With fifteen others, I was shut up in a room about twenty-two feet square, on the Sixth street side and in the second story. I was, but for a Virginia captain, the only wounded man among these, the rest being stout country fellows, ruddy and strong, except one lean little man, a clerk, as I learned later, and of the commissary department.
As I had again refused to walk upstairs, I was carried, and not rudely laid down by two soldiers in a corner of the bare room, now to be for many a day our prison. The rest sat down here and there in dull silence, now and then looking at the door as if there hope was to be expected to enter. I called the Virginia captain, after an hour had gone by, and asked him to lift and ease my hurt leg. He was quick to help, and tender. In a few minutes we came to know each other, and thus began a friendly relation which has endured to this present time.
For a day or two soldiers were employed as turnkeys, but then a lot of rough fellows took their places, and we began to feel the change. I may say the like of our food. For a week it was better than our pot-luck in camp. We had rye bread, tea without sugar, and horribly tough beef; but within two weeks the ration fell to bread and water, with now and then salt or fresh beef, and potatoes or beans, but neither rum nor tea. A surgeon dressed my wounds for a month, and then I saw him no more. He was a surly fellow, and would do for me nothing else, and was usually half intoxicated. The arm was soon well, but the leg wound got full of maggots when it was no longer cared for, and only when, in January, I pulled out a bit of bone did it heal.
Once a day, sometimes in the morning, more often in the afternoon, we were let out in the yard for an hour, watched by sentries, and these also we heard outside under our windows. Observing how quickly the big country louts lost flesh and colour, I set myself to seeing how I could keep my health. I talked with my unlucky fellow-prisoners, ate the food even when it was as vile as it soon became, and when in the yard walked up and down making acquaintances as soon as I was able, while most of the rest sat about moping. I felt sure that before long some one would hear of me and bring relief. None came.
The scoundrel in charge was a Captain Cunningham. He had risen from the ranks. A great, florid, burly, drunken brute, not less than sixty years old, This fellow no doubt sold our rations, for in December we once passed three days on rye bread and water, and of the former not much; one day we had no food.
He kicked and beat his victims at times when drunk, and when I proposed to him to make ten pounds by letting my aunt know where I was, he struck me with a heavy iron key he carried, and cut open my head, as a great scar testifies to this day.
In late December the cold became intense, and we were given a blanket apiece to cover us as we lay on the straw. We suffered the more from weather because it chanced that, in October, the frigate “Augusta” blew up in the harbour, and broke half the panes of glass. In December the snow came in on us, and was at times thick on the floor. Once or twice a week we had a little fire-wood, and contrived then to cook the beans, which were rarely brought us more than half boiled.
We did our best, the captain and I, to encourage our more unhappy companions, who, I think, felt more than we the horrors of this prisoned life. We told stories, got up games, and I induced the men to go a-fishing, as we called it; that is, to let down their ragged hats through the broken window-panes by cords torn from the edges of our blankets. Now and then the poor folks near by filled these nets with stale bread or potatoes; but one day, after long ill luck, a hat was of a sudden felt to be heavy, and was declared a mighty catch, and hauled up with care. When it was found to be full of stones, a strange misery appeared on the faces of these eager, half-starved wretches. The little clerk said, “We asked bread, and they gave us a stone,” and of a sudden, broke out into hideous exuberance of blasphemy, like one in a minute distraught. It was believed Cunningham had been he who was guilty of this cruel jest; but as to this I have no assurance. Our efforts to cultivate patience, and even gay endurance, by degrees gave way, as we became feeble in body, and the men too hungry to be comforted by a joke. At last the men ceased to laugh or smile, or even to talk, and sat in corners close to one another for the saving of body warmth, silent and inert.
A stout butcher, of the Maryland line, went mad, and swore roundly he was George the king. It was hard, indeed, to resist the sense of despair which seemed at last to possess all alike; for to starvation and cold were added such filth and vileness as men of decent habits felt more than those accustomed to be careless as to cleanliness.
The Virginian, one Richard Delaney, soon got over a slight hurt he had, and but for him I should not be alive to-day. The place swarmed with rats, and he and I set to work capturing them, filling their holes as they came out at evening, and chasing them until we caught them. They kept well in the intense cold, and when we were given fire-wood, we cooked and ate them greedily.