FIFTEEN MONTHS

IN DIXIE

——OR——

MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE IN

REBEL PRISONS.

A Story of the Hardships, Privations and Sufferings of

the “Boys in Blue” during the late

War of the Rebellion.

——BY——

W. W. DAY,

A PRIVATE OF 60. D. 10TH REGIMENT

WISCONSIN VOLUNTEER INFANTRY.

OWATONNA, MINN.

THE PEOPLE’S PRESS PRINT.

1889.

To my Comrades

who, like myself, were so

unfortunate as to have suffered the

horrors of a living death in the Prison Pens of the

South, and who, through all their hardships, privations, and

sufferings, remained loyal to our FLAG, and to my beloved Wife,

who suffered untold tortures of mind begotten by anxiety

on account of the uncertainty of my fate, for

fifteen long, weary, months,——this

work is dedicated in

F. C. & L.

by

THE AUTHOR.

COPYRIGHT, 1889,

BY

W. W. DAY.

PREFACE.

I have sometimes been in doubt whether a preface was necessary to this work; but have decided to write one, for the reason that in a preface the author is permitted to give the reader a “peep behind the scenes,” as he is not permitted to do in the body of the book. Since the commencement of the publication of this story, in a serial form, a few very good people have been so kind as to tell me, that it is “too late in the day” to write upon the subject of Rebel Prisons. My answer is: it is never too late to tell the story of what patriotic men suffered in the defence of Constitutional liberty, and of the Union of States, which union was cemented by the blood of our Revolutionary sires. It is never too late to tell the story of,—

“Man’s unhumanity to man.”

It is never too late to tell the truth, although the truth may be sharper than a two-edged sword. It is never too late to inspire our young men to love, and venerate, and defend, the Flag of their Country; to tell them how their fathers suffered in support of a PRINCIPLE. No, it is not too late to tell this story, and I have no apologies to offer any man, living or dead, for telling it. But, while I have no apologies to offer, I deem an explanation in order.

Since I commenced writing this Story I have felt the want of a liberal education as I never felt it before. For, to tell the exact truth, I never enjoyed the advantages of any school of higher grade than the common district school of thirty years ago. Therefore, kind reader,—you who have enjoyed the advantages of better schools, and a more liberal education,—when you find a mistake in this book, one which can not be laid at the door of the printer, kindly, and for “Sweet Charity’s Sake,” overlook it; for I assure you I would be thus kind to you under similar circumstances.

W. W. DAY.

Lemond, Minnesota, September, 1889.

CONTENTS.

ERRATA.

On page [3], 23d line, 1st column, for “right” read regiment.

On page [74], 16th line, for “adopt” read adopted.

On page [74], 23d line, for “slowing” read slowly.

On page [74], 2d column, 2d paragraph, 10th line, for “regions” read designs.

FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE,

OR

MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

IN REBEL PRISONS.

BY W. W. DAY.

INTRODUCTION.

On the 12th day of April, 1861, in Charleston Harbor, a shot was fired whose echo rang round the world. The detonation of that cannon, fired at Fort Sumter, reverberated from the pine-clad hills and rock-bound coast of Maine across the continent to the placid waters of the Pacific, thrilling the hearts of the freemen of the north and causing the blood, inherited from Revolutionary sires, to course through their veins with maddening speed. That cannon was fired by armed rebellion at freedom of person, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the Union of States. That echo roused those freemen to a resolution to do and to die, if need be, for the maintenance of the Union, and the supremacy of law.

The outbreak of the rebellion found the writer, then a little past majority, on a farm near a little village in Wisconsin. I was just married, had put in my spring crop and when the first call was made for troops, was not situated so that I could leave home, but on the 10th of October following I enlisted in Co. D. 10th Wis. Inf. Vols.

As this is to be a history of prison life, it is not my purpose to write a history of my regiment but a short sketch is proper in order to give the reader a fair understanding of my capture.

The 10th left Camp Holton, near Milwaukee, about the middle of Nov. 1861. We went by railway via Chicago, Indianapolis and Evansville to Louisville, Ky., thence to Shepherdsville, thence to Elizabethtown, where we were assigned to Sill’s Brigade of Mitchell’s Division. Wintered at Bacon Creek and on the 11th of Feb. 1862, marched with Buell’s army to the capture of Bowling Green. Buell’s army and part of Grant’s army arrived almost simultaneously at Nashville, Tenn. Grant with his forces proceeded to Pittsburg Landing, Buell to Murfreesboro. After Buell with the greater part of his army had marched to Grant’s support, Mitchell’s Division marched on Huntsville, Ala., capturing that place together with about 500 prisoners, 12 engines and a large amount of rolling stock, the property of the Memphis & Charleston R. R.

The 10th guarded the M. & C. R. R. from Huntsville to Stevenson, the junction of the M. & C. and the Nashville & Chattanooga R. R. during the summer of ’62.

Early in September we commenced that famous retreat from the Tennessee to the Ohio, and to show the reader how famous it was to those who participated in it, I will say we averaged twenty-four miles per day from Stevenson, Ala., to Louisville, Ky. On the 8th of October, supported Simonson’s battery at the Battle of Perryville, losing 146, killed and wounded out of 375 men. Our colors showing the marks of forty-nine rebel bullets, in fact they were torn into shreds. Dec. 31st, ’62 and Jan. 1st and 2nd, ’63, in the Battle of Stone’s River, or Murfreesboro.

The army of the Cumberland, then under command or Gen. Rosecrans, was divided into four army corps. The 14th, under Gen. Thomas, was in the center. The 20th, under Gen. A. McD. McCook, on the right. The 21st, under Gen. Crittenden, on the left and the Reserve Corps, under Gen. Gordon Granger, in supporting distance in the rear.

We remained at Murfreesboro until June 23rd, ’63, when the whole army advanced against Bragg, who was entrenched at Tullahoma, drove him out of his entrenchments, across the mountains and Tennessee River into Chattanooga and vicinity. Here commenced a campaign begun in victory and enthusiasm, and ending at Chickamauga in disaster and gloom, but not in absolute defeat.

THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA.

Rosecrans showed fine strategic ability in maneuvering Bragg out of Tennessee without a general engagement, but he made a serious and almost fatal mistake after he had crossed the Tennessee River with his own army. He should have entrenched at Chattanooga and kept his army well together. Instead of doing so, he scattered his forces in a mountainous country. Crittenden’s Corps followed the north bank of the Tennessee to a point above Chattanooga, there crossed the river flanking Chattanooga on the east and cutting the railroad south, thus compelling the evacuation of that place.

McCook crossed two ranges of mountains to Trenton, while Thomas with his corps still remained at Bridgeport, on the Tennessee, and Granger was leisurely marching down from Nashville.

In the reorganization of the Army of the Cumberland in Oct. ’62, our Brigade was called 1st Brig. of 1st Div., 14th Corps. The Brigade was commanded by Col. Scribner of the 38th Indiana. The Division was commanded through the Perryville and Murfreesboro campaigns by Gen. Rousseau, but through the Chickamauga campaign by Gen. Absalom Baird, now Inspector General of the Army.

I shall not attempt to give an historical or official description of the Battle of Chickamauga, but a description as seen from the standpoint of a private soldier.

On the 18th of September our Division was bivouacked at Maclamore’s Cove, a few miles from Lee & Gordon’s Mills. Heavy skirmishing had been going on all day at Lee & Gordon’s Mills and Rossville between Crittenden and McCook’s forces and those of the enemy. About 4 P. M., the “Assembly” sounded and we “fell in” and commenced our march for the battlefield. At dark my Regt. was thrown out as flankers. We marched until 10 o’clock along the banks of a small creek while on the opposite side of the creek a similar line of the enemy marched parallel with us. We reached Crawfish Springs about 10 P. M., here we took the road again and continued our march until sunrise on the morning of the 19th when we halted and prepared breakfast. Before we had finished our breakfast we heard a terrible roar and crash of musketry to our front, which was east. This was the opening of the battle of Chickamauga. Immediately afterward an Aide came dashing up to Lieut. Col. Ely, commanding 10th Wis. We were ordered to fall in and load at will. Then the order was given “forward, double quick, march,” and forward we went through brush, over rocks and fallen trees, keeping our alignment almost as perfect as though we were marching in review. Very soon we began to hear the sharp “fizt and ping” of bullets, a sound already familiar to our ears for we were veterans of two years service, and then we began to take the Johnies in “out of the wet.” Forward, and still forward, we rushed all the time firing at the enemy who was falling back. After advancing nearly a mile in this manner we found the enemy, en masse, in the edge of a corn field. Our Division halted, the skirmishers fell back into line and the business of the day commenced in deadly earnest. We were ordered to lie down and load and fire at will. Reader, I wish I had the ability to describe what followed. Not more than twenty-five rods in front of us was a dense mass of rebs who were pouring in a shower of bullets that fairly made the ground boil. To the rear of my regiment was a section of Loomis’ 1st Mich. Battery which was firing double shotted canister over our heads. How we did hug the ground, bullets from the front like a swarm of bees, canister from the rear screeching and yelling like lost spirits in deepest sheol. But this could not last long, mortal man could not stand such a shower of lead while he had willing legs to carry him out of such a place.

The rebels soon found a gap at the right of my Regt. and began to pour in past our right flank. I was lying on the ground loading and firing fast as possible when I saw the rebels charging past our right, with their arms at a trail, looking up I discovered that there was not a man to the right of me in the Regt. I did not wait for orders but struck out for the rear in a squad of one. I could not see a man of my regiment so I concluded to help support the battery, accordingly I rushed up nearly in front of one of the guns just as they gave the Johnies twenty pounds of canister. That surprised me. I found I was in the wrong place, twenty pounds of canister fired through me was liable to lay me up, so I filed left and came in front of the other gun just as the men were ready to fire. They called out to me to hurry as they wanted to fire, facing the gun and leaning over to the right I called to them to fire away and they did fire away with a vengeance. After this things seem mixed up in my mind. I remember getting to the rear of that gun, of hearing the bullets whistling, of seeing the woods full of rebs, of thinking I shall get hit yet, of trying to find a good place to hide and finally of stumbling and falling, striking my breast on my canteen, and then oblivion.

How long I remained unconscious I never knew, probably not long, but when I came to my understanding the firing had ceased in my immediate vicinity except now and then a scattering shot. I started again for the rear and had not gone more than a quarter of a mile before I found Gen. Baird urging a lot of stragglers to rally and protect a flag which he was holding. Here I found Capt. W. A. Collins and several other men of my Company. When he saw me he asked me if I was hurt. I told him “no, not much, I had a couple of cannons fired in my face and fell on my canteen which had knocked the breath out of me but that I would be all right in a little while.” He then told me I had better go to the rear to the hospital. To this I objected, telling him that I had rather stay with the “boys.”

We then marched to the rear and halted in a corn field. The stragglers from the regiment began to come in and the brigade was soon together again, but we did no more fighting that day. But just before night we were marched to the front and formed in line of battle. About 8 o’clock in the evening Johnson’s Division attempted to relieve another division in our front, Wood’s, I think it was, when the latter division poured a galling fire into the former, supposing they were rebels. Some of the balls came through the ranks of the 10th, whereupon Company K opened fire without orders and a sad mistake it proved for it revealed our position and a rebel battery opened on us with shells. To say that they made it lively for us is to say but part of the truth. The woods were fairly ablaze with bursting shells. The way they hissed and shrieked and howled and crashed was trying to the nerves of a timid man.

After the firing had ceased we were marched a short distance to the rear and bivouacked for the night. I laid down by a fire but “tired nature’s sweet restorer” did not visit me that night. I had received a terrible shock during the day. We had been whipped most unmercifully. The 1st Division of the 14th Corps had turned its back on the enemy for the first time, that day; and, too, there was to-morrow coming, and what would it bring? Do coming events cast their shadows before? Perhaps they do, at any rate the thoughts of all these things passing through my mind made me pass a sleepless night.

Sunday morning, September 20th, came. The same sun that shone dimly through the hazy atmosphere which surrounded the battlefield of Chickamauga, and called those tired soldiers to the terrible duties of another day of battle, shone brightly upon our dear ones at home, calling them to prepare for a day of rest and devotion, and while they were wending their way to church to offer up a prayer, perhaps, in our behalf, their way enlivened by the sweet sounds of the Sabbath bells, we were marching to the front to meet a victorious and determined foe, our steps enlivened by the thundering boom of the murderous cannon, the sharp rattle of musketry and the din and roar of battle, together with the shrieks and groans of our wounded and dying comrades. What a scene for a Sabbath day? But I am moralizing, I must on with my story.

Our division formed in line of battle on a ridge, with Scribner’s Brigade in the center, Starkweather’s on the right and King’s on the left. Soon the rebels came up the ascent at the charge step. We wait until they are in short range then we rise from behind our slight entrenchments and pour such a well directed volley into their ranks that they stagger for a moment, but for a moment only, and on they come again returning our fire, then the batteries open on them and from their steel throats belch forth iron hail and bursting shells, while we pour in our deadly fire of musketry. They halt! They break! THEY RUN! Those heroes of Longstreet’s, they have met their match in the hardy veterans of the west. Three times that day did we send back the rebel foe. In the meantime McCook and Crittenden had not fared so well. Bragg had been reinforced by Longstreet, Joe Johnson and Buckner, so that he had a much larger force then did Rosecrans.

Shortly after noon Bragg threw such an overwhelming force upon those two corps that they were swept from the field and driven toward Chattanooga, carrying Rosecrans and staff with them.

Here it was that Thomas, with the 14th Corps, reinforced by Granger, earned the title of “The Rock of Chickamauga.” Holding fast to the base of Missionary Ridge he interposed those two corps between the corps of McCook and Crittenden and the enemy, giving them time to escape up the valley toward Chattanooga.

But to return to my division. Three times that day did we repel the charge of the enemy, but the fourth time they came in such numbers and with such impetuosity that they fairly lifted us out of our line. When we broke for the rear I started out with Capt. Collins, but he was in light marching order, while I was encumbered with knapsack, gun and accoutrements, and he soon left me behind.

When I left the line I fired my gun at the enemy, and as I retreated I loaded it again, on the run, all but the cap. When Capt. Collins left me I began to look for some safe place and seeing a twenty-four pounder battery, with a Union flag, I started toward it. They were firing canister at the time as I supposed, at the enemy, but they fell around me so thickly that they fairly made the sand boil. I began to think it was a rebel battery with a Union flag as a decoy, so I filed right until I got out of range.

Soon after getting out of range of the battery I came across a dead rebel and noticing a canteen by his side, I stooped, picked it up and shook it and found that it was partly filled with water. This was a Godsend for I had been without water all day. The canteen was covered with blood, but, oh, how sweet and refreshing that water tasted. Here I threw away my knapsack to facilitate my flight. I soon came to a wounded rebel who begged of me to give him a drink of water. I complied with his request and again started out for Chattanooga. I had gone but a short distance before I saw a soldier beckoning to me, supposing by the uniform that he was a member of the 2nd Ohio. I approached within a short distance of him, when the following colloquy took place:

Reb,—“He’ah yo Yank, give me yo’ah gun.”

Yank,—“Not by a thundering sight, the first thing I learned after I enlisted was to keep my gun myself.”

Reb,—“Give me yo’ah gun, I say.”

Yank,—“Don’t you belong to the 2nd Ohio?”

Reb,—“No, I belong to the 4th Mississippi. Give me yo’ah gun.”

At the same time pointing his gun point blank at my breast.

Yank,—“The devil you do.” At the same time handing him my gun for, you will remember, I had loaded my gun but had not capped it.

I think I hear some of my readers say “you was vulgar.” No, I was surprised and indignant and I submit that I expressed my feelings in as concise language as possible. Consider the situation, I was in the woods, it was nearly dark, I supposed I had found a friend but there was a good Enfield rifle pointing at me, not ten feet away, in that gun was an ounce ball, behind that ball was sufficient powder to blow it a mile, on the gun was a water-proof cap, warranted to explode every time, and behind the whole was a Johnny who understood the combination to a nicety. The fact was, he had the drop on me, I handed him my gun and he threw it into a clump of bushes.

While he was disposing of my case another Union soldier crossed his guard beat, for he was one of Longstreet’s pickets. He called to him to halt but the soldier paying no attention to him, he brought his gun to an aim and again called, “halt or I’ll shoot yo.” “Don’t shoot the man for God’s sake, he is in your lines,” said I, and while Johnny was paying his addresses to the other soldier, I gave a jump and ran like a frightened deer. Around the clump of brush I sped, thinking, “now for Chattanooga.” “Hello, Bill! Where you going?” “Oh, I had got started for Chattanooga, but I guess I will go with you,” and I ran plump into a squad of men of my company and regiment under guard.

Men, styling themselves statesmen, have stood up in their places in the halls of Congress and called prisoners of war “Coffee Coolers” and “Blackberry Pickers.” I give it up. I cannot express my opinion, adequately, of men who will so sneer at and belittle brave men who have fought through two days of terrible battle, and only yielded themselves prisoners of war because they were surrounded and overpowered, as did those men at Chickamauga.

The Battle of Chickamauga was ended and that Creek proved to be what its Indian name implies, a “river of death.” The losses on the Union side were over 17,000, and on the Confederate side over 22,000.

I said in the introduction that the Chickamauga campaign did not end in absolute defeat. And, although we were most unmercifully whipped, I still maintain that assertion, Gen. Grant to the contrary, notwithstanding. Rosecrans saved Chattanooga and that was the bone of contention, the prime object of the campaign. But it was a case similar to that of an Arkansas doctor, who when asked how his patients, at a house where he was called the night before, were getting on replied: “Wall, the child is dead and the-ah mother is dead, but I’ll be dogoned if I don’t believe I’ll pull the old man through all right.”

CHAPTER II.

A PRISONER OF WAR.

“Woe came with war and want with woe;

And it was mine to undergo

Each outrage of the rebel foe:”—

Rokeby, canto 5, verse 18.

Scott.

When I had thus unceremoniously run into the lion’s mouth, I surrendered and was marched with my comrades a short distance to Gen. Humphrey’s headquarters and placed under guard.

I then began to look around among the prisoners for those with whom I was acquainted.

Among others, I found Lieut. A. E. Patchin and Geo. Hand of my company, both wounded. Having had considerable experience in dressing wounds, at Lieut. Patchin’s request, I went to Gen. Humphrey and obtained written permission to stay with him (Patchin) and care for him. Patchin, Hand and myself were then marched off about half a mile to a field hospital, on a small branch or creek, as we would say.

Seating Patchin and Hand by a fire, I procured water and having satisfied our thirst, I proceeded to dress their wounds. We sat up all night, not having any blankets, and all night long the shrieks and groans of wounded and dying men pierced our ears.

In the morning I went to a rebel surgeon and procured a basin, a sponge, some lint and bandages, and after dressing the wounds of my patients, I took such of the wounded rebels in my hands as my skill, or lack of skill, would permit me to handle.

I worked all the forenoon relieving my late enemies and received the thanks and “God bless you, Yank,” from men who had, perhaps the day before, used their best skill to kill me. Who knows but that a bullet from my own gun had laid one of those men low?

In the afternoon those of the wounded Union prisoners who could not walk were placed in wagons and those who could, under guard and we were taken to McLaw’s Division hospital, on Chickamauga Creek.

On the way to the hospital we passed over a portion of the battlefield. While marching along I heard the groans of a man off to the right of the road, I called the guard’s attention to it and together we went to the place from whence the sound proceeded; there, lying behind a log, we found a wounded Union soldier. He begged for water saying he had not tasted a drop since he was wounded on the 19th, two days before. He was shot in the abdomen and a portion of the caul, about four inches in length, protruded from the wound. I gave him water, and the guard helped me to carry him to the wagon. His name was Serg. James Morgan, of some Indiana Regiment, the 46th, I think. He lived five days. I cared for him while he lived. One morning I went to see him and found him dead. I searched his pockets and found his Sergeant’s Warrant and a photograph of his sister, with her name and post-office address written upon it. These I preserved during my fifteen months imprisonment and sent to her address after I arrived in our lines. I received a letter from her thanking me for preserving those mementoes of her brother; also for the particulars of his death. I also received a letter from Capt. Studebaker, Morgan’s brother-in-law, and to whose company Morgan belonged, dated at Jonesboro, N. C., May 1865, in which he said that my letter gave the family the first news of the fate of Morgan.

We arrived at the hospital just before night and I proceeded to make my patients as comfortable as possible. There were at this place 120 wounded Union soldiers besides several hundred wounded Confederates. Our quarters were the open air. These wounded men lay scattered all around, in the garden, the orchard, by the roadside, any and every where.

The first night here I sat up all night building fires, carrying water for the wounded and dressing their wounds. Besides myself, there was a surgeon of an Illinois Battery and James Fadden, of the 10th Wis., who had a scalp wound, to care for these poor men, and a busy time we had. I assisted the surgeon in performing amputations, besides my other duties.

The rebels seemed to think we could live without food as they issued but three days rations to us in eleven days.

How did we live? I will tell you. On both sides of us was a corn field but the rebels had picked all the corn but we skirmished around and found an occasional nubbin which we boiled, then shaved off with a knife, making the product into mush. Besides this, we found a few small pumpkins and some elder berries, these we stewed and divided among the men.

About a week after we arrived here, I applied to the rebel surgeon in charge for permission to kill some of the cattle, which were running at large, telling him that our men were starving. He replied that he could do nothing for us, that he had not enough rations for his own men, that he could not give me permission to kill cattle, as Gen. Bragg had issued orders just before the battle authorizing citizens to shoot any soldier, Reb or Yank, whom they found foraging. But he added that he would not “give me away” if I killed one. I took the hint, and hunting up an Enfield rifle the Union surgeon and I started out for beef. We went into the corn field to the east of us where there were quite a number of cattle, and selecting a nice fat three-year-old heifer, I told the doctor that I was going to shoot it. He urged me not to shoot so large an animal as the citizens would shoot us for it, and wanted me to kill a yearling near by. I told him “we might just as well die for an old sheep as a lamb,” and fired, killing the three-year-old. You ought to have seen us run after I fired. Great Scott! How we skedaddled. Pell mell we went, out of the corn field, over the fence, and into the brush. There we lay and watched in the direction of two houses, but seeing no person after a while we went back to our game. It did not take long to dress that animal and taking a quarter we carried it back to the hospital. We secured the whole carcass without molestation and then proceeded to give our boys a feast. We ate the last of it for breakfast the next morning. After this feast came another famine. I tried once more to find a beef, but found instead two reb citizens armed with shot guns. I struck out for tall timber. Citizens gave me chase but I eluded them by dodging into the canebrakes which bordered the creek, thence into the creek down which I waded, finally getting back to the hospital minus my gun.

You may be sure that I did not try hunting after this little episode.

Rosecrans and Bragg had just before this made arrangements for the exchange of wounded prisoners. Our hospitals were at the Cloud Farm, five miles north-west from us, and Crawfish Springs, five miles south of Cloud Farm.

The next morning I secured an old rattle-bones of a horse and went over to the Cloud Farm for rations. I reported to the Provost Marshal on Gen. Bragg’s staff, and not being able to procure any rations here, he sent a cavalryman with me as a safe guard. We went down to Crawfish Springs, where I procured a sack full of hard tack and returned to the hospital.

I traveled fifteen miles that day over the battlefield. Such a sight as I there saw I hope never to see again. This was eleven days after the battle and none of our dead had been buried then; in fact, the most of our brave men who fell at Chickamauga were not buried until after the battle of Missionary Ridge and the country had come in possession of the Union forces. The sight was horrible. There they lay, those dead heroes, just as they fell when stricken with whistling bullet, or screaming canister, or crashing shell.

Some of them had been stripped of their clothing, all were badly decomposed. The stench was beyond my power to tell, or yours to imagine. Taken all together it was the most horrible scene the eye of man ever rested upon.

Let me try to give the reader a description of what I saw that day. When I first reached the battlefield my attention was attracted to a number of horsemen dressed in Federal uniforms. These were evidently rebel cavalrymen who had dressed themselves in the uniforms of our dead soldiers. In every part of the field was evidence of the terrible havoc of war. Bursted cannons, broken gun carriages, muskets, bayonets, accoutrements, sabres, swords, canteens, knapsacks, haversacks, sponges, rammers, buckets, broken wagons, dead horses and dead men were mixed and intermingled in a heterogeneous mass.

Fatigue parties of rebel soldiers and negroes were gleaning the fruits of the battlefield.

In one place I saw cords of muskets and rifles piled up in great ricks like cord-wood. The harvest was a rich one for the Confederacy.

In one place I saw more than twenty artillery horses, lying as they had fallen, to the rear of the position of a Rebel battery, showing the fierce and determined resistance of the Union soldiers.

At another place, near where my regiment breakfasted on the morning of the 19th, a Union battery had taken position, it was on the Chattanooga road and to the rear was heavy timber. Here the trees were literally cut down by cannon shots from a Rebel battery. Some of the trees were eighteen or twenty inches in diameter. Havoc, destruction, ruin and death reigned supreme. In some places, where some fierce charge had been made, the ground was covered with the dead. Federal and Confederate lay side by side just as they had fallen in their last struggle. But why dwell on these scenes? They were but a companion piece to just such scenes on a hundred other battlefields of the civil war.

We remained at the Chickamauga hospital for three weeks. Then all who could ride in wagons were carried to Ringgold, where we took the cars for Atlanta. Many of the wounded had died and we had buried them there on the banks of the “River of Death.” I presume they have found sepulture at last in the National Cemetery, at Chattanooga, along with the heroes of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. Peace to their ashes. They gave all that men can give, their lives, for their country, and we gave them the best gifts of comrades, honor and a soldier’s grave.

At Ringgold some ladies came into the cars and distributed food to our party. It was a kindly but unexpected act, and we appreciated it the more as we were nearly starved. We traveled all night and arrived at Atlanta about 11 o’clock A. M. the next day. We were removed to the “Pen” and here I was introduced to the “Bull Pens” of the South.

The Prison Pen here was small, being used only as a stopping place for prisoners en route for Richmond. The enclosure was made of boards and was twelve feet in height. On two sides were barracks which would shelter probably five hundred men. In the center was a well of good water. The guards were on the platforms inside and nearly as high as the fence.

The next day after our arrival the Commandant of the Prison put me in charge of twenty-one wounded officers. These officers elected me nurse, commissary general, cook and chambermaid of the company.

Our rations were of fair quality but of very limited quantity. A fund was raised and entrusted to me with instructions to purchase everything in the line of eatables that I could get.

Here we found Gen. Neal Dow, sometimes called the father of the “Maine Law.” He had been taken prisoner down near the Gulf and was on his way to Richmond for exchange.

Here we also found Lieut. Mason, of the 2nd Ohio Infantry, and he, too, had a history. In the latter part of April 1862, Gen. Mitchell sent a detail of twenty-one men, members of the 2nd, 21st and 33rd Ohio and a Kentuckian, named Andrews, I believe, on a raid into Central Georgia, with instructions to capture a locomotive, then proceed north to Chattanooga, and to destroy railroads and burn bridges on the way. They left us at Shelbyville, Tennessee, and went on their perilous errand, while we marched to the capture of Huntsville, as narrated in the introduction.

These men were the celebrated “Engine Thieves” and their story is told by one of their number, in a book entitled, “Capturing a Locomotive.” They left our brigade in pairs, traveling as citizens to Chattanooga, thence by rail to Marietta, where they assembled, taking a return train. The train halted at a small station called Big Shanty, and while the conductor, engineer and train men were at breakfast, they uncoupled the train, taking the engine, tender and two freight cars and pulled out for Chattanooga. All went lovely for a time but after running a few hours they began to meet wild trains which had been frightened off from the M. & C. R. R. by the capture of Huntsville. This caused them much delay but Andrews, the leader, was plucky and claiming that he had a train load of ammunition for Chattanooga he contrived at last to get past these trains and again sped onward.

In the meantime the conductor at Big Shanty discovered his loss. Taking with him the engineer, and two officials of the road, they started out on foot in pursuit of the fugitive train. They soon found a hand-car which they took, and forward they went in the race, a hand-car in pursuit of a locomotive. Luck favored the pursuers, they soon found an engine, the Yonah, on a Spur road, and with steam up, this they pressed into the service and away they go. This time locomotive after locomotive. They pass the blockade of wild trains and on they go. As they round a curve they see, away ahead, the smoke of the fugitive train. The engineer pulls the throttle wide open and on they go as never went engine before. But the fugitives discover the pursuers, and at the next curve they stop, pull up a rail and put it on board their train, and then away with the speed of a hurricane. But they have pulled up the rail on the wrong side of the track and the pursuing engine bumps across the ties and on they come. Then the fugitives stop and pull up another rail and take it with them. The pursuers stop at the break in the road, take up a rail in the rear of their engine, lay it in front and then away in pursuit they go. The fugitives throw out ties upon the track, but the Yonah pushes them off as though they were splinters. Then the fugitives set fire to a bridge but the Yonah dashes through fire and on, ever on, like a sleuth hound it follows the fugitives. Rocks, trees and houses seem to be running backward, so swift is the flight. But the wood is gone, the oil is exhausted, the journals heat, the boxes melt and the fugitive engine dies on the track.

But our heroes jump from the train and take to the woods. They are pursued with men and blood-hounds, are captured and thrown into prison and treated as brigands. Some die, some are hanged, some are exchanged and some make their escape. Lieut. Mason was of the last named class. He was promoted to a 1st Lieutenancy, fought at Chickamauga in my brigade and was taken prisoner and identified as one of the engine thieves, and held for trial. He told me this story seated upon a sixty pound ball, which was attached to his ankle by a ten foot chain.

Besides the Federal prisoners, there were in this prison a number of Union men from the mountains of East Tennessee and Northern Georgia. They were conscripted into the Confederate army, but refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy.

We arrived at Atlanta on the 12th of October 1863, and on the 18th we were put on board of the cars and started for Richmond.

ONWARD TO RICHMOND.

Leaving Atlanta on the 18th, we reached Augusta early on the morning of the 19th. There had been heavy rains and as the railroad track was washed out ahead, we were compelled to wait here until the track was repaired. We were put into a cotton shed and a guard stationed around us.

No rations had been issued to us since leaving Atlanta. It seemed to be part of the duty of the officer in charge to FORGET to feed us, and I never saw a man more attentive to duty than he was, in that respect. However, I procured a pass from him, and with a guard, went down town to buy food for my squad of wounded officers. I found bread in one place at a dollar a loaf and at another place I bought a gallon of sorghum syrup. As my guard and I were looking around for something else to eat, we met a pompous old fellow who halted us and asked who we were. I told him that I was a prisoner of war with a Confederate guard looking for a chance to buy something to eat for wounded soldiers. “I will see to this,” said he. “I will know if these Northern robbers and vandals are to be allowed to desecrate the streets of Augusta.”

I could never find out what the people of Augusta lived on during the war. I could not find enough food for twenty-two men, but I imagine that old fellow lived and grew fat on his dignity.

Shortly after my return to the cotton shed a company of Home guards, composed of the wealthy citizens of Augusta, marched up and posted a guard around us, relieving our train guard.

The company was composed of the wealthy men of the city, too rich to risk their precious carcasses at the front, but not too much of gentlemen to abuse and starve prisoners of war. They did not allow any more “Yanks” to desecrate their sacred streets that day.

Morning came and we bade a long, but not a sad, farewell to that Sacred City. We crossed the Savannah River into the sacred soil of South Carolina. Hamburg, the scene of the Rebel Gen. Butler’s Massacre of negroes during Ku-Klux times, lies opposite Augusta.

Onward we went, our old engine puffing and wheezing like a heavy horse, for by this time the engines on Southern railroads began to show the need of the mechanics who had been driven north by the war. Along in the afternoon of the 21st, while we were yet about 60 miles from Columbia, S. C., the old engine gave out entirely and we were compelled to wait for an engine from Columbia. We arrived at Columbia sometime in the night and as we were in passenger cars we did not suffer a great deal of fatigue from our long ride. On the morning of the 22d as our train was leaving the depot a car ran off the track which delayed us until noon. While the train men were getting the car back on the track, I went with a guard down into the city to buy rations, but not a loaf of bread nor an ounce of meat could I procure.

Columbia was a beautiful city. I never saw such flower gardens and ornamental shrubbery as I saw there, but you may be sure that I did not cry when I heard that it was burned down. I don’t know whether any of those brutes who refused to sell me bread for starving, wounded men, were burned or not, if they were, they got a foretaste of their manifest destiny.

We arrived at Raleigh, N. C., on the morning of the 23rd. Here we had rations issued to us, consisting of bacon and hard tack, and of all the HARD tack I ever saw, that was the hardest. We could not bite it, neither could we break it with our hands until soaked in cold water.

At Weldon, on the Roanoke River, we laid over until the morning of the 24th. Here we had a chance to wash and rest and we needed both very much.

We reached Petersburg, Va., during the night of the 24th and were marched from the Weldon depot through the city and across the Appomattox River to the Richmond depot, where we waited until morning.

Midday found us within sight of Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy.

As the train ran upon the long bridge which crosses the James River at the upper part of the Falls, we looked to our left, and there, lying peacefully in that historic river, was Belle Isle, a literal hell on earth. A truthful record of the sufferings, the starvation and the misery imposed by the Confederates upon our helpless comrades at that place, would cause a blush of shame to suffuse the cheek of a Comanche chief.

Arrived on the Richmond side, we dragged our weary bodies from the cars, and forming into line, were marched down a street parallel with the river. I suppose it was the main business street of the city. Trade was going on just as though there was no war in progress.

As we were marching past a tall brick building a shout of derision saluted our ears, looking up we saw a number of men, clad in Confederate gray, looking at our sorry company and hurling epithets at us, which were too vile to repeat in these pages. This was the famous, or perhaps infamous is the better word, Castle Thunder. It was a penal prison of the Confederacy and within its dirty, smoke begrimed walls were confined desperate characters from the Rebel army, such as deserters, thieves and murderers, together with Union men from the mountains of Virginia and East Tennessee, and Union soldiers who were deemed worthy of a worse punishment than was afforded in the ordinary military prisons.

Many stories are told of the dark deeds committed within the walls of that prison. It is said that there were dark cells underneath that structure, not unlike the cells under the Castle of Antonia, near the Temple in Jerusalem, as described in Ben Hur, into which men were cast, there to remain, never to see the light of day or breathe one breath of pure air until death or the fortunes of war released them.

The horrors of the Spanish Inquisition in the middle ages were repeated here. Men were tied up by their thumbs, with their toes barely touching the floor, they were bucked and gagged and tortured in every conceivable way, and more for the purpose of gratifying the devilish hatred of their jailors, then because they had committed crimes.

On we march past Castle Lightning, a similar prison of unsavory reputation, to Libby Prison, which opened its ponderous doors to receive us. But I will reserve a description of this prison for another chapter.

CHAPTER III.

LIBBY PRISON.

“They entered:—’twas a prison-room

Of stern security and gloom,

Yet not a dungeon;”—

The Lady of the Lake,

Scott.

Libby Prison, up to this time, was the most noted and notorious prison of the South. It was a large building two stories high on its north or front side, and three stories high on its south or rear side, being built on land sloping toward the James River.

The building had been used before the war as a store for furnishing ship supplies.

The upper story was used as a prison for officers. The second story was divided into three rooms. The east room was a hospital, the middle, a prison for private soldiers and the west room was the office of the prison officials. The lower story was divided into cook room, storage rooms and cells. It was down in one of these storage rooms, that Major Straight’s party started their famous tunnel. Over the middle door was painted

Across the west end of the building the same sign was painted in large letters.

Before we entered the prison, all the commissioned officers were separated from us and sent up into the officers rooms and we were registered by name, rank, company and regiment by a smart little fellow dressed in a dark blue uniform. This was “Majah” Ross, a refugee from Baltimore, whose secession sympathies took him into Richmond but not into the active part of “wah.” He was a subordinate of “Majah Tunnah,” the notorious Dick Turner, known and cursed by every prisoner who knows anything of Libby Prison.

There seemed to be no person of lower rank than “Majah” in the Confederate service. I think the ranks must have been filled with them while “Cunnels” acted as file closers. O, no, I am mistaken. I did hear afterward of “Coplers of the Gyaard,” but then, they were only fighting men, while these “Majahs” and “Cunnels” were civilians acting as prison sergeants.

Soon after our entrance into the Prison we heard some of our officers calling from the room over our heads. They had been appraised of our arrival by the officers who came with us. I went to a hole in the back part of the room and heard my name called and was told by the officer speaking to come up on the stairs. There was a broad stairway leading from our floor up to the floor overhead, but the hatchway was closed. I went up on the stairs as requested. A narrow board had been pried up and, looking up, I saw Captain Collins whom I had not seen since we left the line of battle together on that eventful 20th of September. To say that we were rejoiced to see each other is to say but little. Questions were asked as to the whereabouts of different comrades, as to who was dead and who alive, and, last but not least, “was I hungry?” Hungry! Poor, weak word to express the intense gnawing at my stomach. Hungry! Yes, from head to foot, every nerve and fiber of my system was hungry. He gave me a handful of crackers, genuine crackers, not hard tack with B. C. marked upon them, but crackers. Some of the readers of this sketch were there and know all about it. Those of you who were never in a rebel prison can never imagine how good those crackers tasted. One man who was there and witnessed the above, and who was making anxious inquiries for comrades, was Lieutenant G. W. Buffum, of the 1st Wisconsin Regiment, now the Hon. George W. Buffum, of Clinton Falls Township, Steele county, Minnesota. Ask him whether I was hungry or not.

While we were talking together some one called out the name of some comrade. No answer was given. Again the name was called and just at that instant “Majah” Ross stepped into the room. Down went the strip of board and we vacated those stairs in one time and one motion. But the “Majah” had caught that name, or one similar to it, and he too became desirous of interviewing that individual. He called the name over and over again, but no response; finally becoming exasperated, he swore, with a good, round Confederate oath, that he would not issue us any rations until that man was trotted out. The man could not be found and little Ross kept his word for two days, then, not being able to find him, he issued rations to us. Hungry, did you say? Reader just think of it, we were living on less than half rations all the time and then to have them all cut off for forty-eight hours, was simply barbarous, and all to satisfy the whim, or caprice, of a little upstart rebel who was not fit to black our shoes. Yes, it makes me mad yet. Do you blame me?

Thinking back upon Libby to-day, I think it was the best prison I was in:—That comparison does not suit me, there was no BEST about it. I will say, it was not so BAD as any of the others I was in.

There was a hydrant in the room, also a tank in which we could wash both our bodies and our clothes, soap was furnished, and cleanliness, as regards the prison, was compulsory. We scrubbed the floor twice a week which kept it in good condition.

But when we come to talk about food, there was an immense, an overpowering lack of that. The quality was fair, in fact good, considering that we were not particular. But as the important question of food or no food, turned upon the whims and caprices of Dick Turner and Ross, we were always in doubt as to whether we would get any at all.

I remained in Libby Prison a week when I was removed, with others, to Scott’s building, an auxilliary of Libby. There were four prison buildings which were included in the economy of Libby Prison. Pemberton, nearly opposite to Libby, on the corner of 15th and Carey streets, I think that is the names of those streets. Another building, the name of which I did not learn, north of Pemberton on 15th street, and Scott’s building opposite the last mentioned building.

These three buildings were tobacco factories and the presses were standing in Scott’s when I was there.

The rations for all four prisons were cooked in the cook-house at Libby. The same set of officers had charge of all of them, so that, to all intents and purposes they were one prison, and that prison, Libby.

Heretofore I had escaped being searched for money and valuables, but one day a rebel came up and ordered all Chickamauga prisoners down to the second floor. I did not immediately obey his orders and soon there was much speculation among us as to what was wanted. Some were of the opinion that there was to be an exchange of Chickamauga prisoners. Others thought they were to be removed to another prison. To settle the question in my own mind I went down. I had not got half way down the stairs before I found what the order meant, for there standing in two ranks, open order, were the Chickamauga boys, a rebel to each rank, searching them.

I had but little money. Not enough to make them rich, but the loss of it would make me poor indeed. I immediately formed my plan and as quickly acted upon it. Going down the stairs, I passed to the rear of the rear rank, down past the rebel robbers, up in front of the front rank, and so on back upstairs, past the guard. I discovered then and there, that a little “cheek” was a valuable commodity in rebel prisons.

We were divided into squads, or messes, of sixteen for the purpose of dividing rations.

I was elected Sergeant of the mess to which I belonged, and from that time until my release had charge of a mess.

Our rations were brought to us by men from our own prison and divided among the Sergeants of messes, who in turn divided it among their respective men. Each man had his number and the bread and meat were cut up into sixteen pieces by the Sergeant, then one man turned his back and the Sergeant pointing to a piece, asked “whose is this?” “Number ten.” “Whose is this?” “Number three,” and so on until all had been supplied. Our rations, while in Richmond, consisted of a half pound of very good bread and about two ounces of very poor meat per day. Sometimes varied by the issue of rice in the place of meat. Sometimes our meat was so maggoty that it was white with them, but so reduced were we by hunger that we ate it and would have been glad to get enough, even of that kind.

To men blessed with an active mind and body, the confinement of prison life is exceeding irksome, even if plenty of food and clothing, with good beds and the luxuries of life, are furnished them, but when their food is cut down to the lowest limit that will sustain life, and of a quality at which a dog, possessed of any self respect, would turn up his nose in disgust, with a hard floor for a bed, with no books nor papers with which to feed their minds, with brutal men for companions, with no change of clothing, with vermin gnawing their life out day after day, and month after month, it is simply torture.

Time hung heavy on our hands. We got but meagre news from the front and this came through rebel sources, and was so colored in favor of the rebel army, as to be of little or no satisfaction to us. The news that Meade had crossed the Rapidan, or had recrossed the Rapidan, had become so monotonous as to be a standing joke with us. Our first question to an Army of the Potomac man in the morning would be, “has Meade crossed the Rapidan yet this morning?” This frequently led to a skirmish in which some one usually got a bloody nose.

News of exchange came frequently but exchange did not come. Somebody would start the story that a cartel had been agreed upon, then would come a long discussion upon the probabilities of the truth of the story. The rebels always told prisoners that they were going to be exchanged whenever they moved them from one point to another. This kept the prisoners quiet and saved extra guards on the train.

While we were at Richmond we had no well concerted plan for killing time for we were looking forward hopefully to the time when we should be exchanged, but we learned at last to distrust all rumors of exchange and all other promises of good to us for hope was so long deferred that our hearts became sick.

We were too much disheartened to joke but occasionally something would occur which would cause us to laugh. It would be a sort of dry laugh, more resembling the crackling of parchment but it was the best we could afford under the circumstances and had to pass muster for a laugh.

One day salt was issued to us and nothing but salt. I suppose “Majah” Turner thought we could eat salt and that would cause us to drink so much water that it would fill us up. A German, who could not talk English, was not present when the salt was divided. He afterward learned that salt had been issued and went to the Sergeant of his mess and called, “zult, zult.”

“What?” said the Sergeant.

“Zult, zult.” said Dutchy.

“O, salt! The salt is all gone. All been divided. Salt ausgespiel,” says the Sergeant.

“Zult, zult!” says Duchy.

“Go to h—l” says the Sergeant.

“Var ish der hell?” And then we exploded.

I remained in Richmond until November 24th, when I, with 699 other prisoners was removed to Danville, Va.

We were called out before daylight in the morning. Each man taking with him his possessions. Mine consisted of an old oil-cloth blanket, and a haversack containing a knife and fork and tin plate, also one day’s rations. We formed line and marched down 15th street to Carey, and up Carey street a few blocks, then across the wagon bridge to the Danville depot. Here we were stowed in box cars at the rate of seventy prisoners and four guards in each car. A little arithmetical calculation will show the reader that each of us had a fraction over three square feet at our disposal. Stock buyers now-a-days allow sixty hogs for a car load, and with larger cars than we had. Don’t imagine, however, that I am instituting any comparison between a car load of hogs and a car load of prisoners:—it would be unjust to the hogs, so far as comfort and cleanliness go.

Our train pulled out from the depot, up the river, past the Tredegar Iron Works, and on toward Danville. Our “machine” was an old one and leaked steam in every seam and joint. Sometimes the track would spread apart, then we would stop and spike it down and go ahead. At other times the old engine would stop from sheer exhaustion, then we would get out and walk up the grade, then get on board and away again. Thus we spent twenty-four hours going about one hundred and fifty miles. During the night some of the prisoners jumped from the cars and made their escape, but I saw them two days afterward, bucked and gagged, in the guard-house at Danville.

CHAPTER IV.

DANVILLE PRISON.

“So within the prison cell,

We are waiting for the day

That shall come to open wide the iron door,

And the hollow eye grows bright,

And the poor heart almost gay,

As we think of seeing home and friends once more.”

We arrived at Danville on the morning of November 25th, and were directly marched into prison No. 2. There were six prison buildings here, all tobacco factories. Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 being on the public square. Nos. 2 and 3 being on the west side. No. 1 on the north side adjoining a canal, and No. 4 on the south side. The other prisons were in other parts of the city.

In each prison was confined 700 men. Each building was three stories high with a garret, making four floors in each prison. Thus we had 175 men on each floor. The prisons were, as near as I can guess, 30×60 feet so that we had an average of ten and one-third square feet to each man or a little more than a square yard apiece.

Our rations at first consisted of a half pound of bread, made from wheat shorts and about a quarter of a pound of pork or beef. The quality was fair.

I had for a “chum,” or “pard,” from the time I arrived at Atlanta until I came to Danville, an orderly Sergeant, of an Indiana Regiment, by the name of Billings. He was a graduate of an Eastern College and at the time he enlisted left the position of Principal of an Academy in Indiana. He was one of nature’s noblemen, intelligent, brave, true-hearted and generous to a fault. I was very much attached to him as he was a genial companion far above the common herd. But after I had been in Danville about a week, I learned that there were a number of the comrades of my company in Prison No. 1. So I applied for, and obtained, permission to move over to No. 1. I parted with Billings with regret. I have never seen him since and know nothing of his fate, but I imagine he fell a victim to the hardships and cruelties of those prisons.

I found, when I arrived in No. 1, not only members of my own company but a number of men from Company B of my regiment. We were quartered in the south-east corner on the second floor. Nearly opposite where I was located comrade Dexter Lane, then a member of an Ohio regiment, now a citizen of Merton, Steele county, Minnesota, had his quarters. We were strangers at that time but since then have talked over that prison life until we have located each other’s position, and feel that we are old acquaintances.

I think I did not feel so lonesome after I joined my comrades of the 10th Wis. There is something peculiar about the feelings of old soldiers towards each other. Two years before these men were nothing to me. I had never seen them until I joined the regiment at Milwaukee. But what a change those two years had wrought. We had camped together on the tented field and lain side by side in the bivouac. We had touched elbows on those long, weary marches through Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, had stood shoulder to shoulder in many hard fought battles, and now we are companions in Southern prisons. They were not as kind-hearted, nor as intelligent as Billings but there was the feeling of comradeship which no persons on earth understand as do old soldiers.

The “majah” in charge of Prison No. 1 was a man by the name of Charley Brady, a southern gentleman from Dublin or some other seaport of the “Green Isle,” and to his credit, I will say, he was a warm hearted Irish gentlemen. I do not call to mind any instance where he was unnecessarily harsh or cruel, but on the other hand, he was kind and pleasant in his manner and in his personal intercourse with us treated us as though we were human beings in marked contrast with the treatment of the prison officials who were genuine Southerners brought up under the influences of that barbarous institution, slavery.

Perhaps some of my readers who were confined in Prison No. 1 will not agree with me in my estimate of Charley Brady, but if they will stop a moment and consider, they will remember that our harsh treatment came from the guards who were a separate and distinct institution in prison economy, or was the result of infringement of prison rules.

About a week after my arrival in No. 1 some of the prisoners on the lower floor were detected in the attempt to tunnel out. They had gone into the basement and started a tunnel with the intention of making their escape. They were driven up and distributed on the other three floors. This gave us about two hundred and thirty men to a floor and left us about eight square feet to the person.

About this time the cook-house was completed and we had a radical change of diet. There were twelve large kettles, set in arches, in which our meat and soup were cooked. Before proceeding farther let me say, that the cooking was done here for 3,500 men.

Our soup was made by boiling the meat, then putting in cabbages, or “cow peas” or “nigger peas,” or stock peas, (just suit yourself as to the name, they were all one and the same) and filling up AD LIBITUM with water. The prisons first served were usually best served for if the supply was likely to fall short a few pails full of Dan River water supplied the deficiency.

Our allowance was a bucket of soup to sixteen men, enough of it, such as it was, for the devil himself never invented a more detestable compound than that same “bug soup.” The peas from which this soup was made were filled with small, hard shelled, black bugs, known to us as pea bugs. Their smell was not unlike that of chinch bugs but not nearly as strong. Boil them as long as we might, they were still hard shelled bugs. The first pails full from a kettle contained more bugs, the last ones contained more Dan River water, so that it was Hobson’s choice which end of the supply we got.

(I notice there is considerable inquiry in agricultural papers as to these same cow peas whether they are good feed for stock. My experience justifies me in expressing the opinion that you “don’t have” to feed them to stock, let them alone and the bugs will consume them.)

Our supply of shorts bread was discontinued and corn bread substituted. This was baked in large pans, the loaves being about two and a half inches in thickness. This bread was made by mixing meal with water, without shortening or lightening of any kind. It was baked in a very hot oven and the result was a very hard crust on top and bottom of loaf, and raw meal in the center.

The water-closets of the four prisons, which surrounded the square, were drained into the canal already mentioned, and as the drains discharged their filth into the canal up stream from us, we were compelled to drink this terrible compound of water and human excrement, for we procured our drinking and cooking water from this same canal.

The result of this kind of diet and drink was, that almost every man was attacked with a very aggravated form of camp diarrhea, which in time became chronic. Many poor fellows were carried to their graves, and many more are lingering out a miserable existence to-day as a result of drinking that terrible hell-broth. And there was no excuse for this, for not more than ten rods north of the canal was a large spring just in the edge of Dan River, which would have furnished water for the whole city of Danville. The guards simply refused to go so far.

Some of the men attempted to make their escape while out to the water-closet at night. One poor fellow dropped down from the side of the cook-house, which formed part of the enclosure, and fell into a large kettle of hot water. This aroused the guard and all were captured on the spot. This occurred before the cook-house had been roofed over.

So many attempts were made to escape, that only two were allowed to go out at a time after dark. The effect of this rule can be partly imagined but decency forbids me to describe it. Suffice it to say that with nearly seven hundred sick men in the building it was awful beyond imagination.

We resorted to almost every expedient to pass away time. We organized debating clubs and the author displayed his wonderful oratorical powers to the no small amusement of the auditors. Well, I have this satisfaction, it did them no hurt and did me a great deal of good.

Two members of my regiment worked in the cook-house during the day, returning to prison at night. They furnished our mess with plenty of beef bones. Of these we manufactured rings, tooth picks and stilettos. We became quite expert at the business, making some very fine articles. Our tools were a common table knife which an engineer turned into a saw, with the aid of a file, a broken bladed pocket knife, a flat piece of iron and some brick-bats. The iron and brick were used to grind our bones down to a level surface.

We also procured laurel root, of which we manufactured pipe bowls. Carving them out in fine style, I made one which I sold for six dollars to a reb, but I paid the six dollars for six pounds of salt.

I hope my readers will remember the saw-knife described above, as it will be again introduced in a little scene which occurred in Andersonville.

Some one of our mess had the superannuated remains of a pack of cards, greasy they were and dog-eared, but they served to while away many a weary hour. One evening our old German who wanted “zult,” entertained us with a Punch and Judy show. The performance was good, but I failed to appreciate his talk.

But what we all enjoyed most was the singing. There was an excellent quartette in our room and they carried us back to our boyhood days by singing such songs as, “Home, Sweet Home,” “Down upon the Swanee River,” and “Annie Laurie.” When they sang patriotic songs all who could sing joined in the chorus. We made that old rebel prison ring with the strains of “The Star Spangled Banner,” “Columbia’s the Gem of the Ocean,” and the like. The guards never objected to these songs and I have caught the low murmur of a guard’s voice as he joined in “Home, Sweet Home.” But when we sang the new songs which had come out during the war, such as, “Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!” and the “Battle Cry of Freedom,” they were not so well pleased.

We use to tease them by singing,

“We will hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree,

As we go marching on.”

And—

“We are springing to the call from the east and from the west,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom,

And we’ll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love the best,

Shouting the battle-cry of freedom.”

About that time a guard would call out. “Yo’, Yanks up dah, yo’ stop dat kyind of singing or I’ll shoot.” “Shoot and be dammed.”—

“For we’ll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love the best, &c.” would ring out loud and clear for an answer, and then BANG would go the guard’s gun, answered by a yell of derision from the prison.

We suffered very much from cold that winter at Danville for we had no fire. It is true we had a stove and some green, sour gum wood was furnished but it would not burn, and then we made some weak and futile attempts to burn stone coal but it was a failure. The proportions were not right, there was not coal enough to heat the stone, and so we went without fire.

For bedding, I had an oil-cloth blanket and my “pard” had a woolen blanket. But an oil-cloth blanket spread on a hard floor, does not “lie soft as downy pillows are.” It did seem as though my hips would bore a hole through the floor.

One day a rebel officer with two guards came in and ordered all the men down from the third and fourth floors, then stationing a guard at the stairs, he ordered them to come up, two at a time.

I was in no hurry this time to see what was going on, so I awaited further developements. Soon after the men had commenced going up, a note fluttered down from over head. I picked it up, on it was written, “They are searching us for money, knives, watches and jewelry.” Word was passed around and all who had valuables began to secrete them. I had noticed that this class of fellows were expert at finding anything secreted about the clothing, so I tried a plan of my own. Taking my money I rolled it up in a small wad and stuffed it in my pipe. I then filled my pipe with tobacco, lit it and let it burn long enough to make a few ashes on top, then let it go out. Then I went up stairs with my haversack. The robbers took my knife and fork, but did not find my money.

A Sergeant of a Kentucky Regiment saved a gold watch by secreting it in a loaf of bread. Lucky fellow, to be the owner of a whole loaf of bread.

Small-pox broke out among us shortly after our arrival at Danville. Every day some poor fellow was carried out, and sent off to the pest house up the river.

About the 17th of December, a Hospital Steward, one of our men, came in and told us he had come in to vaccinate all of us who desired it. I had been vaccinated when a small boy, but concluded I would try and see if it would work again. It did. Many of the men were vaccinated as the Steward assured them that the virus was pure. Pure! Yes, so is strychnine pure. It was pure small-pox virus, except where it was vitiated by the virus of a disease, the most loathsome and degrading of any known to man, leprosy alone excepted. We were inoculated and not vaccinated. On the 26th I was very sick, had a high fever and when the surgeon came around I was taken out to the Hospital.

CHAPTER V.

“Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust!

And freeze thou bitter-biting frost!

Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows!

Not all your rage, as now united shows

More hard unkindness, unrelenting,

Vengeful malice unrepenting,

Than heaven illumined man on brother man bestows!”

Burns.

After I left the prison, I was marched around to three other prisons and waited outside while the Surgeon went through them to visit the sick. It was a damp, chilly day, and I was so sick and tired and my bones ached so badly that I was compelled to lie down upon the cold, wet, stone sidewalk, while the Surgeon went through the prisons. But all things earthly have an end, so did that Surgeon’s visits, and I was at last marched to the Hospital.

Here allow me to describe the Hospital buildings. There were four of them; three stood on the hill at the south part of the city, the fourth was on the banks of the river, near the Richmond Railroad bridge. They were about 40×120 feet and two stories high, with a hall running the whole length, dividing them into wards, each building contained four wards. They were erected in 1862 for the use of the wounded in the celebrated Peninsular Campaign.

To the rear of the north hospital building was the pest-house, a defunct shoe shop, in which convalescent shoemakers, who were soldiers in the rebel army, worked for the benefit of the C. S. A. To the rear of the center building was the cook-house and eating room, where convalescents took their meals, and to the rear of the cook-house stood the dead house, where the dead were placed prior to burial. To the rear of the south building was the bakery, where all the bread of the hospital and prisons was baked. This arrangement brought the three hospital buildings in a line, while the bakery, dead house and pest-house were in a line to the rear. A line of guards paced their beats around the whole.

I supposed when I was sent to the hospital that I had fever of some kind, but in two days the soreness of my throat and the pustules on my face and hands told the story too plainly, that the inoculation of a few days before was doing its work. I was down with a mild form of small-pox, varioloid, the doctors called it, but a Tennessee soldier pronounced it a case of the “Very O Lord.” I was taken from the hospital to the pest-house and laid on a straw pallet. My clothes were taken from me and sent to the wash-house and I was given a thin cotton shirt and a thin quilt for a covering.

The pest-house was but a slim affair, being built for summer use. It stood upon piles four feet high, was boarded up and down without battens and as the lumber was green when built, the cracks were half an inch in width at this time.

January 1st, 1864, was a terribly cold day. The Rebel Steward thinking we were not getting air enough, opened two windows in the ward I was in and then toasted himself at a good fire in another ward. I was charitably inclined and wished from the bottom of my heart that that Steward might have the benefit of a hot fire, both here and hereafter.

I nearly froze to death that day. My limbs were as cold as those of a corpse, but relief came about nine o’clock that night in the shape of a pint of hot crust coffee which I placed between my feet until all the heat had passed into my limbs, which, with constant rubbing, thawed me out.

Our rations at the hospital consisted of a slice of wheat bread and a half pint of thick beef soup, this was given us twice a day.

After staying in the pest-house a week a suit of clothes was given me and I was sent to Hospital No. 3, which had been turned into a small-pox hospital. Nearly forty per cent. of the Danville prisoners had small-pox yet the death rate was not high from that disease; diarrhea and scurvy were the deadly foes of the prisoners, and swept them off as with a besom.

After I had regained strength I entered into an agreement with half a dozen others to attempt an escape. Our plan was to get into a ditch which was west of the dead house, crawl down that past the guard into a ravine, and then strike for the Blue Ridge Mountains, thence following some stream to the Ohio River. But the moon was at the full at the time and we were compelled to wait for a dark night. There is an old saying that a “watched pot never boils,” so it was in our case; before a dark night came we were sent back to prison.

Exchange rumors were current at this time. We talked over the good times we would have when we got back into “God’s country.” We swore eternal abstinence from bug soup and corn bread, and promised ourselves a continual feast of roast turkey, oysters, beefsteak, mince pies, warm biscuit and honey, but here came a difference of opinion, some voted for mashed potatoes and butter, others for baked potatoes and gravy. There were many strong advocates of each dish. The mashed potatoe men affirmed that a man had no more taste than an ostrich who did not think that mashed potatoes and butter were ahead of anything else in that line; while the baked potatoe men sneeringly insinuated that the mashed potatoe men’s mothers or wives did not know how to bake potatoes just to the proper yellow tint, nor make gravy of just the right consistency and richness. The question was never settled until it was settled by each man selecting his own particular dish after months more of starvation.

There was restiveness among the men all the time, hunger and nakedness were telling upon their spirits as well as their health. I lay it down as a maxim that if you want to find a contented and good natured man, you must select a well fed and comfortably clothed man. Philosophize as much as you will upon the subject of diet but the fact remains that we are all more or less slaves:—to appetite.

During the month of December a number of the prisoners in No. 3 attempted a jail delivery by crawling out through the drain of the water-closet. They were detected however and most of them captured and returned to prison. Among those who got away was John Squires, of Co. K., 10th Wis. He had part of a rebel uniform and managed to keep clear of the Home guards for a number of days, but was finally captured and returned to prison. But this did not discourage him. He had finished out his uniform while at large and was ready to try it again at the first opportunity. But Johnny was no Micawber who waited for something to turn up; he made his own opportunities. One day he took his knife and unscrewed the “catch” of the door lock and walked out, as he passed through the door he turned to his fellow prisoners and remarked “Now look he’ah yo’ Yanks, if yo’ don’t have this flo’ah cleaned when I git back yo’ll git no ration to-day.” Then turning he saluted the guard, walked down stairs, saluted the outer guard, walked across the square, over the bridge, passing two guards, past where a number of rebel soldiers were working on a fort and on to “God’s Country” where he arrived after weeks of wandering and hunger and cold in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the valleys of West Virginia:—another case of “cheek.”

One day a rebel Chaplain came into our prison and preached to us. He informed us with a great deal of circumlocution that he was Chaplain of a Virginia Regiment, that he was a Baptist minister, and that his name was Chaplain. He then proceeded to hurl at our devoted heads some of the choicest selections of fiery extracts, flavored with brimstone to be found in the Bible. In his concluding prayer he asked the Lord to forgive us for coming into the South to murder and burn and destroy and rob, at the same time intimating that he, himself, could not do it. I suppose he felt better after he had scorched us and we felt just as well. He would have had to preach to us a long time before he could have made us believe that there was a worse place than rebel prisons.

One source of great discomfort, yea, torture, was body lice, “grey-backs,” in army parlance. They swarmed upon us, they penetrated into all the seams of our clothing. They went on exploring expeditions on all parts of our bodies, they sapped the juices from our flesh, they made our days, days of woe, and our nights, nights of bitterness and cursing. We could not get hot water, our unfailing remedy in the army. Our only resource was “skirmishing.” This means stripping our clothes and hunting them out:—and crushing them.

On warm days it was a common sight to see half of the men in the room with their shirts off, skirmishing.

One day, a number of Reb. citizens came in to see the “Yanks.” Among them was a large finely built young man. He was dressed in the height of fashion and evidently belonged to the F. F. V.’s. We were skirmishing when they came in, and young F. F. V. strutted through the room, with his head up, like a Texas steer in a Nebraska corn field. His nose and lips suggested scorn and disgust. Thinks I, “my fine lad I’ll fix you.” Just as he passed me I threw a large “Grey-back” on his coat; many of the prisoners saw the act, and contributed their mite to the general fund, and by the time young F. F. V. had made the circuit of the room, he was well stocked with Grey-backs. It is needless to add he never visited us again.

Scurvy and diarrhea were doing their deadly work even at Danville. These diseases were due, largely, to causes over which the rebels had control.

Dr. Joseph Jones, a bitter rebel, professor of Medical Chemistry, at the Medical College in Augusta, was sent by the Surgeon General of the Confederate army, to investigate and report upon the cause of the extreme mortality in Andersonville. He attributed scurvy to a lack of vegetable diet and acids. Diarrhea and dysentery, he said, were caused by the filthy conditions by which we were surrounded, polluted water, and the fact that the meal from which our bread was made was not separated from the husk.

There have been many stories told with relation to this meal; let me make some things plain, and then there will not be the apparent contradiction, that there is at present in the public mind.

The difference in opinion arises from the different interpretations of the word “husk.”

A true northern man understands husk to mean;—the outer covering of the ear of corn; while a southerner, or Middle States, man calls it a “shuck.”

The husk referred to by Dr. Jones, would be called by a northerner, the “hull,” or bran. His meaning was that it was unsifted.

The fetid waters of the canal, the unsifted corn meal made into half baked bread, and a lack of vegetables and acids, together with the rigid prison rules, which resulted in filth, and stench, beyond description, were the prime causes of the great mortality at Danville. During the five months in which I was confined at Danville, more than 500 of 4,200 prisoners died, or about one in eight.

Our clothing too, was getting old, many of the men had no shoes, others were almost naked. Our government sent supplies of food and clothing to us, but they were subjected to such a heavy toll that none of the food, and but little of the clothing ever reached us, and what little was distributed to our men was soon traded to the guards for bread, or rice, or salt. I never received a mouthful of food, or a stitch of clothing which came through the lines.

In February reports came to us that the Confederate government was building a large prison stockade somewhere down in Georgia, and that we were to be removed to it; that our government had refused to exchange prisoners, and that we were “in for it during the war.”

About the 1st of April 1864 the prisoners in one of the buildings were removed. The prison officials said they had gone to City Point to be exchanged, but one of the guards told us they had gone to Georgia. But we soon found out the truth of the matter for on the 15th we were all taken from No. 1 and put on board the cars. We were stowed in at the rate of sixty prisoners, and four guards to a car.

The lot of my mess fell to a car which had been used last, for the conveyance of cattle. No attempt had been made to clean the car and we were compelled to kick the filth out the best we could with our feet.

Our train was headed toward Richmond and the guards swore upon their “honah” that we were bound for City Point to be exchanged.

A LETTER FROM COMRADE DEXTER LANE.

Since the foregoing chapter was printed in The People’s Press, we have received the following endorsement of the story from a comrade who knows HOW IT WAS by a personal experience.

Editor.

Merton, Minn., March 26, ’89.

Editor People’s Press:

I have been much interested in perusing a series of articles published in The People’s Press from the pen of Hon. W. W. Day, Lemond, giving reminiscences of army life, what he saw and experienced while held a prisoner of war in various prisons in the South during the late Rebellion. I confess an additional interest, perhaps, in the story above the casual reader from the fact that I, too, was a guest of the southern chivalry from Sept. 20th, 1863, until the May following. In company with the boys of the 124th Ohio, I attended that Chickamauga Picnic. There were no girls to cast a modifying influence over the Johnnies, or any one else. As early as the morning of the 19th, something got crooked producing no little confusion and excitement, which increased as the hours wore away, up to the afternoon of the following day, when suddenly it seemed that that whole corner of Georgia was turned into one grand pandemonium. Everything that could be gotten loose was let loose, many a boy got hurt that day badly. Some bare-footed gyrating, thing got onto my head, worked in under the hair, and twitched me down. It brought about a quiescence quicker than any dose of morphia I ever swallowed, and I have eaten lots of it since that time; I can feel its toes to-day.

Time passed, night was approaching, when several Johnnies approached, one of whom came up to where I was sitting on the ground, and spoke to me. The man was a blamed poor talker, but I understood fully what was wanted, and acquiesced promptly. The outcome of which was, I was toddled off to Atlanta; from thence to Richmond and Danville, Va. I make no attempt to write of my own personal adventures, or prison experience. Much of it, with but few exceptions, as well as the experience of thousands of others, may be gleaned from the papers of Comrade Day. For a time I owned and occupied a chalk mark, as my bed, on the same floor with Comrade Day at Danville, and I wish to say, what he has written of the rebel management of those prisons, both at Richmond and Danville, the general treatment of prisoners, rations, in kind, quantity, quality, manner of cooking, &c., &c., are the COLD FACTS. Many incidents and happenings which he refers to in his narrative came to my own personal observation, and as related by him accord fully with my recollections of them at the time of their occurrence. In fact I heartily endorse, as being substantially true, every word of the Comrade’s Prison experiences, except, perhaps, his reference to Belle Isle. I think his statement there imbibes a little of the imaginary, when he characterizes the place as a literal “hell on earth.” Where did he get his facts? That’s the puzzle. No matter, if he were there—It is a small matter however, and may be true after all. I know something of Belle Isle, but have only this to say, if the emperor of the infernal regions, who is said to reign below the great divide, has a hole anywhere in his dominions, filled with souls that are undergoing pains and miseries equaling those to which our boys were subjected on Belle Isle, I pray God I may escape it.

Dexter Lane.

CHAPTER VI.

EN ROUTE TO ANDERSONVILLE.

“Tis a weary life this—

Vaults overhead and gates and bars around me,

And my sad hours spent with as sad companions,

Whose thoughts are brooding o’er their own mischances,

Far, far too deeply to take part in mine.”