History of Morgan's Cavalry

by Basil Wilson Duke

In the walls of this hall are cut great windows, looking out upon one of the prison yards. If the reader will further imagine a building erected in the interior of this hall and reaching to the ceiling, upon each side of which, and between its walls and the walls of the hall, are alleys eleven feet wide and running the entire length of the hall, and at either extremity of this building, spaces twenty feet in width—he will have conceived a just idea of that part of the prison in which General Morgan and his officers were confined. In the interior building the cells are constructed—each about three feet and a half wide and seven feet long. The doors of the cells—a certain number of which are constructed in each side of this building—open upon the alleys which have been described. At the back of each, and of course separating the ranges of cells upon the opposite sides of the building, is a hollow space reaching from the floor to the ceiling, running the whole length of the building, and three or four feet wide. This space is left for the purpose of obtaining more thorough ventillation, and the back wall of every cell is perforated with a hole, three or four inches in diameter, to admit the air from this passage.

We were placed in the cells constructed in that face of the building which looks toward the town. No convicts were quartered in the cells on that side, except on the extreme upper tiers, but the cells on the other side of the building were all occupied by them. The cells are some seven feet in hight, and are built in ranges, or tiers, one above the other. They are numbered, range first, second, third, and so on—commencing at the lower one. The doors are grates of iron—the bars of which are about an inch and a quarter wide, and half an inch thick, and are, perhaps, two inches apart, leaving, as they are placed upright and athwart, open spaces of two inches square between them. In front of each range of cells were balconies three feet wide, and ladders led from each one of these to the other just above it.

We were permitted to exercise, during the day, in the alley in front of our cells, although prohibited from looking out of the windows. Twice a day we were taken to meals, crossing (when we went to breakfast) a portion of the yard, before mentioned, and passing through the kitchen into the large dining-hall of the institution. Here, seated at tables about two feet wide and the same distance apart, a great many prisoners could be fed at the same time. We were not allowed to breakfast and dine with the convicts, or they were not allowed to eat with us—I could never learn exactly how it was. We crossed the yard, on the way to breakfast, for the purpose of washing our faces, which was permitted by the prison regulations, but a certain method of doing it was prescribed. Two long troughs were erected and filled with water. The inhabitants of the First Range washed in one trough, and those of the Second Range used the other. We soon obtained permission to buy and keep our own towels. In returning from breakfast, and in going to and returning from dinner, we never quitted the prison building, but marched through a wing of the dining-room back to the long wing, in one end of which was our hall.

At seven p.m. in summer (earlier afterward), we were required to go to our respective cells at the tap of the turnkey's key on the stove, and he passed along the ranges and locked us in for the night. In a little while, then, we would hear the steady, rolling tramp of the convicts, who slept in the hall at the other end of the wing, as they marched in with military step and precision, changing after awhile from the sharp clatter of many feet simultaneously striking the stone floor to the hurried, muffled rattle of their ascent (in a trot) of the stairways. Then when each had gained his cell, and the locking-in commenced, the most infernal clash and clang, as huge bolts were fastened, would be heard that ever startled the ear of a sane man. When Satan receives a fresh lot of prisoners, he certainly must torture each half by compelling it to hear the other locked into cells with iron doors.

The rations furnished us for the first ten days were inferior to those subsequently issued. The food allowed us, although exceedingly coarse, was always sufficiently abundant. After about ten days the restriction, previously imposed, preventing us from purchasing or receiving from our friends articles edible, or of any other description, was repealed, and we were allowed to receive every thing sent us. Our Kentucky friends had been awaiting this opportunity, and for fear that the privilege would be soon withdrawn, hastened to send cargoes of all sorts of food and all kinds of dainties. For a few days we were almost surfeited with good things, and then the trap fell. When piles of delicacies were stacked up in his office, the Warden of the prison, Captain Merion, confiscated all to his own use, forbade our receiving any thing more, and rather than the provisions should be wasted, furnished his own table with them.

For several weeks one or two soldiers were habitually kept in the hall with us, during the day. The turnkey, who was the presiding imp in that wing—the ghoul of our part of the catacombs—was rarely absent, but passed back and forth, prying and suspicious. Scott (familiarly Scotty) was the name of the interesting creature who officiated as our immediate keeper, for the first four months of our confinement in this place. He was on duty only during the day. At night a special guard went the rounds. The gas-burners, with which each cell was furnished, were put into use as soon as we were locked up, and we were allowed (for a time) to burn candles for an hour after the hour for which the gas was turned on had expired. We were permitted to buy books and keep them in our cells, and for some weeks were not restricted in the number of letters which we might write. Indeed for a period of nearly three months our condition was uncomfortable only on account of the constant confinement within the walls of the prison—the lack of exercise, and sun-light, and free air, and the penning up at night in the close cells. To a man who has never been placed in such a situation, no words can convey the slightest idea of its irksomeness. There was not one of us who would not have eagerly exchanged for the most comfortless of all the prisons, where he could have spent the days in the open air, and some part of the time have felt that the eyes of the gaolers were not upon him. Every conceivable method of killing time, and every practical recreation was resorted to. Marbles were held in high estimation for many days, and the games were played first, and discussed subsequently with keen interest. A long ladder, which had been left in the hall, leaning against the wall, was a perfect treasure to those who most craved active exercise. They practiced all sorts of gymnastics on this ladder, and cooled the fever in their blood with fatigue. Chess finally became the standard amusement, and those who did not understand the game watched it nevertheless with as much apparent relish as if they understood it. Chess books were bought and studied as carefully as any work on tactics had ever been by the same men, and groups would spend hours in discussing this gambit and that, and an admiring audience could always be collected at one end of the hall to hear how Cicero Coleman had just checkmated an antagonist at the other, by a judicious flank movement with his "knight," or some other active and effective piece.

In spite, however, of every effort to sustain health and spirits, both suffered. The most robust could not endure the life to which we were condemned, without injury. I am satisfied that hard labor—furnishing at once occupation and exercise—alone prevents the inmates of these prisons (sentenced to remain so many years, as some of them are) from dying early. The effect of this confinement is strange, and will doubtless appear inconsistent. It affected every man of our party with (at the same time) a lethargy and a nervousness. While we were physically and mentally impaired by it—and every faculty was dulled, and all energy was sapped—every man was restless without aim or purpose, and irritable without cause or reason. These effects of imprisonment became far more apparent and difficult to repress, after a few months had elapsed.

The method adopted in the Ohio Penitentiary, for punishing the refractory and disobedient, was to confine them in cells called the "dungeons"—and dungeons indeed they were. Captain Foster Cheatham was the first man, of our party, who explored their recesses. His private negotiations, with one of the military guard, for liquids of stimulating properties (which he thought would benefit his health) were not only unsuccessful, but were discovered by the "Head-devil," and the Captain was dragged to a "loathsome dungeon." He remained twenty-four hours and came out wiser, on the subject of prison discipline, and infinitely sadder than when he went in. The next victim was Major Higley. One of the keepers was rough to him, and Higley used strong language in return. Disrespectful language to, or about, officials was not tolerated in the institution, and Higley "came to grief." He also remained in the dungeon for the space of a solar day. He was a man of lean habit and excitable temperament, when in his best state of health—and he returned from the place of punishment, looking like a ghost of dissipated habits and shattered nervous system. Pale and shaking—he gave us a spirited and humorous account of his interview with the superior gaolers, and his experience in the dark stifling cell.

It was claimed that while punishment was invariably inflicted for violation of the rules, those rules were clearly defined. That no man need infringe the regulations—that every one could (if he chose) avoid punishment. An incident happened which did not strongly corroborate this beautiful theory. Shortly after Major Higley's misfortune, Captain Cheatham was again honored with an invitation to inspect the dungeons, and take up his quarters in one of them. He, with great modesty, protested that he had done nothing to deserve such a distinction, but his scruples were overruled and he was induced to go. The offense charged was this: An anonymous letter had been picked up in the hall—in which the prison officials were ridiculed. Merion fancied that the handwriting of this letter resembled Cheatham's—there was no other evidence. So far as the proof went, there was as much right to attribute it to one of the prison corps as to one of the prisoners, and to any other one of the prisoners as to Cheatham. After he was placed in the dungeon, where he remained forty-eight hours, and it became known upon what charge, and that he denied it, General Morgan first, and soon many others, demanded that, if another prisoner had written the letter, he should own it and suffer for it. There was not a man in the sixty-eight of our party (with four exceptions) who would have permitted a comrade to be punished for an offense committed by himself.

It was never known who wrote the letter. Captain Cheatham always denied having done so. So justice was not always so impartially administered in the sacrificial temple of the Ohio law, and the governed had it not always in their power to escape punishment.