USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > The story of Camp Chase; a history of the prison and its cemetery, together with other cemeteries where Confederate prisoners are buried, etc > Part 27
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seen for nearly four years. I got home safely and changed my clothing. I stayed there several days. I left one revolver and my sixteen-shooter, as it would not do to go through Ohio armed to the teeth. I crossed the Ohio River and went to Cedarville, then to Cooleyville and on to Tupper's Plains.
At the village of Dexter I found a camp of the Knights of the Golden Circle, and enlisted some forty men to go South in May .. I went to Jacktown, thence to Newark, and from there to Co- lumbus. I wanted to once more see the prisoners, if possible.
I left Newark for Columbus by train and arrived in time to see . about six hundred prisoners march up High Street. I went to the usual place, 750 West Broad Street. I was permitted to visit the prisoners again. The lady of the house where I stopped gave me a lecture on patriotism. She thought an able-bodied young man should go into the army. I told her some one had to stay at home and look after the women and children.
I remained in Columbus until the 26th of February, 1865, when I concluded to go to Newark. I had promised the Knights of the Golden Circle to be there on the 14th day of March, at about two o'clock, on the public square. Instead, I arrived on Feb- ruary 26, put up at a boarding house run by a Mrs. Smith, near whose house was a recruiting station. I spent a portion of my time about the recruiting station and got acquainted with a Colonel Jones. He wanted me to go into the army, saying I could get as much as thirteen hundred dollars if I went in the place of a cer- tain man.
Of course I could not take the big pay. Wishing to stay about Newark until the time agreed upon when I was to meet the Knights of the Golden Circle, I secured work at the depot for about three weeks. On the i4th of March I went to the public square ; and seeing a man apparently looking for some one. I gave him the secret sign of the order, which he answered and came toward me, giving me the grip and the word of recognition. After some conversation of a general nature, he asked if I had the note. I told him that .I did not have it with me.
"If you had the note, I could pay you," he said.
"How would it do if I gave you a receipt and I destroy it when I go home?" I asked.
"That will do," said he.
I wrote the receipt and paused, waiting for him to name the amount.
"It is fifty-seven dollars and the interest."
"Never mind the interest," said I,. "for the note is not yet due."
There were people standing about and passing to and fro near us, and the conversation was intended to lead any one that might be listening to think the note a genuine business transaction. I
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had never met the man before, but he was a good member of the Golden Circle.
I spent a short time in Newark, and often ran over to Columbus to get the news from the front. I occasionally went out of town to attend a meeting of the Circle. I felt that the time had come for me to go South, and I left Newark the last week in April. I went to Bellaire and from there to Parkersburg by boat. From this point I went up the Little Kanawha to Kanawha Station, and from there traveled through the mountains afoot. "A portion of the trip two men accompanied me; but after three days in the Gauley Mountains they left me, and I was alone untli I came to White Sulphur Springs, where I put up at the hotel for a couple of days. There were Union soldiers here, and I went to the headquarters and got a pass to go to Lewisburg. I arrived there safely, and inquired of the soldiers if it would be safe to go to Oakland Station, about twenty miles south. They told me that point was held by Union troops, and that a wagon train was going that way and might give me a ride. To the man in charge I showed my pass, and he kindly gave me permission to ride in one of the wagons.
When we had traveled about ten miles of the way a volley of musketry was fired at the train from the deep woods near the road, killing the horses of the two front teams. I leaped from the wagon and took shelter behind a big oak tree. The guards with the train fired on the force in the woods from under the wagons. It was a party of Mosby's men, sixteen of them, and the men in charge of the wagon train were all made prisoners. They were taken some ten miles south and paroled. I left the Mosby men at the same time the Union soldiers were paroled, and pushed on.
I arrived at Wytheville without further adventure. Here I met a portion of my old regiment, and they had with them some two hundred stragglers from all commands. They informed me that General Lee had surrendered and they were on their way to join Johnston in North Carolina. I took command of the men and moved on. I met General Forrest in Southwestern Virginia and was attached to his command. He gave me orders to go east and scout in the direction of Lynchburg and to let him hear from me.daily. The second day I reported, but the third day I could get no word to him. I proceeded on in the direction or- dered, keeping a close watch for the troops under General Grant, for we wished to join Johnston. I divided my men in squads to travel upon certain roads and meet at certain designated places. One day as we were riding leisurely along we saw some persons bathing in a pool or pond near the road. We saw the blue uni- forms, and I ordered the men to charge on them. We captured two negro soldiers who had been sent out to gather up the
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wagons and army equipments that were scattered through the country.
My men, seeing these negro soldiers and feeling enraged that the cause they had fought for four long years was lost, shouted: "Kill the d- niggers!" I had all that I could do to save their lives. I told my men that the negroes were United States soldiers and must be treated as such.
I wish to digress from the story of that time to say that one of these same colored men whose life I saved lives in Columbus and is my barber. He keeps a shop on West Broad Street, in sight of where my headquarters were whenever I was in Colum- bus during those days. His name is James W. Byrd, and he has not forgotten the time nor circumstance.
We went on with our two prisoners to the place where we were to meet the rest of the scouts, who had been waiting for us. They had captured seven Union soldiers and their horses as well. We scouted about this part of the country several days, and found ourselves in possession of twenty-seven prisoners. I decided to leave this base of operations, find some command to which I could turn the prisoners over, and get additional instructions.
I went through Southwestern Virginia and over into North Carolina, where I met about five hundred Confederate soldiers going home. They told me that Johnston had surrendered some seven days before that time. As soon as I was convinced that all was over, I gave command for the men to move into a field, and there I told them the news. I turned to the prisoners and told them they were free and to go at once. Then I turned to my men and told them that the war was over and that we were sol- diers no longer. I then took each man by the hand and thanked him for the heroic work that he had done for four long years. All that was left for us to do was to go home and begin life over again.
I then thought of my own position. I had been a scout and spy, and I felt, some way, that I would be safer in Ohio until all was settled; for one could not know then what would be done with a spy, even if the soldiers in the ranks were going home. It was a long way from the border of North Carolina to the Ohio River, but I had a good horse, and many a long, weary mile did I ride. I finally reached the Ohio River, and at a small town sold my fine horse for eighty dollars in greenbacks. This horse was one I got from the wagon master of the train that had been captured by Mosby's men on my way South. I bought a suit of clothes, boxed my gray suit and sent it home, and the next morning took a boat for Wheeling. From there I went by train to Newark and remained there while the paroling of the prisoners at Camp Chase was going on. I spent much of my time at the headquarters of Colonel Brown at Newark, and at times I did
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work of different kinds. I saw in the Columbus papers that they were paroling the prisoners at Camp Chase, and among the number a few officers that had not been forwarded to Johnson's Island. One morning I was in the office of the Colonel and read aloud to him the article, but he seemed to pay no attention to it, * but kept on writing. Presently I asked: "Colonel, what are you going to do with me. I was one of those Johnnies, as you call them."
He did not reply at first, still continuing with his writing. When he had finished, he said that I would have to prove it.
"Let me have your knife," I said. He handed me the knife. I began to rip the lining of the top of my boot. I drew from the boot the paper that told who and what I was.
When he had read it I saw a frown gather, and he asked : "Why did you not tell me long ago?"
"The war was not over long ago, Colonel; and if I had told you then, I should not have been living now," I replied.
"I don't know what to do with you, unless I hang you," he said; but there was a sort of twinkle in his eyes.
"You can put me under arrest and telegraph to Columbus and see what they want to do with me."
Then he told me to consider myself under arrest and report once a day. This lasted for about a week, and one morning the Colonel called me in. "Well, I have received word from Colum- bus," he said.
I bowed, waiting for him to finish.
"All spies caught within our lines when the war closed are to be hanged," he said.
Notwithstanding the seriousness of his words and his attempt to look very solemn, I could see a smile lurking on his face, and was not alarmed, as I said : "But you did not capture me. I came here and told you about it. But if you are anxious to hang me, get at it, for I'm in something of a hurry this morning."
He laughed and replied that he had orders to parole me. I asked him the nature of the parole, and he read it to me. the sub- stance being that I was not again to take up arms against the government of the United States, etc.
He then called his clerk and told him to look after things. To me he said, "We will make a day of this;" and we did, but not in getting drunk. Neither drank a drop of intoxicating liquors ; but O how we did eat! We celebrated the end of the war that way.
I went back home to Virginia, and some years ago I moved to Ohio, and my home for the past ten years has been in Colum- bus, and I live in less than three squares from the little house at 750 West Broad, where my headquarters had been located.
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In the latter portion of Major Marlowe's story he mentions the capture of two colored soldiers and that one of them, named Byrd, was a barber on West Broad Street, whom he had patron- ized for some years. When Major Marlowe's story was being "prepared for this volume, the attention of the author was called to the statement, and he immediately had Byrd interviewed as to his recollections concerning his capture. When he was asked if he knew a gentleman by the name of Marlowe, he said he had known him several years, and that he had been a patron of his place for some time before he knew that they had met in the South. He was asked to relate his recollection of the particulars, and he said :
I lived in North Carolina before the war and was a fireman on the North Carolina Central Railway, under an engineer who was a down-East Yankee. After a while I learned that the Con- federate government meant to get all of us free colored men (I had never been a slave) in the service of the South (I think we were to work on fortifications and such like), and I told the Yankee engineer that I was going to turn up missing mighty soon. He told me where to go and how to get there, and it was the Quakers who helped me. I got through all right to the Yankee lines and enlisted in the First United States Colored Cav- alry, Company A, commanded by Capt. Charles W. Dye.
After the fall of Petersburg a battalion was sent south and west of there (if I remember the direction aright) to bring in abandoned cannon, ammunition, etc. While on this trip I went to a nice pond or pool to bathe and wash my clothes. Well, while · we were busy cleaning up, another man of my company and my- self, we were surprised to find ourselves surrounded by a squad of some sixty men in gray. They looked like a guerrilla band, and I was pretty certain they were when two or three big, tall fellows cried out : "Shoot them! They are nothing but d- niggers, anyway!" I thought it was about sundown for me, when a man rode in front of them and said: "These men are United States sol- diers and must be treated as soldiers."
While some of them kept on swearing that they would kill us, he just quietly told them that they wouldn't do any such thing. that he was their superior officer and they should obey him.
They took us along with them for several days; and when at last they learned the war was over, the gentleman in charge said to us that we could go when we wished, as they had nothing more to do with us.
I thought that a negro who had fought in the army would not get much show in the South; and, not knowing what became of
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· my regiment, I started for Ohio, where I had some relatives. I traveled on foot some six weeks, and at last found myself at Gal- lipolis, Ohio.
I knew the war was over and there was no use for soldiers any more, so I did not look up my regiment; in fact, I did not know how to go about it.
I finally came to Columbus, and worked here for years at my business, that of a barber. One day a colored man who had been a soldier asked me if I got a pension. I told him I did not, and that when the war was over I was a prisoner in the hands of the guerrillas, and was telling him all about it, when I noticed Mr. . Marlowe, who had been shaved, listening to us talk. When the colored man went out, the Major commenced asking me a lot of questions, all of which I could answer. Pretty soon I asked him who he was that seemed to know all about the time I was cap- tured.
"Do you remember the man who rode a nice horse-the shoul- ders or collar of the horse was white?"
"Yes, sir, I mind him," I said. "It was that man saved me from dying right sudden. I mind that."
"Well, I was that man," said he. Then he told me that he had often wondered where he had seen me before he came to my shop. and I told him I had wondered, too. It was sort of strange that the man who saved my life should be living here and me living here too. He comes very often and gets shaved, and he is one man from the Southern army that I'm mighty glad to see come.
CHAPTER XXII.
GETTING TOGETHER.
Some True Stories That Illustrate What Friends Americans Can Be, though Enemies Once-The Man Who Shot Me-Telling the Story of the Battle-The Captured Silverware-Drinking from the Little Cup in After Years-Plowing with the Yankees' Horses-A Little Rebel Bootblack-Hunting a New Home-A Northern Office Holder- Governor Campbell's Last Pardon.
CHAPTER IV. contains an address delivered by Gen. W. D. Hamilton, who was colonel of the Ninth Ohio Cavalry.
Some years after the war he went to Alabama looking after business matters there, and this business called him to Florence and Athens, Ala., at which places his regiment had been stationed. Those who read the General's speech will recall its lofty patriot- ism and its broad and generous charity. Having had part in the decoration services, and having lived for a time in Alabama,' it occurred to the author that some reminiscences of this personal friend would be of interest to our readers generally.
In speaking of the incident of the silverware the General said:
In April, 1864, I was ordered by General Sherman to Florence, Ala., with two regiments of cavalry to feed on and destroy the corn and other supplies of the Tennessee Valley in that locality, on which General Forrest depended when going into Tennessee. I encamped on Cypress Creek, two miles from the city, and sent out teams to collect food for men and horses.
One evening I found that one of the companies was using a large amount of silverware at supper, and learned, upon inquiry, that it had been brought in by the detail that had been collecting supplies.
The sergeant in charge said the silverware had been found in a cave covered over with corn. It was found on the plantation of W. H. Key, on the river seven miles below my camp. I had the silverware brought to my tent, and the next morning sent it back to the family with a note telling the circumstances. I in- formed them also that if they had any other valuables hidden to take the same to their home, as nothing of that kind would be disturbed. A little later Mr. Key called upon me at the camp
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to thank me for the return of his property. I was invited to dine with them, which invitation I accepted.
While at the table Mr. Key was called out by the appearance of a squad of soldiers with wagons, who came to get supplies of corn, meat, etc. He asked what command they belonged to, and was informed that they were from the Ninth Ohio Cavalry.
"The colonel of your regiment is at dinner with me," said Mr. Key. "Had you better not see him?"
"It is not worth while," replied the sergeant. "We are simply obeying orders."
Mr. Key informed me of the situation, asking what he should do. As I had been ordered by General Sherman to collect sup- plies, I could do nothing but say to the gentleman that I was powerless to prevent the men obeying my orders, and that I thought the men would act fairly with him. He produced the keys to the smokehouse and the corncrib, and the men took a por- tion of the smoked meats, leaving him a fair amount for family use.
"I am placed in a most humiliating position, Mr. Key," said I. "Sitting at your table as your guest, my men come and take your provisions ; and I must make no effort to stay them because of my orders. It is indeed humiliating, but it is one of the unfor- tunate circumstances of war."
My men, however, had treated him with courtesy and polite- ness, saying, as I had, that it was an enforced duty ; and Mr. Key did not find fault. He realized that it was the duty of soldiers . to obey orders.
Twenty-five years from that time I was in that locality again, and Mr. Key and his wife were still living; and when he learned I was in the neighborhood, he called and invited me to dine with him again. It so happened that it was the twenty-fifth anniversary of my first dinner with him. At that first dinner there was a shy little girl about four years of age, who came slowly into the room where I sat. She had been told there was a Yankee there, and her eyes were wide and fear seemed to dwell in their depths, not- withstanding the presence of her parents. It was not long, how- ever, until she sat upon my lap and I was telling her stories.
In the twenty-five years that elapsed between dinners at the plantation of Mr. Key the little girl had grown to womanhood and had married and had gone with her husband to Florida ; but on this occasion of my visit she was at home, and when dinner was announced took me by the arm, and when seated at the table said : "This little silver cup was my first birthday present, and it was with the silver under the corn in the cave where your men found it. You sent it back to me, and now I want you to drink out of it for my sake." I did drink out of her little cup-I cannot re-
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member what-but it was like Bobby Burns's "Cup o' kindness, for Auld Lang Syne."
General Hamilton related another story of Florence, Ala., that happened a few days after the return of the silverware to Mr. Key. A Mr. Patton, living some miles distant from camp, was without teams to cultivate a crop of corn. Both armies had drawn upon him for horses and there were but two left, and some of the Ninth Cavalry had taken the one horse that was fit for anything. The help had gone. Once there had been many slaves on the plantation, but these had disappeared and the planter was doing the best he could himself.
When the one horse of any value was taken he went to the headquarters of Colonel Hamilton and told how he was situated, saying : "My negroes have all gone, leaving none but the children and old folks-they who took care of us when we were children and who are too old to do much work. At the best I am not much of a plowman, but was doing the best I could to put in a crop of corn, when your men came, Colonel, and broke up my team. I do not come with any complaint, as I know the laws of war; but to satisfy my wife I have come to see you."
"Your wife was right, Mr. Patton, and I may be able to do something for you ; at least, we will see what can be done. My men were acting under my orders," said Colonel Hamilton. "I have to keep my men mounted, but I have some horses whose backs have become so injured by the saddle that I cannot use them. Come, we will look over them and see what we can do for you."
The Colonel was well satisfied that the horse his men left was a poor specimen, and he proposed to give Mr. Patton all the benefit of the trade that circumstances would permit.
It is not inappropriate at this point to say that the Ninth Ohio Cavalry a few months before had been well mounted; but they had traveled a long way, from Louisville to Nashville, and from Nashville to Athens and then to Florence. Many of the horses were sadly galled and unfit for service. Colonel Hamilton picked out a team and then gave him an extra horse, in case it was needed, and Mr. Patton cultivated his crop.
In the fall of 1866 Mr. Patton was elected Governor of Ala-
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bama, and Colonel Hamilton had occasion to go to Montgomery two days after he was inaugurated. He thought he would call upon the Governor, and presented his card. The official door- keeper took the card, saying to the Colonel that the retiring Gov- ernor and the newly inaugurated one were very busy and could not be seen. Colonel Hamilton, after leaving his card, turned away to look over the Statehouse and its grounds. Presently the official who had his card came hurrying to him, stating that Governor Patton wished to see him at once. There were present the retiring Military Governor, Parsons, and his staff ; and Patton, meeting Hamilton in the middle of the great room, called Ex- Governor Parsons and his staff about him and said: "I want to introduce you to a Yankee; and I take pleasure in saying to you in his presence, and to him in your presence, that he and the Ninth Ohio Cavalry did more to reconcile the people of North Alabama to our defeat than he has any knowledge of, for he taught us that, after all, there were gentlemen in the North."
There have crept into this story of the prisons and cemeteries of Ohio, from time to time, little incidents that were foreign to the story proper; but the reader will grasp the idea the author seeks to present-viz., the universal brotherhood of Americans.
A Democratic Governor of Ohio was James E. Campbell, who retired from office as William McKinley succeeded to it. His last official pardon given a prisoner was one for a Union veteran, and the person who sought the pardon was a man who, when a lad, was known as "Johnny, the little Rebel bootblack."
The Secretary of the Board of Managers of the Ohio Peni- tentiary during the Campbell administration was Mr. James Newman, who related the story of his boyhood :
My home was in Mobile, and there were only my mother and myself. My father had been dead since my babyhood, and I was the man of the house. I was not yet twelve years of age, when one day the cannon thundered all about Mobile, and the men in gray marched away and strange men in blue came instead.
I had been selling papers and blacking boots or doing any- thing I could to make a living : and when these strangers came. [ wondered what I should do. I first ventured into the camp of an Indiana regiment with a little bundle of papers and my blacking kit. They were rough but kindly men, these Hoosiers, and it was not long until I was on good terms with them.
I was getting along quite well, and was proud of the fact that
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I could make mother fairly comfortable, when one night she sud- denly grew worse, and I was frightened when she turned her white face toward me and whispered: "Jimmie, Jimmie, I'm go- ing. Be a good boy !"
The Indiana men saw traces of tears on my cheeks when I went to the camp the next morning. At first they joked me about some one giving me a whipping; but when I did not an- swer them, and when they saw me trying to swallow a lump that would continue to rise in my throat, one of the men put his arm about me and said : "What is the matter to-day, Johnny ?"
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