USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. II > Part 47
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On the third of October, owing to heavy rains and cold winds, the camp was moved near to the town of Chappel Hill.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
As before, several died in the wagons, or by the road side. Above the new camp was a spongy ridge, which kept a por- tion of it constantly wet. As before, no shelter was had for the prisoners, and they had the ground only for their beds. The cold October rains had now set in, and night after night, moans, ravings and coughs sounded through and above the howling winds, while ghost-like forms crowded around cheer- less fires. About the fifteenth of October, for the first time, the prison was furnished with medicines of something like an approach to decency, but still far from sufficient. A sur- geon, comparatively a humane man, was allotted to us. Health began to improve, though deaths continued at the rate of four or five a day.
About the last of October, the yellow fever having sub- sided, the prisoners were again moved back to camp Groce. On this journey, after having marched over four hundred miles from the place of capture, the first railroad transporta- tion of the campaign was furnished, a ride of fifteen miles being granted the prisoners.
There were now four hundred and forty of the original number. With the exception of six or seven successful escapes, all the rest had fallen victims to infamous treatment. Not one in ten prisoners had a hat, about one in twenty had a blanket; a few had shirts, very few had shoes, and the majority were clothed in collections of rags that defy de- scription.
"Northers" now occurred frequently. Often with the ther- mometer at seventy degrees, dark clouds would start up from the northwest, and in two hours the thermometer would fall to thirty-five degrees.
The general misery of the prisoner's situation was greatly augmented by his inability to hear from home, or obtain in- formation in relation to the progress of the war.
Nothing was heard of the regiment but what was con- tained in a short letter written June 14, by Colonel Bring- hurst, on the Mississippi, to Lieutenant Colonel Flory, as the regiment was going home on veteran furlough.
The Houston Telegraph was the vehicle of the news re- ceived by the neighborhood around Camp Groce. In it were
551
ELECTION AT CAMP GROCE.
published the most startling accounts of Union defeats and Rebel victories. Every action was a Federal disaster, and ruin seemed constantly impending over the National Gov- ernment.
With all this there ran through the Rebel soldiery, an anticipation of final defeat, which belied all their boasts and predictions.
On the eighth of November, the prisoners at Camp Ford held an election for President of the United States. The matter was suggested by Colonel Brown, then commanding the camp. He said the votes of men coming from so many states would indicate the result in the actual vote. The idea was readily adopted by the prisoners, the camp was divided into wards, and slips of paper were distributed. At roll call on the morning of the eighth, the tickets were drop- ped into hats, brought together and counted. The proceed- ing was altogether fair. There were two thousand three hun- dred and seventy votes cast, of which six hundred and fifteen were for M'Clellan, and sixteen hundred and sixty-five for Mr. Lincoln. Colonel Brown was astonished at the result. He predicted the re-election of Mr. Lincoln, and declared that the chances for the success of the Confederacy were very small. He bought three gallons of whiskey, and he and his officers got gloriously drunk over the " Indication."
On the fifth of December three hundred and forty-two men and officers, including all the Forty-Sixth present, were notified that they were to be paroled, and to proceed to New Orleans by way of Galveston and Houston. It did not take long to prepare for that move.
The paroled prisoners were conveyed to Galveston by rail- road, where they were detained but a few hours, as a steamer was awaiting them. With some of the Rebel guards, who were as glad to get away, they were soon happy and safe under the stars and stripes. In thirty-six hours the party was landed on the levee at New Orleans,
Information was brought from Camp Ford by Jasper N. Mullins, who left there early in March. There were then fifteen hundred Federal prisoners there, among them only one representative of the Forty-Sixth.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
At Shreveport were three of the Forty-Sixth.
Though Camp Ford was heavily guarded, attempts at es- cape were of nightly occurrence. During the month of March a party projected and completed a tunnel. It commenced inside one of the cabins, and extended out one hundred and fifty yards beyond the stockade; but just as all was ready for a general stampede, the stockade was extended for the accommodation of more prisoners, and the plan frustrated. This tunnel afterward served for prisoners to hide in when contemplating an escape. They would enter it and remain until the pursuit of them outside was given up, when they would go in earnest. Several tunnels were constructed, but none were ever made available for their original purpose. One large one was within fifteen feet of completion in March, 1864, when the last but one of the prisoners of the Forty- Sixth came out. It may have been successful. It was the result of an amount of labor and ingenuity that deserved success. A shaft, six feet deep, was sunk in a cabin. The tunnel was then started toward a bank outside, near a hun- dred and seventy feet distant. The chamber was two feet wide by three feet high. Air holes were opened above, un- der a bunk or a bed, through which the miners got breath. The tools used were caseknives, a sled, upon which was drawn out the earth in buckets, and rope made from cows' tails. A station would be established midway, to which the sled would be hauled by a stationary Yankee engine. The bucket would then be put on another sled, and hauled to the shaft. The first sled would, at the same time, return to the work, bearing another bucket. The earth was spread under bunks, or in holes about the camp, and covered with litter before daylight.
Nearly every movement in the camp was known to the Rebel guard, and great caution was observed. None but a sclect few knew about it. Rebel officers would come in and make a general and thorough inspection, looking especially for tunnels, and forcing ramrods and swords down into the earth, but no discoveries were made. The "Grand Trunk" lay too deep.
553
DEVICES TO EFFECT ESCAPE.
- The digging of the large tunnel cost an immense amount of labor and risk. On one part of the line the excavation had to be made fifty feet without ventilation.
A trained pack of hounds was constantly kept for the pur- pose of tracking and hunting down fugitives from the pen, and these were under the charge of a professional negro hunter. When a prisoner was found to have escaped, the dogs were made to take the circuit of the camp till the track was discovered, then they would follow it through the swamps and woods, and almost invariably accomplish their mission.
Music was frequently resorted to as a blind to cover the designs of a party meditating escape-drawing their atten- tion by a good song, whilst a log was dug up out of the stock- ade, and a party, prepared for the venture, were making their escape, often within a few feet of the guards. Others, more adventurous or desperate, would draw themselves to the top whilst a sentinel's back was turned, and quietly let themselves down upon the outside.
Hundreds who had money bribed the guards. The market price for such favors was five dollars in greenbacks. These contracts were made with men who professed Union senti- ments, and would, for money, do the prisoners any favor in their power, when their officers were not about.
It was seldom the authorities discovered the absence of a man until his friends made it known, or he was recaptured. Keeping his escape a secret gave him a start of the hounds and cavalry, and, equal to that in general interest, it gave the camp an extra ration.
It frequently occurred that when a soldier died a sailor would change clothes with the deceased, and remove the body to his quarters. The sailor would assume his name, get his ration, and a chance for parole or exchange, that was never extended to the sailors.
One of the most novel and original inventions for escape was here practiced, and with great success, for over a month.
A prisoner, under parole not to escape, drove a cart through the camp for the purpose of hauling the accumulating dirt to a ravine outside. This suggested to an Irishman the idea
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
of a cartel perfectly feasible, and beyond the danger of inter- ference from the regular Commissioners of Exchange. Two men would get into the empty cart, and over them would be thrown a blanket, or some light brush, with the ordinary load of dirt on top. Dirt, rubbish and Yankees would then be driven to the ravine, and tumbled down a declivity of some fifteen feet, into the brush, when the contraband part of the load would shake themselves, and hide away until darkness enabled them to leave. The driver of the cart would dance upon his load as he drove past the guards, as he said, to prevent suspicion; but he was suspected of doing it for his own fun as much as anything else. Under this cartel over a hundred and fifty men were liberated before it was discovered by the Rebels and repudiated.
The nearest point in the Union lines was at Vicksburg, a distance of three hundred miles. There was not a county in the states west of the Mississippi, within the Confederate lines, that did not have a party of mounted soldiers, with a leash of trained blood-hounds, hunting deserters and con- scripts. At least one-half of the population was heartily dis- loyal, and bearing intense hatred to Federal soldiers. An escape might well be considered a miracle. Of the numbers constantly getting out, it is safe to say that not over one in fifty overcame all dangers from dogs, Rebels, deep, swift riv- ers, swamps, hunger and the many other difficulties which beset the way.
The most started with little or no preparation, ignorant of the geography of the country, and without maps or charts. Many knew nothing about traveling at night, and were un- accustomed to traveling in forests. Their appearance would betray them to the first man they met. After a few days of bewildered wandering, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, they were obliged to barter their freedom for corn bread, or more probably, were overtaken by men and hounds. Frequently men would travel hard all night, and by the first dawn sce the prison from which they had escaped six or eight hours before. Many cases occurred where men had reached the Mississippi river, and were recaptured whilst hailing a gun- boat or transport. Others, within sight of the Federal pick-
555
ESCAPE OF COLONEL FLORY.
ets, would be taken by some straggling Rebel band, and de- livered to a post for re-conveyance to prison.
Much ingenuity was required to conceal the escape of a prisoner. Each morning there was a general roll-call. The camp was divided into sections of from one to two hundred men. A Rebel sergeant had a roll of these, and it was his duty to call the list, and ascertain the presence or absence of each man. The prisoners were formed in two ranks, and two sentinels, with muskets and bayonets, passed along the front and rear of the line as the roll was called. With all this precaution the absent ones were duly answered for without discovery. Frequently the sergeant, whose duty it was to call the roll, was not able to read the names without considerable spelling, when some considerate Yankee would volunteer to assist him, and would inadvertantly miss the name of an absconding party. By universal consent the party successfully covering up the absence of a friend was entitled to a surplus ration. With the officers it was more difficult than with the men. They were carried on a sepa- rate roll, but they were so successful that the name of an ab- sent one was often carried a month without discovery-long enough to insure his safety.
On the thirteenth of November Lieutenant Colonel A. M. Flory, of the Forty-Sixth, and Captain W. B. Loring, of the United States Navy, made preparations, and left the prison at four o'clock in the afternoon. It was the custom of the prison commandant to give passes each day to Federal offi- cers to go out on parole, not to escape. Upon this occasion a pass was written by one of these officers, who put the com- mandant's name to it. With their blankets under their arms, ostensibly to collect brush, they presented themselves at the gate, showed the passes and went out. They had previously sent to a designated point some Confederate clothing and provisions. They now went to a thicket and waited until dark, in the meantime putting on Confederate uniforms. They traveled as rapidly and steadily as possible all night. It is estimated they made between thirty and thirty-five miles, which is all that saved them. The escape was dis- covered next morning, and cavalry sent in the direction they
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
had taken, but the cavalry did not make that day the distance the officers made the night before, and gave up the chase. The fugitives did not stop long the morning after the escape. After a half hour's rest and a cup of coffee, they again pushed on, and in twenty-four hours after leaving prison, they were fifty-five miles away, with twenty miles of swamp between them and their pursuers. They were on the head waters of the San Jacinto, and in a perfect wilderness.
This description of country extends one hundred miles without the sign of a habitation. The region is traversed by the San Jacinto, Trinity and Neches rivers, with their numer- ous tributaries, and is covered with heavy timber and dense canebrakes, matted with brambles and every kind of tangled growth common to the alluvial soil of the South. Heavy pine forests lay across the track, hundreds of acres of which had fallen from the effect of fire, and were overgrown by blackberry bushes, often ten or twelve feet high. The fugi- tives were obliged for many rods to cut their way with a knife, and then pass into a canebrake of enormous growth equally laborious and discouraging. Passing these there would be a stream to cross. Thus they traveled day by day. They had started with twelve pounds of flour bread, two pounds of bacon, a little coffee and sugar.
On the twentieth they crossed the Neches river. Heavy rains having prevailed for two days, the entire country was in a manner flooded,-the streams full and the bottoms over- flowed. Owing to the cloudy weather they were unable to travel for two days, as having no compass, it was impossible to keep the direction in a wilderness without sun or stars.
Again, occasionally getting a glimpse of the sun, and by the aid of the clouds the fugitives pressed on. At last, food all gone, hungry, drenched with ram, they reached a corn- field, the limit of civilization. They at once filled their haver- sacks with corn, built a fire in the woods, and on a tin plate cooked their grated corn-meal.
Having reached a part of the country where discovery was possible, they prepared for night marching. At dark they started, guided by the moon, and made the greatest dis- tance possible. They had water to wade, bayous to swim,
557
WANDERING IN THE WILDERNESS.
and tangled canebrakes to penetrate. About the twenty-fifth a cold "Norther" sprung up, and ice was a quarter of an inch thick.
As the travelers approached the eastern line of Texas, which is the Sabine river, they became entangled in bayous. Scarcely had they crossed one before another presented itself. For two nights they marched hard without making any ma- terial advance. Coming at length to a saw-mill, they dis- covered a negro in a boat. They secreted themselves in the brush till dark, when, stealing cautiously up, they captured the boat, and quietly drifted out into the bayou. When out
of hearing they rowed down the strcam. Down this bayou they moved until three o'clock in the morning, when, coming to a larger one running south, they imagined themselves in the Sabine river. Crossing this they landed, set the boat adrift, and took an eastern course through a dense cypress forest. The sky being overcast with clouds, they had no guide. After three hours' march in daylight, through briars and swamps, they were astonished to find fresh tracks, and came to the conclusion that they were followed, but on ex- amination the tracks proved to be their own, and they dis- covered they were not two hundred yards from where they landed. Three times they were compelled to build rafts, un- dress and swim streams, two of which were a hundred and fifty yards wide, swift and very cold. Three times during that day they crossed their own path, it being almost impos- sible to keep direction,-getting only an occasional glimpse of the sun during intervals of rain.
Night found them on a plain traveled road, which, after a good rest, they followed, wading mud and water, and swim- ming a cold stream. At daylight they entered a dense woods, built a fire, and parched and ate their last grain of corn.
They took the road again near night, and coming to a dilapidated hut, learned from a woman, that they had passed, during the night, the road they should have taken. They retraced their steps, and at dark, finding the road, they stopped at a house for the night. Here they got a good supper, bed and breakfast, but discovered, after careful ques-
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
tioning, that instead of being across the Sabine, and out of Texas, they were on the west side of that river, and but five miles from where they set out thirty-six hours before.
Early next day the river was reached, and crossed on a table turned bottom up. Now there was no mistake, and the fugitives had to be prepared for bold movements. They had prepared, before starting, orders with the signature of the Colonel of a Texas regiment, directing them to go to their homes near Vermillionville, Louisiana, to remount and refit. The order stated that their horses had died, and the men were out of clothes. As Rebel soldiers they successfully passed Niblett's Bluff, through the fortification, ate dinner with the Rebels, and handled the " Vandal Yankees" without mercy. Here, incidentally, they gathered all needful infor- mation in regard to stopping places on the road.
They were now forty-five miles from "Lake Charles," the most dangerous point on the route, where a number of es- caped men had been recaptured.
On the evening of the thirtieth they reached the "city," crossed boldly at the ferry, and lodged with the ferryman, at whose house there was a squad of Provost guards. Their papers were examined and pronounced good. On the first of December they rode in the wagon of their host twelve miles on the road, and carried a letter of introduction to a friend of his, who lived some twenty miles beyond. Here again they enjoyed the hospitality due the soldier.
On the second they traveled hard over a low, flat prairie, covered with water, and met the most dangerous adventure of the trip. A Confederate Colonel, stationed at Lake Charles, met them, and with a musket presented, demanded their papers. He closely examined them, and deliberately gave it as his opinion that the party were escaped Yankees, and that their papers were forgeries. This insult was re- sented in a becoming manner, and the Colonel was convinced that they were really Louisiana soldiers, going home on leave to refit. To atone for his unjust suspicions, he put his own indorsement on the papers.
They kept on their journey until four o'clock in the morn- ing, when a heavy rain came on. They waited until light,
559
UNDER THE FLAG ONCE MORE.
and discovered a wood about a mile distant. Here they de- termined to remain all day, but found the wood to be but a narrow strip of oak, with no underbrush, a house on either side, not twenty rods off, and the scene not improved by ยท a negro riding from one house to the other. Being in so ex- posed a place, they concluded to go to one of the houses. They found an officer at home on leave, and two Rebel sol- diers on furlough. The clothes of the fugitives were soaking wet, and they were almost frozen, as a " Norther" had come with daylight, but the Rebels made them welcome, gave them hot coffee and seats at a large fire. Starting out again after dinner, they overtook a Rebel Government train going east, and rode in it till night. The night of the third, near Vermillionville, the officers passed in the woods the spot where the Forty-Sixth encamped the year before, and were now safe as regarded the road, for Colonel Flory had been over it three times.
They had now eighty miles to the lines. They traveled at night, hiding by day, and living on parched corn. They met squads of Rebels on the road, but turned off as soon as they heard them. They passed around the towns, and reached Berwick Bay on the night of the seventh. They hailed a gunboat lying in the stream, and went on board the next day, the most completely overjoyed men of which it is possible to conceive.
Their Confederate rags were soon stripped off, and suits of navy blue given them. They were once again under the stars and stripes, and they bowed with reverence as they gazed on the old flag, and felt its protecting power.
In twenty-five days these officers traveled five hundred miles, swam over twenty streams, pushing their clothing be- fore them on rafts; for twenty days they were in the water almost constantly, and for many days had nothing to eat but corn.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
CHAPTER XXIX.
IN AND ABOUT MEMPHIS.
The situation of Memphis rendered it a frontier post from its surrender in June, 1862, almost to the close of the war, and necessitated widely-extended picket lines, strong guards along the railroads, and full garrisons in Forts Pillow and Pickering, above and below the city, as well as frequent ex- peditions into the interior, also made it a depot for troops, or a base from which they were sent out to distant fields. Its military population was consequently fluctuating, at one time consisting of such immense numbers as to forbid the idea of approach to the enemy, at another so reduced by de- mands from the front as to seem to invite his advance.
Among the Indiana troops which remained many months, in Memphis chiefly, but also at other points in West Ten- nessee, performing picket, guard, fatigue and provost duty, and engaging in expeditions in search or in pursuit of the enemy, were the Fifty-Second, brought up from Corinth in July, 1862, and detained principally in Fort Pillow, until Septem- ber, 1864; the Ninety-Third and Eighty-Ninth, arriving in November and December of the same year, and leaving per- manently also in 1864; the Twenty-Fifth, moved from Davis' Mills in January, 1863, and employed chiefly in provost duty until January, 1864; Mueller's battery, which reached Mem- phis in June, 1862, and departed permanently, only when its term of service expired in July, 1865; Cockefair's, Brown's and Kidd's batteries, and the Seventh cavalry, which, reach- ing West Tennessee in December, 1863, left Memphis for the last time in July, 1865.
The Seventh was put in Grierson's cavalry. Shortly afterward Colonel Shanks was assigned to the command of a brigade.
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ACTIVITY IN WEST TENNESSEE.
The Sixty-Sixth was not employed in Memphis, but guarded Corinth, Colliersville and Pulaski.
West Tennessee was General Forrest's favorite field. Streaming through or penetrating into it, he was always on hand to strike a blow where it might prove effectual; and though often suffering heavy loss, he was never discouraged by disaster. Before the war his home was in Memphis; he was a negro trader, and his slave-pen was also there; conse- quently it was the scene of his strongest, if not his tenderest associations. From the ruthless Forrest down to daring Dick Davis, who was the leader of a prowling, cunning band of fifteen or twenty men, and who at last expiated his crimes on the gallows, the enemy in West Tennessee was unrest- ing, insatiable and irresponsible. He cut the roads, robbed the trains, seized and murdered stragglers. He constantly threatened Memphis, often assailed its approaches, and once getting in the rear of an army that was in search of him, snatched it from its defenders, though he was not able to hold it a single half hour.
In the latter part of 1862, and throughout the next year, excursions from Memphis were frequent and rapid, but were chiefly in search of guerillas. It was seldom that some part of the Fifty-Second was not on the march. In August, Lieutenant Bodkin was seriously wounded in an affray with bushwhackers. Lieutenant Colonel Main lost his health from over exertion, and was compelled to remain three months in the hospital. Near Durhamville, December 17, the regiment had a severe fight with guerillas.
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