SAVED FROM A NORTHERN PRISON BY A NOVEL.
In July '64, the writer passed through his first and only experience either as prisoner or an inmate of a hospital. Sherman was nearing Atlanta and his pickets lined the northern bank of the Chattahoochee. I had been sick for several days and Dr. Cumming, acting assistant surgeon, insisted that I should go to the rear. With me there went from the division hospital to Atlanta a boy soldier, who did not seem to be over 14 years of age, and I do not think he was as tall as his gun. If not the original of Dr. Ticknor's "Little Giffen of Tennessee," he was certainly his counterpart for he was "utter Lazarus, heels to head." Atlanta was only a distributing hospital. The sick were being shipped to points on the Atlanta and West Point Road. Reports from that section were anything but favorable. Sick and wounded were said to be "dying like sheep." Having no special desire to die in that way or in any other way, if possible to avoid it, I asked assignment to some hospital on the Georgia Railroad. "All full," said the surgeon. "No room anywhere except on Atlanta and West Point Road. Train leaves at 7 o'clock in the morning. Report here at that hour." As I had fully determined not to go on that road I reported at 8 o'clock instead of 7, and a few hours later I was pleasantly quartered in the hospital at Oxford, Ga., where I had spent two years of college life. Four years before, almost to a day, I had left its classic halls little dreaming that I should return to its familiar scenes in sickness and in weariness, a victim of grim visaged war. For many months the college exercises had been suspended and the chapel, recitation and literary society halls were being utilized as hospital wards. At the time of my arrival the ladies and older citizens, who had not been absorbed by the war, felt some apprehensions of a raid into the village by Sherman's cavalry, which was only forty miles away. Among these ladies, however, there was one to whom the expectation of such an event brought no feeling of anxiety. Born and reared in the North, she felt assured that no Union soldier's vandal hand would molest any of her possessions. Asked by one of her neighbors what she proposed to do in the event of their coming she replied, "They'll never trouble me or mine. I am just going to sit down and see the salvation of the Lord." How it looked when she saw it, will appear a little further on.
The old college chapel where I had attended morning and evening prayer during my college course had been converted into a hospital dining room. On July 22, a few days after my arrival, the convalescents were taking their midday meal in this room when the clatter of a horse's feet was heard. There was some commotion outside and the men hurriedly left the table to investigate its cause. It required but a few minutes to size up the situation. A few feet from the door on a horse covered with foam sat a red-headed Yankee in blue uniform and with full equipment. The expected raid had materialized and Garrard's division of Federal cavalry had possession of the town. Most of the convalescents returned hastily to their quarters without finishing their dinner, The writer, not knowing when or where his next meal would be taken returned to the table and replenished his commissary department to its fullest capacity. The raiders scattered through the village, pillaging to some extent private residences, destroying government cotton and in this way burning the home of Mr. Irvine, an old citizen of the place. In due time they reached the premises of the lady, to whom reference has already been made. Her husband was not at home. He was an honored minister of the Methodist church and was considered the champion snorer of the conference to which he belonged. It was said that his family had become so accustomed to the sonorous exercise of his talent in this line that during his absence from home at night, they were forced to substitute the grinding of a coffee mill to secure sleep. I am not prepared, however, to vouch for the absolute accuracy of this statement. Whether on this occasion he had received intimation of the enemy's approach, and emulating the example of other male citizens of the village, had made himself conveniently absent, I do not now recall. His wife, possibly relying on the fact that she was Northern born, or on providential interposition, for exemption from any war indemnity that her blue-coated guests might be disposed to exact, received them courteously and as long as their levy was confined to chickens from the barnyard or hams from the smoke house she managed to maintain her equilibrium. But when, in addition to these minor depredations, they bridled her pet family horse and led him forth to "jine the cavalry," patience ceased to be a virtue. This crowning indignity furnished the straw that fractured the spinal column of the proverbial camel. She rose, in her righteous wrath and in plain and vigorous English she gave them her opinion of the Yankee army in general, and of her unwelcome guests in particular. Her indignant protest was unavailing. The stable was thenceforth tenantless, and as Tennyson might have said, she mourned for the tramp of a vanished horse and the sound of a neigh that was still.
At 3 p. m. the convalescents were formed into line with orders to report to the provost marshal. We had marched but a little way, when a Federal colonel ordered us to disband until 5 p. m. I had borrowed the novel "Macaria" from a Miss Harrison in the village and decided to spend the interval in completing its perusal. I retired to my cot in the college chapel, but somehow the book did not interest me. Visions of a Federal prison peered at me from every page and I gave it up. Having made an engagement to take tea with Mr. Harrison's family that evening, I concluded, if allowed to leave the building, to return the book. Going down to reconnoiter I saw one of our men walk up the street without being halted, and with as indifferent air as I could assume, I followed suit.
Reaching Mr. Harrison's house I found the family anxious and excited. Mr. H., to avoid capture, had concealed himself in the garden. I expressed my regrets to Mrs. H. that I was unable to keep my engagement, as I had another, which was a little more pressing. She insisted that I remain with them until the hour for leaving and I sat down to meditate on the fate that the future had in store for me. When a boy I had often sung the old hymn containing the words:
"Sweet prospects, sweet birds and sweet flowers," but the prospect that loomed up before me that summer afternoon had no flavor of sugar or honey and, as I now recall it, not even a trace of sorghum molasses to shade its bitterness. As I sat there on the piazza, a Federal brigade passed in a short distance of the house followed by a crowd of contrabands. One of the soldiers came in and took a ham from the pantry without taking the trouble to ask for it. Others passed through the yard on other errands. Nothing was said to me and I made no special effort to attract their attention. I was saying nothing, but I was doing some pretty tall thinking. The idea had occurred to me, either, as Judge Longstreet has said, by "internal suggestion or the bias of jurisprudence," that if I remained quietly where I was, I might be overlooked and I decided to make the experiment. At 5 p. m. the squad of convalescents was re-formed and marched off under guard, passing within a short distance of where I sat. Possibly I felt that my place was properly among them, but I felt no disposition to halt them in order to secure it and my heart grew lighter as the line grew dim in the distance and finally vanished. I have sometimes been accused of being absent-minded, but on that occasion I had reason to be grateful for being absent-bodied.
At nightfall I returned to my hospital cot and slept the sleep of the just. I was in no hurry to rise next morning until at 9 a. m., some one came in and reported that all the raiders had shaken the dust of Oxford from their feet. My escape was due to "Macaria" and for that reason I have always felt kindly towards the book and its author. In my condition a Northern prison would have meant for me slow death and an unmarked grave and these records would have been unwritten or penned by other hands.