The reader will readily see, from reading what I have written in this chapter, that our sufferings did not all proceed from the rebels.
Almost twenty-five years have elapsed since those scenes were enacted, the hot passion engendered by the cruelties of prison life, have measurably cooled, and as I am writing this story, I am determined to “hew to the line let the chips fall where they will,” and with a full understanding of what I say, I affirm that many of the prisoners suffered more cruelly, at the hands of their comrades, than they did from the rebels themselves.
There was among the Pilgrims, a fiend by the name of McClellan, a member of the 12th New York cavalry, who kicked, and abused, and maltreated the poor weak prisoners who got in his way in a manner which deserved the punishment meted out to the six Raiders. He had charge of delivering the rations inside of the prison, and if some poor starved boy, looking for a crumb got in his way he would lift him clear off from the ground with the toe of his huge boot.
One day while the bread wagon was unloading, I saw a boy not more than eighteen years old who had become so weak from starvation, and so crippled by scurvy that he could not walk, but crawled around on his hands and knees, trying to pick up some crumbs which had fallen from the bread; he happened to get in McClellan’s way, when that brute drew back his foot and gave the poor fellow a kick which sent him several feet, and with a monstrous oath, told him to keep out of his way. This was only one instance among thousands of his brutality, yet with all his meanness I never heard him charged with dishonesty.
The rebels had a way of punishing negroes, which was most exquisite torture. From my quarters in the prison I witnessed the punishment of a negro by this method one day. He was stripped naked and then laid on the ground face downward, his limbs extended to their full length, then his hands and feet were tied to stakes. A burly fellow then took a paddle board full of holes, and applied it to that part of the human anatomy in which our mothers used to appear to be so much interested, when they affectionately drew us across their knee, and pulled off their slipper.
The executioner was an artist in his way, and he applied that paddle with a will born of a determination to excel, and the way that poor darkey howled and yelled was enough to soften a heart of stone.
This mode of punishment was adopted by the prison police afterward, in cases of petty larceny, and I do not think the patient ever needed a second dose of that medicine, for there was a blister left to represent every separate hole in the paddle, and the patient was obliged for several days, like the Dutchman’s hen, to sit standing.
I would recommend this treatment to the medical fraternity, as a substitute for cupping; as the cupping and scarifying are combined in one operation, and I think there is no patent on it.
The battle of Atlanta was fought on the 22d day of July, and we received the news of the victory in a few days afterward from prisoners who were captured on that day. Our hopes began to revive from this time. We thought we could begin to see the “beginning of the end.” Besides this we had a hope that Sherman would send a Corps of Cavalry down to rescue us. The rebels seem to have some such thoughts running through their minds, as the following copy of an order, issued by General Winder, testifies.
“Headquarters Military Prison,