PRISON X
The stockade enclosed a half-acre of bare earth, trodden hard. The
prison was a huge old brick building with a few narrow, grated
windows. It had been built to store the inanimate, and now it was
crowded with the animate. The inanimate made few demands save those of
space and security. The animate might demand, but they did not
receive. They had space—after all, each prisoner could move a very
little way without jostling another prisoner—and they were kept
securely. The gratings were thick, the guards were many, the stockade
was high, and there was a Dead Line. As for other requests, for light
and air and an approach to sanitation, for a little privacy, for less
musty food and more of it, for better water, for utensils and
bedding—the inanimate had made no such requests, and the animate
requested in vain. What had been good enough for good Northern
manufactured goods was good enough for Southern rebels. Everybody knew
that Northern prisoners were starving, dying in Southern prisons.
“‘Exchange, then!’ Well, I kind of wish myself that we’d exchange.”
There were three floors in the prison, and a number of partitions had
been driven across the large, echoing shell. Officers’ quarters were
the first floor, and officers’ quarters were rudely divided into a
hot, dark, evil-smelling central hall, and a number of hot, narrow,
close, and poorly-lighted rooms in which to sleep and wake. Hall and
rooms were hot because it was warm summer-time, and they were so
crowded, and there was admitted so little air. In the winter-time they
were cold, cold! The prisoners who had been here longest had tried
both elements; in the winter-time they pined for summer and in the
summer-time they longed for winter. This building was but one of
several warehouses converted into places of storage for the animate.
There were, in all, in this place, twelve hundred Confederate officers
and six thousand Confederate privates.
Twilight was the worst time. Earlier there was all the sunshine that
could enter the small windows, and once a day there was exercise in
the small sunbaked yard. As soon as it was totally dark a few smoky
lamps were lighted and for an hour there was “recreation” in the
various central halls. But twilight—twilight was bad! It was the
hopeless hour, the hour of home visions, the hour of longing, the hour
of nostalgia. It was the hour when men could and did weep in shadowy
places. The star that twinkled through the window mocked, and the
breeze from the south mocked. The bats that wheeled above the prison
yard were Despondency’s imps. Melancholy had free entrance; she could
and did pass the sentries. Hope deferred was always there. At twilight
all hearts sickened.
With the smoky lamps came, on the part of most,—not of all, but of
most,—a deliberate taking-up again of life, even of prison life.
Heroism reëntered the weary prison. Courage and cheerfulness took the
stage, the first a grim and steadfast warrior, the last falsetto
enough at times, and then again suddenly, divinely genuine. At times
there were brisk gaiety, unfeigned laughter, a quite rollicking
joviality. Twilight was over—twilight was over for this time!
Supper was over, too,—soon over! A small cake of meal, more or less
musty, a bit of “salt horse,”—the meal was not prolonged. It was
brought into the hall in a great kettle and sundry pans. The prisoners
had each a tin plate, with an ancient knife and fork. There was no
table; they sat on benches or old boxes, or tailor fashion on the
floor. They had a way of pleasing their fancies with elaborate
menus—like the Barmecide in the “Arabian Nights.” Only the menus
never, never materialized! To-night, in a mess of thirty, a colonel of
A.P. Hill’s, captured at Fredericksburg, laid out the table. “Mountain
mutton, gentlemen, raised in Hampshire! Delicately broiled, served
with watercress. No man must take less than two helpings! Brook trout,
likewise, speckled beauties, taken this afternoon! There was a pool
and a waterfall and some birch trees, and I went in swimming. Light
rolls, gentlemen, and wheat muffins, and, I _think_, waffles! Coffee,
gentlemen,—don’t cheer!—Mocha, with sugar. The urn full and plenty
more in the kitchen. Something green, gentlemen,—lettuce, I think,
with cucumber and onion sliced thin and a little oil and
vinegar.—Don’t cheer! This mess has all the early vegetables and all
the garden fruit it needs, and is _not_ scorbutic!—Gentlemen, a
dessert will follow—a little trifling jelly or cream, and I think a
dish of raspberries.”
The “salt horse” was eaten, the thin cake of old, old meal, the small
and watery potato apiece. The mess arose. “For what we have received
may one day the enemy be thankful! Amen!”
It was a festal night. They had a prison paper—_The Pen_—issued once a
week. Foolscap paper was at a premium as was pen and ink. Therefore
there was but one copy. It was read on Monday night by the gathering
in division such and such a number. Tuesday night it passed to another
division and another social hour. Wednesday night to another, and so
on. The privates had their paper, too, and late in the week there were
exchanges. This was Monday night and the hall of the editorial staff.
The smoky lamps burned dim in the close and heated air. At times these
officers were able to secure tobacco for those who smoked, but more
often not. This present week it was not, and the hall missed this
disinfectant. There were a few long benches, a dozen stools, some
boxes and barrels. Those who could not find seats sat on the floor, or
lounged against the darkened walls. They had a table beneath one of
the lamps, and a space was kept clear for the performers of the
evening. There was to be a debate and other features.
The chairman of the evening arose. “Gentlemen, we will open as usual
with Dixie—”
“I wish I was in de land of cotton,
Old times dar am not forgotten!
Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land!
In Dixie Land, whar I was born in,
Early on one frosty morning,
Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land!
Den I wish I was in Dixie,
Hooray, hooray!
In Dixie Land I’ll take my stand,
To live an’ die in Dixie!
Away, away, away down South in Dixie;
Away, away, away down South in Dixie—”
Two hundred men sang it loudly. Bearded, gaunt, unkempt, large-eyed,
in unsoldierly rags, they stood and sang Dixie—sang it fiercely, with
all their pent power, with all their wild longing. It rolled and
echoed through the building; it seemed to beat with violence at the
walls, so that it might get out beneath the stars. It died at last.
The prisoners in Division 3 turned again to the chairman. “Gentlemen,
the editors of _The Pen_ crave your indulgence. The latest news by
grapevine and underground is just in! The presses are working overtime
in order that presently it may be served to you hot—”
“The War is over!”
“We are to be exchanged!”
“England has declared—”
“We have met the enemy and he is ours!”
“We have received a consignment of tobacco.”
“The rats have cried Hold, enough! A signal victory has been
achieved—”
“No; the bedbugs—”
“The commandant has been called up higher.”
“Is—is it an exchange?”
The chairman put that hope out with prompt kindness. “No, no, Captain!
I wish it were. That would be the next best thing to news of a big
victory, wouldn’t it! But, see, they approach! Way for the noble
editors! Way for _The Pen_ that has—ahem!—swallowed the sword!”
The Junior Editor, having the biggest voice and being used to
commanding Partisan Rangers, was the chosen reader. He stood forward.
“Gentlemen, let me have your attention!—Can’t that lamp be turned
up?—Thank you, Colonel!
THE PEN
_Light (mental) and Liberty (To the Dead Line)_
VOL. I. NO. 20.
PRISON X. JUNE —, 1863
IMPORTANT NEWS
_Received by Grapevine, and confirmed by Fresh Fish_
“General Lee is thought to be moving northward—”
“_Yaaaih! Yaaaaaihhh! Yaaaaih!_”
“He has certainly left the Rappahannock. Ewell has been observed
moving toward the Valley, probably with the intention of falling on
Milroy at Winchester—”
“_Yaaaihhhh! Yaaaaaihhh!_—”
“—and crossing the Potomac at Williamsport. Longstreet and A.P. Hill
are in motion—”
“_Yaaaih!_ Old Pete! _Yaaaih!_ A.P. Hill!”
“If General Lee crosses the Potomac, surely all will be well. We trust
in God that it’s true.”
“Amen,” said the prisoners. “Amen, amen!”
The reader turned the page.
“Underground and Fresh Fish alike confirm our assurance that Vicksburg
is NOT fallen! There is a rumour that provisions are becoming
exhausted and that in Vicksburg, too, rats are speared. The Editors of
THE PEN heartily wish that we might send a grapevine to the
beleaguered city, ‘Nothing is, but only thinking makes it so.’ Think
of your rat in terms of grace and you will find him good as squirrel.”
“The above items exhaust the news of the outer world. THE PEN turns to
the world around which runs the Dead Line. Incense first to the Muses!
Lieutenant Lamar, ——th Georgia, favours us as follows:—
“Oh, were I a boy in Georgia,
As now I am a man in Hell,
I would haste to the old school-house
With the ringing of the bell!
“Oh, were I a boy in Georgia
As now I am a man in jail,
To go to church on Sunday,
Be sure I would not fail!
“Oh, were I a boy in Georgia,
As now I am a man in chains,
I’d not take the eggs from the bird-nests,
Nor apples from old man Haines!
“Oh, were I a boy in Georgia,
As now I am a man in quod,
I’d be a better son to my mother,
Ere she lay beneath the sod!”
“In another vein Colonel Brown, ——th Kentucky, contributes:—
Air. _Within a mile of Edinboro’ Town._
“’Twas a mile within the Wilderness green,
In the rosy time of the year;
Artillery boomed and the fight was keen,
And many men found their bier.
There Marse Robert, grey and great,
Struck Joe Hooker, sure as fate!
The Yankee blenched and answering cried, ‘No, no, it will not do!
I cannot, cannot, winnot, winnot, munnot lose this battle too!‘
“Stonewall had a way of falling from the blue,
From the blue and on the blue as well!
Their right he crumpled up and many he slew,
And came on their centre like—!
Stonewall Jackson, great and grey,
Fought Joe Hooker on this day!
Yet Hooker, fighting, frowned and cried, ‘No, no, it will not do!
I cannot, cannot, winnot, winnot, munnot lose this battle too!‘
“Stuart shook his feather and hummed a merry tune,
Then swung the A.N.V. with might!
He struck Joe Hooker the crown aboon,
And put the blue army to flight!
Oh, Jeb Stuart, blithe and gay,
Beat Joe Hooker night and day!
And Hooker, fleeing, no more frowned and cried, ‘No, no, it will not
do!
I cannot, cannot, winnot, winnot, munnot lose this battle too!’”
“We pass from the service of the Muses to our editorial of the day.
PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS AND THE CONDITION OF TRADE WITH A GLANCE AT THE
PREDICAMENT OF THE UNEMPLOYED.”
The really able editorial was read at length. As it had the quality of
being applicable as well as dogmatic, as indeed it accurately
portrayed the conditions and beliefs of all present, it received full
attention and unanimous applause.
The reader bowed his thanks. “Gentlemen, in all our career, we have
been actuated by one sole ambition, and that ambition, gentlemen, was
to become without any reservation, the Voice of the People! To-night
that ambition is realized. We see that we are IT—and we thank you,
gentlemen,—we thank you! We will now pass to the Standing Committees
and their reports. On Finance; on Sick and Destitute; on State of the
Church; on Public Education; on Cleanliness; on the Fine Arts; on
Amusements—”
After reports of committees came a page of advertisements.
“A STITCH IN TIME SAVES NINE.—Bring your rips and rents to Captains
Carter and Davenport, Division 10. Entire satisfaction given. Charges
moderate.
“INSTRUCTION IN ORATORY, and PARLOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS. Reginald De
Launay, Division 13. I was once on the stage.
“INSTRUCTION ON THE BANJO. (First get your banjo.) John Paul, Lt. ——th
Alabama, Division 24.
“A FIRST-CLASS LAUNDRY. No pains spared, only soap. Patronize us. You
will never regret it. Taylor and Nelson, Northwest corner, Division 3,
where you see the tub. No gentleman nowadays wears starched linen. One
dislikes, too, a glaring white. And nobody likes a world too smooth.
Our charges are moderate. We are Old Reliable.
“GUTTA-PERCHA RINGS, Ladies’ Bracelets, Watch Chains, Walking-Sticks
elaborately carved. Fancy Buttons. Just the things for mementoes of
this summer-and-winter resort! Your lady-loves will prize them. Your
grandchildren-to-be will treasure them. Call and look them over.
Genuine bargains. Washington and Pinckney, Division 30, south side.
Upper tier of bunks.
“HAVE YOUR HAIR CUT. It needs it. Barbering of all kinds done with
expedition and neatness. We will shave you. We will shampoo you. Our
terms are the most reasonable north of Mason and Dixon. Call and see
our stock of Arabian perfumes. We are experimenting upon a substitute
for soap. Smith and Smith, Division 33.
“COBBLE! COBBLE! COBBLE! Have your sole and uppers parted? Do you need
a patch? Come and talk it over. We are amateurs, but we used to watch
old Daddy Jim do it. We think we can help you. Our charges are not
exorbitant. Porcher and Ravenel, Division 38.
“CIRCULATING LIBRARY. We are happy to inform the public that through
the generosity of recent arrivals we have become possessed of another
copy of ‘Les Miserables,’ by Victor Hugo. We have also ‘Macaria,’ by
Miss Evans, Thackeray’s ‘Vanity Fair,’ and Virgil’s ‘Æneid.’ At the
closing of the meeting the chairman of the Library Committee will be
happy to take names of applicants in order.
“We pass to NOTICE OF DEATHS. We mourn the loss of Brigadier-General
—— ——. This gallant gentleman and soldier passed away yesterday in the
prison hospital. A kinsman, detained in this division, was allowed to
be with him at the last. General —— asked that the twenty-third psalm
be read, and when it was done he lay quiet for a while, then raised
himself slightly in his bunk. ‘God save the South!’ he said, and died.
Major ——, ——th South Carolina, is dead. Adjutant ——, ——th Tennessee,
is dead. Captain ——, ——th Virginia, is dead. Captain ——, ——th North
Carolina, is dead. Lieutenant ——, ——th Virginia Cavalry, is dead.
Lieutenant ——, ——th Mississippi, is dead. We hear from the men’s side
that very many of our comrades in the ranks are dead. So be it! _Dulce
et decorum est pro patria mori._”
There was a moment’s pause in the reading. Resumed, _The Pen_ took up
the Continued Story, Instalment 5.
The Continued Story did not deal with war and war’s alarms. The
Continued Story was a story of domestic bliss. It was in the quietest
vein; true love not too much crossed, marriage bells, home, a child,
little details, a table set, flowers, robins singing, talk of a
journey. Division 3, leaning forward, listened breathlessly. The
instalment closed. “To be continued in our next.” A sigh went through
the hall.
The hour was almost up. The debate that was scheduled to follow _The
Pen_ had to be shortened. Even so, it took place, and so interesting
was it that various blue guards and officials, drawn by echoes as of
Demosthenes, came into the hall and made part of the audience. “WOMAN:
HER PLACE IN CREATION. DOES IT EQUAL THAT OF MAN?”
The negative, in this time and place and audience, received scant
sympathy. In vain the collegian who had somewhat doubtfully undertaken
it, piled Ossa on Pelion, Aristotle on St. Paul, Rousseau on Martin
Luther. That woman-famished audience received quotation and argument
in stony disapproval. The affirmative soared over Ossa without
brushing a pinion. Amid applause from grey and blue alike, the
affirmative, somewhere now among the stars, was declared to have won.
The chairman of the evening rose. “Gentlemen, the hour is passed. May
you rest well, and have pleasant dreams! To-morrow night the Musical
Club will delight us. We extend to the gentlemen of the North whom I
see among us a cordial invitation to honour us again. Good night—good
night!”
Division 3 streamed beneath the smoky lamps out of the close and dark
hall into the dark and close rooms. In each of these were tiers of
bunks, none too wide. Each boasted one grated window which let in a
very little of the summer night. The doors clanged behind the entering
men; outside in the hall and at all exits the sentries were posted.
Within a few minutes the doors were opened again. “Rounds!” Officer in
blue, men in blue, swinging lantern, vague breath of the outer
world—the guardian group went through each room, examining keenly the
tiers of bunks each with its shadowy reclining or sitting inmate,
lifting the lantern to peer into corners, shaking the window bars to
see that there had been no filing. Ten minutes, and with or without a
gruff “good night!” rounds were over.
A half hour passed, an hour passed. It was a dark night and
breathless. The stars that might be seen through the window, above the
stockade, showed like white-hot metal points stuck through a heavy
pall. Without the door of a room in which were packed twenty officers
sounded, passing, the tread of the sentry. The sound died down the
hall.
A man stepped lightly and quietly from his bunk. Another left his as
quietly,—another,—another. Those in the upper tier swung themselves
down, noiseless as cats. All twenty were out on the floor. Whatever of
clothing had been laid aside was resumed. Two men took their places by
the door, ear to the heavy panel. Two watched at the window. All
movement was made with the precision of the drill-yard and in the
quietude of the tomb. In the corner, near the window, was a bunk in
which had slept and waked a lieutenant of nineteen, a light, thin,
small-boned youngster. Now four men, bending over, lifted noiselessly
the boards upon which the lieutenant had lain. Below, stretched
smooth, stained and coloured like the floor, was a bit of tarpaulin,
obtained after God knows what skilful manœuvring! The men turned this
back. Beneath gaped a ragged hole, a yard across, black and deep. Up
came a colder air and an earthy smell.
In this room Maury Stafford was the leader. With a whispered word he
put his hands on the edge of the excavation and swung himself down,
dropping at last several feet to the floor of the tunnel. One by one
the twenty followed, the four from door and window coming last. As
best they could, these pulled the boards of the lieutenant’s bunk in
place over the entrance to that underground, which, with
heart-stifling delays and dangers, they had digged. For months they
had been digging—a hundred and odd men conspiring together, digging in
the night-time, with infinite caution, with strange, inadequate tools,
in darkness and silence and danger, a road to Freedom.
From either side of them came a tapping sound, three taps, one tap,
four taps, one tap. They made the return signal. “_Trenck_,” said a
low voice down the tunnel. “_Latude_,” answered one of the twenty.
“All right!” came back the voice; “_Latude_, lead the way.”
The men who replaced the boards had given a last backward look to the
room and the window through which came the starlight. The slight and
thin lieutenant was one of them. “I reckon even at home, in the
four-poster in the best room, I’ll dream for a while that there’s a
black, empty coal-mine below me!—_Shh!_—All right, sir.”
There was a column moving through the tunnel, the tunnel into which
from the several conspiring rooms there were openings, all masked, all
concealed and guarded, one by this means, one by that, but alike with
the infinite sharpened ingenuity of trapped creatures. The disposal of
the earth that was burrowed out—genius had gone to that, genius and a
patience incredible. Inch by inch the way had opened. There has been
the measuring, too, the calculation of distance.... They must dig
upward and out at some point beyond the stockade—not too far beyond;
they could not afford to dig forever.
The tunnel was finished. To-night they were coming out, coming out
somewhere beyond the stockade. There was a rugged gully, they knew,
and then at a little distance, the river—the river that, on the other
side, laved the Virginian shore. Let them but surprise, overpower
whatever picket force might be stationed beyond the stockade, get to
the river.... Trust them to swim the river!
They crept—a hundred and odd men—through the stifling passage. They
could not stand upright. The sweat drenched their bodies, their hands
were wet against the walls. The tunnel that they had been digging for
ages had never appeared a short one; to-night it seemed to stretch
across infinity. At last they reached the end, the upward slope and
then the round chamber that they had made beyond—beyond the stockade!
The head of the line had a bit of candle, hoarded against this moment.
The spurt of the match caused a start throughout the stretched line,
the pale flicker of the candle showed drawn faces.
They had two makeshift picks. How the iron had been obtained and the
handles fashioned would make a long story. There had been a sifting of
the stronger men to the front; now two of these, standing in the round
chamber, raised and swung the picks and attacked the tunnel’s roof.
Earth fell with a hollow sound. The hearts of that company beat in
response. They were all bowed in the tunnel; their faces gleamed with
sweat; their gleaming hands trembled where they pressed them against
the walls. The blows of the picks made music, music that agonized
while it charmed. They saw the sky and the open country and the river
mirroring the stars. They had not a firearm nor a sword among them,
but a few had pocket-knives, and others jagged bits of sheet-iron,
billets of wood, even sharpened stones. Now and then the line
whispered, but it never spoke aloud. The two at the end of the tunnel
gave the picks to another two; the iron swung, the earth fell. To the
strained hearing of all it fell ever with a more hollow and thunderous
sound. Moreover, the sense of space changed, and time likewise. They
knew this very long and dark passage so well; every inch of it was
familiar; had they not been digging it since the dawn of time?
To-night it was luridly strange. Legions of drums beat in the brain,
and there were flashes of colour before the eyes. The line was caught
in a strange vein of Becoming, and what would Become no man knew. The
hundred and odd hoped for the best, but surely all things were
becoming portentous.
The two in the round chamber changed again—Maury Stafford now stood
there with another. Rhythmically the picks struck the roof,
rhythmically the earth fell. Since Sharpsburg of what had not Maury
Stafford thought? The mind had tried to become and remain stoical, the
mind had sickened, the mind had recovered; it had known the depths and
the middle spaces and the blank wind-swept heights; the depths again,
the middle spaces, the heights, and every point between. There had
been changes in its structure. In its legions of warring elements
some, long dominant, had taken a lower place; others were making good
their claims to the thrones. He had been well-nigh a year in prison,
and a year in prison counted five of earth. He had seen the minds of
others dulled; all things sent to sleep except suffering and useless
anger, or suffering and useless despondency. He, too, had known
dulness for a time, but it had passed. There came in its place a
certain lucidity, a certain hardness, and at the same time a widening.
The prison bars held the physical man, but the wings of the inner man
had broadened and they beat at vaster walls.
The picks struck, the earth fell. Behind him he heard the breathing of
the men. He, too, was dizzy from exertion, from the air of the tunnel.
As he worked he was saying over to himself, over and over, old lines
that came into his head—
“This ae night, this ae night,
Every night and all.
Fire and sleet and candlelight
And Christ receive thy soul—”
The officer working with him uttered a low exclamation. “Look!”
Stafford looked, then turned his head. “Be ready, all of you! We’re
nearly through.”
The earth fell, the rift widened. Down into the breathless tunnel,
like wine to the exhausted, came a gust of night air. The long queue
of waiting men quivered. The hole in the roof widened.... The workers
were now working very cautiously, very quietly. Even in the dead of
the night, even well beyond the stockade, even, as they hoped, in the
bottom of the gully running down to the river, there might be wakeful
ears. The workers made the least possible noise, the hundred and odd
waiting prisoners made none at all. Crouched in silence they breathed
the night air and the sweat dried upon them.... The hole in the roof
became large enough to let a man through. Footholds had already been
made along the side of the tunnel. The workers laid down their picks,
mounted, and tried their weight upon the edges of the opening. The
earth held. “Ready!” breathed Stafford. “McCarthy, you go first.”
McCarthy drew himself up and out of the tunnel. “Now, Lamar!” Lamar
followed. The queue moved a step forward. The third man had his hands
on the edge of the hole. McCarthy’s form appeared above, blocking the
starlight, McCarthy’s face down bent, waxen as the almost burned-out
taper which threw against it a little quivering light. McCarthy’s
whisper came down. “O my God, my God! We turned and dug obliquely....
We’re still inside the stockade!”
There sounded the discharge of a sentry’s piece, followed by a
hallooing and the noise of running feet.