CHAPTER XXVI.
On the 17th of February we were ordered to get ready to leave for Richmond for exchange. The order was received with the most extravagant demonstrations of joy; officers who had heretofore been sedate and gloomy, throwing their arms around each other in the wildest excitement. Some laughed and shouted, some wept for joy, while others gave vent to their feelings by singing “Rally ’Round the Flag,” “The Red, White and Blue,” “The Star Spangled Banner,” and other patriotic songs. All were jubilant, all were happy, and all were excited. With buoyant hearts and happy faces the preparations to move were made. Not having many possessions, everything was soon in readiness, and never was the order to fall in obeyed with greater alacrity, or with more cheerfulness, than was the order of the Reb Sergeant that morning at Danville.
Soon we were all comfortably (?) seated in the sweetly perfumed cattle cars, and were flying towards Richmond at the rate of twelve miles an hour. On to Richmond, was shouted by the jubilant prisoners, as we started from Danville.
The next day we were ushered into that notorious prison hell of the South, Libby prison, presided over by the equally notorious Dick Turner. While at Danville one officer was shot in the hand, by the guard, who fired at random through the window, because one of the officers accidentally spilled some water on the window sill, and it ran down upon him. Major D. Colden Ruggles, died in the hospital, and Lieutenants Baily, Quigley, Harris, Helm and Davis, escaped by means of the oven heretofore described. How many of the nearly two thousand enlisted men in Danville died, I have no means of knowing, but the mortality was not as great there as in Salisbury. Libby prison, and the treatment of federal prisoners there, has been so frequently described that I will not attempt a description.
I was there but a short time, but was told by those who had been there before, that Dick Turner seemed to be on his good behavior, and was evidently thinking of the day of reckoning.
We found Libby prison nearly filled with our enlisted men, whose emaciated forms told more plainly than words could possibly do, the terrible sufferings they had endured. They were confined in separate rooms from us, but we managed to pass them provisions through the openings in the partition, and also to converse with them. We were shown where and how the wonderful tunnel that secured freedom to quite a number of officers, and came near setting the whole prison at liberty, was started and where it ended. We were shown Castle Thunder, which at one time contained a number of prisoners, and where I believe Dr. Mary Walker, of Oswego, was at one time confined.
While at Richmond, General Hayes came in to see us, and said he was detailed to distribute the clothing to our men, which our government had sent for them, and as we would be home before he would, he gave us, Lieut. Leyden and myself, the letters and checks we had given to the old reb at Danville, in exchange for fourteen hundred dollars in Confederate money. And, shall I confess it, in a fit of absent-mindedness (?) I tore them up and threw them into the stove, thus saving the bother of taking them to Riggs & Co., at Washington. I have forgotten the old gentleman’s name who so greatly befriended me by giving me such a liberal supply of money which, although worthless to him, served to supply myself and a number of my comrades, with the best the Confederacy afforded, for the balance of our stay in rebeldom.
Our stay in Richmond was of short duration, but we left it without regret.