The Bright Side of Prison Life / Experience, In Prison and Out, of an Involuntary Soujouner in Rebellion

by S. A. Swiggett

The next day some mule sheds were emptied of their living contents, and our boys were quartered in the vacated premises. We were then detailed for guard duty at Fort Pickering, which service we performed for several days, still having the privilege of enjoying our commodious quarters. It was hardly fair to turn the mules out into the cold to give shelter to a regiment of new recruits, but as the mules made no "kick" at this change, why should we object?

The spare hours of my first night as officer of the guard were spent in trying to get some sleep on the ground. It was raining hard, and it seemed impossible to find any spots which were not hollows; at any rate, I could not lie down without finding myself in a pool of water when I awoke. My reflections and comments need not be recorded.

Christmas passed with scarcely a knowledge of the fact, and about the first of the year we were sent to Helena, Ark., where General Prentiss had about 20,000 men.

We were landed, had tents issued to us, and camped on the river bank for several days. No stoves were to be had, and the damp, cold weather made fires a luxury. How to have shelter and warmth at the same time was a puzzle.

Spurred on by the emergency, my thoughts ran very fast, until they were brought to a stop and concentrated upon one idea. All my hunting about the neighborhood failed to result in finding any bricks. Some old pieces lay about, and these were gathered up, together with some old camp kettles. The latter were battered as nearly flat as possible, and then a trench was dug from just inside the front of my tent to and under the rear end. The sides of the trench were built up a few inches, the old kettles placed across, and the whole heaped over with sand. We built a sort of chimney upon the outside end of the long tunnel thus made, and a fire was then started at the inner end of the opening. The draught drew the smoke and heat through the extemporized radiator, and before long we had the sand giving out a very satisfactory degree of warmth. Many pleasant hours were spent in spinning yarns while warming out feet on this product of necessity.

The 47th Indiana was soon ordered away on a campaign, and we were moved into the permanent quarters which they had occupied at Fort Curtis. They had left a portable bakery, all their cooking and heating stoves, as well as many smaller conveniences, and of these we took possession, thus finding compensation for some of our hardships.

It is an unwritten military law—at least it was so decided by our general at the time—that property abandoned in quarters becomes the property of the next occupants, by right of possession.

In about ten days after our removal to the cabin I was awakened one morning by a captain in the regiment recently moved out. He announced the fact that they had returned and were in camp on the hill, about half a mile distant. The courteous manners of the man, my realization of what it then meant to be in a dog-tent without fire, and my confidence in my own ability to find a substitute, induced me to give him my stove, formerly his. A little later he came back with some of his men, and was about to take away all the other stoves and things left behind. The company was turned out under arms to resist, but the warfare was confined to words, and the dispute was settled by the decision mentioned.

It is pertinent to state here that I was in command of my company at the time, owing to the absence of our chief on other duty, and that his promotion shortly after gave me my rank as captain.

When the dispute was settled it again became necessary to find some means of warming my hut. With regrets for having been so good-natured, I set about devising another substitute for a stove. More scraps of bricks could not be found, and stones were as scarce. Finally, an old piece of machinery was discovered, which gave some hopes of success. It was a hollow tube, about two feet long and ten inches in diameter, with a small hole quite close to one of the open ends, and this was planted upright upon the earthen floor of my cabin. We procured an old soup kettle, cut a hole in the bottom for a pipe and capped the cylinder with it; but the question of a stove-pipe was a more serious matter. Not a piece was to be found. The next morning my stove had a pipe, and a fire was merrily burning within the old tube, sending out a heat which made me glad that the stove had been given up. The only trouble with the new arrangement was that one had to lift the pipe and top in order to build or replenish a fire. Sometimes I have a vague impression of someone's having climbed to the top of a distant cabin in the gloom of the night, and when this thought comes to me I seem to see a man standing, in bare feet and scanty clothing, upon the top of that cabin, with the moon trying in vain to secure a good look at him through the thick clouds, and tremble with the fear that he may awaken the sleepers within as he cautiously uplifts their stove-pipe through its hole in the roof. The vision comes like a recollection of a dream, and I often wonder whether the man who secured my stove-pipe for me did not tell me where he got it, and that in so vivid a manner as to leave me with a memory of it like unto that of one who was present.