SOME DISTINCTION BETWEEN SOLDIERLY DUTY AND MURDER--A PLOT TO ESCAPE
--IT IS REVEALED AND FRUSTRATED.
Let the reader understand that in any strictures I make I do not
complain of the necessary hardships of war. I understood fully and
accepted the conditions of a soldier’s career. My going into the
field uniformed and armed implied an intention, at least, of killing,
wounding, or capturing, some of the enemy. There was consequently no
ground of complaint if I was, myself killed, wounded, or captured.
If I did not want to take these chances I ought to stay at home. In
the same way, I recognized the right of our captors or guards to take
proper precautions to prevent our escape. I never questioned for an
instant the right of a guard to fire upon those attempting to escape,
and to kill them. Had I been posted over prisoners I should have
had no compunction about shooting at those trying to get away, and
consequently I could not blame the Rebels for doing the same thing. It
was a matter of soldierly duty.
But not one of the men assassinated by the guards at Andersonville were
trying to escape, nor could they have got away if not arrested by a
bullet. In a majority of instances there was not even a transgression
of a prison rule, and when there was such a transgression it was a mere
harmless inadvertence. The slaying of every man there was a foul crime.
The most of this was done by very young boys; some of it by old men.
The Twenty-Sixth Alabama and Fifty-Fifth Georgia, had guarded us since
the opening of the prison, but now they were ordered to the field, and
their places filled by the Georgia “Reserves,” an organization of boys
under, and men over the military age. As General Grant aptly-phrased
it, “They had robbed the cradle and the grave,” in forming these
regiments. The boys, who had grown up from children since the war
began, could not comprehend that a Yankee was a human being, or that it
was any more wrongful to shoot one than to kill a mad dog. Their young
imaginations had been inflamed with stories of the total depravity of
the Unionists until they believed it was a meritorious thing to seize
every opportunity to exterminate them.
Early one morning I overheard a conversation between two of these
youthful guards:
“Say, Bill, I heerd that you shot a Yank last night?”
“Now, you just bet I did. God! you jest ought to’ve heerd him holler.”
Evidently the juvenile murderer had no more conception that he had
committed crime than if he had killed a rattlesnake.
Among those who came in about the last of the month were two thousand
men from Butler’s command, lost in the disastrous action of May 15,
by which Butler was “bottled up” at Bermuda Hundreds. At that time
the Rebel hatred for Butler verged on insanity, and they vented this
upon these men who were so luckless--in every sense--as to be in his
command. Every pains was taken to mistreat them. Stripped of every
article of clothing, equipment, and cooking utensils--everything,
except a shirt and a pair of pantaloons, they were turned bareheaded
and barefooted into the prison, and the worst possible place in the pen
hunted out to locate them upon. This was under the bank, at the edge of
the Swamp and at the eastern side of the prison, where the sinks were,
and all filth from the upper part of the camp flowed down to them. The
sand upon which they lay was dry and burning as that of a tropical
desert; they were without the slightest shelter of any kind, the maggot
flies swarmed over them, and the stench was frightful. If one of them
survived the germ theory of disease is a hallucination.
The increasing number of prisoners made it necessary for the Rebels to
improve their means of guarding and holding us in check. They threw
up a line of rifle pits around the Stockade for the infantry guards.
At intervals along this were piles of hand grenades, which could be
used with fearful effect in case of an outbreak. A strong star fort
was thrown up at a little distance from the southwest corner. Eleven
field pieces were mounted in this in such a way as to rake the Stockade
diagonally. A smaller fort, mounting five guns, was built at the
northwest corner, and at the northeast and southeast corners were small
lunettes, with a couple of howitzers each. Packed as we were we had
reason to dread a single round from any of these works, which could not
fail to produce fearful havoc.
Still a plot was concocted for a break, and it seemed to the sanguine
portions of us that it must prove successful. First a secret society
was organized, bound by the most stringent oaths that could be devised.
The members of this were divided into companies of fifty men each;
under officers regularly elected. The secrecy was assumed in order
to shut out Rebel spies and the traitors from a knowledge of the
contemplated outbreak. A man named Baker--belonging, I think, to some
New York regiment--was the grand organizer of the scheme. We were
careful in each of our companies to admit none to membership except
such as long acquaintance gave us entire confidence in.
The plan was to dig large tunnels to the Stockade at various places,
and then hollow out the ground at the foot of the timbers, so that a
half dozen or so could be pushed over with a little effort, and make
a gap ten or twelve feet wide. All these were to be thrown down at
a preconcerted signal, the companies were to rush out and seize the
eleven guns of the headquarters fort. The Plymouth Brigade was then
to man these and turn them on the camp of the Reserves who, it was
imagined, would drop their arms and take to their heels after receiving
a round or so of shell. We would gather what arms we could, and place
them in the hands of the most active and determined. This would give us
frown eight to ten thousand fairly armed, resolute men, with which we
thought we could march to Appalachicola Bay, or to Sherman.
We worked energetically at our tunnels, which soon began to assume such
shape as to give assurance that they would answer our expectations in
opening the prison walls.
Then came the usual blight to all such enterprises: a spy or a traitor
revealed everything to Wirz. One day a guard came in, seized Baker and
took him out. What was done with him I know not; we never heard of him
after he passed the inner gate.
Immediately afterward all the Sergeants of detachments were summoned
outside. There they met Wirz, who made a speech informing them that he
knew all the details of the plot, and had made sufficient preparations
to defeat it. The guard had been strongly reinforced, and disposed in
such a manner as to protect the guns from capture. The Stockade had
been secured to prevent its falling, even if undermined. He said, in
addition, that Sherman had been badly defeated by Johnston, and driven
back across the river, so that any hopes of co-operation by him would
be ill-founded.
When the Sergeants returned, he caused the following notice to be
posted on the gates:
NOTICE.
Not wishing to shed the blood of hundreds, not connected with those
who concocted a mad plan to force the Stockade, and make in this way
their escape, I hereby warn the leaders and those who formed
themselves into a band to carry out this, that I am in possession of
all the facts, and have made my dispositions accordingly, so as to
frustrate it. No choice would be left me but to open with grape and
canister on the Stockade, and what effect this would have, in this
densely crowded place, need not be told.
May 25, 1864.
H. Wirz.
The next day a line of tall poles, bearing white flags, were put up at
some little distance from the Dead Line, and a notice was read to us
at roll call that if, except at roll call, any gathering exceeding one
hundred was observed, closer the Stockade than these poles, the guns
would open with grape and canister without warning.
The number of deaths in the Stockade in May was seven hundred and
eight, about as many as had been killed in Sherman’s army during the
same time.