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.