USA > Illinois > Will County > Fifteen years ago; or, The patriotism of Will County, designed to preserve the names and memory of Will County soldiers, both officers and privates - both living and dead: to tell something of what they did, and of what they suffered, in the great struggle to preserve our nationality > Part 42
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We arrived at Augusta after dark, and it was found that the railroad had not the cars necessary to forward us on that night, and we were quartered in a building that had been used as a slave pen, but it was tolerably clean and sheltered us from the cold.
In the morning a wash at the pump gave us an appetite for our breakfast, after which we went into the yard to gaze, and be gazed at. We purchased a wagon-load of sweet potatoes at six dollars (Confed.) a bushel, and these were our principal diet until we reached Richmond. About 9} we fell into line, and marched to the S. Carolina depot. In doing so we passed through several of the principal streets, which were very fine, wide and handsomely shaded. Many ladies were out, some very handsome ones, but of course they had naught but looks of scorn and hate for the " in- vaders of sacred soil." Occasionally an old negro " auntie " would say, " God bless you, honies."
After waiting an hour or so we were taken across the Savan- nah River on to the soil of South Carolina, and bivouacked on a hill, when we had an opportunity to wash up, cook and enjoy our- selves generally. Negro hucksters were permitted to come into camp, and we purchased bread, persimmons, muscadines, etc., and really passed a pleasant day.
About 4 p. m., we again started, and until dark could see swamps of Carolina Cypress, Bay, and other trees and plants, that were new to most of us. We were in ordinary freight cars with- out seats and pretty crowded. During the night we passed at some station two trains of soldiers going to the front. Ladies were out with torches, etc., bidding them good-bye. At daylight we were within a couple of miles of Columbia. The train stopped, and we got out and cooked our breakfast, and about seven o'clock a passenger train came out and took us into Columbia, when we
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marched to the depot of the Charlotte railroad, where the officers were given passenger cars. We made the run to Charlotte, a dis- tance of 110 miles, arriving at dark. Here we staid that night, as the railroad had no cars ready. We camped in an open field. The night was cold. The next day all the officers were crowded into one box car, and we had the hardest ride of all the trip.
At night sleep was impossible, as, if we laid down, we would be three deep. About midnight we reached Raleigh and changed cars again. This time our party was allowed box cars, and we could lie down the balance of the night. About 8 a. m., next day, (the 16th) we reached Welden, were camped in a field, and had another chance to wash, cook, etc., which we needed badly. A ra- tion of hard-tack made from pea flour, was issued, but no one could eat it, and we found our sweet potatoes still useful. We started just before dark for Petersburg, where we arrived about 11 o'clock. We camped out doors again, the night was cold, and no one could sleep much, and we were glad to get up by early daylight, and start on the last heat, even though the goal was Libby Prison ; at which place we arrived between six and seven o'clock that Sunday morning. We looked with considerable in- terest at the building which had gained such an unenviable repu- tation, and which was to be our abiding place for an uncertain time.
Every window was filled with heads, looking eagerly at the new arrivals. We were marched into one of the lower rooms, reg- istered our names, had our baggage searched, and our greenbacks taken from us. They promised to keep the same and to exchange them for confederate money, and to return any balance that might be left on our departure, in kind; which promise they did not keep very well. The promise to keep they kept very well, but the balance very poorly.
These preliminaries over, we were conducted to the door of the prison proper and ushered in, and what a place ! and what a welcome ! All the prisoners were crowded around the door, shouting at the top of their voices "fresh fish !" (that being the prison slang for new arrivals), and asking a multitude of ques- tions, " Where do you belong ?" " Where were you captured ?" etc., etc. I crowded my way through, and soon found to my sur-
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prise, not to say delight, Col. Bartleson and Lts. Kenaston and Koach, of the 100th, and we were soon busy comparing notes. I could give them but little news about the regiment, and they were equally ignorant. After talking for a time I began to look around at our quarters and accommodations for living. These were limited. As much of the floor as one could lie down on, with the privilege of being covered with such blankets as we had succeeded in bringing with us. No bunks or chairs, except in the case of some old stager, who had been able to manufacture a chair from a flour barrel. Such happy ones were looked upon as " bloat- ed aristocrats."
The building was made historic under the title of Libby Prison, was an old tobacco factory, three stories in height, and extending over the width of three stores, giving nine long rooms, forty by sixty, very low, and lighted at each end by windows. On the ground floor, the first room was occupied by the officers in charge, the next were the dining and cook rooms, and the third the officer's hospital. Over the office were the " Straight " and " Mil- roy " rooms; over the kitchen the two " Chickamauga ;" and over the hospital, the two " Potomac " rooms. Doors and stairs com- municated with all the 2d and 3d stories and the kitchen, so that the inmates could go from one to another freely.
That day we had no opportuntty to try, the fare, as rations were issued early in the morning to last twenty-four hours. They did not get any " extra meals " at the Hotel Libby, and we had to subsist on what we might have in our haversacks. Our party was divided into messes Nos. 21 and 22. The first afternoon was oc- cupied in these arrangements and in writing letters, as a mail was to go out the next day, and in making out a requisition on the office, asking them to convert our greenbacks then on deposit, for the legal confed. currency. At night we were ready to rest, which I did quite comfortably, despite the novelty and inconveniences of the situation.
The next day we had our first taste of prison soup. At that time a certain amount of beef was issued per man, which we made into soup for the whole mess, ekeing it out with vegetables, of which we could procure a limited amount at very high prices, through the commissary. A cup of this soup and part of our
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loaf of bread was dinner, and the meat after being used for soup was hashed up the next morning for breakfast. At the very first, also, we could purchase coffee.
As the weeks passed on the fare grew worse. Meat would be omitted altogether some days, and sometimes poor bacon substi- tuted for the fresh meat. Corn bread took the place of wheat, and sometimes cold rice was the sum total of our breakfast.
At this time there were over one thousand officers confined in Libby, and a queer crowd they were. Every calling and profes- sion was represented : Artists, poets and scholars; lawyers, judges and preachers. Every rank in the army also had its representa- tives, from 2d lieutenant to general. Niel Dow, better known per- haps as a Temperance Reformer than as a military man, was the representative of the rank of general.
A stroll around the rooms would be an interesting, if not amusing one. Here might be seen a class burnishing up their Greek or Latin ; another studying French, Geometry, &c. An- other near by as busily engaged in playing euchre, seven up, domi- noes, checkers, and almost every known game. Others would be found reading, while all, or almost all, would be found smoking. Tobacco was one of the main stays and comforts of prison life, and as we were permitted to buy it, a constant cloud of smoke was kept up. George Trask would have found but little encourage- ment here.
One of the common employments was the manufacturing of rings, crosses, &c., from the beef bones obtained in the kitchen. This resource was known as the " bone fever," and it was sure to attack a " fresh fish " about the third day after his arrival. The first, last, and most oft-repeated duty of the day, was the stripping and examination of clothing for that most disagreeable animal- the " grayback." They were the greatest pests, and made life almost unbearable from their great numbers and activity.
Roll-call was held early in the morning, the inmates of a room arranging themselves in files four deep, on the approach of the officer, who simply counted us, and if the number was correct, we broke ranks and then to breakfast.
We were permitted to purchase the daily Richmond papers, but they had but little news, and the reading was not very agreea-
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ble to Yankees. A portion of the inmates, chaplains and sur- geons, being non-combatants were not rightfully held as prisoners, and their early release was among the probabilities. There was not an hour in the day that some rumor was not afloat relating to their release, or on the subject of general exchange. "Grape vines " was the prison name for such reports. When the arrival of a flag of truce boat at the City Point was noticed in the papers, the excitement would be great.
On Saturday morning, 17th of October, just after the cry " four o'clock, and all is well " had gone the rounds of the prison guard, a sergeant came into the rooms, and ordered the chaplains to " fall in," and we knew that their time had come, and ours was postponed at least a week.
The literary members had a paper called the " Libby Chroni- cle," which was read about once a week. There was also a min- strel troupe which gave occasional performances in the dining room. Some of their burlesques I remember, as " Roll Call," " Fresh Fish," etc., were excellent. Gen. Neil Dow gave us several temperance lectures.
While I was there, there was no punishment of officers by the authorities, except that one day rations were cut off, excepting bread, because some of our officers had passed some victuals ยท down into the officers' hospital; but before and after my stay there, officers were punished by being sent to the dungeon.
About the first of November, some stores sent by the U. S. sanitary commisson were received and distributed, which were very acceptable. Boxes of goods sent by our friends were de- livered to us after examination, and elimination; I received my first one Nov. 13th. As our boxes had to pass rebel inspection it would of course be useless to send anything in them, except such articles as the authorities would allow. And much as they despised yankees and the yankee government, they had a great regard for yankee greenbacks, confessing that they were worth seven times as much as their own money. They did not there- fore allow any to paas through their hands. Hence it became a question with our friends outside, how to get them into our posses- sion. While I was there Col. Bartleson received a box from Jo- liet, and found on the top of it a fresh copy of Harper's magazine,
59
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the leaves still uncut. He handed it to a fellow prisoner to look over, while he was examining his box. The officer took it and at once commenced to cut the leaves. While doing so he came upon a slip of paper which had been pasted between the un- cut leaves, on which was written, " Be sure you cook your sau- sage." He handed it to the colonel who at once suspected that this was not intended as a warning against "Trichina," but that the emphasis should be placed on the word you. He therefore lost no time in examining the can of sausage meat which he found in the box, and in probing it he found a small homeopathic vial, uncorking this he pulled out a little paper tightly rolled up, and unfolding it, found himself the happy possessor of a ten dollar greenback.
We were permitted to write short letters home, but as they were all read by prison officials before mailing, we had to write accordingly. I had written home, and had also smuggled out word by writing a memorandum in a book belonging to Chaplain Ashmore, of the 25th Ill., and he on his release had written home to my father, stating the facts of the case.
Later, I smuggled a letter out in this wise : there was an offi- cer of our army who had been captured while exchanging papers with a confed. officer, under a temporary truce, and he had been ordered released. I prepared a letter and concealed it under a pair of shoulder straps which I sewed on his coat, and he mailed it to the address as soon as he was in our lines. In this letter I told the real condition of things, and also told my friends to hold my subsequent letters to a strong heat. This was done to bring out the invisible ink which we had used, made from onion juice. This made a capital invisible ink, and by its use we were able to make considerable additions to our limited correspondence.
As the month of November came on, the weather grew quite cold, so that we suffered considerably at night, and some days . it was about. impossible to keep warm.
Rumors of the possible exchange of surgeons thickened, and , many nights we lay down feeling sure that the next morning would bring our release. But it did not come until the 22d of November, when the call-often given by our fellow prisoners in jest-but this time in good and welcome earnest-came-" Sur-
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geon's fall in "-and we " fell in " lively ! A hurrried good-bye to those we must leave behind, and we were gathered in the hall below. It seemed almost cruel to go and leave the companions of so many hardships and dangers, " still in durance vile."
The authorities balanced cash accounts by tendering us confed- erate funds, for our greenbacks at the rate of seven for one, but as they had no value where we were going, most declined them. Some of us who had but little there, had it passed to the credit of: some friends left behind. At City Point we met a United States steamer, to which we were transferred, and which took us to Balti- more. The feelings with which we stepped upon its deck, and sa- luted the dear old flag, cannot be expressed, and can only be im- agined by those who have had a similar experience."
To this narative we add the statement that Lieut. Kenniston and Koach, after remaining some seven months in Libby, were taken to Macon, Ga., where they remained some two months, and were then taken to Charleston, with six hundred others, and placed. under the fire of our forces, who were then bombarding the city. Subsequently they were released at Columbia. Of Col. Bartle- son's release we have spoken elsewhere.
But these experiences of our officers in Libby, unpleasant and disagreeable as they were, and needlessly so, and in striking con- trast to that accorded rebel prisoners by the union authorities,. were yet a comfort itself, compared with the sufferings of privates in
ANDERSONVILLE AND OTHER SOUTHERN PRISONS
This subject has been pretty well ventilated lately, and we shall therefore omit much which we had written in relation to it. Our county furnished at least 28 victims to Andersonville and other prisons, as will be seen by a list below. The number of those' who suffered imprisonment and yet survived, we cannot state defi- nitely ; probably not less than fifty more-and perhaps the num- ber would reach seventy-five. We shall now give some extracts from letters written by a fellow prisoner, which communicated to, Mr. Bolton, of Plainfield, the tidings of the death and sufferings of his son, RUFUS H. BOLTON, of Co. D, 100th Ill., taken pris -; oner at Chickamauga, with Col. Bartleson. This must suffice as
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a sample. The material is abundant to make a long chapter on this subject, and to convince the most skeptical that in systematic barbarous cruelty, Nenah Sahib was out-done by the rebel authori- ties, and that the tragedies of Cawnpore sink into insignificance beside those of Salisbury and Andersonville. Let those who doubt it interview F. M. Calkins, of Peotone, or read the narrative lately published in our city papers, of Mr. Nattinger, of the Sun, or read the report published by order of Congress on this subject- 1200 pages of horrors !
On the first of January, 1865, Mr. Bolton received the follow- ing letter containing the intelligence of the death of his son Rufus :
"NEW YORK, Dec. 22d, 1864.
SIR :- I am sorry that it becomes my painful duty to inform you of the sad death of your son Rufus, who died on or about the 3d of last November, in the 13th ward of the hospital at Andersonville prison, in Georgia. Poor Rufus suffered long and badly, yet bore all with christian patience and for- titude. As he and I shared the same tent and slept under the same blanket, I had occasion to know his many good and excellent qualities, and when he died I felt as if I had lost my best and dearest friend. A few days before his death he dictated a letter to you, which I have sent by the steward of the hospital who lives within some 30 or 40 miles of you. * * Poor fellow ! He died the next second day. He suffered intensely from scurvy and chronic diarrhoea, which were the two fatal maladies that killed so many of our prisoners. If I had time and space to detail some of the horrors of that terrible, that horrible, that abominable, that truly indescriba- ble stockade prison, it would make you weep. In fact, no tongue however eloquent could describe it, no imagination however prolific could conceive it. It baffles description and conception. Misery and privation in their most horrible and terrible forms predominated, and no man was sure of his life a single day. We had not a quarter enough of food, and that was of the worst, the dirtiest and the meanest that could be imagined. They died at the rate of about one hundred per day during the summer months. Here and there you might see several unfortunate fellows in the last agonies of death, with worms and other vermin crawling in abundance over them. There was no one to pity or help them. It would take volumes to give you a proper description of that awful place. You can judge for yourself when I tell you that during the space of eight months, upwards of 14,000 of our men died there, the most horrible kind of death."
As might naturally be expected, this letter led to further cor- respondence and inquiry, and several other letters were subse- quently received from the same young man, from which I make the following extracts :
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"NEW YORK CITY, January 16th, 1865.
DEAR SIR :- Owing to my being absent from the city for some time past, I did not receive your letters till this morning. I now hasten to an- swer them. I am sorry, sorry indeed, that New Year's day, which should be a day of rejoicing for all, should be one of sadness for you and yours ; and whilst I sincerely sympathize and condole with you in your bereave- ment, I must remind you at the same time that in this transitory world, nothing is lasting or permanent, life and death are strangely blended, joy and sorrow walk hand in hand. Miss Bolton wishes to know how Rufus and I first became acquainted, " how he looked toward the last, and what was done with his body." We first became acquainted in that awful stockade prison at Andersonville, Ga .- that prison whose very gates seem to have borne that motto which Dante saw over the gates of the Inferno-" All hope abandon ye who enter here !" In this den of misery we suffered months of privation and hardship together. Rufus got ill alike from scurvy and diarrhoea, and was sent to that wretched place called the hospital which was at best but a living libel on the name. He was sent into this place early in July last. As it was utterly impossible for any person in the stockade to get to see a friend in this would be hospital, I saw nothing more of Rufus till I was sent there myself in September, in consequence of a wound which I received when captured, and, which though it had tem- porarily healed, owing to bad treatment broke out anew, causing me for a time great pain and misery. When I entered the hospital I found Rufus in a low condition, and though he could walk about a little, yet he was indeed very weak, and staggered as he walked. The scurvy had by this time made sad havoc on his system-especially his mouth and limbs-the places where scurvy chiefly afflicts all its victims. But this was not all. The poor fellow was sorely tormented with that worst of all disease-the chronic diarrhea-that disease which killed thousands of fine fellows in that cruel prison. I must here remark-en parenthese, that some six weeks or so before I entered the hospital, Rufus was quite convalescent, and deem- ing himself fit for work, and in order to get double rations he got detailed for duty. His work was in conjunction with others, to bring water, (in two buckets suspended from the shoulders) from a stream about a quarter of a mile distant. But as this was hard work, and he was yet somewhat feeble, it broke him down again, so that when I entered the hospital, I found him sickly and downcast.
** Our shelter was very poor -an old condemned tent that let the rain in upon us whenever it came on. Our raiment was poor and getting worse every day. We had between us two old blankets which helped to keep us from freezing at night-for the nights in Georgia-especially in the fall and winter seasons are very cold. Many a time we had to huddle together as close as possible, pull the blankets over our heads, and puff our breath beneath to keep us warm. Our rations too were truly miserable. We received every morning less than a half pint of stuff which went by the name of rice soup, and at noon about three mouthfuls of corn bread, (the cob being ground with the kernel) and, now and then two small biscuits, about a mouthful in each, so sour and ill-baked, that it was more hurt than good to use them. In the evening we got about half a pint of very badly cooked rice. A very robust, hungry man could hardly stomach it at all. Rufus at length began to grow weaker, and though his face seemed full, yet his body and limbs were reduced very
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much, and as he began to grow worse, he eat less, till hour by hour, he seemed to be passing away. At length he grew so sick and weak, that he. was unable to stand or hardly sit up, and the doctor ordered him with others in his position to be sent to the 13th ward-known as the sick ward. I strove to be transferred with him but failed. I spent the most of each day with him however, striving to rally him as well as I could, but after about ten days in this condition, he felt his end approaching, and said to me in a sorrowful tone-" Ah, John! it's of no use-I feel that the hand of death is upon me, in a few days I shall be no more !" He then asked me to pro- cure, if possible, some paper and a pencil, (such things were wonderfully scarce there) so that I might write his last wishes to you. This I did as stated in my first letter. Two days after writing that letter poor Rufus was in Heaven ; and as I gazed upon his honest dead face, I felt my situa- tion very bitter, but of this anon. He was taken to the burial ground that day, I think the 3d of November. This burial ground was without the hos- pital some distance, to which none were admitted save men detailed for the purpose of bringing out the dead. The dead were usually taken on stretchers to the south west end of the hospital, and then placed on a cart and drawn to their last home. In a limping condition I followed Rufus as far as the dead cart, but there halted, not being allowed to go any farther. * * *
'Tis sad, very sad to see death in any shape or mood-whether on the battle field, or on the bed at home, surrounded by friends and relatives ; but there is nothing so sad, so crushing, so intensely painful as to see death caused by martyrdom,-martyrdom caused by the foulest, deepest, damning, systematic cruelty that was ever witnessed, such as was practiced-to the eternal disgrace of civilization and christianity-in the rebel prisons. ** * * That was the most saddening sight, the most bitter, galling, withering hour of my life. But though the day was a very bitter gloomy one-though misery seemed in everything, and in every place around me, yet on the face of the dead soldier before me, there was a calm, happy contented expression which seemed to say more elo- quently than words ever could, that the spirit that animated it was at last free and happy. I only trust that when I die, I may die with his faith and fortitude ; and that the contented, happy expression of his dead face may be seen on mine. Had he lived he would have made an excellent man. He had a fine taste, was well informed, had nothing low or groveling in his nature ; but on the contrary was generous, open-hearted, forgiving and just. He was one of those straightforward, clean-spirited, honest, manly fellows, whom to know is to love and admire. * That no other calamity may befall you, but that peace and prosperity may attend you all, is the sincere prayer of, dear sir,
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