Said the jailor to the captain, "Where shall I put him?"
"Below, of course," was the reply.
The jailor then advanced to the middle of the floor, and taking a large key from his pocket, knelt down and unlocked two rusty locks; then, with a great effort, raised a ponderous trap-door just at my feet. The hot air and the stifling stench smote me back, but the bayonets of the guards were just behind, and I was compelled to move forward again. A long ladder was next thrust down through the trap-door, and the inmates warned to stand from under. A mingled volley of cries, oaths, and questions ascended, and the ladder was secured. The captain then ordered me to descend into what seemed more like Pandemonium than any place on earth. Down I went into the cimmerian gloom—clambering step by step to a depth of fully thirteen feet; for the place, as I afterwards learned, when I had more leisure for observation, was a cube, just thirteen feet each way. I stepped off the ladder, treading on human beings I could not discern, and crowding in as best I might.
The heat was so great that the perspiration broke from me in streams. The foeted air made me for a time deadly sick, and I wondered whether it could be possible they would leave human beings in this horrible place to perish. The thought of the black hole at Calcutta, where so many Englishmen died, rushed over me. True, this was done by the cruel and savage East Indians, while we were in the hands of "our Southern brethern," the "chivalry;" but I could not perceive that this difference of captors made any difference of treatment.
My breath came thick and heavy, and I thought of suffocation. The ladder was drawn up, and with a dull and heavy sound that seemed crushing down on my heart, the trap-door fell. I wedged and jammed my way through the living throng to the window. The one I reached was just under the wooden stairs, and, of course, gave no light. The other was below the surface of the ground. They were at opposite sides of the room, and were only about a foot square, being filled with a triple row of thick set iron bars, that almost excluded every current of air. I pressed my face close to the bars, and breathed the purest air I could get, until I became partly reconciled to the oppression, and then turned to ascertain the condition of my companions. It was wretched beyond description. They were ragged, dirty, and crawling with vermin. Most of them were nearly naked; but this was no inconvenience there, for it was so warm that those who had clothes were obliged to take them off, and nearly all were in a state of nudity. I soon found it necessary myself to disrobe, and even then the perspiration poured off me most profusely. It was an atmosphere of death.
Yet among the prisoners were old men, just trembling on the verge of the grave, who were arrested merely because they had ventured to express a preference for the old, well-tried Government, over the new, slave-built Confederacy. The cruelty practiced on the Tennessee Union men will never half be told. It forms the darkest page in the history of the war. In every prison of which I was an inmate in Georgia and Virginia, as well as in Tennessee, I found these miserable but patriotic men thus heartlessly immured. But I will speak more of them hereafter; at that time the thought of my own danger banished every other consideration.
There were fourteen white men in the room beside myself, and one negro. I wonder what those tender soldiers, who consider it derogatory to their dignity to fight in the same army that blacks do, would think if they were confined with them so closely that there was no possibility of getting away. But we endured too many real evils to fret at imaginary ones; and besides, Aleck was so kind and accommodating, so anxious to do everything in his power for us, that he soon became a general favorite; and when he was taken out to be whipped, as he was several times, to ascertain whether he was telling a true story or not, we could not help feeling the sincerest sympathy for him.
The Southern method of catching stray negroes is about this: When one is found traveling without a pass, he is arrested, taken to the jail, and severely flogged. This usually brings some kind of a confession from him, and he is advertised in accordance with that confession. If no answer is received in a limited time, it is taken for granted that he lied, and he is whipped again, in order to bring a new confession. Thus they continue alternately whipping and advertising, till the close of the year. If a master is found before this, he can pay the costs and take his property; if not, the negro is sold to pay the jail and whipping fees. No trial is ever allowed at which the negro might prove himself free. When once arrested his doom is sealed, and in this way many free negroes are enslaved.