A man by the name of Hamilton Yett, who was a strong rebel, came into the prison and said he wanted “to look at the animals!” Such an expression from a man enraged the prisoners, and one of them, named Peter Reece, picked up a piece of brick from an old fire-place and threw it at Yett, striking him on the head and fracturing his skull. In a few minutes the soldiers came in the prison and took Reece out and hung him to a tree close to the prison, where he hung for three days. His wife and other women came and took the body down and hauled it away, no man being allowed to assist them.
Some of the men who were in this prison were taken to Tuscaloosa, some made their escape, and some were killed while trying to escape. There was a man by the name of Philip Bewley, who was a Methodist preacher, a good man and as strong a Union man as there was in East Tennessee. While in this prison he would pray for the success of the North and for the men who were with him in prison. He lived until after the war.
In this connection a little incident that occurred after the war may not be out of place in this small volume.
There was in our regiment a man by the name of Walker, who had one of his eyes shot out in the campaign in Georgia. When the war was over he came home, studied for the ministry and became a noted preacher.
In 1867 there was a big revival in the same town, Parrottsville, about three hundred yards from the old school-house in which Bewley and the other Union men were confined and where Reece was hung. While the revival was going on one night at the church, Walker was praying the Lord to guide and direct the people in the way they ought to go, and that all might get to Heaven; Bewley rose up and said,
“Yes, thank the Lord, Brother Walker; there will be no rebels up there to shoot our eyes out!”
I heard this myself, and was not surprised, for he was the wittiest man I ever heard. It raised no excitement, for it was just after the war and prejudice was running high at that time; but, thank God, the war has been ended for forty-five years, and the North and the South have united, and we are now one people, one Nation, under one flag.
FIFTY YEARS AFTER THE WAR.