cannon rung out their warnings often during the night—the long rolls
were beaten and the troops assembled and stood on their arms. One night
I awoke at the call of the cannon near my window, and heard the men
assembling and the ammunition wagons rolling past. To one accustomed to
act at such times, such forced inaction is the severest of trials. I
watched from habit, expecting the rattling small arms of an attack, but
the night wore away in unusual silence. The next morning I was told that
all our troops save the sick and a few on guard, had gone. The sick men
whispered each other that we were defenceless, and it was well that we
had the telegraph and railroad, and could call our troops back in case
of an attack from across the river. A few hours passed and then the
telegraph suddenly ceased its ticking—the railroad was cut and the enemy
was between us and our forces at La Fourche.
No relief came, and after three days of suspense, Brashear was carried
by assault. Some of our sick men formed a line and behaved well, but
they were quickly overpowered. The red flag of our hospital was not
understood by the assaulting party, and for a little while it looked as
if no quarter would be given by the Wild Texans to our sick and wounded.
I had risen and mounted my horse after the attack commenced, and I now
dismounted at the hospital, and with Captain Noblet of the 1st Indiana
Artillery stood awaiting the result. The Captain was full of wrath, and
vowed that he would put the two or three charges, still in his revolver,
in places where two or three of the murdering villains would feel them.
A wild-looking squad, with broad hats and jangling spurs, rushed,
revolver in hand, upon the building. In no very decided mood at the
time, and acting chiefly from the military habit of looking to some one
in authority, I asked sharply if there was an officer among them. They
stopped, looked, a trifle disconcerted, and one answered that he was a
sergeant.
“This is a hospital,” I said, authoritatively. “Sergeant, put two men on
guard at the door, and don’t let any but the wounded pass in.”
“Well then, Bill,” said the sergeant, “you and John stand guard here.
And now see you don’t let nobody go in unless they be wounded.”
This was the first and last order I ever gave to a Confederate soldier,
and it is due to the sergeant to say that he executed it promptly and
well.
About the same instant another squad rushed to a side window and poked
their rifles through the sash. Dr. Willets, the surgeon of the 176th, at
the moment was operating on a wounded soldier. With professional
coolness he turned to the window, and in the decided manner that one
would speak to a crowd of small boys, said—
“This is a hospital; you mustn’t come here. Go away from the window and
get out of my light.”
The rifles were withdrawn; the party looked at the window a moment in a
somewhat awe-struck manner, and then saying to each other, “You mustn’t
go there,” they withdrew.
The wounded of both sides were brought in, and our surgeons, with
scrupulous impartiality, treated all alike. From beside their operating
table I was moved to an upper room with Lieutenant Stevenson of the
176th. A minnie ball had torn through the entire length of his foot,
leaving a frightful wound that threatened lockjaw and amputation. On the
next cot lay a wounded Confederate named Lewis—a plain, simple-hearted
man, who, for the next week, proved a useful and trustworthy friend. As
we thus lay there, my regimental colors, by some strange chance, were
brought into the room. Our conversation stopped—the sick and wounded
raised themselves from their cots, and all eyes were fastened upon the
inanimate flag as though it were a being of intelligence and life. The
Texan soldier first broke the silence.
“That,” he said, in a dreamy way—half to himself and half to us—“that
has been the proudest flag that ever floated.”
“_And is still, sir_,” said my wounded lieutenant, proudly.
The Texan said nothing. I expected an outbreak, for there had been no
little defiance in the lieutenant’s reply, but none came. Some old
emotion had evidently touched his heart and carried him back to earlier
and better days.
As he turned away my color-sergeant whispered to me a plan for
destroying the colors, which, however, I did not approve. He pleaded
that he knew every thread of that flag, and that it would almost kill
him to see it borne away by rebel hands. “No, Sergeant,” I was obliged
to reply, “we must keep our colors by fighting for them, and not by a
dirty trick.” The answer satisfied neither the sergeant nor my fellow
officers. Yet before my own imprisonment was over, I had the great
happiness of learning that the undestroyed flag, honorably recaptured,
was restored to its regiment.
An officer soon appeared charged with the duty of paroling our men. His
quiet and courteous manner said plainly that he was a gentleman, and he
introduced himself as Captain Watt, of Gen. Mouton’s staff. The Captain
and I looked at each other as men do who think they have met before. He
then informed me that formerly he had spent his summers at Saratoga and
Newport, and that he thought we must have known each other there. For
this slight reason—so slight that many men would have made it a good
excuse for dropping an acquaintance, if any had existed—Captain Watt
called on me repeatedly, procured an order for my being retained in the
Brashear hospital, and for several months carefully transmitted to me
such letters as found their way through the lines. His family had been
one of the wealthiest in New Orleans, and were now refugees in Europe.
He had entered the army under the belief that it was a duty to his
State, and on the capture of the city had beheld the ruin of all who
were dearest to him. Yet he made no ill-timed allusions to this, and in
our conversations always selected pleasant topics and spoke kindly of
the hours he had spent and the acquaintances he had made in the North.
The chief Confederate surgeon (Dr. Hughes, of Victoria, Texas,) next
arrived, and assumed command at the hospital. It caused at first but
little change. Our own surgeons continued in charge of our wounded—our
steward continued to dispense the stores, and the stores continued to be
forthcoming. The Confederate surgeons were polite and kind, doing all
they could to make us comfortable, and expressing thanks for the
treatment previously bestowed on their own wounded. Thus, in a few
hours, our affairs had settled down in their new channels; and we, with
a strange, new feeling of restriction upon us, set ourselves to wait for
the bad news, and fresh reverses likely to come. From our window we
could see the Confederate forces crossing the river. They waited not for
tardy quarter-masters or proper transportation, but, in flat boats and
dug-outs, pressed steadily across. A little steamer dropped out of one
of the narrow bayous, and worked ceaselessly, bringing over artillery.
Ere sunset, we estimated that five thousand men and four batteries had
crossed, and were moving forward to break our communications on the
Mississippi, and compel us to raise the siege of Port Hudson.
From this early day, there was a strong resolve in the minds of most of
us, to be cheerful before the enemy, and, whatever we felt, not to let
them see us down-cast. When the mind is really roused and in motion, a
little effort will turn it into almost any channel. We made the effort,
and succeeded. One individual who came in last, and ventured to say,
with solemn visage, that this calamity was awful, was immediately
frowned down, and warned that, if he talked such nonsense here, he
should be moved to some other ward. The effect was magical, and in ten
minutes he became rather a merry, careless kind of fellow. This
treatment, I believe, saved many lives; and I found that my own
convalescence, which had been slow and changeful in the previous quiet,
was now rapid and steady.
There were sorrows enough to see, if one chose to look toward them. So
many causes never united to depress, and never produced so little
effect. Neither the shameful loss of the post, nor the presence of the
sick and wounded filling every room, nor our unburied dead who lay
around the building, nor the prospect of a long captivity, nor the
helplessness of disease, nor the suffering of wounds, were sufficient to
make us appear sad. I marvelled then, and cannot understand now, how the
mind was able to throw off these troubles, and how _real_ this enforced
cheerfulness became. A sense of duty dictated it at the beginning, and
redeemed it from heartlessness afterward. Once, indeed, my spirits
failed me, as I searched some private letters to find an address. They
were so light-hearted and happy, and dwelt on the belief, as on a
certainty, that he, to whom they were written, would return crowned with
honor. It was a happy and brief illusion. An only sister had given her
only brother to the war—the orphan pair had made this great sacrifice of
separation; and now I had to write to the young girl, and say that he
had been my most trusted officer, and had fallen for the honor of his
flag.[1]
There was a class of captives who saw the loss of Brashear with heavier
hearts than those who possessed the rights and hopes of “prisoners of
war.” The unhappy contrabands were agitated before the blow fell, but
met it with the tearless apathy of their race. “The niggers don’t look
as if they wanted to see us,” I heard one Confederate soldier say to
another.
“No,” said the other; “but you’ll see a herd of fat planters here
to-morrow after them. _They_ don’t fight any, but they are always on
hand for their niggers.”
It was even so: for days, planter after planter appeared, and party
after party of men, women and children, laden with their beds and
baggage, tramped sorrowfully past our quarters. The hundreds that
remained went, I know not whither.
There was one woman, a quadroon, who had been an attendant in our
hospital. With her there were an old mother, darker than herself, and a
little daughter so fair, that no one ever suspected her of being tainted
with the blood of the hapless race. This woman, through all the turmoil
and trial of that time, never lost the little marks of neatness and
propriety that tell so plainly in woman of innate dignity and
refinement. The tasteful simplicity of her frequently changed dress; the
neat collar and snowy cuffs; the pretty work-box, and more especially
her quiet reserve, indicated rather the lady than the slave. During the
fight she had been calm and brave, and when a couple of cowards had
rushed into the hospital and begged for a place where they could lie
down and hide themselves, this _woman_, while volleys were firing at the
hospital, and men and women falling in the passages, had shown these
_men_ to a room and closed the door on them, and walked away so quietly
that one might have thought her beyond the reach of the danger that
threatened them. An hour or two later, as she passed through the ward
where we lay, she stopped at the window and looked out on the scene of
the Confederates crossing the river. Of all the persons to whom the
capture of Brashear boded grief and wrong, there probably was not one to
whom it threatened so much as to her. With her mother and her child, she
had been preparing to seek the surer refuge of the North, and this
direful calamity had come when the place of safety appeared almost
within her reach. Yet she shed no tears, and uttered no complainings.
Her large, sad eyes fastened on the river, she stood beside the window
and heard the shouts and yells that told of the Confederate triumph. For
half an hour she never moved; her face retained its soft composure, and
only once the muscles of the lip fluttered and trembled, as though there
might be a troubled sea within. Then she turned and went back to her
work, as calmly as if she alone had suffered no change. She cheered
those men who were struggling for strength to go out on parole; she
worked for those officers who were to be sent forward into captivity.
For herself, she never invited aid or sympathy. We asked her if we might
not send for her former master to come and take her back to her old
home. But this, for some untold reason, she steadfastly refused. It was
urged that she and her child would be sent far into Texas or Arkansas;
and that they might be seized, as so much booty, by some of these
half-savage strangers. She answered quietly, that she had thought of
this. Ere we parted, we asked her what future help we could give, and
what plan she would pursue to regain her freedom, or secure some less
dangerous home. And she said briefly, that she did not know, and said no
more.
Footnote 1:
Captain John S. Cutter.
The captured officers, able to march, were sent forward to Shreveport,
and the men were paroled and marched off to our lines. Three officers of
my regiment remained with me—two sick, and one severely wounded. Two
“citizen prisoners” were also added to our number. One of these, whom I
shall call Mr. Stratford, was held as lessee of a confiscated
plantation. His wife was permitted to remain with him, and she now
visited the hospital daily. The other civilian was Mr. Dwight Parce, of
Chenango County, New York, who had just begun business in Brashear. He
now witnessed the destruction of his property with undiminished
cheerfulness, and, although an invalid, fated to fill a prisoner’s grave
in Texas, met the discomforts that awaited him with a serenity and
hopefulness that nothing ever disturbed.
We all effected some captures of baggage. Captain Watt sent me an order
for the delivery of mine if it could be found, and Dr. Hughes, with ever
ready kindness, advised me to take his ambulance and search for it at
the fort, where some captured property was stored. The guard consisted
of a young gentleman in his shirt-sleeves and no shoes, who, when
requested to go, whistled violently, and perched himself on the rear of
the ambulance, with his face toward the hospital and his back toward me.
I asked him, with some surprise, if he was not going to take his rifle;
at which he stopped whistling and said, he reckoned not. After whistling
a few minutes, he further defined his position by saying, that if I ran
away he reckoned he could run after me; and then, that he reckoned the
climate had been a heap too much for me. After another whistle his
stiffness wore away a trifle, and he manifestly tried to put me at my
ease by saying, “Dog gone the Lousanny climate, and the bayous, and the
beef, and dog gone the Lousanyans: they’re the meanest set of people
ever I see. I’d just as soon shoot one of ’em as a Yank.” This put me
quite at my ease, and we then had a very interesting conversation. The
etymology of “dog gone” my guard was ignorant of; he suggested that it
meant pretty much what something else did, but wasn’t quite so bad, in
which opinion I coincided. Since then I have learnt that this expressive
phrase is derived from the threat of putting a _dog on_ you, and that it
saves annually, in Texas, an immense amount of swearing, and is found to
answer just as well.
On the morning of the third of July, the Officer of the Day appeared. He
was a Captain in Colonel Bates’ Texan Battalion, and he blandly begged
that we would prepare to move in the afternoon; the boat would be ready
at five, and we would be sent to the hospital at Franklin, where we
would be much more comfortable. The boat did not come, however, and we
remained to celebrate the “Fourth” at Brashear. We went round among our
sick men who remained, to cheer them with the certainty of their early
release; we read the Declaration, and we drank a bottle of wine, which
Mrs. Stratford, with patriotic devotion, smuggled in for us. Our friend,
the ex-officer of the day, re-appeared to apologize; the boat had been
detained—he knew he must have caused us much trouble—he had come to beg
us to forgive him—he deeply regretted that he had not known of the delay
in time to inform us. To-day he believed that there would be no delay,
and he had just requested the new Officer to order the boat up to the
hospital, so that we should not have the trouble of walking down to
where she lay. Nothing could have been more elegant, chivalric, and
delightful. If he were one of my own officers and I were the
Lieutenant-General, he could not have been more courteous and
respectful.
We started on our “Fourth of July excursion” in the afternoon. While the
boat was lying at the wharf, an officer, with long white hair and of
imposing appearance, came slowly down the saloon. As he drew near I
observed a Colonel’s insignia on his collar, and one of the guard
whispered me, that it was Colonel Bates, the commanding officer at
Brashear. The Colonel marched up to me, extended his hand, and with
grand solemnity, in keeping with his dignified bearing, said:
“Colonel, I have come down now to apologize for not having waited upon
you before. I ought to have done so, sir—I ought to have done so. But I
have been over-occupied. I pray you to excuse me, sir.”
“When I consider our difference in years, and the different
circumstances that surrounded each, I do not know of any incident that
could have pleased me more than this stately courtesy of the old
Colonel. An interesting conversation followed, in which I learnt that he
was an Alabamian by birth. He spoke highly of the Texan character,
which, he said, excelled in bravery and simplicity; but he warned me
that the country could furnish few comforts, such, he said, as
Northerners have at home. Then, when the boat was ready to start, he
called up the officer of the guard, and said to him:
“Captain, your orders are strict, I know; but these gentlemen are
invalids; they are too weak to escape, sir. You must construe your
orders liberally, sir, in favor of the sick. Do not let the guard
trouble these gentlemen, and make them as comfortable as you can.”
There was another Colonel who succeeded Colonel Bates, at Brashear; he
was a citizen of a New England State, and had been an ice merchant in
New Orleans. When the war came, he went, not “with his State” but with
his property. All the indignities, ill-treatment, meanness and cruelty
that we met with at Brashear and Franklin, came directly from him. While
the _real_ Southern officers were showing us unsought kindness and
attention—while they were overlooking what they sincerely believed to be
the needless ruin of their homes, and the wanton destruction of their
property, this miserable Northern renegade was bullying Northern
ladies—“bucking and gagging” unfortunate prisoners, and sending sick and
wounded officers out of the hospital by orders as cowardly as they were
cruel.
The Franklin Hospital had been the “Franklin House” before the war, and
stood close beside the bayou. Lieutenant Stevenson was placed in the
wounded ward, and the rest of us were assigned three pleasant rooms in a
wing of the building. Our guard consisted of a corporal, named Ingram,
and six men of Colonel Bates’ regiment. They bivouacked on the piazza,
and completed our confusion as to what Wild Texans are. They did not
drink; they did not swear; they did not gamble. They were watchful of
us, but did everything kindly and with a willingness that greatly
lessened our feeling of dependence.
The surgeon in charge of the hospital, Dr. Marten, was polite and kind.
A stylish little French lieutenant of the 10th Louisiana, named Solomon,
was assiduous in his attentions. He detailed a contraband as our
especial servant; hourly sent us little presents, in the way of fruit
and refreshments, and paid us those easy, chatty visits, that Frenchmen
pay so much better than any other men. There was a sort of Dutch
Major-Domo, one Schneider, who took us under his special protection,
blowing up the cook and scolding the waiter, on our behalf, a dozen
times a day. There was also a sergeant of the Crescent regiment—a
soldier and disciplinarian, but easy and communicative toward us.
Lastly, there was our contraband, bearing the name of Ben, and very
sharp and shrewd was he, and never wanting in good humor or flourishing
obeisances.
The ladies of Franklin flocked to the hospital, bringing fruit and
flowers, and knick-knacks of their own preparing. They differed
considerably with the doctors on questions of diet; and did about as
much damage, in their pretty way, as patriotic young ladies have done in
other than Confederate hospitals. They carefully avoided the cot of the
solitary Yankee prisoner in the wounded ward; the well-bred passing it
by as though the slight were casual, and the ill-bred, showing with
studied care, that it was intentional. The Wild Texans who had captured
us shared not in these patriotic manifestations. They, on the contrary,
divided with Lieutenant Stevenson whatever they received, looked after
him as though he were a brother soldier, and, once or twice, asked their
fair visitors rather angrily, why they didn’t give this or that to that
gentleman on the fourth cot. Yet it must not be supposed that this
conduct of the Franklin fair proceeded entirely from their own wicked
imaginings. The women, like the men of the South, are all slaves of
public opinion. After awhile one lady, giving way to the natural
kindness of her nature, stopped at the prisoner’s cot, and then the
others followed the example. The presents flowed in with a free hand,
and the sails once fairly round on this tack, the wind seemed to blow as
strongly from the chivalric quarter as it had previously blown from the
patriotic.
This narrative would not be truthful if I omitted therefrom a statement
of the fare, during our fortnight in the Franklin hospital. It was so
much better than I had expected; so much better than I had supposed it
possible that prisoners could receive at rebel hands; so different from
the fare which we knew was to follow, that I carefully noted down the
bill on several days, and from these select a favorable specimen.
“_Wednesday, July 15._ AT SUNRISE.—French Coffee and Biscuits.
“BREAKFAST.—Beef Steak, Beef Stew, Cucumbers, Stewed Peaches, Melons,
French Bread, Biscuits, Toast and Tea.
“DINNER.—Soup, Roast Beef, Beef _a la mode_, Cucumbers, Egg Plant, Lima
Beans, French Bread, Biscuits, Tea.”
This easy prison-life, however, received a jog, in the shape of an
officer of Speight’s Battalion of Texas Cavalry. He was introduced to us
as Lieutenant Geo. C. Duncan, and he bore orders to carry us to
Niblett’s Bluff, on the Sabine. It appeared therefrom that we were to be
moved to the southern side of Texas, and not to follow the officers
captured with us.
The orders were, to carry _all_ the prisoners at the hospital to
Niblett’s Bluff; but when the officer saw Lieutenant Stevenson, and
heard the surgeon’s statement, he sent down a special report from the
surgeon, and waited for further orders. In the meanwhile, our polite
French friend, Lieutenant Solomon, drove Mrs. Stratford to New Iberia,
and we awaited, with some anxiety, our departure, and discussed the
probabilities of marching through, or giving out by the way.
IV.
THE MARCH.
It was Sunday morning, about sunrise, when Lieutenant Duncan appeared at
the door, and informed us that we must start immediately. There was an
instantaneous springing up—a hurried toilet—a rapid rolling of blankets,
and a hastily-snatched breakfast of bread and coffee. I remarked, with
more unconcern in my manner than I really felt, that I supposed
Lieutenant Stevenson would remain. The lieutenant’s countenance fell,
and, looking another way, he said, nervously, “Orders have come to move
_all_ immediately, and I have no alternative.” It was my unpleasant
task, therefore, to go down and announce to the wounded officer that he
must go. In addition to his painful wound, he was suffering from an
attack of fever. His exhausted appearance frightened me, though I talked
quite boldly of the good effects of change of air, and the advantages of
continuing with us.