“But why wasn’t the little boy’s hair blown off, you black scamp?”
“Why—w-why—golly, does’nt you see plain ’nuff how it was? Why, DARE WAS A MAN WID A BALD HEAD A-STANDIN’ A-HOLDIN’ HIS HAR ON!”
Just so the secession leaders falsify, and thus they attempt to bolster up their improbable Confederacy. The whole compact is a libelous league with darkness!
Some of these pompous Southerners would treat us with a kind of counterfeit courtesy, which became to us even more disgusting than outright abuse. The rebel army is made up of a passive-minded, illiterate citizenship, officered by slave-owners and negro-drivers. The maximum of soldiers in a regiment is much smaller than in the Federal army, and each company has three Lieutenants. This gives the young men of aristocratic families an opportunity to wear shoulder-straps and lord it over the “poor white trash,” which compose the rank and file. I learned from the prison guards, many of whom would be loyal to the old Stars and Stripes if they dared, that the mass of the Southern armies have been forced by the most stringent and often cruel measures to take up arms against the United States Government.
At this place there were a number of political prisoners, and a few prisoners of war. Once we obtained leave to visit them. We were conducted by a vigilant guard to their apartments in an upper room of a very dilapidated building. We found about one hundred and fifty Mississippi citizens, such as were suspected of Union sentiments, in a most loathsome situation. Among them were three clergymen—one a Presbyterian, one a “United Brother,” and the other a Methodist. There was also a lawyer from Kentucky, named Halleck, who had been captured by Bishop General Polk. Halleck was a subject of the ecclesiastical body over which the Bishop ruled; but his loyalty to church did not save him from arrest and trouble for want of confidence in arch-treason. He had been dragged from his bed by a band of ruffians who tied his hands behind him, and forced him into a filthy prison where he lay for seven months in close confinement. He was finally permitted to share a room with thirty-five or forty other Unionists. At one time they were so shamefully neglected, that for three days they were unsupplied with any food. To prevent absolute starvation, they were obliged to beg the guards to assist them in stealing a barrel of soap-grease, which they devoured with a greedy relish! This was in the midst of the boasted chivalry of Columbus, Mississippi!
I should not forget to mention here the names of the ex-Governor of the State, Mr. Whitefield, and his son. They had human hearts, and extended to us some degree of kindness and sympathy. But these friendships were rare exceptions, and all sufficient, if reported to rebel officials, to call down vengeance on their heads. The people, to avoid suspicion and imprisonment, were compelled to practice all manner of apparent cruelties. In this building we began to feel the hateful oppressor’s power. We could hardly believe that any portion of our once united and happy country could be so soon, so darkly blighted by accursed treason!
While looking on the old, rusty walls of my prison-house, mocked and insulted by the jeering outside multitudes, I had time and heart for reflection. I thought of a familiar cottage amid the hills of Ohio, at that very hour all fair and free in the spring sunlight, the orchard blossoms, the opening flowers in garden and arbor, the dewy meadow grass, and the thousand charming scenes of my home! I thought of wife and children there—how they would wonder and fear at receiving no tidings from the one they loved. I thought of God and his cause—my country and her honor—my flag and her insulted glory. I thought of the poor Southern conscript, and the despised and fettered slave of the cotton-field, and my soul was stirred with mingled hope and compassion. Thinking of my home, my friends, my country, my wounds, my prison, I could but say:
“Patience, my soul, the Saviour’s feet were worn;
The Saviour’s heart and hands were weary too;
His garments stained, and travel-worn, and old,