I may state here that it is difficult to justify a falsehood. We ought to utter truth always, without exaggeration or prevarication, leaving consequences with God. We should do right without regard to results, for with consequences we have no business; but in this case the temptation to utter an untruth was great. These wicked men, thirsting for my blood, had no right to make me criminate myself or my coadjutors. It would have been wrong for me to give them the information they desired. Truth is too precious for a secessionist, thirsting for innocent blood. Had I refused to answer, they would have suspected that some of my fellow-prisoners aided us, and would have either forced me to tell who they were, or would have hanged me instantly for my refusal. If I had given information, and criminated those who had befriended us, they would have been severely punished, and I have been guilty of the basest ingratitude; I would have been shunned by the prisoners, and regarded as one of the meanest of men, one of the veriest wretches in existence; I could never again ask nor expect aid in a similar attempt to save myself from a violent death.
CHAPTER IV.
LIFE IN A DUNGEON.
Parson Aughey as Chaplain—Description of the Prisoners—Colonel Walter, the Judge Advocate—Charges and Specifications against Parson Aughey—A Citizen of the Confederate States—Execution of two Tennesseeans—Enlistment of Union Prisoners—Colonel Walter’s second visit—Day of Execution specified—Farewell Letter to my Wife—Parson Aughey’s Obituary penned by himself—Address to his Soul—The Soul’s Reply—Farewell Letter to his Parents—The Union Prisoners’ Petition to Hon. W. H. Seward—The two Prisoners and the Oath of Allegiance—Irish Stories.
I was remanded to jail on Sabbath, the 6th of July, 1862. On the day of my escape I had been elected chaplain. Captain Bruce asked permission for me to hold divine service, to which no special objection was made. I conducted the services as I would have done were I in my own pulpit. The best order was maintained by the prisoners, and a deep seriousness prevailed. The songs of Zion resounded through the prison-house, and a great concourse of soldiers assembled outside the guards in front of the door, causing considerable interruption by their noise and insulting language. Several officers, also, saw fit to come in and interrupt the services by conversing in a loud tone, and asking me how I liked my jewelry, referring to my fetters. The prisoners protested against their rude and ungentlemanly conduct, but with little effect. They sent a remonstrance to the commander of the post, but he treated it with silent contempt.
As the prisoners insisted upon it, I persisted in preaching, notwithstanding the persecutions endured, as long as I remained with them. We were a motley assemblage. Some were dressed in cloth of finest texture; others were clad in filthy rags. There were present the learned and the illiterate, the rowdy and the minister of the gospel, the holy and the profane, the saint and the sinner. All the Southern States, and every prominent religious denomination were represented. The youth in his nonage, and the gray-haired and very aged man were there. The superior and the subordinate were with us. The descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, were here on the same common level, for in our prison were Afric’s dark-browed sons, the descendants of Pocahontas, and the pure Circassian. Death is said to be THE great leveller; the dungeon at Tupelo was a great leveller. A fellow-feeling made us wondrous kind; none shared his morsel alone, and a deep and abiding sympathy for each other’s woes pervaded every bosom. When our fellow-prisoners were called to die, and were led through us with pallid brows, and agony depicted on their countenances, our expressions of sorrow and commiseration were not loud (through fear) but deep.
On Monday morning an officer entered; my name was called, and I arose from the floor on which I had been reclining. I recognised him as my old friend, Colonel H. W. Walter, of Holly Springs, Mississippi. After the ordinary salutations, he informed me that he was Judge Advocate, and that my trial would take place in a few days, and inquired whether I wished to summon any witnesses. I gave him the names and residences of several witnesses, but he refused to send for them, upon the plea that they were too near the Federal lines, and their cavalry might be in danger of capture were they to proceed thither. I told him that the cavalry which went in pursuit of me had visited that locality. He then wished to know what I desired to prove by those witnesses. I replied that I wished to prove that the specifications in the charge of being a spy were false.
“Your own admissions are sufficient to cause you to lose your life,” said the Colonel, “and I will not send for those witnesses.”