THE INHUMANITY OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
In reviewing my prison experience and observation, I find that I omitted
to mention a case at Bowling Green, which will give the reader a fair
idea of the danger of capture in territory occupied by the Federal Army
and now take occasion to recall the case of John R. Lisle, a sergeant in
Morgan’s command, who was permitted to visit his home near Russellville,
Kentucky, on a short furlough and was shot down in his own home, in the
bosom of his family, by some Tory neighbors, the ball striking him on
top of the head, which temporarily stunned him and while on the floor,
senseless, they rushed in and secured his capture. He had on a new gray
Confederate uniform and when searched, had an order from General Morgan
to notify all of their men whom he met or had an opportunity to convey
the instructions, to report back to their command, having overstayed
their furlough.
I got acquainted with Lisle as soon as I entered the prison and found
him a very bright, intelligent gentleman. He was then being tried by
court martial on the charge of being a spy and convicted on this order
of Morgan’s, ordering men back to their command. During the trial he
made a pencil memorandum of the proceedings of the court martial and
finally, losing his temper one day, blessed out the court martial,
telling them that he was satisfied they were after his blood and to stop
their mockery of a trial, to go ahead and take his life, lead him out
and shoot him. The court martial found him guilty and assessed his
punishment at death by hanging. As soon as the findings of the court
martial were returned from General Burnside’s headquarters, approved, he
was taken down into the lower room and had irons forged on him, taken
over to the court house under special guard to await the day of his
execution. While at the court house his wife and oldest son, a boy about
fifteen, were permitted to see him, when he smuggled the memoranda he
had made of the proceedings of the court martial to his wife, with
instructions to send his boy to General Bragg’s headquarters, then near
Tullahoma, Tennessee, with this memoranda, satisfied that our Government
would demand his exchange as a prisoner of war, putting some Federal
officer in confinement, as hostage. After he was taken out of the prison
we were not permitted to learn anything more about his fate.
During my imprisonment at Point Lookout, Maryland, a batch of about five
hundred prisoners from Johnson’s Island were received there. Hastening
to the gate to watch their coming in, thinking perhaps I might see some
acquaintances, I met John R. Lisle, who had just been released from a
dungeon at Johnson’s Island, where he had been ever since he was moved
from Bowling Green in irons—confined in this dungeon and for the first
time then treated as a prisoner of war. There is hardly a doubt but
designating a couple of Federal officers as hostages for his safety, had
the desired effect and saved his life. I left him at Point Lookout with
the balance of the prisoners, from whence he was finally sent around for
exchange. I had a letter from one of our prison companions near Bowling
Green, about eight years ago, saying that Lisle finally returned South
and to his home in Kentucky, where he died only a few years before this
letter was written.
In order to give the reader an idea of the intense hatred on the part of
the Lincoln Government, it might be well here to note that in the very
beginning of hostilities they adopted a policy to degrade the Southern
Army in the estimation of their own people, as well as that of foreign
countries. In order to carry out such policy the War Department issued
an order that all executions of Confederate soldiers convicted by court
martial, should be by hanging—a felon’s death—which order was never
modified and was carried out in its letter and spirit, never in any case
permitting an exception.
In this connection I would mention a case in point, which occurred while
I was a prisoner and has repeatedly been reported in the papers of the
North and South. The case was a Colonel Johnston of the Confederate
Army, in conjunction with a lieutenant, whose name I have forgotten,
entering the Federal lines as spies. Colonel Johnston was armed with a
fictitious order from Secretary of War Stanton to proceed to
Murfreesboro, Franklin and Nashville, Tennessee, and inspect the Federal
works at these places. They called one evening at Franklin, presented
the Secretary of War’s order, which seemed to be genuine, when the
colonel commanding received them very courteously and rode around with
them, inspecting his works. Colonel Johnston also stated to him that he
was just from General Rosencranz’s headquarters, where he had inspected
the works around Murfreesboro. After the inspection of the Franklin
works Colonel Johnston told the colonel in command that he was compelled
to go to Nashville that night and insisted on leaving at once for
Nashville, although dark had set in. The colonel tried to persuade him
to spend the night with him but all to no purpose. After Colonel
Johnston and the lieutenant had been gone perhaps a half hour the
colonel got suspicious and wired General Rosencranz for information, and
General Rosencranz replied that there had been no such men there, that
evidently they were spies, to not fail to capture them and order a
drumhead court martial. The colonel then immediately ordered his horse
and with a sergeant, pursued Colonel Johnston and the lieutenant, caught
up with them some six or eight miles on the road to Nashville, and
insisted that they must go back with him and spend the night, which they
did. On their arrival at the colonel’s headquarters he immediately had
them searched and found ample evidence on their persons that they were
Confederate soldiers, acting as spies, notably the sword of Colonel
Johnston’s was inscribed “C. S. A.,” and Colonel Johnston readily
admitted they were spies.
During the session of the court martial Colonel Johnston made himself
known to the colonel commanding, who then recognized him as a classmate
at West Point. He then made an eloquent appeal to the court martial to
save the life of the lieutenant, telling them that he was unaware, when
they started on this expedition, of its object and finally begged them
to have him shot, to permit him to die a soldier’s and not a felon’s
death. He said to the colonel, “When you rode up we both had our pistols
out, under the capes of our overcoats and could have killed you easily,
thereby saving our lives, but the thought of killing an old classmate
without giving him a chance for his life overruled my better judgment
and I decided that I might talk out of it, thereby sparing your life,”
but all to no purpose, his pleadings were ignored and he had to meet his
fate by hanging.
After the defeat of the Federal Army at the first battle of Manassas,
many wagonloads of handcuffs, put up in barrels, were captured, which
were intended to be placed on the entire Confederate Army when captured,
and marched into Washington City, wearing these bracelets.
Among Mr. Lincoln’s earliest proclamations was the one declaring
medicines contraband of war, thus depriving millions of sick of
medicines, one of the most brutal and inhuman orders ever published by a
civilized Government.