USA > New York > History of the Tenth regiment of cavalry New York state volunteers, August, 1861, to August, 1865, pt 2 > Part 38
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 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52
Only a few days after the tunnel escape, at roll-count one morning, Dick Turner took me by the sleeve and said, "I want to see you." They of the prison had been sending officers to Salisbury. I said to him, "Salisbury, I suppose." He said, " No, you will be exchanged on the next boat." I replied : "Don't keep the boat waiting for me; I am all packed up." I was not exchanged until some time afterward. Captains Sawyer and Flynn were specials in place of Generals W. H. F. Lee and Winder; but, finally, in March I was exchanged or paroled Dick Turner had kept his word, and on March 21, 1864, I walked out of Libby by the same door I had entered almost nine months before. That evening we reached City Point, and when we saw " Old Glory " once more, every man on board the flag-of-truce boat sang the Star-spangled Banner as I never heard it before or since. About three thousand enlisted men from Bell Isle and fifty odd officers made the best music possible for them to make.
So we were once more under the old flag, and one who has never been a pris- oner can not tell with what joy and satisfaction we beheld the flag of the free. Then to realize that we were free once more, after all the privations and suffer- ing of our prison-life ! The 23d of March, in early morning, I was landed at An- napolis, Md. I had suffered much, but did not know to what extent my health had been impaired. Although I had lost eighty pounds of flesh while in prison, I little realized my weakness until after release, when it was apparent my priva- tions, exposure, insufficient food and clothing, had all had their effect. With bone-fever or rheumatism, as a souvenir of Libby, for a life long companion, I was persuaded to resign, which I did, and my resignation was accepted May 26, 1864. And thus ended my soldier career.
.
一
612
HISTORY OF THE TENTH REGIMENT OF CAVALRY.
ANDERSONVILLE PRISON, AS IT WAS-PRISON LIFE AND ESCAPE OF R. H. FERGUSON, OF THE BRIGADE BAND.
"WHAT you bring dose G-d d-d Yankee prisoners up here dis time o' . night for ? Dake 'em back to de station; I got no time to see to dem." Such were the first words spoken by the celebrated Captain Wirtz to the rebel sergeant who had our squad of prisoners in charge, as he brought us up before Wirtz's headquarters at Andersonville Prison on the night of July 26, 1864. The hour was just about 8 p. M. and dusk. The sergeant then marched us back near to the station, where we were permitted to camp out for the night. The next morning we were again arraigned before the Captain's headquarters, and, after being duly registered and formed into new detachments or assigned to old ones, we were turned into the pen. As I stood at Wirtz's quarters and looked over into the stockade, and there saw that moving inass of dirty, blackened, and begrimed men, coupled with the thought that he who entered there was likely to stay there until the war ended or until death ended him, I must confess the very thought of what was before me was enough almost to make one insane. I was placed in an old detachment (No. 67-second mess). Each detachment was composed of two hun- dred and seventy men divided into three smaller bodies of ninety men each. These were again divided into three parts of thirty men each. As one of the assistants at headquarters was taking down the names, he remarked, " I suppose we will soon have some of your hundred-days men down here." It will be remem- bered that there had been a call for one-hundred-day men, and many Ohio farm- ers and middle-aged men had been sent down to Harper's Ferry and the Shenan- doah Valley in June. These men, a number of them, were captured by Early and brought to Lynchburg, Va., and confined in Ferguson's Tobacco Warehouse, where I met them and traveled with them to Andersonville. On our journey they had selected me to divide their rations, and by the time we reached Ander- sonville I had become quite well acquainted with them, and their faces were familiar to me. When this officer made the above remark about the one-hun- dred-day men, a smile went up and some one said, " We are one-hundred-day men." The officer was somewhat surprised. The men had nice, new clean uni- forms on, and they were in striking contrast to the greasy, glazed faded clothing of the old veterans. If their clothes were nice and new, so were their bodies new to the terrible hardships that they were about to be ushered into. It was a ter- rible position to put an old hardened veteran into, who had stood three years of service and was in a measure hardened to it. But to take men from forty to forty-five, fresh from their homes of comfort, and cast them into such a den of horrors as that prison, was enough to take the life from them ; and I doubt very much if five of them ever lived to get out. I saw some of them about two weeks after their arrival, and was astounded at their emaciated and dying appearance. With these introductory remarks we will now introduce our readers to Anderson- ville Prison-pen. The inclosure was surrounded by a stockade fifteen to eighteen feet high. This stockade was made by digging a trench six feet deep, into which a log twenty-five feet long was stood up on one end and then another as close to it as possible, and so around until the whole pen was inclosed by a wall or fence of logs say eighteen feet high. The stockade was originally a parallelogram, 1,010
·
613
PRISON LIFE AND ESCAPE OF R. H. FERGUSON.
feet long by 779 feet wide, but in the summer of 1864 (June, I think), it was enlarged to 1,620 feet long At a distance of 120 feet was another palisade of rough pine logs, and between the two, attached to and near the top of the inner stockade, were the sentry-boxes, overlooking the whole interior of the camp. A cordon of earthworks mounting seventeen guns surrounded the outer palisades. A wooden railing about three feet high around the inside of the stockade and at an average distance of ten to twelve feet from it constituted the dead-line. Any prisoner passing this line was shot without warning. A small stream passed from west to east through the prison, furnishing the only water accessible to the pris- oners. Part of the time there was less than seventeen square feet of space to each prisoner. Over thirty-four thousand were there in July and August. The deaths were over thirteen thousand. The camp was situated on two side-hills facing each other, through the valley of which ran the stream of water. This water came to us after having passed through the entire camp of the garrison, receiving all their filth and refuse. Then it came to us to be used as drinking-water, and it was almost impossible to dip up a cup of water without finding one or more maggots in it. Besides, for at least one hundred feet each side of this stream these thirty-four thousand prisoners had used it as a sink wherein all the calls of nature of those who were able to crawl there had to be attended to. So that there was, from eighteen inches to two feet deep, a moving, wriggling mass of festering, rotting corruption, out of which grew animals of a new creation, all born of filth and abominable corruption, emitting a stench such as only such fetid matter is capable of under a July and August sun that stands from 90° to 110° all day long. Can you understand what a godsend a clear, sparkling stream of water would be to such a thirsty, famishing set of prisoners as we were under the circumstances just described ? Well, such a stream burst forth one day near the dead-line, and after that men could get a drink without having it mixed with maggots. The result of this sink and creek was, that it used up about two acres of our space, which was far too small at best. Sometimes it seemed as if there was scarcely room enough to lie down. Many of the men had nothing to shelter them from the hot sun ; no tents-a few had blankets-others without either coat, shirt or pants, only a pair of army drawers. The sun would strike their bare backs and peel the skin off as if boiling water had been poured over them. Then, when they lay down at night, the vermin and maggots would eat into the raw flesh and make great sores. The chilly dews of night and hot exposure of the day soon told upon the strongest constitutions, sending the men to their long home upon the gallop.
The morals of the prison in June (before I got there) were fearful to contem- plate. There was an organized band of murderers, who robbed and plundered all those who entered the stockade. This practice grew to such an extent that it was absolutely dangerous for a man to walk around ; and so demoralizing and alarming did it become that Captain Wirtz summoned the sergeants of every de- tachment in the prison, some one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty men, and told them they must impanel a jury and arrest and try all the men against whom complaints were made. This was done, a jury formed, and a court convened. Orderly-Sergeant W. O. Carpenter, of the Seventh Michigan Cavalry, was judge-advocate of the court. Then ten companies of police were organized, with all the necessary officers; a chief of police, who wore a tin star on his coat
614
HISTORY OF THE TENTH REGIMENT OF CAVALRY.
marked "C. P."; sergeants and captains of companies, each company having its own badge, so that it could be recognized. Each policeman got double rations every day he was on duty. This, by the way, was a very important item. The police arrested some eighty of the desperadoes and brought them before the court for trial. Attorneys for both parties worked with a will for their clients. After a careful trial the jury found six men guilty, and they were sentenced to be hung by the neck until they were dead. Accordingly, the six men were hung in camp upon one gallows. When the platform that held them was knocked from under their feet, one man, heavier than the rest, broke his rope and fell to the ground, and, jumping up, ran away through the camp. He got as far as the sink, when he was caught and brought back and made to go through the same operation, while his five comrades hung dangling before his eyes. The names of these men I have not got. One was called Mosby, probably a nickname. The National Cemetery at Andersonville gives the names on the head-boards, but the weather has defaced them so that I can only make out the following : " W. Collins, - - Pa. Reg."; " C. Curtis, -"; " W. Rickson, U. S. Navy." After the hanging, owing to the rigid law enforced by the regulators, as the police were called, order and quiet were once more restored to the prison. The methods of punish- ing offenders, when caught thereafter, were various. Some were tied to a post and whipped with a cat-o'-nine-tails ; others were compelled to carry a ball and chain ; others had a barrel put over their heads, with just room enough to let their heads stick out at the top ; some had their feet fastened in stocks, etc. The man- ner of feeding the prisoners was varied to meet the demand. Outside of the stockade was a cook-house, built for the purpose of cooking rations for the men. The men who worked in the cook-house were our own men, detailed for that pur- pose on parole. There were in all some three or four hundred men out in this way, some at the cook-house, some in the hospital, many at the depot engaged. in loading and unloading cars. For this they got extra rations ; but the cook- house was the most desirable place. This cook-house was found inadequate for supplying all the men; therefore one half were compelled to draw raw rations. Cooked rations consisted of a piece of corn-bread, about two and a half inches square. The bread was made of corn and cob ground together, and the meal mixed with the water from the creek before mentioned, sometimes with salt, but most frequently without any. The meal was so coarse that a farmer in the Em- pire State would hesitate about feeding it to his hogs. This was terrible food. The nature of it was very heating to a person's stomach. Add to this the heat of the day, and the two caused the prisoners to have the chronic diarrhea which was almost impossible to cure when once contracted.
Those who received raw rations had either one pint of meal or a half-pint of beans, or cow peas. Some of the boys would manage to sift their meal by taking one half of a canteen and punch it full of holes with a nail, and then riddle out their meal; but when they got the hulls and cob out there was very little meal left to cook. Others would not sift it, preferring to fill up on the hulls and cobs, thus helping to appease their hunger; others were too feeble to attempt to eat the meal in its coarse state, so they would sift it. To cook this ration of meal, if the individual possessed a small tin cup or empty canned-goods can in which he could make mush, he was lucky; or if he had a frying-pan or a Dutch oven, he could rent either every day for enough to keep
.
1
.615
PRISON LIFE AND ESCAPE OF R. H. FERGUSON.
him alive. A frying-pan cost over twenty-five dollars in greenbacks, and was considered cheap at that price. Then to cook the ration one must have wood to do it with. The ration of wood consisted of a stick of green pine wood, about ten inches long and an inch and a quarter square (an ordinary stick of kindling- wood). This extremely small piece had to last three days. If used for one meal or for one day, one would suffer the consequences. The men who had knives would split this piece of wood up into little sticks, about the size of the finger, and lay them in the sun to dry while they stood guard over them. When dried they would dig a little hole in the ground just large enough for their can to fit in snugly, for they must husband all the heat, then light two sticks and place them in the hole and their cup containing raw peas and water over it, and hus- band the fire until the water got hot and the beans at least warmed through, sel- dom if ever cooked.
Wood was very scarce inside the prison, one ordinary-sized stick of four-foot wood selling for two dollars in greenbacks. Not a stump or root was there to be had, for the prisoners had dug up every root and traced every rootling to the farthest point in the ground, until nothing as large as a pipe-stem could be found. The entire camp was dug over for roots. I have seen men down in the sink and mire in that mass of corruption, digging for roots, which, when found, they would carry to the brook and wash. Then, after drying them in the sun, they had some- thing to cook their scanty ration with. When they got their hoe cake done they could eat it all at one meal, or divide it into three; when one divides so small a quantity into three parts, there remains but a mouthful for each meal. I used to divide mine into two parts, when I could control my appetite enough to do so. I soon found the only certain way was to divide it and put one half away before I began eating any. Then, after eating the other half, and feeling as if I could eat five times more, I would tighten up my belt, to bring my stomach close together, and fight it out for fifteen minutes, when I would find that my hunger appeared satisfied, and I was all right until the time came to eat the next half, then a similar struggle would be repeated. The manner of issuing rations was the most fairly conducted to all concerned that could be.possibly established. When the wagons came into camp with the corn-bread or cooked meat, the sergeants of each detachment drew their rations for two hundred and seventy men. This was im- mediately divided into three equal parts, for ninety men each. The representa- tives of these ninety men carried the bread to that part of the prison where they were located. Here it was again subdivided into three equal parts, representing thirty men, and this thirty into half, representing fifteen men. The person who was selected to divide the rations to the fifteen persons first began and cut the bread into fifteen as nearly equal parts as possible. If there was a meat ration, it was served in the same way , but there would always be a poor or tainted piece of meat. If it was fresh beef, it might be green and maggoty ; or, if bacon, it was rancid or rusty. But everything was given out fairly and without favor. Soon as the Sergeant had arranged the fifteen rations in order, one man would turn his back to the rations, and the Sergeant would point his knife to one ration, and ask, " Who has this ration ?" The man with his back turned would answer, "Nuin- ber ten has it," " Number four has it," and so on, till he had called the numbers of the whole fifteen. In this way, every one got justice at mess headquarters. But there was a good deal of sharp practice in the general delivery of rations at
.
616
HISTORY OF THE TENTH REGIMENT OF CAVALRY.
the place of distribution inside of the stockade. The bread was baked in loaves, about two feet long by eighteen inches wide and two inches and a half thick. When the wagons drove in, the whole camp gathered as near to them as possible ; these men were all as hungry as a pack of wolves, and were on the alert to snatch any crumb or loaf that came within their reach, and very often they did not hesi- tate to help some out of the wagons. This was carried on to such an extent that the police had to be called to beat back the men with their clubs. The cooked rations were also varied ; some days it was corn-bread, then another day it was a boiled cow pea or small speckled bean. The ration of this pea, or bean, was a pint ; the pea usually had a bug in it. Then the men at the cook-house who cooked them used to empty them into the boilers with pods on, and the dirt and refuse of two or three hen-roosts, many of the bags bearing evidence that the peas had been raised to feed the slaves with " befo' de wah " broke out. This mess of dirt, when cooked with the water from the brook before mentioned, was a horrible mess-bugs, pods, and all manner of dirt and filth cooked up together. The beans were almost always soured. (The exception was when they were sweet.) So that with ali my hunger I could not eat them. I gave them away to some poor martyr, whose hunger overcame his taste. Some of the boys would throw them upon the ground, with many a curse upon the cooks. Still others would come along and pick them up off the ground and eat them. This was often done.
The sanitary condition of the camp was fearful to contemplate. Chronic diarrhea, scurvy, and fevers carrying off the men by scores and hundreds daily. So fearful did this mortality become that throughout August it amounted to one man every twelve minutes during the twenty-four hours, and between the 17th and 20th of August the deaths reached one day one hundred and twenty-eight in twenty-four hours! This seems almost impossible, but alas, it is too true! One had only to go down to the south gate entrance on a morning, and he could see from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five dead bodies carried out and laid down in a row, to be hauled off in loads, like so much cord-wood; then laid in a long trench, side by side, and covered up, with a stick bearing a number at their head. At headquarters, in a book of record, opposite this number would be found the name and regiment of the number. When a prisoner died, his com rades would pin a slip of paper to his clothes with his name and regiment on it. This was taken down by the commandant of the prison, in a book for that pur- pose. This book was to be furnished to our people when the war ended. The men who were carried out in this way were nothing but skeletons, bones with skin stretched over them, scarcely any clothing on them, eyes staring open, faces that did not look as if they ever were white, and despair pictured in every linea- ment of their features.
Those who lived were but little better than the dead I have seen men totter- ing through camp, nothing but skin and bones ; no clothing, except an old pair of army drawers, plastered with grease and mud, so that they were black, com- pelled to lie down in the mud amid vermin. These daily sights were enough to make one insane. It was what we expected to come to, sooner or later. As there was no prospect of an exchange at that time, we had no hope of ever getting out, unless we did it by tunneling. This was carried on to a great extent. At one time there was a tunnel projected that would allow four men to go out abreast. A force of over eight thousand men was organized, intending to capture the fort
:
617
PRISON LIFE AND ESCAPE OF R. H. FERGUSON.
and release the prisoners. But some traitor (for the camp abounded with them), for a ration of bread, betrayed the whole plot. The leaders were taken out and put in the stocks where the broiling sun poured down on them all day; others were fortunate enough to get away. Then the gantlet had to be run, for they kept two packs of bloodhounds for the purpose of catching runaway prisoners. When caught, if not torn to pieces by the hounds, they were compelled to carry a ball and chain, and perhaps be deprived of the scanty ration they were in the - habit of getting. Some were fortunate enough to reach General Sherman's lines, which were then near Atlanta. One man succeeded in getting to the Union lines and was ordered to report to Chattanooga, but while on his way there was recapt- ured by a raiding party and brought back to the old prison. Six men, one dark night, jumped over the dead-line, and with a shovel dug down under the stock- ade and five crawled out ; as the sixth one was under the logs, one of them settled down and held him fast. He began to cry out for help, and in that way the es- cape of the others was discovered and the hounds set on their trail.
Another tunnel had been finished, which extended some hundred and sixty feet beyond the outer stockade, and was all finished except the final opening ; this they left undone until the party could rest and procure some rations before starting. Mr. McCrary, one of the principal parties, urged the immediate start- ing of the party. But the sergeant in charge, whom they were bound to obey, de- cided to wait until they had recuperated, for the boys were so weak that the least exertion would tire them out. While they were resting, one of the hardest thunder storms took place that I ever knew of, uprooting the trees in the adjacent forests, and washing down a large portion of the stockade where it crossed the creek. Several of the guards were killed by lightning. As soon as the opening was dis- covered, three alarm-guns were fired by the fort, and the whole garrison was turned out to keep the starved Yankees from escaping. They were kept out for two or three nights, and, while they were hauling logs to build up the stockade, one wheel of a wagon cut through into the tunnel, thus exposing the whole scheme. Then another guard was detailed to patrol the camp in search of tunnels.
The mode of starting these tunnels was very ingenious. Some were started twenty feet down in wells. The dirt, as fast as it accumulated, was carried and thrown into an adjoining well. When they had advanced a number of yards, so that it was hard to carry the dirt back, they would get an old bag, and tie a long string on each side of it. Then, when the man in the tunnel got the bag filled, he would pull the string, and the one at the other end would pull the bag out. In this way about half a bushel of dirt would be obtained at each haul. By working all night, quite an excavation could be made. There were two lines of sentries, one mounted on top of the stockade, and the other line stationed about fifty yards farther from the stockade, on the ground, with large fires built a few yards apart, so as to make it light enough to observe any escaping prisoners. The sentinels on the outside line would sometimes hear the prisoners as they were tunneling. The prison authorities would then cause a cross-tunnel to be dug, and so prevent an escape. The treatment of the prisoners by the sentries was very inhuman. Among the many features of the camp which attracted par- ticular attention was the "dead-line," which consisted of a strip of board nailed upon a post about three feet high, and some seventeen feet inside the stockade,
£
618
HISTORY OF THE TENTH REGIMENT OF CAVALRY.
all around the prison. Any prisoner who got over this line was shot at once. In this way many a poor fellow met his death.
It was stated that a sentry who killed a Yankee at the dead-line received a thirty-day furlough. This was a reward, and an incentive, or inducement, for them to become good marksınen.
The new prisoners who came in knew nothing of this dead-line, unless they were told by some of the older prisoners. Many unfortunate fellows would (in getting water out of the brook) get under the dead-line, reaching for clear water. Then before knowing what for, they would be shot by the sentry, who held our lives in his hands. One instance I remember. I was standing with a friend, Mr. W. A. Orser, of Corning, N. Y., a member of the division band, from the Tenth New York Cavalry. We were looking at some new prisoners who had just come in that day, and who were washing in the creek near the dead-line, when one of them accidentally got beyond the line; as soon as the boys saw him, they seized and dragged him back with a yell. The sentry, who had been watch- ing Orser and myself, and did not see the man until the yell aroused him, turned around and saw what he had missed (i. e., a thirty-day furlough), and we could see anger, rage, and disappointment, depicted on his face. He brought his gun up to his face, resting it over the top of the stockade, and stood there with his finger pressing the trigger, just waiting for the Yankee to put his hand over, and he would have fired. I remarked to Mr. Orser, " How anxious he is to shoot !" and then wished for a stone that we might hurl at the sentry. Some of the sentries would fire right into and through the camp, killing and wounding perfectly inno- cent, harmless prisoners. Some were shot during the night when fast asleep. I have been awakened more than once by the humming of a minié-bullet over my head during the midnight hours. Thus passed the weary days, we dragging out a miserable existence, not knowing when we would be exchanged. It seemed to us that it would not be until the war was over. Many men became so discouraged and disheartened that they deliberately got over the dead-line for the purpose of getting killed. One day the guard fired at one such individual three times before he killed him. At this point I wish to digress for a moment for the pur- pose of bringing my first week's introduction into Andersonville up to the find- ing of my dear friend and messmate, W. A. Orser, whom I have mentioned be- fore. After leaving Wirtz's headquarters, we were marched into the pen. I had not been in long before I found Darby, Mckenzie, Pryor, and McGuire, of Com- pany E, Second New York (Harris Light) Cavalry. This was my old company, from Troy, N. Y., and these the men whom I enlisted with. It was like finding long-lost friends, and proved a great comfort to me. Having found one friend, he would tell me of others, and in this way I soon found every soldier I had ever known before, if he was there. My old company boys, being among the first prisoners to arrive in Andersonville, had learned the ropes and were started in various kinds of business. Darby sold beer. (I shall have occasion to speak of this beer again.) All these boys were abundantly able to take care of themselves. On July 29th I met Garret Vanderpool, of Troy, N. Y. He belonged to the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth New York Volunteers. On the 31st of July I saw some of the Twenty-fourth New York Cavalry, and I also met Boston Corbett, of the Sixteenth New York Cavalry. I had known Corbett at Dismounted Camp, Gresboro Point, Washington, the winter before. He gave me the history of his
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.