg of water. Thus all provisions are brought up. Here, in the early morning, you could only look out upon a cold, shoreless sea of white fog. Now, you look down upon all the country within a radius of twenty miles, as you would gaze into your garden from your own house-top.

You see the Potomac winding far away in a thread of silver, broken by shrubs, rocks, and islands. At your feet lies Pleasant Valley, a great furrow—two miles across, from edge to edge—plowed through the mountains. It is full of camps, white villages of tents, and black groups of guns. You see cozy dwellings, with great, well-filled barns, red brick mills, straw-colored fields dotted with shocks of corn and reaching far up into the dark, hill-side woods, green sward-fields, mottled with orchards, and a little shining stream. A dim haze rests upon the mountain-guarded picture, and the soft wind seems to sing with Whittier:

"Yet calm and patient Nature keeps Her ancient promise well, Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps The battle's breath of hell.

"And still she walks in golden hours Through harvest-happy farms, And still she wears her fruits and flowers, Like jewels on her arms.

"Still in the cannon's pause we hear Her sweet thanksgiving psalm; Too near to God for doubt or fear, She shares the eternal calm.

"She sees with clearer eye than ours The good of suffering born,— The hearts that blossom like her flowers, And ripen like her corn."

See the regiments on dress parade; long lines of dark blue, with bayonets that flash brightly in the waning sunlight. When dismissed, each breaks into companies, which move toward their quarters like monster antediluvian reptiles, with myriads of blue legs.

Burnside at his Tent.

On that distant hill-side, just at the forest's edge, in the midst of a group of tents, are Burnside's head-quarters. Through your field-glass, you see standing in front of them the military man whose ambition has a limit. He has twice refused to accept the chief command of the army. There stands Burnside, the favorite of the troops, in blue shirt, knit jacket, and riding-boots, with frank, manly face, and full, laughing eyes.

Under your feet are Bolivar Hights, crowned with the tents of Couch's Corps—dingy by reason of long service, like a Spring snow-drift through which the dirt begins to sift. You see the quaint old village of Harper's Ferry, and glimpses of the Potomac—gold in the sunset—with trees and rocks mirrored in its mellow face.

The sun goes down, and the glory of the western hills fades as you slowly descend; but the picture you have seen is one which memory paints in fast colors.

---

[CHAPTER XXV.]

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty.

Taming of the Shrew.

On the March Southward.

When the army left Harper's Ferry, on a forced march, it moved, with incredible celerity, thirty miles in nine days!

The Virginians east of the Blue Ridge were nearly all hot Secessionists. The troops, who had behaved well among the Union people of Maryland, saw the contrast, and spoiled the Egyptians accordingly. I think if Pharaoh had seen his homestead passed over by a hungry, hostile force, he would have let the people go.

In the presence of the army, many professed a sort of loyal neutrality, or neutral loyalty; but I did not hear a single white Virginian of either sex claim to be an unconditional Unionist.

At Woodgrove, one evening, finding that we should not go into camp before midnight, I sought supper and lodging at a private house of the better class. My middle-aged host and his two young, unmarried sisters, were glad to entertain some one from the army, to protect their dwelling against stragglers.

Rebel Girl with a Sharp Tongue.

The elder girl, of about eighteen, was almost a monomaniac upon the war. She declared she had no aspiration for heaven, if any Yankees were to be there. She would be proud to kiss the dirtiest, raggedest soldier in the Rebel army. I refrained from discussing politics with her, and we talked of other subjects.

During the evening, Generals Gorman and Burns reached the house to seek shelter for the night. The officers, discovering the sensitiveness of the poor girl, expressed the most ultra sentiments. Well educated, and with a tongue like a rapier, she was at times greatly excited, and the blood crimsoned her face; but she out-talked them all.

"By-the-way," asked Burns, mischievously, "do you ever read The Tribune?"

She replied, with intense indignation:

"Read it! I would not touch it with a pair of tongs! It is the most infamous Abolition, negro-equality sheet in the whole world!"

"So a great many people say," continued Burns. "However, here is one of its correspondents."

"In this room?"

"Yes, madam."

"He must be even worse than you, who come down here to murder us! Where is he?"

"Sitting in the corner there, reading letters."

"I thought you were deceiving me. That is no Tribune correspondent. I do not believe you." (To me:) "This Yankee officer says that you write for The New York Tribune. You don't, do you?"

"Yes, madam."

"Why, you seem to be a gentleman. It is not true! It's a jest between you just to make me angry.'"

At last convinced, she withheld altogether from me the expected vituperation, but assailed Burns in a style which made him very glad to abandon the unequal contest. She relentlessly persisted that he should always wear his star, for nobody would suspect him of being a general if he appeared without his uniform—that he was the worst type of the most obnoxious Yankee, etc.

At Upperville, the next day, I inquired of a woman who was scrutinizing us from her door:

"Have you seen any Rebel pickets this morning?"

She replied, indignantly:

"No! Why do you call them Rebels?"

"As you please, madam; what do you call them?"

"I call them Southern heroes, sir!"

The Negroes "Watching and Waiting."

The negroes poured into our lines whenever permitted.

"Well, Uncle," I asked of a white-haired patriarch, who was tottering along the road, "are you a Rebel, like everybody else?"

"No, sir! What should I be a Rebel for? I have been wanting to come to you all a heap of times; but I just watched and waited."

Watching and waiting! Four millions of negroes were watching and waiting from the beginning of the war until President Lincoln's Proclamation.

On the march, Major O'Neil, of General Meagher's staff, started with a message to Burnside, who was a few miles on our left. Unsuspectingly, he rode right into a squad of cavalry dressed in United States uniform. He found that they were Stuart's Rebels in disguise, and that he was a captive. O'Neil had only just been exchanged from Libby Prison, and his prospect was disheartening. The delighted Rebels sent him to their head-quarters in Bloomfield, under guard of a lieutenant and two men. But, on reaching the village, they found the head-quarters closed.

"I wonder where our forces are gone," said the Rebel officer. "Oh, here they are! Men, guard the prisoner while I ride to them."

And he galloped down the street to a company of approaching cavalry. Just as he reached them, they leveled their carbines, and cried:

"Surrender!"

He had made precisely the same mistake as Major O'Neil, and ridden into our cavalry instead of his own. So, after spending three hours in the hands of the Rebels, O'Neil found himself once more in our lines, accompanied by three Rebel prisoners.

The slaveholders complained greatly of the depredations of our army. A very wealthy planter, who had lost nothing of much value, drew for me a frightful picture of impending starvation.

"I could bear it myself," exclaimed this Virginian Pecksniff, "but it is very hard for these little negroes, who are almost as dear to me as my own children."

He had one of the young Africans upon his knee, and it was quite as white as "his own children," who were running about the room. The only perceptible difference was that its hair was curly, while theirs was straight.

Removal of General McClellan.

At Warrenton, on the 7th of November, McClellan was relieved from the command of the Army of the Potomac. He issued the following farewell:

"An order from the President devolves upon Major-General Burnside the command of this army. In parting from you, I cannot express the love and gratitude I bear you. As an army, you have grown under my care; in you I have never found doubt or coldness. The battles you have fought under my command will brightly live in our nation's history; the glory you have achieved, our mutual perils and fatigues, the graves of our comrades fallen in battle and by disease, the broken forms of those whom wounds and sickness have disabled, make the strongest associations which can exist among men. United still by an indissoluble tie, we shall ever be comrades in supporting the Constitution of our country and the nationality of its people."

McClellan's political and personal friends were aggrieved and indignant at his removal in the midst of a campaign. Three of his staff officers even made a foolish attempt to assault a Tribune correspondent, on account of the supposed hostility of that journal toward their commander. General McClellan, upon hearing of it, sent a disclaimer and apology, and the officers were soon heartily ashamed.

The withdrawal was worked up to its utmost dramatic effect. Immediately after reading the farewell order to all the troops, there was a final review, in which the outgoing and incoming generals, with their long staffs, rode along the lines. Salutes were fired and colors dipped. At some points, the men cheered warmly, but the new regiments were "heroically reticent." McClellan's chief strength was with the rank and file.

Pickets Talking Across the River.

Burnside pushed the army rapidly forward to the Rappahannock. The Rebels held Fredericksburg, on the south bank. The men conversed freely across the stream. One day I heard a dialogue like this:

"Halloo, butternut!"

"Halloo, bluebelly!"

"What was the matter with your battery, Tuesday night?"

"You made it too hot. Your shots drove away the cannoneers, and they haven't stopped running yet. We infantry men had to come out and withdraw the guns."

"You infantrymen will run, too, one of these fine mornings."

"When are you coming over?"

"When we get ready to come."

"What do you want?"

"Want Fredericksburg."

"Don't you wish you may get it?"

Here an officer came up and ordered our men away.

The army halted for some weeks in front of Fredericksburg.

How Army Correspondents Lived.

By this time, War Correspondence was employing hundreds of pens. The Tribune had from five to eight men in the Army of the Potomac, and twelve west of the Alleghanies. My own local habitation was the head-quarters of Major-General O. O. Howard, who afterward won wide reputation in Tennessee and Georgia, and who is an officer of great skill, bravery, and personal purity.

My dispatches were usually prepared, and those of my associates sent to me, at night. Before dawn, a special messenger called at my tent for them, and bore them on horseback, or by railway and steamer, to Washington, whence they were forwarded to New York by mail or telegraph.

Correspondents usually lived at the head-quarters of some general officer, bearing their due proportion of mess expenditures; but they were compelled to rely upon the bounty of quartermasters for forage for their horses, and transportation for their baggage.

Having no legal and recognized positions in the army, they were sometimes liable to supercilious treatment from young members of staff. They were sure of politeness and consideration from generals; yet, particularly in the regular army, there was a certain impression that they deserved Halleck's characterization of "unauthorized hangers-on." To encourage the best class of journalists to accompany the army, there should be a law distinctly authorizing representatives of the Press, who are engaged in no other pursuit, to accompany troops in the field, and purchase forage and provisions at the same rates as officers. They should, of course, be held to a just responsibility not to publish information which could benefit the enemy.

Nightly, around our great division camp-fire, negroes of all ages pored over their spelling-books with commendable thirst for learning.

I'd rather be Free.

One boy, of fourteen, was considered peculiarly stupid, and had seen hard work, rough living, and no pay, during his twelve months' sojourn with the army. I asked him: "Did you work as hard for your old master as you do here?"

"No, sir."

"Did he treat you kindly?"

"Yes, sir."

"Were you as well clothed as now?"

"Better, sir."

"And had more comforts?"

"Yes, sir; always had a roof over me, and was never exposed to rain and cold."

"Would you not have done better to stay at home?"

"If I had thought so, I should not have come away, sir."

"Would you come again, knowing what hardships were before you?"

"Yes, sir. I'd rather be free!"

He was not stupid enough to be devoid of human instinct!

The Battle of Fredericksburg.

In December occurred the battle of Fredericksburg. The enemy's position was very strong—almost impregnable. Our men were compelled to lay their pontoons across the river in a pitiless rain of bullets from the Rebel sharpshooters. But they did it without flinching. Our troops, rank, file, and officers, marched into the jaws of death with stubborn determination.

We attacked in three columns; but the original design was that the main assault should be on our left, which was commanded by General Franklin. A road which Franklin wished to reach would enable him to come up in the rear of Fredericksburg, and compel the enemy to evacuate his strong works, or be captured. Franklin was very late in starting. He penetrated once to this road, but did not know it, and again fell back. Thus the key to the position was lost.

In the center, our troops were flung upon very strong works, and repulsed with terrible slaughter. It proved a massacre rather than a battle. Our killed and wounded exceeded ten thousand.

I was not present at the battle, but returned to the army two or three days after. Burnside deported himself with rare fitness and magnanimity. As he spoke to me about the brave men who had fruitlessly fallen, there were tears in his eyes, and his voice broke with emotion. When I asked him if Franklin's slowness was responsible for the slaughter, he replied:

"No. I understand perfectly well that when the general commanding an army meets with disaster, he alone is responsible, and I will not attempt to shift that responsibility upon any one else. No one will ever know how near we came to a great victory. It almost seems to me now that I could have led my old Ninth Corps into those works."

Indeed, Burnside had desired to do this, but was dissuaded by his lieutenants. The Ninth Corps would have followed him anywhere; but that would have been certain death.

Burnside was, at least, great in his earnestness, his moral courage, and perfect integrity. The battle was better than squandering precious lives in fevers and dysentery during months of inaction. Better a soldier's death on the enemy's guns than a nameless grave in the swamps of the Chickahominy or the trenches before Corinth.

Ordered to move, Burnside obeyed without quibbling or hesitating, and flung his army upon the Rebels. The result was defeat; but that policy proved our salvation at last; by that sign we conquered.

Every private soldier knew that the battle of Fredericksburg was a costly and bloody mistake, and yet I think on the day or the week following it, the soldiers would have gone into battle just as cheerfully and sturdily as before. The more I saw of the Army of the Potomac, the more I wondered at its invincible spirit, which no disasters seemed able to destroy.

Curious Blunder of the Telegraph.

In January, among the lookers-on in Virginia, was the Hon. Henry J. Raymond, of The Times. He had a brother in the service, and one day he received this telegram:—

"Your brother's corpse is at Belle Plain."

Hastening to the army as fast as steam could carry him, to perform the last sad offices of affection, he found his relative not only living, but in vigorous health. Through the eccentricities of the telegraph, the word corps had been changed into corpse.

On the 22d of January, Burnside attempted another advance, designing to cross the Rappahannock in three columns. The weather for a long time had been fine, but, a few hours after the army started, the heavens opened, and converted the Virginia roads into almost fathomless mire. Advance seemed out of the question, and in two days the troops came back to camp. The Rebels understood the cause, and prepared an enormous sign, which they erected on their side of the river, in full view of our pickets, bearing the inscription, "Stuck in the mud!"

The Batteries at Fredericksburg.

Army of Potomac, near Falmouth, Va., Monday, Nov. 24.

Still on the north bank of the Rappahannock! Upon the high bluffs, along a line of three miles, twenty-four of our guns point threateningly toward the enemy. In the ravines behind them a hundred more wait, ready to be wheeled up and placed in position.

Upon the hills south of the river, distant from them a thousand to five thousand yards, Rebel guns confront them. Some peer blackly through hastily-built earthworks; some are just visible over the crests of sharp ridges; some almost hidden by great piles of brush. Already we count eighteen; the cannonading will unmask many more.

"Ah, what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, When the Death-angel touches these swift keys! What loud lament and dismal miserere Will mingle with their awful symphonies!"

In front of our right batteries, but far below and hidden from them, the antique, narrow, half-ruined village of Falmouth hugs the river. In front of the Rebel batteries, in full view of both sides, the broad, well-to-do town of Fredericksburg, with its great factories, tall spires, and brick buildings, is a tempting target for our guns. The river which flows between (though Fredericksburg is half a mile below Falmouth), is now so narrow, that a lad can throw a stone across.

Behind our batteries and their protecting hills rests the infantry of the Grand Division. General Couch's corps occupies a crescent-shaped valley—a symmetric natural amphitheater. It is all aglow nightly with a thousand camp-fires; and, from the proscenium-hill of General Howard's head-quarters, forms a picture mocking all earthly canvas. Behind the Rebel batteries, in the dense forest, their infantry occupies a line five miles long. By night we just detect the glimmer of their fires; by day we see the tall, slender columns of smoke curling up from their camps.

A Disappointed Virginian.

All the citizens ask to have guards placed over their houses; but very few obtain them. "I will give no man a guard," replied General Howard to one of these applicants, "until he is willing to lose as much as I have lost, in defending the Government." The Virginian cast one long, lingering look at the General's loose, empty coat-sleeve (he lost his right arm while leading his brigade at Fair Oaks), and went away, the picture of despair.

Army of Potomac, Sunday, Dec. 21.

The general tone of the army is good; far better than could be expected. There is regret for our failure, sympathy for our wounded, mourning for our honored dead; but I find little discouragement and no demoralization.

This is largely owing to the splendid conduct of all our troops. The men are hopeful because there are few of the usual jealousies and heart-burnings. No one is able to say, "If this division had not broken," or "if that regiment had done its duty, we might have won." The concurrence of testimony is universal, that our men in every division did better than they ever did before, and made good their claim to being the best troops in the world. We have had victories without merit, but this was a defeat without dishonor.

In many respects—in all respects but the failure of its vital object—the battle of Fredericksburg was the finest thing of the war. Laying the bridge, pushing the army across, after the defeat withdrawing it successfully—all were splendidly done, and redound alike to the skill of the general and the heroism of the troops.

Honor to the Brave and Bold.

And those men and officers of the Seventh Michigan, the Nineteenth and Twentieth Massachusetts, and the Eighty-ninth New York, who eagerly crossed the river in open boats, in the teeth of that pitiless rain of bullets, and dislodged the sharpshooters who were holding our whole army at bay—what shall we say of them? Let the name of every man of them be secured now, and preserved in a roll of honor; let Congress see to it that, by medal or ribbon to each, the Republic gives token of gratitude to all who do such royal deeds in its defense. To the living, at least, we can be just. The fallen, who were left by hundreds in line of battle, "dead on the field of honor," we cannot reward; but He who permits no sparrow to fall to the ground unheeded, will see to it that no drop of their precious blood has been shed in vain.

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[CHAPTER XXVI.]

He hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off.

Macbeth.

Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln.

The assassination of President Lincoln, while these chapters are in press, attaches a sad interest to everything connected with his memory.

During the great canvass for the United States Senate, between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglass, the right of Congress to exclude Slavery from the Territories was the chief point in dispute. Kansas was the only region to which it had any practical application; and we, who were residing there, read the debates with peculiar interest.

No such war of intellects, on the rostrum, was ever witnessed in America. Entirely without general culture, more ignorant of books than any other public man of his day, Douglass was christened "the Little Giant" by the unerring popular instinct. He who, without the learning of the schools, and without preparation, could cope with Webster, Seward, and Sumner, surely deserved that appellation. He despised study. Rising after one of Mr. Sumner's most scholarly and elaborate speeches, he said: "Mr. President, this is very elegant and able, but we all know perfectly well that the Massachusetts Senator has been rehearsing it every night for a month, before a looking-glass, with a negro holding a candle!"

His Great Canvass with Douglass.

Douglass was, beyond all cotemporaries, a man of the people. Lincoln, too, was distinctively of the masses; but he represented their sober, second thought, their higher aspirations, their better possibilities. Douglass embodied their average impulses, both good and bad. Upon the stump, his fluency, his hard common sense, and his wonderful voice, which could thunder like the cataract, or whisper with the breeze, enabled him to sway them at his will.

Hitherto invincible at home, he now found a foeman worthy of his steel. All over the country people began to ask about this "Honest Abe Lincoln," whose inexhaustible anecdotes were so droll, yet so exactly to the point; whose logic was so irresistible; whose modesty, fairness, and personal integrity, won golden opinions from his political enemies; who, without "trimming," enjoyed the support of the many-headed Opposition in Illinois, from the Abolition Owen Lovejoys of the northern counties, down to the "conservative" old Whigs of the Egyptian districts, who still believed in the divinity of Slavery.

Those who did not witness it will never comprehend the universal and intense horror at every thing looking toward "negro equality" which then prevailed in southern Illinois. Republican politicians succumbed to it. In their journals and platforms they sometimes said distinctly: "We care nothing for the negro. We advocate his exclusion from our State. We oppose Slavery in the Territories only because it is a curse to the white man." Mr. Lincoln never descended to this level. In his plain, moderate, conciliatory way, he would urge upon his simple auditors that this matter had a Right and a Wrong—that the great Declaration of their fathers meant something. And—always his strong point—he would put this so clearly to the common apprehension, and so touch the people's moral sense, that his opponents found their old cries of "Abolitionist" and "Negro-worshiper" hollow and powerless.

His defeat, by a very slight majority, proved victory in disguise. The debates gave him a National reputation. Republican executive committees in other States issued verbatim reports of the speeches of both Douglass and Lincoln, bound up together in the order of their delivery. They printed them just as they stood, without one word of comment, as the most convincing plea for their cause. Rarely, if ever, has any man received so high a compliment as was thus paid to Mr. Lincoln.

His Visit to Kansas.

In Kansas his stories began to stick like chestnut-burrs in the popular ear—to pass from mouth to mouth, and from cabin to cabin. The young lawyers, physicians, and other politicians who swarm in the new country, began to quote from his arguments in their public speeches, and to regard him as the special champion of their political faith.

Late in the Autumn of 1859 he visited the Territory for the first and last time. With Marcus J. Parrott, Delegate in Congress, A. Carter Wilder, afterward Representative, and Henry Villard, a Journalist, I went to Troy, in Doniphan County, to hear him. In the imaginative language of the frontier, Troy was a "town"—possibly a city. But, save a shabby frame court-house, a tavern, and a few shanties, its urban glories were visible only to the eye of faith. It was intensely cold. The sweeping prairie wind rocked the crazy buildings, and cut the faces of travelers like a knife. Mr. Wilder froze his hand during our ride, and Mr. Lincoln's party arrived wrapped in buffalo-robes.

His Manner of Public Speaking.

Not more than forty people assembled in that little, bare-walled court-house. There was none of the magnetism of a multitude to inspire the long, angular, ungainly orator, who rose up behind a rough table. With little gesticulation, and that little ungraceful, he began, not to declaim, but to talk. In a conversational tone, he argued the question of Slavery in the Territories, in the language of an average Ohio or New York farmer. I thought, "If the Illinoisans consider this a great man, their ideas must be very peculiar."

But in ten or fifteen minutes I was unconsciously and irresistibly drawn by the clearness and closeness of his argument. Link after link it was forged and welded like a blacksmith's chain. He made few assertions, but merely asked questions: "Is not this true? If you admit that fact, is not this induction correct?" Give him his premises, and his conclusions were inevitable as death.

His fairness and candor were very noticeable. He ridiculed nothing, burlesqued nothing, misrepresented nothing. So far from distorting the views held by Mr. Douglass and his adherents, he stated them with more strength probably than any one of their advocates could have done. Then, very modestly and courteously, he inquired into their soundness. He was too kind for bitterness, and too great for vituperation.

His anecdotes, of course, were felicitous and illustrative. He delineated the tortuous windings of the Democracy upon the Slavery question, from Thomas Jefferson down to Franklin Pierce. Whenever he heard a man avow his determination to adhere unswervingly to the principles of the Democratic party, it reminded him, he said, of a "little incident" in Illinois. A lad, plowing upon the prairie, asked his father in what direction he should strike a new furrow. The parent replied, "Steer for that yoke of oxen standing at the further end of the field." The father went away, and the lad obeyed. But just as he started, the oxen started also. He kept steering for them; and they continued to walk. He followed them entirely around the field, and came back to the starting-point, having furrowed a circle instead of a line!

High Praise from an Opponent.

The address lasted for an hour and three-quarters. Neither rhetorical, graceful, nor eloquent, it was still very fascinating. The people of the frontier believe profoundly in fair play, and in hearing both sides. So they now called for an aged ex-Kentuckian, who was the heaviest slaveholder in the Territory. Responding, he thus prefaced his remarks:—

"I have heard, during my life, all the ablest public speakers—all the eminent statesmen of the past and the present generation. And while I dissent utterly from the doctrines of this address, and shall endeavor to refute some of them, candor compels me to say that it is the most able and the most logical speech I ever listened to."

I have alluded in earlier pages, to remarks touching the reports that Mr. Lincoln would be assassinated, which I heard in the South, on the day of his first inauguration. Afterward, in my presence, several persons of the wealthy, slaveholding class, alluded to the subject, some having laid wagers upon the event. I heard but one man condemn the proposed assassination, and he was a Unionist. Again and again, leading journals, which were called reputable, asked: "Is there no Brutus to rid the world of this tyrant?" Rewards were openly proposed for the President's head. If Mr. Lincoln had then been murdered in Baltimore, every thorough Secession journal in the South would have expressed its approval, directly or indirectly. Of course, I do not believe that the masses, or all Secessionists, would have desired such a stain upon the American name; but even then, as afterward, when they murdered our captured soldiers, and starved, froze, and shot our prisoners, the men who led and controlled the Rebels appeared deaf to humanity and to decency. Charity would fain call them insane; but there was too much method in their madness.

A Deed without a Name.

Their last, great crime of all was, perhaps, needed for an eternal monument of the influence of Slavery. It was fitting that they who murdered Lovejoy, who crimsoned the robes of young Kansas, who aimed their gigantic Treason at the heart of the Republic, before the curtain went down, should crown their infamy by this deed without a name. It was fitting that they should seek the lives of President Lincoln, General Grant, and Secretary Seward, the three officers most conspicuous of all for their mildness and clemency. It was fitting they should assassinate a Chief Magistrate, so conscientious, that his heavy responsibility weighed him down like a millstone; so pure, that partisan rancor found no stain upon the hem of his garment; so gentle, that e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side; so merciful, that he stood like an averting angel between them and the Nation's vengeance.

The Rebel newspapers represented him—a man who used neither spirits nor tobacco—as in a state of constant intoxication. They ransacked the language for epithets. Their chief hatred was called out by his origin. He illustrated the Democratic Idea, which was inconceivably repugnant to them. That a man who sprang from the people, worked with his hands, actually split rails in boyhood, should rise to the head of a Government which included Southern gentlemen, was bitter beyond description!

Sherman's Quarrel with the Press.

On the 28th of December, 1862, Sherman fought the battle of Chickasaw Bayou, one of our first fruitless attempts to capture Vicksburg. Grant designed to co-operate by an attack from the rear, but his long supply-line extended to Columbus, Kentucky, though he might have established a nearer base at Memphis. Van Dorn cut his communications at Holly Springs, Mississippi, and Grant was compelled to fall back.

Sherman's attack proved a serious disaster. Our forces were flung upon an almost impregnable bluff, where we lost about two thousand five hundred men, and were then compelled to retreat.

In the old quarrel between Sherman and the Press, as usual, there was blame upon both sides. Some of the correspondents had treated him unjustly; and he had not learned the quiet patience and faith in the future which Grant exhibited under similar circumstances. At times he manifested much irritation and morbid sensitiveness.

An Army Correspondent Court-martialed.

A well-known correspondent, Mr. Thomas W. Knox, was present at the battle, and placed his report of it, duly sealed, and addressed to a private citizen, in the military mail at Sherman's head-quarters. One "Colonel" A. H. Markland, of Kentucky, United States Postal Agent, on mere surmise about its contents, took the letter from the mail and permitted it to be opened. He insisted afterward that he did this by Sherman's express command. Sherman denied giving any such order, but said he was satisfied with Markland's course.

Markland should have been arrested for robbing the Government mails, which he was sworn to protect. There was no reasonable pretext for asserting that the letter would give information to the enemy; therefore it did not imperil the public interest. If General Sherman deemed it unjust to himself individually, he had his remedy, like any other citizen or soldier, in the courts of the country and the justice of the people.

The purloined dispatch was left for four or five days lying about Sherman's head-quarters, open to the inspection of officers. Finally, upon Knox's written request, it was returned to him, though a map which it contained was kept—as he rather pungently suggested, probably for the information of the military authorities!

Knox's letter had treated the generalship of the battle very tenderly. But after this proceeding he immediately forwarded a second account, which expressed his views on the subject in very plain English. Its return in print caused great excitement at head-quarters. Knox was arrested, and tried before a military tribunal on these charges:—

1. Giving information to the enemy.
2. Being a spy.
3. Violating the fifty-seventh Article of War, which forbids the writing of letters for publication from any United States army without submitting them to the commanding general for approval.

The court-martial sat for fifteen days. It acquitted Knox upon the first and second charges. Of course, he was found guilty of the third. After some hesitation between sentencing him to receive a written censure, or to leave Grant's department, the latter was decided upon, and he was banished from the army lines.

When information of this proceeding reached Washington, the members of the press at once united in a memorial to the President, asking him to set aside the sentence, inasmuch as the violated Article of War was altogether obsolete, and the practice of sending newspaper letters, without any official scrutiny, had been universal, with the full sanction of the Government, from the outset of the Rebellion. It was further represented that Mr. Knox was thoroughly loyal, and the most scrupulously careful of all the army correspondents to write nothing which, by any possibility, could give information to the enemy. Colonel John W. Forney headed the memorial, and all the journalists in Washington signed it.

A Visit to President Lincoln.

One evening, with Mr. James M. Winchell, of The New York Times, and Mr. H. P. Bennett, Congressional Delegate from Colorado, I called upon the President to present the paper.

After General Sigel and Representative John B. Steele had left, he chanced to be quite at liberty. Upon my introduction, he remarked:—

"Oh, yes, I remember you perfectly well: you were out on the prairies with me on that winter day when we almost froze to death; you were then correspondent of The Boston Journal. That German from Leavenworth was also with us—what was his name?"

Two "Little Stories."

"Hatterscheit?" I suggested. "Yes, Hatterscheit! By-the-way" (motioning us to seats, and settling down into his chair, with one leg thrown over the arm), "that reminds me of a little story, which Hatterscheit told me during the trip. He bought a pony of an Indian, who could not speak much English, but who, when the bargain was completed, said: 'Oats—no! Hay—no! Corn—no! Cottonwood—yes! very much!' Hatterscheit thought this was mere drunken maundering; but a few nights after, he tied his horse in a stable built of cottonwood logs, fed him with hay and corn, and went quietly to bed. The next morning he found the grain and fodder untouched, but the barn was quite empty, with a great hole on one side, which the pony had gnawed his way through! Then he comprehended the old Indian's fragmentary English."

This suggested another reminiscence of the same Western trip. Somewhere in Nebraska the party came to a little creek, the Indian name of which signified weeping water. Mr. Lincoln remarked, with a good deal of aptness, that, as laughing water, according to Longfellow, was "Minne-haha," the name of this rivulet should evidently be "Minne-boohoo."

These inevitable preliminaries ended, we presented the memorial asking the President to interpose in behalf of Mr. Knox. He promptly answered he would do so if Grant coincided. We reminded him that this was improbable, as Sherman and Grant were close personal friends. After a moment's hesitancy he replied, with courtesy, but with emphasis:—

"I should be glad to serve you or Mr. Knox, or any other loyal journalist. But, just at present, our generals in the field are more important to the country than any of the rest of us, or all the rest of us. It is my fixed determination to do nothing whatever which can possibly embarrass any one of them. Therefore, I will do cheerfully what I have said, but it is all I can do."

There was too much irresistible good sense in this to permit any further discussion. The President took up his pen and wrote, reflecting a moment from time to time, the following:—

Executive Mansion, Washington, March 20, 1863.

Whom it may concern:

Whereas, It appears to my satisfaction that Thomas W. Knox, a correspondent of The New York Herald, has been, by the sentence of a court-martial, excluded from the military department under command of Major-General Grant, and also that General Thayer, president of the court-martial which rendered the sentence, and Major-General McClernand, in command of a corps of the department, and many other respectable persons, are of the opinion that Mr. Knox's offense was technical, rather than wilfully wrong, and that the sentence should be revoked; Now, therefore, said sentence is hereby so far revoked as to allow Mr. Knox to return to General Grant's head-quarters, and to remain if General Grant shall give his express assent, and to again leave the department, if General Grant shall refuse such assent.

A. Lincoln.

Reading it over carefully, he handed it to me, and gave a little sigh of relief. General conversation ensued. Despondent and weighed down with his load of care, he sought relief in frank speaking. He said, with great earnestness: "God knows that I want to do what is wise and right, but sometimes it is very difficult to determine."

Mr. Lincoln's Familiar Conversation.

He conversed freely of military affairs, but suddenly remarked: "I am talking again! Of course, you will remember that I speak to you only as friends; that none of this must be put in print."

Touching an attack upon Charleston which had long been contemplated, he said that Du Pont had promised, some weeks before, if certain supplies were furnished, to make the assault upon a given day. The supplies were promptly forwarded; the day came and went without any intelligence. Some time after, he sent an officer to Washington, asking for three more iron-clads and a large quantity of deck-plating as indispensable to the preparations.

"I told the officer to say to Commodore Du Pont," observed Mr. Lincoln, "that I fear he does not appreciate at all the value of time."

Opinions about McClellan and Vicksburg.

The Army of the Potomac was next spoken of. The great Fredericksburg disaster was recent, and the public heart was heavy. In regard to General McClellan, the President spoke with discriminating justice:—

"I do not, as some do, regard McClellan either as a traitor or an officer without capacity. He sometimes has bad counselors, but he is loyal, and he has some fine military qualities. I adhered to him after nearly all my Constitutional advisers lost faith in him. But do you want to know when I gave him up? It was after the battle of Antietam. The Blue Ridge was then between our army and Lee's. We enjoyed the great advantage over them which they usually had over us: we had the short line, and they the long one, to the Rebel Capital. I directed McClellan peremptorily to move on Richmond. It was eleven days before he crossed his first man over the Potomac; it was eleven days after that before he crossed the last man. Thus he was twenty-two days in passing the river at a much easier and more practicable ford than that where Lee crossed his entire army between dark one night and daylight the next morning. That was the last grain of sand which broke the camel's back. I relieved McClellan at once. As for Hooker, I have told him forty times that I fear he may err just as much one way as McClellan does the other—may be as over-daring as McClellan is over-cautious."

We inquired about the progress of the Vicksburg campaign. Our armies were on a long expedition up the Yazoo River, designing, by digging canals and threading bayous, to get in the rear of the city and cut off its supplies. Mr. Lincoln said:—

"Of course, men who are in command and on the spot, know a great deal more than I do. But immediately in front of Vicksburg, where the river is a mile wide, the Rebels plant batteries, which absolutely stop our entire fleets. Therefore it does seem to me that upon narrow streams like the Yazoo, Yallabusha, and Tallahatchie, not wide enough for a long boat to turn around in, if any of our steamers which go there ever come back, there must be some mistake about it. If the enemy permits them to survive, it must be either through lack of enterprise or lack of sense."

A few months later, Mr. Lincoln was able to announce to the nation: "The Father of Waters again flows unvexed to the sea."

Our interview left no grotesque recollections of the President's lounging, his huge hands and feet, great mouth, or angular features. We remembered rather the ineffable tenderness which shone through his gentle eyes, his childlike ingenuousness, his utter integrity, and his absorbing love of country.

Our Best Contribution To History.

Ignorant of etiquette and conventionalities, without the graces of form or of manner, his great reluctance to give pain, his beautiful regard for the feelings of others, made him

"Worthy to bear without reproach The grand old name of Gentleman."

Strong without symmetry, humorous without levity, religious without cant—tender, merciful, forgiving, a profound believer in Divine love, an earnest worker for human brotherhood—Abraham Lincoln was perhaps the best contribution which America has made to History.

His origin among humble laborers, his native judgment, better than the wisdom of the schools, his perfect integrity, his very ruggedness and angularities, made him fit representative of the young Nation which loved and honored him.

A Noble Life and Happy Death.

No more shall sound above our tumultuous rejoicing his wise caution, "Let us be very sober." No more shall breathe through the passions of the hour his tender pleading that judgment may be tempered with mercy. His work is done. Nothing could have assured and enlarged his posthumous fame like this tragic ending. He goes to a place in History where his peers will be very few. The poor wretch who struck the blow has gone to be judged by infinite Justice, and also by infinite Mercy. So have many others indirectly responsible for the murder, and directly responsible for the war. Let us remember them in no Pharisaic spirit, thanking God that we are not as other men—but as warnings of what a race with many generous and manly traits may become by being guilty of injustice and oppression.

Some of the President's last expressions were words of mercy for his enemies. A few hours before his death, in a long interview with his trusted and honored friend Schuyler Colfax, he stated that he wished to give the Rebel leaders an opportunity to leave the country and escape the vengeance which seemed to await them here.

America is never likely to feel again the profound, universal grief which followed the death of Abraham Lincoln. Even the streets of her great Metropolis "forgot to roar." Hung were the heavens in black. For miles, every house was draped in mourning. The least feeling was manifested by that sham aristocracy, which had the least sympathy with the Union cause and with the Democratic Idea. The deepest was displayed by the "plain people" and the poor.

What death is happier than thus to be wept by the lowly and oppressed, as a friend and protector! What life is nobler than thus to be filled, in his own golden words, "with charity for all, with malice toward none!"

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[CHAPTER XXVII.]

————————— It is held
That valor is the chiefest virtue and
Most dignifies the haver. If it be,
The man I speak of cannot in the world
Be singly counterpoised.

Coriolanus.

Reminiscences of General Sumner.

During the month of March, Major-General Edwin V. Sumner was in Washington, apparently in vigorous health. He had just been appointed to the command of the Department of the Missouri. One Saturday evening, having received his final orders, he was about leaving for his home in Syracuse, New York, where he designed spending a few days before starting for St. Louis.

I went into his room to bid him adieu. Allusion was made to the allegations of speculation against General Curtis, his predecessor in the West. "I trust," said he, "they are untrue. No general has a right to make one dollar out of his official position, beyond the salary which his Government pays him." He talked somewhat in detail of the future, remarking, "For the present, I shall remain in St. Louis; but whenever there is a prospect of meeting the enemy, I shall take the field, and lead my troops in person. Some men can fight battles over a telegraph-wire, but you know I have no talent in that direction."

With his friendly grasp of the hand, and his kindly smile, he started for home. It proved to him Home indeed. A week later the country was startled by intelligence of his sudden death. He, who for forty-eight years had braved the hardships of campaigning and the perils of battle, until he seemed to have a charmed life, was abruptly cut down by disease under his own roof, surrounded by those he loved.

"The breast that trampling Death could spare, His noiseless shafts assail."

For almost half a century, Sumner had belonged to the Army of the United States; but he steadfastly refused to be put on the retired list. Entering the service from civil life, he was free from professional traditions and narrowness. Senator Wade once asked him, "How long were you at the Military Academy?" He replied, "I was never there in my life."

The bluff Ohioan sprang up and shook him fervidly by the hand, exclaiming, "Thank God for one general of the regular Army, who was never at West Point!"

His Conduct in Kansas.

During the early Kansas troubles, Sumner, then a colonel, was stationed in the Territory with his regiment of dragoons. Unscrupulous as were the Administrations of Pierce and Buchanan in their efforts to force Slavery upon Kansas, embittered as were the people against the troops,—generally mere tools of Missouri ruffians—their feelings toward Sumner were kindly and grateful. They knew he was a just man, who would not willingly harass or oppress them, and who sympathized with them in their fiery trial.

From the outbreak of the Slaveholders' Rebellion his name was one of the brightest in that noble but unfortunate army which illustrated Northern discipline and valor on so many bloody fields, but had never yet gathered the fruits of victory. He was always in the deadliest of the fighting. He had the true soldierly temperament. He snuffed the battle afar off. He felt "the rapture of the strife," and went into it with boyish enthusiasm.

A Thrilling Scene in Battle.

In exposing himself, he was Imprudence personified. It was the chronic wonder of his friends that he ever came out of battle alive. At last they began to believe, with him, that he was invincible. He would receive bullets in his hat, coat, boots, saddle, horse, and sometimes have his person scratched, but without serious injury. His soldiers related, with great relish, that in the Mexican War a ball which struck him square in the forehead fell flattened to the ground without breaking the skin, as the bullet glances from the forehead of the buffalo. This anecdote won for him the soubriquet of "Old Buffalo."

At Fair Oaks, his troops were trembling under a pitiless storm of bullets, when he galloped up and down the advance line, more exposed than any private in the ranks.

"What regiment is this?" he asked.

"The Fifteenth Massachusetts," replied a hundred voices.

"I, too, am from Massachusetts; three cheers for our old Bay State!" And swinging his hat, the general led off, and every soldier joined in three thundering cheers. The enemy looked on in wonder at the strange episode, but was driven back by the fierce charge which followed.

How Sumner Fought.

This was no unusual scene. Whenever the guns began to pound, his mild eye would flash with fire. He would remove his artificial teeth, which became troublesome during the excitement of battle, and place them carefully in his pocket; raise his spectacles from his eyes and rest them upon the forehead, that he might see clearly objects at a distance; give his orders to subordinates, and then gallop headlong into the thick of the fight.

Hundreds of soldiers were familiar with the erect form, the snowy, streaming hair, and the frank face of that wonderful old man who, on the perilous edge of battle, while they were falling like grass before the mower, would dash through the fire and smoke, shouting:—

"Steady, men, steady! Don't be excited. When you have been soldiers as long as I, you will learn that this is nothing. Stand firm and do your duty!"

Never seeking a dramatic effect, he sometimes displayed quiet heroism worthy of history's brightest pages. Once, quite unconsciously reproducing a historic scene, he repeated, almost word for word, the address of the great Frederick to his officers, before the battle of Leuthen. It was on the bloody field of Fair Oaks, at the end of the second day. He commanded the forces which had crossed the swollen stream. But before the other troops came up, the bridges were swept away. The army was then cut in twain; and Sumner, with his three shattered corps, was left to the mercy of the enemy's entire force.

On that Sunday night, after making his dispositions to receive an attack, he sent for General Sedgwick, his special friend and a most trusty soldier:—

"Sedgwick, you perceive the situation. The enemy will doubtless open upon us at daylight. Re-enforcements are impossible; he can overwhelm and destroy us. But the country cannot afford to have us defeated. There is just one thing for us to do; we must stand here and die like men! Impress it upon your officers that we must do this to the last man—to the last man! We may not meet again; good-by, Sedgwick."

The two grim soldiers shook hands, and parted. Morning came, but the enemy, failing to discover our perilous condition, did not renew the attack; new bridges were built, and the sacrifice was averted. But Sumner was the man to carry out his resolution to the letter.

Ordered Back by McClellan.

Afterward, he retained possession of a house on our old line of battle; and his head-quarter tents were brought forward and pitched. They were within range of a Rebel battery, which awoke the general and his staff every morning, by dropping shot and shell all about them for two or three hours. Sumner implored permission to capture or drive away the hostile battery, but was refused, on the ground that it might bring on a general engagement. He chafed and stormed: "It is the most disgraceful thing of my life," he said, "that this should be permitted." But McClellan was inexorable. Sumner was directed to remove his head-quarters to a safer position. He persisted in remaining for fourteen days, and at last only withdrew upon a second peremptory order.

The experience of that fortnight exhibited the ever-recurring miracle of war—that so much iron and lead may fly about men's ears without harming them. During the whole bombardment only two persons were injured. A surgeon was slightly wounded in the head by a piece of shell which flew into his tent; and a private, while lying behind a log for protection, was instantly killed by a shot which tore a splinter from the wood, fracturing his skull; but not another man received even a scratch.

After Antietam, McClellan's ever-swift apologists asserted that his corps commanders all protested against renewing the attack upon the second morning. I asked General Sumner if it were true. He replied, with emphasis:—

"No, sir! My advice was not asked, and I did not volunteer it. But I was certainly in favor of renewing the attack. Much, as my troops had suffered, they were good for another day's fighting, especially when the enemy had that river in his rear, and a defeat would have ruined him forever."

Love for His Old Comrades.

At Fredericksburg, by the express order of Burnside, Sumner did not cross the river during the fighting. The precaution saved his life. Had he ridden out on that fiery front, he had never returned to tell what he saw. But he chafed sadly under the restriction. As the sun went down on that day of glorious but fruitless endeavor, he paced to and fro in front of the Lacy House, with one arm thrown around the neck of his son, his face haggard with sorrow and anxiety, and his eyes straining eagerly for the arrival of each successive messenger.

He was a man of high but patriotic ambition. Once, hearing General Howard remark that he did not aspire to the command of a corps, he exclaimed, "General you surprise me. I would command the world, if I could!"

He was called arbitrary, but had great love for his soldiers, especially for old companions in arms. A New York colonel told me a laughable story of applying to him for a ten days' furlough, when the rule against them was imperative. Sumner peremptorily refused it. But the officer sat down beside him, and began to talk about the Peninsular campaign—the battles in which he had done his duty, immediately under Sumner's eye; and it was not many minutes before the general granted his petition. "If he had only waited," said the narrator, "until I recalled to his memory some scenes at Antietam, I am sure he would have given me twenty days instead of ten!"

His intercourse with women and children was characterized by peculiar chivalry and gentleness. He revived the old ideal of the soldier—terrible in battle, but with an open and generous heart.

To his youngest son—a captain upon his staff—he was bound by unusual affection. "Sammy" was his constant companion; in private he leaned upon him, caressed him, and consulted him about the most trivial matters. It was a touching bond which united the gray, war-worn veteran to the child of his old age.

We have had greater captains than Sumner; but no better soldiers, no braver patriots. The words which trembled upon his dying lips—"May God bless my country, the United States of America"—were the key-note to his life. Green be the turf above him!

Traveling Through the Northwest.

Louisville, Kentucky, April 5, 1863.

For the last week I have been traveling through the States of the Northwest. The tone of the people on the war was never better. Now that the question has become simply one of endurance, their Northern blood tells. "This is hard pounding, gentlemen," said Wellington at Waterloo; "but we will see who can pound the longer." So, in spite of the Copperheads—"merely the dust and chaff on God's thrashing-floor"—the overwhelming sentiment of the people is to fight it out to the last man and the last dollar.

You have been wont to say: "The West can be depended on for the war. She will never give up her great outlet, the Mississippi." True; but the inference that her loyalty is based upon a material consideration, is untrue and unjust. The West has poured out its best blood, not on any petty question of navigation, or of trade, but upon the weightier issues of Freedom and Nationality.

The New-Yorker or Pennsylvanian may believe in the greatness of the country; the Kansan or Minnesotian, who has gone one or two thousand miles to establish his prairie home, walks by sight and not by faith. To him, the Great Republic of the future is no rhetorical flourish or flight of fancy, but a living verity. His instinct of nationality is the very strongest; his belief the profoundest. May he never need Emerson's pungent criticism: "The American eagle is good; protect it, cherish it; but beware of the American peacock!"

Have you heard Prentice's last, upon the bursting of the Rebel bubble that Cotton is King? He says: "They went in for cotton, and they got worsted!"

A Visit to Rosecrans's Army.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee, April 10.

A visit to Rosecrans's army. I rode yesterday over the historical battle-ground of Stone River, among rifle-pits and breastworks, great oaks, with scarred trunks, and tops and branches torn off, and smooth fields thickly planted with graves.

It is interesting to hear from the soldiers reminiscences of the battle. Rosecrans may not be strong in planning a campaign, but the thundering guns rouse him to the exhibition of a higher military genius than any other general in our service has yet displayed. The "grand anger of battle" makes him see at a glance the needs of the occasion, and stimulates those quick intuitions which enable great captains, at the supreme moment, to wrest victory from the very grasp of defeat. Peculiarly applicable to him is Addison's description of Marlborough:—

"In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed; To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid; Inspired repulsed battalions to engage, And taught the doubtful battle where to rage."

Rosecrans in a Great Battle.

During the recent great conflict which began with disaster that would have caused ordinary generals to retreat, he seemed omnipresent. A devout Catholic, he performed, before entering the battle, the solemn rites of his Church. A profound believer in destiny, he appeared like a man who sought for death. A few feet from him, a solid shot took off the head of Garasche, his loved and trusted chief of staff.

"Brave men must die," he said, and plunged into the battle again.

He had a word for all. Of an Ohio regiment, lying upon the ground, he asked:—

"Boys, do you see that strip of woods?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, in about five minutes, the Rebels will pour out of it, and come right toward you. Lie still until you can easily see the buttons on their coats; then drive them back. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, it's just as easy as rolling off a log, isn't it?"

They laughingly assented, and "Old Rosy," as the soldiers call him, rode along the line, to encourage some other corps.

This is an army of veterans. Every regiment has been in battle, and some have marched three thousand miles during their checkered campaigning. Their garments are old and soiled; but their guns are bright and glistening, and on review their evolutions are clockwork. They are splendidly disciplined, of unequaled enthusiasm, full of faith in their general and in themselves.

Rosecrans is an erect, solid man of one hundred and seventy-five pounds weight, whose forty-three years sit lightly on his face and frame. He has a clear, mild-blue eye, which lights and flashes under excitement; an intensified Roman nose, high cheek-bones, florid complexion, mouth and chin hidden under dark-brown beard, hair faintly tinged with silver, and growing thin on the edges of the high, full, but not broad, forehead. In conversation, a winning, mirthful smile illumines his face. As Hamlet would take the ghost's word for a thousand pounds, so you would trust that countenance in a stranger as indicating fidelity, reserved power, an overflowing humor, and imperious will.

A Scene in Memphis.

Memphis, Tennessee, April 20.

Riding near the Elmwood Cemetery, yesterday, I witnessed a curious feature of Southern life. It was a negro funeral—the cortégecortège, a third of a mile in length, just entering that city of the dead. The carriages were filled with negro families, and, almost without exception, they were driven by white men. If such a picture were exhibited in Boston, would those who clamor in our ears about negro equality ever permit us to hear the last of it?

---

[III.
THE DUNGEON.]

[CHAPTER XXVIII.]

We were all sea-swallowed, though some cast again,
And by that destined to perform an act,
Whereof what's past is prologue.

Tempest.

On Sunday evening, May 3d, accompanied by Mr. Richard T. Colburn, of The New York World, I reached Milliken's Bend, on the Mississippi River, twenty-five miles above Vicksburg. Grant's head-quarters were at Grand Gulf, fifty-five miles below Vicksburg. Fighting had already begun.

Running the Vicksburg Batteries.

We joined my associate, Mr. Junius H. Browne, of The Tribune, who for several days had been awaiting us. The insatiate hunger of the people for news, and the strong competition between different journals, made one day of battle worth a year of camp or siege to the war correspondent. Duty to the paper we represented required that we should join the army with the least possible delay.

We could go over land, down the Louisiana shore, and, if we safely ran the gauntlet of Rebel guerrillas, reach Grand Gulf in three days. But a little expedition was about to run the Vicksburg batteries. If it survived the fiery ordeal, it would arrive at Grant's head-quarters in eight hours. Thus far, three-fourths of the boats attempting to run the batteries had escaped destruction; and yielding to the seductive doctrine of probabilities, we determined to try the short, or water route. It proved a very long one.

Expedition Badly Fitted Out.

At ten o'clock our expedition started. It consisted of two great barges of forage and provisions, propelled by a little tug between them. For some days, Grant had been receiving supplies in this manner, cheaper and easier than by transportation over rough Louisiana roads.

The lives of the men who fitted out the squadron being as valuable to them as mine to me, I supposed that all needful precautions for safety had been adopted. But, when under way, we learned that they were altogether inadequate. Indeed, we were hardly on board when we discovered that the expedition was so carelessly organized as almost to invite capture.

The night was one of the lightest of the year. We had only two buckets, and not a single skiff. Two tugs were requisite to steer the unwieldy craft, and enable us to run twelve or fifteen miles an hour. With one we could accomplish only seven miles, aided by the strong Mississippi current.

There were thirty-five persons on board—all volunteers. They consisted of the tug's crew, Captain Ward and Surgeon Davidson of the Forty-Seventh Ohio Infantry, with fourteen enlisted men, designed to repel possible boarders, and other officers and citizens, en route for the army.

For two or three hours, we glided silently along the glassy waters between banks festooned with heavy, drooping foliage. It was a scene of quiet, surpassing beauty. Captain Ward suddenly remembered that he had some still Catawba in his valise. He was instructed to behead the bottle with his sword, that the wine might not in any event be wasted. From a soldier's cup of gutta-percha we drank to the success of the expedition.

Into the Jaws of Death.

At one o'clock in the morning, on the Mississippi shore, a rocket shot up and pierced the sky, signaling the Rebels of our approach. Ten minutes later, we saw the flash and heard the boom of their first gun. Much practice on similar expeditions had given them excellent range. The shell struck one of our barges, and exploded upon it.

We were soon under a heavy fire. The range of the batteries covered the river for nearly seven miles. The Mississippi here is very crooked, resembling the letter S, and at some points we passed within two hundred yards of ten-inch guns, with point-blank range upon us. As we moved around the bends, the shots came toward us at once from right and left, front and rear.

Inclination had joined with duty in impelling us to accompany the expedition. We wanted to learn how one would feel looking into the craters of those volcanoes as they poured forth sheets of flame and volleys of shells. I ascertained to my fullest satisfaction, as we lay among the hay-bales, slowly gliding past them. I thought it might be a good thing to do once, but that, if we survived it, I should never feel the least desire to repeat the experiment.

We embraced the bales in Bottom's belief that "good hay, sweet hay hath no fellow."

Discretion was largely the better part of my valor, and I cowered close in our partial shelter. But two or three times I could not resist the momentary temptation to rise and look about me. How the great sheets of flame leaped up and spread out from the mouths of the guns! How the shells came screaming and shrieking through the air! How they rattled and crashed, penetrating the sides of the barges, or exploding on board in great fountains of fire!

A Moment of Suspense.

The moment hardly awakened serene meditations or sentimental memories; but every time I glanced at that picture, Tennyson's lines rang in my ears:—

"Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at by shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of death, Into the mouth of hell Rode the six hundred!"

"Junius" persisted in standing, all exposed, to watch the coming shots. Once, as a shell exploded near at hand, he fell heavily down among the hay-bales. Until that moment I never knew what suspense was. I could find no voice in which to ask if he lived. I dared not put forth my hand in the darkness, lest it should rest on his mutilated form. At last he spoke, and relieved my anxiety. He had only slipped and fallen.

Each time, after being struck, we listened for the reassuring puff! puff! puff! of our little engine; and hearing it, said: "Thus far, at least, we are all right!"

Now we were below the town, having run five miles of batteries. Ten minutes more meant safety. Already we began to felicitate each other upon our good fortune, when the scene suddenly changed.

A terrific report, like the explosion of some vast magazine, left us breathless, and seemed to shake the earth to its very center. It was accompanied by a shriek which I shall never forget, though it seemed to occupy less than a quarter of the time consumed by one tick of the watch. It was the death-cry wrung from our captain, killed as he stood at the wheel. For his heedlessness in fitting out the expedition, his life was the penalty.

Disabled and Drifting Helplessly.

We listened, but the friendly voice from the tug was hushed. We were disabled, and drifting helplessly in front of the enemy's guns!

For a moment all was silent. Then there rose from the shore the shrill, sharp, ragged yell so familiar to the ears of every man who has been in the front, and clearly distinguishable from the deep, full, chest-tones in which our own men were wont to give their cheers. Many times had I heard that Rebel yell, but never when it was vociferous and exultant as now.

Seeing fire among the hay-bales about us, Colburn and myself carefully extinguished it with our gloved hands, lest the barge should be burnt. Then, creeping out of our refuge, we discovered the uselessness of our care.

That shot had done wonderful execution. It had killed the captain, exploded the boiler, then passed into the furnace, where the shell itself exploded, throwing up great sheets of glowing coals upon both barges. At some stage of its progress, it had cut in twain the tug, which went down like a plummet. We looked for it, but it had disappeared altogether. There was some débris—chairs, stools, and parts of machinery, buoyed up by timbers, floating upon the surface; but there was no tug.

The barges, covered with bales of dry hay, had caught like tinder, and now, at the stern of each, a great sheet of flame rose far toward the sky, filling the night with a more than noonday glare.

Upon the very highest bale, where the flames threw out his pale face and dark clothing in very sharp relief, stood "Junius," in a careless attitude, looking upon the situation with the utmost serenity. My first thought was that the one thing he required to complete the picture was an opera-glass. To my earnest injunction to leave that exposed position, he replied that, so far as safety was concerned, there now was little choice of places.

Meanwhile, we were under hotter fire than at any previous moment. In the confusion caused by our evolutions in the eddies, I had quite lost the points the of compass, and asked:—

"In which direction is Vicksburg?"

"There," replied "Junius," pointing out into the lurid smoke.

"I think it must be on the other shore."

"Oh, no! wait here a moment, and you will see the flash of the guns."

Just then I did see the flash of more guns than I coveted, and four or five shots came shrieking toward us.

Colburn and myself instinctively dropped behind the nearest hay-bales. A moment after, we were amused to observe that we had sought shelter on the wrong side of the bales—the side facing the Rebel guns. Our barge was so constantly changing position that our geographical ideas had become very confused.

Bombarding, Scalding, Burning, Drowning.

It does not often happen to men, in one quarter of an hour, to see death in as many forms as confronted us—by bombarding, scalding, burning, and drowning. It was uncomfortable, but less exciting than one might suppose. The memory impresses me far more deeply than did the experience. I remember listening, during a little cessation of the din, for the sound of my own voice, wondering whether its tones were calm and equable. There was hurrying to and fro, and groans rent the air.

"I suppose we can surrender," cried a poor, scalded fellow.

"Surrender—the devil!" replied Colburn. "I suppose we will fight them!"

It was very creditable to the determination of our confrère; but, to put it mildly, our fighting facilities just then were somewhat limited.

Taking to a Hay-Bale.

My comrades assisted nearly all wounded and scalded men down the sides of the barge to the water's edge, and placed them carefully upon hay-bales. Remaining there, we had every thing to lose and nothing to gain, and I urged—

"Let us take to the water."

"Oh, yes," my friends replied, "we will after awhile."

Soon, I repeated the suggestion, and they repeated the answer. It was no time to stand upon forms. I jumped into the river—twelve or fifteen feet below the top of our barge. They rolled over a hay-bale for me. I climbed upon it, and found it a surprisingly comfortable means of navigation. At last, free from the instinctive dread of mutilation by splinters, which had constantly haunted me, I now felt that if wounded at all it must, at least, be by a clean shot. The thought was a great relief.

With a dim suspicion—not the ripe and perfect knowledge afterward obtained—that clothing was scarce in the Southern Confederacy, I removed my boots, tied them together with my watch-guard, and fastened them to one of the hoops of the bale. Taking off my coat, I secured it in the same manner.

Overturned by a Shot.

I was about swimming away in a vague, blundering determination not to be captured, when, for the first time in my life, I saw a shot coming toward me. I had always been sceptical on this point. Many persons had averred to me that they could see shots approaching; but remembering that such a missile flying toward a man with a scream and a rush would not quicken his vision, and judging from my own experience, I supposed they must be deceived.

Now, far up the river I saw a shot coming with vivid distinctness. How round, smooth, shining, and black it looked, ricochetting along, plunging into the water, throwing up great jets of spray, bounding like a schoolboy's ball, and then skimming the river again! It struck about four feet from my hay-bale, which was now a few yards from the burning barge.

The great sheet of water which dashed up quite obscured me from Colburn and "Junius," who, upon the bows of the barge, were just bidding me adieu. At first they thought the shot an extinguisher. But it did me no greater harm than partially to overturn my hay-bale and dip me into the river. A little more or less dampness just then was not of much consequence. It was the last shot which I saw or heard. The Rebels now ceased firing, and shouted—

"Have you no boats?"

Learning that we had none, they sent out a yawl. I looked about for a plank, but could find none adapted to a long voyage. Rebel pickets were on both sides of the river, and Rebel batteries lined it ten or twelve miles below, at a point which, by floating, one could reach at daylight. Surrender seemed the only alternative.

At Memphis, two days before, I had received a package of letters, including two or three from the Tribune office, and some which treated of public men, and military strength, movements, and prospects, with great freedom. One of them, from Admiral Foote, containing some very kind words, I sorely regretted to lose; but the package was quite too valuable to be submitted to the scrutiny of the enemy. I kept it until the last moment, but when the Rebel yawl approached within twenty feet, tore the letters in pieces and threw them into the Mississippi.

The Capture, while Running the Rebel Batteries, at Vicksburg.

[Click to view larger image.]

Rescued from the River.

The boat was nearly full. After picking me up, it received on board two scalded men who were floating near, and whose groans were heart-rending.

We were deposited on the Mississippi shore, under guard of four or five soldiers in gray, and the yawl went back to receive the remainder. Among the saved I found Surgeon Davidson. He was unable to swim, but some one had carefully placed him upon a hay-bale. On reaching the shore, he sat down upon a stool, which he had rescued from the river, spread his overcoat upon his knee, and deposited his carpet-sack beside him. It was the first case I ever knew of a man so hopelessly shipwrecked, who saved all his baggage, and did not even wet his feet.

The boat soon returned. To my infinite relief, the first persons who sprang to the shore were "Junius" and Colburn. Sartorially they had been less fortunate than I. One had lost his coat, and the other was without shoes, stockings, coat, vest, or hat.

There, in the moonlight, guarded by Rebel bayonets, we counted the rescued, and found that just sixteen—less than half our number—were alive and unharmed. All the rest were killed, scalded, or wounded.

Some of the scalded were piteous spectacles. The raw flesh seemed almost ready to drop from their faces; and they ran hither and thither, half wild from excruciating pain.

None of the wounded were unable to walk, though one or two had broken arms. The most had received slight contusions, which a few days would heal.

The Killed, Wounded, and Missing.

The missing numbered eight or ten, not one of whom was ever heard of afterward. It was impossible to obtain any correct list of their names, as several of them were strangers to us and to each other; and no record had been made of the persons starting upon the expedition.

We were two miles below the city, whither the lieutenant of our guard now marched us.

---

[CHAPTER XXIX.]

It is not for prisoners to be too silent.

Love's Labor Lost.

Standing by Our Colors.

On the way, one of our party enjoined my colleague and myself—

"You had better not say Tribune to the Rebels. Tell them you are correspondents of some less obnoxious journal."

Months before, I had asked three Confederate officers—paroled prisoners within our lines:—

"What would you do with a Tribune correspondent, if you captured him?" With the usual recklessness, two had answered:—

"We would hang him upon the nearest sapling."

This remembrance was not cheering; but as we were the first correspondents of a radical Northern journal who had fallen into the enemy's hands, after a moment's interchange of views, we decided to stand by our colors, and tell the plain truth. It proved much the wiser course.

One of the rescued men, coatless and hatless, with his face blackened until he looked like a native of Timbuctoo, addressed me familiarly. Unable to recognize him, I asked:—

"Who are you?"

"Why," he replied, "I am Captain Ward."[15]

Confinement in the Vicksburg Jail.

When the explosion occurred, he was sitting on the hurricane roof of the tug. It was more exposed than any other position, but the officers of the boat had shown symptoms of fear, and he determined to be where his revolver would enable him to control them if they attempted to desert us.

Some missile struck his head and stunned him. When he recovered consciousness, the tug had gone to the bottom, and he was struggling in the river. He had strength enough to clutch a rope hanging over the side of a barge, and keep his head above water. Permitting his sword and revolver, which greatly weighed him down, to sink, he called to his men on the blazing wreck. Under the hot fire of cannon and musketry, they formed a rope of their belts, and let it down to him. He fastened it under his arms; they lifted him up to the barge, whence he escaped by the hay-bale line.

At Vicksburg, the commander of the City Guards registered our names.

"I hope, sir," said Colburn, "that you will give us comfortable quarters."

With a half-surprised expression, the major replied, dryly:—

"Oh! yes, sir; we will do the best we can for you."

"The best" proved ludicrously bad. Just before daylight we were taken into the city jail. Its foul yard was half filled with criminals and convicts, black and white, all dirty and covered with vermin. In its midst was an open sewer, twelve or fifteen feet in diameter, the grand receptacle of all the prison filth. The rising sun of that sultry morning penetrated its reeking depths, and produced the atmosphere of a pest-house.

We dried our clothing before a fire in the yard, conversed with the villainous-looking jail-birds, and laughed about this unexpected result of our adventure. We had felt the danger of wounds or death; but it had not occurred to either of us that we might be captured. One of the private soldiers had paid a dollar for the privilege of coming on the expedition. To our query whether he deemed the money well invested, he replied that he would not have missed the experience for ten times the amount. One youth, confined in the jail for thieving, asked us the question, with which we were soon to grow familiar:—

"What did you all come down here for, to steal our niggers?"

At noon we were taken out and marched through the streets. "Junius's" bare and bleeding feet excited the sympathy of a lady, who immediately sent him a pair of stockings, requesting if ever he met any of "our soldiers" suffering in the North, that he would do as much for them. The donor—Mrs. Arthur—was a very earnest Unionist, with little sympathy for "our soldiers," but used the phrase as one of the habitual subterfuges of the Loyalists.

The First Glimpse of Sambo.

While we waited in the office of the Provost-Marshal, I obtained a first brief glimpse of the inevitable negro. Just outside the open window, which extended to the floor, stood an African, with great shining eyes, expressing his sympathy through remarkable grimaces and contortions, bowing, scraping, and

"Husking his white ivories like an ear of corn."

Rebel citizens and soldiers were all about him; and, somewhat alarmed, I indicated by a look that he should be a little less demonstrative. But Sambo, as usual, knew what he was doing, and was not detected.

The Provost-Marshal, Captain Wells, of the Twenty-eighth Louisiana Infantry, courteously assigned to us the upper story of the court-house, posting a sentinel at the door.

Paroled to Return Home.

Major Watts, the Rebel Agent of Exchange, called upon us and administered the following parole:—

CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.

Vicksburg, Mississippi, May 4, 1863.

This is to certify, that in accordance with a Cartel in regard to an exchange of prisoners entered into between the Governments of the United States of America and the Confederate States of America, on the 22d day of July, 1862, Albert D. Richardson, citizen of New York, who was captured on the 4th day of May, at Vicksburg, and has since been held as a prisoner of war by the military authorities of the said Confederate States, is hereby paroled, with full leave to return to his country on the following conditions, namely: that he will not take up arms again, nor serve as military police or constabulary force in any fort, garrison, or field-work, held by either of said parties, nor as a guard of prisoners, dépôts, or stores, nor discharge any duty usually performed by soldiers, until exchanged under the Cartel referred to. The aforesaid Albert D. Richardson signifying his full and free consent to said conditions by his signature hereto, thereby solemnly pledges his word and honor to a due observance of the same.

Albert D. Richardson.

N. G. Watts,
Major Confederate States Army, and Agent for Exchange of Prisoners.

This parole was regular, formal, and final, taken at a regular point of exchange, by an officer duly appointed under the express provisions of the cartel. Major Watts informed us that he was prevented from sending us across the lines at Vicksburg, only because Grant's operations had suspended flag-of-truce communication. He assured us, that while he was thus compelled to forward us to Richmond, the only other point of exchange, we should not be detained there beyond the arrival of the first truce-boat.

Turning the Tables Handsomely.

These formalities ended, the major, who was a polite, kind-hearted, rather pompous little officer, made an attempt at condolence and consolation.

"Gentlemen," said he, with a good deal of self-complacency, "you are a long way from home. However, do not despond; I have met a great many of your people in this condition; I have paroled some thousands of them, first and last. In fact, I confidently expect, within the next ten days, to see Major-General Grant, who commands your army, a prisoner in this room."

We knew something about that! Of course, we were familiar with the size of Grant's army; and, before we had been many hours in the Rebel lines, we found Union people who told us minutely the strength of Pemberton. So we replied to the prophet, that, while we had no sort of doubt of his seeing General Grant there, it would not be exactly in the capacity of a prisoner!

Colburn—who had the good fortune, for that occasion, to be attached to The World, and who, on reaching Richmond, was sent home by the first truce-boat—came back to Vicksburg in season to be in at the death. One of the first men he met, after the capture of the city, was Watts, to whom he rehearsed this little scene, with the characters reversed.

"Major," said he, with dry humor, "you are a long distance from home! But do not despond; I have seen a good many of your people in this condition. In fact, I believe there are about thirty thousand of them here to-day, including Lieutenant-General Pemberton, who commands your army."

Visits from Many Rebels.

We stayed in Vicksburg two days. Our noisy advent made us objects of attention. Several Rebel journalists visited us, with tenders of clothing, money, and any assistance they could render. Confederate officers and citizens called in large numbers, inquiring eagerly about the condition of the North, and the public feeling touching the war.

Some complained that Northern officers, while in confinement, had said to them: "While we are in favor of the Union, we disapprove altogether the war as conducted by this Abolition Administration, with its tendencies to negro equality;" but that, after reaching home, the same persons were peculiarly radical and bloodthirsty.

As political affairs were the only topic of conversation, we had excellent opportunity for preventing any similar misunderstanding touching ourselves. Courteously, but frankly, we told them that we were in favor of the war, of emancipation, and of arming the negroes. They manifested considerable feeling, but used no harsh expressions. Two questions they invariably asked:—

"What are you going to do with us, after you have subjugated us?" and, "What will you do with the negroes, after you have freed them?"

They talked much of our leading officers, all seeming to consider Rosecrans the best general in the Union service. Nearly all used the stereotyped Rebel expression:—

"You can never conquer seven millions of people on their own soil. We will fight to the last man! We will die in the last ditch!"

We reminded them that the determination they expressed was by no means peculiar to them, referring to Bancroft, in proof that even the Indian tribes, at war with the early settlers of New England, used exactly the same language. We asked one Texan colonel, noticeably voluble concerning the "last ditch," what he meant by it—if he really intended to fight after their armies should be dispersed and their cities taken.

"Oh, no!" he replied, "you don't suppose I'm a fool, do you? As long as there is any show for us, we shall fight you. If you win, most of us will go to South America, Mexico, or Europe."

Interview with Jacob Thompson.

On Monday evening, Major-General Forney, of Alabama, sent an officer to escort us to his head-quarters. He received us with great frigidity, and we endeavored to be quite as icy as he. With some of his staff officers, genial young fellows educated in the North, we had a pleasant chat.

Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, Buchanan's Secretary of the Interior, and now a colonel on the staff of Lieutenant-General Pemberton, was at the same head-quarters. With the suavity of an old politician, he conversed with us for two or three hours. He asserted that some of our soldiers had treated his aged mother with great cruelty. He declared that Northern dungeons now contained at least three thousand inoffensive Southern citizens, who had never taken up arms, and were held only for alleged disloyalty.

Many other Rebel officers talked a great deal about arbitrary arrests in the North. Several gravely assured us that, in the South, from the beginning of the war, no citizen had ever been arrested, except by due process of law, under charges well defined, and publicly made. We were a little astounded, afterward, to learn how utterly bare-faced was this falsehood.

On Tuesday evening we started for Jackson, Mississippi, in company with forty other Union prisoners. They were mainly from Ohio regiments, young in years, but veteran soldiers—farmers' sons, with intelligent, earnest faces. Pemberton's army was in motion. Our train passed slowly through his camps, and halted half an hour at several points, among crowds of Rebel privates.

The Ohio boys and their guards were on the best possible terms, drinking whisky and playing euchre together. The former indulged in a good deal of verbal skirmishing with the soldiers outside, thrusting their heads from the car windows and shouting:—

"Look out, Rebs! The Yankees are coming! Keep on marching, if you don't want old Grant to catch you!"

"How are times in the North?" the Confederates replied. "Cotton a dollar and twenty-five cents a pound in New York!"

"How are times in the South? Flour one hundred and seventy-five dollars a barrel in Vicksburg, and none to be had at that!"

After waiting vainly for an answer to this quenching retort, the Buckeyes sang "Yankee Doodle," the "Star-Spangled Banner," and "John Brown's Body lies a-moldering in the Ground," for the edification of their bewildered foes.

Arrival in Jackson, Mississippi.

Before dark, we reached Jackson. Though a prisoner, I entered it with far more pleasurable feelings than at my last visit; for my tongue was now free, and I was not sailing under false colors. The dreary little city was in a great panic. Before we had been five minutes in the street, a precocious young newsboy came running among us, and, while shouting—"Here's The Mississippian extra!" talked to us incessantly in a low tone:—

"How are you, Yanks? You have come in a capital time. Greatest panic you ever saw. Everybody flying out of town. Governor Pettus issued a proclamation, telling the people to stand firm, and then ran away himself before the ink was dry."

Kindness from Southern Editors.

We remained in Jackson three days. Upon parole, we were allowed to take our meals at a boarding-house several squares from the prison, and to visit the office of The Appeal. This journal, originally published at Memphis, was removed to Grenada upon the approach of our forces; Grenada being threatened, it was transferred to Jackson; thence to Atlanta, and finally to Montgomery, Alabama. It was emphatically a moving Appeal.

Its editors very kindly supplied us with clothing and money. They seemed to be sick of the war, and to retain little faith in the Rebel cause, for which they had sacrificed so much, abandoning property in Memphis to the amount of thirty thousand dollars. They now published the most enterprising and readable newspaper in the South. It was noticeably free from vituperation, calling the President "Mr. Lincoln," instead of the "Illinois Baboon," and characterizing us not as Yankee scoundrels, but as "unwilling guests"—

"Gentlemen who attempted to run the batteries on Sunday night, and after escaping death from shot and shell, from being scalded by the rushing steam, from roasting by the lively flames that enveloped their craft, were found in the river by a rescuing party, each clinging tenaciously to a bale of hay for safety."

Grant's army was moving toward Jackson. We longed for his approach, straining our ears for the booming of his guns. The Rebels, in their usual strain, declared that the city could not be captured, and would be defended to the last drop of blood. But on the night before our departure, we were confidentially told that the Federal advance was already within twenty-five miles, and certain to take the town.

A Project for Escape.

With forty-five unarmed prisoners, we were placed on an ammunition train, which had not more than a dozen guards. The privates begged Captain Ward to lead them, and permit them to capture the train. We all deemed the project feasible. Ten minutes would suffice to blow up the cars. With twelve guns, we could easily march twenty miles through those sparse settlements to Grant's forces.

But there were our paroles! A careful reading convinced us that if we failed in the attempt, the enemy would be justified, under the laws of war, in punishing us with death; and, after much debate, we abandoned the project.

Rebel officers in Vicksburg had assured us that crossing the Confederacy from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, upon the Southern railroads, was a more hazardous undertaking than running the river batteries. The rolling stock was in wretched condition, and fatal accidents frequently occurred; but we traveled at a leisurely, old-fashioned rate, averaging eight miles per hour, making long stops, and seldom running by night.

---

[CHAPTER XXX.]

A kind of excellent, dumb discourse.

Tempest.

It did not require many days of captivity to teach us the infinite expressiveness and trustworthiness of the human eye. We began to recognize Union people by their friendly look before they spoke a word.

A Word with a Union Woman.

Our train stopped for dinner at a secluded Mississippi tavern. At the door of the long dining-room stood the landlady, an intelligent woman of about thirty-five. When I handed her a twenty-dollar Rebel note, she inquired—

"Have you nothing smaller than this?"

"No Confederate money," I answered.

"State currency will answer just as well."

"I have none of that—nothing but this bill and United States Treasury Notes."

The indifferent face instantly kindled into friendliness and sympathy.

"Are you one of the prisoners?"

"Yes, madam."

"Just from Vicksburg?"

"Yes."

"What do you think of the prospect?"

"Grant is certain to capture the city."

"Of course he will" (with great earnestness), "if he only tries! The force there is incapable of resisting him."

Other passengers coming within hearing, I moved away, but I would unhesitatingly have trusted that woman with my liberty or my life.

Grierson's Great Mississippi Raid.

Grierson's raid, then in progress, was the universal theme of conversation and wonder. That dashing cavalier, selecting his route with excellent judgment, evaded all the large forces which opposed him, and defeated all the small ones, while he rode leisurely the entire length of Mississippi, tearing up railroads and burning bridges. Occasionally he addressed the people in humorous harangues. To one old lady, who tremblingly begged that her property might not be destroyed, he replied:—

"You shall certainly be protected, madam. It is not my object to hurt any body. It is not generally known, but the truth is, I am a candidate for Governor, and am stumping the State."

Our slow progress enabled us to converse much with the people, constantly preaching to them the gospel of the Union. But they had so long heard only the gospel according to Jefferson Davis, that they paid little heed to our threatenings of the judgment which was certain to come.

In the dense woods which the railways traversed, the pine, the palm and the magnolia, grew side by side, festooned with long, hairy tufts of Spanish moss. On the plantations, the young cotton, three inches high, looked like sprouting beans.

Colburn's solemn waggery was constantly cropping out. In our car one day he had a long discussion with a brawny Texan officer, who declared with great bitterness that he had assisted in hanging three Abolitionists upon a single blackjack,[16] in sight of his own door. He concluded with the usual assertion:—

An Enraged Texan Officer.

"We will fight to the last man! We will die in the last ditch!"

"Well, sir," replied Colburn, with the utmost gravity, "if you should do that and all be killed, we should regret it extremely!"

Like most Southerners, the Texan was insensible to satire. Understanding this to be perfectly sincere, he reiterated:—

"We shall do it, sir! We shall do it!"

"Well, sir, as I said before, if you do, and all happen to get killed, including the very last man himself, of course we of the North shall be quite heart-broken!"

Once comprehended, the mock condolence enraged the huge Texan fearfully. For a few seconds his eyes were the most wicked I ever saw. He looked ready to spring upon Colburn and tear him in pieces; but it was the last we heard of his bravado.

One of our fellow-prisoners had manifested great trepidation while we lay disabled in front of Vicksburg. He was probably no more frightened than the rest of us, but had less self-control, running to and fro on the burning barge, wringing his hands, and shrieking: "My God! my God! We shall all be killed!"

Waggery of a Captured Scribe.

Three or four days later, Colburn asked him—

"Were you ever under fire before Sunday night?"

"Never," he replied, with uneasy, questioning looks.

"Well, sir," solemnly continued the satirist, "I think, in view of that fact, that you behaved with more coolness than any man I ever saw!"

While we preserved our gravity with the utmost difficulty, the victim scrutinized his tormentor very suspiciously. But that serious, immovable face told no tales, and he finally received the compliment as serious. From that time, it was Colburn's daily delight, to remark, with ever-increasing admiration:—

"Mr. ----, I cannot help remembering how marvelously self-possessed you were during those exciting minutes. I never saw your coolness equaled by a man under fire for the first time."

Before we reached Richmond, the new-fledged hero received his praises with complacent and serene condescension. He will, doubtless, tell his children and grandchildren of the encomium his courage won from companions, who, "born and nursed in Danger's path, had dared her worst."

At Demopolis, Alabama, we encountered a planter removing from Mississippi, where Grierson and Grant were rapidly depreciating slave property. He had with him a long gang of negroes, some chained together in pairs, with handcuffs riveted to their wrists.

While the train stopped, a young fellow from Kentucky, captain and commissary in the Confederate army, took me up to his room, on pretext of "a quiet drink."

"When I went into the war," said he, "I thought it would be a nice little diversion of about two weeks, with a good deal of fun and no fighting. Now, I would give my right arm to escape from it; but there is no such good fortune for me. When you reach the North, write to my friends at home, giving them my love, and saying that I wish I had followed their advice."

A benevolent lady was at the station, with her carriage, distributing cakes among the Rebel soldiers and the Union prisoners.

At Selma, a new officer took charge of our party. The post commandant instructed him how to treat the privates, and, pointing to the two officers and the three journalists, added:—

The Alabama River and Montgomery.

"You will consider these gentlemen not under your guard, but under your escort."

We took a steamer up the Alabama River. As we sat looking out upon the beautiful stream, it was amusing to hear the comments of the negro chamber-maids:—

"How mean the Southern soldiers look! But just see those Yankees! Anybody might know that they are God's own people!"

The pilot of the boat, a native Alabamian, took me aside, stating that he was an unconditional Union man, and inquiring eagerly about the North, which, he feared, might abandon the contest.

We spent Sunday, May 11th, in the pleasant city of Montgomery: strolling at pleasure through the shaded streets, and at evening taking a bath in the Alabama, swimming round a huge Rebel ram, then nearly completed. We gained some knowledge of its character and dimensions, which, after reaching Richmond, we succeeded in transmitting to the Government.

The officer in charge of our party spent the night in camp with his men, but we slept at the Exchange Hotel. When we registered our names, the bystanders, with their broad-brimmed hats, long pipes, and heavy Southern faces, manifested a good deal of curiosity to see what they termed "two of old Greeley's correspondents." They asked us many questions of the North, and of our army experiences. Several said emphatically that, ere long, the people would "take this thing out of the hands of politicians, and settle it themselves."

Atlanta Editors Advocate Hanging Us.

Reaching Atlanta, we were placed in the filthy, vermin-infested military prison. Encouraged by the courtesies we had received from Rebel journals, we sent, through the commandant, a card to one of the newspaper offices, asking for a few exchanges. The blundering messenger took it to the wrong establishment, leaving it at the office of an intensely bitter sheet called The Confederate. The next morning we were not allowed to purchase newspapers. Learning that The Confederate commented upon our request, we induced an attaché of the prison to smuggle a copy to us, and found the following leader:—

"Last evening some correspondents of The New York World and New York Tribune were brought here among a batch of prisoners captured at Vicksburg a few days ago. They had not been here a half hour before the impudent scamps got one of the sentinels guarding the barracks to go around to the newspaper offices in this city with their 'card,' requesting the favor of some exchange-papers to read. Their impudence is beyond comprehension, upon any other consideration than that they belong to the Yankee press-gang. Yankees are everywhere more impudent than any honest race of people can be, and a Yankee newspaper-man is the quintessence of all impudence. We thought we had seen and understood something of this Yankee accomplishment in times gone by (some specimens of it have been seen in the South); but the unheard-of effrontery that prompted these villains, who, caught in company with the thieving, murdering vandals who have invaded our country, despoiled our homes, murdered our citizens, destroyed our property, violated our wives, sisters, and daughters, to boldly claim of the press of the South the courtesies and civilities which gentlemen of the press usually extend to each other, is above and beyond all the unblushing audacity we ever imagined. They had come along with Northern vandals, to chronicle their rapes, arsons, plunders, and murders, and to herald them to the world as deeds of heroism, greatness, and glory. They are our vilest and most unprincipled enemies—far more deeply steeped in guilt, and far more richly deserving death, than the vilest vandal that ever invaded the sanctity of our soil and outraged our homes and our peace. We would greatly prefer to assist in hanging these enemies to humanity, than to show them any civilities or courtesies. The common robber, thief, and murderer, is more respectable, in our estimation, than these men; for he never tries to make his crimes respectable, but always to conceal them. These men, however, have come into our country with the open robbers and murderers of our people, for the express purpose of whitewashing their hellish deeds, and presenting them to the world as great deeds of virtuous heroism. They deserve a rope's end, and will not receive their just deserts till their crimes are punished with death."

A Pair of Renegade Vermonters.

The Rebel authorities were very sensitive to newspaper censure. With unusual rigor, they now refused us permission to go outside the prison for meals, though offering to have them sent in, at our expense, from the leading hotel. They told us that The Confederate was edited by two renegade Vermonters.

"I am not very fond of Yankees, myself," remarked Hunnicutt, the heavy-jawed, broad-necked, coarse-featured lieutenant commanding the prison. "I am as much in favor of hanging them as anybody; but these Vermonters, who haven't been here six months, are a little too violent. They don't own any niggers. 'Tisn't natural. There's something wrong about them. If I were going to hang Yankees at a venture, I think I would begin with them."

An Irish warden brought us, from a Jew outside, three hundred Confederate dollars, in exchange for one hundred in United States currency. For a fifty-dollar Rebel note he procured me a cap of southern manufacture, to replace my hat, which had been snatched from my head by a South Carolina officer, passing upon a railroad train meeting our own. The new cap, of grayish cotton, a marvel of roughness and ugliness, elicited roars of laughter from my comrades.

On the journey thus far, we had gone almost wherever we pleased, unguarded and unaccompanied. But from Atlanta to Richmond we were treated with rigor and very closely watched. A Rebel officer begged of "Junius" his fine pearl-handled pocket knife. Receiving it, he at once conceived an affection for a gold ring upon the prisoner's finger. Even the courtesy of my colleague was not proof against this second impertinence, and he contemptuously declined the request.

Treated with Unusual Rigor.

The captain in charge of us stated that his orders were imperative to keep all newspapers from us; and on no account to permit us to leave the railway carriage. But, finding that we still obtained the daily journals from fellow-passengers, he made a virtue of necessity, and gracefully acquiesced. At last, he even allowed us to take our meals at the station, upon being invited to participate in them at the expense of his prisoners.

---

[CHAPTER XXXI]

——Give me to drink mandragora,
That I may sleep out this great gap of time.

Antony and Cleopatra.

Arrival in Richmond.

At 5 o'clock on the morning of Saturday, May 16th, we reached Richmond. At that early hour, the clothing-dépôt of the Confederate government was surrounded by a crowd of poor, ill-clad women, seeking work.

We were marched to the Libby Prison. Up to this time we had never been searched. I had even kept my revolver in my pocket until reaching Jackson, Mississippi, where, knowing I could not much longer conceal it, I gave it to a friend. Now a Rebel sergeant carefully examined our clothing. All money, except a few dollars, was taken from us, and the flippant little prison clerk, named Ross, with some inquiries not altogether affectionate concerning the health of Mr. Greeley, gave us receipts.

As we passed through the guarded iron gateway, I glanced instinctively above the portal in search of its fitting legend:—

"Abandon all hope who enter here."

Up three flights of stairs, we were escorted into a room, fifty feet by one hundred and twenty-five, filled with officers lying in blankets upon the floor and upon rude bunks. Some shouted, "More Yankees!—more Yankees!" while many crowded about us to hear our story, and learn the news from the West.

Incarcerated in Libby Prison.

We soon found friends, and became domesticated in our novel quarters. With the American tendency toward organization, the prisoners divided into companies of four each. Our journalistic trio and Captain Ward ceased to be individuals, becoming merely "Mess Number Twenty-one."

The provisions, at this time consisting of good flour, bread, and salt pork, were brought into the room in bulk. A commissary, elected by the captives from their own number, divided them, delivering its quota to each mess.

Picking up two or three rusty tin plates and rheumatic knives and forks, we commenced housekeeping. The labor of preparation was not arduous. It consisted in making little sacks of cotton cloth for salt, sugar, pepper, and rice, fitting up a shelf for our dishes, and spreading upon the floor blankets, obtained from our new comrades, and originally sent to Richmond by the United States Government for the benefit of prisoners.

The Libby authorities, and white and negro attachés, were always hungry for "greenbacks," and glad to give Confederate currency in exchange. The rates varied greatly. The lowest was two dollars for one. During my imprisonment, I bought fourteen for one, and, a few weeks after our escape, thirty were given for one.

A prison sergeant went out every morning to purchase supplies. He seemed honest, and through him we could obtain, at extravagant prices, dried apples, sugar, eggs, molasses, meal, flour, and corn burnt and ground as a substitute for coffee. Without these additions, our rations would hardly have supported life.

In our mess, each man, in turn, did the cooking for an entire day. In that hot, stifling room, frying pork, baking griddle-cakes, and boiling coffee, over the crazy, smoking, broken stove, around which there was a constant crowd, were disagreeable in the extreme. The prison hours were long, but the cooking-days recurred with unpleasant frequency.

We scrubbed our room two or three times a week, and it was fumigated every morning. At one end stood a huge wooden tank, with an abundant supply of cold water, in which we could bathe at pleasure.

Sufferings from Vermin.

The vermin were the most revolting feature of the prison, and the one to which it was the most difficult to become resigned. No amount of personal cleanliness could guard our bodies against the insatiate lice. Only by examining under-clothing and destroying them once or twice a day, could they be kept from swarming upon us. For the first week, I could not think of them without shuddering and faintness: but in time I learned to make my daily entomological researches with calm complacency.

In Nashville, two weeks before my capture, I met Colonel A. D. Streight, of Indiana. At the head of a provisional brigade from Rosecrans's army, he was about starting on a raid through northern Alabama and Georgia. The expedition promising more romance and novelty than ordinary army experiences, now grown a little monotonous, I desired to accompany him; but other duties prevented. I had been in Libby just four hours, when in walked Streight, followed by the officers of his entire brigade. We had taken very different routes, but they brought us to the same terminus.

Streight's command had been furnished with mules, averaging about two years old, and quite unused to the saddle. Utterly worthless, they soon broke down, and with much difficulty, he remounted his men upon horses, pressed from the citizens; but the delay proved fatal.

The Rebel General Forrest overtook him with a largely superior force. Streight was an enterprising, brave officer, and his exhausted men behaved admirably in four or five fights; but at last, near Rome, Georgia, after losing one third of his command, the colonel was compelled to surrender. The Rebels were very exultant, and Forrest—originally a slave-dealer in Memphis, and a greater falsifier than Beauregard himself—telegraphed that, with four hundred men, he had captured twenty-eight hundred.

Lieutenant Charles Pavie, of the Eightieth Illinois, who commanded Streight's artillery, came in with his coat torn to shreds; a piece of shell had struck him in the back, inflicting only a flesh wound. Upon feeling the shock, he instinctively clapped his hands to his stomach, to ascertain if there was a hole there, under the impression that the entire shell had passed through his body!

Prisoners Denounced as Blasphemous.

The prisoners bore their confinement with good-humor and hilarity. During the long evenings, they joined in the "Star-Spangled Banner," "Old Hundred," "Old John Brown," and other patriotic and religious airs. The Richmond Whig, shocked that the profane and ungodly Yankees should presume to sing "Old Hundred," denounced it as a piece of blasphemy.

Captain Brown and his officers, of the United States gunboat Indianola, were pointed out to me as men who had actually been in prison for three months. I regarded them with pity and wonder. It seemed utterly impossible that I could endure confinement for half that time. After-experiences inclined me to patronize new-comers, and regard with lofty condescension, men who had been prisoners only twelve or fifteen months! "The Father of the Marshalsea" became an intelligible and sympathetic personage, with whom we should have hobnobbed delightfully.

Thievery of a "Virginia Gentleman."

Simultaneously with our arrival in Richmond, a Rebel officer of the exchange bureau received a request from the editor of The World, for the release of Mr. Colburn. It proved as efficient as if it had been an order from Jefferson Davis. After ten days' confinement in Libby, Colburn was sent home by the first truce-boat. A thoroughly loyal gentleman, and an unselfish, devoted friend, he was induced to go, only by the assurance that while he could do no good by remaining, he might be of service to us in the North.

At his departure, he left for me, with Captain Thomas P. Turner, commandant of the prison, fifty dollars in United States currency. A day or two afterward, Turner handed the sum to me in Confederate rags, dollar for dollar, asserting that this was the identical money he had received. The perpetrator of this petty knavery was educated at West Point, and claimed to be a Virginia gentleman.

"Junius" suffered greatly from intermittent fever. The weather was torrid. In the roof was a little scuttle, to which we ascended by a ladder. The column of air rushing up through that narrow aperture was foul, suffocating, and hot as if coming from an oven. At night we went out on the roof for two or three hours to breathe the out-door atmosphere. When the authorities discovered it, they informed us, through Richard Turner—an ex-Baltimorean, half black-leg and half gambler, who was inspector of the prison—that if we persisted, they would close the scuttle. It was a refined and elaborate method of torture.

On one occasion, this same Turner struck a New York captain in the face for courteously protesting against being deprived of a little fragment of shell which he had brought from the field as a relic. A Rebel sergeant inflicted a blow upon another Union captain who chanced to be jostled against him by the crowd.

For slight offenses, officers were placed in an underground cell so dark and foul, that I saw a Pennsylvania lieutenant come out, after five weeks' confinement there, his beard so covered with mold that one could pluck a double handful from it!

Prisoners Murdered by the GaurdsGuards.

Prisoners putting their heads for a moment between the bars of the windows, and often for only approaching the apertures, were liable to be shot. One officer, standing near a window, was ordered by the sentinel to move back. The rattling carriages made the command inaudible. The guard instantly shot him through the head, and he never spoke again.

Colonel Streight was the most prominent prisoner. He talked to the Rebel authorities with imprudent, but delightful frankness. More than once I heard him say to them:—

"You dare not carry out that threat! You know our Government will never permit it, but will promptly retaliate upon your own officers, whom it holds."

When our rations of heavy corn-bread and tainted meat grew very short, he addressed a letter to James A. Seddon, Confederate Secretary of War, protesting in behalf of his brigade, and inquiring whether he designed starving prisoners to death! The Rebels hated him with peculiar bitterness.

The five Richmond dailies helped us greatly in filling up the long hours. At daylight an old slave, named Ben, would arouse us from our slumbers, shouting:—

"Great news in de papers! Great news from de Army of Virginny! Great tallygraphic news from the Soufwest!"

Fourth-of-July Celebration Interrupted.

He disbursed his sheets at twenty-five cents per copy, but they afterward went up to fifty.

A lieutenant in Grant's army, while charging one of the batteries in the rear of Vicksburg, received a shot in the face which entered one eye, destroying it altogether. Ten days after, he arrived in Libby. He walked about our room with a handkerchief tied around his head, smoking complacently, apparently considering a bullet in the brain a very slight annoyance.

We attempted to celebrate the Fourth of July. Captain Driscoll, of Cincinnati, with other ingenious officers, had manufactured from shirts a National flag, which was hung above the head of Colonel Streight, who occupied the chair, or rather the bed, which necessity substituted. Two or three speeches had been made, and several hours of oratory were expected, when a sergeant came up and said:—

"Captain Turner orders that you stop this furse!"

Observing the flag, he called upon several officers to assist him in taking it down. Of course, none did so. He finally reached it himself, tore it down, and bore it to the prison office. A long discussion ensued about obeying Turner's order. After nearly as much time had been consumed in debate as it would have required to carry out the programme, and speak to all the toasts—dry toasts—it was voted to comply. So the meeting, first adopting a number of intensely patriotic resolutions, incontinently adjourned.

The Horrors of Belle Isle.

The Rebel authorities confiscated large sums of money sent from home to the prisoners, and sometimes stopped the purchase of supplies, asserting that it was done in retaliation for similar treatment of their own soldiers confined in the North. Still our officers fared incomparably better than the Union privates who were half starved upon Belle Isle, in sight of our prison. We did not fully accredit the reports which reached us touching the sufferings of these prisoners, though the engravings of their emaciation and tortures in the New York illustrated papers, which sometimes drifted to us, so enraged the Rebels, that we often called their attention to them. But our own paroled officers, who were permitted to distribute among the privates clothing sent by our Government, assured us that they were substantially true.

---

[CHAPTER XXXII.]

Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?

Tempest.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.

Hamlet.

The Captains Ordered Below.

On the 6th of July, an order came to our apartments for all the captains to go down into a lower room. At this time, as usual, there was constant talk about resuming the exchange. They went below with light hearts, supposing they were about to be paroled and sent North. Half an hour after, when the first one returned, his white, haggard face showed that he had been through a trying scene.

After being drawn up in line, they were required to draw lots, to select two of their number for execution, in retaliation for two Rebel officers, tried and shot in Kentucky by Burnside, for recruiting within our lines.

Two Selected for Execution.

The unhappy designation fell upon Captain Sawyer, of the First New Jersey Cavalry, and Captain Flynn, of the Fifty-first Indiana Infantry. They were taken to the office of General Winder, who assured them that the sentence would be carried out; and without pity or decency, selected that hour to revile them as Yankee scoundrels who had "come down here to kill our sons, burn our houses, and devastate our country." In reply to these taunts, they bore themselves with dignity and calmness.

"When I went into the war," responded Flynn, "I knew I might be killed. I don't know but I would just as soon die in this way as any other."

"I have a wife and child," said Sawyer, "who are very dear to me, but if I had a hundred lives I would gladly give them all for my country."

In two hours they came back to their quarters. Sawyer was externally nervous; Flynn calm. Both expected that the order would be carried out. We were confident that it would not. I predicted to Sawyer—

"They will never dare to shoot you!"

"I will bet you a hundred dollars they do!" was his impulsive reply. I said to Flynn—

"There is not one chance in ten of their executing you."

"I know it," he answered. "But, when we drew lots, I took one chance in thirty-five, and then lost!"[17]

On the same evening came intelligence that, at an obscure town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg, Meade had received a Waterloo defeat, was flying in confusion to the mountains of Pennsylvania after losing forty thousand prisoners, who were actually on their way to Richmond. It was entertaining to read the speculations of the Rebel papers as to what they could do with these forty thousand Yankees—where they could find men to guard them, and room for them—how in the world they could feed them without starving the people of Richmond.

The Gloomiest Night in Prison.

We did not fully believe the report, but it touched us very nearly. Those reverses to our army came home drearily to the hearts of men who were waiting hopelessly in Rebel prisons, and weighed them down like millstones.

Success kindled a corresponding joy. I have seen sick and dying prisoners on cold and filthy floors of the wretched hospitals filled with a new vitality—their sad, pleading eyes lighted with a new hope, their wan faces flushed, and their speech jubilant, when they learned that all was going well with the Cause. It made life more endurable and death less bitter.

Already suffering from anxiety for Flynn and Sawyer, and disheartened by the reports from Pennsylvania, we received intelligence that Grant had been utterly repulsed before the works of Vicksburg, the siege raised, and the campaign closed in defeat and disaster. It was a very black night when this grief was added to the first. The prison was gloomy and silent many hours earlier than usual. Our hearts were too heavy for speech.

But suddenly there came a great revulsion. Among the negro prisoners was an old man of seventy, who had particularly attracted my attention from the fact that when I happened to speak to him about the National conflict, he replied, after the manner of Copperheads, that it was a speculators' war on both sides, in which he felt no sort of interest; that it would do nobody any good; that he cared not when or how it ended. I wondered whether the old African was shamming, lest his conversation should be reported, to the curtailing of his privileges, or whether he was really that anomaly, a black man who felt no interest in the war.

Glorious Revulsion of Feeling.

But about five o'clock, one afternoon, he came up into our room, and, when the door was closed behind him, so that he could not be seen by the officers or guards, he made a rush for an open space upon the floor, and immediately began to dance in a manner very remarkable for a man of seventy, and rheumatic at that. We all gathered around him and asked—

"General" (that was his soubriquet in the prison), "what does this mean?"

"De Yankees has taken Vicksburg! De Yankees has taken Vicksburg!" and then he began to dance again.

As soon as we could calm him into a little coherence, he drew from his pocket a newspaper extra—the ink not yet dry—which he had stolen from one of the Rebel officers. There it was! The Yankees had taken Vicksburg, with more than thirty thousand prisoners.

Good tidings, like bad, seldom come alone. Shortly after, we learned that there was also a slight mistake about Gettysburg—that Lee, instead of Meade, was flying in confusion; and that, while our people had captured fifteen or twenty thousand Rebels, those forty thousand Yankee prisoners were "conspicuous for their absence."

How our hearts leaped up at this cheering news! How suddenly that foul prison air grew sweet and pure as the fragrant breath of the mountains! There was laughing, there was singing, there was dancing, which the old negro did not altogether monopolize. Some one shouted, "Glory, hallelujah!" Mr. McCabe, an Ohio chaplain, whose clear, ringing tones, as he led the singing, cheered many of our heaviest hours, instantly took the hint, and started that beautiful hymn, by Mrs. Howe, of which "Glory, hallelujah" is the chorus:—

"For mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

Every voice in the room joined in it. I never saw men more stirred and thrilled than were those three or four hundred prisoners, as they heard the impressive closing stanza:—

"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free!"

Exciting Discussion in Prison.

Despite reading, conversing, and cutting out finger-rings, napkin-rings, breast-pins, and crosses, from the beef-bones extracted from our rations, in which some prisoners were exceedingly skillful, the hours were very heavy. A debating-club was formed, and much time was spent in discussing animal magnetism and other topics. Occasionally we had mock courts, which developed a good deal of originality and wit.

Late in July, a mania for study began to prevail. Classes were formed in Greek, Latin, German, French, Spanish, Algebra, Geometry, and Rhetoric. We sent out to the Richmond stores for text-books, and all found instructors, as the motley company of officers embraced natives of every civilized country.

July 30th was a memorable day. The prisoners had become greatly excited on the momentous question of small messes versus large messes. There were only three cooking-stoves for the accommodation of three hundred and seventy-five officers. A majority thought it more convenient to divide into messes of twenty, while others, favoring small messes of from four to eight each, determined to retain those organizations. The prisoners now occupied five rooms, communicating with each other.

A public meeting was called in our apartment, with Colonel Streight in the chair. A fiery discussion ensued. The large-mess party insisted that the majority must rule, and the minority submit to be formed into messes of twenty. The small-mess party replied:—

"We will not be coerced. We are one-third of all the prisoners. We insist upon our right to one-third of the kitchen, one-third of the fuel, and one of the three cooking-stoves. It is nobody's business but our own whether we have messes of two or one hundred."

I was never present at any debate, parliamentary, political, or religious, which developed more earnestness and bitterness. The meeting passed a resolution, insisting upon large messes; the small-mess party refused to vote upon it, and declared that they would never, never submit! The question was finally decided by permitting all to do exactly as they pleased.

Prisoners kept in the underground cells heard revolting stories. They were informed by the guards that the bodies of the dead, usually left in an adjoining room for a day or two before burial, were frequently eaten by rats.

Stealing Money from the Captives.

From want of vegetables and variety of diet, scurvy became common. With many others, I suffered somewhat from it. On the 13th of August, Major Morris, of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry, died suddenly from a malignant form of this disease. His fellow-prisoners desired to have his body embalmed. The Rebel authorities had one hundred dollars in United States currency, belonging to the major, but they refused to apply it to this purpose. Four hundred dollars in Confederate currency was therefore subscribed by the prisoners. Several brother-officers of the deceased were permitted to follow the remains to the cemetery.

Horrible Treatment of Northern Citizens.

Thirty or forty Northern citizens were confined in a room under us. They were thrust in with Yankee deserters of the worst character, and treated with the greatest barbarity. Their rations were very short; they were allowed to purchase nothing. We cut a hole through the floor, and every evening dropped down crackers and bread, contributed from the various messes. When they saw the food coming, they would crowd beneath the aperture, with upturned faces and eager eyes, springing to clutch every crumb, sometimes ready to fight over the smallest morsels, and looking more like ravenous animals than human beings. Some of them, accustomed to luxury at home, ate water-melon rinds and devoured morsels which they extracted from the spittoons and from other places still more revolting.

Several schemes of escape were ingenious and original. Impudence was the trump card. Four or five officers took French leave, by procuring Confederate uniforms, which enabled them to pass the guards. Captain John F. Porter, of New York, obtaining a citizen's suit, walked out of the prison in broad daylight, passing all the sentinels, who supposed him to be a clergyman or some other pacific resident of Richmond. A lady in the city secreted him. By the negroes, he sent a message to his late comrades, asking for money, which they immediately transmitted. Obtaining a pilot, he made his way through the swamps to the Union lines, in season to claim, on the appointed day, the hand of a young lady who awaited him at home. He was an enterprising bridegroom.

During the long evenings, when we were faint, bilious, and weak from our thin diet, some of my comrades, with morbid eloquence, would dwell upon all luxuries that tempt the epicurean palate,—debating, in detail, what dishes they would order, were they at the best hotels of New York or Philadelphia. These tantalizing discussions were so annoying that they invariably drove me from the group, sometimes exciting a desire to strike those who would drag forward the unpleasant subject, and keep me reminded of the hunger which I was striving to forget.

Extravagant Rumors among the Prisoners.

The exchange was altogether suspended, and new prisoners were constantly arriving, until Libby contained several hundred officers.

Extravagant rumors of all sorts were constantly afloat among the captives; hardly a day passing without some sensation story. They were not usually pure invention; but in prison, as elsewhere during exciting periods, the air seemed to generate wild reports, which, in passing from mouth to mouth, grew to wonderful proportions.

---

[CHAPTER XXXIII.]

I had rather than forty pound I were at home.

Twelfth Night, or What you Will.

Transferred to Castle Thunder.

On the evening of September 2d, all the northern citizens were transferred from Libby to Castle Thunder. The open air caused a strange sensation of faintness. We grew weak and dizzy in walking the three hundred yards between the prisons.

That night we were thrust into an unventilated, filthy, subterranean room, nearly as loathsome as the Vicksburg jail. But we smoked our pipes serenely, remembering that "Fortune is turning, and inconstant, and variations, and mutabilities," and wondering what that capricious lady would next decree. At intervals, our sleep upon the dirty floor was disturbed by the playful gambols of the rats over our hands and faces.

The next morning we were drawn up in line, and our names registered by an old warden named Cooper, who, in spectacles and faded silk hat, looked like one of Dickens's beadles. His query whether we possessed moneys, was uniformly answered in the negative. When he asked if we had knives or concealed weapons, all gave the same response, except one waggish prisoner, who averred that he had a ten-inch columbiad in his vest pocket.

The Commandant of Castle Thunder was Captain George W. Alexander, an ex-Marylander, who had participated with "the French Lady"[18] in the capture of the steamer St. Nicholas, near Point Lookout, and was afterward confined for some months at Fort McHenry. He formerly belonged to the United States Navy, in the capacity of assistant engineer. He made literary pretensions, writing thin plays for the Richmond theaters, and sorry Rebel war-ballads. Pompous and excessively vain, delighting in gauntlets, top-boots, huge revolvers, and a red sash, he was sometimes furiously angry, but, in the main, kind to captives. He caused us to be placed in the "Citizens' Room," which he called the prison parlor. Its walls were whitewashed, its four windows were iron-barred, its air tainted by exhalations from the adjoining "Condemned Cell," which was fearfully foul. It was lighted with gas, and had a single stove for cooking, a few bunks, and a clean floor.

Castle Thunder contained about fifteen hundred inmates—northern citizens, southern Unionists, Yankee deserters, Confederate convicts, and eighty-two free negroes, captured with Federal officers, who employed them as servants in the field.

More Endurable than Libby.

The prison's reputation was worse than that of Libby; but, as usual, we found the devil not quite so black as he was painted. We missed sadly the society of the Union officers, but the Commandant and attachés, unlike the Turners, treated us courteously, never indulging in epithets and insults.

In the Citizens' Room were two northerners, named Lewis and Scully, sent to Richmond in the secret service of our Government, by General Scott, before the battle of Bull Run, and confined ever since. One of them was a Catholic, through the influence of whose priest both had thus far been preserved. But they held existence by a frail tenure, and I could not wonder that long anxiety had turned Lewis's hair gray, and given to both nervous, haggard faces.

In all southern prisons I was forced to admire the fidelity with which the Roman Church looks after its members. Priests frequently visited all places of confinement to inquire for Catholics, and minister both to their spiritual and bodily needs. The chaplain at Castle Thunder was a Presbyterian. He scattered documents, and preached every Sunday in the yard or one of the large rooms. He would have given tracts on the sin of dancing to men without any legs.

The Rev. William G. Scandlin and Dr. McDonald, of Boston—agents of the United States Sanitary Commission—were held with us. The doctor was dangerously ill from dysentery. The Commission had never discriminated between suffering Unionists and Confederates, extending to both the same bounty and tenderness; yet the Rebels kept these gentlemen, whom they had captured on the way to Harper's Ferry with sanitary supplies, for more than three months.

Determined not to Die.

"Junius" was very feeble; but during the weary months which followed, he manifested wonderful vitality. His indignation toward the enemy, and his earnest determination not to die in a Rebel prison, greatly helped his endurance. Like the Duchess of Marlboro', he refused either to be bled or to give up the ghost.

A Virginia citizen was brought in on the charge of attempting to trade in "greenbacks,"—a penitentiary offense under Confederate law. Before he had been in our room five minutes one of the sub-wardens entered, asking:

"Is there anybody here who has 'greenbacks?' I am paying four dollars for one to-day."

The negroes were used for scrubbing and carrying messages from the office of the prison to the different apartments. Invariably our friends, they surreptitiously conveyed notes to acquaintances in the other rooms, and often to Unionists outside.

A Negro Cruelly Whipped.

While we were at Libby, an intelligent mulatto prisoner from Philadelphia was whipped for some trivial offense. His piercing shrieks followed each application of the lash; one of my messmates, who counted them, stated that he received three hundred and twenty-seven blows. A month afterward I examined his back, and found it still gridironed with scars.

At the Castle the negroes frequently received from five to twenty-five lashes. I saw boys not more than eight years old turned over a barrel and cowhided. One woman upward of sixty was whipped in the same manner. This negress was known as "Old Sally;" she earned a good deal of Confederate money by washing for prisoners, and spent nearly the whole of it in purchasing supplies for unfortunates who were without means. She had been confined in different prisons for nearly three years.

The next oldest inmate was a Little Dorrit of a cur, born and raised in the Castle. Notwithstanding her life-long associations, she manifested the usual canine antipathy toward negroes and tatterdemalions.

The Execution of Spencer Kellogg.

Soon after our arrival, Spencer Kellogg, of Philadelphia, one of our fellow-prisoners, was executed as a Yankee spy. He had been in the secret service of the United States, but belonged to the western navy at the time of his capture. He bore himself with great coolness and self-possession, assuring the Rebels that he was glad to die for his country. On the scaffold he did not manifest the slightest tremor. While the rope was being adjusted, he accidentally knocked off the hat of a bystander, to whom he turned and said, with great suavity: "I beg your pardon, sir."

Steadfastness of Southern Unionists.

The loyalty of the southern Unionists was intense. One Tennessean, whose hair was white with age, was taken before Major Carrington, the Provost-Marshal, who said to him:

"You are so old that I have concluded to send you home, if you will take the oath."

"Sir," replied the prisoner, "if you knew me personally, I should think you meant to insult me. I have lived seventy years, and, God helping me, I will not now do an act to embitter the short remnant of my life, and one which I should regret through eternity. I have four boys in the Union army; they all went there by my advice. Were I young enough to carry a musket I would be with them to-day fighting against the Rebellion."

The sturdy old Loyalist at last died in prison.

There were many kindred cases. Nearly all the men of this class confined with us were from mountain regions of the South. Many were ragged, all were poor. They very seldom heard from their families. They were compelled to live solely upon the prison rations, often a perpetual compromise with starvation. Some had been in confinement for two or three years, and their homes desolated and burned. Unlike the North, they knew what war meant.

Yet the lamp of their loyalty burned with inextinguishable brightness. They never denounced the Government, which sometimes neglected them to a criminal degree. They never desponded, through the gloomiest days, when imbecility in the Cabinet and timidity in the field threatened to ruin the Union Cause. They seldom yielded an iota of principle to their keepers. Hungry, cold, and naked—waiting, waiting, waiting, through the slow months and years—often sick, often dying, they continued true as steel. History has few such records of steadfast devotion. Greet it reverently with uncovered head, as the Holy of Holies in our temple of Patriotism!

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[CHAPTER XXXIV.]

——One fading moment's mirth, With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights.

Two Gentlemen of Verona.

A Waggish Journalist.

We consumed many of the long hours in conversing, reading, and whist-playing. Night after night we strolled wearily up and down our narrow room, ignorant of the outer world, save through glimpses, caught from the barred windows, of the clear blue sky and the pitying stars.

Still, endeavoring to make the best of it, we were often mirthful and boisterous. Two correspondents of The Herald, Mr. S. T. Bulkley and Mr. L. A. Hendrick, were partners in our captivity. Hendrick's irrepressible waggery never slept. One evening a Virginia ruralist, whose intellect was not of the brightest, was brought in for some violation of Confederate law. After pouring his sorrows into the sympathetic ear of the correspondent, he suddenly asked:

"What are you here for?"

"I am the victim," replied Hendrick, "of gross and flagrant injustice. I am the inventor of a new piece of artillery known as the Hendrick gun. Its range far exceeds every other cannon in the world. A week ago I was testing it from the Richmond defenses, where it is mounted. One of its shots accidentally struck and sunk a blockade runner just entering the port of Wilmington. It was not my fault. I didn't aim at the steamer. I was just trying the gun for the benefit of the country. But these confounded Richmond authorities insisted upon it that I should pay for the vessel. I told them I would see them ------ first, and they shut me up in Castle Thunder; but I never will pay in the world."

"You are quite right. I would not, if I were you," replied the innocent Virginian. "It is the greatest outrage I ever heard of."

Proceedings of a Mock Court.

A fellow-prisoner had been elected commissary of our room, to divide and distribute the rations. One evening a court was organized to try him for "malfeasance in office." The indictment charged that he issued soup only when he ought to issue meat—stealing the beef and selling it for his personal benefit. One correspondent appeared as prosecuting attorney, another as counsel for the defense, and a third as presiding judge.

An extract from a Richmond journal being objected to as testimony, it was decided that any thing published by any newspaper must necessarily be true, and was competent evidence in that court. A great deal of remarkable law was cited in Greek, Latin, German, and French. Counsel were fined for contempt of court, jurors placed under arrest for going to sleep. When the spectators became boisterous, the sheriff was ordered to clear the court-room, and, during certain testimony, the judge requested that the ladies withdraw.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and, after being harangued in touching terms upon the enormity of his offense, the culprit was sentenced to eat a quart of his own soup at a single meal. It was an hilarious affair for that loathsome place, which swarmed with vermin, and where the silence was broken nightly by the clanking and rattling of the chains of convicts.

Many prison inmates exhibited daring and ingenuity in attempting to escape. Castle Thunder was vigilantly and securely guarded, with a score of sentinels inside, and a cordon of sentinels without.

Escape by Killing a Guard.

In the condemned cell adjoining our room was a Rebel officer named Booth, with three comrades, under sentence of death on charge of murder. All were heavily ironed. Nightly, as the time appointed for their execution approached, they surprised us by dancing, rattling their chains, and singing. At one o'clock on the morning of October 22d, we were awakened by shouts and musket-shots. The whole Castle was alarmed, and the guard turned out.

With a saw made from a case-knife, Booth had cut a hole through the floor of his cell, his comrades the while singing and dancing to drown the noise. They were compelled to be very cautious, as a sentinel paced within six feet of them, under instructions to watch them closely. Filing off their irons, they descended cautiously through the aperture into a store-room, where they found four muskets. In the darkness they removed the lock from the door, and each taking a gun, crept into another room opening to the street; struck down the sentinel, and felled a second with the butt of a musket, knocking him ten or twelve feet. At the outer door, a guard, who had taken the alarm, presented his gun. Before he could fire, Booth shot him fatally through the head.

The three late prisoners ran up the street, several ineffectual shots being fired after them by the guards, who dared not leave their posts. At the long bridge across the James River they knocked down another sentinel, who attempted to stop them. Traveling by night through the woods, they soon reached the Union lines.

A considerable number of prisoners smeared their faces with croton-oil to produce eruptions. The surgeon, called in at exactly the right stage, pronounced the disease small-pox. They were driven toward the small-pox hospital in unguarded ambulances, from which they jumped and ran for their lives. It was a profound mystery to the physician that patients should be so agile, until, examining one face after the eruptions began to subside, he detected the imposition.

In Tennessee two Indiana captains were found within the Rebel lines. They were actually in the secret service of the Government, reconnoitering Confederate camps; but they passed themselves off as deserters, and were brought to the Castle. One told me his story, adding:

"They offer to release us if we will take the oath of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy; but I cannot do that. I want to rejoin my regiment, and fight the Rebels while the war lasts. I must escape, and I cannot afford to lose any time."

He kept his own counsel; but the next night took up a plank and descended to a subterranean room, whence he began digging a tunnel. After several nights' labor, when almost completed, the tunnel was discovered by the prison authorities. He immediately commenced another. That also was found, a few hours before it would have proved a success. Then he tried the croton-oil, and in ten days he was again under the old flag.

Escape by Playing Negro.

One prisoner, procuring from the negroes a suit of old clothing, a slouched hat, and a piece of burnt cork, assumed the garments, and blackened his face. With a bucket in his hand, he followed the negroes down three flights of stairs and past four sentinels. Hiding in the negro quarters until after dark, he then leaped from a window in the very face of a sentinel, but disappeared around a corner before the soldier could fire.

Another was sent to General Winder's office for examination. On the way he told his stolid guard that he was clerk of the Castle, and ordered him:

"Go up this street to the next corner and wait there for me. I am compelled to visit the Provost-Marshal's office. Be sure and wait. I will meet you in fifteen minutes."

The unsuspecting guard obeyed the order, and the prisoner leisurely walked off.

Captain Lafayette Jones, of Carter County, Tennessee, was held on the charge of bushwhacking and recruiting for the Federal army within the Rebel lines. If brought to trial, he would undoubtedly have been convicted and shot. He succeeded in deluding the officers of the prison about his own identity, and was released upon enlisting in the Rebel army, under the name of Leander Johannes.

Escape by Forging a Release.

George W. Hudson, of New York, had been caught in Louisiana, while acting as a spy in the Union service. Returning to the prison from a preliminary examination before General Winder, he said:

"They have found all my papers, which were sewn in the lining of my valise. There is evidence enough to hang me twenty times over. I have no hope unless I can escape."

He canvassed a number of plans, at last deciding upon one. Then he remarked, with great nonchalance:

"Well, I am not quite ready yet; I must send out to buy a valise and get my clothes washed, so that I can leave in good shape."

Three or four days later, having completed these arrangements, he wrote an order for his own discharge, forging General Winder's' signature. It was a close imitation of Winder's genuine papers upon which prisoners were discharged daily. Hudson employed a negro to leave this document, unobserved, upon the desk of the prison Adjutant. Just then I was confined in a cell for an attempt to escape. One morning some one tapped at my door; looking out through the little aperture, I saw Hudson, valise in hand, with the warden behind him.

"I have come to say good-by. My discharge has arrived." (In a whisper,) "Put your ear up here. My plan is working to a charm. It is the prettiest thing you ever saw."

He bade me adieu, conversed a few minutes with the prison officers, and walked leisurely up the street. A Union lady sheltered him, and when the Rebels next heard of Hudson he was with the Army of the Potomac, serving upon the staff of General Meade.

Escaped Prisoner at Jeff. Davis's Levee.

Robert Slocum, of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Volunteers, was taken to Richmond as a prisoner of war. In two days he escaped, and procured, from friendly negroes, citizen's clothing. Then passing himself off as an Englishman recently arrived in America by a blockade-runner, he attempted to leave the port of Wilmington for Nassau. Through some informality in his passport, he was arrested and lodged in Castle Thunder. Employing an attorney, he secured his release. Still adhering to the original story, he remained in Richmond for many months. He frequently sent us letters, supplies, and provisions, and made many attempts to aid us in escaping. One day he wrote me an entertaining description of President Davis's levee, at which he had spent the previous evening.

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[CHAPTER XXXV.]

Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.

Tempest.

Assistance from a Negro Boy.

Several days of our confinement in Castle Thunder were spent in a little cell with burglars, thieves, "bounty-jumpers," and confidence men. Our association with these strange companions happened in this wise:

One day we completed an arrangement with a corporal of the guard, by which, with the aid of four of his men, he was to let us out at midnight. We had a friend in Richmond, but did not know precisely where his house was situated. We were very anxious to learn, and fortunately, on this very day, he sent a meal to a prisoner in our room. Recognizing the plate, I asked the intelligent young Baltimore negro who brought it:

"Is my friend waiting below?"

"Yes, sir."

"Can't you get me an opportunity to see him for one moment?"

"I think so, sir. Come with me and we will try."

The boy led me through the passages and down the stairs, past four guards, who supposed that he had been sent by the prison authorities. As we reached the lower floor, I saw my friend standing in the street door, with two officers of the prison beside him. By a look I beckoned him. He walked toward me and I toward him, until we met at the little railing which separated us. There, over the bayonet of the sentinel, this whispered conversation followed:

"We hope to get out to-night; can we find refuge in your house?"

"Certainly. At what hour will you come?"

"We hope, between twelve and one o'clock. Where is your place?"

The Prison Officers Enraged.

He told me the street and number. By this time, the Rebel officers, discovering what was going on, grew indignant and very profane. They peremptorily ordered my friend into the street. He went out wearing a look of mild and injured innocence. The negro had shrewdly slipped out of sight the moment he brought us together, and thus escaped severe punishment.

The officers ordered me back to my quarters, and as I went up the stairs, I heard a volley of oaths. They were not especially incensed at me, recognizing the fact that a prisoner under guard has a right to do any thing he can; but were indignant and chagrined at that want of discipline which permitted an inmate of the safest apartment in the Castle to pass four sentinels to the street door, and converse with an unauthorized person.

Visit from a Friendly Woman.

Ten minutes after, a boy came up from the office, with the message—this time genuine—that another visitor wished to see me. I went down, and there, immediately beyond the bars through which we were allowed to communicate with outsiders, I saw a lady who called me by name. I did not recognize her, but her eyes told me that she was a friend. A Rebel officer was standing near, to see that no improper communication passed between us. She conversed upon indifferent subjects, but soon found opportunity for saying:

"I am the wife of your friend who has just left you. He dared not come again. I succeeded in obtaining admission. I have a note for you. I cannot give it to you now, for this officer is looking; but, when I bid you good-by, I will slip it into your hand."

The letter contained the warmest protestations of friendship, saying:

"We will do any thing in the world for you. You shall have shelter at our house, or, if you think that too public, at any house you choose among our friends. We will find you the best pilot in Richmond to take you through the lines. We will give you clothing, we will give you money—every thing you need. If you wish, we will send a half dozen young men to steal up in front of the Castle at midnight; and, for a moment, to throw a blanket over the head of each of the sentinels who stand beside the door."

At one o'clock that night, the Rebel corporal came to our door and said, softly:

"All things are ready; I have my four men at the proper posts; we can pass you to the street without difficulty. Should you meet any pickets beyond, the countersign for to-night is 'Shiloh.' I know you all, and implicitly trust you; but some of my men do not, and before passing out your party of six, they want to see that you have in your possession the money you propose to give us" (seventy dollars in United States currency, together with two gold watches).

This request was reasonable, and Bulkley handed his portion of the money to the corporal. A moment later he returned with it from the gas-light, and said:

"There is a mistake about this. Here are five one-dollar notes, not five-dollar notes."

My friend was very confident there was no error; and we were forced to the conclusion that the guards designed to obtain our money without giving us our liberty. So the plan was baffled.

The next morning proved that the corporal was right. My friend had offered him the wrong roll of notes. We hoped very shortly to try again, but considerable finessing was required to get the right sentinels upon the right posts. Before it could be done we were placed in a dungeon, on the charge of attempting to escape. We were kept there ten days.

Shut up in a Cell.

Our fellows in confinement were the burglars and confidence men—"lewd fellows of the baser sort," without principle or refinement, living by their wits. They frankly related many of their experiences in enlisting and re-enlisting for large bounties as substitutes in the Rebel service; decoying negroes from their masters, and then selling them; stealing horses, etc. But they treated us with personal courtesy, and though their own rations were wretchedly short, never molested our dried beef, hams, and other provisions, which any night they could safely have purloined.

Small-pox was very prevalent during the winter months. An Illinois prisoner, named Putman, had a remarkable experience. He was first vaccinated, and two or three days after, attacked with varioloid. Just as he recovered from that, he was taken with malignant small-pox, while the vaccine matter was still working in his arm, which was almost an unbroken sore from elbow to shoulder. In a few weeks he returned to the prison with pits all over his face as large as peas. Small-pox patients were sometimes kept in our close room for two or three days after the eruptions appeared. One of my own messmates barely survived this disease.

We were allowed to purchase whatever supplies the Richmond market afforded, and to have our meals prepared in the prison kitchen, by paying the old negro who presided there. These were privileges enjoyed by none of the other inmates. Supplies commanded very high prices; it was a favorite jest in the city, that the people had to carry money in their baskets and bring home marketing in their porte-monnaies. Our mess consisted of the four correspondents and Mr. Charles Thompson, a citizen of Connecticut, whose Democratic proclivities, age, and gravity, invariably elected him spokesman when we wished to communicate with the prison authorities. As they regarded us with special hostility, we kept in the back-ground; but Mr. Thompson's quiet tenacity, which no refusal could dishearten, and the "greenbacks" which no attaché could resist, secured us many favors.

Stealing from Flag-of-Truce Letters.

Northern letters from our own families reached us with considerable regularity. Those sent by other persons were mostly withheld. Robert Ould, the Rebel Commissioner of Exchange, with petty malignity, never permitted one of the many written from The Tribune office to reach us. All inclosures, excepting money, and sometimes including it, were stolen with uniform consistency. I finally wrote upon one of my missives, which was to go North:

"Will the person who systematically abstracts newspaper slips, babies' pictures, and postage-stamps from my letters, permit the inclosed little poem to reach its destination, unless entirely certain that it is contraband and dangerous to the public service?"

Apparently a little ashamed, the Rebel censor thereafter ceased his peculations.

For a time, boxes of supplies from the North were forwarded to us with fidelity and promptness. Supposing that this could not last long, we determined to make hay while the sun shone. One day, dining from the contents of a home box, in cutting through the butter, my knife struck something hard. We sounded, and brought to the surface a little phial, hermetically sealed. We opened it, and there found "greenbacks!"

Upon that hint we acted. While it was impossible to obtain letters from the North, we could always smuggle them thither by exchanged prisoners, who would sew them up in their clothing, or in some other manner conceal them. We immediately began to send many orders for boxes; all but two or three came safely to hand, and "brought forth butter in a lordly dish." Treasury notes were also sent bound in covers of books so deftly as to defy detection. One of my messmates thus received two hundred and fifty dollars in a single Bible. The supplies of money, obtained in this manner, lasted through nearly all our remaining imprisonment, and were of infinite service.

Paroles Repudiated by the Rebels.

All the prisoners who were taken to Richmond with us had received identically the same paroles. In every case, except ours, the Rebels recognized the paroles, and sent the persons holding them through the lines. But they utterly disregarded ours. We felt it a sort of duty to keep them occasionally reminded of their solemn, deliberate, written obligation to us. We first did this through our attorney, General Humphrey Marshall, of Kentucky. His relations with Robert Ould were very close. Upon receiving heavy fees in United States currency, he had secured the release of several citizens, after all other endeavors failed. The prisoners believed that Ould shared the fees.

General Marshall made a strong statement of our case in writing, adding to the application for release:

"I am instructed by these gentlemen not to ask any favors at your hands, but to enforce their clear, legal, unquestionable rights under this parole."

Commissioner Ould indorsed upon this application that he repudiated the parole altogether. In reporting to us, General Marshall said:

"I don't feel at liberty to accept a fee from you, because I consider your case hopeless."

Sentenced to the Salisbury Prison.

Early in the new year, we addressed a memorial to Mr. Seddon, the Rebel Secretary of War, in which we attempted to argue the case upon its legal merits, and to prove what a flagrant, atrocious violation of official faith was involved in our detention. We plumed ourselves a good deal on our legal logic, but Mr. Seddon returned a very convincing refutation of our argument. He simply wrote an order that we be sent to the Rebel penitentiary at Salisbury, North Carolina, to be held until the end of the war, as hostages for Rebel citizens confined in the North, and for the general good conduct of our Government toward them!

Like the historic Roman, content to be refuted by an emperor who was master of fifty legions, we yielded gracefully to the argument of the Secretary who had the whole Confederate army at his back; and thus we were sent to Salisbury.

"Abolitionists Before the War."

On the night before our departure, the warden, a Maryland refugee, named Wiley, ordered us below into a very filthy apartment, to be ready for the morning train. We appealed to Captain Richardson, Commandant of the Castle, who, countermanding the order, permitted us to remain in our own more comfortable quarters during the night. Ten minutes after, one of the little negroes came to our room, and, beckoning me to bend down, he whispered:

"What do you think Mr. Wiley says about Captain Richardson's letting you stay here to-night? As soon as the Captain went out, he said: 'It's a shame for Richardson and Browne to receive so many more favors than the other prisoners. Why, ---- ---- them, they were Abolitionists before the war!'"

On the way to Salisbury we were very closely guarded, but there were many times during the night when we might easily have jumped from the car window.

At Raleigh, a pleasant little city of five thousand people, named in honor of the great Sir Walter, the temptation was very strong. In the confusion and darkness through which we passed from one train to another, we might easily have eluded the guards; but we were feeble, a long distance from our army lines, and quite unfamiliar with the country. It was a golden opportunity neglected; for it is always comparatively easy for captives to escape while in transitu, and very difficult when once within the walls of a military prison.

On the evening of February 3d we reached Salisbury, and were taken to the Confederate States Penitentiary. It was a brick structure, one hundred feet by forty, four stories in hight, originally erected for a cotton-factory. In addition to the main building, there were six smaller ones of brick, which had formerly been tenement houses; and a new frame hospital, with clean hay mattresses for forty patients. The buildings, which would hold about five hundred prisoners, were all filled. Confederate convicts, Yankee deserters, about twenty enlisted men of our navy and three United States officers confined as hostages, one hundred and fifty Southern Unionists, and fifty northern citizens, composed the inmates.

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[CHAPTER XXXVI.]

The miserable have no other medicine, But only hope.

Measure for Measure.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow?

Macbeth.

Truly saith the Italian proverb, "There are no ugly loves and no handsome prisons." Still we found Salisbury comparatively endurable. Captain Swift Galloway, commanding, though a hearty Confederate, was kind and courteous to the captives. Our sleeping apartment, crowded with uncleanly men, and foul with the vilest exhalations, was filthy and vermin-infested beyond description. No northern farmer, fit to be a northern farmer, would have kept his horse or his ox in it.

The Open Air and Pure Water.

But the yard of four acres, like some old college grounds, with great oak trees and a well of sweet, pure water, was open to us during the whole day. There, the first time for nine months, our feet pressed the mother earth, and the blessed open air fanned our cheeks.

Mr. Luke Blackmer, of Salisbury, kindly placed his library of several thousand volumes at our disposal. Whenever we wished for books we had only to address a note to him, through the prison authorities, and, in a few hours, a little negro with a basket of them on his head would come in at the gate. It seemed more like life and less like the tomb than any prison we had inhabited before.

The Crushing Weight of Imprisonment.

And yet those long Summer months were very dreary to bear, for we had upon us the one heavy, crushing weight of captivity. It is not hunger or cold, sickness or death, which makes prison life so hard to bear. But it is the utter idleness, emptiness, aimlessness of such a life. It is being, through all the long hours of each day and night—for weeks, months, years, if one lives so long—absolutely without employment, mental or physical—with nothing to fill the vacant mind, which always becomes morbid and turns inward to prey upon itself.

What exile from his country Can flee himself as well?

It was doubtless this which gave us the look peculiar to the captive—the disturbed, half-wild expression of the eye, the contraction of the wrinkled brow which indicates trouble at the heart.

We were most struck with this in the morning, when, on first going out of our sleeping quarters, we passed down by the hospital and stopped beside the bench where those were laid who had died during the night. As we lifted the cloth, to see who had found release, the one thing which always impressed me was the perfect calm, the sweet, ineffable peace, which those white, thin faces wore. For months I never saw it without a twinge of envy. Until then I never felt the meaning of the words, "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." Until then I never realized the wealth of the assurance, "He giveth his beloved sleep."

Bad News from Home.

Some prisoners had an additional weight to bear. They were southern Unionists—Tennesseans, North Carolinians, West Virginians, and Mississippians—whose families lived on the border. They knew that they were liable any day to have their houses robbed or burned by the enemy, and their wives and little ones turned out to the mercy of the elements, or the charity of friends. This gnawing anxiety took away their elasticity and power of endurance. They had far less capacity for resisting disease and hardship than the northeners, and died in the proportion of four or five to one. I could hardly wonder at the fervor with which, in their devotional exercises, night after night, they sung the only hymn which they ever attempted:

"There I shall bathe my weary soul In seas of heavenly rest; And not a wave of trouble roll Across this peaceful breast."

The cup of others, yet, had a still bitterer ingredient, which filled it to overflowing. I wonder profoundly that any one drinking of it ever lived to tell his story. They had received bad news from home—news that those nearest and dearest, finding their load of life too heavy, had laid it wearily down. During the long prison hours, such had nothing to think of but the vacant place, the hushed voice, and the desolate hearth. Hope—the one thing which buoys up the prisoner—was gone. That picture of home, which had looked before as heaven looks to the enthusiastic devotee, was forever darkened. The prisoner knew if the otherwise glad hour of his release should ever come, no warmth of welcome, no greeting of friendship, no rejoicing of affection, could ever replace for him the infinite value of the love he had lost.

The Great Libby Tunnel.

Early in the Spring we were delighted to learn from Richmond that Colonel Streight had succeeded in escaping from Libby. The officers constructed a long tunnel, which proved a perfect success, liberating one hundred and fourteen of them. Streight, whose proportions tended toward the Falstaffian, was very apprehensive that he could not work his way through it. Narrowly escaping the fate of the greedy fox which "stuck in the hole," he finally squeezed through. The Rebels hated him so bitterly that, by the unanimous wish of his fellow-prisoners, he was the first man to pass out. A Union woman of Richmond concealed him for nearly two weeks. The first officers who reached our lines announced through the New York papers that Streight had arrived at Fortress Monroe. This caused the Richmond authorities to relinquish their search; and finally, under a skillful pilot, having traveled with great caution for eleven nights to accomplish less than a hundred miles, Streight reached the protection of the Stars and Stripes.

Our prison rations of corn bread and beef were tolerable, in quantity and quality. The Salisbury market also afforded a few articles, of which eggs were the great staple. We indulged extravagantly in that mild form of dissipation—our mess of five at one time having on hand seventy-two dozen, which represented, in Confederate currency, about two hundred dollars.

We soon made the acquaintance of several loyal North Carolinians. Citizens of respectability were permitted to visit the prison. Those of Union proclivities invariably found opportunity to converse with us. Like all Loyalists of the South, white and black, they trusted northern prisoners implicitly. The reign of terror was so great that they often feared to repose confidence in each other, and cautioned us against repeating their expressions of loyalty to their neighbors and friends, whose Union sympathies were just as strong as theirs.

Horrible Sufferings of Union Officers.

Captains Julius L. Litchfield, of the Fourth Maine Infantry, Charles Kendall, of the Signal Corps, and Edward E. Chase, of the First Rhode Island Cavalry, were imprisoned in the upper room of the factory. Held as hostages for certain Rebel officers in the Alton, Illinois, penitentiary, they were sentenced to confinement and hard labor during the war. In one instance only was the hard labor imposed. In the prison yard they were ordered to remove several heavy stones a few yards and then carry them back. For some minutes they stood beside the Rebel sergeant, silently and with folded arms. Then Chase thus instructed the guard:

"Go to Captain Galloway, and tell him, with my compliments, that perhaps I was just as delicately nurtured as he—that, if he were in my place, he would hardly do this work, and that I will see the whole Confederacy in the Bottomless Pit before I lift a single stone!"

Chase and his comrades were never afterward ordered to labor. Other Union officers, held as hostages, arrived from time to time. Eight, who came from Richmond, had been confined one hundred and forty-five days in that horrible Libby cell where the mold accumulated on the beard of the Pennsylvania lieutenant. While there they suffered intensely from cold, ate daily all their scanty ration the moment it was issued, and were compelled to fast for the rest of the twenty-four hours, save when they could catch rats, which they eagerly devoured. Some came out with broken constitutions, and all were frightfully pallid and emaciated. Starving and freezing are words easily said, but these gentlemen learned their actual significance.

Four of them were held for Kentucky bushwhackers, whom one of our military courts had sentenced to death, which they clearly deserved under well-defined laws of war. Had they been promptly executed, the Rebels would never have dared, in retaliation, to hurt the hair of a prisoners head. But Mr. Lincoln's kindness of heart induced him to commute their sentence to imprisonment, and made him unwittingly the cause of this barbarity toward our own officers.

The hostages were plucky and enterprising, frequently attempting to escape. One night they suspended from their fourth-story window a rope which they had constructed of blankets. Captain Ives, of the Tenth Massachusetts Infantry, descended in safety. A daring and loyal Rebel deserter, from East Tennessee, named Carroll, who designed to pilot them to our lines, attempted to follow; but the rope broke, and he fell the whole distance, striking upon his head. It would have killed most men; but Carroll, after spending the night in the guard-house, bathed his swollen head and troubled himself no further about the matter.

Captain B. C. G. Reed, from Zanesville, Ohio, was constantly trying to secure his own release. It always seemed to make him unhappy when he passed two or three weeks without making attempts to escape. They usually resulted in his being hand-cuffed and ballasted by a ball and chain, or confined in a filthy cell.

A Cool Method of Escape.

But, sooner or later, perseverance achieves. Once, while so weak from inflammatory rheumatism, contracted in a Richmond dungeon, that he could hardly walk, he made a successful endeavor, in company with Captain Litchfield. At nine o'clock, on a rainy March night, with their blankets wrapped about them, they coolly walked up to the gate. They rebuked the guard who halted them, indignantly asking him if he did not know that they belonged at head-quarters! Impudence won the day. The innocent sentinel permitted them to pass. They went directly through Captain Galloway's office, which fortunately happened to be empty; reached the outer fence; Litchfield helped over his weak companion, and the world was all before them, where to choose. They traveled one hundred and twenty miles, but, in the mountains of East Tennessee, were recaptured and brought back.

Nothing daunted, Reed repeated the attempt again and again. Finally, he jumped from a train of cars in the city of Charleston, found a negro who secreted him, and by night conveyed him in a skiff to our forces at Battery Wagner. Reed returned to his command in Thomas's Army, and was subsequently killed in one of the battles before Nashville. Entering the service as a private, and fairly winning promotion, he was an excellent type of the thinking bayonets, of the young men who freely gave their lives "for our dear country's sake."

Captured through an Obstinate Mule.

Early in the summer, our mess was agreeably enlarged by the arrival of Mr. William E. Davis, Correspondent of The Cincinnati Gazette and Clerk of the Ohio Senate. Davis owed his capture to the stupidity of a mule. Riding leisurely along a road within the lines of General Sherman's army, more than a mile from the front, he was compelled to pass through a little gap left between two corps, which had not quite connected. He was suddenly confronted by a double-barreled shot-gun, presented by a Rebel standing behind a tree, who commanded him to halt. Not easily intimidated, Davis attempted to turn his mule and ride for a life and liberty. With the true instinct of his race, the animal resisted the rein, seeming to require a ten-acre lot and three days for turning around—wherefore the rider fell into the hands of the Philistines.

Books whiled away many weary hours. As Edmond Dantes, in the Count of Monte Christo, came out from his twelve years of imprisonment "a very well-read man," we ought to have acquired limitless lore; but reading at last palled upon our tastes, and we would none of it.

Concealing Money when Searched.

Our Salisbury friends supplied us liberally with money. The editors of the migratory Memphis Appeal frequently offered to me any amount which I might desire, and made many attempts to secure my exchange.

The prison authorities sometimes searched us; but friendly guards, or officers of Union proclivities, would always give us timely notice, enabling us to secrete our money. One (nominally) Rebel lieutenant, after we were drawn up in line and the searching had begun, would sometimes receive bank-notes from us, and hand them back when we were returned to our own quarters.

Once, as we were being examined, I had forty dollars, in United States currency, concealed in my hat. That was an article of dress which had never been examined. But now, looking down the line, I saw the guard suddenly commence taking off the prisoners' hats, carefully scrutinizing them. Removing the money from mine, I handed it to Lieutenant Holman, of Vermont; but, turning around, I observed that two Rebel officers immediately behind us had witnessed the movement. Holman promptly passed the notes to "Junius," who stood near, reading a ponderous volume, and who placed them between the leaves of his book. Holman was at once taken from the line and searched rigorously from head to foot, but the Rebels were unable to find the coveted "greenbacks."

The prison officers, under rigid orders from the Richmond authorities, would sometimes retain money received by mail. Two hundred dollars in Confederate notes were thus withheld from me for more than a year. Determined that the Rebel officials should not enjoy much peace of mind, I addressed them letter after letter, reciting their various subterfuges. At last, upon my demanding that they should either give me the money, or refuse positively over their own signatures, the amount was forthcoming. Thousands of dollars belonging to prisoners were confiscated upon frivolous pretexts, or no pretext whatever.

Attempts to Escape Frustrated.

Persistent ill-fortune still followed all our attempts to escape. Once we perfected an arrangement with a friendly guard, by which, at midnight, he was to pass us over the fence upon his beat. Before our quarters were locked for the night, "Junius" and myself hid under the hospital, where, through the faithful sentinel, escape would be certain. But just then, we chanced to be nearly without money, and Davis waited for a Union attaché of the prison to bring him four hundred dollars from a friend outside. The messenger, for the first and last time in eleven months, becoming intoxicated that afternoon, arrived with the money five minutes too late. Davis was unable to join us; we determined not to leave him, expecting to repeat the attempt on the following night; but the next day the guard was conscribed and sent to Lee's army.

These constant failures subjected us to many jests from our fellow-prisoners. Once, in a dog-day freak, "Junius" had every hair shaved from his head, leaving his pallid face diversified only by a great German mustache. He replied to all badinage that he was not the correspondent for whom his interlocutors mistook him, but the venerable and famous Chinaman "No-Go."

Yankee Deserters Whipped and Hanged.

The Yankee deserters, having no friends to protect them, were treated with great harshness. During a single day six were tied up to a post and received, in the aggregate, one hundred and twenty-seven lashes with the cat-o'nine-tails upon their bare backs, as punishment for digging a tunnel. Many of them were "bounty-jumpers" and desperadoes. They robbed each newly-arriving deserter of all his money, beating him unmercifully if he resisted. After being thus whipped, at their own request their status was changed, and they were sent as prisoners of war to Andersonville, Georgia. There the Union prisoners, detecting them in several robberies and murders, organized a court-martial, tried them, and hung six of them upon trees within the garrison, with ropes furnished by the Rebel commandant.

For seven months no letters, even from our own families, were permitted to reach us. This added much to our weariness. I never knew the pathos of Sterne's simple story until I heard "Junius" read it one sad Summer night in our prison quarters. For weeks afterward rung in my ears the cry of the poor starling: "I can't get out! I can't get out!"

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[CHAPTER XXXVII.]

——- Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad, and played
Some tricks of desperation.

Tempest.

All trouble, torment, wonder, and amazement
Inhabit here.

Ibid.

Great Influx of Prisoners.

Early in October, the condition of the Salisbury garrison suddenly changed. Nearly ten thousand prisoners of war, half naked and without shelter, were crowded into its narrow limits, which could not reasonably accommodate more than six hundred. It was converted into a scene of suffering and death which no pen can adequately describe. For every hour, day and night, we were surrounded by horrors which burned into our memories like a hot iron.

We had never before been in a prison containing our private soldiers. In spite of many assurances to the contrary, we had been skeptical as to the barbarities which they were said to suffer at Belle Isle and Andersonville. We could not believe that men bearing the American name would be guilty of such atrocities. Now, looking calmly upon our last two months in Salisbury, it seems hardly possible to exaggerate the incredible cruelty of the Rebel authorities.

When captured, the prisoners were robbed of the greater part of their clothing. When they reached Salisbury, all were thinly clad, thousands were barefooted, not one in twenty had an overcoat or blanket, and many hundreds were without coats or blouses.

Starving in the Midst of Food.

For several weeks, they were furnished with no shelter whatever. Afterward, one Sibley tent and one A tent was issued to each hundred men. With the closest crowding, these contained about one-half of them. The rest burrowed in the earth, crept under buildings, or dragged out the nights in the open air upon the muddy, snowy, or frozen ground. In October, November, and December, snow fell several times. It was piteous beyond description to see the poor fellows, coatless, hatless, and shoeless, shivering about the yard.

They were organized into divisions of one thousand each, and subdivided into squads of one hundred. Almost daily one or more divisions was without food for twenty-four hours. Several times some of them received no rations for forty-eight hours. The few who had money, paid from five to twenty dollars, in Rebel currency, for a little loaf of bread. Some sold the coats from their backs and the shoes from their feet to purchase food.

When a subordinate asked the post-Commandant, Major John H. Gee, "Shall I give the prisoners full rations?" he replied: "No, G-d d--n them, give them quarter-rations!"

Yet, at this very time, one of our Salisbury friends, a trustworthy and Christian gentleman, assured us, in a stolen interview:

"It is within my personal knowledge that the great commissary warehouse, in this town, is filled to the roof with corn and pork. I know that the prison commissary finds it difficult to obtain storage for his supplies."

After our escape, we learned from personal observation that the region abounded in corn and pork. Salisbury was a general dépôt for army supplies.

Freezing in the Midst of Fuel.

That section of country is densely wooded. The cars brought fuel to the door of our prison. If the Rebels were short of tents, they might easily have paroled two or three hundred prisoners, to go out and cut logs, with which, in a single week, barracks could have been constructed for every captive; but the Commandant would not consent. He did not even furnish half the needed fuel.

Cold and hunger began to tell fearfully upon the robust young men, fresh from the field, who crowded the prison. Sickness was very prevalent and very fatal. It invariably appeared in the form of pneumonia, catarrh, diarrhœa, or dysentery; but was directly traceable to freezing and starvation. Therefore the medicines were of little avail. The weakened men were powerless to resist disease, and they were carried to the dead-house in appalling numbers.

By appointment of the prison authorities, my two comrades and myself were placed in charge of all the hospitals, nine in number, inside the garrison. The scenes which constantly surrounded us were enough to shake the firmest nerves; but there was work to be done for the relief of our suffering companions. We could accomplish very little—hardly more than to give a cup of cold water, and see that the patients were treated with sympathy and kindness.

Mr. Davis was general superintendent, and brought to his arduous duties good judgment, untiring industry, and uniform kindness.

"Junius" was charged with supplying medicines to the "out-door patients." The hospitals, when crowded, would hold about six hundred; but there were always many more invalids unable to obtain admission. These wretched men waited wearily for death in their tents, in subterranean holes, under hospitals, or in the open air. My comrade's tender sympathy softened the last hours of many a poor fellow who had long been a stranger to

"The falling music of a gracious word, Or the stray sunshine of a smile."

Rebel Surgeons Generally Humane.

I was appointed to supervise all the hospital books, keeping a record of each patient's name, disease, admission, and discharge or death. At my own solicitation, the Rebel surgeon-in-chief also authorized me to receive the clothing left by the dead, and re-issue it among the living. I endeavored to do this systematically, keeping lists of the needy, who indeed were nine-tenths of all the prisoners. The deaths ranged from twenty to forty-eight daily, leaving many garments to be distributed. Day after day, in bitterly cold weather, pale, fragile boys, who should have been at home with their mothers and sisters, came to me with no clothing whatever, except a pair of worn cotton pantaloons and a thin cotton shirt.

Dr. Richard O. Currey, a refugee from Knoxville, was the surgeon in charge. Though a genuine Rebel, he was just and kind-hearted, doing his utmost to change the horrible condition of affairs. Again and again he sent written protests to Richmond, which brought several successive inspectors to examine the prison and hospitals, but no change of treatment.

We were reluctantly driven to the belief that the Richmond authorities deliberately adopted this plan to reduce the strength of our armies. The Medusa head of Slavery had turned their hearts to stone. At this time, they held nearly forty thousand prisoners. In our garrison the inmates were dying at the rate of thirteen per cent. a month upon the aggregate. About as many more were enlisting in the Rebel army. Thus our soldiers were destroyed at the rate of more than twenty-five per cent. a month, with no corresponding loss to the enemy.

Terrible Scenes in the Hospitals.

Frequently, for two or three days, Dr. Currey would refrain from entering the garrison, reluctant to look upon the revolting scenes from which we could find no escape. I am glad to be able to throw one ray of light into so dark a picture. Nearly all the surgeons evinced that humanity which ought to characterize their profession. They were much the best class of Rebels we encountered. They denounced unsparingly the manner in which prisoners were treated, and endeavored to mitigate their sufferings.

To call the foul pens, where the patients were confined, "hospitals," was a perversion of the English tongue. We could not obtain brooms to keep them clean; we could not get cold water to wash the hands and faces of those sick and dying men. In that region, where every farmer's barn-yard contained grain-stacks, we could not procure clean straw enough to place under them. More than half the time they were compelled to lie huddled upon the cold, naked, filthy floors, without even that degree of warmth and cleanliness usually afforded to brutes. The wasted forms and sad, pleading eyes of those sufferers, waiting wearily for the tide of life to ebb away—without the commonest comforts, without one word of sympathy, or one tear of affection—will never cease to haunt me.

At all hours of the day and night, on every side, we heard the terrible hack! hack! hack! in whose pneumonic tones every prisoner seemed to be coughing his life away. It was the most fearful sound in that fearful place.

The Rattling Dead-Cart.

The last scene of all was the dead-cart, with its rigid forms piled upon each other like logs—the arms swaying, the white ghastly faces staring, with dropped jaws and stony eyes—while it rattled along, bearing its precious freight just outside the walls, to be thrown in a mass into trenches and covered with a little earth.

When received, there were no sick or wounded men among the prisoners. But before they had been in Salisbury six weeks, "Junius," with better facilities for knowing than any one else, insisted that among eight thousand there were not five hundred well men. The Rebel surgeons coincided in this belief.

The rations, issued very irregularly, were insufficient to support life. Men grew feeble before living upon them a single week; but could not buy food from the town; and were not permitted to receive even a meal sent by friends from the outside. Our positions in the hospitals enabled us to purchase supplies and fare better. Prisoners eagerly devoured the potato-skins from our table. They ate rats, dogs, and cats. Many searched the yard for bones and scraps among the most revolting substances.

They constantly besieged us for admission to the hospitals, or for shelter and food, which we were unable to give. It seemed almost sinful for us to enjoy protection from the weather and food enough to support life in the midst of all this distress.

On wet days the mud was very deep, and the shoeless wretches wallowed pitifully through it, seeking vainly for cover and warmth. Two hundred negro prisoners were almost naked, and could find no shelter whatever except by burrowing in the earth. The authorities treated them with unusual rigor, and guards murdered them with impunity.

No song, no athletic game, few sounds of laughter broke the silence of the garrison. It was a Hall of Eblis—devoid of its gold-besprinkled pavements, crystal vases, and dazzling saloons; but with all its oppressive silence, livid lips, sunken eyes, and ghastly figures, at whose hearts the consuming fire was never quenched.

Interior View of A Hospital in the Salisbury Prison.

[Click for larger image]

Constant association with suffering deadened our sensibilities. We were soon able to pass through the hospitals little moved by their terrible spectacles, except when patients addressed us, exciting a personal interest.

Credulity of our Government.

The credulity and trustfulness of our Government toward the enemy passed belief. Month after month it sent by the truce-boats many tons of private boxes for Union prisoners, while the Rebels, not satisfied with their usual practice of stealing a portion under the rose, upon one trivial pretext or other, openly confiscated every pound of them. At the same time, returning truce-boats were loaded with boxes sent to Rebel prisoners from their friends in the South, and express-lines crowded with supplies from their sympathizers in the North.

The Government held a large excess of prisoners, and the Rebels were anxious to exchange man for man; but our authorities acted upon the cold-blooded theory of Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, that we could not afford to give well-fed, rugged men, for invalids and skeletons—that returned prisoners were infinitely more valuable to the Rebels than to us, because their soldiers were inexorably kept in the army, while many of ours, whose terms of service had expired, would not re-enlist.

The private soldier who neglects his duty is taken out and shot. Officials seemed to forget that the soldier's obligation of obedience devolves upon the Government the obligation of protection. It was clearly the duty of our authorities either to exchange our own soldiers, or to protect them—not by indiscriminate cruelty, but by well-considered, systematic retaliation in kind, until the Richmond authorities should treat prisoners with ordinary humanity. It was very easy to select a number of Rebel officers, corresponding to the Union prisoners in the Salisbury garrison, and give them precisely the same kind and amount of food, clothing, and shelter.

General Butler's Example of Retaliation.

When the Confederate Government placed certain of our negro prisoners under fire, at work upon the fortifications of Richmond, General Butler, in a brief letter, informed them that he had stationed an equal number of Rebel officers, equally exposed and spade in hand, upon his fortifications. When his letter reached Richmond, before that day's sun went down, the negroes were returned to Libby Prison and ever afterward treated as prisoners of war. But, by the mawkish sensibilities of a few northern statesmen and editors, our Government was encouraged to neglect the matter, and thus permitted the needless murder of its own soldiers—a stain upon the nation's honor, and an inexcusable cruelty to thousands of aching hearts.

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[CHAPTER XXXVIII.]

I have supped full with horrors.

Macbeth.

The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That ache, age, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature.

Measure for Measure.

Attempted Outbreak and Massacre.

On the 26th of November, while we were sitting at dinner, John Lovell came up from the yard and whispered me:

"There is to be an insurrection. The prisoners are preparing to break out."

We had heard similar reports so frequently as to lose all faith in them; but this was true. Without deliberation or concert of action, upon the impulse of the moment, a portion of the prisoners acted. Suffering greatly from hunger, many having received no food for forty-eight hours, they said:

"Let us break out of this horrible place. We may just as well die upon the guns of the guards as by slow starvation."

A number, armed with clubs, sprang upon a Rebel relief of sixteen men, just entering the yard. Though weak and emaciated, these prisoners performed their part promptly and gallantly. Man for man, they wrenched the guns from the soldiers. One Rebel resisted and was bayoneted where he stood. Instantly, the building against which he leaned was reddened by a great stain of blood. Another raised his musket, but, before he could fire, fell to the ground, shot through the head. Every gun was taken from the terrified relief, who immediately ran back to their camp, outside.

Had parties of four or five hundred then rushed at the fence in half a dozen different places, they might have confused the guards, and somewhere made an opening. But some thousands ran to it at one point only. Having neither crow-bars nor axes they could not readily effect a breach. At once every musket in the garrison was turned upon them. Two field-pieces opened with grape and canister. The insurrection—which had not occupied more than three minutes—was a failure, and the uninjured at once returned to their quarters.

The yard was now perfectly quiet. The portion of it which we occupied was several hundred yards from the scene of the mêlée. In our vicinity there had been no disturbance whatever; yet the guards stood upon the fence for twenty minutes, with deliberate aim firing into the tents, upon helpless and innocent men. Several prisoners were killed within a dozen yards of our building. One was wounded while leaning against it. The bullets rattled against the logs, but none chanced to pass through the wide apertures between them, and enter our apartment. Sixteen prisoners were killed and sixty wounded, of whom not one in ten had participated in the outbreak; while most were ignorant of it until they heard the guns.

Cold-Blooded Murders Frequent.

After this massacre, cold-blooded murders were very frequent. Any guard, standing upon the fence, at any hour of the day or night, could deliberately raise his musket and shoot into any group of prisoners, black or white, without the slightest rebuke from the authorities. He would not even be taken off his post for it.

One Union officer was thus killed when there could be no pretext that he was violating any prison rule.

Massacre of Union Prisoners attempting to Escape from Salisbury, North Carolina.

[Click for larger image]

Moses Smith, a negro soldier of the Seventh Maryland Infantry, was shot through the head while standing inoffensively beside my own quarters, conversing with John Lovell. One of many instances was that of two white Connecticut soldiers who were shot within their tents. We induced one of the surgeons to inquire at head-quarters the cause of the homicide. The answer received was, that the guard saw three negroes in range, and, knowing he would never have so good an opportunity again, fired at them, but missed aim and killed the wrong men! It seemed to be regarded as a harmless jest.

Hostility to "Tribune" Correspondents.

Though my comrades and myself, either by finesse or bribery, often succeeded in obtaining special privileges from the prison officers, the hostility of the Confederate authorities was unrelenting. Our attorney, Mr. Blackmer, after visiting Richmond on our behalf, returned and assured us that he saw no hope of our release before the end of the war, unless we could effect our escape. Robert Ould, who usually denied that he regarded us with special hostility, on one occasion, in his cups, remarked to the United States Commissioner:

"The Tribune did more than any other agency to bring on the war. It is useless for you to ask the exchange of its correspondents. They are just the men we want, and just the men we are going to hold."

Our Government, through blundering rather than design, released a large number of Rebel journalists without requiring our exchange. Finally, while among the horrors of Salisbury, we learned that Edward A. Pollard, a malignant Rebel, and an editor of The Richmond Examiner, most virulent of all the southern papers, was paroled to the city of Brooklyn, after confinement for a few weeks in the North. This news cut us like a knife. We, after nearly two years of captivity, in that foul, vermin-infested prison, among all its atrocities—he, at large, among the comforts and luxuries of one of the pleasantest cities in the world! The thought was so bitter, that, for weeks after hearing the intelligence, we did not speak of it to each other. Mr. Welles, Secretary of the Navy, was the person who set Pollard at liberty. I record the fact, not that any special importance attaches to our individual experience, but because hundreds of Union prisoners were subjected to kindred injustice.

A Cruel Injustice.

At the Salisbury penitentiary was a respectable woman from North Carolina, who was confined for two months, in the same quarters with the male inmates. Her crime was, giving a meal to a Rebel deserter! In Richmond, a Virginian of seventy was shut up with us for a long time, on the charge of feeding his own son, who had deserted from the army!

In September, a number of Rebel convicts, armed with clubs and knives, forcibly took from John Lovell a Union flag, which he had thus far concealed. After the prisoners of war arrived they vented their indignation upon the convicts, wherever they could catch them. For several days, Rebels venturing into the yard were certain to return to their quarters with bruised faces and blackened eyes.

Rebel Expectations of Peace.

During the peace mania, which seemed to possess the North, at the time of McClellan's nomination, the Rebels were very hopeful. Lieutenant Stockton, the post-Adjutant, one day observed:

"You will go home very soon; we shall have peace within a month."

"On what do you base your opinion?" I asked.

"The tone of your newspapers and politicians. McClellan is certain to be elected President, and peace will immediately follow."

"You southerners are the most credulous people in the whole world. You have been so long strangers to freedom of speech and the press, that you cannot comprehend it at all. There are half a dozen public men and as many newspapers in the North, who really belong to your side, and express their Rebel sympathies with little or no disguise. Can you not see that they never receive any accessions? Point out a single important convert made by them since the beginning of the war. Before Sumter, these same men told you that, if we attempted coërcion, it would produce war in the North; and you believed them. Again and again they have told you, as now, that the loyal States would soon give up the conflict, and you still believe them. Wait until the people vote, in November, and then tell me what you think."

In due time came news of Mr. Lincoln's re-election. The prisoners received it with intense satisfaction. I conveyed it to the Union officers, from whom we were separated by bayonets—tossing to them a biscuit containing a concealed note. A few minutes after, their cheering and shouting excited the surprise and indignation of the prison authorities. The next morning I asked Stockton how he now regarded the peace prospect. Shaking his head, he sadly replied:

"It is too deep for me; I cannot see the end."

A private belonging to the Fifty-ninth Massachusetts Infantry, had left Boston, a new recruit, just six weeks before we met him. In the interval he participated in two great battles and five skirmishes, was wounded in the leg, captured, escaped from his guards, while en route for Georgia, traveled three days on foot, was then re-captured and brought to Salisbury. His six weeks' experience had been fruitful and varied.

That hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, began to tell seriously upon our mental health. We grew morbid and bitter, and were often upon the verge of quarreling among ourselves. I remember even feeling a pang of jealousy and indignation at an account of some enjoyment and hilarity among my friends at home.

The Prison Like the Tomb.

Our prison was like the tomb. No voice from the North entered its gloomy portal. Knowing that we had been unjustly neglected by our own Government, wondering if we were indeed forsaken by God and man, we seemed to lose all human interest, and to care little whether we lived or died. But I suppose lurking, unconscious hope, still buoyed us up. Could we have known positively that we must endure eight months more of that imprisonment, I think we should have received with joy and gratitude our sentence to be taken out and shot.

Frequently prisoners asked us, sometimes with tears in their eyes:

"What shall we do? We grow weaker day by day. Staying here we shall be certain to follow our comrades to the hospital and the dead-house. The Rebels assure us that if we will enlist, we shall have abundant food and clothing; and we may find a chance of escaping to our own lines."

I always answered that they owed no obligation to God or man to remain and starve to death. Of the two thousand who did enlist, nearly all designed to desert at the first opportunity. Their remaining comrades had no toleration for them. If one who had joined the Rebels came back into the yard for a moment, his life was in imminent peril. Two or three times such persons were shockingly beaten, and only saved from death by the interference of the Rebel guards. This ferocity was but the expression of the deep, unselfish patriotism of our private soldiers. These men, who carried muskets and received but a mere pittance, were so earnest that they were almost ready to kill their comrades for joining the enemy even to escape a slow, torturing death.

Something about Tunneling.

We grew very familiar with the occult science of tunneling. Its modus operandi is this: the workman, having sunk a hole in the ground three, six, or eight feet, as the case may require, strikes off horizontally, lying flat on his face, and digging with whatever tool he can find—usually a case-knife. The excavation is made just large enough for one man to creep through it. The great difficulty is, to conceal the dirt. In Salisbury, however, this obstacle did not exist, for many of the prisoners lived in holes in the ground, which they were constantly changing or enlarging. Hence the yard abounded in hillocks of fresh earth, upon which that taken from the tunnels could be spread nightly without exciting notice.

After the great influx of prisoners of war in October, a large tunneling business was done. I knew of fifteen in course of construction at one time, and doubtless there were many more. The Commandant adopted an ingenious and effectual method of rendering them abortive.

In digging laterally in the ground, at the distance of thirty or forty feet the air becomes so foul that lights will not burn, and men breathe with difficulty. In the great tunnel sixty-five feet long, by which Colonel Streight and many other officers escaped from Libby prison, this embarrassment was obviated by a bit of Yankee ingenuity. The officers, with tacks, blankets, and boards, constructed a pair of huge bellows, like those used by blacksmiths. Then, while one of them worked with his case-knife, progressing four or five feet in twelve hours, and a second filled his haversack with dirt and removed it (of course backing out, and crawling in on his return, as the tunnel was a single track, and had no turn-table), a third sat at the mouth pumping vigorously, and thus supplied the workers with fresh air.

The Tunnelers Ingeniously Baffled.

At Salisbury this was impracticable. I suppose a paper of tacks could not have been purchased there for a thousand dollars. There were none to be had. Of course we could not pierce holes up to the surface of the ground for ventilation, as that would expose every thing.

Originally there was but one line of guards—posted some twenty-five feet apart, upon the fence which surrounded the garrison, and constantly walking to and fro, meeting each other and turning back at the limits of each post. Under this arrangement it was necessary to tunnel about forty feet to go under the fence, and come up far enough beyond it to emerge from the earth on a dark night without being seen or heard by the sentinels.

When the Commandant learned (through prisoners actually suffering for food, and ready to do almost any thing for bread) that tunneling was going on, he tried to ascertain where the excavations were located; but in vain, because none of the shaky Unionists had been informed. Therefore he established a second line of guards, one hundred feet outside of those on the fence, who also paced back and forth in the same manner until they met, forming a second line impervious to Yankees. This necessitated tunneling at least one hundred and forty feet, which, without ventilation, was just as much out of the question as to tunnel a hundred and forty miles.

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[IV.]
THE ESCAPE.

[CHAPTER XXXIX.]

"A good wit will make use of any thing: I will turn diseases to commodity."

King Henry IV.

Fifteen Months of Fruitless Endeavor.

We were constantly trying to escape. During the last fifteen months of our imprisonment, I think there was no day when we had not some plan which we hoped soon to put in execution. We were always talking and theorizing about the subject.

Indeed, we theorized too much. We magnified obstacles. We gave our keepers credit for greater shrewdness and closer observation than they were capable of. We would not start until all things combined to promise success. Therefore, as the slow months wore away, again and again we saw men of less capacity, but greater daring, escape by modes which had appeared to us utterly chimerical and impracticable.

Fortune, too, persistently baffled us. At the vital moment when freedom seemed just within our grasp, some unforeseen obstacle always intervened to foil our plans. Still, assuming a confidence we did not feel, we daily promised each other to persist until we gained our liberty or lost our lives. After the malignity which the Richmond authorities had manifested toward us, escape seemed a thousand-fold preferable to release by exchange.

I should hardly dare to estimate the combined length of tunnels in which we were concerned; they were always discovered, usually on the eve of completion. My associate was wont to declare that we should never escape in that way, unless we constructed an underground road to Knoxville—two hundred miles as the bird flies!

Even if we passed the prison walls, the chance of reaching our lines seemed almost hopeless. We were in the heart of the Confederacy. During the ten months we spent in Salisbury, at least seventy persons escaped; but nearly all were brought back, though a few were shot in the mountains. We knew of only five who had reached the North.

A Fearful Journey in Prospect.

"Junius," certain to see the gloomy side of every picture, frequently said: "To walk the same distance in Ohio or Massachusetts, where we could travel by daylight upon public thoroughfares, stop at each village for rest and refreshments, and sleep in warm beds every night, we should consider a severe hardship. Think of this terrible tramp of two hundred miles, by night, in mid-winter, over two ranges of mountains, creeping stealthily through the enemy's country, weak, hungry, shelterless! Can any of us live to accomplish it?"

When at last we did essay it, the journey proved nearly twice as long and infinitely severer than even he had conceived.

Among the officers of the prison, were three stanch Union men—a lieutenant, a surgeon, and Lieutenant John R. Welborn. They were our devoted friends. Their homes, families, and interests, were in the South. Attempting to escape, they were likely to be captured and imprisoned. Remaining, they must enter the army in some capacity, and they preferred wearing swords to carrying muskets. Hundreds of Loyalists were in the same predicament, and adopted the same course.

A Friendly Confederate Officer.

These gentlemen were of service to us in a thousand ways. They supplied us with money, books, and provisions; bore messages between us and other friends in the village; and kept us constantly advised of military and political events known to the officials, but concealed from the public.

Lieutenant Welborn came to the garrison only about a month before our departure. He belonged to a secret organization known as the Sons of America, instituted expressly to assist Union men, whether prisoners or refugees, in escaping to the North. Its members were bound, by solemn oath, to aid brothers in distress. They recognized each other by the signs, grips, and passwords, common to all secret societies.

We soon discovered that Welborn was not only of the Order, but a very earnest and self-sacrificing member. He was singularly daring. At our first stolen interview he said: "You shall be out very soon, at all hazards." Had he been detected in aiding us, it would have cost him his life; but he was quite ready to peril it.

Beyond the inner line of sentinels, which was much the more difficult one to pass, stood a Rebel hospital, where all medicines for the garrison were stored. When we were placed in charge of the Union hospitals, Mr. Davis was furnished with a pass to go out for medical supplies. It was the inflexible rule of the prison that all persons having such passes should give paroles not to escape. Davis would have assumed no such obligation. But in the confusion incident to the great influx of prisoners of war, and because it was the business of several Rebel officers—the Commandant, the Medical Director, and the Post-Adjutant—instead of the duty of one man to see it done, he was never asked for the parole.

A few days later, the prison authorities gave similar passes to "Junius" and to Captain Thomas E. Wolfe, of Connecticut, master of a merchant-vessel, who had been a prisoner nearly as long as we. We attempted to convince them, through several deluded Rebel attachés, that it was essential to the proper conduct of the medical department that I too should be supplied with a pass. Doubtless we should have succeeded in time, had not an incident occurred to hasten our movements.

On Sunday, December 18th, we learned that General Bradley T. Johnson, of Maryland, had arrived, and on the following day would supersede Major Gee as Commandant of the prison. Johnson was a soldier who knew how business should be done, and would doubtless put a stop to this loose arrangement about passes. Not a moment was to be lost, and we determined to escape that very night.

I engaged several prisoners, without informing them for what purpose, in copying from my hospital books the names of the dead. I felt that, to relieve friends at home, we ought to make an effort to carry through this information, as long as there was the slightest possibility of success.

Effects of Hunger and Cold.

My own books only contained the names of prisoners who died in the hospitals. "Out-door patients"—those deceased in their own quarters, or in no quarters whatever, were recorded in a separate book, by the Rebel clerk in the outside hospital. I dared not send to him for their names on Sunday, lest it should excite his suspicion. But the list from my own records was appalling. It comprised over fourteen hundred prisoners deceased within sixty days, and showed that they were now dying at the rate of thirteen per cent. a month on the entire number—a rate of mortality which would depopulate any city in the world in forty-eight hours, and send the people flying in all directions, as from a pestilence! Yet when those prisoners came there, they were young and vigorous, like our soldiers generally in the field. There was not a sick or wounded man among them. It was a fearful revelation of the work which cold and starvation had done.

When I put on extra under-clothing for the possible journey, it was without conscious expectation—almost without any hope whatever—of success. I had assumed the same garments for the same purpose, at the very least, thirty times before, within fifteen months, only to be disappointed; and that was enough to dampen the most sanguine temperament.

We believed that our attempt, if detected, would be made the excuse for treating us with peculiar rigor. But, in the event of discovery, we were likely to be sent back to our own quarters for the night, and not ironed or confined in a cell until the next morning.

Another Plan in Reserve.

Lieutenant Welborn was on duty that day. We made him privy to our plan. He agreed, if it proved unsuccessful, to smuggle in muskets for us; and we proposed to wrap ourselves in gray blankets, slouch our hats down over our eyes, and pass out at midnight, as Rebel soldiers, when he relieved the guard. Once in the camp, he could conduct us outside.

On that Sunday evening, half an hour before dark (the latest moment at which the guards could be passed, even by authorized persons, without the countersign), Messrs. Browne, Wolfe, and Davis, went outside, as if to order their medical supplies for the sick prisoners. As they passed in and out a dozen times a day, and their faces were quite familiar to the sentinels, they were not compelled to show their passes, and "Junius" left his behind with me.

Stopped by the Sentinel.

A few minutes later, taking a long box filled with bottles in which the medicines were usually brought, and giving it to a little lad who assisted me in my hospital duties, I started to follow them.

As if in great haste, we walked rapidly toward the fence, while, leaning against trees or standing in the hospital doors, half a dozen friends looked on to see how the plan worked. When we reached the gate, I took the box from the boy, and said to him, of course for the benefit of the sentinel:

"I am going outside to get these bottles filled. I shall be back in about fifteen minutes, and want you to remain right here, to take them and distribute them among the hospitals. Do not go away, now."

The lad, understanding the matter perfectly, replied, "Yes, sir;" and I attempted to pass the sentinel by mere assurance.

I had learned long before how far a man may go, even in captivity, by sheer, native impudence—by moving straight on, without hesitation, with a confident look, just as if he had a right to go, and no one had any right to question him. Several times, as already related, I saw captives, who had procured citizens' clothes, thus walk past the guards in broad daylight, out of Rebel prisons.

I think I could have done it on this occasion, but for the fact that it had been tried successfully twice or thrice, and the guards severely punished. The sentinel stopped me with his musket, demanding:

"Have you a pass, sir?"

"Certainly, I have a pass," I replied, with all the indignation I could assume. "Have you not seen it often enough to know by this time?"

Apparently a little confounded, he replied, modestly:

"Excuse Me for Detaining You."

"Probably I have; but they are very strict with us, and I was not quite sure."

I gave to him this genuine pass belonging to my associate:

Head-quarters Confederate States Military Prison, }
Salisbury, N. C., December 5, 1864.}

Junius H. Browne, Citizen, has permission to pass the inner gate of the Prison, to assist in carrying medicines to the Military Prison Hospitals, until further orders.

J. A. Fuqua,
Captain and Assistant-Commandant of Post.

We had speculated for a long time about my using a spurious pass, and my two comrades prepared several with a skill and exactness which proved that, if their talents had been turned in that direction, they might have made first-class forgers. But we finally decided that the veritable pass was better, because, if the guard had any doubt about it, I could tell him to send it into head-quarters for examination. The answer returned would of course be that it was genuine.

But it was not submitted to any such inspection. The sentinel spelled it out slowly, then folded and returned it to me, saying:

"That pass is all right. I know Captain Fuqua's handwriting. Go on, sir; excuse me for detaining you."

I thought him excusable under the circumstances, and walked out. My great fear was that, during the half hour which must elapse before I could go outside the garrison, I might encounter some Rebel officer or attaché who knew me.

Encountering Rebel Acquaintances.

Before I had taken ten steps, I saw, sauntering to and fro on the piazza of the head-quarters building, a deserter from our service, named Davidson, who recognized and bowed to me. I thought he would not betray me, but was still fearful of it. I went on, and a few yards farther, coming toward me in that narrow lane, where it was impossible to avoid him, I saw the one Rebel officer who knew me better than any other, and who frequently came into my quarters—Lieutenant Stockton, the Post-Adjutant. Observing him in the distance, I thought I recognized in him that old ill-fortune which had so long and steadfastly baffled us. But I had the satisfaction of knowing that my associates were on the look-out from a window and, if they saw me involved in any trouble, would at once pass the outer gate, if possible, and make good their own escape.

When we met, I bade Stockton good-evening, and talked for a few minutes upon the weather, or some other subject in which I did not feel any very profound interest. Then he passed into head-quarters, and I went on. Yet a few yards farther, I encountered a third Rebel, named Smith, who knew me well, and whose quarters, inside the garrison, were within fifty feet of my own. There were not half a dozen Confederates about the prison who were familiar with me; but it seemed as if at this moment they were coming together in a grand convention.

Not daring to enter the Rebel hospital, where I was certain to be recognized, I laid down my box of medicines behind a door, and sought shelter in a little outbuilding. While I remained there, waiting for the blessed darkness, I constantly expected to see a sergeant, with a file of soldiers, come to take me back into the yard; but none came. It was rare good fortune. Stockton, Smith, and Davidson, all knew, if they had their wits about them, that I had no more right there than in the village itself. I suppose their thoughtlessness must have been caused by the peculiarly honest and business-like look of that medicine-box!

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[CHAPTER XL.]

——Wheresoe'er you are
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you?

King Lear.

"Out of the Jaws of Death."

At dark, my three friends joined me. We went through the outer gate, in full view of a sentinel, who supposed we were Rebel surgeons or nurses. And then, on that rainy Sunday night, for the first time in twenty months, we found ourselves walking freely in a public street, without a Rebel bayonet before or behind us!

Reaching an open field, a mile from the prison, we crouched down upon the soaked ground, in a bed of reeds, while Davis went to find a friend who had long before promised us shelter. While lying there, we heard a man walking through the darkness directly toward us. We hugged the earth and held our breaths, listening to the beating of our own hearts. He passed so near, that his coat brushed my cheek. We were beside a path which led across the field from one house to another. Davis soon returned, and called us with a low "Hist!" We crept to the fence where he waited.

"It is all right," he said; "follow me."

He led us through bushes and lanes until we found our friend, leaning against a tree in the rain, waiting for us.

"Thank God!" he exclaimed, "you are out at last. I wish I could extend to you the hospitalities of my house; but it is full of visitors, and they are all Rebels. However, I will take you to a tolerably safe place. I have to leave town by a night train in half an hour, but I will tell ---- where you are, and he will come and see you to-morrow."

Hiding in Sight of the Prison.

He conducted us to a barn, in full sight of the prison; directed us how to hide, wrung our hands, bade us Godspeed, and returned to his house and his unsuspecting guests.

We climbed up the ladder into the hay-mow. Davis and Wolfe burrowed down perpendicularly into the fodder, as if sinking an oil-well, until they were covered, heads and all. "Junius" and myself, after two hours of perspiring labor, tunneled into a safe position under the eaves, where we lay, stretched at full length, head to head, luxuriating in the fresh air, which came in through the cracks.

Wonderfully pure and delicious it seemed, contrasted with the foul, vitiated atmosphere we had just left! How sweet smelled the hay and the husks! How infinite the "measureless content" which filled us at the remembrance that at last we were free! Hearing the prison sentinels, as they shouted "Ten o'—clock; a—ll's well!" we sank, like Abou Ben Adhem, into a deep dream of peace.

Our object in remaining here was twofold. We desired to meet Welborn, and obtain minute directions about the route, which thus far he had found no opportunity to give us. Besides, we anticipated a vigilant search. The Rebel authorities were thoroughly familiar with the habits of escaping prisoners, who invariably acted as if there were never to be any more nights after the first, and walked as far as their strength would permit. Thus exhausted, they were unable to resist or run, if overtaken.

Certain to be Brought Back.

The Commandant would be likely to send out and picket all the probable routes near the points we could reach by a hard night's travel. We thought it good policy to keep inside these scouts. While they held the advance, they would hardly obtain tidings of us. We could learn from the negroes where they guarded the roads and fords, and thus easily evade them. Our shelter, in full view of the garrison, and within sound of its morning drum-beat, was the one place, of all others, where they would never think of searching for us.

On the second morning after our disappearance, The Salisbury Daily Watchman announced the escape, and said that it caused some chagrin, as we were the most important prisoners in the garrison. But it added that we were morally certain to be brought back within a week, as scouts had been sent out in all directions, and the country thoroughly alarmed. Some of these scouts went ninety miles from Salisbury, but were naturally unable to learn any thing concerning us.

II. Monday, December 19.

Remained hidden in the barn. There was a house only a few yards away, and we could hear the conversation of the inmates whenever the doors were open. White and negro children came up into the hay-loft, sometimes running and jumping directly over the heads of Wolfe and Davis.

At dark, another friend, a commissioned officer in the Rebel army, came out to us with a canteen of water, which, quite without food, we had wanted sadly during the day. He was unable to bring us provisions. His wife was a Southern lady. Reluctant to cause her anxiety for his liberty and property, imperiled by aiding us, or from some other reason, he did not take her into the secret. Like most frugal wives, where young and adult negroes abound, she kept her provisions under lock and key, and he found it impossible to procure even a loaf of bread without her knowledge.

With his parting benediction, we returned to the field where we had waited the night before, and found Lieutenant Welborn, punctual to appointment, with another escaped prisoner, Charles Thurston, of the Sixth New Hampshire Infantry.

Thurston had two valuable possessions—great address, and the uniform of a Confederate private. At ten o'clock, on Sunday night, learning of our escape, and thinking us a good party to accompany, he walked out of the prison yard behind two Rebel detectives, the sentinel taking him for a third officer. Slouching his hat over his face, with matchless effrontery he sat down on a log, among the Rebel guards. In a few minutes he caught the eye of Welborn, who soon led him by all the sentinels, giving the countersign as he passed, until he was outside the garrison, and then hid him in a barn, half a mile from our place of shelter. The negroes fed him during the day; and now here he was, jovial, sanguine, daring, ready to start for the North Pole itself.

Commencing the Long Journey.

Welborn gave us written directions how to reach friends in a stanch Union settlement fifty miles away. It was hard to part from the noble fellow. At that very moment he was under arrest, and awaiting trial by court martial, on the charge of aiding prisoners to escape. In due time he was acquitted. Three months later he reached our lines at Knoxville, with thirty Union prisoners, whom he had conducted from Salisbury.

We said adieu, and went out into the starry silence. Plowing through the mud for three miles, we struck the Western Railroad, and followed it. Beside it were several camps with great fires blazing in front of them. Uncertain whether they were occupied by guards or wood-choppers, we kept on the safe side, and flanked them by wide détours through the almost impenetrable forest.

Too Weak for Traveling.

We were very weak. In the garrison we had been burying from twelve to twenty men per day, from pneumonia. I had suffered from it for more than a month, and my cough was peculiarly hollow and stubborn. My lungs were still sore and sensitive, and walking greatly exhausted me. It was difficult, even when supported by the arm of one of my friends, to keep up with the party. At midnight I was compelled to lie, half unconscious, upon the ground, for three-quarters of an hour, before I could go on.

We accomplished twelve miles during the night. At three o'clock in the morning we went into the pine-woods, and rested upon the frozen ground.

III. Tuesday, December 20.

We supposed our hiding-place very secluded; but daylight revealed that it was in the midst of a settlement. Barking dogs, crowing fowls, and shouting negroes, could be heard from the farms all about us. It was very cold, and we dared not build a fire. None of us were adequately clothed, and "Junius" had not even an overcoat. It was impossible to bring extra garments, which would have excited the attention of the sentinel at the gate.

We could sleep for a few minutes on the pine-leaves; but soon the chilly air, penetrating every fibre, would awaken us. There was a road, only a few yards from our pine-thicket, upon which we saw horsemen and farmers with loads of wood, but no negroes unaccompanied by white men.

Severe March in the Rain.

Soon after dark it began to rain; but necessity, that inexorable policeman, bade us move on. When we approached a large plantation, leaving us behind, in a fence-corner, Thurston went forward to reconnoiter. He found the negro quarters occupied by a middle-aged man and woman. They were very busy that night, cooking for and serving the young white people, who had a pleasure-party at the master's house, within a stone's throw of the slave-cabin.

But when they learned that there were hungry Yankees in the neighborhood, they immediately prepared and brought out to us an enormous supper of fresh pork and corn-bread. It was now nine o'clock on Tuesday night, and we had eaten nothing since three o'clock Sunday afternoon, save about three ounces of bread and four ounces of meat to the man. We had that to think of which made us forget the gnawings of hunger, though we suffered somewhat from a feeling of faintness. Now, in the barn, with the rain pattering on the roof, we devoured supper in an incredibly brief period, and begged the slave to go back with his basket and bring just as much more.

About midnight the negro found time to pilot us through the dense darkness and pouring rain, back to the railroad, from which we had strayed three miles. The night was bitterly cold, and in half an hour we were as wet as if again shipwrecked in the Mississippi.

For five weary miles we plodded on, with the stinging rain pelting our faces. Then we stopped at a plantation, and found the negroes. They told us it was unsafe to remain, several white men being at home, and no good hiding-place near, but directed us to a neighbor's. There the slaves sent us to a roadside barn, which we reached just before daylight.

Escaping Prisoners fed by Negroes in their Master's Barn.

[Click for larger image.]

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[CHAPTER XLI.]

I am not a Stephano, but a cramp.

Tempest.

Let every man shift for all the rest, and let no man
Take care for himself; for all is but fortune.

Ibid.

The barn contained no fodder except damp husks. Burrowing into these, we wrapped our dripping coats about us, covered ourselves, faces and all, and shivered through the day, so weary that we drowsed a little, but too uncomfortable for any refreshing slumbers.

Rising at dark, with skins irritated by atoms of husk which had penetrated our clothing, we combed out our matted hair and beards—a very faint essay toward making our toilets. Hats, gloves, handkerchiefs, and haversacks, were hopelessly lost in the fodder. Hungry, cold, rheumatic, aching at every joint, we seemed to have exhausted our slender endurance.

A Cabin of Friendly Negroes.

But a walk of ten minutes took us to a slave-cabin, where, as usual, we found devoted friends. The old negro killed two chickens, and then stood outside, to watch and warn us of the patrols, should he hear the clattering hoofs of their approaching horses. His wife and daughter cooked supper, while we stood before the blazing logs of the wide-mouthed fireplace, to dry our steaming garments.

It was the first dwelling I had entered for nearly twenty months. It was rude almost to squalor; but it looked more palatial than the most elegant and luxurious saloon. There was a soft bed, with clean, snowy sheets. How I envied those negroes, and longed to stretch my limbs upon it and sleep for a month! There were chairs, a table, plates, knives, and forks—the commonest comforts of life, which, like sweet cold water, clean clothing, and pure air, we never appreciate until once deprived of them.

Southerners Unacquainted with Tea.

We eagerly devoured the chickens and hot corn-bread, and drank steaming cups of green tea, which our ebony hostess, unfamiliar with the beverage that cheers, but not inebriates, prepared under my directions. Before starting I had taken the precaution to fill a pocket with tea, which I had been saving more than a year for that purpose. In commercial parlance, tea was tea in the Confederacy. The last pound we purchased, for daily use, cost us one hundred and twenty-seven dollars in Rebel currency, and we were compelled to send to Wilmington before we could obtain it even at that price.

It is an article little used by the Southerners, who are inveterate coffee-drinkers. All along our route we found the women, white and black, ignorant of the art of making tea without instructions. Captain Wolfe assured us that his father once attended a log-rolling in South Carolina, where, as a rare and costly luxury, the host regaled the workers with tea at the close of their labors. But, unacquainted with its use, they were only presented with the boiled leaves to eat! After this novel banquet, one old lady thus expressed the views of the rural assembly: "Well, I never tasted this before. It is pleasant enough; but except for the name of it, I don't consider tea a bit better than any other kind of greens!"

Experience on the great Plains and among the Rocky Mountains had taught me the superiority of tea over all stronger stimulants in severe, protracted hardships. Now it proved of inestimable service to us. After a two-hours' halt, refreshed by food and dry clothing, we seemed to have a new lease of life. Elastic and vigorous, we felt equal to almost any labor.

"May God bless you," said the old woman, bidding us adieu, while earnest sympathy shone from her own and her daughter's eyes and illumined their dark faces. To us they were "black, and comely too." The husband led us to the railroad, and there parted from us.

Walking Twelve Miles for Nothing.

At midnight we were twenty-three miles from Salisbury, and three from Statesville. We wished to avoid the latter village; and leaving the railway, which ran due west, turned farther northward. In two miles we expected to strike the Wilkesboro road, at Allison's Mill. We followed the old negro's directions as well as possible, but soon suspected that we must be off the route. It was bitterly cold, and to avoid suffering we walked on and on with great rapidity. Before daylight, at a large plantation, we wakened a slave, and learned that, since leaving the railway, we had traveled twelve miles circuitously and gained just one half-mile on the journey! There were two Allison's Mills, and our black friend had directed us to the wrong one.

"Can you conceal us here to-day?" we asked in a whisper of the negro who gave us this information from his bed, in a little cabin.

"I reckon so. Master is a terrible war-man, a Confederate officer, and would kill me if he were to find it out. But I kept a sick Yankee captain here last summer for five days, and then he went on. Go to the barn and hide, and I will see you when I come to fodder the horses."

We found the barn, groped our way up into a hay-loft, under the eaves, and buried ourselves in the straw.

Every Black Face a Friendly Face.

V. Thursday, December 22.

The biting wind whistled and shrieked between the logs of the barn, and, cover ourselves as we would, it was too cold for sleep. The negro—an intelligent young man—spent several hours with us, asking questions about the North, brought us ample supplies of food, and a bottle of apple-brandy purloined from his master's private stores.

At dark he took us into his quarters, only separated by a narrow lane from the planter's house, and we were warmed and fed. A dozen of the blacks—including little boys and girls of ten and twelve years—visited us there. Among them was a peculiarly intelligent mulatto woman of twenty-five, comely, and neatly dressed. The poor girl interrogated us for an hour very earnestly about the progress of the War, its probable results, and the feeling and purposes of the North touching the slaves. Using language with rare propriety, she impressed me as one who would willingly give up life for her unfortunate race. With culture and opportunity, she would have been an intellectual and social power in any circle. She was the wife of a slave; but her companions told us that she had been compelled to become the mistress of her master. She spoke of him with intense loathing.

By this time we had learned that every black face was a friendly face. So far as fidelity was concerned, we felt just as safe among the negroes as if in our Northern homes. Male or female, old or young, intelligent or simple, we were fully assured they would never betray us.

Touching Fidelity of the Slaves.

Some one has said that it needs three generations to make a gentleman. Heaven only knows how many generations are required to make a freeman! But we have been accustomed to consider this perfect trustworthiness, this complete loyalty to friends, a distinctively Saxon trait. The very rare degree to which the negroes have manifested it, is an augury of brightest hope and promise for their future. It is a faint indication of what they may one day become, with Justice, Time, and Opportunity.

They were always ready to help anybody opposed to the Rebels. Union refugees, Confederate deserters, escaped prisoners—all received from them the same prompt and invariable kindness. But let a Rebel soldier, on his way to the army, or returning from it, apply to them, and he would find but cold kindness.

The moment they met us, they would do whatever we required upon impulse and instinct. But afterward, when there was leisure for conversation, they would question us with some anxiety. Few had ever seen a Yankee before. They would repeat to us the bugbear stories of their masters, about our whipping them to force them into the Union army, and starving their wives and children. Professing utterly to discredit these reports, they still desired a little reassurance. We can never forget their upturned, eager eyes, and earnest faces. Happily we could tell them that the Nation was rising to the great principles of Freedom, Education, and an open Career for every human being.

Starting at ten o'clock to-night, we had an arduous march over the rough, frozen ground. Hard labor and loss of sleep began to tell upon us. I think every member of the party had his mental balance more or less shaken. Davis was haggard, with blood-shot eyes; "Junius" was pallid, and threatened with typhoid fever; Wolfe, with a sprained ankle, could barely limp; I was weak and short of breath, from the pneumonic affection. Charley Thurston was our best foot, and we always put him foremost. With his Confederate uniform and his ready invention, he could play Rebel soldier admirably.

Pursued by a Home Guard.

Toward morning we were compelled to stop, build a fire in the dense pine-forest, and rest for an hour. We were uncertain about the roads, and just before daylight Charley stopped to make inquiries of an old farmer. Then we went on, and, as the road was very secluded, were talking with less discretion than usual, when a twig snapped behind us. Instantly turning around, we saw the old man following stealthily, listening to our conversation. We ordered him to halt; but he ran away with wonderful agility for a septuagenarian.

The moment he was out of sight, we left the road, and ran, too, in an opposite direction, fast as our tired limbs could carry us. It would be a very nice point to determine which was the more frightened, we or our late pursuer. We afterward learned that he was an unrelenting Rebel and a zealous Home Guard. He was doubtless endeavoring to follow us to our shelter, that he might bring out his company, and capture us during the day.

Long after daylight we continued running, until we had put five miles between ourselves and the road. The region was very open, and it seemed morally certain that we would be discovered through the barking dogs at some of the farm-houses. But about nine o'clock we halted in a pine-grove, small but thick, and built a great fire of rails, which, being very dry, emitted little smoke. There was danger that the blaze would be discovered; but in our feeble condition we could no longer endure the inclemency of the weather.

VI. Friday, December 23.

Help in the Last Extremity.

Hungry and fatigued, with our feet to the fire, we could sleep an hour at a time upon the frozen ground before the cold awakened us. When, after a waiting which seemed endless, the welcome darkness came at last, it lifted a load from our hearts; we no longer listened anxiously for the coming of the Guard.

Starting again, we toiled on with slow and painful steps. We were entering a region where slaves were few, and we could find no negroes. "Junius," in a high fever, was so weak that we were almost compelled to carry him, and his voice was faint as the wail of an infant. Again and again he begged us to go on, and leave him to rest upon the ground. We had sore apprehensions that it might become necessary to commit him to the first friends we found, and press forward without him.

About eight o'clock Charley entered a little tavern to procure provisions. He assumed his favorite character of a Rebel soldier, on parole, going to his home in Wilkes County for the holidays. An old man was spending the night there. While supper was cooking, he gave to Charley a recognizing sign of the Sons of America. It was instantly answered; and, stepping outside, they had an interview.

Then our new friend stealthily led his three mules from the tavern stable, through the fields to the road, placed three of us upon them, and guided us five miles, to the house of his brother, another strong Union man. The brother warmed us, fed us, and "stayed us with flagons" of apple-brandy; then brought out two of his mules, and again we pressed forward. They cautioned us not to intrust the secret of their assistance to any one, reminding us that it would be a hanging matter for them.

Carried Fifteen Miles by Friends.

So, on this cold winter night, while we were so stiff and exhausted that we could barely keep our seats on the steeds they had so thoughtfully furnished, these kind friends conducted us fifteen miles, and left us in the Union settlement we were seeking, fifty miles from Salisbury.

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[CHAPTER XLII.]

——Weariness
Can snore upon the flint.

Cymbeline.

Montano. But is he often thus

Iago. 'Tis evermore the prologue to his sleep.

Othello.

Curious Confusion of Names.

It was now five o'clock in the morning of Saturday, December 24th, the seventh day of our escape. Leaving my companions behind, I tapped at the door of a log-house.

"Come in," said a voice; and I entered. In its one room the children and father were still in bed; the wife was already engaged in her daily duties. I asked:

"Can you direct me to the widow ----?"

"There are two widow ----s, in this neighborhood," she replied. "What is your name?"

I was seeking information, just then, not giving it; so avoiding the question, I added:

"The lady I mean, has a son who is an officer in the army."

"They both have sons who are officers in the army. Don't be afraid; you are among friends."

"Friends" might mean Union or it might mean Rebel; so I accepted no amendments, but adhered to the main question:

"This officer is a lieutenant, and his name is John."

"Well," said she, "they are both lieutenants, and John is the name of both!"

I knew my man too well to be baffled. I continued: "He is in the second regiment of the Senior Reserves; and is now on duty at ----."

"Oh," said she, "that is my brother!"

At once I told her what we were. She replied, with a wonderful light of welcome shining in her eyes:

"If you are Yankees, all I have to say is, that you have come to exactly the right place!"

Food, Shelter, and Hosts of Friends.

And, in exuberant joy, she bustled about, doing a dozen things at once, talking incoherently the while, replenishing the fire, bringing me a seat, offering me food, urging her husband to hurry out for the rest of the party. At last her excitement culminated in her darting under the bed, and reappearing on the surface with a great pint tumbler filled to the brim with apple-brandy. There was enough to intoxicate our whole party! It was the first form of hospitality which occurred to her. Afterward, when better acquainted, she explained:

"You were the first Yankee I ever saw. The moment I observed your clothing, I knew you must be one, and I wanted to throw my arms about your neck, and kiss you!"

We heartily reciprocated the feeling. Just then the only woman who had any charms for us was the Goddess of Liberty; and this, at least, was one of her handmaidens.

We were soon by the great log fire of a house where friends awaited us. Belonging to the secret Union organization, they had received intelligence that we were on the way. Our feet were blistered and swollen; mine were frostbitten. We removed our clothing, and were soon reposing in soft feather beds. At noon, awakened for breakfast, we found "Junius" had been sleeping like a child, and was now hungry—a relief to our anxiety. After the meal was over, we returned to bed.

Loyalty of the Mountaineers.

Our friends were constantly on the alert; but the house was very secluded, and they were not compelled to watch outside. There, two ferocious dogs were on guard, rendering it unsafe for any one to come within a hundred yards of them. Nearly all the people, Loyal and Rebel, had similar sentinels. Along the route, we had been anathematizing the canine race, which often prevented us from approaching negro-quarters on the plantations; but these were Union dogs, which made all the difference in the world.

At dark, we were conducted to a barn, where, wrapped in quilts, we passed a comfortable night.

VIII. Sunday, December 25.

Our resting-place was in Wilkes County, North Carolina, among the outlying spurs of the Alleghanies—a county so strong in its Union sentiments, that the Rebels called it "the Old United States." Among the mountains of every Southern State, a vast majority of the people were loyal. Hilly regions, unadapted to cotton-culture, contained few negroes; and where there was no Slavery, there was no Rebellion. Milton's verse—

"The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty,"

contains a great truth, the world over.

A Levee in a Barn.

Our self-sacrificing friends belonged to a multitudinous family, extending through a settlement many miles in length. They all seemed to be nephews, cousins, or brothers; and the white-haired patriarch—at seventy, erect and agile as a boy,—in whose barn we remained to-day, was father, grandfather, or uncle, to the whole tribe. His loyalty was very stanch and intense.

"The Home Guards," said he, "are usually pretty civil. Occasionally they shoot at some of the boys who are hiding; but pretty soon afterward, one of them is found in the woods some morning with a hole in his head! I suppose there are a thousand young men lying out in this county. I have always urged them to fight the Guards, and have helped to supply them with ammunition. Two or three times, regiments from Lee's army have been sent here to hunt conscripts and deserters, and then the boys have to run. I have a son among them; but they never wounded him yet. I asked him the other day: 'Won't you kill some of them before you are ever captured?' 'Well, father,' says he, 'I'll be found a tryin'!' I reckon he will, too; for he has never gone without his rifle these two years, and he can bring down a squirrel every time, from the top of yon oak you see on the hill."

The barn was beside a public road, and very near the house of a woman whose Rebel sympathies were strong. There was danger that any one entering it might be seen by her or her children, who were running about the yard.

But we held quite a levée to-day. I think we had fifty visitors. We would hear the opening door and stealthy footsteps upon the barn-floor; then a soft voice would ask:

"Friends, are you there?"

We would rise from our bed of hay, and come forward to the front of the loft, to find some member of this great family of friends, who had brought his wife and children to see the Yankees. We would converse with them for a few minutes; they would invariably ask if there was nothing whatever they could do for us, invite us to visit their house by night, and express the warmest wishes for our success. They did this with such perfect spontaneity, with such overflowing hearts, that it touched us very nearly. Had we been their own sons or brothers, they could not have treated us more tenderly. This Christmas may have witnessed more brilliant gatherings than ours; but none, I am sure, warmed by a more self-sacrificing friendship.

Visited by an Old Friend.

Among others, we were visited by a conscript, who had been one of our guards at Salisbury. While at the prison, his great portly form would come laboring and puffing up the stairs to our quarters; with flushed face, he would sit down, glance cautiously around to assure himself that none but friends were present, then question us eagerly about the North, and breathe out maledictions against all Confederates.

The Rebels, suspecting him, determined to send him to Lee's army. But he was just then taken with rheumatism, and kept his quarters for six weeks! At last, the day before he was to start for Richmond, he obtained permission of the surgeon to visit the village. He hobbled up the street, groaning piteously; but, after turning the first corner, threw away his crutches, plunged into the woods, and made his way home by night. He now related his experiences with a quiet chuckle, and was very desirous of serving us.

He was able to give me a pair of large boots in place of my own, which lacerated my sore and swollen feet. The sharp rocks, hills, and stumps, compelled me to have the new boots repaired seven times before reaching our lines. Two nights' traveling would quite wear out the ill-tanned leather of the stoutest soles.

To-day, our friends brought us twice as much food as we wanted, and we wanted a great deal. At dark, alarmed by a rumor that the suspicions of the Guard had been excited, they took us several miles into a neighboring county, to a very secluded house, occupied by the wife and daughters of an officer in the Confederate army. Here we spent the night in inviting beds.

A Day of Alarms.

IX. Monday, December 26.

Our hostess, a comely lady of thirty-five, was a second Mrs. Katie Scudder—the very embodiment of "Faculty." Her plain log house, with its snowy curtains, cheap prints, and engravings cut from illustrated newspapers, was tasteful and inviting. Her five daughters, all clothed in fabric spun and woven at home—for these people were now entirely self-dependent—looked as pretty and tidy to uncritical, masculine eyes, as if robed in silk and cashmere.

Our pursuit of a quiet refuge proved ludicrously unsuccessful. The day was diversified by

"More pangs and fears than wars or women have."

But the lady bore herself with such coolness, and proved so ready for every emergency, that we enjoyed them rather than otherwise.

Early in the morning, while standing a few yards from the house, I saw her and her daughter suddenly step into the open doorway, quite filling it with their persons and skirts, and earnestly beckon me to go in out of sight. Of course, I obeyed. A woman of questionable political soundness had called; but they attracted her in another direction, keeping her face turned away from the door, till I was lost to sight.

Ready Wit of a Woman.

Several parties of Rebel cavalry passed down the road. Breckinridge's army, in the mountains above, had recently dissolved in a great thaw and break-up, and these were the small fragments of ice floating down toward Virginia. A squad of a dozen stopped and entered the house, which was of one story, the length of three large rooms. But the lady kept them in the kitchen, while we were shut in the other end of the building.

Next, the barking dog warned us of approaching footsteps. At her suggestion, we went up into the corn-loft, above our apartment. The new visitor was a neighbor, to whom she owed a bushel of corn, and who, with his ox-cart, had come to collect it. With ready woman's wit, she said to him:

"You know my husband is away. I have no fuel. Won't you go and haul me a load of wood, as a Christmas present?"

Who could resist such a feminine appeal? The neighbor went for the wood, while she came laughing in, to tell us her stratagem. We descended from the corn-loft, and went into a back room, where there were two beds, one large and the other small, with an open door between them. Four of us crept under the large bed, one under the small one; and here we had an experience, ludicrous enough to remember, but not so pleasant to undergo.

Danger of Detection from Snoring.

One of our party was an inveterate snorer. Whenever he took a recumbent position, with his head upon the ground or the floor, he would begin snoring like a steam-engine. Like all persons of that class, when reminded of it, he steadfastly vowed that he never snored in all his life! For a time, he regarded our awakening him, with rebuke and caution, as a sorry practical joke.

Thus far, I believe our danger of detection had been greater from this source than from any other. We had always traveled in single file, almost like specters, with our leader thrown out as far ahead as we could keep him in view. Whenever he thought he saw danger, he raised a warning hand; every man passed the sign back to those in his rear, and dropped quietly behind a log, or stepped into the bushes, until the person had passed or the alarm was explained. We walked with softest footsteps, no man coughing, or speaking above his breath. During the day we were often concealed in very public places, only a few feet from the road, where, the ground being covered with snow, we could not hear approaching footsteps.

Now, our musical companion chanced to go under the small bed, and in three minutes we heard his trumpet-tongued snore. At first, we whispered to him; but we might as well have talked to Niagara. If one of us went to him, there was danger that the neighbor, who stood upon the front porch, would see us through the open door; but if we did not, that fatal snore was certain to be heard. So I darted across the room, crept in beside my friend, and kept him well shaken until the danger was over.

At night, the lady told us that more people had come to her house during the day than ever visited it in a month before; and we were marched back through the darkness, to our first place of concealment.

X. Tuesday, December 27.

In the barn through the whole day. A messenger brought us a note from two late fellow-prisoners, Captain William Boothby, a Philadelphia mariner, and Mr. John Mercer, a Unionist, of Newbern, North Carolina, who had been in duress almost three years. They were now hiding in a barn two miles from us. They escaped from Salisbury two nights later than we, paying the guards eight hundred dollars in Confederate money to let them out.

Thurston at once joined them. During the rest of the journey, we sometimes traveled and hid together for several days and nights; but, when there was special danger, divided into two companies, one keeping twenty-four hours in advance—the smaller the party, the less peril being involved.

Now, for the first time, we began to have some hope of reaching our lines. But the road was still very long, and fraught with many dangers. We examined the appalling list of dead, which I had brought from Salisbury, and talked much of our companions left behind in that living entombment. Remembering how earnestly they longed and prayed for some intelligent, trustworthy voice to bear to the Government and the people tidings of their terrible condition, we pledged each other very solemnly, that if any one of us lived to regain home and freedom, he should use earnest, unremitting efforts to excite sympathy and secure relief for them.

Promises to aid Suffering Comrades.

It may not be out of place here to say, that upon reaching the North, before visiting our families, or performing any other duties, we hastened to Washington, and used every endeavor to call the attention of the authorities and the country to the Salisbury prisoners. Before many weeks, all who survived were exchanged; but more than five thousand—upwards of half the number who were taken to Salisbury five months before—were already buried just outside the garrison.

Those five thousand loyal graves will ever remain fitting monuments of Rebel cruelty, and of the atrocious inhumanity of Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, who steadfastly refused to exchange these prisoners, on the ground that we could not afford to give the enemy robust, vigorous men for invalids and skeletons, and yet refrained from compelling them to treat prisoners with humanity, by just and discriminating retaliation upon an equal number of Rebel officers, taken from the great excess held by our Government.

Blind and Unquestioning Loyalty.

To-day, as usual, we saw a large number of the Union mountaineers. Theirs was a very blind and unreasoning loyalty, much like the disloyalty of some enthusiastic Rebels. They did not say "Unionist," or "Secessionist," but always designated a political friend thus: "He is one of the right sort of people"—strong in the faith that there could, by no possibility, be more than one side to the question. They had little education; but when they began to talk about the Union, their eyes lighted wonderfully, and sometimes they grew really eloquent. They did not believe one word in a Rebel newspaper, except extracts from the Northern journals, and reports favorable to our Cause. They thought the Union army had never been defeated in a single battle. I heard them say repeatedly:

"The United States can take Richmond any day when it wants to. That it has not, thus far, is owing to no lack of power, but because it was not thought best."

They regarded every Rebel as necessarily an unmitigated scoundrel, and every Loyalist, particularly every native-born Yankee, almost as an angel from heaven.

How earnestly they questioned us about the North! How they longed to escape thither! To them, indeed, it was the Promised Land. They were very bitter in their denunciations of the heavy slaveholders, who had done so much to degrade white labor, and finally brought on this terrible war.

They had an abundance of the two great Southern staples—corn-bread and pork. They felt severely the absence of their favorite beverage, and would ask us, with amusing earnestness, if they could get coffee when our armies came. The Confederate substitutes—burnt corn and rye—they regarded with earnest and well-founded aversion.

They were compelled to use thorns for fastening the clothing of the women and children. We distributed among them our small supply of pins, to their infinite delectation. Davis also gladdened the hearts of all the womankind by disbursing a needle to each. A needle nominally represented five dollars in Confederate currency, but actually could not be purchased at any price.

A number of the young men "lying out" desired to accompany us to the North. Some were deserters from the Rebel army; others, more fortunate, had evaded conscription from the beginning of the war. But their lives had been passed in that remote county of North Carolina, and the two hundred and ninety miles yet to be accomplished stretched out in appalling prospective. They saw many lions in the way, and, Festus-like, at the last moment, decided to wait for a more convenient season. It was not from lack of nerve; for some of them had fought Rebel guards with great coolness and bravery.

A Repentant Rebel.

Our friends feared that one slaveholding Secessionist in the neighborhood might learn of our presence, and betray us. He did ascertain our whereabouts, but sent us an invitation to visit his house, offering to supply all needed food, clothing, and shelter. He said he foolishly acquiesced in the Revolution because at first it seemed certain to succeed, and he wished to save his property; but that now he heartily repented.

Possibly his conversion was partially owing to remorse for having persuaded his two sons to enter the Rebel army. One, after much suffering, had deserted, and was now "lying out" near home. The other, wounded and captured in a "Virginia battle, was still in a Northern prison, where he had been confined for many months. The father was very desirous of sending to him a message of sympathy and affection.

Sanguine Hopes of Loyal Mountaineers.

But he was an index of the change which had recently come over Rebel sympathizers in that whole region. The condition of our armies then was not peculiarly promising. We were by no means sanguine that the war would soon terminate. But the loyal mountaineers, with unerring instinct, were all confident that we were near its close, and constantly surprised us by speaking of the Rebellion as a thing of the past. We fancied their wish was father to the thought; but they proved truer prophets than we.

---

[CHAPTER XLIII.]

Nay, but make haste, the better foot before.

King John.

On the evening of the eleventh day, Wednesday, December 28, we left the kind friends with whom we had stayed for five days and four nights, gaining new vigor and inspired by new hope. Their last injunction was:

"Remember, you cannot be too careful. We shall pray God that you may reach your homes in safety. When you are there, do not forget us, but do send troops to open a way by which we can escape to the North."

In their simplicity, they fancied Yankees omnipotent, and that we could send them an army by merely saying the word. They bade us adieu with embraces and tears. I am sure many a fervent prayer went up from their humble hearths, that Our Father would guide us through the difficulties of our long, wearisome journey, and guard us against the perils which beset and environed it.

Flanking a Rebel Camp.

At ten o'clock we passed within two hundred yards of a Rebel camp. We could hear the neigh of the horses and the tramp of four or five sentinels on their rounds. We trod very softly; to our stimulated senses every sound was magnified, and every cracking twig startled us.

Leaving us in the road a few yards behind, our pilot entered the house of his friend, a young deserter from the Rebel army. Finding no one there but the family, he called us in, to rest by the log fire, while the deserter rose from bed, and donned his clothing to lead us three miles and point out a secluded path. For many months he had been "lying out;" but of late, as the Guards were less vigilant than usual, he sometimes ventured to sleep at home. His girlish wife wished him to accompany us through; but, with the infant sleeping in the cradle, which was hewn out of a great log, she formed a tie too strong for him to break. At parting, she shook each of us by the hand, saying:

"I hope you will get safely home; but there is great danger, and you must be powerful cautious."

At eleven o'clock our guide left us in the hands of a negro, who, after our chilled limbs were warmed, led us on our way. By two in the morning we had accomplished thirteen miles over the frozen hills, and reached a lonely house in a deep valley, beside a tumbling, flashing torrent.

Secreted among the Husks.

The farmer, roused with difficulty from his heavy slumbers, informed us that Boothby's party, which had arrived twenty-four hours in advance of us, was sleeping in his barn. He sent us half a mile to the house of a neighbor, who fanned the dying embers on his great hearth, regaled us with the usual food, and then took us to a barn in the forest.

"Climb up on that scaffolding," said he. "Among the husks you will find two or three quilts. They belong to my son, who is lying out. To-night he is sleeping with some friends in the woods."

The cold wind blew searchingly through the open barn, but before daylight we were wrapped in "the mantle that covers all human thoughts."

XII. Thursday, December 29.

At dark, our host, leaving us in a thicket, five hundred yards from his house, went forward to reconnoiter. Finding the coast clear, he beckoned us on to supper and ample potations of apple-brandy.

Wandering from the Road.

With difficulty we induced one of his neighbors to guide us. Though unfamiliar with the road, he was an excellent walker, swiftly leading us over the rough ground, which tortured our sensitive feet, and up and down sharp, rocky hills.

At two in the morning we flanked Wilkesboro, the capital of Wilkes County. To a chorus of barking dogs, we crept softly around it, within a few hundred yards of the houses. The air was full of snow, and when we reached the hills again, the biting wind was hard to breathe.

We walked about a mile through the dense woods, when Captain Wolfe, who had been all the time declaring that the North Star was on the wrong side of us, convinced our pilot that he had mistaken the road, and we retraced our steps to the right thoroughfare.

We stopped to warm for half an hour at a negro-cabin, where the blacks told us all they knew about the routes and the Rebels. Before morning we were greatly broken down, and our guide was again in doubt concerning the roads. So we entered a deep ravine in the pine-woods, built a great fire, and waited for daylight.

XIII. Friday, December 30.

Crossing the Yadkin River.

After dawn, we pressed forward, reluctantly compelled to pass near two or three houses.

We reached the Yadkin River just as a young, blooming woman, with a face like a ripe apple, came gliding across the stream. With a long pole, she guided the great log canoe, which contained herself, a pail of butter, and a side-saddle, indicating that she had started for the Wilkesboro market. Assisting her to the shore, we asked:

"Will you tell us where Ben Hanby lives?"

"Just beyond the hill there, across the river," she replied, with scrutinizing, suspicious eyes.

"How far is it to his house?"

"I don't know."

"More than a mile?"

"No" (doubtfully), "I reckon not."

"Is he probably at home?"

"No!" (emphatically). "He is not! Are you the Home Guard?"

"By no means, madam. We are Union men, and Yankees at that. We have escaped from Salisbury, and are trying to reach our homes in the North."

After another searching glance, she trusted us fully, and said:

"Ben Hanby is my husband. He is lying out. I wondered, if you were the Guard, what you could be doing without guns. From a hill near our house, the children saw you coming more than an hour ago; and my husband, taking you for the soldiers, went with his rifle to join his companions in the woods. Word has gone to every Union house in the neighborhood that the troops are out hunting deserters."

We embarked in the log canoe, and shipped a good deal of water before reaching the opposite shore. We had two sea-captains on board, and concluded that, with one sailor more, we should certainly have been hopelessly wrecked.

A winding forest-path led to the lonely house we sought, where we found no one at home, except three children of our fair informant and their grandmother. For more than two hours we could not allay the woman's suspicions that we were Guards. They had recently been adopting Yankee disguises, deceiving Union people, and beguiling them of damaging information.

As indignantly as General Damas inquires whether he looks like a married man, we asked the cautious woman if we resembled Rebels. At last, convinced that we were veritable Yankees, she gave us breakfast, and sent one of the children with us to a sunny hillside among the pines, where we slept off the weariness and soreness caused by the night's march of sixteen miles.

Among Union Bushwhackers.

At evening a number of friends visited us. As they were not merely Rebel deserters, but Union bushwhackers also, we scanned them with curiosity; for we had been wont to regard bushwhackers, of either side, with vague, undefined horror.

These men were walking arsenals. Each had a trusty rifle, one or two navy revolvers, a great bowie knife, haversack, and canteen. Their manners were quiet, their faces honest, and one had a voice of rare sweetness. As he stood tossing his baby in the air, with his little daughter clinging to his skirt, he looked

——"the mildest-mannered man,
That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat."

He and his neighbors had adopted this mode of life, because determined not to fight against the old flag. They would not attempt the uncertain journey to our lines, leaving their families in the country of the enemy. Ordinarily very quiet and rational, whenever the war was spoken of, their eyes emitted that peculiar glare which I had observed, years before, in Kansas, and which seems inseparable from the hunted man. They said:

Two Union Soldiers "Lying Out."

"When the Rebels let us alone, we let them alone; when they come out to hunt us, we hunt them! They know that we are in earnest, and that before they can kill any one of us, he will break a hole in the ice large enough to drag two or three of them along with him. At night we sleep in the bush. When we go home by day, our children stand out on picket. They and our wives bring food to us in the woods. When the Guards are coming out, some of the Union members usually inform us beforehand; then we collect twenty or thirty men, find the best ground we can, and, if they discover us, fight them. But a number of skirmishes have taught them to be very wary about attacking us."

In this dreary mode of life they seemed to find a certain fascination. While we took supper at the house of one of them, eight bushwhackers, armed to the teeth, stood outside on guard. For once, at least, enjoying what Macbeth vainly coveted, we took our meal in peace.

Two of them were United States volunteers, who had come stealthily home on furlough, from our army in Tennessee. They were the first Union soldiers we had seen at liberty for nearly two years. Their faces were very welcome, and their worn, soiled uniforms were to our eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue. Our friends urged us to remain, one of them saying:

"The snow is deep on the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies; the Rebels can easily trace you; the guerrillas are unusually vigilant, and it is very unsafe to attempt crossing the mountains at present. I started for Knoxville three weeks ago, and, after walking fifty miles, was compelled to turn back. Stay with us until the snow is gone, and the Guards less on the alert. We will each of us take two of you under our special charge, and feed and shelter you until next May, if you desire it."

Two Escaping Rebel Deserters.

The Blue Ridge was still twenty-five miles away, and we determined to push on to a point where we could look the danger, if danger there were, directly in the face. The bushwhackers, therefore, piloted us through the darkness and the bitter cold for seven miles. At midnight, we reached the dwelling of a Union man. He said:

"As the house is unsafe, I shall be compelled to put you in my barn. You will find two Rebel deserters sleeping there."

The barn was upon a high hill. We burrowed among the husks, at first to the infinite alarm of the deserters, who thought the Philistines were upon them. While we shivered in the darkness, they told us that they had come from Petersburg—more than five hundred miles—and been three months on the journey. They had found friends all the way, among negroes and Union men. Ragged, dirty, and penniless, they said, very quietly, that they were going to reach the Yankee lines, or die in the attempt.

Before daylight our host visited us, and finding that we suffered from the weather, placed us in a little warm storehouse, close beside the public road. To our question, whether the Guards had ever searched it, he replied:

"Oh, yes, frequently, but they never happened to find anybody."

An Energetic Invalid.

After we were snugly ensconced in quilts and corn-stalks, Davis said:

"What an appalling journey still stretches before us! I fear the lamp of my energy is nearly burned out."

I could not wonder at his despondency. For several years he had been half an invalid, suffering from a spinal affection. For weeks before leaving Salisbury, he was often compelled, of an afternoon, to lie upon his bunk of straw with blinding headache, and every nerve quivering with pain. "Junius" and myself frequently said: "Davis's courage is unbounded, but he can never live to walk to Knoxville."

The event proved us false prophets. Nightly he led our party—always the last to pause and the first to start. His lamp of energy was so far from being exhausted that, before he reached our lines, he broke down every man in the party. I expect to suffer to my dying day from the killing pace of that energetic invalid.

XIV. Saturday, December 31.

Spent all this cold day and night sleeping in the quilts and fodder of the little store-house. At evening, Boothby's party went forward, as the next thirty-five miles were deemed specially perilous.

---

[CHAPTER XLIV.]

Pray you tread softly, that the blind mole may not
Hear a foot-fall!

Tempest.

There's but a shirt and a half in all my company, and the half shirt is two napkins pinned together and thrown over the shoulders.

King Henry IV.

Our emaciated condition, hard labor, and the bracing mountain air, conspired to make us ravenous. In quantity, the pork and corn-bread which we devoured was almost miraculous; in quality, it seemed like the nectar and ambrosia of the immortal gods. It was far better adapted to our necessities than the daintiest luxuries of civilization. In California, Australia, and Colorado goldmines, on the New Orleans levée, and wherever else the most trying physical labor is to be performed, pork and corn-bread have been found the best articles of food.

The Loyalists were all ready to feed, shelter, and direct us, but reluctant to accompany us far from their homes. They would say:

"You need no guides; the road is so plain, that you cannot possibly miss it."

But midnight journeys among the narrow lanes and obscure mountain-paths had taught us that we could miss any road whatever which was not inclosed upon both sides by fences too high for climbing. Therefore, we insisted upon pilots.

Money Concealed in Clothing.

Fortunately, I had left Salisbury with a one-hundred-dollar United States note concealed under the hem of each leg of my pantaloons, just above the instep, and two more sewn in the lining of my coat. I had in my portmonnaie fifty dollars in Northern bank-notes, five dollars in gold, and a hundred dollars in Confederate currency. Davis brought away about the same amount. We should have left it with our fellow-prisoners, but for the probability of being recaptured and confined, where money would serve us in our extremest need. Now it enabled us to remunerate amply both our white and black friends. Sometimes the mountaineers would say:

"We do not do these things for money. We have fed and assisted hundreds of refugees and escaping prisoners, but never received a cent for it."

Those whom they befriended were usually penniless. We appreciated their kindness none the less because fortunate enough to be able to recompense them. They were unable to resist the argument that, when our forces came, they would need "green-backs" to purchase coffee.

Imminent Peril of Union Citizens.

Every man who gave us a meal, sheltered us in his house or barn, pointed out a refuge in the woods, or directed us one mile upon our journey, did it at the certainty, if discovered, of being imprisoned, or forced into the Rebel army, whether sick or well, and at the risk of having his house burned over his head. In many cases, discovery would have resulted in his death by shooting, or hanging in sight of his own door.

During our whole journey we entered only one house inhabited by white Unionists, which had never been plundered by Home Guards or Rebel guerrillas. Almost every loyal family had given to the Cause some of its nearest and dearest. We were told so frequently—"My father was killed in those woods;" or, "The guerrillas shot my brother in that ravine," that, finally, these tragedies made little impression upon us. The mountaineers never seemed conscious that they were doing any heroic or self-sacrificing thing. Their very sufferings

The Escape.—Wading a Mountain Stream at Midnight.

[Click for a larger image.]

had greatly intensified their love for the Union, and their faith in its ultimate triumph.

Drowsily wondering at our capacity for sleep, we dozed through the first day of the New Year, and the fifteenth of our liberty. After dark we spent two hours in the house before the log fire. The good woman had one son already escaped to the North—a fresh link which bound her mother-heart to that ideal paradise. She fed us, mended our clothing, and parted from us with the heartiest "God bless you!"

Her youngest born, a lad of eleven years, accompanied us five miles to the house of a Unionist, who received us without leaving his bed. He gave us such minute information about the faint, obscure road that we found little difficulty in keeping it.

Fording Creeks at Midnight.

Through the biting air we pressed rapidly up the narrow valley of a clear, tumbling mountain stream, whose frowning banks, several hundred feet in hight, were covered with pines and hemlocks. In twelve miles the road crossed the creek twenty-nine times. Instead of bridges were fords for horsemen and wagons, and foot-logs for pedestrians. Cold and stiff, we discovered that crossing the smooth, icy logs in the darkness was a hazardous feat. Wolfe was particularly lame, and slipped several times into the icy torrent, but managed to flounder out without much delay. He endured with great serenity all our suggestions, that even though water was his native element, he had a very eccentric taste to prefer swimming to walking, in that state of the atmosphere.

At one crossing the log was swept away. We wandered up and down the stream, which was about a hundred feet wide, but could find not even the hair which Mahomet discovered to be the bridge over the bottomless pit. But as canoes are older than ships, so legs are more primitive than bridges. We e'en plunged in, waist deep, and waded through, among the cakes of floating ice.

"Looped and Windowed Raggedness."

Our wardrobes were suffering quite as much as our persons. We did not carry looking-glasses, so I am not able to speak of myself; but my colleague was a subject for a painter. Any one seeing him must have been convinced that he was made up for the occasion; that his looped and windowed raggedness never could have resulted from any natural combination of circumstances. The fates seemed to decree that as "Junius" went naked into the Confederacy (leaving most of his wardrobe on deposit at the bottom of the Mississippi), he should come out of it in the same condition.

Overcoat he had none. Pantaloons had been torn to shreds and tatters by the brambles and thorn-bushes. He had a hat which was not all a hat. It was given to him, after he had lost his own in a Rebel barn, by a warm-hearted African, as a small tribute from the Intelligent Contraband to his old friend the Reliable Gentleman—by an African who felt with the most touching propriety that it would be a shame for any correspondent of The Tribune to go bareheaded as long as a single negro in America was the owner of a hat! It was a white wool relic of the old-red-sandstone period, with a sugar-loaf crown, and a broad brim drawn down closely over his ears, like the bonnet of an Esquimaux.

His boots were a stupendous refutation of the report that leather was scarce among the Rebels. I understood it to be no figure of rhetoric, but the result of actual and exact measurement, which induced him to call them the "Seven-Leaguers." The small portion of his body, which was visible between the tops of his boots and the bottom of his hat, was robed in an old gray quilt of Secession proclivities; and taken for all in all, with his pale, nervous face and his remarkable costume, he looked like a cross between the Genius of Intellectuality and a Rebel bushwhacker!

Before daylight, we shiveringly tapped on the door of a house at the foot of the Blue Ridge.

"Come in," was the welcome response.

Entering, we found a woman sitting by the log fire. Beginning to introduce ourselves, she interrupted:

"O, I know all about you. You are Yankee prisoners. Your friends who passed last evening told us you were coming, and I have been sitting up all night for you. Come to the fire and dry your clothes."

Stories about the War.

For two hours we listened to her tales of the war. The history of almost every Union family was full of romance. Each unstoried mountain stream had its incidents of daring, of sagacity, and of faithfulness; and almost every green hill had been bathed in that scarlet dew from which ever springs the richest and the ripest fruit.

Concealment here was difficult; so we were taken to the house of a neighbor, who also was waiting to welcome us. He took us to his storehouse, right by the road-side.

"The Guard," said he, "searched this building last Thursday, unsuccessfully, and are hardly likely to try it again just yet."

Soon, lying near a fire upon a warm feather-bed, we wooed the drowsy god with all the success which the hungry Salisbury vermin, sticking closer than brothers, would permit.

XVI. Monday, January 2.

Climbing the Blue Ridge.

Before night the guide returned from conducting Boothby's party, and assured us that the coast was clear. After dark, invigorated by tea and apple brandy, we followed our pilot by devious paths up the steep, fir-clad, piny slope of the Blue Ridge.

The view from the summit is beautiful and impressive; but for our weariness and anxiety, we should have enjoyed it very keenly.

A few weeks before, the Unionist now leading us had sent his little daughter of twelve years, alone, by night, fifteen miles over the mountains, to warn some escaping Union prisoners that the Guard had gained a clue to their whereabouts. They received the warning in season to find a place of safety before their pursuers came.

We were now on the west side of the Ridge. A heavy rain began to fall, and, though soaked and weary, we were glad to have our tracks obliterated, and thus be insured against pursuit.

"The labor we delight in physics pain;"

but in this case the effort was so arduous that the panacea was not very effective. Thomas Starr King tells the story of a little man, who, being asked his weight, replied:

"Ordinarily, a hundred and twenty pounds; but when I'm mad, I weigh a ton!"

I think any one of our wet, blistered feet, which, at every step, sunk deep into the slush, would have counterbalanced his whole body! Like millstones we dragged them up hill after hill, and through the long valleys which stretched drearily between. Though not hungering after the flesh-pots of Egypt, we still thought, half regretfully, of our squalid Salisbury quarters, where we had at least a roof to shelter us, and a bunk of straw. But we needed no injunction to remember Lot's wife; for a pillar of salt would have represented a fabulous sum of money in the currency of the Rebels; and we had no desire to swell their scanty revenues or supply their impoverished commissary department.

Crossing the New River at Midnight.

At midnight we reached New River, two hundred and fifty yards wide. Our guide took us over, one at a time, behind him upon his horse. We were probably five hundred miles above the point where this river, as the Great Kanawha, unites with the Ohio; but it was the first stream we had found running northward, and its soft, rippling song of home and freedom was very sweet to our ears. Already our Promised Land stretched before us, and the shining river seemed a pathway of light to its hither boundary. Better than Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, this was the Jordan, flowing toward all we loved and longed for. It revived the great world of work and of life which had faded almost to fable.

At two in the morning we reached the house of a stanch Unionist, which nestled romantically in the green valley, inclosed on all sides by dark mountains.

Hospitality and Oratory Combined.

Our new friend, herculean in frame and with a heavy-tragedy voice, came out where we sat, dripping and dreary, under an old cotton-gin, and addressed us in a pompous strain, worthy of Sergeant Buzfuz:

"Gentlemen," said he, "there are, unfortunately, at my house to-night two wayfarers, who are Rebels and traitors. If they knew of your presence, it would be my inevitable and eternal ruin. Therefore, unable to extend to you such hospitalities as I could wish, I bid you welcome to all which can be furnished by so poor a man as I. I will place you in my barn, which is warm, and filled with fodder. I will bring you food and apple brandy. In the morning, when these infernal scoundrels are gone, I will entertain you under my family roof. Gentlemen, I have been a Union man from the beginning, and I shall be a Union man to the end. I had three sons; one died in a Rebel hospital; one was killed at the battle of the Wilderness, fighting (against his will) for the Southern cause; the third, thank God! is in the Union lines."

Here the father overcame the orator; and, with the conjunction of apple brandy, corn bread, and quilts, we were soon asleep in the barn.

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[CHAPTER XLV.]

No tongue—all eyes; be silent.

Tempest.

At nine in the morning our host awakened us.

Over Mountains and Through Ravines.

"Gentlemen, I trust you have slept well. The enemy has gone, and breakfast waits. I call you early, because I want to take you out of North Carolina into Tennessee, where I will show you a place of refuge infinitely safer than this."

For the first time since leaving Salisbury we traveled by daylight. Our guide led us deviously through fields, and up almost perpendicular ascents, where the rarefied air compelled us frequently to stop for breath.

We dragged our weary feet up one hill, down another, through ravines of almost impenetrable laurels, swinging across the streams by the snowy, pendent boughs, only to find another appalling hight rising before us. Nothing but the hope of freedom enabled us to keep on our feet. Once, when near a public road, our guide suddenly whispered.

"Hist! Drop to the ground instantly!"

Lying behind logs, we saw two or three horse-teams and sleds pass by, and heard the conversation of the drivers.

Our pilot was not agitated, for, like all the Union mountaineers, danger had been so long a part of his every-day existence, that he had no physical nervousness. But it was reported that the Guards would be out to-day, so he was very wary and vigilant. We crossed the road in the Indian mode, walking in single file, each man treading in the footsteps of his immediate predecessor. No casual observer would have suspected that it was the track of more than one man.

At 4 p.m., we entered Tennessee, which, like the passage of the New River, seemed another long stride toward home. Approaching a settlement, we went far around through the woods, persuading ourselves that we were unobserved. A mile beyond we reached a small log house, where our friend was known, and a blooming, matronly woman, with genial eyes, welcomed us.

"Come in, all. I am very glad to see you. I thought you must be Yankees when I heard of your approach, about half an hour ago."

"How did you hear?"

Mistaken for Confederate Guards.

"A good many young men are lying out in this neighborhood, and my son is one of them. He has not slept in the house for two years. He always carries his rifle. At first, I was opposed to it, but now I am glad to have him. They may murder him any day, and if they do, I at least want him to kill some of the traitors first. Nobody can approach this settlement, day or night, without being seen by some of these young men, always on the watch. The Guard have come in twice, at midnight, as fast as they could ride; but the news traveled before them, and they found the birds flown. When you appeared in sight, the boys took you for Rebels. My son and two others, lying behind logs, had their rifles drawn on you not more than three hundred yards away. They were very near shooting you, when they discovered that you had no arms, and concluded you must be the right sort of people. In the distance you look like Home Guards—part of you dressed as citizens, one in Rebel uniform, and two wearing Yankee overcoats. You are unsafe traveling a single mile through this region, without sending word beforehand who you are."

After dark we were shown to a barn, where we wrapped ourselves in quilts. During the last twenty-four hours we had journeyed twenty-five miles, equal to fifty upon level roads, and our eye-lids were very heavy.

XVIII. Wednesday, January 4.

This settlement was intensely loyal, and admirably picketed by Union women, children, and bushwhackers. We dined with the wife of a former inmate of Castle Thunder. She told us that Lafayette Jones, whose escape from that prison I have already recorded, remained in the Rebel army only a few days, deserting from it to the Union lines, and then coming back to his Tennessee home.

A Rebel Guerrilla Killed.

The Rebel guerrilla captain who originally captured him was notoriously cruel, had burned houses, murdered Union men, and abused helpless women. He took from Jones two hundred dollars in gold, promising to forward it to his family, but never did so. After reaching home, Jones sent a message to him that he must refund the money at once, or be killed wherever found. Jones finally sought him. As they met, the guerrilla drew a revolver and fired, but without wounding his antagonist. Thereupon Jones shot him dead on his own threshold. The Union people justified and applauded the deed. Jones was afterward captain in a loyal Tennessee regiment. His father had died in a Richmond dungeon, one of his brothers in an Alabama prison, and a second had been hung by the Rebels.

The woman told us that another guerrilla, peculiarly obnoxious to the Loyalists, had disappeared early in November. A few days before we arrived, his bones were found in the woods, with twenty-one bullet-holes through his clothing. His watch and money were still undisturbed in his pocket. Vengeance, not avarice, stimulated his destroyers.

Meeting a former Fellow-Prisoner.

Here we met another of our Castle Thunder fellow-prisoners, named Guy. The Richmond authorities knew he was a Union bushwhacker, and had strong evidence against him, which would have cost him his life if brought to trial. But he, too, under an assumed name, enlisted in the Rebel army, deserted, returned to Tennessee, and resumed his old pursuit as a hunter of men with new zeal and vigor.

He and his companion were now armed with sixteen-shooter rifles, revolvers, and bowie-knives. Guy's father and brother had both been killed by the guerrillas, and he was bitter and unsparing. If he ever fell into Rebel hands again, his life was not worth a rush-light. But he was merry and jocular as if he had never heard of the King of Terrors. I asked him how he now regarded his Richmond adventures. He replied:

"I would not take a thousand dollars in gold for the experience I had while in prison; but I would not endure it again for ten thousand."

Guy and his comrade were supposed to be "lying out," which suggested silent and stealthy movements; but on leaving us they went yelling, singing, and screaming up the valley, whooping like a whole tribe of Indians. Occasionally they fired their rifles, as if their vocal organs were not noisy enough. It was ludicrously strange deportment for hunted fugitives.

"Guy always goes through the country in that way," said the woman. "He is very reckless and fearless. The Rebels know it, and give him a wide field. He has killed a good many of them, first and last, and no doubt they will murder him, sooner or later, as they did his father."

Alarm About Rebel Cavalry.

At night, just as we were comfortably asleep in the barn, our host awakened us, saying:

"Five Rebel cavalry are reported approaching this neighborhood, with three hundred more behind them, coming over the mountains from North Carolina. I think it is true, but am not certain. I am so well known as a Union man, that, if they do come, they will search my premises thoroughly. There is another barn, much more secluded, a mile farther up the valley, where you will be safer than here, and will compromise nobody if discovered. If they arrive, you shall be informed before they can reach you."

Coleridge did not believe in ghosts, because he had seen too many of them. So we were skeptical concerning the Rebel cavalry, having heard too much of it. But we went to the other barn, and in its ample straw-loft found a North Carolina refugee, with whom we slept undisturbed. He deemed this place much safer than his home—a gratifying indication to us that the danger was growing small by degrees.

XIX. Thursday, January 5.

This morning, the good woman whose barn had sheltered us mended our tattered clothing. Her husband was a soldier in the Union service. I asked her:

"How do you live and support your family?"

"Very easily," she replied. "Last year, I did all my own housework, and weaving, spinning, and knitting, and raised over a hundred bushels of corn, with no assistance whatever except from this little girl, eleven years old. The hogs run in the woods during the summer, feeding themselves; so we are in no danger of starvation."

Boothby's company, enhanced by the two Rebel deserters from Petersburg, and a young conscript, formerly one of our prison-guards at Salisbury, here rejoined us. Our entire party, numbering ten, started again at 3 p.m.

The road was over Stony Mountain, very rocky and steep. As we halted wearily upon its summit, we overlooked a great waste of mountains, intersected with green valleys of pine and fir, threaded by silver streams. Our guide assured us that, at Carter's Dépôt, one hundred and ten miles east of Knoxville, we should find Union troops. Soon after dark, to our disappointment and indignation, he declared that he must turn back without a moment's delay. His long-deferred explanation that the young wife, whom he had left at his lonely log house, was about to endure

"The pleasing punishment which women bear,"

mollified our wrath, and we bade him good-by.

A Stanch Old Unionist.

After dark we found our way, deviously, around several dwellings, to the house of an old Union man. With his wife and three bouncing daughters, he heartily welcomed us:

"I am very glad to see you; I have been looking for you these two hours."

"Why did you expect us?"

"We learned yesterday that there were ten Yankees, one in red breeches and a Rebel uniform, over the mountain. Girls, make a fire in the kitchen, and get supper for these gentlemen!"

While we discussed the meal and a great bucket of rosy apples before the roaring fire, our host—silver-haired, deep-chested, brawny-limbed, a splendid specimen of physical manhood—poured out his heart. He was devoted to the Union with a zeal passing the love of women. How intensely he hated the Rebels! How his eyes flashed and dilated as he talked of the old flag! How perfect his faith that he should live to see it again waving triumphantly on his native mountains! One of his sons had died fighting for his country, and two others were still in the Union army.

The Most Dangerous Point.

The old gentleman piloted us through the deep woods, for three miles, to a friendly house. We were now near a rendezvous of Rebel guerrillas, reported to be without conscience and without mercy. Their settlement was known through that whole region as "Little Richmond." We must pass within a quarter of a mile of them. It was feared that they might have pickets out, and the point was deemed more dangerous than any since leaving Salisbury.

Our new friend, though an invalid, promptly rose from his bed to guide us through the danger. His wife greeted us cordially, but was extremely apprehensive—darting to and from the door, and in conversation suddenly pausing to listen. When we started, she said, taking both my hands in hers:

"May God prosper you, and carry you safely through to those you love. But you must be very cautious. Less than six weeks ago, my two brothers started for the North by the same route; and when they reached Crab Orchard, the Rebel guerrillas captured them, and murdered them in cold blood."

After leading us two miles, the guide stopped, and when all came up, he whispered:

"We are approaching the worst place. Let no man speak a word. Step lightly as possible, while I keep as far ahead as you can see me. If you hear any noise, dart out of sight at once. Should I be discovered with you, it would be certain death to me. If found alone, I can tell some story about sickness in my family."

We crept softly behind him for two miles. Then, leading us through a rocky pasture into the road, he said:

"Thank God! I have brought another party of the right sort of people past Little Richmond in safety. My health is broken, and I shall not live long; but it is a great consolation to know that I have been able to help some men who love the Union made by our fathers."

Directing us to a stanch Unionist, a few miles beyond, he returned home.

At three in the morning, we reached our destination. Davis and Boothby did pioneer duty, going forward to the house, where they were received by a clamor of dogs, which made the valleys ring. After a whispered conference with the host, they returned and said:

"There is a Rebel traveler spending the night here. We are to stay in the barn until morning, when he will be gone."

The All-devouring Vermin.

We burrowed in the warm hay-mow, and vainly essayed to sleep. The all-devouring vermin by this time swarmed upon us, poisoning our blood and stimulating every nerve, as we tossed wearily until long after daylight.

XX. Friday, January 6.

At nine o'clock this morning our host came to the hay-loft and awoke us:

"My troublesome guest is gone; walk down to breakfast."

He was educated, intelligent, and had been a leader among the "Conservative" or Union people, until compelled to acquiesce, nominally, in the war. His house and family were pleasant. But while we now began to approach civilization, the Union lines steadily receded. He informed us that we would find no loyal troops east of Jonesboro, ninety-eight miles from Knoxville, and probably none east of Greenville, seventy-four miles from Knoxville.

"But," said he, "you are out of the woods for the present. You are on the border of the largest Union settlement in all the Rebel States. You may walk for twenty-four miles by daylight on the public road. Look out for strangers, Home Guards, or Rebel guerrillas; but you will find every man, woman, and child, who lives along the route, a stanch and faithful friend."

With light hearts we started down the valley. It seemed strange to travel the public road by daylight, visit houses openly, and look people in the face.

Our way was on the right bank of the Watauga, a broad, flashing stream, walled in by abrupt cliffs, covered with pines and hemlocks. A woman on horseback, with her little son on foot, accompanied us for several miles, saying:

"If you travel alone, you are in danger of being shot for Rebel guerrillas."

More Union Soldiers.

In the evening a Union man rowed us across the stream. On the left bank our eyes were gladdened by three of our boys in blue—United States soldiers at home on furlough. Seeing us in the distance, they leveled their rifles, but soon discovered that we were not foes.

Our host for the night beguiled the evening hours with stories of the war; and again we enjoyed the luxury of beds.

XXI. Saturday, January 7.

A Well-Fortified Refuge.

A friend piloted us eight miles over the rough, snowy mountains, avoiding public roads. In the afternoon, we found shelter at a white frame house, nestling among the mountains, and fronted by a natural lawn, dotted with firs.

Here, for the first time, we were entirely safe. Any possible Rebel raid must come from the south side of the river. The house was on the north bank of the stream, which was too much swollen for fording, and the only canoe within five miles was fastened on our shore. Thus fortified on front, flank, and rear, we took our ease in the pleasant, home-like farmhouse.

Near the dwelling was a great spring, of rare beauty. Within an area of twelve feet, a dozen streams, larger than one's arm, came gushing and boiling up through snow-white sand. By the aid of a great fire, and an enormous iron kettle, we boiled all our clothing, and at last vanquished the troublesome enemies which, brought from the prison, had so long disturbed our peace.

Then, bathing in the icy waters, we came out renewed, like the Syrian leper, and, in soft, clean beds, enjoyed the sweet sleep of childhood.

XXII. Sunday, January 8.

A new guide took us eight miles to a log barn in the woods. After dining among, but not upon, the husks, we started again, an old lady of sixty guiding us through the woods toward her house. Age had not withered her, nor custom staled, for she walked at a pace which made it difficult to keep in sight of her.

At dark, in the deep pines, behind her lonely dwelling, we kindled a fire, supped, and, with fifteen or twenty companions, who had joined us so noiselessly that they seemed to spring from earth, we started on.

---

[CHAPTER XLVI.]

If I have wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.

Midsummer Night's Dream.

Dan Ellis, the Union Guide.

For many months before leaving prison, we had been familiar with the name of Dan Ellis—a famous Union guide, who, since the beginning of the war, had done nothing but conduct loyal men to our lines.

Ellis is a hero, and his life a romance. He had taken through, in all, more than four thousand persons. He had probably seen more adventure—in fights and races with the Rebels, in long journeys, sometimes bare-footed and through the snow, or swimming rivers full of floating ice—than any other person living.

He never lost but one man, who was swooped up through his own heedlessness. The party had traveled eight or ten days, living upon nothing but parched corn. Dan insisted that a man could walk twenty-five miles a day through snow upon parched corn just as well as upon any other diet—if he only thought so. I feel bound to say that I have tried it and do not think so. This person held the same opinion. He revolted against the parched-corn diet, vowing that he would go to the first house and get an honest meal, if he was captured for it. He went to the first house, obtained the meal, and was captured.

After we had traveled fifty miles, everybody said to us, "If you can only find Dan Ellis, and do just as he tells you, you will be certain to get through."

In Good Hands at Last.

We did find Dan Ellis. On this Sunday night, one hundred and thirty-four miles from our lines, greatly broken down, we reached a point on the road, waited for two hours, when along came Dan Ellis, with a party of seventy men—refugees, Rebel deserters, Union soldiers returning from their homes within the enemy's lines, and escaping prisoners. About thirty of them were mounted and twenty armed.

Like most men of action, Dan was a man of few words. When our story had been told him, he said to his comrades:

"Boys, here are some gentlemen who have escaped from Salisbury, and are almost dead from the journey. They are our people. They have suffered in our Cause. They are going to their homes in our lines. We can't ride and let these men walk. Get down off your horses, and help them up."

Down they came, and up we went; and then we pressed along at a terrible pace.

In low conversation, as we rode through the darkness, I learned from Dan and his companions something of his strange, eventful history. At the outbreak of the war, he was a mechanic in East Tennessee. After once going through the mountains to the Union lines, he displayed rare capacity for woodcraft, and such vigilance, energy, and wisdom, that he fell naturally into the pursuit of a pilot.

Six or eight of his men, who had been with him from the beginning, were almost equally familiar with the routes. They lived near him, in Carter County, Tennessee, in open defiance of the Rebels. When at home, they usually slept in the woods, and never parted from their arms for a single moment.

As the Rebels would show them no mercy, they could not afford to be captured. For three years there had

Dan. Ellis.

[Click for larger image.]

been a standing offer of five thousand dollars for Dan Ellis's head. During that period, except when within our lines, he had never permitted his Henry rifle, which would fire sixteen times without reloading, to go beyond the reach of his hand.

An Unequal Battle—Ellis's Bravery.

Once, when none of his comrades, except Lieutenant Treadaway, were with him, fourteen of the Rebels came suddenly upon them. Ellis and Treadaway dropped behind logs and began to fire their rifles. As the enemy pressed them, they fell slowly back into a forest, continuing to shoot from behind trees. The unequal skirmish lasted three hours. Several Rebels were wounded, and at last they retreated, leaving the two determined Unionists unharmed and masters of the field.

Dan usually made the trip to our lines once in three or four weeks, leading through from forty to five hundred persons. Before starting, he and his comrades would make a raid upon the Rebels in some neighboring county, take from them all the good horses they could find, and, after reaching Knoxville, sell them to the United States quartermaster.

Thus they obtained a livelihood, though nothing more. The refugees and escaping prisoners were usually penniless, and Ellis, whose sympathies flowed toward all loyal men like water, was compelled to feed them during the entire journey. He always remunerated Union citizens for provisions purchased from them.

To-night was so cold, that our sore, lame joints would hardly support us upon our horses. Dan's rapid marching was the chief secret of his success. He seemed determined to keep at least one day ahead of all Rebel pursuers.

Now that we were safe in his hands, I accompanied the party mechanically, with no further questions or anxiety about routes; but I chanced to hear Treadaway ask him:

"Don't you suppose the Nolechucky is too high for us to ford?"

"Very likely," replied Dan; "we will stop and inquire of Barnet."

Upon the mule which I rode, a sack of corn served for a saddle. I was not accomplished in the peculiar gymnastics required to sit easily upon it and keep it in place.

Lost!—A Perilous Blunder.

Thirsty and feverish, I stopped at the crossing of Rock Creek for a draught of water and to adjust the corn-sack. Attempting to remount, I was as stiff and awkward as an octogenarian, and my restive mule would not stand for a moment. I finally succeeded in climbing upon his back two or three minutes after the last horseman disappeared up the bank.

We had been traveling across forests, over hills, through swamps, without regard to thoroughfares; but I rode carelessly on, supposing that my mule's instinct would keep him on the fresh scent of the cavalcade. When we had jogged along for ten minutes, awakening from a little reverie, I listened vainly to hear the footfalls of the horses. All was silent. I dismounted, and examined the half-frozen road, but no hoof-marks could be seen upon it.

I was lost! It might mean recapture—it might mean reimprisonment and death, for the terms were nearly synonymous. I was ignorant about the roads, and whether I was in a Union or Rebel settlement.

To search for that noiseless, stealthy party would be useless; so I rode back to the creek, tied my mule to a laurel in the dense thicket, and sat down upon a log, pondering on my stupid heedlessness, which seemed likely to meet its just reward. I remembered that Davis owed his original capture to a mule, and wondered if the same cause was about to produce for me a like result.

Mentally anathematizing my long-eared brute, I gave him a part of the corn, and threw myself down behind a log, directly beside the road. This would enable me to hear the horse's feet of any one who might return for me. In a few minutes I was sound asleep.

When awakened by the cold, my watch told me that it was three o'clock. Running to and fro in the thicket until my blood was warmed, I resumed my position behind the log, and slept until daylight was gleaming through the forest.

A Most Fortunate Encounter.

Walking back to the creek, I reconnoitered a log dwelling, so small and humble that its occupant was probably loyal. In a few minutes, through the early dawn, an old man, with a sack of corn upon his shoulder, came out of the house. He evinced no surprise at seeing me. Looking earnestly into his eyes, I asked him:

"Are you a Union man or a Secessionist?" He replied:

"I don't know who you are; but I am a Union man, and always have been."

"I am a stranger and in trouble. I charge you to tell me the truth."

"I do tell you the truth, and I have two sons in the United States army."

His manner appeared sincere, and he carried a letter of recommendation in his open, honest face. I told him my awkward predicament. He reassured me at once.

"I know Dan Ellis as well as my own brother. No truer man ever lived. What route was he going to take?"

"I heard him say something about Barnet's."

"That is a ford only five miles from here. Barnet is one of the right sort of people. This road will take you to his house. Good-by, my friend, and don't get separated from your party again."

Rejoining Dan and his Party.

I certainly did not need the last injunction. Reaching the ford, Barnet told me that our party had spent several hours in crossing, and was encamped three miles ahead. He took me over the river in his canoe, my mule swimming behind. Half a mile down the road. I met Ellis and Treadaway.

"Ah ha!" said Dan, "we were looking for you. I told the boys not to be uneasy. There are men in our crowd who would have blundered upon some Rebel, told all about us, and so alarmed the country and brought out the Home Guards; but I knew you were discreet enough to take care of yourself, and not endanger us. Let us breakfast at this Union house."

XXIII. Monday, January 9.

"To-day," said Dan Ellis, "we must cross the Big Butte of Rich Mountain."

"How far is it?" I asked.

"It is generally called ten miles; but I suspect it is about fifteen, and a rather hard road at that."

About fifteen, and a rather hard road! It seemed fifty, and a very Via Dolorosa.

We started at 11 a.m. For three miles we followed a winding creek, the horsemen on a slow trot, crossing the stream a dozen times; the footmen keeping up as best they could, and shivering from their frequent baths in the icy waters.

A Terrible Mountain March.

We turned up the sharp side of a snowy mountain. For hours and hours we toiled along, up one rocky, pine-covered hill, down a little declivity, then up another hill, then down again, but constantly gaining in hight. The snow was ten inches deep. Dan averred he had never crossed the mountain when the travel was so hard; but he pushed on, as if death were behind and heaven before.

The rarity of the air at that elevation increased my pneumonic difficulty, and rendered my breath very short. Ellis furnished me with a horse the greater part of the way; but the hills, too steep for riding, compelled us to climb, our poor animals following behind. The pithy proverb, that "it is easy to walk when one leads a horse by the bridle," was hardly true in my case, for it seemed a hundred times to-day as if I could not possibly take another step, but must fall out by the roadside, and let the company go on. But after my impressive lesson of last night, I was hardly likely to halt so long as any locomotive power remained.

Our men and animals, in single file, extended for more than a mile in a weary, tortuous procession, which dragged its slow length along. After hours which appeared interminable, and efforts which seemed impossible, we halted upon a high ridge, brushed the snow from the rocks, and sat down to a cold lunch, beside a clear, bright spring which gushed vigorously from the ground. I ventured to ask:

"Are we near the top?"

"About half way up," was Dan's discouraging reply.

"Come, come, boys; we must pull out!" urged Davis; and, following that irrepressible invalid, we moved forward again.

As we climbed hill after hill, thinking we had nearly reached the summit, beyond us would still rise another mountain a little higher than the one we stood upon. They seemed to stretch out to the crack of doom.

A Storm Increases the Discomforts.

To increase the discomfort, a violent rain came on. The very memory of this day is wearisome. I pause, thankful to end only a chapter, in the midst of an experience which, judged by my own feelings, appeared likely to end life itself.

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[CHAPTER XLVII.]

It hath been the longest night
That e'er I watched, and the most heaviest.

Two Gentlemen of Verona.

——But for this miracle—
I mean our preservation—few in millions
Can speak like us.

Tempest.

As I toiled, staggering, up each successive hill, it seemed that this terrible climbing and this torturing day would never end. But Necessity and Hope work miracles, and strength proved equal to the hour.

At 4 p.m. the clouds broke, the sun burst out, as we stood on the icy summit, revealing a grand view of mountains, valleys, and streams on every side.

After a brief halt, we began the descent. Our path, trodden only by refugees and prisoners, led by Dan Ellis, had been worn so deep by the water, that, in many places, our bodies were half concealed! How Dan rushed down those steep declivities! It was easy to follow now, and I kept close behind him.

Fording Creeks in the Darkness.

Twilight, dusk, darkness, came on, and again the rain began to pour down. We could not see each other five yards away. We pressed steadily on. We reached the foot of the mountain, and were in a dark, pine-shadowed, winding road, which frequently crossed a swollen, foaming creek. At first Dan hunted for logs; but the darkness made this slow work. He finally abandoned it, and, whenever we came to a stream, plunged in up to the middle, dashed through, and rushed on, with dripping garments. Our cavalcade and procession must have stretched back fully three miles; but every man endeavored to keep within shouting distance of his immediate predecessor.

Prospect of a Dreary Night.

"We shall camp to-night," said Dan, "at a lonely house two miles from the foot of the mountain."

Reaching the place, we found that, since his last journey, this dwelling had tumbled down, and nothing was left but a labyrinth of timbers and boards. We laboriously propped up a section of the roof. It proved a little protection from the dripping rain, and, while the rest of the party slowly straggled in, Treadaway went to the nearest Union house, to learn the condition of the country. In fifteen minutes we heard the tramp of his returning horse, and could see a fire-brand glimmering through the darkness.

"Something wrong here," said Dan. "There must be danger, or he would not bring fire, expecting us to stay out of doors such a night as this. What is the news, Treadaway?"

"Bad enough," replied the lieutenant, dismounting from his dripping horse, carefully nursing, between two pieces of board, the glowing firebrand. "The Rebel guerrillas are thick and vigilant. A party of them passed here only this evening. I tell you, Dan Ellis, we have got to keep a sharp eye out, if we don't want to be picked up."

All who could find room huddled under the poorly propped roof, which threatened to fall and crush them. Dan and his immediate comrades, with great readiness, improvised a little camp for themselves, so thatching it with boards and shingles that it kept the water off their heads. They were soon asleep, grasping their inseparable rifles and near their horses, from which they never permitted themselves to be far away.

With my two journalistic friends, I deemed rest nearly as important as safety, for we needed to accumulate strength. We found our way through the darkness to the nearest Union house. There was a great fire blazing on the hearth; but the little room was crowded with our weary and soaking companions, who had anticipated us.

Sleeping Among the Husks.

We crossed the creek to another dwelling, where the occupant, a life-long invalid, was intensely loyal. With his wife and little son, he greeted us very warmly, adding:

"I wish I could keep you in my house; but it would not be safe. We will give you quilts, and you may sleep among the husks in the barn, where you will be warm and dry. If the Guards come during the night, they will be likely to search the house first, and the boy or the woman can probably give you warning. But, if they do find you, of course you will tell them that we are not privy to your concealment, because, you know, it would be a matter of life and death for me."

We found the husks dry and fragrant, and soon forgot our weariness.

XXIV. Tuesday, January 10.

Breakfasting before daylight, that we might not be seen leaving the house, we sought our rendezvous. Those who had remained in camp were a wet, cold, sorry-looking party.

By nine o'clock, several, who had been among the Union people in the neighborhood, returned, and held a consultation. The accounts of all agreed that, fifteen or twenty miles ahead, the danger was great, and the country exceedingly difficult to pass through. Moreover, the Union forces still appeared to recede as we approached the places where they were reputed to be. We were now certain that there were none at Jonesboro, none at Greenville, probably none east of Strawberry Plains.

Turning Back in Discouragement.

Eight or ten of our party determined to turn back. Among them were three Union soldiers, who had seen service and peril. But they said to us, as they turned to retrace their steps over Rich Mountain:

"It is useless to go on. The party will never get through in the world. Not a single man of it will reach Knoxville, unless he waits till the road is clear."

Ellis and Treadaway listened to them with a quiet smile. The perils ahead did not disturb our serenity, because they were so much lighter than the perils behind. We had left horrors to which all future possibilities were a mercy. We had looked in at the windows of Death, and stood upon the verge of the Life To Be. We doubted not that the difficulties were greatly magnified, and all dangers looked infinitesimal, along the path leading toward home and freedom.

Among those who went back was a North Carolina citizen, accompanied by a little son, the child of his old age. Reluctant to trust himself again to the tender mercies of the Rebels, he was unaccustomed to the war-path, and decided to return to the ills he had, rather than fly to others which he knew not of. Purchasing one of his horses, I was no longer dependent upon the kindness of Ellis and his comrades for a steed.

Before noon we started, following secluded valley paths. The rain ceased and the day was pleasant. At a Union dwelling we came upon the hot track of eight guerrillas, who had been there only an hour before. The Rebel-hunting instinct waxed strong within Dan, and, taking eight of his own men, he started in fierce pursuit, leaving Treadaway in charge of the company.

Before dark we reached Kelly's Gap, camping in an old orchard, beside a large farm-house with many ample out-buildings. The place was now deserted. One of our guides explained:

"A Union man lived here, and he was hanged last year upon that apple-tree. They cut him down, however, before he died, and he fled from the country."

Tying our horses to the trees, we parched corn for supper. Fires were kindled in the buildings, giving the place a genial appearance as night closed in.

A Rebel Prisoner Brought In.

After dark, Dan and his comrades returned. The whole party of guerrillas had very narrowly escaped them. They captured one, and brought him in a prisoner. One of the out-buildings was cleared, and he was placed in it, under two volunteer guards armed with rifles. He was not more than twenty-two years old, and had a heavy, stolid face. He steadily denied that he was a guerrilla, asserting that he had been in the Rebel army, had deserted from it, taken the oath of allegiance to the United States while at Knoxville, and was now trying to live quietly.

Some of Ellis's men believed that he had broken his oath of allegiance, and was the most obnoxious of the guerrillas. In his presence they discussed freely the manner of disposing of him. Some advocated taking him to Knoxville, and turning him over to the authorities. Others, who seemed to be a majority, urged taking him out into the orchard and shooting him. This counsel seemed likely to prevail. Several of the men who gave it had seen brothers or fathers murdered by the Rebels.

The prisoner had little intelligence, and talked only when addressed. I could but admire the external stolidity with which he listened to these discussions. One of his judges and would-be executioners asked him:

"Well, sir, what have you to say for yourself?"

"I am in your hands," he replied, without moving a muscle; "you can kill me if you want to; but I have kept the oath of allegiance, and I am innocent of the charges you bring against me."

After some further debate, a Union officer from East Tennessee said.

"He may deserve death, and he probably does. But we are not murderers, and he shall not be shot. I will use my own revolver on anybody who attempts it. Let us hear no more of these taunts. No brave man will insult a prisoner."

It was at last decided to take him to Knoxville. He bore this decision with the same silence he had manifested at the prospect of death.

During this scene Dan was absent. He had gone to the nearest Union house to learn the news, for every loyal family in a range of many hundred miles knew and loved him. We, very weary, lay down to sleep in an old orchard, with our saddles for pillows. Our reflections were pleasant. We were only seventy-nine miles from the Union lines. We progressed swimmingly, and had even begun to regulate the domestic affairs of the border!

An Alarm at Midnight.

Before midnight some one shook my arm. I rubbed my eyes open and looked up. There was Dan Ellis.

"Boys, we must saddle instantly. We have walked right into a nest of Rebels. Several hundred are within a few miles; eighty are in this immediate vicinity. They are lying in ambush for Colonel Kirk and his men. It is doubtful whether we can ever get out of this. We must divide into two parties. The footmen must take to the mountains; we who are riding, and in much greater danger—as horses make more noise, and leave so many traces—must press on at once, if we ever hope to."

The word was passed in low tones. Our late prisoner, no longer an object of interest, was allowed to wander away at his own sweet will. Flinging our saddles upon our weary horses, we were in motion almost instantly. My place was near the middle of the cavalcade. The man just before me was riding a white horse, which enabled me to follow him with ease.

We galloped along at Dan's usual pace, with sublime indifference to roads—up and down rocky hills, across streams, through swamps, over fences—everywhere but upon public thoroughfares.

A Young Lady for a Guide.

I supposed we had traveled three miles, when Davis fell back from the front, and said to me:

"That young lady rides very well, does she not?"

"What young lady?"

"The young lady who is piloting us."

I had thought Dan Ellis was piloting us, and rode forward to see about the young lady.

There she was! I could not scrutinize her face in the darkness, but it was said to be comely. I could see that her form was graceful, and the ease and firmness with which she sat on her horse would have been a lesson for a riding-master.

The Nameless Heroine.

She was a member of the loyal family to which Dan had gone for news. The moment she learned his need, she volunteered to pilot him out of that neighborhood, where she was born and bred, and knew every acre. The only accessible horse (one belonging to a Rebel officer, but just then kept in her father's barn) was brought out and saddled. She mounted, came to our camp at midnight, and was now stealthily guiding us—avoiding farm-houses where the Rebels were quartered, going round their camps, evading their pickets.

She led us for seven miles. Then, while we remained in the wood, she rode forward over the long bridge which spanned the Nolechucky River (now to be crossed a second time), to see if there were any guards upon it; went to the first Union house beyond, to learn whether the roads were picketed; came back, and told us the coast was clear. Then she rode by our long line toward her home. Had it been safe to cheer, we should certainly have given three times three for the Nameless Heroine[19] who did us such vital kindness. "Benisons upon her dear head forever!"

The "Nameless Heroine" Piloting the Escaping Prisoners out of a Rebel Ambush.

[Click to view larger image.]

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[CHAPTER XLVIII.]

——Fortune is merry,
And in this mood will give us any thing.

Julius Cæsar.

The night is long that never finds the day.

Macbeth.

Among the Delectable Mountains.

Relieved again from immediate danger, every thing seemed like a blessed dream. I was haunted by the fear of waking to find myself in the old bunk at Salisbury, with its bare and squalid surroundings.

We were often compelled to walk and lead our weary animals. The rushing creeks were perilous to cross by night. The rugged mountains were appalling to our aching limbs and frost-bitten feet. The Union houses, where we obtained food and counsel, were often humble and rude. But we had vanquished the Giant Despair, and come up from the Valley of the Shadow of Death. To our eyes, each icy stream was the River of Life. The frowning cliffs, with their cruel rocks, were the very Delectable Mountains; and every friendly log cabin was the Palace called Beautiful.

After our fair guide left us, Dan's foot was on his native heath. Familiar with the road, he pressed on like a Fate, without mercy to man or beast. After the late heavy rains it was now growing intensely cold. A crust, not yet hard enough to bear, was forming upon the mud, and at every step our poor horses sunk to the fetlocks.

Even with frequent walking I found it difficult to keep up the circulation in my own sensitive feet; but the severe admonition of one frost-bite had taught me to be very cautious. A young North Carolinian, riding a mule, wore nothing upon his feet except a pair of cotton stockings; that he kept from freezing is one of the unsolved mysteries of human endurance.

Passing a few miles north of Greenville, at four o'clock in the morning, we had accomplished twenty-five miles, despite all our weakness and weariness.

This brought us to Lick Creek, which proved too much swollen for fording. An old Loyalist, living on the bank, assured us that guerrillas were numerous and vigilant. Should we never leave them behind?

Ascending the stream for three miles, we crossed upon the only bridge in that whole region. Here, at least, our rear was protected; because, if pursued, we could tear up the planks. Soon after dawn, upon a hill-side in the pine woods, we dismounted, and huddled around our fires, a weary, hungry, morose, and melancholy company.

Separation from "Junius."

XXV. Wednesday, January 11.

As we drowsed upon the pine leaves, I asked:

"When shall we join the footmen?"

"After we reach Knoxville," was Dan Ellis's reply.

This was a source of uneasiness to Davis and myself, because we had left "Junius" behind. He was offered a horse when we started, at midnight. Supposing, like ourselves, that the parties would re-unite in a few hours, and tired of riding without a saddle, he declined, and cast his lot among the footmen. It was the first separation since our capture. Our fates had been so long cast together, that we meant to keep them united until deliverance should come for one or both, either through life or death. But Treadaway was an excellent pilot, and the footmen, able to take paths through the mountains where no cavalry could follow them, would probably have less difficulty than we.

Union Women Scrutinizing the Yankee.

I found an old man splitting rails, down in a wooded ravine two or three hundred yards from our camp. While he went to his house, a mile distant, to bring me food, I threw myself on the ground beside his fire and slept like a baby. In an hour, he returned with a basket containing a great plate of the inevitable bread and pork. He was accompanied by his wife and daughter, who wanted to look at the Yankee. Coarse-featured and hard-handed, they were smoking long pipes; but they were not devoid of womanly tenderness, and earnestly asked if they could do any thing to help us.

About noon we broke camp, and compelled our half-dead horses to move on. The road was clearer and safer than we anticipated. At the first farm which afforded corn, we stopped two or three hours to feed and rest the poor brutes.

Three of us rode forward to a Union house, and asked for dinner. The woman, whose husband belonged to the Sixteenth (loyal) Tennessee Infantry, prepared it at once; but it was an hour before we fully convinced her that we were not Rebels in disguise.

We passed through Russelville soon after dark, and, two miles beyond, made a camp in the deep woods. The night was very cold, and despite the expostulations of Dan Ellis, who feared they belonged to a Union man, we gathered and fired huge piles of rails, one on either side of us. Making a bed between them of the soft, fragrant twigs of the pine, we supped upon burnt corn in the ear. By replenishing our great fires once an hour we spent the night comfortably.

XXVI. Thursday, January 12.

At our farm-house breakfast this morning, a sister of Lieutenant Treadaway was our hostess. She gave us an inviting meal, in which coffee, sugar, and butter, which had long been only reminiscences to us, were the leading constituents.

By ten we were again upon the road. Two or three of our armed men kept the advance as scouts, but we now journeyed with comparative impunity.

"Slide Down Off that Horse."

Some of our young men, who had long been hunted by the Rebels, embraced every possible opportunity of turning the tables. No haste, weariness, or danger could induce them to omit following the track of guerrillas, wherever there was reasonable hope of finding the game. On the road to-day, one of these footmen met a citizen riding a fine horse.

"What are you, Southerner or Union?" asked the boy, playing with the hammer of his rifle.

"Well," replied the old Tennesseean, a good deal alarmed, "I have kept out of the war from the beginning; I have not helped either side."

"Come! come! That will never do. You don't take me for a fool, do you? You never could have lived in this country without being either one thing or the other. Are you Union or Secession?"

"I voted for Secession."

"Tell the entire truth."

"Well, sir, I do; I have two sons in Johnson's army. I was an original Secessionist, and I am as good a Southern man as you can find in the State of Tennessee."

"All right, my old friend; just slide down off that horse."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you are just the man I have been looking for, in walking about a hundred miles—a good Southerner with a good horse! I am a Yankee; we are all Yankees; so slide down, and be quick about it."

Accompanied by the clicking of the rifle, the injunction was not to be despised. The rider came down, the boy mounted and galloped up the road, while the old citizen walked slowly homeward, with many a longing, lingering look behind.

We traveled twenty-five miles to-day, and at night made our camp in the pine woods near Friend's Station.

Friendly Words but Hostile Eyes.

As the country was now comparatively safe, Davis and myself went in pursuit of beds. At the first house, two women assured us that they were good Union people, and very sorry they had not a single vacant couch. Their words were unexceptionable, but I could not see the welcome in their eyes. We afterward inquired, and found that they were violent Rebels.

The next dwelling was a roomy old farm-house, with pleasant and generous surroundings. In answer to our rap, a white-haired patriarch of seventy came to the door.

"Can you give us supper and lodging to-night, and breakfast in the morning? We will pay you liberally, and be greatly obliged beside."

"I should be glad to entertain you," he replied, in tremulous, childish treble, "but to-night my daughters are all gone to a frolic. I have no one in the house except my wife, who, like myself, is old and feeble."

Hospitalities of a Loyal Patriarch.

The lady, impelled by curiosity, now appearing, we repeated the request to her, with all the suavity and persuasiveness at our command, for we were hungry and tired, and the place looked inviting. She dryly gave us the same answer, but began to talk a little. Presently we again inquired:

"Will you be good enough to accommodate us, or must we look farther?"

"What are you, anyhow?"

"Union men—Yankees, escaped from the Salisbury prison."

"Why didn't you say so before? Of course I can give you supper! Come in, all of you!" The old lady prepared us the most palatable meal we had yet found, and told us the usual stories of the war. For hours, by the log fire, we talked with the aged couple, who had three sons carrying muskets in the Union army, and who loved the Cause with earnest, enthusiastic devotion. We were no longer apprehensive; for they assured us that the Rebels had never yet searched their premises.

In this respect they had been singularly fortunate. Theirs was the only one among the hundreds of Union houses we entered, which had not been despoiled by Rebel marauders. More than once the Confederates had taken from them grain and hay to the value of hundreds of dollars; but their dwelling had always been respected.

XXVII. Friday, January 13.

My poor steed gave signs of approaching dissolution; and I asked the first man I saw by the roadside:

"Would you like a horse?"

"Certainly, stranger."

"Very well, take this one."

I handed him the bridle, and he led the animal away with a look of wonder; but it could not have taken him long to comprehend the nature of my generosity. Several other horses in the party had died or were left behind as worthless.

Our journey—originally estimated at two hundred miles—had now grown into two hundred and ninety-five by the roads. In view of our devious windings, we deemed three hundred and forty miles a very moderate estimate of the distance we had traveled.

"Out of the Mouth of Hell."

At ten o'clock on the morning of this twenty-seventh day, came our great deliverance. It was at Strawberry Plains, fifteen miles east of Knoxville. Here—after a final march of seven miles, in which our heavy feet and aching limbs grew wonderfully light and agile—in silence, with bowed heads, with full hearts and with wet eyes, we saluted the Old Flag.[20]

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A SONG FOR THE "NAMELESS HEROINE" WHO AIDED THE ESCAPING PRISONERS.

"Benisons on her dear head forever."

Words and Music composed by B. R. HANBY.

(Published by John Church, Jr., 66 West Fourth Street, Cincinnati, Ohio.)

1.
Out of the jaws of death,
Out of the mouth of hell,
Weary and hungry, and fainting and sore,
Fiends on the track of them,
Fiends at the back of them,
Fiends all around but an an-gel be-fore.

CHORUS.
Fiends all a-round but an an-gel be-fore!
Blessings be thine, loyal maid, ev-er-more!
Fiends all around, but an an-gel be-fore,
Blessings be thine, lo-yal maid, ev-er-more.

2.
Out by the mountain path,
Down thro' the darksome glen,
Heedless of foes, nor at dan-ger dismayed,
Sharing their doubtful fate,
Daring the tyrant's hate,
Heart of a lion, though form of a maid;

CHORUS.
Hail to the an-gel who goes on be-fore,
Blessings be thine, loyal maid, ev-er-more!
Hail to the an-gel who goes on be-fore,
Blessings be thine, lo-yal maid, ev-er-more.

3.
"Nameless," for foes may hear,
But by our love for thee,
Soon our bright sabers shall blush with their gore.
Then shall our banner free,
Wave, maiden, over thee:
Then, noble girl, thou'lt be nameless no more.

CHORUS.
Then we shall hail thee from moun-tain to shore,
Bless thy brave heart, loyal maid, ev-er-more!
Then we shall hail thee from moun-tain to shore,
Bless thy brave heart, lo-yal maid, ev-er-more.

The "Nameless Heroine."

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