"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.