PRISONS AND PRISONERS
It is not my purpose to give a complete history of the military prisons
in St. Louis during the war. There were several of them. They were for
the most part improvised to meet the exigencies of the hour. The
military authorities seized certain buildings belonging to the disloyal,
which, by a little alteration, were easily and quickly made suitable for
the reception of political prisoners. Among these buildings was the
slave-pen, mentioned in the preceding chapter, at the corner of Fifth
and Myrtle Streets. Another was the McDowell Medical College on Gratiot
Street.
Dr. McDowell, who founded this college, and had conducted it
successfully for many years, was one of the staunchest of pro-slavery
men, and a pronounced and bitter secessionist. He was tall and imposing
in appearance. His long, white locks, thrust back of his ears, hung down
over his coat collar. His eyes gleamed from beneath shaggy, gray
eyebrows. Any stranger would have noted him in a crowd as an unusual
character. Although he was old, his step had the elasticity of youth. He
was an antagonist that few men cared to encounter. For years he had been
active in politics. On the stump he at times denounced those of opposite
views in terms of unmeasured severity. On one occasion, having some
apprehension that his opprobrious epithets might provoke violent
opposition, just as he began his speech, as a warning to all
antagonists, he drew his revolver and ostentatiously laid it down on the
desk before him and then proceeded with his fiery harangue. At the
beginning of the war he left our city for the more congenial society of
the Southern Confederacy, and the military authorities confiscated his
college building and made it serve the cause that its owner hated and
denounced.
[Illustration:
GRATIOT STREET PRISON, FORMERLY THE MCDOWELL MEDICAL COLLEGE.
[_Page 188_
]
The military prisons of St. Louis were sanitary and well kept. No one
within them was permitted unnecessarily to suffer. All had enough
wholesome food. The fare of the prisoners was as good as that of the
soldiers who guarded them. In winter, so far as it was possible, they
were kept warm and comfortably clad. Most of them were incarcerated, not
for ordinary criminal acts, but because taken in arms against the United
States, or detected in aiding those who were intent on breaking up the
Union. Not a few of them had been accustomed to the luxuries of life,
and could not but contrast their prison with the homes from which they
had come. Still, while they inevitably suffered more or less, taking
everything into consideration, the government treated them with great
leniency. Their friends were often permitted not only to minister to
their necessities, but also to eke out their prison fare with the
delicacies of the season.
But a few incidents, which came under my observation, and in some of
which I was an active participant, will more clearly reveal what
transpired in those military prisons than any general statements that I
could make, however full and just they might be. Early in the war I
received a note from an officer at the Arsenal, stating that the son of
an honored Baptist minister of Illinois was a prisoner in the
Guard-house and wished me to visit him. I at once went to see the young
man in his prison-house. I found him in a wretched plight. The
Guard-house was far from being a model of neatness. The young man’s
clothing was begrimed and repulsive, his face and hands unwashed, his
hair unkempt, and to his foot was riveted a chain to which was attached
a heavy iron ball. He was cowed in spirit, and had nearly lost heart and
hope. He timidly told me his story. He was a boy scarcely out of his
teens. He had patriotically enlisted in the Union army, but having had a
very imperfect notion of the rigorous discipline to which every soldier
must necessarily be subjected, he had grown weary of his task and more
than once had tried to desert, not fully realizing how heinous his
offence was. I saw at a glance that, instead of being cast down on
account of his heavy punishment, he ought to be grateful that he had not
been court-martialed and shot. While his condition aroused my sympathy,
I laid before him the gravity of his crime, then vainly pleaded with the
military authorities for his release. They argued that his offence was
so great he richly deserved further punishment, and that his release
would be detrimental to the discipline of the army. The boy at last
became very sick in his prison. His father, large both in body and in
heart, came, and so put the case of his son before the officers in
command, that they discharged him from the army.
This case was a type of many others. Some young men, among the hundreds
of thousands that enlisted in the Northern and Southern armies, failed
adequately to count the cost of what they so enthusiastically undertook
to do. Two young men of St. Louis, who enlisted in the Confederate army,
were doing duty under Price, in Missouri. November had come with its
chilling storms of rain and sleet; and without a tent they were
compelled to spend a night in the shelterless field. They had gathered
some logs and sticks and were endeavoring, as the gusts of wind swept
over them, to light a fire; but their kindling was wet and the wind
would quickly blow out their matches. Shivering with cold that seemed to
pierce to the very marrow of their bones, looking in blank despair on
those wet sticks and logs, one of them said: “Joe, soldiering is not
what it is cracked up to be. It is just hell, and I am going to get out
of it as soon as I can.” Still he was an ardent Southerner, but just for
a little his burning zeal was damped and cooled by a chill November
rain.
But my chief experiences were with Confederate prisoners. While the
disloyal of my own denomination abhorred my politics and exercised at
best a rather strained and attenuated brotherly love towards me, when,
for any cause, they were so unfortunate as to get into prison, they
often urgently appealed to me for succor.
Out on the Gravois road, a few miles west of the city, lived a Baptist
preacher. He had sandy hair, a florid face, a muscular frame, and was
about six feet in height. While rough in his manners, he was a man of
great force. Brought up, or as he said, “raised,” in Mississippi, he was
an uncompromising rebel. Late in the autumn of 1861, up in the State, at
the town of Mexico, in a dark night, he swiftly rode on horseback
through the lines of the Federal troops stationed there, and as he did
so holloed: “Hurrah for Jeff Davis.” He was tracked to his home and
arrested. He appeared at my door about nine o’clock in the morning, in a
buggy, sitting between two United States officers. One of them rang my
bell and I went out to see their prisoner. While he heartily despised me
for my loyalty, he had evidently concluded that I was just the man to
help him in his dire extremity. I asked the officers on what charge he
had been arrested. They said that they had not been informed. I then
asked him the same question, and he said that he did not know. He told
no lie, but at the same time he could have very accurately guessed.
Still, he could not have been reasonably expected to incriminate himself
before the officers who had him in charge. He blubbered over his sad
plight and entreated me to intercede with the provost marshal on his
behalf. His tears, however, were not on account of his misdemeanor; he
evidently cried because he had been caught. Nevertheless, I told him
that I would do what I could for him.
A heavy damp snow was falling fast. I had to go on foot through it fully
a mile and a half to intercede for this enemy of my country; while he
rode to his prison-house in a buggy at the government’s expense. On my
way I met one of my deacons, a physician. He was by birth a Kentuckian,
but staunchly loyal. Thinking that I had no right to expose myself to
that pitiless storm, he asked me in peremptory tones where I was going.
I told him. He then wished to know what offence the imprisoned preacher
had committed. I replied that I did not certainly know, but a report was
abroad that he had ridden in a dark night through the picket line of the
Federal army at Mexico, and, having been called upon to halt, had put
spurs to his horse, and had holloed as he rode at breakneck speed to
elude the musket-balls of the soldiers, “Hurrah for Jeff Davis!” The
deacon cried out in indignation, “You go home out of this storm and let
him sweat.” But I could not break my word to the prisoner, so I trudged
on, saw the provost marshal, and pleaded as earnestly as I could for my
incarcerated brother. He said that he would grant me anything that I
might ask within the bounds of reason, but on account of the imperative
demands upon him, he could not try the prisoner until the next day.
Having done my best at the office of the provost marshal, I walked a
mile through the damp snow, that was still copiously falling, to the
prison at the corner of Fifth and Myrtle Streets, to make known to my
rebel neighbor the result of my effort on his behalf. When I told him
that his case could not be heard till the next day, he said in a
disappointed tone: “Then, I must stay here all night,—it is a horrible
place.” “Yes,” I quickly replied, “it is a slave-pen.” His eyes filled
with tears as he said, “I never sold a slave.” His reply made me regret
the thrust that I had inconsiderately given him. But in a moment he
added, “I wish that I had some apples and tobacco.” Though I did not use
tobacco myself I went through the storm about a mile, purchased for him
out of my own pocket the desired articles, carried them back to him, and
giving him my best wishes, I bade him good day, leaving him in that old
slave-pen to his tobacco, apples and thoughts.
The next morning he was brought before the Military court, which having
heard his case, through its great leniency decided, in spite of his
grave offence, to discharge him. Returning to his home he had to go by
my door; but he did not call to thank me for what I had done on his
behalf; neither did he write me, nor did he ever in any way express the
slightest gratitude or appreciation of what I did for him on that stormy
day in order to secure his deliverance from the slave-pen prison.
A word more in reference to so extraordinary a character may not be
amiss. Many months afterwards he had the brass to come to me again.
Without any allusion to our relations in the past, he at once went on to
say, that General Schofield by a military order had taken away the
firearms of all in his neighborhood, and among the rest his shotgun had
been seized and confiscated; that wild turkeys were coming into his
cornfield, and he wished me to ask the general to grant him a permit to
buy a shotgun so that he might shoot them. Making no allusion to what I
had done for him in 1861, I asked him, “Are you a Union man?” He
replied, “Yes, in the Constitution.” “Why,” I said, “do you say in the
Constitution? Why do you not say, yes, I am a Union man?” “Well,” he
answered, “the fact is, I am a secessionist.” “Why,” said I, “did you
not then honestly say so?” “Oh! I don’t want to talk about that,” he
responded, “I want to get a shotgun.” I then said to him, “I will ask
the general to grant you a permit to get one on the condition that, if
Missouri becomes a free State, you will leave it forever.” He said that
he would gladly agree to that since he would not live in a free State.
So I went with him to the military headquarters and said to the general:
“This is Rev. Mr. ——, a Baptist minister; under your order his shotgun
was taken away from him. The wild turkeys are coming into his cornfield
and he has nothing to shoot them with. I cannot vouch for his loyalty,
but I feel quite sure that if he has a shotgun he will not shoot
black-Republicans, and he wishes you to give him a permit to buy one.”
The general replied, “I will grant the permit, if you say so.” “Well,” I
responded, “I think it safe to do so;” and writing out the permit he
handed it to the secession preacher, who went away happy. I never saw
him again. A friend told me that a few months afterwards he heard him
bitterly denounce me in a large public assembly.
But let us now turn to another scene. On Thanksgiving Day of 1861, a
secession family, living next door to me, determined to cheer some of
their disloyal friends shut up in the Gratiot Street prison, by setting
before them an abundant and delicious dinner. Their neighbors of like
political views threw themselves with ardor into the scheme. Early in
the day baskets full of appetizing food were brought from every
direction, until these parcels, piled one upon another, quite covered
the floor of their front hall. Then a covered wagon appeared at the
door. Into it all these tempting viands were hastily packed and carried
to the military prison. Those in charge of them asked the officer of the
day, if they could give the prisoners a Thanksgiving dinner. He assured
them that it would give him great pleasure to receive the food that had
been so thoughtfully and kindly provided, but since it was contrary to
orders to allow any outsiders to enter the prison, he would himself
distribute the contents of the baskets and be careful that the most
needy should not be overlooked. Two Iowa regiments that had just arrived
had been sent down to Gratiot Street to do guard duty. They were weary,
cold and hungry. The officer who had received the food, sent by devoted
secession women, deeming these newly arrived soldiers to be the most
needy, gave to them the roast turkey, fried chicken, mince pies,
cranberry sauce, roast pig and apple sauce, and kept the disloyal within
the prison walls on wholesome, but coarser, diet. While that commanding
officer told no explicit lie, the ethics of his act will hardly bear
very close inspection. He may have justified his deception by the fact
that we were in a state of war, and have erroneously thought that war
excuses “a multitude of sins.”
A little later, one of my ministerial brethren was lodged in the same
prison. After having been there for several weeks, being in great
anguish of spirit, he sent for me. When I met him he entreated me to
secure if possible his discharge from that repulsive place. My heart was
touched at his distress, and I assured him that the military authorities
would gladly release him if he would take the oath of allegiance to the
United States. I urged that this was a very reasonable demand on the
part of the government that had protected his property and person for
many years, and had never interfered in the slightest degree with his
rights or liberty. He was, however, unconvinced, and sullenly refused to
do what I urged upon him. But a few days afterwards, sick at heart from
lying in prison, he decided to take the oath, did so, and was
discharged. But when he went out to his freedom his conscience smote him
for what he had done. He walked along the street hesitatingly and in
zigzag lines. At times he stopped and gazed intently on the pavement.
One of his friends met him and asked: “What is the matter?” He replied:
“Matter enough, I was overpersuaded to take the oath of allegiance to
the awful government of the United States, and feel as if I should go to
hell.”
Such were some of the military prisons and such were some of the
prisoners in St. Louis during the civil war. Those who kept these
prisons and guarded these prisoners were patriots, intent on preserving
the Union; those who were incarcerated and guarded were equally intent
on disrupting the Union and establishing the Southern Confederacy, whose
corner-stone, according to its Vice-President, was slavery. Both could
not have been right, but both believed themselves to be right, and
suffered for their faith.