THE EXECUTION--BUILDING THE SCAFFOLD--DOUBTS OF THE CAMP-CAPTAIN
WIRZ THINKS IT IS PROBABLY A RUSE TO FORCE THE STOCKADE--HIS
PREPARATIONS AGAINST SUCH AN ATTEMPT--ENTRANCE OF THE DOOMED
ONES--THEY REALIZE THEIR FATE--ONE MAKES A DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO
ESCAPE--HIS RECAPTURE--INTENSE EXCITEMENT--WIRZ ORDERS THE GUNS TO
OPEN--FORTUNATELY THEY DO NOT--THE SIX ARE HANGED--ONE BREAKS HIS
ROPE--SCENE WHEN THE RAIDERS ARE CUT DOWN.
It began to be pretty generally understood through the prison that
six men had been sentenced to be hanged, though no authoritative
announcement of the fact had been made. There was much canvassing
as to where they should be executed, and whether an attempt to hang
them inside of the Stockade would not rouse their friends to make a
desperate effort to rescue them, which would precipitate a general
engagement of even larger proportions than that of the 3d. Despite
the result of the affairs of that and the succeeding days, the camp
was not yet convinced that the Raiders were really conquered, and the
Regulators themselves were not thoroughly at ease on that score. Some
five thousand or six thousand new prisoners had come in since the first
of the month, and it was claimed that the Raiders had received large
reinforcements from those,--a claim rendered probable by most of the
new-comers being from the Army of the Potomac.
Key and those immediately about him kept their own counsel in the
matter, and suffered no secret of their intentions to leak out, until
on the morning of the 11th, when it became generally known that the
sentences were too be carried into effect that day, and inside the
prison.
My first direct information as to this was by a messenger from Key with
an order to assemble my company and stand guard over the carpenters
who were to erect the scaffold. He informed me that all the Regulators
would be held in readiness to come to our relief if we were attacked in
force. I had hoped that if the men were to be hanged I would be spared
the unpleasant duty of assisting, for, though I believed they richly
deserved that punishment, I had much rather some one else administered
it upon them. There was no way out of it, however, that I could see,
and so “Egypt” and I got the boys together, and marched down to the
designated place, which was an open space near the end of the street
running from the South Gate, and kept vacant for the purpose of issuing
rations. It was quite near the spot where the Raiders’ Big Tent had
stood, and afforded as good a view to the rest of the camp as could be
found.
Key had secured the loan of a few beams and rough planks, sufficient
to build a rude scaffold with. Our first duty was to care for these
as they came in, for such was the need of wood, and plank for tent
purposes, that they would scarcely have fallen to the ground before
they were spirited away, had we not stood over them all the time with
clubs.
The carpenters sent by Key came over and set to work. The N’Yaarkers
gathered around in considerable numbers, sullen and abusive. They
cursed us with all their rich vocabulary of foul epithets, vowed that
we should never carry out the execution, and swore that they had marked
each one for vengeance. We returned the compliments in kind, and
occasionally it seemed as if a general collision was imminent; but we
succeeded in avoiding this, and by noon the scaffold was finished. It
was a very simple affair. A stout beam was fastened on the top of two
posts, about fifteen feet high. At about the height of a man’s head
a couple of boards stretched across the space between the posts, and
met in the center. The ends at the posts laid on cleats; the ends in
the center rested upon a couple of boards, standing upright, and each
having a piece of rope fastened through a hole in it in such a manner,
that a man could snatch it from under the planks serving as the floor
of the scaffold, and let the whole thing drop. A rude ladder to ascend
by completed the preparations.
As the arrangements neared completion the excitement in and around the
prison grew intense. Key came over with the balance of the Regulators,
and we formed a hollow square around the scaffold, our company marking
the line on the East Side. There were now thirty thousand in the
prison. Of these about one-third packed themselves as tightly about our
square as they could stand. The remaining twenty thousand were wedged
together in a solid mass on the North Side. Again I contemplated the
wonderful, startling, spectacle of a mosaic pavement of human faces
covering the whole broad hillside.
Outside, the Rebel, infantry was standing in the rifle pits, the
artillerymen were in place about their loaded and trained pieces, the
No. 4 of each gun holding the lanyard cord in his hand, ready to fire
the piece at the instant of command. The small squad of cavalry was
drawn up on the hill near the Star Fort, and near it were the masters
of the hounds, with their yelping packs.
All the hangers-on of the Rebel camp--clerks, teamsters, employer,
negros, hundreds of white and colored women, in all forming a motley
crowd of between one and two thousand, were gathered together in a
group between the end of the rifle pits and the Star Fort. They had a
good view from there, but a still better one could be had, a little
farther to the right, and in front of the guns. They kept edging up in
that direction, as crowds will, though they knew the danger they would
incur if the artillery opened.
The day was broiling hot. The sun shot his perpendicular rays down with
blistering fierceness, and the densely packed, motionless crowds made
the heat almost insupportable.
Key took up his position inside the square to direct matters. With him
were Limber Jim, Dick McCullough, and one or two others. Also, Ned
Johnson, Tom Larkin, Sergeant Goody, and three others who were to act
as hangmen. Each of these six was provided with a white sack, such as
the Rebels brought in meal in. Two Corporals of my company--“Stag”
Harris and Wat Payne--were appointed to pull the stays from under the
platform at the signal.
A little after noon the South Gate opened, and Wirz rode in, dressed
in a suit of white duck, and mounted on his white horse--a conjunction
which had gained for him the appellation of “Death on a Pale Horse.”
Behind him walked the faithful old priest, wearing his Church’s purple
insignia of the deepest sorrow, and reading the service for the
condemned. The six doomed men followed, walking between double ranks of
Rebel guards.
All came inside the hollow square and halted. Wirz then said:
“Brizners, I return to you dose men so Boot as I got dem. You haf tried
dem yourselves, and found dem guilty--I haf had notting to do wit it. I
vash my hands of eferyting connected wit dem. Do wit dem as you like,
and may Gott haf mercy on you and on dem. Garts, about face! Voryvarts,
march!”
With this he marched out and left us.
For a moment the condemned looked stunned. They seemed to comprehend
for the first time that it was really the determination of the
Regulators to hang them. Before that they had evidently thought that
the talk of hanging was merely bluff. One of them gasped out:
“My God, men, you don’t really mean to hang us up there!”
Key answered grimly and laconically:
“That seems to be about the size of it.”
At this they burst out in a passionate storm of intercessions and
imprecations, which lasted for a minute or so, when it was stopped by
one of them saying imperatively:
“All of you stop now, and let the priest talk for us.”
At this the priest closed the book upon which he had kept his eyes bent
since his entrance, and facing the multitude on the North Side began a
plea for mercy.
The condemned faced in the same direction, to read their fate in the
countenances of those whom he was addressing. This movement brought
Curtis--a low-statured, massively built man--on the right of their
line, and about ten or fifteen steps from my company.
The whole camp had been as still as death since Wirz’s exit. The
silence seemed to become even more profound as the priest began his
appeal. For a minute every ear was strained to catch what he said.
Then, as the nearest of the thousands comprehended what he was saying
they raised a shout of “No! no!! NO!!” “Hang them! hang them!” “Don’t
let them go! Never!”
“Hang the rascals! hang the villains!”
“Hang, ’em! hang ’em! hang ’em!”
This was taken up all over the prison, and tens of thousands throats
yelled it in a fearful chorus.
Curtis turned from the crowd with desperation convulsing his features.
Tearing off the broad-brimmed hat which he wore, he flung it on the
ground with the exclamation!
“By God, I’ll die this way first!” and, drawing his head down and
folding his arms about it, he dashed forward for the center of my
company, like a great stone hurled from a catapult.
“Egypt” and I saw where he was going to strike, and ran down the line
to help stop him. As he came up we rained blows on his head with our
clubs, but so many of us struck at him at once that we broke each
other’s clubs to pieces, and only knocked him on his knees. He rose
with an almost superhuman effort, and plunged into the mass beyond.
The excitement almost became delirium. For an instant I feared that
everything was gone to ruin. “Egypt” and I strained every energy to
restore our lines, before the break could be taken advantage of by
the others. Our boys behaved splendidly, standing firm, and in a few
seconds the line was restored.
As Curtis broke through, Delaney, a brawny Irishman standing next to
him, started to follow. He took one step. At the same instant Limber
Jim’s long legs took three great strides, and placed him directly in
front of Delaney. Jim’s right hand held an enormous bowie-knife, and as
he raised it above Delaney he hissed out:
“If you dare move another step, I’ll open you ---- ---- ----, I’ll open
you from one end to the other.
Delaney stopped. This checked the others till our lines reformed.
When Wirz saw the commotion he was panic-stricken with fear that the
long-dreaded assault on the Stockade had begun. He ran down from the
headquarter steps to the Captain of the battery, shrieking:
“Fire! fire! fire!”
The Captain, not being a fool, could see that the rush was not towards
the Stockade, but away from it, and he refrained from giving the order.
But the spectators who had gotten before the guns, heard Wirz’s
excited yell, and remembering the consequences to themselves should
the artillery be discharged, became frenzied with fear, and screamed,
and fell down over and trampled upon each other in endeavoring to get
away. The guards on that side of the Stockade ran down in a panic, and
the ten thousand prisoners immediately around us, expecting no less
than that the next instant we would be swept with grape and canister,
stampeded tumultuously. There were quite a number of wells right around
us, and all of these were filled full of men that fell into them as the
crowd rushed away. Many had legs and arms broken, and I have no doubt
that several were killed.
It was the stormiest five minutes that I ever saw.
While this was going on two of my company, belonging to the Fifth Iowa
Cavalry, were in hot pursuit of Curtis. I had seen them start and
shouted to them to come back, as I feared they would be set upon by the
Raiders and murdered. But the din was so overpowering that they could
not hear me, and doubtless would not have come back if they had heard.
Curtis ran diagonally down the hill, jumping over the tents and
knocking down the men who happened in his way. Arriving at the swamp
he plunged in, sinking nearly to his hips in the fetid, filthy ooze.
He forged his way through with terrible effort. His pursuers followed
his example, and caught up to him just as he emerged on the other side.
They struck him on the back of the head with their clubs, and knocked
him down.
By this time order had been restored about us. The guns remained
silent, and the crowd massed around us again. From where we were we
could see the successful end of the chase after Curtis, and could see
his captors start back with him. Their success was announced with a
roar of applause from the North Side. Both captors and captured were
greatly exhausted, and they were coming back very slowly. Key ordered
the balance up on to the scaffold. They obeyed promptly. The priest
resumed his reading of the service for the condemned. The excitement
seemed to make the doomed ones exceedingly thirsty. I never saw
men drink such inordinate quantities of water. They called for it
continually, gulped down a quart or more at a time, and kept two men
going nearly all the time carrying it to them.
When Curtis finally arrived, he sat on the ground for a minute or so,
to rest, and then, reeking with filth, slowly and painfully climbed the
steps. Delaney seemed to think he was suffering as much from fright as
anything else, and said to him:
“Come on up, now, show yourself a man, and die game.”
Again the priest resumed his reading, but it had no interest to
Delaney, who kept calling out directions to Pete Donelly, who was
standing in the crowd, as to dispositions to be made of certain bits of
stolen property: to give a watch to this one, a ring to another, and so
on. Once the priest stopped and said:
“My son, let the things of this earth go, and turn your attention
toward those of heaven.”
Delaney paid no attention to this admonition. The whole six then began
delivering farewell messages to those in the crowd. Key pulled a watch
from his pocket and said:
“Two minutes more to talk.”
Delaney said cheerfully:
“Well, good by, b’ys; if I’ve hurted any of y ez, I hope ye’ll forgive
me. Shpake up, now, any of yez that I’ve hurted, and say yell forgive
me.”
We called upon Marion Friend, whose throat Delaney had tried to cut
three weeks before while robbing him of forty dollars, to come forward,
but Friend was not in a forgiving mood, and refused with an oath.
Key said:
“Time’s up!” put the watch back in his pocket and raised his hand like
an officer commanding a gun. Harris and Payne laid hold of the ropes to
the supports of the planks. Each of the six hangmen tied a condemned
man’s hands, pulled a meal sack down over his head, placed the noose
around his neck, drew it up tolerably close, and sprang to the ground.
The priest began praying aloud.
Key dropped his hand. Payne and Harris snatched the supports out with
a single jerk. The planks fell with a clatter. Five of the bodies
swung around dizzily in the air. The sixth that of “Mosby,” a large,
powerful, raw-boned man, one of the worst in the lot, and who, among
other crimes, had killed Limber Jim’s brother-broke the rope, and fell
with a thud to the ground. Some of the men ran forward, examined the
body, and decided that he still lived. The rope was cut off his neck,
the meal sack removed, and water thrown in his face until consciousness
returned. At the first instant he thought he was in eternity. He gasped
out:
“Where am I? Am I in the other world?”
Limber Jim muttered that they would soon show him where he was, and
went on grimly fixing up the scaffold anew. “Mosby” soon realized what
had happened, and the unrelenting purpose of the Regulator Chiefs. Then
he began to beg piteously for his life, saying:
“O for God’s sake, do not put me up there again! God has spared my life
once. He meant that you should be merciful to me.”
Limber Jim deigned him no reply. When the scaffold was rearranged, and
a stout rope had replaced the broken one, he pulled the meal sack once
more over “Mosby’s” head, who never ceased his pleadings. Then picking
up the large man as if he were a baby, he carried him to the scaffold
and handed him up to Tom Larkin, who fitted the noose around his neck
and sprang down. The supports had not been set with the same delicacy
as at first, and Limber Jim had to set his heel and wrench desperately
at them before he could force them out. Then “Mosby” passed away
without a struggle.
After hanging till life was extinct, the bodies were cut down, the
meal-sacks pulled off their faces, and the Regulators formal two
parallel lines, through which all the prisoners passed and took a look
at the bodies. Pete Donnelly and Dick Allen knelt down and wiped the
froth off Delaney’s lips, and swore vengeance against those who had
done him to death.