While we lay in this old cotton-shed, thirteen of the prisoners conceived and executed a plan of escape. They succeeded in scaling the walls, and wandered about the country for some time; but being unacquainted with the geographical features of the locality, were all subsequently recaptured, and again brought to the prison. For this attempted escape, several were shot, and others were loaded with huge chains. In the midst of this severe punishment they never once repined, but looked forward with ardent hope to a period when they might again be permitted to defend the ensign of liberty they so dearly cherished. Many who had previously been “conservative” in their views of the peculiar institution, now realized a modification of their sentiments, while the universal conviction seemed to be that this system of human bondage had been the parent source of all our national dissensions.
Captain Troy seemed to derive special delight in practising almost every species of deception upon the defenceless prisoners. He frequently cheered us with assurances that our imprisonment would soon terminate, and that we would be on our way homeward in a short time. All these hopes would as quickly give place to saddening disappointments, for in none of his declarations was there the least shadow of truth! One day he entered and told us that we had been exchanged, and ordered us to immediately prepare for our departure. Then we realized “how deep a gloom one beam of hope enlightens,” and in our fancy, already treading the soil of liberty, lost no time in making all necessary preparations to quit the land of chains and cruelty. Nor had we much to prepare—a few moments only, and we stood ready for our exodus. The minutes dragged lazily on that were to introduce us to freedom; but what was our unspeakable vexation and chagrin to learn that we had been the victims of a cruel hoax, perpetrated through sheer diabolism.
One bright and beautiful summer morning, however, legitimate orders came for our instantaneous departure, and, as before, we were soon ready. At eleven o’clock, we stepped aboard the cars, and were soon whirled from this Sodomic city to await the gradual developments of our destiny unknown. Two hundred and fifty miles brought us to the city of Columbus, Georgia, on the Chattahoochee river. The crowd that met us here was composed of remarkably coarse material, and as far as we could perceive, seamed to be an average of the staple human product in that locality. They saluted us with such epithets as “blue-bellied Yankees,” “dirty nigger-thieves,” &c., exhausting the entire slave-pen vocabulary, the reigning vernacular.
I regret that I am compelled to record the defection of one of our party, whom we had supposed to be in hearty sympathy with us, but, who, as the sequel will show, was co-operating with the enemy. Our first suspicions were aroused by the tender regard shown him by the rebel officials and ladies; but when we came to Columbus, his designs and character became more and more apparent. Of him we shall hereafter speak more at length.
The city in which we had temporarily halted quartered a large force of rebel soldiers, the majority of them better clad than any we had yet met. The place itself, extending one mile and a quarter in the direction of the river, and about half a mile toward the interior, and numbering a population of nearly nine thousand, was a beautiful one. I observed a number of unfinished buildings, erected most probably before the war, but now standing exposed and weather-beaten, with no roofs to protect them from the sun and rain. The people here seemed determined to prolong the war to the last, confident of ultimate success.
[CHAPTER VII.]
Macon—A Southern Unionist in the Rebel Army—Beneath a Georgia Sun—Secession Speech—Thoughts of Home—Political Prisoners—Horrible Place—Offer of the Gospel—Lieutenant A. P. Collins—Contemplated Escape—Robes of Blood!—Pinning a Federal Soldier to the Ground.
We were next taken to Macon, Georgia. Traveling by night in box-cars, we had little opportunity to see the country. We were much annoyed on this trip by drunken, profane, and sleepy guards. Their cuffs and curses were almost too intolerable to be borne.