for Belle Isle; as the dismal name was sounded our spirits fell, for
we had heard the stories of suffering there, but to Belle Isle we went
and were conducted to one corner, containing about an acre and a half
of ground, enclosed by a low breastwork and a deadline. This part of
the island was so low that the spring freshets invariably covered it.
The soil is composed largely of sand and is prolific of fleas, bugs
and other kinds of insects too disagreeable to mention. The place
was extremely hot by day and, through its lowness, cold by night;
alternately roasted and all but frozen we passed seven miserable weeks
upon Belle Isle, but why thus named beautiful we could never imagine.
For three weeks we were without shelter, then came six good A tents
for every squad of one hundred men. When it rained or was colder than
usual, we were wont to lower the tent upon us, using it as a blanket;
here we would lie and all but smother till the call for rations was
sounded the next morning at about nine o'clock. Our rations consisted
of a piece of corn bread, 5 x 2-1/2 in. in size and a small piece of
rancid bacon or boiled fresh beef. Towards three in the afternoon a
half pint of soup, composed of wormy beans, was issued and, though
the hogs of the keeper usually tasted it first, we relished it and
were glad to get it. While we thought this pretty hard fare, the time
was to come later when we looked back upon these days as those of
comparative plenty.
By new arrivals our numbers were soon swollen to fully 6,000 men,
among them being a portion of a regiment of Germans so new to the
country that they were unacquainted with our language, hence a deal
of trouble for them, as in their ignorance they would wander over the
dead line after a chip for fuel, but they never returned. During the
day we were permitted to go to the water, through a narrow passage,
as often as we pleased, but at night only five were permitted to go
at a time. A sergeant (H. C. French) of Co. G, our regiment, having
taken his turn, was coming back and of course there was a rush to be
the next one to go down, by the boys in the yard, and in their haste
they pushed the sergeant, who was quite weak from illness, into the
ditch of the dead line. Without a word of warning he was instantly
shot dead by one of the sentries, the bullet passing through his
head. This sentinel was a young fellow of sixteen years who, with his
mother, while living near Mitchell's Station had been supplied with
food during the whole of the previous winter by the commissary of our
Brigade. We were told that he was paid for this act of ingratitude by
a two weeks' furlough home.
An incident will illustrate the straits to which the lack of food will
drive otherwise decent men. We were counted regularly once a week,
usually on Saturdays, the object being to find out whether any were
escaping. To effect this numbering we were filed out, one by one, into
a vacant lot which bordered on the river. While here one day, several
of the boys completely buried themselves in the sand, hoping to get
away from the island in the following night. No loss was suspected
on our return but, during the afternoon, a poor hungry wretch went to
the gate and, calling for the sergeant of the guard, offered to reveal
something of importance if he would give him a loaf of bread. The
rebel agreed, whereupon he was shown where the Yankees were concealed
in the sand. It is only fair for the sergeant to state that he knocked
the informer down with the butt of his musket, saying that if he were
as mean as that, he would go and kill himself.
The Confederate mode of punishing petty offenses among us was most
cruel. The culprit was placed astride a tall, carpenter's horse, some
six feet in height, and ropes were tied to his feet, fastened to the
ground and then drawn as taut as possible; his hands were fastened
behind him and tied to the horse. In this condition the unhappy
sufferer was obliged to pass three or four hours; most always they
were taken down insensible and some of them never recovered from this
brutal usage. On the 5th of October came orders to be ready to march.
Joyfully we obeyed, confident that our destination was the land of
the Stars and Stripes, though rations of a loaf and a half of corn
bread clearly pointed in another direction, our halting place being
on the south side of the James where, by the side of the Richmond and
Danville R. R., we lay all day eating our three days' rations. At 5 p.
m. a train of baggage cars drew up and the painful fact dawned upon us
that we were simply going to exchange one prison for another.
So closely were we packed, lying or sitting was out of the question
and all had to stand. We reached Salisbury, N. C., three days after
leaving Belle Isle, and in the evening of the 8th we were turned
into the prison enclosure where we saw very little to invite us,
though the place was comparatively clean then. The light of fires
revealed the shivering forms of unhappy prisoners who had preceded
us to this place of detention. It was one of the coldest of autumnal
nights and we came so late no provision had been made for us, so,
hungry as we were after fasting two days, tired and cold, we faced
the uncomfortable night. Worn out with hunger and fatigue, we threw
ourselves on the frozen ground with no covering save the heavens,
which were very cold that night; dressed, the most of us, in summer
blouses with no underclothing, it was one continuous shiver till the
rising sun gladdened our eyes and warmed our bodies. We lay down close
to each other but, as the night grew colder and the wind whistled more
sharply, the end men with one side exposed, unable to endure the cold
longer, would leave for some fire or exercise till at last the entire
line would dwindle away.
A day's ration of half a loaf of wheat bread and a nice slice of
meat put us in proper condition to examine our quarters. The field
comprised about seven acres, somewhat triangular in shape with a
twelve-foot-high board-fence surrounding it, on whose outside, about
four feet from the top, was a continuous platform for the sentries.
Facing the entrance were three little brick houses about 30 x 15 and
at their right, at right angles, were three other similar buildings;
in one corner stood a large brick edifice, formerly a cotton
factory, now called the penitentiary, adjoining which was the prison
cook-house; near by were two wooden buildings, one a hospital, the
other occupied by citizen prisoners; of the large structure, three
rooms were occupied by deserters from our army, and two others by
rebel deserters, than whom a more graceless lot I never saw. On the
north side of the prison-yard and back of the brick buildings were
four wooden shanties, built of rough timbers and occupied by our
officers who were captured when we were, separated from us only by the
beat and bayonet of the sentinel.
Wood was brought in and distributed in a very peculiar manner, since
everybody attacked the load at once and to the strong went the major
part of the fuel, while the weaker men had to suffer. On our arrival,
the whole enclosure was covered with grass, but it soon disappeared.
Meanwhile the days were growing colder and our appetites keener; on
our way hither I had sold the stockings off my feet for a boiled beet,
now I exchanged a good pair of pantaloons for a miserable rebel pair
and five dollars, Confederate scrip, and though my blouse was about
worn out I felt as happy as a lark in so doing, for by the proceeds
I was able to buy another pair of socks and had enough money left
for little extras of food for a week or ten days. There were only
three wells in the enclosure (four more were dug later) which yielded
hardly water enough for drink, thus putting bathing entirely out of
the question. There being no bucket for drawing the water, we supplied
its place by our tin cups, which we lowered with strings made from
suspenders and bootlegs. Through constant dipping the wells were
transformed into mudholes, so that a nominal quart of water was really
one-fourth red clay.
Made desperate by the prospects of the coming winter, a plan for an
escape was formed to be led by General Joseph Hayes (formerly Colonel
Eighteenth Massachusetts Volunteers commanding First Brigade, Second
Division, Fifth Corps; captured at the Weldon R. R.) but discovery of
the plot resulted in the removal of the officers to Danville, Va.,
and the collapse of the scheme. For the distribution of food the
prisoners were divided into divisions of one thousand each and these
into squads of one hundred, each one being looked after by a sergeant
from its own numbers. About the 1st of November tents were issued,
two to a squad, ours receiving for one the fly of an officer's tent,
the other a small McClellan, the two affording protection for only a
small part of the squad, and those who got any good from them were the
immediate friends of the sergeant. All others had to seek cover under
ground which they secured by digging holes, somewhat larger than those
of woodchucks, but of the same general nature. Pitiable indeed was the
condition of the men by this time, since the heavy rains had turned
the whole enclosure into a veritable pig-sty whose soft red clay could
be made into bricks without further mixing.
The death-rate increased at an alarming rate, so that from forty to
fifty were carried out each day to the dead-house. Nearly all of the
workshops had been changed into hospitals, also two floors of the old
factory building. The dead-house was one of the lower floors of one of
the work-shops where, when the weather was bad and the dead were not
readily removed, as many as eighty corpses, stark and cold, could be
seen piled one upon the other like corded wood. On the coming of the
cart to remove them, they were thrown into the same with the least
formality possible and so carried off. As we had no means of bathing,
one of the worst features of the yard was the mass of animated insect
life. Oh! the horrors of such creatures! Through them it might be said
that we suffered a thousand deaths. Never at rest, always vigorous,
they inhabited every nook and crevice of that dismal yard. They were
worse than death. The terrors of a Spanish Inquisition could not bring
to bear a mode of torture so vile as these filthy vermin.
Then the state of the yard! The principal diseases were dysentery and
pneumonia, so that disease bred corruption and malaria. Those who
were taken sick, if their squad sergeant were attentive, were carried
to Hospital No. 3, and if, on examination, it were evident that the
ailment was incurable, he was sent to a hospital to die. The good
wheat bread of our earlier rations was changed to corn bread, made
of the coarsest cob meal and given to us with rancid molasses. Meat
was issued, after a time, about once in fifteen days and then at the
rate of eight pounds of beef and bones to a hundred men. At such times
all parts of the creatures were used; the heads with eyes and horns
still attached were often issued and in some way made victuals of. All
small bones capable of being chewed were swallowed as a dog gulps his
osseous food and the larger and harder ones were crushed with stones
and boiled for hours; the soup thus obtained was thought a great
luxury. To obtain salt a day's ration would be exchanged for enough of
this necessity to last a fortnight or so, of course the exchange meant
a fast for the day whose ration was traded.
Occasionally flour or meal was given us in the raw and without salt;
this was cooked into paste and gruel and very thankful all were to
get it; oftentimes the prisoners were kept on one-half the regular
rations, possibly one-quarter of the time, and sometimes we went as
many as three days with no bread whatever. It was this starvation
process that drove good men to enlist in the southern army. About
the 12th of November a thick cup of rice soup was given out; the
next and the following day, we got only rice water, then came flour
without salt. Wood was now issued regularly, each squad getting four
sticks of eight foot timber. This particular afternoon it was green
pine. To add to our troubles a mist arose, so that the only way we
could cook our food was by piling the logs on top of each other and
placing a coal underneath which we took turns in keeping alive with
our breath, till all had cooked their meal. It was a hapless sight
that we afforded that afternoon, black with dirt and smoke, as we ate
our food. We had gone so long without food that we had almost lost the
sense of hunger and this little meal only served to wake our appetite.
Before eating my ration, I could walk about the yard without resting;
afterwards I was so weak that I fainted in going to my tent, for I was
failing rapidly; my old pantaloons were worn out and slit from the
knee downward; the sleeves of my shirt and blouse were almost gone, my
shoes and socks worn through, my hair matted with dirt and filth, my
complexion that of a negro, my body truly was more dead than alive.
My condition was that of my associates in misery, and it was then
that the rebel authorities opened a recruiting station in our midst,
offering a loaf of bread and fifty dollars in gold to each one who
would enlist; six hundred went out. With the exception of a few
desperate characters, all hearts were softened at the sight of so much
misery, the faint hearted had mostly enlisted in the rebel ranks and
those who remained were true blue and had determined, live or die, to
stand fast to their principles. Without anything being said, oaths
began to be dropped and testaments to be read; while cant was never so
ridiculous and intolerable, true religion and a pure morality began to
be the life of the mass.
About the last of November, a friend with whom I had become acquainted
on Belle Isle was appointed wardmaster of Hospital No. 5; hearing
of my condition, he sent for me. I went and was received like a
brother, the dirt washed from me, there being plenty of water in the
hospitals, clothes taken from men who had died were given me and I was
nursed, cared for and fed out of his own rations till my life, which
was slowly ebbing away, was coaxed back again. This friend, a total
stranger before my capture, was a sergeant in a Pennsylvania cavalry
regiment and our acquaintance began at a devotional meeting where were
laid the foundations of the strongest Christian friendship. He was
a veritable ministering angel to all those who came under his care,
and from his conduct I learned that Christianity was not merely a
sentiment but a life, not an idea but a reality.
As remarked before, few cases were admitted to the hospital that were
not considered hopeless; from our ward of two rooms, having forty
patients, five or six would be carried to the dead-house every night.
Army surgeons are bad enough anywhere, but those provided at Salisbury
were worse than the common run. Coming in at the time appointed, they
never came at any other, they would go along the line of men lying on
the floor, hitting the patient with their feet to attract attention,
would contemptuously inquire, "Well, what's the matter with you
to-day?" and, without waiting for a reply, would prescribe any one of
the medicines that happened to cross their minds. There were, indeed,
three honorable exceptions, but they could only express their sympathy
by words of encouragement. Our ward doctor, the most of the time, was
a medical student of the latter class.
November 25th came a decided effort to break out; unfortunately the
plot had not been worked up so that a sufficient number understood
the plan, so that the effort was made at two instead of four o'clock,
when only three divisions had been prepared. On the appearance of
the relief at that time, someone gave the watchword, "Who's for
liberty?" and, as quick as a flash, every one of those sentinels was
disarmed and the boys were using their guns against the sentinels
on the fence. The noise of the struggle of course soon brought the
troops to the scene and forming on the fence began firing. If theirs
had been the only resistance, we might have succeeded; unfortunately
for us, the Sixty-ninth North Carolina, a newly recruited regiment,
was just outside, awaiting transportation, and they were brought to
the support of the guards, and many of the Salisbury citizens, afraid
of their property if we got away, trotted down with their fowling
pieces and old flintlocks. The fence was soon covered with enemies
who began a murderous fire on every tent in the yard, though not a
third part of the prisoners knew what was up until it was too late
and then, recognizing the hopelessness of the effort, everyone tried
to hide himself from the terrible fire. The guards having recovered
from their fright proceeded to exercise vengeance by discharging the
two pieces of artillery loaded with boiler screws amongst us. No one
knows how many were killed, but sixty or seventy were wounded, most
of them lying in their tents. The wounded were all placed in the same
hospital, were all treated with the same surgical tools and gangrene
set in with all, and all, save two or three, died.
Of my company (E) twenty-four were captured, the most of them strong
healthy men. As the winter advanced and the cold grew more intense,
many of them lost hope and dropped away. From my position in the
hospital, to which I had been elected after recovering sufficient
strength, I was able to be of help to them. I passed out crust-coffee
and opium pills whenever I could get them. The stoutest hearted man
in the company was the first to die. A native of Maine, a blacksmith
by trade, Jones seemed the one best fitted to endure hardship,
yet, allowing himself to become disheartened, he quickly fell a
prey to disease. On one of my visits to the boys I found one of
them, a corporal (Glines), failing fast. I asked permission of the
superintendent to admit him to the hospital as a patient and it was
granted. Two days later, I heard that another corporal (Horton) of
my company, a near neighbor and friend at home, wished to see me. I
found him lying in the mud of his tent, and I knew by the look of his
face that he could not live. He asked me if I could do anything for
him or, at least, give him some opium. I got some of the pills for
him and told him I would do what I could towards getting him into the
hospital. Knowing that he could not live much longer he said, "Tell
the folks at home I died trying to do my duty and thinking of them."
Going back to the ward, I besought the privilege of bringing him to
the hospital. The superintendent replied that there was no vacancy,
but would be on the morrow, but I might go after supper and get him
and give him a place under a bunk. I went upstairs and cooked our
scanty meal and, while doing so, the night patients were brought in.
While eating my supper, one of the nurses, a pompous fellow, came in
and said that one of the patients was a young fellow who insisted on
seeing me before going under his bunk. On being told that I was busy
upstairs the nurse said he whined, "I wish you would call Johnnie, one
moment," but he put a stop to his "nonsense," as the nurse said, by
showing him his place for the night and said that he had fainted in
taking it. Indignant that my friend had been denied so small a favor,
I hurried down to the place where he had been put and cried, "Fred,"
and, as no answer came I supposed him asleep and thought I would not
disturb him. After finishing my work at midnight, I went upstairs
to retire; shortly afterward the nurse in attendance called that a
corporal, under the bunks, was dead. Hurrying down, I found my friend
stiff and cold in death in the middle of the floor. A friend and
playmate from boyhood, the merriest boy of us all, smart in school,
most joyous in sport, he was the life of our youthful circle. We had
enlisted together; his parents, brothers and sisters were all well
known to me and I must tell the sad story to them--how he had died in
a hospital of which I was an attendant, yet had been unable to comfort
him in his dying hours. The sight of my grief was a good lesson to the
nurses who were more ready to grant favors thereafter. Horton, the
other corporal, died the same night.
A great many died from the effects of the cold weather; numbers of
them had their feet frost-bitten and, as they were not taken care of,
mortification set in, to be followed by death. Many a poor fellow,
weak with disease, left his tent at night, and, stumbling in the
darkness would fall and being too weak to call for help would be found
in the morning a frozen corpse. Finally, without any warning, on the
to us ever memorable 20th of February, '65, orders came to have the
sick ready for removal. It was with joyful hearts that we obeyed and,
when the gate was opened that we might carry them out, we could hardly
contain ourselves for joy. Only when the cars had fully started could
we realize that Salisbury, with its filth and dirt, its misery and
degradation, its dying and dead, was being left for good. With feeble
voices we sang "Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow" and many a
prayer of thanksgiving was breathed that we had lived to see the glad
hour.
SERGT. MAJOR C. K. CONN
Sergt. Major Chas. K. Conn, originally of Company K, was wounded May 8,
'64, captured and carried to Richmond. After recovering from his wounds
he was retained as a clerk, one of his duties being to make out the
lists of those who were to be paroled. Having a happy thought one day
while preparing a roll of names, he wrote his own among those of men
about to start for God's country, and when the party in charge called
for those thus enumerated, Conn stepped forth with the invalids to
whom parole privileges were confined in 1864. One of the Confederate
officers, noticing him among the sick men, asked him what he was doing
there. To the query the quick witted Yankee replied, "I heard my name
called and so responded." The facts in the case were not discovered
till after Conn had gone too far to be called back, though he felt
extremely shaky until he was safely aboard the Union vessel.
J. F. LESLIE'S RUSE
This Company K man thought his liberty worth risking something for;
captured Aug. 19, '64, he too had been taken to Richmond, "Libby" and
Belle Isle, where he informed his comrades he purposed trying the
sick dodge by way of the hospital, for he had discerned that the sick
and wounded would go first. His friends tried to dissuade him, saying
that he would surely be found out and might be made to suffer all the
more on account of his attempted cheat. He tried the rebel doctor
every morning with his complaints, but was careful to take none of
the latter's medicine, throwing all of it away. At last the surgeon,
suspecting shamming on the Yankee's part, prepared a Spanish-fly
plaster, 4 x 8 inches in size, which could not be disposed of as his
medicine had been. Leslie put it on his body, keeping it on all night,
and when he visited the doctor in the morning and was asked if it had
had any effect he was able to show a blister the full size of the
plaster. This convinced the officer that our man was not shamming, for
as he said, "Any man who could stand that could not be 'playing it',"
so he was sent to the hospital in Richmond, "Yankee, 21," as it was
called. On getting there he hardly dared move for fear of being sent
back. One morning the hospital doctor, saying that he would give him
something to make him sleep, left a potion with the injunction to make
sure that it was taken; there was no way open but to take it, but it
was spat out the moment the steward passed to the next patient. The
look of astonishment on the doctor's face the next morning convinced
the patient that it was a dose for final sleep that the surgeon had
prepared; at any rate he never came near Leslie's cot again. In a few
days the "artful dodger" was paroled, while his comrades were sent to
Salisbury and Andersonville where the most of them died.
CORPORAL CHARLES H. BARNES' STORY.