At Libby--Thence to Clover, Danville, Greensboro, and
Salisbury--Effort to Pledge us not to Attempt Escape.
The two rooms at Libby adjoined each other on the second floor, but a
solid brick wall was between them. When we entered, about a hundred and
fifty officers were already there. The first thing that attracted my
attention was an officer putting a loaf of bread through a small hole in
the partition where one or two bricks were removable. He was feeding a
hungry prisoner. A cap or hat nicely concealed the perforation.
Libby has a hard name, but it was the most comfortable of the six
Confederate prisons of which I saw the interior. With all his alleged
brutal severity, of which I saw no manifestation, and his ravenous
appetite for greenbacks, for which we could not blame him, Dick Turner
seemed an excellent disciplinarian. Everything went like clockwork. We
knew what to expect or rather what not to expect, and _when_! My diary
for Wednesday, September 28, 1864, the day after our arrival, reads as
follows:
The issue to us daily is
One gill of boiled beans,
One quarter gill of bean broth,
One half loaf of soft bread,
(Four ounces meat) and
A little salt.
There was one inestimable boon, a copious supply of pure water.
There were at this time no panes of glass, in fact no sashes, in the
windows, and the wind swept freely through. The nights were becoming
cold. Confederate sentries were on the lower floor and outside. They
kept up a custom rather unusual, I think, during the war, of calling out
in sing-song tones every hour the number of the post and the time, with
occasional variations; _e. g._: "Post number fourteen, two o'clock, and
all's well." Then the next sentinel would sing out, "Post number
fifteen, two o'clock, and all's well." Then the melodious voice of the
next, farther away and sadly unorthodox, "Post number sixteen, two
o'clock, and cold as h--l!"
Except one or two rickety tables and two or three old chairs, there was
no furniture in the prison. Some of the officers had contrived to save
a little money when searched, and with money it was possible to procure
small articles slyly smuggled in contrary to orders; but most of us were
disposed to sing with old Isaac Watts,
Dear Lord, and shall we ever live
At this poor dying rate?
From the rear windows we were occasionally entertained with the sight of
exploding shells, which the indefatigable Grant was daily projecting
towards Richmond. Particularly was this the case on the thirtieth of the
month, when the boys in blue captured Fort Harrison, and the next day
when the Confederates made several gallant but unsuccessful attempts to
retake it. At such times we could see some of the steeples or high roofs
in Richmond thronged with non-combatants gazing anxiously towards
Petersburg. The belief that our prison was undermined, a vast quantity
of gunpowder stored in the cellar, and that Dick Turner had threatened
and was desperate enough to blow us all into eternity in case of a
sudden dash of our cavalry into Richmond, somewhat marred the
satisfaction with which we contemplated the evident progress of the
siege. We could sympathize with the Philadelphia Friend, who said to his
wife on the introduction of gun-cotton, "What comfort can thee take,
even when sitting in thy easy chair, when thee knows not but the very
cushion underneath thee is an enormous bomb-shell, ready upon the
slightest concussion to blow thee to everlasting glory?"
At three o'clock, Sunday morning, October 2d, we were roused by the
entry of armed men with lanterns. They furnished each of us with a dirty
haversack containing what they called two days' rations of corn bread
and meat. Then they moved us single-file down stairs. As we passed, they
took from each his blanket, even those the officers had just bought and
paid for. If we expostulated, we were told we were going to a place
where we should not need blankets! For my freemasonry or some other
unexpressed reason, they allowed me to pass, wearing my overcoat. Then
they took us by bridge across the James River, packed us in box-cars on
the railway, forty to sixty in each car, and started the train southwest
towards Danville.
The road-bed was bad and the fences on either side were gone. We made
but four or five miles an hour. One of our officers declared that they
kept a boy running ahead of the engine with hammer and nails to repair
the track! also that they put the cow-catcher on behind the last car to
prevent cattle from running over the train! At nine o'clock in the
evening we reached a place called Clover. We passed the night in Clover!
on the bank beside the railroad, where we studied astronomy! and
meditated!
Next morning they repacked us, and we were transported seventy miles
farther to Danville. My memorandum book mentions a conversation I had on
the way with a very young and handsome rebel, one of the guard. He was
evidently ingenuous and sincere, pious and lovable. After a few pleasant
remarks he suddenly asked:
"What are you Northerners fighting for?"
"In defense of the Constitution and the Union. What are _you_ fighting
for?"
"Every right that is sacred and dear to man."
"What right that is sacred and dear to man had the United States ever
violated before you fired on Fort Sumter?"
Of course he fell back on the Declaration of American Independence, that
"Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed";
also on the doctrine so emphatically expressed by Abraham Lincoln in his
speech in Congress in 1846; viz.:
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the
right to raise up and shake off the existing government, and form a
new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most
sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the
world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people
of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of
such people, that can, may revolutionize and make their own of as
much territory as they inhabit.
We arrived at Danville at noon. A heavy rain began to fall. Having been
two days without opportunity to wash, we were drenched for an hour or
two by the sweet shower that seemed to pour from the open windows of
heaven. When our thoughtful guards concluded that we were sufficiently
cleansed and bleached, they sheltered us by putting us into coal cars,
where the black dust was an inch deep. That dust was fine! but the
thought seemed to strike them that our nicely laundered garments might
get soiled. So in half an hour they took us out and placed us in corn
cars. It rather went against the grain, but finally I sat down with the
other kernels on the floor. The weather being inclement, they felt it
their duty to keep us in doors, lest we should catch cold!
In these elegant and commodious vehicles we were transported next day
till we reached Greensboro, North Carolina, about fifty miles southwest
from Danville. Disgorged like poor old Jonah after three days' living
burial, we were placed in the beautiful open square, and never before
did air, earth, trees, and skies seem lovelier. Here they gave each of
us three horny crackers, "rebel hardtack," out of which some of us
carved finger rings that might have passed for bone.
In those days I was too much addicted to making public speeches, a habit
which I had contracted in Yale College. On the edge of the public green,
backed by a hundred prisoners, I was haranguing a crowd of curious
spectators, telling them how abominably we were treated, exhibiting to
them our single ration of flinty biscuit, and consigning them all to
everlasting perdition, when a well-dressed young man elbowed his way to
me at the fence. He had a large black shiny haversack swung under his
left arm. Patting it with his right hand, he asked:
"Will you have a snack?"
"A what?" I answered.
"A snack, a snack," he said.
"I don't know what a 'snack' is, unless it's a _snake_. Yes, I think I
could eat a copperhead--_cooked_. Snake for one, if you please; well
done."
He thrust his hand into his haversack; took out and gave me the most
delicious sandwich I ever tasted. Seeing how I enjoyed it, he emptied
the satchel, giving all his food to my hungry fellow prisoners. He told
me he was just starting on a long journey, and had laid in a good stock
of provisions. I took pains to write in my journal his name and
residence--"George W. Swepson, Alamance, North Carolina. Lives near the
Court House." To which I added "_Vir et Amicus_."--"The blessing of him
that was ready to perish" was upon George W. Swepson.
That night we slept again on the ground and without covering under the
open sky; and again several prisoners, Captain Howe and myself among
them, attempted in vain to slip past the sentinels.
Next morning we reëntered the freight cars. A twelve hours' ride brought
us at nine o'clock, Wednesday evening, October 5th, to our destination,
Salisbury, North Carolina. As the "Four Hundred" passed into the dark
enclosure, we were greeted with the cry, "Fresh fish! Fresh fish!" which
in those days announced the arrival of a new lot of prisoners. We field
officers were quartered that night in a brick building near the
entrance, where we passed an hour of horrors. We were attacked by what
appeared to be an organized gang of desperadoes, made up of thieves,
robbers, Yankee deserters, rebel deserters, and villains generally,
maddened by hunger, or bent on plunder, who rejoiced in the euphonious
appellation of _Muggers_! We had been warned against them by kindly
disposed guards, and were not wholly unprepared. They attacked us with
clubs, fists, and knives, but were repeatedly driven off, pitched
headlong downstairs. "_Muggers!_"
Salisbury prison, then commonly called "Salisbury penitentiary," was in
the general form of a right-angled triangle with base of thirty or forty
rods, perpendicular eighty or ninety. In a row parallel to the base and
four or five rods from it were four empty log houses with a space of
about four rods between each two. These, a story and a half high, had
formerly been negro quarters. On each side of the great triangle was a
stout tight board fence twelve or fifteen feet high. Some two or three
feet from the top of this, but out of our sight because on the other
side, there was evidently a board walk, on which sentinels, four or five
rods apart, perpetually paced their beats, each being able to see the
whole inside of the enclosure. At each angle of the base was a shotted
field-piece pointing through the narrow opening. We could see that
behind each cannon there was a number of muskets stacked and vigilant
soldiers watching every movement inside. Close to the fence outside
there were three camps of Confederates, variously estimated to contain
from seven hundred to two thousand in all.
The number of Union officers in prison after our arrival was about three
hundred and twenty; the number of non-commissioned officers and privates
was suddenly increased from about two thousand to some eight thousand.
Among these were non-combatants, refugees, lighthouse keepers, and other
government employees. Albert D. Richardson, then well-known as a
correspondent of the New York _Tribune_, whose romantic marriage to Abby
Sage by Henry Ward Beecher and whose tragic death created a sensation in
the newspaper world, had been held as a prisoner there for several
months. He told us he had found Salisbury a comfortable place. It
immediately ceased to be such.
There stood the empty log houses. We besought the rebel commandant,
Major Gee, to allow us officers to occupy those buildings. He said he
would permit it on condition that we should sign a stringent parole,
binding us on our honor not to attempt to escape! We objected to it as a
preposterous requirement that, remaining under strict guard and wholly
cut off from communication with the outside world, we should sign such
a pledge as the only condition on which we could receive decent shelter.
I asked Major Gee if the rigor of our confinement would be in any way
relaxed. He answered bluntly, "No."--"Well, where's the reciprocity?" I
demanded; "what are you giving up?"--"Well," he replied, "if you don't
choose to sign the parole, you can't have the buildings. Other Federal
officers have not objected to signing it." He showed us the signature of
Gen. Michael Corcoran, who had been colonel of the 69th New York, was
captured at the first battle of Bull Run, was promoted to be brigadier,
and who raised the so-called "Corcoran Legion." Our senior officer,
Brig.-Gen. Joseph Hayes of the Fifth Corps, now called a meeting of the
field officers, and submitted the question, "Shall we sign the parole,
and so obtain shelter? Or shall we hold ourselves free to escape if we
can, and so share the privations of our enlisted men, who have no bed
but the ground and no covering but the sky?" I spoke strongly against
making any promise. We voted almost unanimously against it.
General Hayes and others then urged upon the commandant the absurdity
and meanness of requiring it. It was clear to us and must have been so
to him that it was for his interest to separate the three or four
hundred officers from the thousands of prisoners accustomed to obey our
orders. He finally consented that we should occupy the houses without
imposing any conditions.
Parallel to the front of these buildings, about five rods from them and
extending across the enclosure, was a so-called "dead line," on which
nine sentinels paced their beats. Another "dead line" about four rods
from the high fence paralleled the whole length of each side of the
prison. It was death to come near these.
About eighty officers were assigned to each of the four houses. In each
an officer was elected to serve as house-commissary. His duty was to
receive the rations from Lieutenant-Colonel Hooper, already mentioned,
acting as commissary-general, to whom the Confederate authorities
delivered them in bulk. The house-commissary distributed the food and
acted as agent representing the house in all communications with
Confederate headquarters. Col. Gilbert G. Prey of the 104th N. Y. Vols.
was elected commissary of house number one; Capt. D. Tarbell, of Groton,
N. Y., commissary of house number two; Lieutenant Reilly of
Philadelphia, of house number three; and I of house four.
Each house contained but two rooms, a lower and an upper, both empty,
for the most part without glass windows or even sashes; the spaces
between the crooked logs not stopped up; a single fireplace in each
house, but not half enough wood to keep a blaze; without tables,
benches, or chairs; without cooking utensils; without table, knife,
fork, spoon, or plate; often without cup or dish; without blankets, or
any clothing but the scantiest summer outfit; without books or papers;
without water sufficient for washing, or soap, if we could possibly get
water; we were in a sorry plight as the nights grew colder. And if the
prospect was bad for us, how much worse for our soldiers across the
"dead line," who had no shelter, hardly a scrap of blanket! Every rain
made their beds a pool or mass of mire. It is not pleasant, but it is a
duty to record some of the shadows of our prison life, "lest we forget."
On the open ground outside of what was called the "hospital," October
8th, a sergeant-major was found dead; October 9th, two private soldiers;
October 13th, five; October 14th, two; October 16th, eleven; October
17th, seven; October 18th, nine. We could tell how severe the weather
had been at night by the number found dead in the morning.
Not far from the prison enclosure was an abundance of growing timber.
More than once I besought Major Gee to allow our men to go, under guard
on parole, to get wood for fires and for barracks. He refused. He said
he was intending to build barracks for the prisoners as soon as he could
procure lumber. I presume that he was sincere in this. I asked in vain
for blankets for the men; for tents, but none came till December, and
then but one "Sibley" tent and one "A" tent per hundred prisoners, not
enough for one-third of them.
We procured water from a deep well on the grounds. The supply was so
scanty for the thousands of prisoners that it was always exhausted
before sunrise. Soon after we came the Confederates commenced digging
two new wells. At their rate of progress we reckoned it would take
several months to finish either.
My memorandum book shows that the issue of food daily at Salisbury,
though sometimes partly withheld, was for each prisoner "one half loaf
of soft bread; two, three, four, or five ounces of meat; a gill of
boiled rice, and a little salt." I have no doubt that Major Gee meant to
deal fairly with us; but he was unprepared for the avalanche that had
descended upon him. We are too much in the habit of blaming individual
combatants for severities and cruelties that are inherent in the whole
business of war, either civil or international, and inseparable from it.
Said our Lieut.-Gen. S. M. B. Young at a banquet in Philadelphia, "War
is necessarily cruel; it is kill and burn, and burn and kill, and again
kill and burn." The truth was more bluntly expressed by the British
Rear-Admiral Lord Fisher, now the first sea lord of the British
Admiralty:
Humanizing war? [said he]; you might as well talk of humanizing
hell! When a silly ass got up at the first Hague Peace Conference in
1899, and talked about the "amenities of warfare" and putting your
prisoners' feet in warm water and giving them gruel, my reply, I
regret to say, was considered brutally unfit for publication. As if
war could be "civilized"! If I am in command when war breaks out, I
shall issue as my orders, "The essence of war is violence.
Moderation is imbecility. _Hit first, hit hard, hit everywhere._"
In this light we may view more charitably the slaying, on the 16th of
October at Salisbury, of Second Lieutenant John Davis of the 155th N. Y.
It was a Sunday morning about half-past ten o'clock. One of our fellow
prisoners, Rev. Mr. Emerson, chaplain of a Vermont regiment, had
circulated notice that he would conduct religious services in the open
air between houses number three and four. The officers were beginning to
assemble when the sharp report of a musket near by was heard. Rushing to
the spot, we found the lieutenant lying on his back dying at the "dead
line." The sentinel on the fence, a mere boy, had fired upon him, and
was now reloading. One of our number, Captain William Cook, unable to
restrain his anger, hurled a large stone at him. But the hundreds of
Confederates in the camps just beyond the fence had sprung to arms at
the sound of the firing; the top of the fence was being lined with
soldiers; and the vigilant cannoneers at the angles were training their
artillery upon our dense mass of officers. We prisoners regarded the
shooting as a brutal murder. The religious exercises were turned into a
funeral service. Chaplain Emerson prayed, "O God! our only refuge in
this dark hour, avenge the atrocious murder of our beloved comrade;
protect that widow so cruelly robbed of one dearer to her than life; and
especially grant that this accursed Confederacy may speedily sink into
its native hell!" His text was from _Isaiah_ viii, 12: "Say ye not a
Confederacy!" Next day I asked the officer of the guard if any
punishment was to be inflicted upon the sentinel. He answered: "No; we
don't punish men for doing their duty."
So vitally important is the point of view in deciding upon the right or
wrong of an act.