DARK DAYS.
When Paul's wound had healed sufficiently to enable him to travel, he
was put into a freight car with his comrades and sent to the Rebel
prison at Andersonville. The ride was long and hard, but the prisoners
bore the jolting without a murmur, for they supposed they would soon be
exchanged and sent North. They were doomed to bitter disappointment.
The prison was a yard enclosed by a high fence. There was a platform on
the outside where the sentinels stood on guard, and ready to shoot any
one who approached nearer than what they called "the dead line." The
prisoners had no shelter from the scorching rays of the sun through the
long summer days, nor from the sleety rains and freezing nights of
winter. They dug holes in the ground with their hands, and made the
cold, damp earth their bed. A slimy brook ran through the grounds, foul
with filth from the camps of the Rebels. There was a marsh in the
centre of the yard, full of rottenness, where the water stood in green
and stagnant pools, breeding flies, mosquitos, and vermin, where all the
ooze and scum and slops of the camp came to the surface, and filled the
air with horrible smells. They had very little food,--nothing but a
half-pint of coarse corn-meal, a little molasses, and a mouthful of
tainted bacon and salt, during each twenty-four hours. They were herded
like sheep. The yard was packed with them. There were more than twenty
thousand in a place designed for half that number.
When Paul and his comrades reached the prison, they were examined by the
officer in command, a brutal fellow named Wirz, who robbed them of what
money they had. The gate opened, and they passed in. When Paul beheld
the scene, his heart sank within him. He had suffered many hardships,
but this was an experience beyond everything else. He was still weak. He
needed nourishing food, but he must eat the corn-meal or starve.
Everywhere he saw only sickening sights,--pale, woe-begone wretches,
clothed in filthy rags, covered with vermin. Some were picking up crumbs
of bread which had been swept out from the bakery. Others were sucking
the bones which had been thrown out from the cook-house. Some sat gazing
into vacancy, taking no notice of what was going on around
them,--dreaming of homes which they never were again to behold. Many
were stretched upon the ground, too weak to sit up, from whose hearts
hope had died out, and who were waiting calmly for death to come and
relieve them from their sufferings. Thousands had died. One hundred died
on the day Paul entered, and another hundred during the night. All day
long the bodies lay among the living in the sun. When the dead-cart came
in, they were thrown into it like logs of wood. It was a horrible
sight,--the stony eyes, the sunken cheeks, the matted hair, the ghastly
countenances, the swaying limbs, as the cart jolted along the uneven
ground! More than thirteen thousand soldiers starved and murdered by the
Rebels were thus carried out in the dead-carts.
The keepers of the prison were cruel. Paul saw a poor cripple crawl
towards the fence and reach his hand over the dead line to get a bone.
Crack went the rifle of the sentinel, which sent a bullet through the
prisoner's brain, who tossed up his hands, gave one heart-rending
outcry, and rolled over--dead. On a dark and stormy night some of the
prisoners escaped, but ferocious dogs were put upon their track, and
they were recaptured. The hounds mangled them, and the Rebel officers
had them tied up and whipped, till death put an end to their sufferings.
It was terrible to hear the coughing of those who were dying of
consumption,--to see them crawling from place to place, searching in
vain to find a shelter from the driving storms,--to hear the piteous
cries of those who were racked with pains, or the moans of those who
gave themselves up to despair. For want of proper food the prisoners
suffered from scurvy;--their gums rotted, their teeth fell out, and
their flesh turned to corruption; they wasted away, and died in horrible
agony. It was so terrible to hear their dying cries, that Paul put his
fingers in his ears; but soon he became accustomed to the sights and
sounds, and looked upon the scenes with indifference. He pitied the
sufferers, but was powerless to aid them. Soon he found that his own
spirits began to droop. He roused himself, determined to brave out all
the horrors of the place. He sang songs and told stories, and got up
games to keep his fellow-prisoners in good heart. But notwithstanding
all his efforts to maintain his cheerfulness and composure, he felt that
he was growing weaker. Instead of being robust, he became thin and
spare. His cheeks were hollow and his eyes sunken. There was a fever in
his bones. Day by day he found himself taking shorter walks. At night,
when he curled down in his burrow, he felt tired, although he had done
no work through the day. In the morning he was stiff, and sore, and
lame, and although the ground was cold and damp, it was easier to lie
there than to get up. His hair became matted,--his fingers were long and
bony. Each day his clothes became more ragged. When he first entered the
prison, he tried to keep himself clean and free from vermin, but in
vain. One day he went out to wash his tattered clothes, but the stream
was so dirty he sat down and waited for it to become clear. He sat hour
after hour, but it was always the same slimy, sickening stream.
The Rebels took delight in deluding the prisoners with false
hopes,--telling them that they were soon to be exchanged and sent home;
but instead of release, the dead-cart went its daily rounds, bearing
its ghastly burden. That was their exchange, and they looked upon the
shallow trenches as the only home which they would ever reach. Hope died
out and despair set in. Some prisoners lost their reason, and became
raving maniacs, while others became only gibbering idiots. Some who
still retained their reason, who all their lives had believed that the
Almighty is a God of justice and truth, began to doubt if there be a
God. Although they had cried and begged for deliverance, there was no
answer to their prayers. Paul felt that his own faith was wavering; but
he could not let go of the instructions he had received from his mother.
In the darkest hour, when he was most sorely tempted to break out into
cursing, he was comforted and reassured by Uncle Peter, an old
gray-headed negro, who had been a slave all his life. Peter had been
whipped, kicked, and cuffed many times by his hard-hearted, wicked
master, not because he was unfaithful, but because he loved to pray, and
shout, and sing. Through the long night, sitting by his pitch-knot fire
in his cabin, Uncle Peter had sung the songs which lifted him in spirit
almost up to heaven, whither his wife and children had gone, after cruel
whippings and scourgings by their master. It was so sweet to think of
her as having passed over the river of Jordan into the blessed land,
that he could not refrain from shouting:
"O my Mary is sitting on the tree of life,
To see the Jordan roll;
O, roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll!
I will march the angel march,--
I will march the angel march.
O my soul is rising heavenward,
To see where the Jordan rolls."
He had given food and shelter to some of the prisoners who escaped from
the horrible place, and had piloted them through the woods, and for this
was arrested and thrown into the prison.
Uncle Peter took a great liking to Paul, and, when Paul was
down-hearted, cheered him by saying: "Never you give up. Don't let go of
de hand of de good Lord. It is mighty hard to bear such treatment, but
we colored people have borne it all our lives. But 'pears like my heart
would break when I think of my children sold down Souf." Uncle Peter
wiped his eyes with his tattered coat-sleeve, and added: "But de Lord is
coming to judge de earth with righteousness, and den I reckon de Rebs
will catch it."
Uncle Peter dug roots and cooked Paul's food for him, for the Rebels
would not allow them any wood, although there was a forest near the
prison. Paul could not keep back the tears when he saw how kind Uncle
Peter was. He thought that he never should weep again, for he felt that
the fountains of his heart were drying up. Uncle Peter sat by him
through the long days, fanning him with his old tattered straw hat,
brushing the flies from his face, moistening his lips with water, and
bathing his brow. He was as black as charcoal, and had a great nose and
thick lips,--but notwithstanding all that Paul loved him.
Thus the days and weeks and months went by, Uncle Peter keeping the
breath of life in Paul's body, while thousands of his comrades died.
There was no change in prison affairs for the better. There was no hope
of release, no prospect of deliverance,--no words from home, no cheering
news, no intelligence, except from other prisoners captured from time to
time, and sent to the horrible slaughter-pen to become maniacs and
idiots,--to be murdered,--to die of starvation and rottenness,--to be
borne out in the dead-cart to the trenches.
Though Paul sometimes was sorely tempted to yield to despondency, there
were hours when, with clear vision, he looked beyond the horrors of the
prison to the time when God would balance the scales of justice, and
permit judgment to be executed, not only upon the fiend Wirz, who had
charge of the prison, but also upon Jeff Davis and the leaders of the
rebellion. And though his sufferings were terrible to bear, there was
not a moment when he was sorry that he had enlisted to save his country.
So through all the gloom and darkness his patriotism and devotion shone
like a star which never sets.