Sketches in Prison Camps: A Continuation of Sketches of the War

by Charles C. Nott

There was a class of captives who saw the loss of Brashear with heavier hearts than those who possessed the rights and hopes of “prisoners of war.” The unhappy contrabands were agitated before the blow fell, but met it with the tearless apathy of their race. “The niggers don’t look as if they wanted to see us,” I heard one Confederate soldier say to another.

“No,” said the other; “but you’ll see a herd of fat planters here to-morrow after them. They don’t fight any, but they are always on hand for their niggers.”

It was even so: for days, planter after planter appeared, and party after party of men, women and children, laden with their beds and baggage, tramped sorrowfully past our quarters. The hundreds that remained went, I know not whither.

There was one woman, a quadroon, who had been an attendant in our hospital. With her there were an old mother, darker than herself, and a little daughter so fair, that no one ever suspected her of being tainted with the blood of the hapless race. This woman, through all the turmoil and trial of that time, never lost the little marks of neatness and propriety that tell so plainly in woman of innate dignity and refinement. The tasteful simplicity of her frequently changed dress; the neat collar and snowy cuffs; the pretty work-box, and more especially her quiet reserve, indicated rather the lady than the slave. During the fight she had been calm and brave, and when a couple of cowards had rushed into the hospital and begged for a place where they could lie down and hide themselves, this woman, while volleys were firing at the hospital, and men and women falling in the passages, had shown these men to a room and closed the door on them, and walked away so quietly that one might have thought her beyond the reach of the danger that threatened them. An hour or two later, as she passed through the ward where we lay, she stopped at the window and looked out on the scene of the Confederates crossing the river. Of all the persons to whom the capture of Brashear boded grief and wrong, there probably was not one to whom it threatened so much as to her. With her mother and her child, she had been preparing to seek the surer refuge of the North, and this direful calamity had come when the place of safety appeared almost within her reach. Yet she shed no tears, and uttered no complainings. Her large, sad eyes fastened on the river, she stood beside the window and heard the shouts and yells that told of the Confederate triumph. For half an hour she never moved; her face retained its soft composure, and only once the muscles of the lip fluttered and trembled, as though there might be a troubled sea within. Then she turned and went back to her work, as calmly as if she alone had suffered no change. She cheered those men who were struggling for strength to go out on parole; she worked for those officers who were to be sent forward into captivity. For herself, she never invited aid or sympathy. We asked her if we might not send for her former master to come and take her back to her old home. But this, for some untold reason, she steadfastly refused. It was urged that she and her child would be sent far into Texas or Arkansas; and that they might be seized, as so much booty, by some of these half-savage strangers. She answered quietly, that she had thought of this. Ere we parted, we asked her what future help we could give, and what plan she would pursue to regain her freedom, or secure some less dangerous home. And she said briefly, that she did not know, and said no more.

[1]. Captain John S. Cutter.

The captured officers, able to march, were sent forward to Shreveport, and the men were paroled and marched off to our lines. Three officers of my regiment remained with me—two sick, and one severely wounded. Two “citizen prisoners” were also added to our number. One of these, whom I shall call Mr. Stratford, was held as lessee of a confiscated plantation. His wife was permitted to remain with him, and she now visited the hospital daily. The other civilian was Mr. Dwight Parce, of Chenango County, New York, who had just begun business in Brashear. He now witnessed the destruction of his property with undiminished cheerfulness, and, although an invalid, fated to fill a prisoner’s grave in Texas, met the discomforts that awaited him with a serenity and hopefulness that nothing ever disturbed.

We all effected some captures of baggage. Captain Watt sent me an order for the delivery of mine if it could be found, and Dr. Hughes, with ever ready kindness, advised me to take his ambulance and search for it at the fort, where some captured property was stored. The guard consisted of a young gentleman in his shirt-sleeves and no shoes, who, when requested to go, whistled violently, and perched himself on the rear of the ambulance, with his face toward the hospital and his back toward me. I asked him, with some surprise, if he was not going to take his rifle; at which he stopped whistling and said, he reckoned not. After whistling a few minutes, he further defined his position by saying, that if I ran away he reckoned he could run after me; and then, that he reckoned the climate had been a heap too much for me. After another whistle his stiffness wore away a trifle, and he manifestly tried to put me at my ease by saying, “Dog gone the Lousanny climate, and the bayous, and the beef, and dog gone the Lousanyans: they’re the meanest set of people ever I see. I’d just as soon shoot one of ’em as a Yank.” This put me quite at my ease, and we then had a very interesting conversation. The etymology of “dog gone” my guard was ignorant of; he suggested that it meant pretty much what something else did, but wasn’t quite so bad, in which opinion I coincided. Since then I have learnt that this expressive phrase is derived from the threat of putting a dog on you, and that it saves annually, in Texas, an immense amount of swearing, and is found to answer just as well.

On the morning of the third of July, the Officer of the Day appeared. He was a Captain in Colonel Bates’ Texan Battalion, and he blandly begged that we would prepare to move in the afternoon; the boat would be ready at five, and we would be sent to the hospital at Franklin, where we would be much more comfortable. The boat did not come, however, and we remained to celebrate the “Fourth” at Brashear. We went round among our sick men who remained, to cheer them with the certainty of their early release; we read the Declaration, and we drank a bottle of wine, which Mrs. Stratford, with patriotic devotion, smuggled in for us. Our friend, the ex-officer of the day, re-appeared to apologize; the boat had been detained—he knew he must have caused us much trouble—he had come to beg us to forgive him—he deeply regretted that he had not known of the delay in time to inform us. To-day he believed that there would be no delay, and he had just requested the new Officer to order the boat up to the hospital, so that we should not have the trouble of walking down to where she lay. Nothing could have been more elegant, chivalric, and delightful. If he were one of my own officers and I were the Lieutenant-General, he could not have been more courteous and respectful.

We started on our “Fourth of July excursion” in the afternoon. While the boat was lying at the wharf, an officer, with long white hair and of imposing appearance, came slowly down the saloon. As he drew near I observed a Colonel’s insignia on his collar, and one of the guard whispered me, that it was Colonel Bates, the commanding officer at Brashear. The Colonel marched up to me, extended his hand, and with grand solemnity, in keeping with his dignified bearing, said:

“Colonel, I have come down now to apologize for not having waited upon you before. I ought to have done so, sir—I ought to have done so. But I have been over-occupied. I pray you to excuse me, sir.”