My Old Capitol Prison experience covered about three weeks of the hottest and, to me, the most disagreeable close and sultry days of a Washington summer.
I was a "prisoner of State" within the walls of the ugly old building during part of the months of August and September, 1862.
To one of my active temperament, the confinement at this particular time was made doubly annoying by the knowledge we, as prisoners, were permitted to obtain, in an unsatisfactory way, of course, of the important military movements that were then going on outside. We heard, in a half apologetic way, of the abandonment of the Peninsula by McClellan, or a change of base; and this news was received inside the prison by the inmates with cheers, that sent cold chills down my spine. The locks and bars, which were always in sight, as well as the bayonets of the armed sentry, that were everywhere in view from the windows, seemed to sink deeper into my heart, when I realized that Fredericksburg was also necessarily abandoned, and Geno in the hands of the Rebels. When the crowded inmates of the prison would form groups in the yard in the evening, and, in the wildest glee, openly congratulate each other on the prospect of their speedy release by Stonewall Jackson's men, when he should reach Washington, I felt, for obvious reasons, that I'd rather not be "released" by that sort of a crowd. This feeling was especially exhibited after the news of General Pope's disaster at the second battle of Bull Run, that occurred while I was locked up there. But I am getting over these three weeks in O. C. P., as we call it for short, a little prematurely.
Very few of the tourists who visit Washington are aware that within rifle-shot of the Capitol stands (in greatly altered shape, of course,) one of the most historic buildings about the city. A good-sized book might be printed about the Old Capitol, and yet not one-half the secrets the old walls could tell would have been told. It was within these walls that John C. Calhoun, in dreadful agony of mind and body, breathed his last on earth, and it is said that his last words were not those of peace and happiness. It seems a little odd that the same brick and mortar hid from the outside world the last dreadful agony of the arch-fiend Wirz. The Kit Carson G. A. R. Post, of Washington, of which I am a comrade, was organized over the same bier and in the same dungeon that contained the body of Wirz after execution, in the year of the assassination of Lincoln, and during the Presidency of Mr. Andrew Johnson.
IN OLD CAPITOL PRISON—I ADMIT THAT I BROKE DOWN COMPLETELY.
I spent my first night alone in a prison on the only cot the little hall-room contained. I had thrown myself upon it when I realized that Colonel Woods had closed and locked the door on me, after a polite "Good-night," without undressing myself. I admit that I broke down completely, and cried myself to sleep. I was simply broken-hearted when I recalled my previous dangerous services for the Government; could not understand why I should be so ruthlessly and heartlessly treated by the Secretary-of-War. It was my sensitive feelings that were so cruelly hurt.
In the morning I wakened, a hardened, stubborn, and, if I had been given the least chance, I should have shown myself an ugly, vindictive man. It seemed as if the boy in my nature had parted from me with those bitter tears, and when I roused myself it was with a determination to "do something"—I didn't know exactly what, but it was anything but a surrender, or to beg for my liberty.
The unlocking of the doors and the tramping of feet along the hallways, with the voices of the attendants in boisterous conversation with the inmates of the other part of the Hotel de O. C. P., were the sounds that first awakened me to this new life, as it were. As I had not undressed, I was out before the crowd got around, and enjoyed the opportunity of surveying my surroundings in quietness. As I have tried to explain, my room was right at the head of the hall stairs, on the L-part of the building, facing on A street north. The only window the room contained looked north, and, as there were in those days no buildings at all, of any size, in that part of the city, my view extended away across the country to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum on the northern hills. In the low foreground were the numerous trains of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, that were constantly going and coming out, the tracks being in full view. This sight of loaded cars speeding away to the North—to home and liberty—was not, you may be assured, exactly the thing calculated to make the close prisoner, who saw them from his window, feel any better contented with his prison. My first thoughts at this sight were, that I should quietly leap down the short distance from that window on to the pavement below, as it was but one story above the walk, where I might quietly glide over the open commons and "catch a train."
There were no bars to the windows, and the sash was not even fastened down, because of the necessity for ventilation, so that I was able to stick my head clearly outside, but I was paralyzed to discover on the first inspection that, down on the pavement below my window, every inch was being closely patrolled by a double guard of armed sentries, while the commons, a little distance off, were occupied as the camp for the outside-guard. That's exactly the way they had it arranged in 1862, and, I also observed very soon after my arrival, that there was an inside-guard pacing up and down the hallway in front of our open doors. The outside sentinels did not allow any one except their own officers on the pavement or street, in their front, so that communication in any shape or form was out of the question.