USA > Delaware > Prison life during the rebellion. Being a brief narrative of the miseries and sufferings of six hundred Confederate prisoners sent from Fort Delaware to Morris' Island to be punished > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
It was a grand yet fearful sight to behold the shelling, at night. The guns were three-honderd-pounder sided pieces, and at every discharge produced a concussion which stook the samly Island like the convulsive throes of an earthquake, and shook the entire frame from head to foot. Next was seen the fiery and death-bearing ele- ment springing from the guns with the velocity of a shadow, and by its projectile force soaring aloft into the smooth space above, a long fery tail resembling that of a comet trailing beland.
It continued its course till being on rpowered by the attracting power of the earth, and having lost its projectile energy, it began to descend rapidly. The nearer it approached its destiny the greater its velocity. When nearing the destined place, suddenly with the concussion of a thunderbolt it burst, and the fragments were heard singing the death knell on every side. Noon the groans of some poor wretch was heard who had been wounded, or the death slick of some miserable creature who had found his eternal all.
Thus day after day and night after night we feasted our longing eyes with the grandeur of these death-bearing se nes, and filled out minds with the horrors attending the surge. Our cans were con- stantly greeted with the year of artilery, the concussion of shells, the groans of wounded. or the shrickset the dring.
Oh, the misery of having the car constantly filled with such dole- ful sounds, the misery, the horrific ries, the wretched agony of anticipating death at every moment ! The battle field was pleasure compared with this, for its scenes only lasted a few hours and only occurred a few times in a year: lat have death from shells was a continual dread. The mind was continually filled with the horrible prospect of instant death, not only now and then, but every moment. Both day and night, there was to one moment that the mind was free from the dreadful thought.
Thus exposed to the continual shelling of the Confederate guns,.
1
37
SECTION VI.
and also the Federal guns of Wagner, we lingered on from day to day. Also at the hands of our cruel guards we suffered every in- dignity and cruel punishment which could be inflicted upon us.
Pinched by the dreadful pains of hunger, we longed for death, and dreaded not to meet the monster. Every day we grew more wreich- ed, and lost more of the traits and character of humans, and by con- tinually abusing and being abused, we grew familiar with sin and wickedness in every shape.
Thus living on three crackers and two ounces of meat and some warm water, abused, fired upon, shelled, cursed, starved, and rendered miserable in every form, we lingered on for forty-five days in this horrible place, ere we were permitted to bid a final, and I hope an everlasting farewell to Morris' Island.
SECTION VI.
Voyage to Fort Pulaski-treatment there, &c.
After suffering the dreadful miseries and unsurpassable wretched- ness of Morris' Island for forty-five days, another,ineffectual effort was made for our exchange, but Gen. Jones remained firm as ada- mant, and would not swerve a hair from his first proposition.
The Federals failing in their Morris Island undertaking, determ- ined to ship us to some other point ; and preparations were immedi- ately made for that purpose, but many poor and haggard faces that once had been fresh and blooming, looked vacantly upon the scene of our late suffering, and as we departed, heaped many a silent curse upon the miserable, desecrated, and never to be forgotten place.
We were marched in silence to the wharf. There were many faltering steps in that small body trudging toward the wharf, which had been in former days lively and free to act according to the dic- tates of the will and the wishes of the mind.
We took passage in an old seabeaten and dismasted schooner, which had to be towed by another vessel ; and after a short, though somewhat pleasant voyage contrasted with the previous scene of misery and despair, we arrived in safety at Fort Pulaski. Nothing of interest occurred on our voyage, except the attempt of some of the prisoners to escape.
We were taken into custody by the Seventy-fourth N. Y. Volun- teers. They were a nice body of fellows, and displayed most of the traits of gentlemen. They treated us with great respect, and offered no insults to our dignity or position. We appeared to en- joy our situation rather better than any we had since we left Fort Delaware.
The regiment was commanded by Col. Brown, a New Yorker of fine talents, and possessing all the characteristics of a gentleman of high honor and unblemished deportinent. He used all his influence to make us comfortable, and yet we were very far from enjoying any thing like comfort, pleasure or enjoyment.
Our provisions were given to us twice a day. They were in small quantities, yet the quality was good. They consisted of ba-
1
38
PRISON LIFE.
ker's bread and boilt meat of a good quality. They were issued By the hands of white men-quite a different feature from the Morris Island manner of distributing reshuns.
'The bread and meat was about half enough to satisfy the crav- ings of the everlonging appetite-that is, they were just enough for one meal, and half enough for another. Yet this was a very great improvement upon the quantity at Morris' Island, and certainly an exceedingly great improvement upon the quality.
We were confined in the casemates of the fort, there being no preparations made for reception or comfort. The cold brick walls on every side and overhead made the situation more horrble than the Pen of Morris' Island. The damp bricks furnished a very un- comfortable bed, and hurried on the diseases which many of us had previously contracted, and produced the same in many who had, till then, been healthy.
Water was given in sufficient supplies, and other accommodation, were of very indifferent character. No fire was allowed within the casemates, and we suffered much from the chilliness and dampness of the atmosphere, and several died from its chilling effects.
Considering the scene as a whole, it was one full of misery, and fraught with wretchedness. The provisions were of a good quality, yet of a very inferior quantity, and the conduct of the officers and soldiers was very humane. Exclusive of these two improvements upon the character of the Morris Island treatment, the remainder was equally as miserable and horrible as the Morris Island treatment.
We remained at Fort Pulaski for some time, suffering the mise- ries and torments of Federal inhumanity, barbarity and cruelty. Indeed, the barbarity of these scenes scarcely has a parallel in the annals of human history.
SECTION VII.
Departure from Pulaski-voyage to Hilton Head, and treatment there.
After spending some time in the bleak, dismal, damp and sickly casemates of Pulaski, we were suddenly called together, and two hundred of us were selected from the others, that number being half -- for we had dwindled down to four hundred-for some purpose unknown to us-the popular opinion was that we were to be ex- changed.
So popular was this opinion, that many strong and robust men, with a magnanimity worthy of imitation, proffered their places to their weakly and sickly fellows, and many offered large sums of Con- federate money to the select ones to procure their places, and we really supposed that the star of peace was rising, and that the sun of freedom was about to burst upon us and free us from the domin- ion of Yankees and negroes.
But we were destined to see and feel greater agonies and more deplorable miseries than any we had ever known, or ever for a mo- ment fancied. We were to change quarters, and be placed again
39
SECTION VII.
under the dominion of a fierce, rigid, tyranical and inhuman foe.
We took passage in a small steamer, and sailed from Pulaski to Hilton Head. Nothing of interest occurred on the voyage, and after a few hours of sailing we arrived at Hilton Head, where we were landed and placed in tents for two days.
At the expiration of this time we were removed to a square en- closure on the beach. This enclosure contained the barraeks of the officers and privates, the cookhouses, hospital, guard house and general headquarters.
It contained several acres, and was square. The surface of the earth being entirely sand, there was no herbage of any kind inside. On the side next the beach were erected general headquarters, which consisted of several small, but neatly finished buildings, and ele- gantly furnished with the necessary furniture and fixings.
On the west side, the barracks for the privates extended from one end to the other, consisting of small but comfortable frame huts, and furnished with the necessary bunks, furniture, &c.
On the north and east sides there extended from one end to the other a high plank wall, hiding from the view the outside scenes, and rendering the inside inaccessible to outside intruders. Also the un- occupied spaces between the buildings on the south and west were filled with the same wall.
There was but one entrace to this Feudal castle, which was a large gate on the east, rigidly guarded. Near the centre was the guard house, a commodious and comfortable structure for the conve- nience of the guard, both black and white. Near the guard house was the reshun house into which the meat and bread reshuns were conveyed in a small, filthy, dungy, and miserable cart, the bread partaking of the filth of the cart.
To this building crowded every day at noon a promiscuous crowd such as the sun scarcely ever shines upon ; niggers dumb as mules, niggers wiser, niggers citizens, niggers soldiers, mulattoes, half whites, oath-takers, white citizens, white soldiers, white women given up to wretchedness and abandoned to misery, nigger women, dirty, mean, filthy, ragged and wretched ; this was the crowd.
Near the east side was the building for the reception of a part of this promiscuous and unsightly crowd. It was a long, wide and high building constructed of plank, and in every way made comfortable and delightful to its occupants.
Near the angle formed by the union of the north and west sides we were situated. We were situated in two buildings, surrounded on three sides by sentinels, and on the fourth by the wall of plank on the north side of the enclosure. Our pen enclosed the cooking and reshun house for the hospital, but no rations were served up within its portals for the starving two hundred unless they were about to die, when they were carried to the hospital.
We were placed in two similar buildings, one hundred in each. These buildings were built of plank placed one against another, and of course affording light and plenty of fresh air through the openingy between the planks. "They had been originally erected for the use of military convicts of the Yankee army, and had never been de-
40
PRISON LIFE.
signed for the use of white men, but only lawless and miserable new groes. for whom they only served as a place of torment. They would have been cool and pleasant in sonner, but in winter admitted all the terrors of the cold and freezing atmosphere.
They were probably seventy or eighty feet long, and were wide enough to adout an aisle of several feet in the centre, with bunks on each side. The books were enclosed on every side by upright planks, thus being formed in small squares with bunks one above another. Each door was so fixed as to be locked if necessary. The entrance to the aisles was closed by two large gates kept securely locked every night.
In the daytime twenty persons were allowed to go out at a time. Then when one went in another could go out, so only twenty re- mained out at once. The roll was called three times a day. We were formed in front of the building, and as each man's name was called he was required to go into the building.
The hospital was situated in the upper story of one of the build- ings, and there were crowded together both yanks and rebs, but no Confed could get a place unless almost dead, and generally sare to die after getting there. Of course the hospital was well furnished.
The General commanding the department kept his headquarters here. Thompson, the post commander, was posted here. He was one of those cowardly, villainous, and cannibal Yankees which we so frequently found during our sufferings. He possessed all the cruelty, barbarity and inhumanity which a man or beast could have. A Lieut. . Griffin, holding some position, was a very nice fellow, possessing the qualities of a soldier, Christian and gentleman.
Among the guard was but one nigger, and he was sensible, rational and humane, having been born and raised in a Christian family in S. Carolina. The remainder of the guard were white, and excepting one, were men of good principles, and treated us with the respect due our rank and situation. We suffered but few indiguities from the guard or oficers, except Thompson, who heaped insults, meanness, abuses and curses upon us, and did everything in his power to render us miserable and wretched. The nagroes, (outsiders), ahused and cursed us at a fearful rate.
The nearces and others would come in and commerce arguments with us purposely to curse and abuse us. Negroes were hired to come and abuse us. Private citizens, sailors, ministers, doctors and hospi- tal and marine officers did all in their power to abuse and curse us.
We were frequently visited by officers, sailors, marines, soldiers, niggers, citizens, nigger women, northern men, doctors, ministers, northern women, Yankre school-marms, white men married to nigger women, and white women married to niggers. Each one of these classes would try to persuade us at first to take the oath, and be freed from prison. Failing in this, they would try to argue us out of the reasonableness of our cause, and of the wickedness of fighting against the old flag.
Neither of these having the desired effort, they would heap upon us hundreds of anathemas, a multitude of abuses, and plenty of indigni-
.
41
SECTION VII. !
ties-tantalize us and call us names, and hope that the government would hang us all.
Ministers, instead of warning us to flee the wrath to come, said, take the oath ; how wrong to fight against the old flag. In fact, these were the words used by all, not only ministers, but doctors, soldiers, sailors, women, niggers and all.
We were frequently greeted by the sight of some . May Flower man, (Puritan), leading round by his side, and under his wing, one of the sable daughters of Africa, black, thick-lipped, pitchy buzzy. We thought he had a fine odoriferous scent, and loved to regale his olfac- tory organs on the smell of Africa or her sable daughters.
On some occasions white women of rare beauty were spen led by the arm of a large, ugly, thick-lipped, greasy buck negro. We frequently thought she had a fine stomach, and could relish almost anything. Sometimes they would kiss their negro spouse in our presence to show us their sincerity, and also to taunt us by such conduct. Sometimes the childred were seen half-and-half. Such were some of the negro scenes, or the result of amalgamation.
We were not obliged to suffer here for water, as we had longed for that indispensable article in the boat. . Water was quite abundant here. There was a large well inside the enclosure, to which we could go and satiate the thirsty appetite. These wells were dug in the sand, and were nothing but sea water drained through the sand until partially relieved from the salt it became fit for use.
The next subject of which we will treat will be that of food ; for here our treatment in that respect far exceeded in cruelty any we had hitherto experienced. Indeed we had imagined that the cup of human sufferings could not be fuller, and that the soul was susceptible of no greater miseries than those which we had previously felt.
But we were destined to a more cruel and miserable doom than we could have imagined, and to greater sufferings than we had ever be- fore known or felt. The soul can have no conception, the imagination no idea, or the fancy picture no portrait of the miseries we endured.
The mind, the fancy, and all the powers of the soul fail to convey any idea of the wretchedness of the scene. The pen and the tongue lag behind in giving a description of the horrors of those days, and it is impossible upon paper, or in conversation to give any unbiased mind any idea of the horrid miseries of the place.
For two days after our arrival we were about half fed on pork and baker's bread : at the expiration of these two days we were put upon the regular diet, or the diet of retaliation, as it was called, had better been named the bread of sorrow, tears and affliction.
Our rations were given to us every morning. They consisted of cornmeal alone, without either salt, meat, or vegetables of any kind. dry cornmeal. It might have served a good purpose had it beer ..... in sufficient quantities and been suitable for use, or in any way dors; but it was neither suitable for use nor the quantity suffien at
The cornmeal had been ground for two years, as appeared from the - brand on the barrels, and in this time had become quite stale, so in el. so that it was both sour and bitter, and to such a great degree did it 6
42
PRISON LIFE.
possess these qualities, that to a stomach not wholly given up to hun- ger and starvation, it would not have been in any ways eatable.
It is not probable that the most voracious of dogs would have eaten it except in cases of extreme hunger and a near approach to starva- tion. We had to approach a state near to actual starvation before we could relish the sour and bitter cornmeal.
It did not only possess the disagreeable and unrelishable tastes of sourness and bitterness, but those of rottonness, mouldiness, mustiness, and a strong and exceedingly offensive smell, and added to this were great quantities of small worms, with the thousands of eggs, dirt, filth, and other bad qualities.
This old, rotten, dirty, musty, stinking, wormy, and worm-eaten meal furnished food for us during our stay at Hilton Head ; and it must be remembered that this meal alone was our diet, without salt, meat, or vegetables-cornmeal alone.
We received, as the Quarterinaster stated, according to government rules, half rations, which would have been ten ounces, but we received in reality only six, and sometimes only four, and less, and this had to satiatetheappetite for twenty-four hours. It was just bread enough for one meal, if there had been meat, and the bread been a good quality.
But considering the quantity and quality of the meal, it was horrible indeed, to be confined with no other article of food but this, and only six ounces of it to satisfy an appetite for twenty-four hours ; and then · the sour and bitter taste, with the offensive smell, the rotten, musty, and mouldy quality, and the abundance of worms and their deposites ! It was horribly outrageous that humans. in a land of plenty, should be forced by civilized beings, to live on spoilt cornmeal and worms, and their deposites.
We generally preferred our food in the morning, and dispatched it with the greediness of a shark, and involuntarily and necessarily fasted until the next morning. The meal was given raw and unbaked, and no utensils or cooking vessels of any kind were given us in which we might prepare our food, and a reasonable conclusion would be, that prisoners had no cooking vessels.
A very small number of the prisoners, perhaps a dozen, had some money which had been sent to them by their friends. " With this they procured small frying pans for themselves, which answered to them the purpose of baking their meal; but the large number who had no mon- ey, of course could procure no frying pan, and had no vessel for cook- ing purposes. Some borrowed from others who had paus and were not using them, but the small number of pans would not supply all the pris- oners, and they were not common property. Having been bought by a few, they were, of course, their property. Those who had none, man- aged, as I have said, to borrow. Thaw who could not borrow boiled their meal in a cup fir ming, or any & o; they had or could get. But few of these could be had, and a vad tousbor were lett without either a baking or cooking vessel, and were three to cat their meal like brutes, raw and dry.
Considering the quality and quanties of the neal, and the absence of cooking vessels, it is no wotaler we suffered all the horrible agony of
43
SECTION VII.
hunger, despair, and wretchedness. Yet we were forced to comply with the strictures of Yankee rule, and the words of the brutish Thompson were law, and he had only to command, and it was done.
For the purpose of cooking our rations we were furnished a small supply of wood. This was green pine or live oak in quality, and the quantity entirely insufficient to cook our scanty rations. When the wood was exhausted we dispatched our meal raw. Dry, raw, rotten, worm-eaten, musty and mouldy cornmeal.
We chopped our wood into small fibres or chips, and built little fires on the sand, resembling those built by children in their innocent play ; but this was the best we could do, for if we attempted to build a large fire, our stock for several days would have been exhausted at once.
The weather was exceedingly cold, so freezing cold, that many of the prisoners froze their feet, hands and ears, and some other parts of the body. It must be remembered that the season of the year was toid winter, and though we were in South Carolina, we were upon the beach, and so near the ocean, that we received the benefit of all the chilling winter blasts which constantly pervade the ocean.
The chilling winds here were the fiercest I ever felt, and fiercer than those of Virginia. It must also be kept in mind that the house in which we were confined was so open as to admit large quantities of these chilling and freezing blasts ; added to this, numbers had scarce- ly clothing enough to cover their naked body ; some had no hats; oth- ers no shoes, and but few had coats or shirts ; and scarcely a man had a good suit, and none had a full suit.
In addition to the mid-winter, the freezing air, the cold apartment, and the loss of clothing, but three or four had any blanketssufficient to protect them from the terrors of the cold while they reposed in the arms of slumber, and besides all this, we had not a spark of fire in the house. No fire was allowed in the building, and out of doors our small cooking fires afforded no heat whatever.
It is not at all wonderful that we suffered all the wretchedness of despair, and the anguish of misery, while freezing in a land flowing with milk and honey. The chilling blast, the freezing house, the loss of clothes, the want of blankets, and the absence of fire. made our hab- itation one of the deepest agony and the most wretched horror. It indeed seemed that we were deserted by God and man, and had been given over to demons and devils to be tormented.
Many men, in order to keep from freezing, trudged the floor at short intervals from morning to night, ard from night until morning. This had to be resorted to in many cases to keep from freezing. The feet were cold for many days and nights together.
Disease spread among us at a fearful rate. The dry cornmeal, with- out meat or vegetables, produced both chronic diarrhoea and scurvy. The scurvy spread among os teorfully -- I being the only man who did not have the wretched disease. Several died, others were carried to the hospit d. and bring poorly cared for, lingered for days together, suffering the eur ruciating pains of sentvy. Others were rendered crip- ples or invalids for his by the ravages of scurvy, and scarcely one who had the disease ever fairly recovered, but was in sytem more or less
44 1
PRISON LIFE.
disorganized by the dire and horrid disease. There being but little medical treatment, and that of the most indifferent quality, and admin- istered by one wholly ignorant of the science, made the scene more horrid.
Chronic diarrhea spread among us like a contagion, and, seizing many a victim, dragged him to a premature grave ; and many lingered. long upon the verge of the grave, and finally dropped in.
The extreme cold burried upon many tbe fearful diseases of fever, pneumonia, &c., and these sent destruction in our midst, and thinned our ranks with a fearful abruptness. The cold also caused the return of rheumatism to those who had been previously its subjects, and it also initiated many new members into its horrid and undesirable order.
A prisoner had to be nearly dead before he could have a place in a hospital, and after his reception there, was scarcely cared for, but was misused and cruelly treated and insulted in a manner that made a man abhor the hospital more than the rough fare of the camp.
Many prisoners attempted to make their escape, but none succeeded, from the impracticability of crossing the stream. Col. Manning and others succeeded in escaping from the quarters, and getting clear of the guard, but while preparing to cross the stream, were caught by ne- gioes and blood-hounds. They were returned to the prison, and · placed in a dungeon.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.