History of Morgan's Cavalry

by Basil Wilson Duke

Among the sixty-eight prisoners of war confined in the penitentiary, there were four whose nerves gave way and they took the oath of allegiance to the United States in other words, they deserted. One of this four betrayed the plan to the warden. Men were sometimes induced "to take the oath" by a lack of pride and fortitude, and absence of manly stamina, who would have done nothing else prejudicial to the cause which they abandoned, or that would have compromised their former comrades. Their were men, however, who added treachery to apostacy, and this man was one of that infamous class. The four were so fearful of exciting the suspicion of the other prisoners, and so well aware of the bitter scorn and resentment which their conduct would raise against them, that they carefully concealed their design to the last moment. It was not until our release from prison, that the proofs of the utter and base treachery of the spying and informing villain were obtained.

There is a reason why the name of this wretch should not be given here. Enough know of his crime to damn him forever in the estimation of all honorable men, and gallant and devoted men, than whom no truer gentlemen and braver soldiers served under the Confederate banner, bear the same name. His relatives (who fought throughout the war and quit with records upon which there are no stains), must not see the name (which they made honorable), associated with his shame.

Search was at once made for the knives which the prisoners had obtained and for other evidence which might corroborate the informer's report. Fifteen knives had been introduced into the hall, and were in the hands of as many prisoners. The search was inaugurated secretly and conducted as quietly as possible, during the time that the prisoners were locked in the cells, but information was gotten along the ranges that it was going on, and only seven knives were discovered. The remaining eight were hidden, so ingeniously, that, notwithstanding the strict hunt after every thing of the kind, they were not found. Merion's fury at the idea of any danger threatening him was like that of some great cowardly beast which smells blood and is driven mad with fear. All of the party were at once closely confined again, and the seven who were detected with the knives, were sent to the dungeons, where they were kept seven days, until the surgeon declared that a longer stay would kill them.

They passed the period of their confinement in almost constant motion (such as the limits of the cell would permit), and said that they had no recollection of having slept during the whole time. When they came out they were almost blind and could scarcely drag themselves along.

One of the party, Captain Barton, was so affected, that the blood streamed from under his finger nails. When I returned (after a month passed at Camp Chase), I was startled by the appearance of those, even, who had not been subjected to punishment in the dungeon. They had the wild, squalid look and feverish eager impression of eye which lunatics have after long confinement.

At last, in March 1864, all were removed to Fort Delaware, and the change was as if living men, long buried in subterranean vaults, had been restored to upper earth. About the same time one hundred and ten officers of Morgan's division, who had been confined in the Pennsylvania Penitentiary, were transferred to Point Lookout. These officers described the treatment which they received as having been much better than that adopted toward us, yet one of their number had become insane. All that I have attempted to describe, however, must have been ease and luxury compared with the hardship, hunger and harsh cruelty inflicted upon the Confederate private soldiers imprisoned at Camps Morton and Douglass and at Rock Island. These men would often actually pick up and devour the scraps thrown out of the scavenger carts. Some of them froze to death—insufficient fuel was furnished, when it was furnished at all, and the clothing sent them by friends was rarely given them. The men of my regiment told me of treatment, inflicted upon them at Camp Douglass, which if properly described and illustrated with engravings, and if attributed to Confederate instead of Federal officials, would throw the whole North into convulsions. Many of these men, of this regiment, had escaped in the first two or three months of their imprisonment, and a bitter hatred was then excited against the less fortunate. They were, in some instances, tied up and beaten with the belts of the guards, until the print of the brass buckles were left on the flesh; others were made to sit naked on snow and ice, until palsied with cold; others, again were made to "ride Morgan's mule" (as a scantling frame, of ten or twelve feet in hight, was called), the peculiar and beautiful feature of this method of torture, was the very sharp back of "the mule." Sometimes, heavy blocks, humorously styled spurs, were attached to the feet of the rider. As for the shooting of men for crossing the "dead line" (upon which, so much stress has been laid in accounts of Andersonville), that was so well understood, that it was scarcely thought worthy of mention. But an elaborate description of life in the Federal prisons is unnecessary.

The eighty thousand Confederate prisoners of 1864 and 1865, or rather the survivors of that host, have already told it far better than I can, in their Southern homes, and we have had sufficient experience of the value of sympathy away from home, to make no effort for it. Moreover, a contest with the Yankee journalists is too unequal—they really write so well, and are so liberal in their ideas regarding the difference between fact and falsehood, have so little prejudice for, or against either, that they possess, and employ, a tremendous advantage. And then the pictorials—a special artist has only to catch a conception, in a Philadelphia or New York hospital, and straightway he works off an "Andersonville prisoner," which carries conviction to those who can not read the essay, upon the same subject, by his co-laborers with the pen. What chance has a Southern writer against men who possess such resources? At Fort Delaware, General Schoeff, the commandant, placed some eighteen or twenty of us in the rooms built in the casemates of the fort, and allowed us, for some time, the privilege of walking about the island, upon our giving him our paroles not to attempt escape.

General M. Jeff. Thompson, of Missouri, was the only Confederate officer at that prison, before our party arrived, but many others from Camp Chase, came about the same time. General Thompson's military career, is well known to his countrymen, but only his prison companions know how kind and manly he can be under circumstances which severely try the temper. His unfailing flow of spirits kept every one else, in his vicinity cheerful and his hopefulness was contagious. He possessed, also, an amazing poetical genius. He wrote with surprising fluency, and his finest compositions cost him neither trouble nor thought. Shut him up in a room with plenty of stationery, and in twenty-four hours, he would write himself up to the chin in verse. His muse was singularly prolific and her progeny various. He roamed recklessly through the realm of poesy. Every style seemed his—blank verse and rhyme, ode and epic, lyrical and tragical, satiric and elegiac, sacred and profane, sublime and ridiculous, he was equally good at all. His poetry might not perhaps have stood a very strict classification, but he produced a fair, marketable sample, which deserved (his friends thought) to be quoted at as liberal figures as some about which much more was said. General Thompson would doubtless have been more successful as a poet, if he had been a less honest and practical business man. He persisted in having some meaning in all that he wrote, and only a first class poet can afford to do that.

The cunning New England method is also the safest in the long run—when a versifier suspects that he lacks the true inspiration, he had better try the confidence game, and induce the public to admire by writing that which no one can understand. It would seem, too, that writing poetry and playing on the fiddle have this much in common, that a true genius at either is fit for nothing else. The amateurs can take care of themselves, but the born-masters display an amiable worthlessness for every thing but their art. Now General Thompson was thoroughly wide-awake and competent in all practical matters.

At Fort Delaware the prevailing topic of conversation was exchange; men who were destined to many another weary month of imprisonment, sustained themselves with the hope that it would soon come. At last a piece of good fortune befell some of us. It was announced that General Jones, the officer in command at Charleston, had placed fifty Federal officers in a part of the city where they would be exposed to danger from the batteries of the besiegers. An order was issued that fifty Confederate officers, of corresponding rank, should be selected for retaliation. Five general and forty-five field officers were accordingly chosen from the different prisons, Fort Delaware furnishing a large delegation for that purpose. The general officers selected were Major General Frank Gardner, the gallant and skillful commander of Port Hudson; Major-General Edward Johnson, one of the fighting Generals of the army of Northern Virginia (which is to say one of the bravest of the very brave), and a true man, whose sterling worth, intelligence and force of character would win him respect and influence wherever those qualities were valued; Brigadier-General Stewart, of the Maryland brigade, another officer who had won promotion in that heroic army of Northern Virginia, and had identified his name with its deathless fame. There was still another of these fortunate men—fortunate in having helped to win fields where Confederate soldiers had immortalized the title—Brigadier-General Archer was the fourth general officer. A favorite officer of General A.P. Hill, he was in every respect worthy of a hero's friendship and confidence. The fifth was Brigadier-General M. Jeff. Thompson. Among the field officers who went were seven of the penitentiary prisoners—Colonels Ward, Morgan, and Tucker, Majors Webber, Steele, and Higley and myself.