our knapsacks, but he sent for carts, and insisted on conveying them for
us. Before the Provost Marshal’s, a small crowd assembled, but it was
quiet and respectful. An officer of the provost guard came out. He took
the roll and called it, made sure that all were present, and informed
Lieutenant Duncan that he was relieved from the further charge of us. We
were faced, and marched to what had been the Court House. Our old guard
accompanied us. They attempted to carry in our things, but were stopped
at the door. There they shook hands warmly, and wished us a speedy
exchange. We turned down a dark stone passage and entered a room. There
were bars on the window, and the moonlight fell in little checkered
squares upon the dirty floor. The corporal of the guard, brought in our
baggage—sent out and bought us some bread—asked if we wanted anything
else—and then drew out a key. With the sight of that key, all
conversation ceased. It was a wand of silence. No one spoke or moved or
looked elsewhere. Every eye remained fixed on the key. The corporal
inserted it in the door. It went in slowly and grated horribly, unlike
the grating of a house key, or an office key, or a safe key, or a stable
key, or any kind of a key, SAVE ONE! The corporal looked around and
said, good night. No one had breath enough to respond. The corporal
stepped out and the door closed, not with a bang or a slam or a crash,
but with a heavy, ominous, awful sound. There was still an instant of
suspense, a small infinitesimal fraction of a faint hope, and then the
key turned, grating with an indescribable sound, such as none of us ever
heard key give forth before. With a great effort I withdrew my eyes from
the door-lock, and looked around the room. All were seated on their
blankets, and ranged round, with their backs against the walls. The
moonlight checkers still fell on the floor. I felt that somebody must
speak, that if somebody did not speak soon, some of us would never speak
again. I thought that I would speak—I made another great effort, and
said:
“What a singular sound a key makes when somebody else turns it; did you
ever remark it before? I suppose _you_ have.”
One man laughed—all laughed. Lieutenant Sherman came promptly to my aid,
and said:
“How pretty that moonlight is on the floor! _Who_ cares for the bars.”
And then we had (apparently) a very jolly evening, in the dark.
As this military prison has not a very good name among prisoners, and
some who have been confined there have had to wait a day or two for
rations, and then a day or two more to get them cooked, I feel bound to
say that the guard brought us a very good breakfast the next morning,
which I took to be a part of their own. They brought us also word that
we should be sent by the morning cars to Camp Groce.
With alacrity we shouldered our knapsacks, and lugged our remaining
“traps” to the cars; and with a sense akin to freedom, we hurried away
from those picturesque bars and that detestable lock. There was a little
detention at the depot, and then we were placed in a “first-class
passenger car” with first-class passengers, and rolled along toward the
prisoners’ camp. The conductor soon came upon his rounds, and as he
passed me, asked in a whisper, if there were any Massachusetts officers
among the prisoners. He was a tall, fine-looking man, with the tightness
and trimness of dress that no one ever finds in a Southerner. I asked
who he was, and learnt that he was Lieutenant-Governor B——, of
Massachusetts. The fact was even so—an ex-Lieutenant-Governor of
Massachusetts was a conductor on the South Western Railroad of Texas!
“Here is your stopping-place, gentlemen,” said the sergeant of our
guard. We looked from the car windows, and saw long barracks of rough
boards, like an enclosed cow-shed. In front was a pretty grove, and in
the rear a sloping hill. At the doors of the barracks we saw clusters of
blue-jackets, and a few sauntered around the buildings. We toiled up a
sandy bank; the roll was called, and we were “turned over” to the
commanding officer. Captain Buster greeted us kindly, and said he was
sorry to see us; he had been a prisoner twenty-two months in the
dungeons of Mexico, and knew what it was. He marshalled us down to the
barracks, and formally presented us to Captain Dillingham, the senior
officer of the naval prisoners. We entered the barracks. They were like
most such buildings, long and narrow, with bunks around the sides, and
tables for the well and cots for the sick. The officers occupied the
first compartment. They crowded around us, with eager questions, and
showed us kindness and hospitality beyond our expectations. We selected
such bunks as were still empty, unpacked our knapsacks, and made our
arrangements for the night, and the many nights that were to follow. We
studied the faces of our new companions, and found that they were for
the most part sick and sad. We talked to them, and found that they were
unhappy and dejected. Half a year’s imprisonment had manifestly changed
them from energetic, active men, to listless, idle, irritable invalids.
We asked ourselves whether it could have a like effect on us, and
answered that it could not.
VI.
CAMP GROCE.
It is not a pleasant thing to be a prisoner; I never enjoyed it, and
never made the acquaintance of any prisoner who said that he did. True
is it that you have but few cares and responsibilities. In the
prisoners’ camp you take no heed of what you shall eat, or what you
shall drink, or wherewith you shall be clothed. If the rations come, you
can eat them; and if they do not, you can go without; in neither case
have your efforts any thing to do with the matter. Your raiment need not
trouble you; for there vanity has no place, and rags are quite as
honorable as any other style of dress. You are never dunned by
importunate creditors, and if, by possibility, you were, it would be a
sufficient bar in law and equity to say that you would not pay. There
you are not harassed by pressing engagements, or worried by clients or
customers. There you have no fear of failure, and may laugh at
bankruptcy. And yet, with all these advantages, no man ever seeks to
stay in this unresponsible paradise.
“The dews of blessing heaviest fall
Where care falls too.”
I found that there was a horrible sense of being a prisoner—of being in
somebody’s possession—of eating, drinking, sleeping, moving, living, by
somebody’s permission; and worst of all, _that_ somebody the very enemy
you had been striving to overcome. There was a feeling of dependence on
those who were the very last persons on whom you were willing to be
dependent. There was a dreary sense of constraint in your freest hours,
of being shut in from all the world, and having all the world shut out
from you.
In the first days of imprisonment the novelty carried the new prisoners
along, and buoyed them up. Then came a season of work, when they built
cabins and made stools and tables; and then, a restless fit, when they
felt most keenly the irksomeness of the life, and made foolish plans to
escape, which (so the “old prisoners” said) had been tried before and
failed. Then the “new prisoners” would grow quiet and sad. The most of
them would become idle, inert, neglectful of their dress and quarters,
peevish and listless, despondent of exchange, yet indifferent to all
present improvement. A few (about one in ten) would struggle to make
matters better; they would take hopeful views of affairs and perform
active work on things around them.
For a day or two after our arrival at Camp Groce we lay by, idle and
weary. As I thus looked on, and saw the listless despondency of the “old
prisoners,” I discovered quickly that those were happiest who were
busiest. Experience since has confirmed me in the value I early set on
_occupation_. Those labors which the rebels have imposed on our men—the
chopping of wood—the building of houses—the cooking of rations—have
been, I think, the prisoner’s greatest blessings. Our active northern
minds chafe at enforced idleness, and the freshly caught Yankee, or
Hoosier, after the work of cabin building is done, and the rough tables
and stools are made, becomes dejected and then sick; and yet while he
was doing the work at which he growled, both soul and body bore up
easily. It is no wonder then that I said to my lieutenant, “This will
never do for us, Sherman, we _must_ be busy.”
We turned over a new leaf, therefore, for the following day. The Captain
of the “Morning Light” joined us and pledged himself to provide and
devise quantities of work. With the first gleam of light one of us rose,
and from a little private hoard abstracted a small handful of coffee.
These sailor prisoners, I early found, had no idea of going without
while the Confederacy could supply them for either love or money (they
did not care much which); and they inspired the rest with a little of
their own easy impudence.
Accordingly on the door-post hung one of the last coffee-mills that the
shops of Houston had held, and in the galley (as they called the
kitchen) stood a stove—the only one, probably, in any Texan camp. The
first riser then kindled a fire in the stove, if it was not already
there, and ground and made the coffee. Then bearing it to the sleepers’
bunks, he quickly roused them with the cheerful salutation of “Here’s
your coffee—your fine hot coffee!” When a tin mug of coffee is the only
luxury of the day it rises in importance and becomes great. We sipped it
slowly and discussed it gravely. One thought that if it were strained a
fourth time it would be stronger—the maker, on the contrary, thought
that straining it again would take the strength out; a second insisted
that it ought to boil—but the maker maintained that boiling dispelled
the aroma and sent it flying through the air. The coffee ended before
the argument; and then after rinsing out our mugs and restoring them to
their private pegs, we took down our towels and started for the
“branch.” We descended the hill by a little path that was nearly hidden
in tall weeds and led to some thick bushes and trees that grew along the
“branch.” The chain of sentinels around the camp consisted of
broad-hatted Texans, sitting at irregular intervals on stumps and logs,
and generally engaged in balancing their rifles on their knees. One of
these, Captain Dillingham hailed in a patronizing way, in return for
which attention the sentry halted us.
“I reckon,” he said, “you can’t go no further jist yit awhile.”
“Halloo,” said the Captain, “what’s the matter now?”
“Well, there be three down there now, and the orders is not to let no
more down to once.”
“Orders?” said the Captain, indignantly: “who cares for orders! What
difference does it make to Jeff Davis whether there are three prisoners
or six washing themselves?”
“Well, I reckon it don’t make an awful sight of difference,” the sentry
admitted.
“Of course it doesn’t,” said the Captain, following up the concession.
“The idea of making us wait _here_ because there’s somebody down
_there_!”
“Well, I reckon you might as well go on,” yielded the sentry: “I reckon
you won’t run off this morning;” and on we went.
The “branch” was a little brook, sometimes running over sand-bars,
sometimes filtering through them, and occasionally settling into pools,
which were our bathing places. It was a happy relief to be out of sight
of the barracks and alone. We clung to this under all sorts of
difficulties and restrictions—sometimes going out with a
patrol—sometimes squeezing through on parole, and holding fast to it,
until we left Camp Groce in the cold weather of December.
The bath being taken, we walked leisurely back, wondering that so few
sought this relief from the misery of prison. At the barracks our sailor
cook had prepared the breakfast, which was set out on the long table. He
blew his boatswain’s whistle, and all members of the mess hurried at the
call. I had felt poor when I arrived at Camp Groce. I had expected to
broil beef on sticks, and bake dodger in a dodger pot, and live on my
ration as the Texans did. I was amazed at the extravagance I beheld, and
when Captain Dillingham, with a sailor’s heartiness, invited me to join
the navy mess, I hinted to him that probably I should become insolvent
in a fortnight, if I did. The Captain laughed at the idea. He said there
was plenty of money in Texas—he had never seen a country that had so
much money—and it was the easiest thing to get it—anybody would lend you
all you wanted—the only fault he had to find was, that after he got it
he couldn’t spend it. Now, making reasonable allowances for nautical
exaggeration, this was true. Sometimes a secret Unionist—sometimes a
Confederate officer fairly forced his money upon us. They took no
obligation, save the implied one of our honor; and the manner of
payment, and the specie value of their Confederate funds, they left
entirely to ourselves. To spend this money was a harder task. To change
this easily gotten spoilt paper into something of real intrinsic worth
was to acquire wealth.
When breakfast was finished, I took up a little French volume of ghost
stories (which I read over five times carefully in the course of the
next five months), and spent on it and some military works the next four
hours. “Prisoners have nothing to do but to eat;” so at the end of four
hours we had our breakfast over again. When “dinner,” as it was called,
was finished, the Captain stoutly asserted that a load of wood must be
got, and somebody must volunteer to get it. The Captain volunteered, so
did Lieutenant Sherman and myself, so did another officer cheerfully,
and two more tardily; but the mass of closely confined prisoners were
too weak and too dejected, and they shrunk back from the effort that
this work would cost them, preferring to stay idle and listless in their
horrid prison. Those of us who volunteered, seized a couple of dull old
axes, and proceeded to head-quarters.
“We are going out for wood to cook with,” said the Captain to the
lieutenant that we found there, “and we must have an arbor to keep the
sun off those sick fellows, or they’ll all die, and you’ll have nobody
to exchange. Wake up one or two of your men, and send them out with us.”
The lieutenant reckoned he could not, he hadn’t a man to spare, all were
on guard who hadn’t gone off to a race. The Captain pointed to the axes
and said, “we were all ready to go.” This struck the lieutenant as a
powerful reason, and he reckoned he would let a nigger hitch up the
mules, and then let us go without any guard, but we must not go across
the “branch.” The Captain replied that we would not go a great way
across the “branch;” but he was fond of liberty, he said, and would not
be circumscribed by “branches.” The lieutenant insisted on the “branch,”
there had been orders given to that effect, he reckoned. The Captain did
not care anything about orders—what difference could it make to Jeff
Davis, he asked, whether we cut wood on this side of the “branch” or the
other. The lieutenant could not answer this question, so he said,
coaxingly, “Well, you won’t go a great ways on the other side, will
you?”
This little difference being thus compromised, we mounted an old rickety
“two-mule wagon,” and drove down the “wood road,” till a sentry, sitting
on a stump, reckoned we had better stop. _Stop!_ what should we stop
for? He reckoned he’d orders to let nobody out. _Orders!_ Why, we had
just been up to head-quarters, and got orders to go out, and also the
wagon; what more could he want. Then why had not the lieutenant sent
down a man to tell him; it was no way to do business. The Captain said
the wagon was pass enough as long as the mules would travel, and that we
were going out for wood, which he thought altered the case; if he, the
sentry, doubted it, there were the axes. The sentry looked at the axes,
and could not doubt the evidence of his eyes, so he let us out.
The sun went down, and then began a long evening. There was nothing to
do but to sit in the dark and talk of nothing. Then there was a detail
made of two for the sick watch, and finding that I was “on,” I went to
bed. In the morning there had been several late sleepers who wondered
why people got up early and ran a coffee-mill. As a matter of course
these individuals now wondered why people went to bed early and wanted
to sleep. The topics, too, which they chose were exactly the topics that
always keep you awake; and if by chance you forgot them long enough to
fall asleep, then there would be a furious argument on some important
matter; and if that did not waken you, then some other man (who, like
yourself, turned in at taps,) would lose patience and roar out, “taps,”
“lights out,” “guard-house,” etc., etc.
In small assemblages men may wake up and fall asleep when they please,
but in camps and barracks, where many men of different habits are
brought together, there must be some uniform rule for all. The
Confederates never enforced military usage upon us, much to the regret
of all who were accustomed to it, and a few very early and very late
individuals, some of whom sat up till after taps, and others of whom
turned out before reveille, were an endless annoyance to each other and
to all. I think no officer of experience ever ran this gauntlet without
inwardly resolving that, if ever he got back to his own command,
stillness and darkness should rule between taps and reveille; that with
daylight every blanket should go out, and every tent be put in order;
that every shaggy head should be clipped, and all the little regulations
which weak-minded recruits think to be “military tyranny,” should be
most rigorously enforced.
But as I tossed around and made these resolves, the little sailor who
was acting as hospital steward came in with both hands full of
prescriptions. We had two excellent and faithful surgeons at Camp Groce,
Dr. Sherfy of the “Morning Light,” and Dr. Roberts of the Confederate
service. They kept their little office outside of the lines, came round
on their second visit in the afternoon, and during the evening made up
their prescriptions. This evening the first watch took the prescriptions
from the hospital steward, and received the directions. It was Lieut.
Hays, of the 175th N. Y., a happy, generous, warm-hearted Irishman,
youthful and with the humor and drollery of his race. He was always
making fun when others were dull, and making peace when they were angry.
Soon I heard him going round among the sick. “I will listen,” I thought,
“and find out what I have to do when my watch comes.”
“Here’s your medicine now, Mr. Black,” I heard him say, “wake up and
take it.”
“What is it?” asked the sick man.
“Oh! it’s blue pills to touch your liver; come, take it, and don’t be
asking questions.”
“How many of them are there?” inquired the patient after swallowing
several.
“There are just seven of them, but what’s that to you? it won’t do you
any good to know it.”
“Why, the doctor said he would send me six. Perhaps you are not giving
me mine.”
“Just you take what’s sent to you. If you don’t take the whole seven,
they won’t touch your liver a bit; six would be of no use at all.”
The man with the untouched liver swallowed the pills, and soon I heard
the first watch rousing another sick man with the same formula of
“Here’s your medicine now, wake up and take it—it’s blue pills to touch
your liver.”
“How many of them are there?” asked this patient.
“There are just six of them—what’s the use of your knowing?”
“Why, the doctor said he would send me seven—perhaps these are not
mine.”
“No matter, six are just as good as seven, and seven are just as good as
fifty. All you need do is to take what I give you, and it will touch
your liver all the same.”
Much enlightened by this mode of distributing doses, and re-assuring
patients, I went to sleep, and slept till one A.M., when the first watch
called me, and I took my turn. It was rather dreary, sitting in the dark
and cold, occasionally giving a man his medicine or a drink, and wishing
for daylight. There was one poor fellow, also a lieutenant of the 175th,
fast going in consumption. His constant cough, his restless sleep, his
attenuated form, bright eye and hectic cheek, all told of the coming
end. Yet with him there was nothing to be done but wait and watch.
Now this, of itself, was not such a bad sort of day; but there was a
month of such days; and then another month, and then a third, and then
many more. What wonder that the strongest resolutions failed!
Then death came in among our little company, and came again and again.
Then sickness increased under the August sun. The long moss that hung
down from the trees and waved so gracefully on the breeze, had betokened
it long before it came, and the uncleaned camp and listless life made
the prediction sure. It went on until all but one had felt it in some
shape or other, and there were not enough well to watch the sick. It
never left us, and down to our last day at Camp Groce the chief part of
our company were frail and feeble and dispirited.
Near to the barracks stood a little shanty of rough boards, divided by a
plank partition into two rooms. One of these had been assigned to Mr.
Stratford and his wife, and the other after several weeks came into the
possession of Col. Burrell of the 42d Mass., Dr. Sherfy, Capt.
Dillingham and myself. After living amid the sickness, the discord, and
the misery of the barracks, this room measuring ten feet by twelve,
promised to four of us a quiet and retirement that amounted almost to
happiness. We went to work upon our little house with all the zeal of
school-boys, and positively look back upon it with affection. It boasted
doors, but neither windows nor chimney. Its walls were without lath and
plaster, and through innumerable chinks let in the wind. The Captain and
I also messed with Mr. and Mrs. Stratford; so we had a double interest
in the shanty, and when we had built ourselves bunks and swung a shelf
or two, we went to work on our other half.
“What shall I do for a blanket line?” was one of the first questions I
had asked after our arrival.
“Let me lend you mine,” said an officer of the “Morning Light,” “we
sailors always hang on to our ropes.”
“I will take it this morning, with thanks; but I want something of my
own. If there is anything I despise, it’s a soldier’s blanket in his
tent after reveille.”
“We are not so particular here, I’m sorry to say,” said my friend; “and
unless you can find a line among the sailors, you won’t find one in
Texas.”
“I am going out in the woods this afternoon, with Mr. Fowler,” I
answered, “and will try to get one there.”
Now, Mr. Fowler, the acting Master of the “Morning Light,” was an old
sailor, who had hardly been on shore for forty years. But in his early
boyhood he had watched the Indians at their work, and caught from them,
as boys do, some of their simple medicines and arts. For years and years
these facts had slept undisturbed in his mind. If any one had asked him,
he would have said they were forgotten; but now, under the pressure of
our wants, they, one by one, came back. With this long-time worthless
knowledge, Mr. Fowler was now busily and usefully employed. He made
Indian baskets of all shapes and sizes, and even bent his ash-slips into
fantastic dishes. He made Indian brooms and fly-brushes, and wooden
bowls, and wove grape-vine and black-jack into high-backed, deep-seated,
sick-room chairs. Where others saw only weeds or firewood, he found
remedies for half our diseases; and when the surgeon’s physic gave out,
Mr. Fowler’s laboratory was rich in simples.
We went out on parole that afternoon, Mr. Fowler carrying his basket,
and I, an axe. He called attention to the fact that these pecan nuts
would be ripe by-and-by, and that those persimmons would be worth coming
after when the frost should have sugared them, and he filled his basket
as he walked and talked. Before long, we saw some clean black-jack vines
hanging from the top-most branches of a tree. We tugged and strained a
few minutes, and then a splendid vine came down, not thicker than a
lady’s finger at the root, yet forty feet in length. It was flexible as
a rope, and as I coiled it up, I said to Mr. Fowler, “I have got my
blanket line.”
Having cut an ash stick for a broom, and a pecan log for an axe handle,
we went back to camp, where, soon after, Mr. Fowler was busily engaged
in pounding his ash stick to loosen the splints, and I, at work on the
severest manual effort of my life, viz., whittling with a soft-bladed
penknife, out of flinty pecan wood, an orthodox American axe-helve.
Some weeks passed, and then one of those events occurred which are
doubly mortifying if you are then on the wrong side of the enemy’s
lines. I was lying ill in my bunk when an excited individual rushed into
the barracks and made me better by the announcement, that the train had
brought up great news from Houston. Blunt was coming down through the
Indian Territory with his rough borderers, and all the troops in Texas
were to be hurried northward to repel the invasion. For several days and
nights trains ran by our camp loaded with soldiers who howled horribly
to our guards, who howled, horribly back to them. The _Houston
Telegraph_ came filled with orders of General Magruder, directing the
movement of his forces, and naming twenty-seven different battalions
that were to hurry forward immediately. The General did not _publish_
such orders ordinarily, and this one looked like haste, excitement and
alarm.