Fifteen Months in Dixie; Or, My Personal Experience in Rebel Prisons

by William W. Day

Just before night a ration of corn meal was issued to us and I have that ration yet. About ten o’clock that night we were ordered on board the cars and away we went to Charleston, where we arrived soon after daylight. We debarked from the cars and were marched into a vacant warehouse on the dock, where we remained until two o’clock p. m. when we were marched on board a ferry boat. The bells jingled, the wheels began to revolve and churn up the water and we are speeding down the harbor. All seems lovely as a June morning, when lo, we are ordered to heave to and tie up to the dock. We were marched off from the boat and up a street. It looked as though the Charleston jail was our destination, instead of that long wished for God’s Country.

It seemed that the last train load had not been delivered on account of the high winds, and that we were to wait our turn. But we were soon countermarched to the boat and this time we left Charleston for good and all.

My thoughts were busy as our boat was steadily plowing her way down the harbor to the New York, our exchange commissioner’s Flag Ship, which lay at anchor about a mile outside of Fort Sumter. To my left and rear Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinkney stood in grim silence. Away to the front and left, upon that low, sandy beach, are some innocent looking mounds, but those mounds are the celebrated “Battery Bee” on Sullivans Island. To my right are the ruins of the lower part of Charleston. Away out to the front and right stands Fort Sumter in “dim and lone magnificence.” To the right of Fort Sumter is Morris Island and still farther out to sea is James Island. What a scene to one who has had a deep interest in the history of his country from the time of its organization up to and including the war of the rebellion. Here the revolutionary fathers stood by their guns to maintain the independence of the Colonies. Here their descendants had fired the first gun in a rebellion inaugurated to destroy the Union established by the valor, and sealed with the blood of their sires. Misguided, traitorous sons of brave, loyal fathers. Such thoughts as these passed through my mind as we steamed down the harbor to the New York, but it never occurred to me that the waters through which our boat was picking her way, was filled with deadly torpedoes, and that the least deviation from the right course would bring her in contact with one of these devilish engines and we would be blown out of water.

But look! what is that which is floating so proudly in the breeze at the peak of that vessel?

“’Tis the Star Spangled Banner, oh! long may it wave,

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Yes it is the old Stars and Stripes, and just underneath them on the deck of that vessel is “God’s Country,” that we have dreamed of and wished for so many long weary months.

My friends, do you wonder that the tears ran unbidden down our wan and ghastly cheeks? That with our weak lungs and feeble voices we tried to send a welcome of cheers and a tiger to that dear old flag? It was not a loud, strong cheer, such as strong men send up in the hour of victory and triumph; no the rebels had done their work too well for that, but it was from away down in the bottom of our hearts, and from the same depths came an unuttered thanks-giving to the Great Being who had preserved our lives to behold this glorious sight.

Our vessel steamed up along side the New York and made fast. A gang plank was laid to connect the two vessels, and at 4 o’clock, December 10th, 1864, I stepped under the protection of our flag and bade a long and glad farewell to Dixie.

After we had been delivered on board the New York we were registered by name, company and regiment, and then a new uniform was given us and then—can it be possible, a whole plate full of pork and hard-tack, and a quart cup of coffee. And all this luxury for one man! Surely our stomach will be surprised at such princely treatment. After receiving our supper and clothing we were sent on board another vessel, a receiving ship, which was lashed to the New York. Here we sat down on our bundle of clothes and ate our supper. If I was to undertake to tell how good that greasy boiled pork and that dry hard-tack and that muddy black coffee tasted, I am afraid my readers would laugh, but try it yourself and see where the laugh comes in. After supper we exchanged our dirty, lousy rags for the new, clean, soft uniform donated to us by Uncle Sam.