With me, this admonition was not needed, my only ambition was to get back to my command and again mount my horse and resume my duties. For this purpose I sought out Senator Oldham from Texas, who went with me to the War Department and secured me a pass from the Secretary of War, to go to Greenville, East Tennessee, where I learned the Rangers were camped and in due time made my way over there and found them in a deep snow.
CHAPTER XI
The Inhumanity of the Federal Government.
In reviewing my prison experience and observation, I find that I omitted to mention a case at Bowling Green, which will give the reader a fair idea of the danger of capture in territory occupied by the Federal Army and now take occasion to recall the case of John R. Lisle, a sergeant in Morgan’s command, who was permitted to visit his home near Russellville, Kentucky, on a short furlough and was shot down in his own home, in the bosom of his family, by some Tory neighbors, the ball striking him on top of the head, which temporarily stunned him and while on the floor, senseless, they rushed in and secured his capture. He had on a new gray Confederate uniform and when searched, had an order from General Morgan to notify all of their men whom he met or had an opportunity to convey the instructions, to report back to their command, having overstayed their furlough.
I got acquainted with Lisle as soon as I entered the prison and found him a very bright, intelligent gentleman. He was then being tried by court martial on the charge of being a spy and convicted on this order of Morgan’s, ordering men back to their command. During the trial he made a pencil memorandum of the proceedings of the court martial and finally, losing his temper one day, blessed out the court martial, telling them that he was satisfied they were after his blood and to stop their mockery of a trial, to go ahead and take his life, lead him out and shoot him. The court martial found him guilty and assessed his punishment at death by hanging. As soon as the findings of the court martial were returned from General Burnside’s headquarters, approved, he was taken down into the lower room and had irons forged on him, taken over to the court house under special guard to await the day of his execution. While at the court house his wife and oldest son, a boy about fifteen, were permitted to see him, when he smuggled the memoranda he had made of the proceedings of the court martial to his wife, with instructions to send his boy to General Bragg’s headquarters, then near Tullahoma, Tennessee, with this memoranda, satisfied that our Government would demand his exchange as a prisoner of war, putting some Federal officer in confinement, as hostage. After he was taken out of the prison we were not permitted to learn anything more about his fate.
During my imprisonment at Point Lookout, Maryland, a batch of about five hundred prisoners from Johnson’s Island were received there. Hastening to the gate to watch their coming in, thinking perhaps I might see some acquaintances, I met John R. Lisle, who had just been released from a dungeon at Johnson’s Island, where he had been ever since he was moved from Bowling Green in irons—confined in this dungeon and for the first time then treated as a prisoner of war. There is hardly a doubt but designating a couple of Federal officers as hostages for his safety, had the desired effect and saved his life. I left him at Point Lookout with the balance of the prisoners, from whence he was finally sent around for exchange. I had a letter from one of our prison companions near Bowling Green, about eight years ago, saying that Lisle finally returned South and to his home in Kentucky, where he died only a few years before this letter was written.
In order to give the reader an idea of the intense hatred on the part of the Lincoln Government, it might be well here to note that in the very beginning of hostilities they adopted a policy to degrade the Southern Army in the estimation of their own people, as well as that of foreign countries. In order to carry out such policy the War Department issued an order that all executions of Confederate soldiers convicted by court martial, should be by hanging—a felon’s death—which order was never modified and was carried out in its letter and spirit, never in any case permitting an exception.
In this connection I would mention a case in point, which occurred while I was a prisoner and has repeatedly been reported in the papers of the North and South. The case was a Colonel Johnston of the Confederate Army, in conjunction with a lieutenant, whose name I have forgotten, entering the Federal lines as spies. Colonel Johnston was armed with a fictitious order from Secretary of War Stanton to proceed to Murfreesboro, Franklin and Nashville, Tennessee, and inspect the Federal works at these places. They called one evening at Franklin, presented the Secretary of War’s order, which seemed to be genuine, when the colonel commanding received them very courteously and rode around with them, inspecting his works. Colonel Johnston also stated to him that he was just from General Rosencranz’s headquarters, where he had inspected the works around Murfreesboro. After the inspection of the Franklin works Colonel Johnston told the colonel in command that he was compelled to go to Nashville that night and insisted on leaving at once for Nashville, although dark had set in. The colonel tried to persuade him to spend the night with him but all to no purpose. After Colonel Johnston and the lieutenant had been gone perhaps a half hour the colonel got suspicious and wired General Rosencranz for information, and General Rosencranz replied that there had been no such men there, that evidently they were spies, to not fail to capture them and order a drumhead court martial. The colonel then immediately ordered his horse and with a sergeant, pursued Colonel Johnston and the lieutenant, caught up with them some six or eight miles on the road to Nashville, and insisted that they must go back with him and spend the night, which they did. On their arrival at the colonel’s headquarters he immediately had them searched and found ample evidence on their persons that they were Confederate soldiers, acting as spies, notably the sword of Colonel Johnston’s was inscribed “C. S. A.,” and Colonel Johnston readily admitted they were spies.
During the session of the court martial Colonel Johnston made himself known to the colonel commanding, who then recognized him as a classmate at West Point. He then made an eloquent appeal to the court martial to save the life of the lieutenant, telling them that he was unaware, when they started on this expedition, of its object and finally begged them to have him shot, to permit him to die a soldier’s and not a felon’s death. He said to the colonel, “When you rode up we both had our pistols out, under the capes of our overcoats and could have killed you easily, thereby saving our lives, but the thought of killing an old classmate without giving him a chance for his life overruled my better judgment and I decided that I might talk out of it, thereby sparing your life,” but all to no purpose, his pleadings were ignored and he had to meet his fate by hanging.
After the defeat of the Federal Army at the first battle of Manassas, many wagonloads of handcuffs, put up in barrels, were captured, which were intended to be placed on the entire Confederate Army when captured, and marched into Washington City, wearing these bracelets.
Among Mr. Lincoln’s earliest proclamations was the one declaring medicines contraband of war, thus depriving millions of sick of medicines, one of the most brutal and inhuman orders ever published by a civilized Government.