USA > New York > The Ninth New York heavy artillery : a history of its organization, services in the defe battles, and muster-out, with accounts of life in a rebel prison, personal experiences, names and addresses of surviving members, personal sketches and a complete roster, pt 2 > Part 5
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So then, day and night, and night and day, we stayed on. Hope which springs eternal in the heart of youth buoyed us up. Scarcely a day passed but there came a rumor of an immediate exchange. There was little variety save as we watched the diminution in our numbers. Occasionally, in the dead of the night, there would arise a terrible commotion and cries of "Stop thief!" and " Raiders!" would be heard. Some pred- atory scamps, knowing that certain ones had some sort of valu- able, would steal upon the victim, and, by a concerted move- ment, would seize upon and carry off the article. Before any search could be instituted the robbers would have fallen into their places among their friends, and no loss was ever made good. The bag or receptacle would generally be found in the yard in the morning. At intervals, as the hours advanced, the guards would cry the time thus: "Ten o'clock, Post No. 8, and all's w-e-1-1," drawling this out in a thinness of tone possible only to those whose speech generations of tobacco salivation has diluted. One night we heard the guard in the square shout, "Take your hand in, Yank, or I shoot." I must do the rebel credit for repeating his warning, and then came the shot, followed by most derisive laughter from the prison. Some one, to try the fellow, had hung a cloth from the upper sash, and,
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to the guard's eye, it looked like a man swinging his arm, and his orders were to keep the men away from the window.
The only escapes from our prison were effected by two men, one a member of the 2d Massachusetts Cavalry, though he was a Californian, who let themselves down into the sink, wrenched off the grate leading into the narrow sewer, and, at the imminent peril of suffocation, through indescribable filth, made their way out to the river and eventual liberty. [One of these men, Patrick Mahan, now of Natick, Mass., was a mem- ber of the Legislature with the writer in 1894. During Cleve- land's second term, he was postmaster of Natick.]
In the month of December, one bright morning, the 16th, those of us who were looking from the window saw the guards thrown into a state of great excitement. Their guns had been stacked in the plaza before us; but now, seizing them, they rushed with speed to the officers' prison, and, thrusting their weapons through the windows, fired. All this was an enigma to us, and it was not till sometime afterward that we learned that a plan had been formed to seize the guards in the prison, rush to the square, appropriate the guns, free the prisoners, arm them from the neighboring arsenal, and march away to freedom.
"But the best laid plans of mice and men, Gang aft aglae."
Some of the officers had voted the scheme hair-brained, though they went into it rather than have the name of standing out. Your Rhode Island Frenchman, General Duffie,* was the chief promoter of the affair, and it is possible that they might have gotten out of the building had not the very anxiety of the pris- oners to get down the stairs occasioned so much noise that the outside door, opened to their call, was speedily closed and the death-dealing volley followed. Colonel Raulston, of the 24th New York Cavalry, who had deemed the plan suicidal, was killed, and several were wounded. Of those men who thus, twenty-five years ago, made a break for liberty, probably not a third are living to-day.
Men who had gone out to work on the rebel fortifications from No. 6 made good their escape, at least for a few days. Some succeeded in getting to our lines, more were recaptured.
*Vide note on page 198.
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Let it be said to the credit of No. 1 that, to my knowledge, only one man was found who was willing to sell his services to his enemies. He took the oath of allegiance and remained there when we came away. It was a daily sight to see the col- ored prisoners driven to and from No. 3, there to dig upon the fortifications. Neighboring farmers could secure any one of these men by simply claiming them. They were beaten and starved till scarcely any were left. One man was sent to Rich- mond as a cook and he came away from that place with us. He told me that, so far as he knew, he was the only survivor of the Mine captives to be sent North.
December 20th, in spite of a drizzling rain, I remained in the yard till I was quite wet. This was at nightfall. By S o'clock I was down with an attack of diphtheria. All through the night I had great difficulty in breathing. The next day I grew worse, but there was nothing to be done for me. The 22d, in the morning with several others, I was trundled off to the hospital in a condition which, I have always thought, arising at home, would have finished me. There was no debil- itating sympathy around me, and I had no relish for a grave in Virginia, sacred though its soil be. I was in no condition to appreciate the view of the streets, though I remember pass- ing No. 6, and we are finally landed at the hospital. Here I am assigned to a cot, and the German steward proudly refers to me as the first case of diphtheria, and so far as I know I am the only case during our imprisonment. In a few days my disease yields to lunar caustic and flax-seed poultices, and I then have a chance to look about me. The doctor makes his rounds and asks me, "Well, how ye comin' on to-day?" He is a kind man and I respect him. Dr. Dame, the Episcopal rector, New Hampshire born, and a second cousin of Caleb Cushing, calls almost daily on us, and, on his asking me what he can do for me, I suggest a book. The next coming brings "Paradise Lost"-there being a degree of fitness in his selection that I don't believe occurred to him. In December last (1888, the 24th) I called on the aged clergyman and said to him, grasping his hand, "You don't know me; but I was sick and in prison and ye visited me." With what cordiality came the response, "Is that so? I am glad to see you. Come, let us sit and talk." For nearly an hour we discourse of these remote times, and he tells that wherever it was possible he sent a
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DANVILLE PICTURES.
CONFEDERATE MONUMENT. HOSPITAL SPRING.
PRISON HEADQUARTERS. REV. GEO. W. DAME, D. D.
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letter to the friends of the dead prisoners. Whatever of im- provement there was in our treatment above that given to men further South, I think was largely owing to him. To my mind he filled, in the broadest sense, the definition of the Christian. Though Northern born, his early going to the South, his edu- cation at Hampden-Sidney, his marriage and long residence in Virginia, all combined to make his prejudices in favor of secession; but he was more than rebel or Federal, he was a Christian man. Going into one of the prisons one Sunday to preach he found a second cousin, by the name of Cushing, from the old Bay State, and he led the singing. So thoroughly did the war mix up families. His talks to the men were always most respectfully received, and when in the following April, the 6th Corps entered Danville, no one received more considerate at- tention than the Rev. George W. Dame .*
*George Washington Dame, son of Jabez and Elizabeth Hansen Cushing Dame, was born in Rochester, N. H., July 27, 1812. As a child he was taken to Virginia by his maternal uncle, Jonathan P. Cushing, president of Hampden-Sidney College, Prince Edward county (whose chief town is Farmville), where the subsequent divine was graduated in 1829. He lived to be the oldest surviving graduate of his alma mater. For several years an instructor in his college, he studied medicine, both in Prince Edward Medical School located in Richmond, and in the University of Pennsylvania. He severed his connection with the college in 1836. As an M. D. in Lynchburg he prepared a biographical sketch of his distinguished uncle's life. Later, from Hampden-Sidney, he received the degree of D. D. After all, his trend was towards theology, and in 1840 he became the organizer and first rector of the Episcopal Church in Danville. At that time there were only eight communicants in Camden Parish, including Pittsylvania, Franklin, Henry and Patrick counties. He had only four resident members at the beginning, and he continued the sole incumbent till 1895, when he became emeritus. He died suddenly Christmas eve, 1895. He was married, July 22, 1835, to Miss Lucy Maria, daughter of Major Carter Page, a soldier of the Revolution, and through her mother, Lucy, a grand-daughter of General Thomas Nelson, a signer of the Declaration from Virginia. She died September 11, 1895. Three of their sons, the Rev. Wm. M. of Baltimore, the Rev. Geo. W., Jr., also of Baltimore, and the Rev. Nelson P. of Winchester, are Episcopal rectors. Dr. Dame was conspicuous in Masonry, having been, from 1864 to his death, grand chaplain of the Grand Lodge of Virginia. For the majority of the preceding facts I am indebted to the Rev. J. Cleveland Hall, Dr. Dame's successor. The accompanying picture, representing the venerable clergyman standing under the porch of his residence, was made, with his consent, just as I was leaving him after our very happy interview .- A. S. R.
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As I convalesced I explored. I found that our hospital was built for Confederate occupancy; but necessity had filled it with Yankees. So far as I could observe, we received as good as our captors had to give. A good lady* living near, whose name I have never learned, daily sent to us some sort of deli- cacy, and that was honestly given to us. The two Confederate officers who were about our ward held converse as to the ap- proaching Christmas, and great expectations were had over a visit to the home of one of them. The principal present to be taken was a pair of shoes, made by one of our men, to be given to a sister. The poverty of the country was apparent in the most commonplace conversation. On their return from their festival they dilated on the pleasure afforded by that one pair of Yankee-made shoes. The next May I met one of these lieutenants at Boston Station, on the Richmond and Dan- ville railroad, the same being near his home, and I recall his wonder at my rehearsal of his pre and post Christmas talks.
When, one morning, one of the men said, "That fellow out at the dead-house had scales like an alligator," I was moved with a desire to see that place. At the earliest possible mo- ment I made my way there, and daily thereafter I made morning visits to see who had been brought out during the night or in the early morn. I frequently helped the negro driver to lift the dead into the boxes, there being for me a morbid attraction for the place wholly unaccountable. As a rule the bodies were not molested, though on one occasion wandering swine sadly disfigured several. Once, at least, a seeming corpse was car- ried out before it was really thus, and, revived by the clear air, Jimmy O-ds arose and, naked, marched into the ward proclaiming himself "not dead yet by a d-d sight." Weeks afterward I saw the same Jimmy peacefully smoking his du- deen in Annapolis. My rambles are, of course, confined to the bounds of the hospital inclosure; but with returning strength came a revived appetite, one that my rations by no means sat- isfied. I refrain from telling the straits to which I was forced in my researches about the cook-house, and the quantity and quality of alleged food that I secured. My mine was the foun- dation of a little plan to run away with a western soldier,
*I was told that her husband was a surgeon in the Confederate ser- vice.
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though he came from Ireland before he went west, but before we could get our stock in provisions we were sent back to the prison.
In my liberty or freedom of the wards, I went through them all, in search of certain trinkets or keepsakes left by friends of mine, and to see some of the living who were unable to leave their cots. The little reticule containing peach-pit dishes made by David Wilson for his sisters, I found and later sent to his family. I stood by the side of Corporal Mead, of my company, and as I saw his giant form dwindled to nothing but bones, barely covered with skin, I forgave him his crowding me out of the place I had made for myself one night down on the Weldon railroad, and I devoutly wished him a safe passage on the journey he must make so soon.
"Kitty Baker! Why don't you come, Kitty Baker?" is the sad monologue that all one night may be heard throughout the ward. I did not know the dying man; but imagination pictured scenes in a far-away land, where, perhaps, some one anxiously awaited a coming that could never be.
Frank Gustin had lived in the same town as myself, and I promised him, if I survived, to carry a lock of his hair to his aunt. During that last night of his life, his labored breathing proclaimed the approaching end. The lock that I cut from his brow was carried to the relative who had not known his where- abouts, he having run away to enlist.
I would omit the following scene did I not wish to reveal as fully as possible the secrets of my prison-house. Says Stew- ard Small one day, "If you men want to see a sight you never saw equaled, just come out here to the corner." We went; seated in a chair was a man whom I had often noted as wear- ing a close-fitting skull-cap, which I had never seen removed. It was now off and vermin covered his head in a way I had never dreamed of. The steward, with a pair of scissors, clipped off the locks, of a warm red hue, and as they touched the ground they seemed to have a jelly-like consistency. The hair off, a comb was drawn down his cranium, each draught rolling up a wad of squirming life as large as one's finger. The back of the head was like a mass of raw beef. We were close to the path along which all those must go who went for water, for just below us was a fine spring. These men were no novices in prison sights; but here was something that aston-
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ished them. Stopping, they, in turn, called on all the names of the deity, and also those of the denizens of Inferno. The poor victim seemed absolutely without feeling. The sequel is sad; for, bereft of his hair, like Samson, his strength failed and death soon followed. What was strangest in the whole affair was the fact that no one remembered seeing him scratch his head, and it was only Steward Small's discovery of the vermin crawling from beneath his cap that led to the investi- gation. I reasoned that his whole scalp was paralyzed or be- numbed. 1
My stay at the hospital is one month long, and then I am marched, with others, back to my old quarters, or as near them · as I can get. Rumors of exchange grow more common. It begins to look as though the Confederates would relent and allow that a black man may be a soldier. After the coldest weather is over, clothing that had been sent into the Confed- eracy early in the season is passed down to us. It is distributed, but so hungry are we that we very readily trade it with the rebels for something to eat, and in a few brief hours we are as ragged as ever. Every movement on the part of our guards seems to indicate that a change is near. By and by comes the statement that to-morrow we go. To be sure, the morrow is again and again removed, but that we shall get out is evident. In our joy over prospective release we do not forget the poor boys who sorrowed with us, but whom we must leave behind us. Sergeant York of Company D,-how he walked the floor, day after day, exclaiming that he must live to get home to see his wife and baby. But even his will can not keep him up .* Lee Marcellus, with his good-
*Prison notes from the diary of Norman G. York.
July 9. On skirmish line. Retreated till next morning. Got over ten miles on the 10th. Captured on the 11th.
July 13. I am sick, but the guards use me very well.
July 14. Cross the Potomac.
July 16. Long march, 25 miles; camp at 4 P. M .; then 12 miles further in the night.
July 18. March 14 miles to Winchester.
July 20. Through Newtown to Strasburg, and through that also.
July 22. To Mt. Jackson; 23d, through Newmarket; 24th, marched 18 miles.
July 25. To Staunton, 10 A. M., cars to Charlottesville. Stay all night.
July 26. Reach Lynchburg at 1 P. M.
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natured face, comes to mind, but he must stay. Tom Roe, of Company C, as clean an Irish boy as ever crossed the ocean, can not go home with us.
We all remember Sterne's "Sentimental Journey," and that at the hotel in Paris he encountered the starling in his cage, whose sole refrain was, "I can't get out." Here is the secret
July 28. Leave Lynchburg at sunrise and reach Danville the next morning.
July 31. Rations at 10 A. M., very short; rebels look half starved.
Aug. 2. A new batch of prisoners came in. Bread and bacon at 9 A. M .; soup at 3 P. M.
Aug. 4. Some sick men sent North. No soup.
Aug. 13. Anniversary of enlistment; 17th, John Perkins (Co. C) went to the hospital, quick consumption.
Aug. 18. John Perkins died to-day.
Aug. 29. I bet E. P. Dunning the oysters that we would not be out of here in six weeks.
Aug. 30. More sick and wounded men sent North. Sept. 3d, fresh beef served.
Sept. 15. With Fred. Stell swept the prison floor. Sold my boots for $25 (Confederate) and 14 onions, worth six dollars more. Bought a pair of shoes for $8.
Sept. 24. Relay of prisoners comes in from No. 6; 28th, bought 24 onions for $6.
Oct. 3. Finished reading the New Testament since I have been in prison.
Oct. 14. Again the sick are sent North. Levi Riggs went out to barber.
Oct. 24. Gave $6 for peck of sweet potatoes; 26th, Dewitt Havens died at the hospital.
Oct. 29. Bought some more potatoes. More prisoners came in from Lynchburg.
Nov. 1. Passed a bad night; 2-4, feeling badly. Riggs sends in extra food.
Nov. 14. Got letter from Wm. York dated Aug. 29, and one from father of same date.
Nov. 16. Hiram Peck went to the hospital; 17th, came to the hospi- tal; 25th, suffering from diarrhea.
Nov. 27. My illness is worse this morning; had a very poor night, last night.
This was his last entry, though he survived till Christmas day, when he passed over to the majority. Years afterwards, it was my privilege to call on Mrs. Charles H. Covell of Rose, N. Y., who was the baby, Lillian, never seen with mortal eyes by her father, and to tell her of the absorbing love that imprisoned parent had for his child. Herself a mother, she was able to appreciate, in part, how his heart was filled with regard for his little one .- A. S. R.
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of the horror of prison life. Over and above the privations of hunger and thirst, more biting than cold or heat, is the ever-present thought, "I can't get out." When, finally, on the 19th of February, we were actually marched out of our prison, there was no prisoner-of-Chillon sigh upon my lips nor in my heart. It was not yet the air of liberty that we were breath- ing; but the prison was behind and we were out. Down to the station which we first saw six months before, we march, and here are freight cars in waiting. Sixty-five of us are crowded into one car and we proclaim it full; but fifteen more men are jammed in. So, then, here we are-eighty men, or boys-too crowded for lying or even sitting. Must we stand all the way to Richmond? It looks like it; but we are willing to endure that and more even if by so doing we may put distance between ourselves and Danville.
HOME FROM PRISON.
The horrors of that night, from Danville to Richmond, can never be effaced from memory's tablet. Eighty well men in one ordinary box-car would certainly be uncomfortable, but when we remember that these prisoners had suffered much from long imprisonment, that there were men in the car who could not stand alone, that the scurvy, dysentery, and many other ailments had their representatives, some notion of the night that was before us may be had. We were disposed to endure a great deal, for we knew that our way was homeward, but the condition at times seemed absolutely unendurable. The air was very keen and frosty, as cold as it often gets in the lati- tude of southern Virginia, so in our poorly clad state, it seemed necessary to have the car-door shut. The interior, in some respects, soon resembled that of the famous Black Hole of Cal- cutta. The guard who stood at the door suffered with the rest of us. The moment the door was shoved open for a breath of air, some freezing wretch would clamor for its immediate closing. Finally, I asked and obtained the privilege of going to the top of the car to ride there. Since there was no danger of any one's trying to escape, my proposition found favor at once, both from the guard and from my fellow prisoners who wanted my room. It will be readily surmised that my move was not a jump from the frying-pan into the fire. On the con-
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trary, quite the reverse. My new Hades was like that described by Dante, where the lost are infernally and eternally preserved in vast masses of never-melting ice. I lay down at full length upon the car, with my head towards Richmond and my face next to the car. I didn't freeze, that is evident, but I was just about as cold as I could be and still be able to move. Frequent stops were the order in the South during the war. Accordingly when the train drew up at a station, it was possible for me to climb down and in for a change. Sleep was the last thing thought of during these hours, the obstacles within and without being quite too numerous to be overcome. As for myself, I alternated nearly the whole night long between the interior and exterior of the car. I have very little recollection of the places or stations past which we went, save one, pronounced Powatan, destined, in a few months, to have a world-wide fame through the closing scenes in the great strife to be enacted near; but I was not a prophet and so knew nothing of the glories of the future. To me it was simply a place named after an Indian chief whose name I had all my life mispronounced as Powhatan, and whose more famous daughter, Pocahontas, had rendered a distressed Englishman most excellent service, once on a time. I wondered whether the scene of the saving were not near, hence accounting for the name. Our guard, however, had not received much culture from the schools, and so was quite unable to shed any light upon the subject. He simply knew that we were Yanks, proverbial for curiosity, whose zeal for knowledge not even months of imprisonment could extinguish.
Morning brought the sun and Richmond. I was taking one of my reliefs on the car top when the famous city came in sight. Had I then known all the bearings of the Capital of the Confederacy, my exalted outlook might have given me a view of the prison of Belle Isle, for it was plainly visible at my left. This I did not know. Then I was more intent on the sight of the James, which the events of more than 200 years had rendered historical. The bridge itself was the one soon to be burned on the flight of the Confederate president. We halt just over the stream, and are marched, as we suppose, to Libby. From the names on the street corners I soon learned that we were on Carey street. From my outside perch it had been easy for me to get pretty near the head of the line. Our
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march, however, was destined to be a short one, for in a few minutes we discovered ahead of us the celebrated sign, "Libby & Sons, Ship Chandlers and Grocers." I well remember saying to my nearest comrade, "Wouldn't that sign be a drawing-card at a sanitary fair up North?" Some weeks afterwards, I was not a little pleased at seeing the same sign advertised as the most interesting object at a fair in, I think, Philadelphia.
Our march and observations were temporarily halted in front of a very large building, which, from its numerous disconsolate occupants, we concluded to be a prison of some sort. Natural- ly we thought the prisoners unfortunates similar to ourselves, but on our making sundry remarks, we were informed in tones unmistakably secesh, "We ain't Yanks, we're rebs." There could be no doubt about that. No man, born north of Mason and Dixon's Line, could articulate in such a thin-speeched manner as that. We were in front of Castle Thunder, long the prison-house of Confederate deserters and political prisoners generally. Here we are made to march out in single file, that we might be the better numbered. Of course we thought our destination to be the notorious Libby, but we were pushed right along and into a building opposite, which we soon learned was called Pemberton, and a sorry old rookery it was, too. It was three stories high, an old tobacco warehouse, deserving a history of its own, but almost entirely lost sight of in the greater reputation of its neighbor, Libby. We were under pre- cisely the same rule as the other edifice, but we were under a dif- ferent name. As we were sure that our stay was to be very short in Richmond, we were disposed to endure all our ills with a deal of complacency, thinking them to be of brief duration. Our food was of the regulation pattern, corndodger, compact and almost saltless, with as much water as we could coax out of the dribbling faucets. We were as hungry as famine could make us, but of this kind of ration our stomachs were thorough- ly cloyed. We ate but little of it and threw the remainder on the floor, much to the disgust of our rebel guards, who as- sured us that we might have to go hungry for our wasteful- ness; but we ran the risk and awaited the issue. The debris was gathered up and thrown into the street, where it afforded causes for unlimited quarrelings among the colored people as long as there was anything left. The officer who came in each morning to count us was either a good actor or a perfect devil.
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