"Holmes, Putnam, Bartlett, Peirson—Here"
And while this crazy wherry floats,
"Let's save our wounded," cries Revere.
Old State,—some souls are rudely sped—
This record for thy Twentieth Corps,—
Imprisoned, wounded, dying, dead,
It only asks,—"Has Sparta more?"
The tobacco warehouse which we occupied, is on the main street of Richmond. It was similar to several other buildings and they were all used as Military Prisons, and all called Libby Prison. It is a large, three-story building and built as it was, in a most substantial manner, was well adapted for a Military Prison. The first floor was allotted to the officers captured, some 70 in number, and the other stories filled with the men, perhaps 250 of them. In the centre of the lower or officers' floor is placed the heavy machinery for pressing and preparing the tobacco, thus dividing the space into two equal sections, and occupying one-half of the floor space, which was 65 x 45 feet.
The windows on the street floor are well protected by iron bars, while those opposite are unprovided with bars, and open upon the yard, but guarded by sentinels stationed there, with orders to shoot any prisoners in either story who lean out of the windows. Seven men were shot by these guardsmen while I was confined there. Those dying in the nearby hospital were taken to this yard for shipment elsewhere in wagons.
We had no inducement to peer inquisitively from the windows. The windows on the street, however, afforded us some more interesting views. Some of the towns-people were almost always outside-lookers-in, and occasionally someone would, when unnoticed by the guard at the entrance, show a sign of sympathy. We frequently saw Jeff Davis riding by, and we always took pains to regale him with pertinent remarks befitting his high rank, or with some applicable song. One song was called the Prison Song, to the tune of,—"John Brown's Body lies a-Slumbering in the Ground." The words, descriptive of our situation, I do not remember, but the refrain ran,—"Roll on Sweet Moments, Roll on, and let the poor prisoners go home, go home."