I had rather than forty pound I were at home.--TWELFTH NIGHT,
OR WHAT YOU WILL.
[Sidenote: TRANSFERRED TO CASTLE THUNDER.]
On the evening of September 2d, all the northern citizens were
transferred from Libby to Castle Thunder. The open air caused a strange
sensation of faintness. We grew weak and dizzy in walking the three
hundred yards between the prisons.
That night we were thrust into an unventilated, filthy, subterranean
room, nearly as loathsome as the Vicksburg jail. But we smoked our
pipes serenely, remembering that "Fortune is turning, and inconstant,
and variations, and mutabilities," and wondering what that capricious
lady would next decree. At intervals, our sleep upon the dirty floor
was disturbed by the playful gambols of the rats over our hands and
faces.
The next morning we were drawn up in line, and our names registered
by an old warden named Cooper, who, in spectacles and faded silk hat,
looked like one of Dickens's beadles. His query whether we possessed
moneys, was uniformly answered in the negative. When he asked if we had
knives or concealed weapons, all gave the same response, except one
waggish prisoner, who averred that he had a ten-inch columbiad in his
vest pocket.
The Commandant of Castle Thunder was Captain George W. Alexander,
an ex-Marylander, who had participated with "the French Lady"[18]
in the capture of the steamer St. Nicholas, near Point Lookout, and
was afterward confined for some months at Fort McHenry. He formerly
belonged to the United States Navy, in the capacity of assistant
engineer. He made literary pretensions, writing thin plays for the
Richmond theaters, and sorry Rebel war-ballads. Pompous and excessively
vain, delighting in gauntlets, top-boots, huge revolvers, and a red
sash, he was sometimes furiously angry, but, in the main, kind to
captives. He caused us to be placed in the "Citizens' Room," which he
called the prison parlor. Its walls were whitewashed, its four windows
were iron-barred, its air tainted by exhalations from the adjoining
"Condemned Cell," which was fearfully foul. It was lighted with gas,
and had a single stove for cooking, a few bunks, and a clean floor.
[18] Captain Thomas, in the character of a French lady, took passage
on the steamer at Baltimore, with several followers disguised as
mechanics. Near Point Lookout they overpowered the crew and captured
the vessel, converting her into a privateer. Afterward, while
attempting to repeat the enterprise, they were made prisoners.
Castle Thunder contained about fifteen hundred inmates--northern
citizens, southern Unionists, Yankee deserters, Confederate convicts,
and eighty-two free negroes, captured with Federal officers, who
employed them as servants in the field.
[Sidenote: MORE ENDURABLE THAN LIBBY.]
The prison's reputation was worse than that of Libby; but, as usual, we
found the devil not quite so black as he was painted. We missed sadly
the society of the Union officers, but the Commandant and _attachés_,
unlike the Turners, treated us courteously, never indulging in epithets
and insults.
In the Citizens' Room were two northerners, named Lewis and Scully,
sent to Richmond in the secret service of our Government, by General
Scott, before the battle of Bull Run, and confined ever since. One of
them was a Catholic, through the influence of whose priest both had
thus far been preserved. But they held existence by a frail tenure, and
I could not wonder that long anxiety had turned Lewis's hair gray, and
given to both nervous, haggard faces.
In all southern prisons I was forced to admire the fidelity with which
the Roman Church looks after its members. Priests frequently visited
all places of confinement to inquire for Catholics, and minister both
to their spiritual and bodily needs. The chaplain at Castle Thunder was
a Presbyterian. He scattered documents, and preached every Sunday in
the yard or one of the large rooms. He would have given tracts on the
sin of dancing to men without any legs.
The Rev. William G. Scandlin and Dr. McDonald, of Boston--agents of the
United States Sanitary Commission--were held with us. The doctor was
dangerously ill from dysentery. The Commission had never discriminated
between suffering Unionists and Confederates, extending to both the
same bounty and tenderness; yet the Rebels kept these gentlemen, whom
they had captured on the way to Harper's Ferry with sanitary supplies,
for more than three months.
[Sidenote: DETERMINED NOT TO DIE.]
"Junius" was very feeble; but during the weary months which followed,
he manifested wonderful vitality. His indignation toward the enemy, and
his earnest determination not to die in a Rebel prison, greatly helped
his endurance. Like the Duchess of Marlboro', he refused either to be
bled or to give up the ghost.
A Virginia citizen was brought in on the charge of attempting to trade
in "greenbacks,"--a penitentiary offense under Confederate law. Before
he had been in our room five minutes one of the sub-wardens entered,
asking:
"Is there anybody here who has 'greenbacks?' I am paying four dollars
for one to-day."
The negroes were used for scrubbing and carrying messages from the
office of the prison to the different apartments. Invariably our
friends, they surreptitiously conveyed notes to acquaintances in the
other rooms, and often to Unionists outside.
[Sidenote: A NEGRO CRUELLY WHIPPED.]
While we were at Libby, an intelligent mulatto prisoner from
Philadelphia was whipped for some trivial offense. His piercing shrieks
followed each application of the lash; one of my messmates, who counted
them, stated that he received three hundred and twenty-seven blows. A
month afterward I examined his back, and found it still gridironed with
scars.
At the Castle the negroes frequently received from five to twenty-five
lashes. I saw boys not more than eight years old turned over a barrel
and cowhided. One woman upward of sixty was whipped in the same manner.
This negress was known as "Old Sally;" she earned a good deal of
Confederate money by washing for prisoners, and spent nearly the whole
of it in purchasing supplies for unfortunates who were without means.
She had been confined in different prisons for nearly three years.
The next oldest inmate was a Little Dorrit of a cur, born and raised in
the Castle. Notwithstanding her life-long associations, she manifested
the usual canine antipathy toward negroes and tatterdemalions.
[Sidenote: THE EXECUTION OF SPENCER KELLOGG.]
Soon after our arrival, Spencer Kellogg, of Philadelphia, one of our
fellow-prisoners, was executed as a Yankee spy. He had been in the
secret service of the United States, but belonged to the western navy
at the time of his capture. He bore himself with great coolness and
self-possession, assuring the Rebels that he was glad to die for his
country. On the scaffold he did not manifest the slightest tremor.
While the rope was being adjusted, he accidentally knocked off the hat
of a bystander, to whom he turned and said, with great suavity: "I beg
your pardon, sir."
[Sidenote: STEADFASTNESS OF SOUTHERN UNIONISTS.]
The loyalty of the southern Unionists was intense. One Tennessean,
whose hair was white with age, was taken before Major Carrington, the
Provost-Marshal, who said to him:
"You are so old that I have concluded to send you home, if you will
take the oath."
"Sir," replied the prisoner, "if you knew me personally, I should think
you meant to insult me. I have lived seventy years, and, God helping
me, I will not now do an act to embitter the short remnant of my life,
and one which I should regret through eternity. I have four boys in
the Union army; they all went there by my advice. Were I young enough
to carry a musket I would be with them to-day fighting against the
Rebellion."
The sturdy old Loyalist at last died in prison.
There were many kindred cases. Nearly all the men of this class
confined with us were from mountain regions of the South. Many were
ragged, all were poor. They very seldom heard from their families.
They were compelled to live solely upon the prison rations, often a
perpetual compromise with starvation. Some had been in confinement for
two or three years, and their homes desolated and burned. Unlike the
North, they knew what war meant.
Yet the lamp of their loyalty burned with inextinguishable
brightness. They never denounced the Government, which sometimes
neglected them to a criminal degree. They never desponded, through
the gloomiest days, when imbecility in the Cabinet and timidity in
the field threatened to ruin the Union Cause. They seldom yielded an
iota of principle to their keepers. Hungry, cold, and naked--waiting,
waiting, waiting, through the slow months and years--often sick, often
dying, they continued true as steel. History has few such records of
steadfast devotion. Greet it reverently with uncovered head, as the
Holy of Holies in our temple of Patriotism!