DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ALABAMIANS AND GEORGIANS--DEATH OF “POLL PARROTT”
--A GOOD JOKE UPON THE GUARD--A BRUTAL RASCAL.
There were two regiments guarding us--the Twenty-Sixth Alabama and the
Fifty-Fifth Georgia. Never were two regiments of the same army more
different. The Alabamians were the superiors of the Georgians in every
way that one set of men could be superior to another. They were manly,
soldierly, and honorable, where the Georgians were treacherous and
brutal. We had nothing to complain of at the hands of the Alabamians;
we suffered from the Georgians everything that mean-spirited cruelty
could devise. The Georgians were always on the look-out for something
that they could torture into such apparent violation of orders, as
would justify them in shooting men down; the Alabamians never fired
until they were satisfied that a deliberate offense was intended. I can
recall of my own seeing at least a dozen instances where men of the
Fifty-Fifth Georgia Killed prisoners under the pretense that they were
across the Dead Line, when the victims were a yard or more from the
Dead Line, and had not the remotest idea of going any nearer.
The only man I ever knew to be killed by one of the Twenty-Sixth
Alabama was named Hubbard, from Chicago, Ills., and a member of the
Thirty-Eighth Illinois. He had lost one leg, and went hobbling about
the camp on crutches, chattering continually in a loud, discordant
voice, saying all manner of hateful and annoying things, wherever
he saw an opportunity. This and his beak-like nose gained for him
the name of “Poll Parrot.” His misfortune caused him to be tolerated
where another man would have been suppressed. By-and-by he gave still
greater cause for offense by his obsequious attempts to curry favor
with Captain Wirz, who took him outside several times for purposes that
were not well explained. Finally, some hours after one of Poll Parrot’s
visits outside, a Rebel officer came in with a guard, and, proceeding
with suspicious directness to a tent which was the mouth of a large
tunnel that a hundred men or more had been quietly pushing forward,
broke the tunnel in, and took the occupants of the tent outside for
punishment. The question that demanded immediate solution then was:
“Who is the traitor who has informed the Rebels?”
Suspicion pointed very strongly to “Poll Parrot.” By the next morning
the evidence collected seemed to amount to a certainty, and a crowd
caught the Parrot with the intention of lynching him. He succeeded
in breaking away from them and ran under the Dead Line, near where I
was sitting in, my tent. At first it looked as if he had done this
to secure the protection of the guard. The latter--a Twenty-Sixth
Alabamian --ordered him out. Poll Parrot rose up on his one leg, put
his back against the Dead Line, faced the guard, and said in his harsh,
cackling voice:
“No; I won’t go out. If I’ve lost the confidence of my comrades I want
to die.”
Part of the crowd were taken back by this move, and felt disposed
to accept it as a demonstration of the Parrot’s innocence. The rest
thought it was a piece of bravado, because of his belief that the
Rebels would not injure, him after he had served them. They renewed
their yells, the guard again ordered the Parrot out, but the latter,
tearing open his blouse, cackled out:
“No, I won’t go; fire at me, guard. There’s my heart shoot me right
there.”
There was no help for it. The Rebel leveled his gun and fired. The
charge struck the Parrot’s lower jaw, and carried it completely away,
leaving his tongue and the roof of his mouth exposed. As he was carried
back to die, he wagged his tongue rigorously, in attempting to speak,
but it was of no use.
The guard set his gun down and buried his face in his hands. It was the
only time that I saw a sentinel show anything but exultation at killing
a Yankee.
A ludicrous contrast to this took place a few nights later. The rains
had ceased, the weather had become warmer, and our spirits rising
with this increase in the comfort of our surroundings, a number of
us were sitting around “Nosey”--a boy with a superb tenor voice--who
was singing patriotic songs. We were coming in strong on the chorus,
in a way that spoke vastly more for our enthusiasm for the Union than
our musical knowledge. “Nosey” sang the “Star Spangled Banner,” “The
Battle Cry of Freedom,” “Brave Boys are They,” etc., capitally, and we
threw our whole lungs into the chorus. It was quite dark, and while
our noise was going on the guards changed, new men coming on duty.
Suddenly, bang! went the gun of the guard in the box about fifty feet
away from us. We knew it was a Fifty-Fifth Georgian, and supposed that,
irritated at our singing, he was trying to kill some of us for spite.
At the sound of the gun we jumped up and scattered. As no one gave
the usual agonized yell of a prisoner when shot, we supposed the ball
had not taken effect. We could hear the sentinel ramming down another
cartridge, hear him “return rammer,” and cock his rifle. Again the gun
cracked, and again there was no sound of anybody being hit. Again we
could hear the sentry churning down another cartridge. The drums began
beating the long roll in the camps, and officers could be heard turning
the men out. The thing was becoming exciting, and one of us sang out to
the guard:
“S-a-y! What the are you shooting at, any how?”
“I’m a shootin’ at that ---- ---- Yank thar by the Dead Line, and by
--- if you’uns don’t take him in I’ll blow the whole head offn him.”
“What Yank? Where’s any Yank?”
“Why, thar--right thar--a-standin’ agin the Ded Line.”
“Why, you Rebel fool, that’s a chunk of wood. You can’t get any
furlough for shooting that!”
At this there was a general roar from the rest of the camp, which the
other guards took up, and as the Reserves came double-quicking up, and
learned the occasion of the alarm, they gave the rascal who had been so
anxious to kill somebody a torrent of abuse for having disturbed them.
A part of our crowd had been out after wood during the day, and secured
a piece of a log as large as two of them could carry, and bringing it
in, stood it up near the Dead Line. When the guard mounted to his post
he was sure he saw a temerarious Yankee in front of him, and hastened
to slay him.
It was an unusual good fortune that nobody was struck. It was very
rare that the guards fired into the prison without hitting at least
one person. The Georgia Reserves, who formed our guards later in the
season, were armed with an old gun called a Queen Anne musket, altered
to percussion. It carried a bullet as big as a large marble, and three
or four buckshot. When fired into a group of men it was sure to bring
several down.
I was standing one day in the line at the gate, waiting for a chance to
go out after wood. A Fifty-Fifth Georgian was the gate guard, and he
drew a line in the sand with his bayonet which we should not cross. The
crowd behind pushed one man till he put his foot a few inches over the
line, to save himself from falling; the guard sank a bayonet through
the foot as quick as a flash.