CHAPTER XII.
EXPERIENCES IN REBEL PRISONS.—LIBBY, MACON.
We were hurried to the rear, the rebels relieving us of our hats, belts and other personal property as we went. Captain Hume had been a prisoner before and thought he understood the rules of civilized warfare. A rebel officer demanded my belt. Captain Hume said, “Don’t give it to him, Jack. Private property is to be respected, and all he has a right to claim is your sword.” But the rebel was not so far advanced as this in his study of the articles of war, and turning on Hume, with his revolver and a volley of oaths, made him give up his belt. I gave him mine without more argument. Sergt. J. E. Hodgkins of Company K had received a nice little ounce hat from home. A big rebel standing near the battery on the hill saw it and, like a hawk after its prey, sailed for it, snatching it from his head and throwing him his old one, which would weigh five pounds.
This treatment was a surprise to us. Few regiments in the Army of the Potomac had captured more prisoners than the 19th, yet I never saw private property of any kind taken from a rebel or heard an ungentlemanly word spoken; on the contrary, had often seen the boys share their rations with them and in every way make them comfortable.
When well beyond the lines we were halted and took account of stock. We found that we numbered sixteen hundred men and sixty-seven commissioned officers.
As we had placed our colors in the rear of the line,—having dug a pit for Mike Scannell and the other sergeant,—we trusted they were safe, but soon a rebel horseman rode by with them, and trotting in his rear we saw Mike. “How came you to lose the colors, Mike?” I asked. “I’ll tell you,” said he. “We lay in the pit dug for us, and the first we knew the rebels came rushing over and said, ‘You damned Yankee, give me that flag.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it is twenty years since I came to this country, and you are the first man who ever called me a Yankee. You can take the flag for the compliment.’”
We could not understand how the rebels got in our rear, but from the best information we could obtain, learned that the 2d and 5th corps were ordered to advance their lines. The 2d did as ordered. By some mistake the 5th did not, and there was a large gap between the two corps. The rebels had seen this, and keeping us hotly engaged in the front, had sent a division around our left flank, and the result was we were “gobbled.”