ANOTHER RETURN TRIP.
We remained at Arkadelphia for several days before we were moved to
Magruder's headquarters at Washington, and during this wait we were
treated more like guests than prisoners, excepting, of course, the being
under guard. I do not think that there was an able-bodied personage in
the place who did not come to see us, and there were several callers who
were not able-bodied.
All the people were curious to see us, because we were Yankees, and more
curious because of our successful escape to this point, while our almost
successful effort to get through at the last was the occasion of much
admiration, many jokes and friendly actions.
When we did not give ourselves time to think of our capture we really
enjoyed our stay.
In discourse of time the guards who had captured us were detailed to
take us back, and they were given a leave of twenty days in which to do
so, Rocket now being a sergeant.
Our start was made after a farewell that showed far more friendship than
enmity, and we made the fifty miles to Washington in four days, taking
it easy.
Of the nine men who composed this squad eight were positively disloyal
to the Confederacy, but were forced to fight for it because of their
homes and families.
Each one of the eight, at different times, talked very freely to me when
the others were not around, and each one told me that they would never
have held us at the river if the others could have been certainly
depended upon not to report the matter. We got to be very friendly with
these guards, and we were really sorry when it came time to part from
them.
One of our guards was an old man whom his companions called Captain
Payne. He rode a sorry-looking specimen of a horse and was evidently
only a private. Wishing to be friendly, he offered to let me ride his
horse if I would allow him to hold the halter, which offer I promptly
accepted, informing him that he was welcome to hold the halter and the
horse's tail as well if he so desired. As an apology for the limitation
of my actions with his horse, he informed me that he had positive orders
to let us have no chance of escape, and to shoot us without notice if
such an attempt was made.
In the course of conversation I asked him why he was called captain
while being under orders of a sergeant. His reply was that he had been
elected captain of 500 men who had organized to resist the draft and
afterwards joined the Federal army; that they had been informed upon and
the scheme frustrated, he having been forced to compromise between his
neck and the halter by enlisting in the Confederate army as a private.
We were taken up behind on the horses of our guards during part of the
trip, and in one of these rides behind Sergeant Rocket I learned that he
had been in Missouri with Price, but had disliked the job very much, as
had most of his companions. When Price had commenced his retreat he had
simply broken ranks and ordered the men to fall in again at Boggy
Hollow. They had all been forced to shift for themselves, and for three
days he had had nothing to eat. After that they had lived almost
entirely on fresh meat, without salt, for twenty-four days, and the
organization had been largely broken up.
Rocket told me that most of the people in his part of the country would
hail with joy the approach of the Federal troops. He was married to the
daughter of a planter, who was a Union man, though a slaveholder, and
had joined the Confederate army to save his family. His father-in-law
lived on the road ten miles north from Washington, and he described the
location and gave directions so that I could find the house if I had
another chance to run away, saying that if I ever reached there and made
myself known I would certainly get to Little Rock in safety.
[Illustration: SERGEANT E. B. ROCKET.]
Captain Payne, also, gave me directions how to find the home of his
people, telling me how to find Dooley's ferry, in the neighborhood, and
how Dooley would know me, set me across the river and see that I reached
the right place. He also told me that a neighbor of theirs had three
sons in the Federal army at Little Rock, and that I could easily get
horses and guides to that place.
When we reached Washington, and Ed. Rocket bade us good-bye, he told me
that he had never been so sorry for anything in his life as that he had
been obliged to capture and hold us.
Ed. Rocket is now a poor Baptist preacher in Arkansas.
We were turned into a guardhouse that was about sixty by twenty feet in
size and so full that all could not lie down at once. It was far from
being pleasant.
The prisoners confined in this building were three spies and a large
number of Confederates, the latter being held for crimes ranging all the
way from chicken-stealing to murder, and in this agreeable society we
spent ten days.
We got acquainted with a good many of the prisoners, and had
considerable fun in various ways, but we were glad to leave.
Cornmeal was the only food served to us during our stay, but the rebel
prisoners were treated the same as the others, and we had an extra
allowance as officers--by purchase; so we could not complain of any
unfair distinctions.
There was one old skillet in the guardhouse, and all the cooking had to
be done with this one article. It was never cool. We took turns in its
use, and the call of "Next!" was as orderly and regular as in a barber
shop.
By common consent the Yankees were given the first turn with this
skillet, as preferred guests, and we thereby had our meals at ordinary
meal hours.
There were crowds coming in and going out of the guardhouse all the
time, as there was a regular system being carried out of securing
cavalry horses for other sections.
In this part of the country they had more cavalry than infantry, while
in other sections much of the veteran cavalry was dismounted for want of
horses. So they would put these cavalrymen under arrest for
chicken-stealing or any offense whenever possible and appropriate their
horses for service elsewhere. Infantrymen were let off for the same
offenses.
One of the rebel officers in charge offered to let us out if we would
join his company, but we declined, with thanks.
There was plenty of money among the prisoners, and much poker-playing to
kill time.
I had a toothpick, made of bone and representing a woman, for which I
got fifty cents in silver. With this amount I bribed one of the guards
to get us four dozen eggs. Some of these we ate ourselves, but we sold
the most of them to the prisoners for $1 apiece in Confederate money.
These eggs were procured by the guard from some paroled Federal
prisoners on the outside.
On the day following our egg deal I got permission to go outside with a
guard for some water, and then secured permission to buy some supplies
and take them inside. After some hunting around we found a nigger who
had a lot of turnips, and I bought a bushel for $10 in Confederate
money, having a good margin left. We ate all the turnips we wanted, and
then got $1 apiece for the balance. Everything went at $1 a unit in
Confederate money. Keeping this thing up, we fed ourselves well during
our stay, and when we left we had $400 in Confederate money.
Two of the spies mentioned were named Honeycut and Masterson, and the
latter was kept in irons. They had money, and secured extra food from
the outside, of which we got a share.
Masterson had been captured with a lot of drugs in his possession, and
he had claimed to be from Georgia, to which part of the country he was
returning after having run the blockade with his drugs from the North,
but he had forgotten to make all his stories agree, and they had
arrested him as a spy and put leg-irons upon him. Later on, he joined
the Confederate army to save his neck.
Honeycut claimed to have been a Copperhead in Ohio, and that he had been
drafted and had furnished a substitute, but had then been drafted the
second time, when he had sworn that he would not stand it. He claimed to
have sent his family to Matamoras, and that he had gone to New York to
join them by steamer, but had been unable to get a passport. He had then
made his way to New Orleans, and had again failed to slip through. As a
last resort he had gone to Arkansas and secured a pony, with the
intention of riding through to Mexico, but had been captured and lost
the horse and his money.
The provost marshal, Colonel Province, was a very clever gentleman, and
he was kind to us in several ways. One of his courtesies was to grant us
a parole within the city limits.
When Magruder's chief of staff saw us on the street and learned of our
parole he ordered Colonel Province to return us immediately to prison.
The colonel pleaded for us, saying that he knew us to be gentlemen, and
that he felt easier in regard to us while we were on parole than he
would if we were in the insecure guardhouse, even while he knew that the
parole was contrary to orders, for the guardhouse was filthy and crowded
with criminals. This plea in our favor had no effect, and the colonel
received peremptory orders to place us in prison at once, under penalty
of being reported to Magruder for disobedience.
Three guards were sent to take us to the colonel's headquarters, where
he told us of his talk with the chief of staff, and expressed his regret
that he was compelled to obey, closing his remark with:
"But I want to tell you, gentlemen, I am an original rebel from South
Carolina, while that ---- ---- of a staff officer is from Chicago."
The colonel evidently thought that being a Northern man and a rebel
would account for most any kind of meanness.
While defeated in his good intentions in the matter of parole, the
colonel tried to make up for it in other ways. He gave me a pair of
shoes which had been given to him by the Yankees while he had been a
prisoner at Johnson's Island, and which I sold to Masterson for $250,
for the purchaser could not wear his boots and leg-irons at the same
time.
Our stay at Washington was prolonged on account of a lack of provisions
to furnish the extra supply needed for a guard and ourselves on a
journey. When it seemed certain that provisions were not to be
forthcoming we were started off for Magnolia, Ark., which point we had
to make without any supplies save what we could gather as we went along.
When we left Washington we stopped in front of the provost marshal's
office, and Colonel Province came out to bid us good-bye and express
his regrets that he had been prevented from according us the same kind
treatment which he had received at Johnson's Island.
The first night out we reached Spring Hill, which was then a courier
station, and were confined in an old church. One of the soldiers killed
a hog, which proceeding was an outrageous violation of orders, as well
as of the rights of the owner, but we had to eat. A guard and myself
went to a neighboring house to get a kettle in which to cook the meat.
The difference between pork and beef in that country was about the same
in those days as the difference between greenbacks and Confederate
money.
The guard found a negro woman in the house, and he asked for something
to eat. She gave us some beef and corn bread, but had no pork when asked
for it. In the course of the conversation the guard told her who I was
and about the escape of my companions and myself, when the darkey
remembered that there was some cold pork in an outhouse, and produced
it.
We got the necessary kettle and cooked our meat before we went on our
way.
After we had again started, the guards paroled us, and several of them
went home, appointing a meeting place and promising us more pork and
some biscuit when they returned, which promise they kept.
When we reached Magnolia we found a camp of about forty badly wounded
Federal prisoners there, who were the remnants of Steele's fight at
Jenkins' Ferry.
We were put in jail for several days to await a move of this camp to
Shreveport.
When all were ready the convalescent cases were loaded on wagons and we
started.