At last some voice suggested that we should seek relief in prayer. The very idea seemed to convey consolation, and was eagerly accepted. Soon we knelt around the bare walls of our strange sanctuary, and with bleeding hearts drew near the throne of God. Captain Fry first led us, and mingled sobs with strong supplications. Then each followed in his turn, with but one or two exceptions, and even these were kneeling with the rest. As the twilight deepened, our devotional exercises grew more solemn. In the lonely shadow of coming night, with eternity thus open tangibly before us, and standing on its very brink, we prayed with a fervor that those who dwell in safety can scarcely conceive. We besought our Father only that we might be prepared for the fate that was inevitable, and that as he had led us through great trials, he would be our Comforter, and sustain us still. Who will say that such prayer was not effectual! It was heard in heaven. Even there, in that prison, surrounded by an armed guard, amid the gloom of coming danger, the peace of God, like a dove bearing the olive branch, descended into every broken and believing heart. It was a holy hour, and if the angels above ever bend from their bright mansions to comfort human sorrow, I do believe that they were then hovering near. From that hour I date the birth of an immortal hope, and I believe that many of my companions also, on looking back, will realize that they passed from death to life in that dreary prison-room!
[CHAPTER XII.]
Religious Experience—Contraband Assistance—Intelligence of Negroes—Love of Freedom—Wollam's Recapture—A Friendly Preacher—Obtain Books—Disgusting Diet—Plays—Debates—Reading Hours—Envy the Birds—Dreams of Home—Telegraphing—Friends from our Army—Hope Deferred—Union Society—Difficulties of Tobacco-chewers—Precious Books.
From this time forward, we had religious exercises each morning and evening, and they were a blessed consolation to us—sustaining our hearts when every earthly avenue of hope had closed. Frequently we startled the guards who were around us, by the hymns we sang, for now the character of our songs was changed, and our thoughts and aspirations began to point upward. It is a delicate matter to speak of one's own religious experience, but in the hope of doing good, I will venture. At first my hopes were not bright. For days and weeks an impenetrable cloud seemed to rest over me, and to vail heaven from my view; sometimes for a moment it would give way, and show light and peace beyond, then close up, thick, and dark, and lowering, as ever. But at last the day gradually arose, and I was enabled to rejoice in hopes the world can neither give nor take away.
But these were long and weary days. Our room was of greater size than that in Chattanooga, and had larger windows, yet the heat was fearfully oppressive. Our other boys were put in the room with us, which made fifteen in all. One of them, named Wood, was very sick. He had been prostrated with the fever for nearly a month, and at this time his life was despaired of. This was not thought to be any great misfortune to him by the others, who administered consolation in a style worthy of the best of Job's friends. They reasoned, "Now, if you get well, you will only be hung. You had better try to die yourself, and thus you will outwit them." Wood, however, did not relish the counsel, and getting contrary, he recovered, "just for spite," as he often declared. He yet lives to laugh over the advice that his despairing associates gave him.
We had friends in the waiters of the prison, though their faces were black. They assisted us by every means in their power. It was not long till they found that there was nothing we desired so much as to read the news; and they taxed their ingenuity to gratify us. They would wait till the jailor or some of the guard had finished reading a paper, and laid it down, and then slyly purloin it. When meal time came, it would be put into the bottom of the pan in which our food was brought, and thus handed in to us. The paper had to be returned in the same way, to avoid suspicion.[5] The guards and officers would talk with us, and always finding us possessed of a knowledge of the events of the war, at least as far as the Southern papers gave it, came at last to think we had an instinctive idea of news—something like what the bee has of geometrical forms! They never suspected the negroes, though for several months it was only through their instrumentality that we could obtain any definite information of what was going on in the world without.
Having found the negroes thus intelligent and useful, far beyond what I had supposed possible, I questioned them about other matters. They were better informed than I had given them credit for, and knew enough to disbelieve all the stories rebels told. When the whites were not present, they laughed at the grand victories the papers were publishing every day, but rather leaned to the opposite extreme, and gave them less credit than was their due, for they would believe that the Federal troops were always victorious. Even after McClellan's repulse before Richmond, they continued, for weeks, to assure us that he had the town, and had beaten the rebels in every engagement!
They imagined that all the Northern troops were chivalrous soldiers, fighting for the universal rights of man, and, of course, they esteemed it a high privilege to contribute to the comfort of such noble men. Some of them had imbibed the idea, which is common with the poor whites of the South, that Lincoln is a negro or a mulatto; but most of them placed so little credit in the assertions of their masters, that they disbelieved this story also. But they never wavered in their belief that the Union troops would conquer, and that the result of the victory would be their freedom. I had extensive opportunities for observing them, as the room next to us was appropriated to the safe-keeping of negroes, and I never yet saw one who did not cherish an ardent desire for freedom, and wish and long for the time when the triumph of the national forces would place the coveted boon within his grasp.
One morning our jailor came to our room, and asked us if we knew John Wollam. We hesitated to answer, as we could not fathom the motives of the inquiry. But even while we deliberated among ourselves, John came up, and ended our doubts by greeting us heartily. He had been parted from us some three weeks, and in that time had suffered most incredible hardships in the manner I have narrated before. He joined us in our prayer-meeting with much good will. Now all the survivors of our party were together again.
There is one Georgia minister I will always remember with gratitude, not that he was a Union man, for I have no evidence that he was, but because of his generosity to us. He was a Methodist clergyman in Atlanta, by the name of McDonnell. He came to visit us at the suggestion of our old jailor, who, seeing us engaged in religious exercises, naturally supposed we would like to talk with a preacher. We received him kindly, and an interesting conversation took place. Some of the boys were slightly offended by his first prayer, in which he petitioned that our lives might be spared, if consistent with the interests of the Confederacy. We did not very well like the condition, but said nothing, and were afterward rewarded for our complacency. At my request, he loaned us a few books, and when these were read through, gave us still others, until we had read nearly his entire library. Those only who know what a terrible weariness it is to pass time without any definite employment, and with no means of relieving the hours that hang so heavily on their hands, or of diverting their thoughts from the one never-ending round, can form any idea of the great boon that a few good books bestowed on us.