THE SURPRISE.
The tramp of hoof, the flash of steel,
The Rebels round her coming!
The sound and sight hath made her calm.
Sham soldier, genuine woman!
She stands amid them all unmoved!
The heart supported by the loved
Is strong to meet the foeman.—E. B. BROWNING.
“These, at least, shall not be dishonored by anything done to me,” said
Britomarte, as with her dagger she hastily cut and tore the captain’s
straps from her shoulders, and threw them as far as she could send them.
The sky was clearing, and it was much lighter than it had been as the
marauding party rode up. They dismounted at a short distance, and came
prowling about on foot among the fallen, to slay the dying, rob the
dead.
Britomarte knelt by Justin and held his hand as they came up, and bent
over the group.
“Hullo! who have we here? A Yankee colonel, by all that’s lucky. And a
Yankee spy to boot. Stoop down and examine him, Canstop. If he is badly
hurt, we’ll put him out of his misery, and appropriate that fine suit of
broadcloth that can be no farther use to him. If he is not, we’ll take
him prisoner and give him a taste of Libby,” said one who seemed to be
the leader of the squad.
“Where are you hurt?” said the man called Canstop, who seemed, from his
manner, to be some lower grade of hospital nurse.
“In my leg, only, I think. I am weak from loss of blood, and stiff from
certain bruises received, by my horse falling on me,” answered Justin,
calmly.
“All right; hand over your arms,” said the leader.
“You will find my sword somewhere on the field, where I dropped it from
my hand as I fell.”
“Your revolver?”
“Here it is,” said Justin, drawing it forth and delivering it up.
“Your watch?”
“I never before heard that watches were arms,” said Justin, as he passed
over his costly chronometer.
“Now your pocket book.”
Justin smiled as he answered:
“If it were not that I know you are backed up by a thousand precedents
of your comrades, I should wonder that you, calling yourselves soldiers,
should stoop to rob a wounded prisoner.”
“Hold your noise, you blamed Yankee, and do as you’re bid, or it will be
the worse for you.”
“I have no pocket book with me,” answered Justin, calmly; “I left it at
head quarters.”
“Oh! expected to be whipped, did you, and so made sure of the money by
leaving it behind. Just like your Yankee cunning.—Come, raise him up,
some of you boys, and see if he can stand upon his legs,” said the
leader, speaking to his men.
Two of them lifted Justin up, but it was evident that he could not
stand.
“I see,” said the leader. “Lay him down again. Canstop, haven’t you got
a stretcher somewhere handy?”
“Yes, under the ash tree about a hundred yards from this.”
“Go, some of you, and fetch it.”
Two men started at a run, and quickly returned with the stretcher.
And the wounded prisoner was lifted and laid upon it.
They had now time to attend to the less important captive.
“_You_ are not wounded, at least. What the devil do you mean by coming
within our lines?” fiercely demanded the leader.
“I came to succor my colonel, and to share his fate,” answered
Britomarte, firmly.
“Brave boy! what is your rank among the clock peddlers?” laughed the
leader.
“I am a soldier in the United States army,” proudly replied Britomarte.
“Of what grade?”
“I decline to answer.”
“You see ‘soldier’ is rather a comprehensive term. General Grant is a
soldier—”
“Oh, you’ve found that out, have you?” said Britomarte, derisively.
—“And every private in his army is a soldier—”
—“Thanks. You are giving us great praise,” laughed Britomarte.
—“I mean, of course, as to name. _You_ are a soldier, and I ask you of
what grade?”
“And I decline to answer your question.”
“All right; it is your own affair. Only if you call yourself simply a
soldier, you will be treated _as_ a soldier; that is to say, you will be
put in the lowest part of the prison, and fed upon the poorest rations.
The officers have better accommodations.”
Britomarte trembled, not at the certainty of foul food and fouler
lodging, but at the prospect of being separated from Justin. So she
answered—
“As I do not wish to be divided from my colonel, I will acknowledge that
I am a commissioned officer of the line, as you may see for yourself in
my dark blue uniform.”
“What is your name, and precise rank?”
“I decline to answer.”
“The fact is, you are a spy, but your reserve will not save you! Here,
Pettigru! take his arms, guard him, and march him after the other
prisoner!” said the leader.
Britomarte gave up her sword, dagger and revolver, and marched between
two rebel soldiers, after the stretcher upon which four other soldiers
were bearing Justin off from the field.
The leader was about to leave the spot with the remainder of the party,
when he heard a weak voice calling—
“Sergeant!”
“Well, who are you? what’s the matter?”
“One of your company—wounded in the hip. Don’t you think you could send
a stretcher and have me taken off the field?”
“I’ll see. We are picking up all we can without getting too near the
Yankee lines. Those devils never sleep! and we are expecting the battle
to be renewed in the morning. However, I’ll attend to your case.”
“Sergeant!”
“Well, what now.”
“You have taken two prisoners?”
“Yes; what then?”
“One was a Yankee Colonel?”
“Colonel Rosenthal—yes, what of it?”
“Why the other one, Sergeant, was—was his sweetheart.”
“Eh?”
“His sweetheart, Sergeant.”
“How do you know that?”
“Laying here in the bushes quite near them, but out of their sight, I
overheard their talk—not all of it, nor half of it, for they spoke in a
low tone—but I overheard enough to know that she is his sweetheart, and
has served with him, disguised as a soldier, for the last year or so,
and that she _is_ a commissioned officer.”
“Ah-h-h, ha-a-a!” chuckled the Sergeant; “that’s the reason why she was
so close! but her closeness shall not save her any more than her sex
shall! We’ll treat her as a spy! her name, my man! did you hear her
name?”
“Not the one she went by in the army; but I think _he_ called her
Bridget Martin, or some such name.
“Ah-h-h, ha-a-a! Miss Bridget Martin! I think we shall let in a little
light upon you before long! I shouldn’t wonder if you were the very
‘orderly’ of Colonel Rosenthal who penetrated the camp of the Free Sword
and betrayed him. We shall see! Keep up your courage, my man; I will
send the stretcher back for you as soon as it has deposited the
colonel.”
And so saying, the sergeant, instead of going to other parts of the
field, as he had intended, turned and followed the prisoners.
The bearers supporting the stretcher upon which Colonel Rosenthal lay,
moved rapidly onward over the rough ground to the great distress of the
wounded man.
Britomarte was driven closely behind him—literally _driven_; for if,
after her day and night of severe and exhausting battle and toil, her
woman’s fragile limbs gave way for a moment, her steps were promptly
quickened by the point of the bayonet thrust against her shoulders.
So over miles and miles of broken and rocky roads they were painfully
marched to the rear of Lee’s army, and to an old barn that was used as a
temporary depot for prisoners.
Here, to her consternation, Britomarte was thrust in with a number of
fellow captives, who were waiting to be transported to Richmond, while
Colonel Rosenthal was borne off to the field hospital to have his wound
looked to.
There must have been more than a thousand prisoners crowded into that
old barn.
Britomarte, being one of the last taken, found herself near the door.
And when it was closed and barred upon her, she could get no farther.
She was like a late arrival at an overcrowded lecture-room—only this
crowd was all standing, because there was no room to sit or lie down.
The building was broken here and there, and through crevices a little
air got in; this only prevented the prisoners from being suffocated.
They were a patient and silent band of victims—only here and there was
heard a groan wrung from some sufferer from disease or wounds; and now
and then a curse struck out from some exasperated soldier who found
himself squeezed nearly to death by the crowd.
Britomarte, being small and slight, sank down upon the floor, with her
back resting against the closed door. And notwithstanding her great
mental anxiety—worn out in body and mind, and overcome with heat and
fatigue—she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, that lasted perhaps
two hours.
She was rudely awakened by falling backwards. The door against which she
had leaned had been suddenly opened, and she had gone over.
Half bewildered by the deep sleep and the rude shock that had ended it,
she picked herself up in time to hear the prison guard shout:
“Come, get out of this, you lazy Yankees! You’ve got to go to
Richmond—where you’ve been trying to get for the last three or four
years, you know.”
The half suffocated prisoners were only glad to get out into the open
air. And though ready to sink with heat, fasting and weariness, they
issued forth.
Many of them dropped down upon the ground to rest and stretch their
stiff and wearied limbs, and wait for the breakfast which they hoped was
coming.
But there was no such good luck in store for them. They were ordered to
rise and fall in line; and when, by reason of their stiffness and
soreness, they were slow to move, they were poked and goaded up at the
point of the bayonet.
Some of the younger men—mere boys, who in their comfortable Northern or
Western homes, had been used to warm and plentiful meals, and even
during their campaigns with the army had been provided with regular and
excellent rations—could not get used to living without food and drink.
So they complained of hunger and asked for breakfast.
“‘Breakfast!’” was the laughing and probably the truthful
rejoinder—“‘breakfast,’ is it? Why we haven’t any for ourselves, how can
we give it to you? But cheer up, Yanks! we shall get something to eat on
the road, I dare say, if it’s nothing better than raw potatoes or unripe
corn.”
The prisoners were immediately formed in line, guarded on either side by
a strong detachment of rebel infantry, and put _en route_ for Richmond
by one of the plank roads still covered by Lee’s army.
Britomarte, consumed by anxiety for the fate of Justin, ventured to ask
an officer of the guard who was marching near her, whether he was still
in the field hospital, and what was his state. She spoke in a gentle and
winning tone of voice, and the officer addressed happened to be a
gentleman.
“‘Colonel Rosenthal?’” he replied. “He is in the ambulance ahead of us,
with several other Yankee officers who are slightly wounded, but unable
to walk.”
“Is his wound a slight one?”
“I presume it is not a dangerous one, or he would have been left upon
the field. We can have no object in capturing an officer who is likely
to die before he can be exchanged.”
And here the officer, feeling perhaps that his courtesy had gone far
enough in talking to a prisoner, fell back a little out of earshot.
Britomarte felt comforted in the knowledge that Justin’s wound was not
dangerous, and that he was on the same road with herself, and would
probably be assigned to the same ward of the same prison with herself.
When they had marched about three miles through a wasted and desolated
country, they came to a cornfield, where a halt was ordered, and the
prisoners were directed to help themselves, and permitted to rest. The
corn was not near ripe, the ears when the husks were removed being
little bigger than a man’s fore-finger, and the husks still soft; and
the ground was wet with the recent heavy rains. Notwithstanding these
drawbacks, the famished and fatigued prisoners gladly filled their
stomachs with this very green corn, devouring both grain and husks; and
afterwards threw their wearied limbs down upon the damp
ground—imprudences to be fearfully paid for in the disease and death
that afterwards decimated the crowded population of Libby and Belle
Isle.
Having eaten and rested in this fatal manner, the order was given to
rise and fall in line, and the march was resumed.
All that burning day, when “the sky was brass,” they marched. Late in
the afternoon they halted again in an orchard, and supped off green
apples, and immediately resumed the march.
It was near nightfall when they reached Richmond.
There was a short halt, during which their arrival was formally reported
to the proper authorities, and orders for their disposition taken.
And then they were marched directly to the Libby and packed into a
prison that was already crowded.
For what follows I am indebted partly to personal observation, and
partly to the report of an officer who was an inmate of that pest-house
for several months.
The Libby, as I saw it in May, 1865, is a great, strong, oblong building
of the simplest structure. It stands quite alone, a whole block in
itself, reaching each way from street to street. It fronts the water and
the wharfs, and backs upon a city street—though front and back are so
exactly alike that it is difficult to say which is which. It has no wall
or yard around it. It stands barely and grimly out between the streets.
It is of two stories, or, counting the ground floor, of three. Each
story is divided, simply and equally, into three great halls, each big
enough for an ordinary church, and running from front to back through
the whole building. Each hall has its sides formed of solid masonry, and
its ends of three immense doors, formed only of perpendicular iron bars,
and reaching from the ceiling to the floor. Through these bars at the
front may be seen the sidewalk, the river, the wharves, and the busy
scenes of traffic; through the bars of the back a crowded city street.
Through these opposite, open bars the ventilation is very good. There is
neither bed, bench, water-jug or furniture of any sort in either hall.
But in the right hand corner of the front there is, in each, a water
spout and sink.
So, amid all the miserable squalor and destitution of the Libby, there
seemed to be three or four necessaries of life in plenty—light, air,
water and an open view of earth and sky.
At least these were my impressions in inspecting it in May, 1865, nearly
a year after the events I am now relating.
It was quite dark when our prisoners were halted before the Libby; but
the gas lamps of the street showed the iron barred front of the
building, lined with ghastly faces looking out upon the night. Our men
were suffering extremely, all from fatigue, and many from acute illness
brought on by eating green corn and green apples, and marching under the
burning sun. And many sat down and many dropped upon the sidewalk before
the prison, while waiting for the doors to be thrown open. A report went
round among them that they were only to be packed up in the Libby for
that night; and that next morning they were to be divided between Belle
Isle and Castle Thunder.
At last the massive doors were thrown open and the prisoners were forced
in—really forced, for though _they_ made no sort of resistance, the
crowd already there was so great that it formed an almost impassable
obstacle to the entrance of any more. But our boys were pushed in and
pressed upon this crowd, until it fell heavily back upon itself, to the
risk of great injury and even death to individual prisoners. And when
nearly all were in, and the crowd still bulged through the open doors,
as the contents of an over-full trunk bulges through its open top, these
doors were closed by main force upon it, just as you would close down
the lid of the trunk.
This was not a silent and a patient crowd like that in the barn had
been. The greater number of these men had suffered too long and too
terribly. Their state had been bad enough before this new instalment of
prisoners was thrust in upon them; now it was immeasurably worse. Here
were men pressed together by thousands in a stone hall that could not
have accommodated a hundred in comfort—pressed together so closely that
there was no room to sit or lie down.
To be sure they had air from the open gratings at each end of the hall;
but the walls on each side were reeking with moisture and sickening with
mould, and the ground floor under their feet was paved only with round
stones like those in the middle of the streets, and was in many places
worn with deep holes, where water had gathered, in which the men stood
ankle deep.
Many of these men were suffering from wounds, not serious in the
beginning, else they had not been brought here, but inflamed and fevered
by neglect and ill treatment; many were racked with neuralgia and
rheumatism from constant exposure to damp and cold; many were ill from
revolting forms of disease brought on by foul food. And added to all
this, all were suffering from hunger, thirst and weariness. And there
was no relief and no prospect of relief.
Here, over these prison doors, might have been inscribed the awful motto
over the gates of Hell:
WHO ENTERS HERE LEAVES HOPE BEHIND.
Here were agonizing groans and heart-rending prayers; heavy complainings
and bitter upbraidings; deeply breathed maledictions and fiercely
muttered vows of vengeance.
The rays of a gas lamp at the corner of the street, streaming through
the grating, lighted up the ghastly faces of these prisoners with a wild
and lurid glare. They looked like the inhabitants of Tartarus. The place
seemed at once a purgatory and a pandemonium.
Britomarte—for the first time in all her military career—shuddered with
horror.
“Keep near the grating, my dearest, with your face to the bars, so that
you may get as much fresh air as possible,” whispered a faint voice
close to her ear.
She turned quickly and saw the face of her lover, pallid in the
lamp-light.
“Justin! You here! You in this hall of horrors! Oh, I am so sorry!” she
exclaimed, in a low and anxious tone.
“And I am so glad! And I thought you would be glad to have me near you,”
he cheerfully replied.
“Not here—not in this torture chamber. Oh, Justin! weak and wounded, how
will you bear it?”
“Much better than I could bear separation from you, Britomarte,” he
earnestly answered.
“Your wound, Justin, how is it? painful?”
“Not more so than I can well endure,” he answered, smiling.
But to her wistful gaze, his white lips and wrung brow almost belied his
words.
“They might have sent you to a hospital, at least. It was inhuman to
place you here,” she said.
“But, my dearest, they placed me just where I wished to be,” he
cheerfully said.
And this was true, so true, that he had feigned a greater strength and a
quicker convalescence than he really enjoyed, in order to be sent to the
Libby.
“But how was it that I didn’t see you outside?” she inquired.
“Because it was late when I was brought up. I was one of the last to be
packed in,” he laughed.
“‘Packed in.’ Yes, that is what it is. We are lucky to be near the
grating; but how will the poor creatures in the middle of the crowd
stand it?”
“They will not be required to do so long. This is only a temporary
arrangement. I am given to understand that to-morrow morning we, the
newly arrived, will be sent to Belle Isle. This will relieve the
others.”
While Justin and Britomarte talked together in this low tone, Babel, or
rather Bedlam, was all around them. The groans rose to howls, complaints
to threats, and prayers to shrieks.
One voice from the midst of the crowd arose above all the rest:
“Water, boys—for the Lord’s sake, water! Here’s a man fainting. The
spout is in the left hand corner near the front grating. Draw the water
and pass it on here, will you?”
There was a muffled shuffling among the men nearest the water spout, and
then another voice replied:
“The cup is chained to the spout. We can’t pass it.”
Groans and curses answered this.
“Here, Justin—here is the flask of brandy, with the cup fitted to it,
that I brought for you on the field. Offer it to them, Justin,” said
Britomarte, passing the flask that the Rebels had not taken from her.
From Justin it was passed on from hand to hand, until it reached the men
nearest the water spout. They took the cup from the bottom of the flask,
over which it was fitted, and they filled it with water, and then passed
both cup and flask from hand to hand until it reached the fainting
invalid.
It seemed to be useless, for the voice that had spoken first was heard
again:
“Crowd back, boys. Crowd back, for Heaven’s sake! Never mind flattening
yourselves half to death! Crowd back, I say! This man is not fainting—he
is dying! Let him have a little room to lie down and die.”
There was an attempt at “crowding back.” The attempt involved increased
pressure and pain, and elicited renewed groans and curses. But four or
five feet of room was made, and the dying man was let down upon the
ground. The “man” was a boy of eighteen. Those immediately around him
saw his face darken with the shadow of death, saw his eyes glaze, and
heard his gasping breath, and the death rattle in his throat, and they
saw, through all, his eager anxiety and painful effort to speak.
“Don’t tell——don’t tell——don’t tell——” he began to say many times, and
many times he failed.
At length, in one supreme effort, he spoke his whole will.
“Don’t tell mother—never let her hear—how wretchedly I die!”
And with these words, his spirit passed.
And the groans and curses and vows of vengeance were renewed—more is the
pity, since the pure spirit that had just departed was doubtlessly
reconciled to all things, and at peace with all men.
It was a night of horror and agony, unutterable and indescribable. To
those who endured it, the eight hours of darkness seemed eight years of
torture. But it passed at last.
The pale, sickly dawn of day appeared. The gas in the streets was turned
off.
A little while after sunrise the prison doors were opened, and the
prisoners nearest the outlet burst forth, as the contents of an over
packed chest when the lid is raised.
Half of them were taken out, and marched, between a detachment of Rebel
infantry, through the streets of the city _en route_ for Belle Isle.
In one of the most crowded thoroughfares, they were halted before a
grim-looking building with grated windows.
“What place is that?” inquired Britomarte of the Rebel soldier beside
her.
“It is Castle Thunder,” was the gruff reply.
The officer commanding the guard came near.
“Bring that prisoner out of the lines!” he ordered, pointing to
Britomarte.
And two soldiers seized her by the two arms.
“Me!” she exclaimed in surprise, making an involuntary but perfectly
vain effort of resistance.
“Yes, you, _Miss Bridget Martin_!” said the officer.
“What are you about to do with me?” she demanded, recovering her
self-possession, and ceasing to resist where resistance would be
unavailing and undignified.
“We are going to put you in Castle Thunder; you are not to be treated as
a prisoner of war, but to be tried as a spy.”
“I!” she exclaimed, in amazement.
“Yes, _you_, Miss Bridget Martin!” replied the officer in a mocking
tone.
Britomarte looked around in despair for Justin. She knew, of course,
that he could not help her. She only wished to take leave of him, before
going into a captivity that was likely to end in death. But Justin was
nowhere to be seen. He was, in fact, several hundred yards in advance of
her in the line of march.
So Britomarte was taken into Castle Thunder, and delivered into the
custody of the officer in command of that prison. First she was led into
an office where her supposed name—Bridget Martin—was recorded in the
prison books, and where a receipt was taken from the warden for her
person. Then she was conducted to a cell opening on a corridor on the
second floor, and having a broad grated window looking out upon the
street. This cell was about seven by five in size, and was provided with
a narrow mattress laid upon the floor, and covered with a gray blanket.
There was no other furniture whatever.
Yet still, how much better her situation was here than it had been in
the Libby!
As soon as the door was closed, and the key was turned, and she found
herself alone, she sank down upon the mattress, for she was more than
half dead with fatigue, and rested with a sense of infinite relief.
When at last she could collect her thoughts, she wondered how it was
that the rebels had discovered her sex, and what had put it into their
heads that her name was Bridget Martin. At last her perspicacity
penetrated the truth of the matter—some wounded rebel on the field near
them had overheard the conversation between Justin and herself, and had
mistaken her unfamiliar name of Britomarte for the common one of Bridget
Martin. Farther it appeared that they did not know the name under which
she had served in the Union army; so, with a smile, Britomarte resolved
to leave them in ignorance of her identity, and under their mistake in
regard to her name.
She had scarcely formed this resolution when her cell-door was opened
and one of the prison guard brought in her breakfast. It was only a
small tin cup of Indian corn meal gruel; and it was unsalted; but
Britomarte was more than half-famished, and she ate this simple food
with a good relish. She asked the guard if there were many prisoners in
the building. He answered:
“Yes, Miss; four or five in every cell; but you are put here alone,
because you are a woman.”
So, then, even her guard knew her sex! But, of course! the name
inscribed upon the prison books was Bridget Martin.
She then asked the guard if she might be permitted to see the officer in
command of the prison.
He answered that he would find out as soon as she should be relieved.
When he took the empty cup away, and Britomarte found herself again
alone, she took off her military coat, ripped open its padding and took
out a number of greenbacks; and then she put on her coat again.
Late in the forenoon the commander of the prison, or some other officer
evidently in authority, came into the cell.
Britomarte arose from her sitting posture on the mattress, and stood up
to receive her visitor.
There was neither chair nor stool, so she could not ask him to sit down.
“What is it you wish to say to me?” he inquired.
A vivid blush overspread the face of Britomarte as she answered:
“I wish to know whether I may be permitted to purchase garments suitable
to my sex?”
“It is a pity you ever abandoned them,” said the officer.
“I do not think so; I have done good service to my country while wearing
this uniform. But you have not answered the question.”
“I have no authority to answer it. But I will make inquiries.”
“Thank you,” said Britomarte.
And the visitor, who had appeared at her summons, like a ghost evoked
from the shades, now disappeared in the same manner.
Two or three days passed before the privilege she sued for was granted
to her. But at length she was permitted, through the agency of the
prison officials, to purchase clothing and re-assume the dress of her
sex. Also a chair was provided her, and coarse but clean sheets, for all
of which she paid heavily in Federal notes; but thus she enjoyed a
comparative degree of comfort.