We remained here until the evening of Feb. 5, and shortly after dark were called out under a strong guard, when we met a small number of other prisoners bound for the same place that we were. A line of guards surrounded us, and as we started for the train the captain of the guards yelled out: “Guards, shoot the first man who offers to run.” This expression, of course, was uttered to intimidate us prisoners. We boarded the train and were soon en route for the city of Richmond, riding all night and until some time during the day of Feb. 6, when we arrived in the city, and were soon transferred to a prison called the Pemberton Building. This was a large, four-story brick building. In it we found confined a large number of Federal prisoners. The Pemberton Building was located on the opposite side of the street from Libby Prison, and about one hundred feet farther to the southeast. The street between Libby and the Pemberton Building extended southeast and northwest. From the windows of our prison we had a good view of Libby and its surroundings. I remained in this prison six days. While there, on the night of Feb. 9, over one hundred of the officers confined in Libby made their escape through a long tunnel, which had previously been made by them.
This extended from the cellar under Libby, through under a street at the east end of the building; its exit being under a one-story wooden shed, on a vacant lot just across the street from our prison. The prisoners came out of the tunnel under this shed, and made their escape under cover of the darkness of the night. The following morning I saw quite a number of Confederate officers and guards walking about in the vicinity of Libby apparently more or less excited. We could look from our windows and see what was going on about the streets. The news of the escape of the Federal officers soon reached our prison, which caused no little excitement among us. The Confederates still continued their search about Libby, but did not seem to discover the whereabouts of the tunnel until late in the afternoon, when I saw them digging a hole at the east end of the prison. I supposed they were in search of the tunnel. Nearly one-half of those who escaped through the tunnel were recaptured and brought back to prison the following day. I saw a number of them as they marched back into Libby. Poor fellows, they seemed to be downcast, and I could sympathize with them, having just been through a similar experience. We remained in the Pemberton Building until Feb. 13, when we were transferred to the prison pen on Belle Island.
Snodgrass House, on Snodgrass Hill, Chickamauga Battlefield.
CHAPTER XIII.
My Second Entrance into Belle Island Prison Pen, Feb. 13, 1864.
The day that I entered the island the second time, Feb. 13, a Confederate preacher delivered a very long sermon to us, and tried to convert us to the Southern Confederacy cause, but with poor success.
We could not be converted to an institution that tried to freeze us and starve us. He was listened to attentively for a long time when he remarked before closing that he didn’t know as he was doing any good talking to us, it was like casting pearls before swine, and he would close his remarks. One of our boys told him that he might have stopped long ago if he had wanted to, as we would have had no objections whatever.
On entering the prison pen on the island, for the second time, my spirits sank to zero, for the prospect before me was certainly a gloomy one. This was a low and barren island, over which the cold February winds swept from up and down the James River, making it very uncomfortable for us, exposed as we were to the elements of the weather. I could now see a great change in the appearance of the prisoners since my short stay of six days here, in October, 1863, and not for the better, but very much worse. Many were nearly destitute of clothing, and had been so starved and exposed to the severe weather that they were mere skeletons, slowly moving about. Some of them were being fairly eaten alive by graybacks. From lack of proper means of keeping clean, and only the icy river water in which to wash, many were nearly as black as negroes. Some indeed were too weak to keep themselves clean, and too discouraged to care. I was informed that there were about 8,000 of us on the island at this time, and a large number, perhaps several thousand, including Herrick and myself, were without shelter of any kind, although we were more fortunate than some of them. During our stay here we received no fuel for fires. I saw a few sticks of wood, which were being whittled into splinters and small fires made with them, around which hovered the poor, shivering, almost lifeless human forms, sitting upon the frozen ground. This wood being pitch pine, produced very black smoke, which blackened the faces of the poor fellows who tried to warm over the little fires and caused them to appear still more hideous. Those of the prisoners who were without shelter contrived different ways to keep from freezing at night, while trying to sleep. I slept in a shallow rounding ditch in the ground, in which I lay also in the daytime, when becoming tired of walking about, standing or sitting on the frozen ground. This protected me to some extent from the cold, piercing winds which blew over the island, but it was very uncomfortable during a rainstorm, of which we experienced several during our confinement there. During a rainstorm the sand and ground about me would become saturated with water, and keep my clothing wet for days, and I would become so chilled and numbed that I would be scarcely able to get up. One cold night, while trying to sleep, my toes were frozen so that the skin peeled off sometime after. While we were here in this condition the water in the river froze over nearly the whole of its surface. I saw ice over three inches in thickness.
A day seemed to me as long as a month. Rations were very small, consisting almost entirely of unsifted cornmeal, stirred up with water, and often without salt, as salt was a scarce article with the Confederacy. This was baked in cakes about the size of a brick, only about one and one-half inches thick. One-half a cake of this size was given each man for a day’s ration, and nothing else with it, with the exception that two or three times while on the island we received beans or meat. This was generally entirely devoured at once, leaving nothing for the other two meals, and yet we remained nearly as hungry as before eating. Our drink consisted of icy river water, which did not warm a person very much, thoroughly chilled as we were.