History of Morgan's Cavalry

by Basil Wilson Duke

After we had been in the penitentiary some three or four weeks, Colonel Cluke and another officer were taken out and sent to McLean barracks, to be tried by court-martial upon the charge of having violated some oath, taken before they entered the Confederate service. They were acquitted and Colonel Cluke was sent to Johnson's Island, where during the ensuing winter he died of diphtheria. He was exceedingly popular in the division, and was a man of the most frank, generous and high-toned nature. But he possessed some high soldierly qualities. In the field, he was extremely bold and tenacious—and when threatened by a dangerous opponent, no one was more vigilant and wary. He displayed great vigor and judgment on many occasions, both as a regimental and brigade commander. The news of his death excited universal sorrow among his comrades.

Shortly before Colonel Cluke's removal, Major Webber and Captains Sheldon and McCann had been brought to the penitentiary from Camp Chase. They, of course, declined the tonsorial ceremonies and were remanded to Camp Chase. In the course of two or three weeks Captains Bennett and Merriwether, of the Tenth Kentucky, were sent from Camp Chase to the penitentiary, for having attempted to make their escape, and with them came Captain Sheldon again, for the same offense. This time no questions were asked, but hair and beards came off.

Somewhat later, Major Webber was sent back also. He was placed in solitary confinement, in a cell in a remote part of the prison, and permitted to hold no intercourse with the rest of us. The reason of his receiving this treatment, was that he had written a letter in which occurred the following passage: "I can't say how long I will be a prisoner. Until the end of time; yes, until eternity has run its last round, rather than that our Government shall acknowledge the doctrine of negro equality, by an exchange of negro soldiers. I wish that all negroes, and their officers captured with them, will be hung, I am willing to risk the consequences." Webber unhesitatingly confirmed this language, stating that he had, from the commencement of the war, entertained such sentiments, and that he felt his right to express them as a prisoner of war, as well as in any other condition. He claimed that the very fact that the letters of all prisoners were examined, and suppressed if disapproved by the officer appointed to examine them, gave the prisoners a right to use such language as they chose. If the language was thought improper, the letter could be burned, and no one but the examiner would be any the wiser. This would seem to be the correct and manly view to take of the matter. If a prisoner were detected in clandestine correspondence, it was, perhaps, right and fair that he should be punished, but I do not believe that in any army whose officers are, for the most part gentlemen, a man would be countenanced, who would cause prisoners to send letters to his office for perusal, with the understanding that they should be suppressed if disapproved, and would then punish the prisoner who wrote sentiments which did not accord with his own.

There were officers in position at Camp Chase, when I was sent there some months afterward, who, I believe, could have been induced by no combination of influences to do such a thing, or to tolerate the man who would do it.

Major Webber's description of his initiation into prison usages is very graphic, and as many of my readers know him, it will be highly amusing to them, although any thing but amusing to the Major. He says: "In the office of the penitentiary, I was stripped of my clothing and closely searched. Everything in the way of papers, knife, money, toothpick, and even an old buckeye, which I had carried in my pocket all through the war, at the request of a friend, were taken from me. I was then marched to the wash-room, stripped again, and placed in a tub of warm water, about waist deep, where a convict scrubbed me with a large, rough, horse brush and soap; while a hang-dog looking scoundrel, and the deputy-warden Dean, urged the convict to 'scrub the d—d horse-thief,' and indulged in various demoniacal grins and gesticulations of exultation at my sufferings and embarrassment." The Major describes "his feelings," in the strong language of which he never lacked command; but it is unnecessary to quote from him farther—there is no man, so devoid of imagination, that he can not divine what the patients' feeling must have been under such treatment.

When two or three months had elapsed, General Morgan's impatience of the galling confinement and perpetual espionage amounted almost to frenzy. He restrained all exhibition of his feelings remarkably, but it was apparent to his fellow prisoners that he was chafing terribly under the restraint, more irksome to him than to any one of the others.

The difficulty of getting letters from our families and friends in the South, was one of the worst evils of this imprisonment; and if a letter came containing anything in the least objectionable, it was, as likely as not, destroyed, and the envelope only was delivered to the man to whom it was written. Generally, the portion of its contents, which incurred Merion's censure, having been erased, it was graciously delivered, but more than once a letter which would have been valued beyond all price, was altogether withheld, and the prisoner anxiously expecting it, was mocked, as I have stated, with being given the envelope in which it came, as evidence that he was robbed of it. The reader can imagine the feelings of a man, whose wife and children were in far off "Dixie," while he lay in prison tortured with anxiety to hear from them, and who, when the letter which told of them at last came, should be deprived of it because it contained some womanly outburst of feeling, and should be tantalized with the evidence of his loss.

The introduction of newspapers was strictly forbidden, except when Merion, as a great favor, would send in some outrageously abusive sheet, in which was published some particularly offensive lie. If the newspapers, which the convicts who occasionally passed through our hall in the transaction of their duties, some times smuggled into us, were discovered in any man's hands or cell, woe be unto him—a first class sinner could be easier prayed out of purgatory, than he could avoid the dungeon.

Captain Calvin Morgan was once reading a newspaper, that had "run the blockade," in his cell at night, and had become deeply interested in it, when the "night guard," stealing along with noiseless step, detected him.

The customary taps (by the occupants of the other cells who discovered his approach and thus telegraphed it along the range) had been (this time) neglected. "What paper is that," said the guard. "Come in and see," said Morgan. "No," said the guard, "you must pass it to me through the bars." "I'll do nothing of the kind," was the answer. "If you think that I have a paper which was smuggled into me, why unlock the door, come in, and get it." The fellow apparently did not like to trust himself in the cell with Captain Morgan, who was much the more powerful man of the two, and he hastened off for reinforcements. During his absence Morgan rolled the paper up into a small compass, and, baring his arm, thrust it far up into the ventillator at the back part of the cell. Fortunately there was in the cell a newspaper given him that day by one of the sub-wardens named Hevay—a very kind old man. Morgan unfolded this paper and was seated in the same attitude (as when first discovered) reading it, when the guard returned. The latter brought Scott with him and unlocked the door. "Now give me that paper," he said. "There it is," said Morgan handing it to him, "Old man Hevay gave it to me to-day." The guard inspected it closely and seemed satisfied. "Why did you not give it to me before," he asked. "Because," returned Captain Morgan, "I thought you had no right to ask it, and I had, moreover no assurance that you would return it." With a parting injunction to do so no more, or the dungeon would reveal him its secrets, the guard after a thorough search to find another paper (if there should have been a deception practiced upon him) left the cell. He examined the ventillator, but Morgan's arm being the longer the paper was beyond his reach. Captain Morgan's literary pursuits were suspended, however, for that night.