Their deeds of mercy were too many for record here. No circumstances too repulsive, no night too dark, no duty too onerous, but they were ready for every good word and work. Where suffering and pain were, there were they present to alleviate and sympathize, and many a poor fellow, now gone to his long home, blessed them for prayers and consolations in the night of death.
These noble philanthropists determined to ask for something to mitigate the sufferings of the prisoners, and accordingly made an appeal through a humane surgeon for some bedding on which the dying men might rest. This man carried the message to the commandant, Major Rylander, but that dignitary utterly refused to listen to the appeal. The surgeon then endeavored to awaken his humanity and Christian feeling; but he replied to all this, by saying very emphatically:
“Sir, I have laid off my robe of righteousness, and put on one of blood, and the best way to get rid of these d——d Yankees is to let them lay there and rot.”
Such was the conduct of this man Rylander.
We were compelled still to submit to our fate, though we employed every effort in our power to alleviate the sufferings of our dying friends. One case, in particular, attracted my attention. A political prisoner named Foote, who had formerly been a captain of a steamboat plying on the Florida rivers, being suspected as a Union man, was arrested and thrown into prison. He was occasionally visited by his wife, and so careful were the rebels, notwithstanding their boasted superiority, that two guards with loaded guns were invariably detailed to dog the footsteps of this woman. A system of perfect espionage was constantly maintained, and so suspicious were the rebels of each other, that they would not permit a single guard, in any case, to accompany a prisoner. An instance of the most barbarous torture it was ever my lot to behold, I witnessed while here. It was inflicted upon a young man from Illinois, for some offence unknown to me. He was taken and stretched upon the ground, face downward, his legs and arms drawn as far apart as possible, and then pinned to the ground by driving stakes across them; and in this state of terrible torture was he left for twenty-four hours.
Acts like these filled our hearts with the most gloomy forebodings, and we began to seriously deliberate the propriety of consummating our previously contemplated escape. We were about three hundred and fifty miles from the nearest point where the stars and stripes could be reached by water, and two hundred and eighty miles by land. The distance seemed to be insurmountable, to say nothing of the impossibility of surviving the hot weather. But the hope of liberty gave zest to the project, and we determined at once and for ever to abandon the scene of so much horror and misery.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
Preparing the Way—Dave—Pepper, Matches, and Fish-hooks—Exchange of Clothing—Passing the Guard-lines—Frightened Horse—Halted—Passed—In the Woods—Hidden in the Swamp—Pursued—A Night Journey in the Cane-brake—Manna.