'Question. Will you state what happened to you there? 'Answer. I was at the corner of the fort when they fetched in a flag for a surrender. Some of them said the major stood a while, and then said he would not surrender. They continued to fight a while; and after a time the major started and told us to take care of ourselves, and I and twenty more men broke for the hollow. They ordered us to halt, and some of them said, 'God d—n 'em, kill 'em!' I said, 'I have surrendered.' I had thrown my gun away then. I took off my cartridge-box and gave it to one of them, and said, 'Don't shoot me;' but they did shoot me, and hit just about where the shoe comes up on my leg. I begged them not to shoot me, and he said,' God d—n you, you fight with the niggers, and we will kill the last one of you!' Then they shot me in the thick of the thigh, and I fell; and one set out to shoot me again, when another one said, 'Don't shoot the white fellows any more.
'Question. Did you see any person shot besides yourself? 'Answer. I didn't see them shot. I saw one of our fellows dead by me.
'Question. Did you see any buildings burned? 'Answer. Yes, sir. While I was in the major's headquarters they commenced burning the buildings, and I begged one of them to take me out and not let us burn there; and he said, 'I am hunting up a piece of yellow flag for you.' I think we would have whipped them if the flag of truce had not come in. We would have whipped them if we had not let them get the dead-wood on us. I was told that they made their movement while the flag of truce was in. I did not see it myself, because I had sat down, as I had been working so hard.
'Question. How do you know they made their movement while the flag of truce was in? 'Answer. The men that were above said so. The rebs are bound to take every advantage of us. I saw two more white men close to where I was lying. That makes three dead ones, and myself wounded."
Later on during the war the policy of massacring was somewhat abated, that is it was not done on the battle-field. The humanity of the confederates in Virginia permitted them to take their black prisoners to the rear. About a hundred soldiers belonging to the 7th Phalanx Regiment, with several of their white officers, were captured at Fort Gilmer on the James River, Va., and taken to Richmond in September, 1864. The following account is given of their treatment in the record of the Regiment:
"The following interesting sketches of prison-life, as experienced by two officers of the regiment, captured at Fort Gilmer, have been kindly furnished. The details of the sufferings of the enlisted men captured with them we shall never know, for few of them ever returned to tell the sad story.
"'An escort was soon formed to conduct the prisoners to Richmond, some seven or eight miles distant, and the kinder behavior of that part of the guard which had participated in the action was suggestive of the freemasonry that exists between brave fellows to whatever side belonging. On the road the prisoners were subjected by every passer-by, to petty insults, the point in every case, more or less obscene, being the color of their skin. The solitary exception, curiously enough, being a nymph du pave in the suburbs of the town.[30]
"'About dusk the prisoners reached the notorious Libby, where the officers took leave of their enlisted comrades—from most of them forever. The officers were then searched and put collectively in a dark hole, whose purpose undoubtedly was similar to that of the 'Ear of Dionysius.' In the morning, after being again searched, they were placed among the rest of the confined officers, among whom was Capt. Cook, of the Ninth, taken a few weeks previously at Strawberry Plains. Some time before, the confederates had made a great haul on the Weldon Railroad, and the prison was getting uncomfortably full of prisoners and—vermin. After a few days sojourn in Libby, the authorities prescribed a change of air, and the prisoners were packed into box and stock cars and rolled to Salisbury, N. C. The comforts of this two day's ride are remembered as strikingly similar to those of Mr. Hog from the West to the Eastern market before the invention of the S. F. P. C. T. A.
"'At Salisbury the prisoners were stored in the third story of an abandoned tobacco factory, occupied on the lower floors by political prisoners, deserters, thieves and spies, who during the night made an attempt on the property of the new-comers, but were repulsed after a pitched battle. In the morning the Post-Commandant ordered the prisoners to some unused negro quarters in another part of the grounds, separated from the latter by a line of sentries. During the week train-loads of prisoners—enlisted men—arrived and were corralled in the open grounds. The subsequent sufferings of these men are known to the country, a parallel to those of Andersonville, as the eternal infamy of Wirtz is shared by his confrere at Salisbury—McGee.
"'The weakness, and still more, the appalling ferocity of the guards, stimulated the desire to escape; but when this had become a plan it was discovered, and the commissioned prisoners were at once hurried off to Danville, Va., and there assigned the two upper floors of an abandoned tobacco warehouse, which formed one side of an open square. Here an organization into messes was effected, from ten to eighteen in each—to facilitate the issue of rations. The latter consisted of corn-bread and boiled beef, but gradually the issues of meat became like angels' visits, and then for several months ceased altogether. It was the art of feeding as practised by the Hibernian on his horse—only their exchange deprived the prisoners of testing the one straw per day.