"R. H. L. Jevoett,
Capt. 54 Mass. Vol., A. A. A. G."
"Official: Geo. N. Little,
1st. Lt. 127th R. N. Y. V.,
A. A. A. C."
CHAPTER XIX
To Fort Pulaski—Rotten Cornmeal and
Pickled Rations—A Plot Laid
On the 17th of October the prisoners were notified to be ready to move at daylight next morning. In one of the tents the next morning, in order to see how to get ready, one of the prisoners struck a light, when the negro guard fired into the tent, wounding two of the occupants badly, one through the knee and the other in the shoulder. On the 18th we were marched to the wharf and put aboard two old hulks and towed out to sea. We had been forty-two days in this stockade and were glad enough to get away. But alas! we did not know what was in store for us later on. Three days' rations, so-called, had been issued—fifteen crackers and about five or six ounces of bacon. After being at sea three days and two nights, one hulk-load of 300 were landed at Fort Pulaski, on Tybee Island, Ga., at the mouth of the Savannah River, and the other 300 were landed at Hilton Head, a short distance up the coast.
Fort Pulaski was built of brick, with very thick walls, surrounded by a wide moat, was very damp, and when the east winds blew, very cold and disagreeable, there being no window-lights in the embrasures to the casements in which the prisoners were confined—only iron bars. Here the prisoners were guarded by the 127th N. Y. Regiment, commanded by Col. W. W. Brown, who treated the prisoners kindly.
In this regiment there were a great many youths in their teens. I remarked on this in a conversation with a Yankee sergeant, who stated that these boys were put into the army by their fathers for the sake of the large bounties paid, which, in many cases, amounted to $2,000 and over, and that these fathers were using the money to buy homes and lands for themselves.
Just like a Yankee—he would sell his own flesh and blood for money!