“POUR PASSER LE TEMPS”--A SET OF CHESSMEN PROCURED UNDER DIFFICULTIES
--RELIGIOUS SERVICES--THE DEVOTED PRIEST--WAR SONG.
The time moved with leaden feet. Do the best we could, there were very
many tiresome hours for which no occupation whatever could be found.
All that was necessary to be done during the day--attending roll
call, drawing and cooking rations, killing lice and washing--could be
disposed of in an hour’s time, and we were left with fifteen or sixteen
waking hours, for which there was absolutely no employment. Very many
tried to escape both the heat and ennui by sleeping as much as possible
through the day, but I noticed that those who did this soon died, and
consequently I did not do it. Card playing had sufficed to pass away
the hours at first, but our cards soon wore out, and deprived us of
this resource. My chum, Andrews, and I constructed a set of chessmen
with an infinite deal of trouble. We found a soft, white root in the
swamp which answered our purpose. A boy near us had a tolerably sharp
pocket-knife, for the use of which a couple of hours each day, we gave
a few spoonfuls of meal. The knife was the only one among a large
number of prisoners, as the Rebel guards had an affection for that
style of cutlery, which led them to search incoming prisoners, very
closely. The fortunate owner of this derived quite a little income of
meal by shrewdly loaning it to his knifeless comrades. The shapes that
we made for pieces and pawns were necessarily very rude, but they were
sufficiently distinct for identification. We blackened one set with
pitch pine soot, found a piece of plank that would answer for a board
and purchased it from its possessor for part of a ration of meal, and
so were fitted out with what served until our release to distract our
attention from much of the surrounding misery.
Every one else procured such amusement as they could. Newcomers, who
still had money and cards, gambled as long as their means lasted. Those
who had books read them until the leaves fell apart. Those who had
paper and pen and ink tried to write descriptions and keep journals,
but this was usually given up after being in prison a few weeks. I
was fortunate enough to know a boy who had brought a copy of “Gray’s
Anatomy” into prison with him. I was not specially interested in the
subject, but it was Hobson’s choice; I could read anatomy or nothing,
and so I tackled it with such good will that before my friend became
sick and was taken outside, and his book with him, I had obtained a
very fair knowledge of the rudiments of physiology.
There was a little band of devoted Christian workers, among whom were
Orderly Sergeant Thomas J. Sheppard, Ninety-Seventh O. Y. L, now a
leading Baptist minister in Eastern Ohio; Boston Corbett, who afterward
slew John Wilkes Booth, and Frank Smith, now at the head of the
Railroad Bethel work at Toledo. They were indefatigable in trying to
evangelize the prison. A few of them would take their station in some
part of the Stockade (a different one every time), and begin singing
some old familiar hymn like:
“Come, Thou fount of every blessing,”
and in a few minutes they would have an attentive audience of as many
thousand as could get within hearing. The singing would be followed
by regular services, during which Sheppard, Smith, Corbett, and some
others would make short, spirited, practical addresses, which no doubt
did much good to all who heard them, though the grains of leaven were
entirely too small to leaven such an immense measure of meal. They
conducted several funerals, as nearly like the way it was done at home
as possible. Their ministrations were not confined to mere lip service,
but they labored assiduously in caring for the sick, and made many a
poor fellow’s way to the grave much smoother for him.
This was about all the religious services that we were favored with.
The Rebel preachers did not make that effort to save our misguided
souls which one would have imagined they would having us where we could
not choose but hear they might have taken advantage of our situation
to rake us fore and aft with their theological artillery. They only
attempted it in one instance. While in Richmond a preacher came into
our room and announced in an authoritative way that he would address us
on religious subjects. We uncovered respectfully, and gathered around
him. He was a loud-tongued, brawling Boanerges, who addressed the Lord
as if drilling a brigade.
He spoke but a few moments before making apparent his belief that the
worst of crimes was that of being a Yankee, and that a man must not
only be saved through Christ’s blood, but also serve in the Rebel army
before he could attain to heaven.
Of course we raised such a yell of derision that the sermon was brought
to an abrupt conclusion.
The only minister who came into the Stockade was a Catholic priest,
middle-aged, tall, slender, and unmistakably devout. He was unwearied
in his attention to the sick, and the whole day could be seen moving
around through the prison, attending to those who needed spiritual
consolation. It was interesting to see him administer the extreme
unction to a dying man. Placing a long purple scarf about his own
neck and a small brazen crucifix in the hands of the dying one, he
would kneel by the latter’s side and anoint him upon the eyes, ears,
nostrils; lips, hands, feet and breast, with sacred oil; from a little
brass vessel, repeating the while, in an impressive voice, the solemn
offices of the Church.
His unwearying devotion gained the admiration of all, no matter how
little inclined one might be to view priestliness generally with favor.
He was evidently of such stuff as Christian heros have ever been made
of, and would have faced stake and fagot, at the call of duty, with
unquailing eye. His name was Father Hamilton, and he was stationed
at Macon. The world should know more of a man whose services were so
creditable to humanity and his Church:
The good father had the wisdom of the serpent, with the harmlessness
of the dove. Though full of commiseration for the unhappy lot of the
prisoners, nothing could betray him into the slightest expression of
opinion regarding the war or those who were the authors of all this
misery. In our impatience at our treatment, and hunger for news, we
forgot his sacerdotal character, and importuned him for tidings of
the exchange. His invariable reply was that he lived apart from these
things and kept himself ignorant of them.
“But, father,” said I one day, with an impatience that I could not
wholly repress, “you must certainly hear or read something of this,
while you are outside among the Rebel officers.” Like many other
people, I supposed that the whole world was excited over that in which
I felt a deep interest.
“No, my son,” replied he, in his usual calm, measured tones. “I go not
among them, nor do I hear anything from them. When I leave the prison
in the evening, full of sorrow at what I have seen here, I find that
the best use I can make of my time is in studying the Word of God, and
especially the Psalms of David.”
We were not any longer good company for each other. We had heard over
and over again all each other’s stories and jokes, and each knew as
much about the other’s previous history as we chose to communicate. The
story of every individual’s past life, relations, friends, regiment,
and soldier experience had been told again and again, until the
repetition was wearisome. The cool nights following the hot days were
favorable to little gossiping seances like the yarn-spinning watches
of sailors on pleasant nights. Our squad, though its stock of stories
was worn threadbare, was fortunate enough to have a sweet singer in
Israel “Nosey” Payne--of whose tunefulness we never tired. He had a
large repertoire of patriotic songs, which he sang with feeling and
correctness, and which helped much to make the calm Summer nights pass
agreeably. Among the best of these was “Brave Boys are They,” which
I always thought was the finest ballad, both in poetry and music,
produced by the War.