DULL WINTER DAYS--TOO WEAK AND TOO STUPID To AMUSE OURSELVES--ATTEMPTS
OF THE REBELS TO RECRUIT US INTO THEIR ARMY--THE CLASS OF MEN THEY
OBTAINED --VENGEANCE ON “THE GALVANIZED”--A SINGULAR EXPERIENCE--RARE
GLIMPSES OF FUN--INABILITY OF THE REBELS TO COUNT.
The Rebels continued their efforts to induce prisoners to enlist in
their army, and with much better success than at any previous time.
Many men had become so desperate that they were reckless as to what
they did. Home, relatives, friends, happiness--all they had remembered
or looked forward to, all that had nerved them up to endure the present
and brave the future--now seemed separated from them forever by a
yawning and impassable chasm. For many weeks no new prisoners had come
in to rouse their drooping courage with news of the progress of our
arms towards final victory, or refresh their remembrances of home, and
the gladsomeness of “God’s Country.” Before them they saw nothing but
weeks of slow and painful progress towards bitter death. The other
alternative was enlistment in the Rebel army.
Another class went out and joined, with no other intention than to
escape at the first opportunity. They justified their bad faith to the
Rebels by recalling the numberless instances of the Rebels’ bad faith
to us, and usually closed their arguments in defense of their course
with:
“No oath administered by a Rebel can have any binding obligation. These
men are outlaws who have not only broken their oaths to the Government,
but who have deserted from its service, and turned its arms against
it. They are perjurers and traitors, and in addition, the oath they
administer to us is under compulsion and for that reason is of no
account.”
Still another class, mostly made up from the old Raider crowd, enlisted
from natural depravity. They went out more than for anything else
because their hearts were prone to evil and they did that which was
wrong in preference to what was right. By far the largest portion of
those the Rebels obtained were of this class, and a more worthless
crowd of soldiers has not been seen since Falstaff mustered his famous
recruits.
After all, however, the number who deserted their flag was
astonishingly small, considering all the circumstances. The official
report says three hundred and twenty-six, but I imaging this is
under the truth, since quite a number were turned back in after
their utter uselessness had been demonstrated. I suppose that five
hundred “galvanized,” as we termed it, but this was very few when the
hopelessness of exchange, the despair of life, and the wretchedness of
the condition of the eleven or twelve thousand inside the Stockade is
remembered.
The motives actuating men to desert were not closely analyzed by us,
but we held all who did so as despicable scoundrels, too vile to be
adequately described in words. It was not safe for a man to announce
his intention of “galvanizing,” for he incurred much danger of being
beaten until he was physically unable to reach the gate. Those who went
over to the enemy had to use great discretion in letting the Rebel
officer, know so much of their wishes as would secure their being
taker outside. Men were frequently knocked down and dragged away while
telling the officers they wanted to go out.
On one occasion one hundred or more of the raider crowd who had
galvanized, were stopped for a few hours in some little Town, on
their way to the front. They lost no time in stealing everything they
could lay their hands upon, and the disgusted Rebel commander ordered
them to be returned to the Stockade. They came in in the evening, all
well rigged out in Rebel uniforms, and carrying blankets. We chose to
consider their good clothes and equipments an aggravation of their
offense and an insult to ourselves. We had at that time quite a squad
of negro soldiers inside with us. Among them was a gigantic fellow with
a fist like a wooden beetle. Some of the white boys resolved to use
these to wreak the camp’s displeasure on the Galvanized. The plan was
carried out capitally. The big darky, followed by a crowd of smaller
and nimbler “shades,” would approach one of the leaders among them with:
“Is you a Galvanized?”
The surly reply would be,
“Yes, you ---- black ----. What the business is that of yours?”
At that instant the bony fist of the darky, descending like a
pile-driver, would catch the recreant under the ear, and lift him about
a rod. As he fell, the smaller darkies would pounce upon him, and in an
instant despoil him of his blanket and perhaps the larger portion of
his warm clothing. The operation was repeated with a dozen or more. The
whole camp enjoyed it as rare fun, and it was the only time that I saw
nearly every body at Florence laugh.
A few prisoners were brought in in December, who had been taken
in Foster’s attempt to cut the Charleston & Savannah Railroad at
Pocataligo. Among them we were astonished to find Charley Hirsch,
a member of Company I’s of our battalion. He had had a strange
experience. He was originally a member of a Texas regiment and was
captured at Arkansas Post. He then took the oath of allegiance and
enlisted with us. While we were at Savannah he approached a guard one
day to trade for tobacco. The moment he spoke to the man he recognized
him as a former comrade in the Texas regiment. The latter knew him
also, and sang out,
“I know you; you’re Charley Hirsch, that used to be in my company.”
Charley backed into the crowd as quickly as possible; to elude the
fellow’s eyes, but the latter called for the Corporal of the Guard,
had himself relieved, and in a few minutes came in with an officer
in search of the deserter. He found him with little difficulty, and
took him out. The luckless Charley was tried by court martial, found,
guilty, sentenced to be shot, and while waiting execution was confined
in the jail. Before the sentence could be carried into effect Sherman
came so close to the City that it was thought best to remove the
prisoners. In the confusion Charley managed to make his escape, and
at the moment the battle of Pocataligo opened, was lying concealed
between the two lines of battle, without knowing, of course, that he
was in such a dangerous locality. After the firing opened, he thought
it better to lie still than run the risk from the fire of both sides,
especially as he momentarily expected our folks to advance and drive
the Rebels away. But the reverse happened; the Johnnies drove our
fellows, and, finding Charley in his place of concealment, took him for
one of Foster’s men, and sent him to Florence, where he staid until we
went through to our lines.
Our days went by as stupidly and eventless as can be conceived. We had
grown too spiritless and lethargic to dig tunnels or plan escapes. We
had nothing to read, nothing to make or destroy, nothing to work with,
nothing to play with, and even no desire to contrive anything for
amusement. All the cards in the prison were worn out long ago. Some of
the boys had made dominos from bones, and Andrews and I still had our
chessmen, but we were too listless to play. The mind, enfeebled by the
long disuse of it except in a few limited channels, was unfitted for
even so much effort as was involved in a game for pastime.
Nor were there any physical exercises, such as that crowd of young
men would have delighted in under other circumstances. There was no
running, boxing, jumping, wrestling, leaping, etc. All were too weak
and hungry to make any exertion beyond that absolutely necessary.
On cold days everybody seemed totally benumbed. The camp would be
silent and still. Little groups everywhere hovered for hours, moody
and sullen, over diminutive, flickering fires, made with one poor
handful of splinters. When the sun shone, more activity was visible.
Boys wandered around, hunted up their friends, and saw what gaps
death--always busiest during the cold spells--had made in the ranks
of their acquaintances. During the warmest part of the day everybody
disrobed, and spent an hour or more killing the lice that had waxed and
multiplied to grievous proportions during the few days of comparative
immunity.
Besides the whipping of the Galvanized by the darkies, I remember but
two other bits of amusement we had while at Florence. One of these was
in hearing the colored soldiers sing patriotic songs, which they did
with great gusto when the weather became mild. The other was the antics
of a circus clown--a member, I believe, of a Connecticut or a New York
regiment, who, on the rare occasions when we were feeling not exactly
well so much as simply better than we had been, would give us an hour
or two of recitations of the drolleries with which he was wont to set
the crowded canvas in a roar. One of his happiest efforts, I remember,
was a stilted paraphrase of “Old Uncle Ned” a song very popular a
quarter of a century ago, and which ran something like this:
There was an old darky, an’ his name was Uncle Ned,
But he died long ago, long ago
He had no wool on de top of his head,
De place whar de wool ought to grouw.
CHORUS
Den lay down de shubel an’ de hoe,
Den hang up de fiddle an’ de bow;
For dere’s no more hard work for poor Uncle Ned
He’s gone whar de good niggahs go.
His fingers war long, like de cane in de brake,
And his eyes war too dim for to see;
He had no teeth to eat de corn cake,
So he had to let de corn cake be.
CHORUS.
His legs were so bowed dat he couldn’t lie still.
An’ he had no nails on his toes;
His neck was so crooked dot he couldn’t take a pill,
So he had to take a pill through his nose.
CHORUS.
One cold frosty morning old Uncle Ned died,
An’ de tears ran down massa’s cheek like rain,
For he knew when Uncle Ned was laid in de groun’,
He would never see poor Uncle Ned again,
CHORUS.
In the hands of this artist the song became--
There was an aged and indigent African whose cognomen was Uncle Edward,
But he is deceased since a remote period, a very remote period;
He possessed no capillary substance on the summit of his cranium,
The place designated by kind Nature for the capillary substance to
vegetate.
CHORUS.
Then let the agricultural implements rest recumbent upon the ground;
And suspend the musical instruments in peace neon the wall,
For there’s no more physical energy to be displayed by our Indigent
Uncle Edward
He has departed to that place set apart by a beneficent Providence for
the reception of the better class of Africans.
And so on. These rare flashes of fun only served to throw the
underlying misery out in greater relief. It was like lightning playing
across the surface of a dreary morass.
I have before alluded several times to the general inability of Rebels
to count accurately, even in low numbers. One continually met phases
of this that seemed simply incomprehensible to us, who had taken in
the multiplication table almost with our mother’s milk, and knew the
Rule of Three as well as a Presbyterian boy does the Shorter Catechism.
A cadet--an undergraduate of the South Carolina Military Institute
--called our roll at Florence, and though an inborn young aristocrat,
who believed himself made of finer clay than most mortals, he was
not a bad fellow at all. He thought South Carolina aristocracy the
finest gentry, and the South Carolina Military Institute the greatest
institution of learning in the world; but that is common with all South
Carolinians.
One day he came in so full of some matter of rare importance that we
became somewhat excited as to its nature. Dismissing our hundred after
roll-call, he unburdened his mind:
“Now you fellers are all so d---d peart on mathematics, and such
things, that you want to snap me up on every opportunity, but I guess
I’ve got something this time that’ll settle you. Its something that a
fellow gave out yesterday, and Colonel Iverson, and all the officers
out there have been figuring on it ever since, and none have got the
right answer, and I’m powerful sure that none of you, smart as you
think you are, can do it.”
“Heavens, and earth, let’s hear this wonderful problem,” said we all.
“Well,” said he, “what is the length of a pole standing in a river,
one-fifth of which is in the mud, two-thirds in the water, and
one-eighth above the water, while one foot and three inches of the top
is broken off?”
In a minute a dozen answered, “One hundred and fifty feet.”
The cadet could only look his amazement at the possession of such an
amount of learning by a crowd of mudsills, and one of our fellows said
contemptuously:
“Why, if you South Carolina Institute fellows couldn’t answer such
questions as that they wouldn’t allow you in the infant class up North.”
Lieutenant Barrett, our red-headed tormentor, could not, for the life
of him, count those inside in hundreds and thousands in such a manner
as to be reasonably certain of correctness. As it would have cankered
his soul to feel that he was being beaten out of a half-dozen rations
by the superior cunning of the Yankees, he adopted a plan which he must
have learned at some period of his life when he was a hog or sheep
drover. Every Sunday morning all in the camp were driven across the
Creek to the East Side, and then made to file slowly back--one at a
time--between two guards stationed on the little bridge that spanned
the Creek. By this means, if he was able to count up to one hundred, he
could get our number correctly.
The first time this was done after our arrival he gave us a display
of his wanton malevolence. We were nearly all assembled on the East
Side, and were standing in ranks, at the edge of the swamp, facing the
west. Barrett was walking along the opposite edge of the swamp, and,
coming to a little gully jumped, it. He was very awkward, and came near
falling into the mud. We all yelled derisively. He turned toward us in
a fury, shook his fist, and shouted curses and imprecations. We yelled
still louder. He snatched out his revolver, and began firing at our
line. The distance was considerable--say four or five hundred feet--and
the bullets struck in the mud in advance of the line. We still yelled.
Then he jerked a gun from a guard and fired, but his aim was still bad,
and the bullet sang over our heads, striking in the bank above us. He
posted of to get another gun, but his fit subsided before he obtained
it.