The Slave’s Ruse—The Richmond Enquirer—President’s Proclamation—A
Negro Prayer—A “Big Bug”—A Casibianca—Death of Mr. Eckels—Thoughts
and Plans of Escape—Lieutenant Pittenger.
The next day after this occurrence, as I was walking in the yard, a
negro, who worked in the prison, slyly pulled me as I was passing him,
and exclaimed in an under-tone:
“All us darkies gwine to be free, yah! yah!”
“What?” asked I, taking care to avoid being seen by the guards.
“Why, all us nigs gwine to be free, yah! yah! gin us yer coat, massa!”
I fully understood this coat business, as the reader must be aware from
an explanation previously given, but, as I had no coat myself, I went
to Captain McCormick, my messmate, and got his. It very fortunately had
a long rip in the right sleeve.
“Here, nigger,” cried I, in loud tones, “can’t you get this coat
mended?”
“Mended!” exclaimed the intelligent fellow, in assumed tones of wrath,
intended for the guards. “I wish dar wus no Yankees! dere more bodder
den dar wuff! good deal!”
“Go get it mended for him, you black skunk!” exclaimed one of the
guard, “and make him pay well for’t.”
“Dat’s jes what dis yere nigger’ll do, I golly!”
The coat was taken roughly away by the negro, and returned the next
morning, with the rip mended, and a copy of the _Richmond Enquirer,
containing the President’s Emancipation Proclamation, artfully
concealed in the lining_! The paragraph was carefully marked all
around, and its perusal gave me the utmost delight. I dared not tell
even my most intimate friends how I got this paper, for there were
spies among us to report us.
I felt restive under the curb that kept my tongue still, but the
thought rose to comfort me, that, though they bound me in the chains of
a slave, the day would come when, with the poet, I could sing:
“Oh, Liberty, thou Goddess heavenly bright,
Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight,
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,
And smiling Plenty leads thy wanton train.
Eased of her load, Subjection grows more light,
And Poverty looks cheerful in thy sight.
Thou mak’st the gloomy face of Nature gay,
Giv’st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day.
* * * * * * *
Wrenched the red scourge from proud oppressors’ hands,
And broke, curs’d slavery, thy iron bands.
E’en now, e’en now, on yonder western shores,
Weeps pale Despair, and writhing Anguish roars.
E’en now, in Afric’s groves, with hideous yell,
Fierce slavery stalks, and slips the dogs of Hell!
From vale to vale the gathering cries rebound,
And sable nations tremble at the sound.
Who right the injured, and reward the brave,
Stretch your strong arms, for ye have power to save!
Throned in the vaulted heart, his dread resort,
Inexorable Conscience holds his court.
With still, small voice, the plots of guilt alarms,
Bares his masked brow, his lifted hand disarms;
But wrapped in night, with terrors all his own,
He speaks in thunders when the deed is done;
Hear him, ye Senates, hear this truth sublime,—
He who allows oppression shares the crime.”
That night our prayer-meeting—which was no longer secret—was one of the
happiest we ever enjoyed. I found that, like myself, all had heard of
the proclamation, and we all reverently thanked God for it. Next to me
was an old negro who had been taken prisoner in East Tennessee. He had
originally been freed by his master, a wealthy Georgian planter. When
this son of Africa prayed, he let himself out in all the power and
exuberance of his strong but uneducated mind.
“O, good Lord!” cried he, “don’t let off de steam, but put on more
steam, O, good Lord! and don’t put on de brakes; but run her right up
to de fust of January! And den O, good, blessed Lord, my wife’ll be
free! Tank God! glory! Amen! God send down de power! Amen, and amen!”
As this earnest freedman ceased prayer, I thought of my own white
countrymen who were fighting to keep the slave enchained:
“And we are free—but is there not
One blot upon our name?
Is our proud record written fair
Upon the scroll of fame?
“Our banner floateth by the shore,
Our flag upon the sea;
But when the fettered slave is loosed,
We shall be truly free.”
That night I shall never forget, for we took our prayer-meeting up
to the second floor. We had gained in strength, and God had shed his
blessing on our efforts, so that even the most profane man in our
midst, Captain Crawford, was affected. Said he to me one day:
“After such demonstrations as I have witnessed in your prayer-meetings,
all the devils in hell could not make me believe there was no reality
in religion.”
As the rebel authorities were now arresting and imprisoning every man
who refused to bear arms for the Confederacy, we had additions made
to our numbers every morning. On one occasion, among a crowd that
were brought in, was a very large man. He was five feet eight inches
high, and weighed _three hundred and eighty pounds_. He was a man of
wealth and influence, and after having had innumerable servants to
wait upon him, it came rather hard on him to be obliged to get his
own place ready to sleep in. I say _place_, for our quarters were
entirely innocent of a bed, and if we took turns sleeping on a blanket,
we considered ourselves lucky. In the morning he spent some time in
rising, for it needed his utmost efforts to get his vast body to an
upright position. His exertions ruffled his temper exceedingly, and as
the perspiration poured down his face, he muttered to himself over and
over again:
“Now, old Henry, you’ve got yourself in a h—l of a fix, ain’t you, you
d——d old fool!” Notwithstanding, this old man was very gentlemanly in
his deportment.
Among a batch that had lately arrived, was a man whom the rebels were
endeavoring to force to take the oath of allegiance to the Southern
Confederacy. But his wife, who had been confined just after his arrest,
fearing that his regard for her condition might induce him to submit to
what was demanded, sent her son, who was only eight years old, to tell
his father not to take the oath.
This brave little fellow came nearly one hundred miles on his mission,
and, when he arrived, the guards refused to admit him. Undaunted,
however, by the rebuff, the young hero got close to the picket-fence,
and shouted with all his might:
“Pa! pa! don’t you swear! Oh, pa, don’t you swear! We can get along; I
got the lot ploughed to put in the wheat!”
I wished at the time that this scene could be witnessed by the whole
North. I feel convinced that in that case no one would raise a cry of
indignation at the arrest of traitors who cry for peace, and who thus
aid the South in oppressing the really true Union men in that region.
A gentleman by the name of Shaw, was the object of Confederate malice,
and on no rational grounds whatever. Hoping to secure a place of refuge
for his wife and helpless children, he had, some ten months previous,
sought to leave his native State, Virginia, as he knew that the most
terrible battles of the war must take place there. On the road he
was met and seized by a band of ruffians, who, without the slightest
explanation, tore him from the presence of his family, and hurried him
away to jail, for disloyalty to the South. The last he had seen of his
wife and four little ones was when they stood weeping and wringing
their hands on the road-side, as his ruthless captors carried him
from their sight. He had never heard tale nor tidings of them since,
and what their fate had been he knew not. His case was only one of a
thousand others.
“See the dire victim, torn from social life,
The shrieking babe, the agonizing wife.
See! wretch forlorn is dragged by hostile hands
To distant tyrants, sold on distant lands;
Transmitted miseries and successive chains,
The soul-sad heritage, her child obtains.
E’en this last wretched boon their foes deny,
To live together, or together die!
By felon hands, by one relentless stroke,
See the fond links of feeling Nature broke!
The fibres twisting round a parent’s heart,
Torn from their grasp, and bleeding as they part!”
This unfortunate man gave me instances of where he had seen his
neighbors hung, some until not quite dead, and then taken down to
take the oath of allegiance. In case they refused, they were instantly
strung up again.
We were so much encouraged in holding our prayer-meetings, that we
finally were bold enough to request the privilege of having divine
service every Sabbath. This was granted, much to our surprise, and we
had the most happy times imaginable. Oh, it was glorious for the soul
to bask in that heavenly sunlight which God thus shed upon us in our
dreary prison.
About this time, I became acquainted with Simeon B. Eckels. He was very
sick, and requested me often to pray for him. Our friendship was as
cordial as it was short, for his sickness was unto death. The God who
sent his angel to free his apostle Peter, took our sick brother by the
hand, and led him from out the noisome prison to the mansions above,
where care comes not, and where sickness is not known. He died at half
past ten o’clock, P.M., on August 22, 1862. For several days prior to
his death, I was constantly by him, and was much gratified with the
manifestations he gave of preparation for the future. Brother Eckels
gave me the name of the church in Iowa to which he belonged, also the
names of his mother and sister, who lived in Ohio. He requested me to
visit the latter. His thoughts were centred solely upon heaven and his
mother, and in his moments of revival he would often repeat the lines:
“My mother, at thy holy name,
Within my bosom is a gush
Of feeling, which no time can tame,
And which, for worlds of fame,
I would not, could not crush.”
Brother Eckels’s end was indeed one of peace and bright serenity. At
his request I preached his funeral sermon the day succeeding his death,
from the text, “They that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.”
At the hour appointed for the funeral of the deceased, a negro drove
up with a dirty dray, on which we supposed they intended to throw the
corpse, and cart it away like some animal’s carcass. At this, the
Colonel of his regiment, Colonel Shaw, earnestly requested that we
might be allowed to bear the body, and thus prevent the insult offered
to the dead. This request had the effect of causing the officers to
send for a light wagon, and in this was our sleeping brother and
comrade soldier carried to his long home, followed by myself and a
companion or two. Gentle be his slumbers beneath the sods of Georgia’s
soil!
Unfortunately, among some other papers, I lost that on which I had
taken the address of Mr. Eckels’ mother, and have, therefore, as yet,
been unable to fulfil my promise to visit her. Nothing would give me
more pleasure than to see this dear old lady, and tell her what a
glorious death-bed was that of her son. Since my return home, I have
frequently heard a sweet song, the words of which picture before me
the last hours of Mr. Eckels. How touchingly appropriate to the dying
breath of this Christian hero, were the lines:
“Soon with angels I’ll be marching,
With bright laurels on my brow—
For my country I have fallen,
Who will care for mother now?”
Hitherto our spirits had been borne up by the hopes of a speedy
exchange; but as day followed day, this fond hope faded, and we
began seriously to think of making our escape. A general rise of the
prisoners was proposed, which would no doubt have been successful,
with perhaps the loss of five or ten of our number. This I did not
personally approve of, as I was unable to travel; but still I stated
to my fellow captives, that I would put no hindrance in their way if
they should decide upon such a course. A sufficient number not being
obtained to give this plan any chance of success, it was finally
abandoned for some others that promised more success.
I had ascertained the distance to the river, and also, that if we
could reach the latter, we could run down it in a skiff. I immediately
selected a comrade, broke the intelligence to him, and obtained his
consent to make a dash for liberty. We made known our intention to a
third one, and he, too, consented to join in the perilous undertaking.
The plan of operations was this:
On the first rainy night, we were to go to some Murfreesboro’
prisoners, who had blankets, and obtain some of the latter under the
pretense of washing them. We then intended to make our way to the
fence, and with our knives, cut around the heads of the nails, so that
the boards could be easily pulled off. Then filling the places we had
cut with sand, we intended to hang the blankets over the fence so as
to hide our work. At some subsequent time, when the guards drove us
up to our room, we were going to the fence under pretense of getting
our blankets, and intended to remain there till all was quiet. Then,
tearing off several boards, we were to make an effort to gain our
freedom.
All worked well until the night of our final attempt, and then,
unfortunately, one of our companions was taken ill. This was the first
disappointment. The next wet night that came, we were all well, and
started; but, just as we were about to accomplish our purpose, General
Prentiss, with several others, made a like attempt, unknown however, to
us. Of course, an alarm was immediately raised, and the guards were on
the _qui vive_. The General’s party, headed by him, dashed back, and
hid themselves in the cellar where we used to hold our prayer-meetings,
while we reached our own room in safety. A Tennesseean tore up a plank
from our floor and succeeded in getting one, Lieutenant Ward, up out of
the cellar beneath; but, ere another could be assisted thus, the guards
had captured the fugitives, and marched them out into the yard. A
short time afterward, they were brought back into the room in which we
were, amid the jokes and laughs of the rest of the prisoners at their
non-success.
A few hours after daylight, a guard of fifteen or twenty men marched
in and took General Prentiss, Captain Gaddus, Major Ward, and several
others into custody. Where they took them we did not know; but, a
few days subsequently, I heard through Dolph, the black boy, that
they were put into a common jail, and chained to the floor. From the
description he gave of it, their condition must indeed have been
horrible.
Think of that, all you who sympathize with traitors, and equivocate,
if you can, or dare, upon such acts as these! You may say you do not
believe such things were done. Let me then refer you to a case, sworn
to by one of the sufferers, upon his return home, now Lieutenant
William Pittenger, as noble a young man as ever breathed, and formerly
associate of Rev. Alexander Clark, in the publication of “_Clark’s
School Visitor_.” It is from an official report, given before Judge
Holt, by order of the Secretary of War:
“An order came for the execution of our seven comrades who had been
tried. It was at that time entirely unexpected to us, although at
first it would not have been. Sentence of death was read to them, and
they were immediately tied, without any time for preparation being
allowed them. They were told to bid us farewell, and be quick about it.
They were then taken out of the prison, and we could see them from a
window, seated in a wagon, and escorted by cavalry. In the course of an
hour or so, the cavalry returned without them. That evening, Captain
Farackers, the provost marshal, called upon us. We asked him how our
companions had met their fate. He told us, “like brave men.” The next
day, we conversed with the guards who were guarding us, with one in
particular, who described the scenes of the execution. He told us of
a speech of one of these men, named Wilson, from my regiment, on the
scaffold. He told us, also, that two of the heaviest men had broken
the ropes by which they were suspended, and fell to the ground. They
afterwards revived, and asked for a drink of water; which being given
to them, they requested an hour to prepare for death, and pray before
they were again hung up. Their request was refused, and, as soon as
the ropes could be re-adjusted, they were compelled to re-ascend the
scaffold. The guard told me that Mr. Wilson had spoken very calmly; had
told them they were all in the wrong; that they would yet see the time
when the old Union would be restored, and the flag of our country would
wave over all that region.”