Observations of an Illinois Boy in Battle, Camp and Prisons—1861 to 1865

by Henry Harrison Eby

This occupation helped us to pass away some of the long, tedious hours of our confinement. Some perhaps do not understand what is meant by the word “grayback,” which I will now explain. A grayback is a small, carnivorous insect—or plainly speaking a louse—which infests the inner garments of a person who is unable to change his clothing frequently, which was the case with us in the prisons. In fact we never changed our garments while in prison. It was not stylish to do so, and if it had been we could not, as we possessed only what we had on our backs and they changed themselves. Some were obliged to wear their shirts until they literally wore off, or were kicked to pieces by the graybacks and fell from their backs. I will now explain what is meant by skirmishing. It was taking off our shirts, turning them inside out, and carefully searching for and killing the graybacks, which were sometimes very numerous, and tormented us in such a way at night that we were scarcely able to sleep.

Skirmishing for Graybacks.

The mode of killing these graybacks was as follows: As stated before, the garment was turned inside out, and then the game was soon found, overtaken and slain. Our weapons consisted of our thumb nails. The hands were placed near each other in about the position that a person would hold them when knitting with knitting needles, with the upper part of the thumb nails nearly touching. When in operation the movement of the hands was about the same as it would be when knitting. This work might properly have been called “knitting,” because nits were more numerous than graybacks. In the work mentioned above the results depended upon the amount of labor performed; the faster we worked the more we accomplished. These pests had become so numerous that it was all a well man could do to keep them within a reasonable limit. These miserable tormenters were always hungry like ourselves, because they had poor pasture feeding on our bodies. Sometimes when things in prison were reasonably quiet many of those insects would venture out on the vacant spaces of the floor, and it was amusing to us boys to watch their maneuvers. A number of us would sometimes be sitting in a row on the floor, with our backs to the wall, and suddenly our attention would be turned to a number of these pests in groups about the floor. Of course the boys would make remarks about their performance. Some would say: “Hello, the graybacks are going on dress parade.” Others declared they were foraging parties, looking for provisions, and would call out: “Look out, boys, they are looking you fellows over to find out which one of you has any meat left on him, and then they will go for you.” Those men who were weak and helpless were nearly eaten alive by these millions of parasites. It did not seem unreasonable when one of the men declared that he had seen a dead man with quarts of graybacks upon him. No doubt but that the days of these poor sick boys were materially shortened by these insects.

I used my boots for a pillow at night, while trying to sleep, by placing them together in a way that would locate the most congenial part of the boots next to and in contact with my head. I found a contrast between my pillow and one composed of good goose feathers, but the boot pillow was a decided improvement over the hard floor, and it was also the best that could be done under the circumstances, as we could get no rubbish of any kind to place under our heads, and I did not dare to take off my jacket to use as a pillow, or I would have chilled. The boot pillow was a severe test on the phrenological organs of the head. Some of my comrades feared that we might receive fatal injuries from the effects of our hard pillows, and others allowed that it would improve our fighting qualities by an enlargement of that organ. I was not the only one who endured the pangs of a hard pillow. Nearly or quite all suffered the same, in common. There was no partiality shown in this; the hardships were as free as water for all, and the hard pillow was not the only torture, when we tried to sleep in the Smith Prison. As I stated before, our clothing was thin, and what meat was left on us also thin. And when lying on the hard floor at night, trying to sleep, it seemed as if our bones were determined to punch holes through our grayback-eaten hides. Some thought if we ever got out of prison Uncle Sam would be obliged to patch us up, like a person would patch an old torn garment.

My opinion was that there would be but very few of us left that would be worth patching after the Southern Confederacy was through with us, and I think now that I was correct. No person can comprehend the extent of the intense suffering endured by the men in prison except those who were confined in them. We suffered a dozen things at the same time, that made us miserable. They occur to me as follows: Starvation, cold, bad ventilation, tormented by graybacks, filthy clothing, no opportunity for bathing, bad sanitation, close confinement, food of poor quality, soreness caused by sleeping on the bare floor, the sight of so much misery all about us, and the thought of being domineered over by a cruel keeper. I had the pleasure (?) of enjoying (?) with hundreds of other comrades all the hardships just mentioned, which was a great combination of torments and as I thought a severe dose.

Trading with the guards became an extensive business considering the amount of capital invested. Capital with us was very small, on account of our having been closely searched by the Confederates before entering prison. All money and valuables that could be found on our persons were confiscated, but they were unable to find all the greenbacks that the boys had hidden in their clothing in various ways.

When starvation began to take effect they used this money to purchase bread from the guards, at enormous prices. Some of the guards were very clever fellows, and would do favors for us when the officers were not about. Sometimes they furnished us with the Richmond papers, which was against the orders of the Confederacy. Thereby we were enabled to get a little of the outside news.

Sometime in November we received some rations from Uncle Sam, which were sent through the Confederate lines to us. This partly supplied us for about a week, after which we received no more during our imprisonment. Some days later I read an order in a Richmond paper as follows: “No more rations or clothing shall be allowed to come through the Confederate lines to prisoners of war in our possession.” Signed by those in authority in the Confederate government. They claimed that it was a disgrace for them to allow our government to feed us. The famous Confederate commander of cavalry, John Morgan, came into our prison one day in November. He seemed to be looking for some person or persons, as he passed through the room, but I never heard whether he found the one he was searching for. I well remember his looking us over very closely.

An Ohio boy, whose name I cannot recall, did some trading with the guards with the intention of procuring a Confederate uniform. The place where the trading was usually done was at the foot of the lower stairway, where a door opened into a reception room, which also had a door opening into the street or on to the sidewalk. A guard was stationed at the foot of the stairway, and another at the door which opened from this room into the street. This constituted a double guard.