Within the prison-camp, affairs had not grown brighter. There was increased sickness with despondency and (for so small a party) many deaths. Two Massachusetts officers had died early. Then the consumptive lieutenant’s light had flickered, and with fitful changes grown more and more dim, until it softly expired. A week later, as some of us were awaiting impatiently the breakfast-whistle of our cook, an officer ran hurriedly past to the guard-line, and calling to the surgeon, said, “Come quickly, Doctor, Lieutenant Hayes is dead!” The merry-hearted Irishman lay in his hammock in the composure of an easy sleep. His light had gone out in a single instant. Later, our friend, Mr. Parce, grew weaker. An order came to send the “citizen prisoners” to Mexico; it did not revive him. His strength waned, but his placid cheerfulness was still undisturbed. “It is a bad sign,” said one of his friends, “if he were only cross and fretful, we might hope.” The sign did not pass away; and with the prospect of home and liberty held before him he died. We knew that at this rate, another year would leave very few survivors to be carried from the camp.
One gloomy evening, as we sat pondering and talking over our affairs, rumor came in and told us a new tale. It said that the prisoners were to be paroled and sent forthwith to the Federal lines. The rumor was confirmed within a day or two by Major Barnes; but when the paroling officer came, it appeared that it was not altogether true; the seamen and privates were to be paroled; the officers were to be sent to Camp Ford.
It behooved us now to find ways and means for carrying our remaining effects to their new abode. By the aid of Major Barnes we succeeded in chartering two wagons for fifteen hundred dollars. We also secured an old hack to carry Mrs. Stratford and four sick officers at fifty dollars apiece. Some of us strove hard to purchase a poor horse or cheap pony that would carry us at any gait. In this race honor compels me to confess that the effrontery of the navy completely distanced the army. Early one morning the camp rang with cries of “Here’s yer mule.” Through the admiring throng appeared an animal of that description towed in by Captain Dillingham. It was a peculiar animal—small, old, ugly, vicious, and one-eyed. The Captain had bought him on our joint account, and had paid for him one hundred and fifty dollars in the currency of the Confederate States of North America. This alarmingly low price was due to the recent loss of his left optic, causing a dangerous sore, which, the vendor thought, would not prove fatal before we reached Camp Ford. The example was speedily followed by Captain Crocker of the “Clifton,” who bought another mule, and by Captain Johnson of the “Sachem,” who bought a third, and by Surgeon Sherfy of the “Morning Light,” who bought an old “calico” horse that the sailors immediately named “Quinine.” The army, either from excess of modesty or excess of poverty, did not succeed, I regret to say, in buying anything.
“Can we ride there on a mule bare-back?” was the question. “Decidedly not,” was the answer.
Yet a good saddle in Texas would cost as much as a good horse. In this state of doubt we were relieved by purchasing of a contraband an old wooden “tree” with a strap or two and a piece of raw-hide hanging to it. It bore about the same relation to a saddle that a pair of old wheels do to a cart. But we went to work. And here again the army was eclipsed by the navy. I had been a cavalry officer, and thought I knew a thing or two about broken saddles, and accounted myself fertile in such expedients, but the Captain borrowed a sailor’s needle and palm-thimble; brought out an old marlin-spike and some rope, and stitched and spliced with a neatness and rapidity that threw me in the shade. Trunk straps were speedily transferred and changed into girths, some rope was spliced and lashed around a wooden shoe till it became a stirrup, and pieces of raw-hide were bound to the “tree” till it fairly grew to be a saddle.
As the time of departure approached another subject engrossed our attention. Eating continued to be the chief thought and passion of our lives. Whatever could be bought to eat we bought. Our stoves ran literally night and day in baking hard-tack; and we, duly instructed by a professional cracker-baker, pounded dough till our arms ached.
There was still another subject of interest to many. A large part of the officers belonged either to the navy or to new regiments. They were entirely innocent of having slept out a night in their lives, and knew nothing of marches and bivouacs. The fuss which they made about this expected movement was in the highest degree amusing to those who, by virtue of a year or two’s service, dubbed themselves veterans. They looked on with smiles as they saw the others making good blankets into poor shelter-tents, and winked to each other when they heard the new men confidently assure one another that they could stand it now, even if there should be a wet night upon the march.
After some delay there came in five or six impressed wagons and a squadron of stalwart men mounted on large, well-fed horses. They were chiefly stock breeders from the prairies, and boasted of being the best mounted troop in Texas. All of these men owned the horses they rode, and many brought with them a led horse and servant. They were supposed to be men of unquestionable secession sentiments, and were employed chiefly in hunting down conscripts and guarding prisoners.
On the ninth of December our seamen and privates left us, and we were notified to be ready on the eleventh. Our two wagons came down—a quantity of yapon was gathered and dried—a last baking of biscuit was made, and our stoves were duly incased in open boxes with beckets so as to be readily loaded and unloaded.
A move is always interesting; after months of dreary idleness it is exciting. Happy did we seem, and happy did we feel as on the cold, foggy morning we marched down the “wood road,” crossed the little brook, and left Camp Groce at last behind us. The new Captain—a tall, powerful Texan, with a determined eye and stern, compressed lips—evidently understood his business. He kept us well together, managed his own men with few words and great judgment, and watched the column with close vigilance. The one-eyed mule behaved with gravity and decorum, never showing any unnecessary signs of life or unseemly gayety, except once when he slipped his bridle and ran away like a deer.