But now we are in prison and likely long to stay,
The Yankees they are guarding us, no hope to get away;
Our rations they are scanty, 'tis cold enough to freeze,--
I wish I was in Georgia, eating goober peas.
Peas, peas, peas, peas,
Eating goober peas;
I wish I was in Georgia, eating goober peas.
--_Stanza of a Prison Song_.
Only about two weeks did we abide in the Old Capitol, the officers being
transported to Johnson's Island, and the privates to other prisons. Our
route was by Harrisburg, and as the train was leaving the city it jumped
the track, jolting horribly on the cross-ties, but inflicting no serious
injury.
The Sandusky river before it passes through its narrow mouth into Lake
Erie widens into a beautiful bay about four miles wide. In this bay is
situated Johnson's Island, low and level, and containing three hundred
acres. It is not in the middle of the bay, but is on the north side,
half a mile from the main land, while on the other side it is three or
more miles from the city of Sandusky across the water.
The prison walls enclosed a quadrangular space of several acres, the
southern wall running along the margin of the bay and facing Sandusky.
They were framed of wooden beams, on the outer side of which, three feet
from the top, there was a narrow platform on which the guard kept
continual watch. Thirty feet from the wall all around on the inside
there was driven a row of whitewashed stobs, beyond which no prisoner
was allowed to go on pain of being shot by the sentinels. At night the
entire space within was illuminated by lamps and reflectors fixed
against the walls.
Within the walls there were eleven large wooden buildings of uniform
size, two stories high. The first four were partitioned into small
rooms, and were sheathed; the remaining seven had two rooms on each
floor, and they afforded no protection against the weather except the
undressed clapboards that covered them. In each house the upper story
was reached by an outside flight of steps. In the larger rooms some
sixty or seventy men were huddled together. Around the sides bunks were
framed on pieces of scantling that extended from floor to ceiling,
arranged in three tiers, so that a floor space of six feet by four
sufficed for six men. My cotton tick was never refilled, and after doing
service for many months it became flat and hard. Our quarters and
accommodations were such as the Yankees thought good enough for rebels
and traitors, but in summer we were uncomfortably and unhealthily
crowded, and in winter we suffered from the cold, because one stove
could not warm so large and windy an apartment. Many a winter night,
instead of undressing, I put an old worn overcoat over the clothes I had
worn during the day.
At first I "put up" in block No. 9, afterward in No. 8, and toward the
end of my imprisonment in No. 3, which was much more comfortable.
In summer, water was obtained from a shallow well, but in winter, when
the bay was frozen, a few men from each mess were permitted to go out of
the gate in the afternoon and dip up better water from holes cut through
the ice. On these occasions a strong guard extended around the prisoners
from one side of the gate to the other.
From the time of my capture until the fall of the year the rations were
fairly good and sufficient, but then they were mercilessly reduced, upon
the pretext of retaliation for the improper treatment of Union prisoners
in the South. The bread and meat rations were diminished by a half,
while coffee, sugar, candles, and other things were no longer supplied.
We did our own cooking, the men of each mess taking it by turns, but the
bread was baked in ovens outside and was brought in a wagon every
morning. A pan of four loaves was the daily allowance for sixteen men.
When I got my fourth of a loaf in the morning I usually divided it into
three slices, of which one was immediately eaten and the others reserved
for dinner and supper; but when the time came for the closing meal I had
no bread, for hunger had previously claimed it all. But for some
clothes, provisions, and money that were sent to me by kind friends
residing in Kentucky and Maryland I think that I could not have lived to
witness the end of the war. There was not enough nutriment in the daily
ration to support vigorous health, and it was barely sufficient to
sustain life. I believe that a few of the prisoners succumbed to disease
and died because they had an insufficiency of nourishing food. Bones
were picked from ditches, if perchance there might be upon them a morsel
of meat. I was begged for bread, when I was hungry for the want of it.
All the rats were eaten that could be caught in traps ingeniously
contrived. When prejudice is overcome by gnawing hunger, a fat rat
makes good eating, as I know from actual and enjoyable mastication.
For a time we were permitted to obtain the news of the outside world
through the New York _World_ and the Baltimore _Gazette_, but these were
suppressed; and then we had to depend upon a little Sandusky sheet and
the Baltimore _American_, which vilified the South and claimed for every
battle a Union victory.
How did we while the time away? Well, we organized a minstrel band,
singing clubs, and debating societies; we had occasional lectures and
exchanged books in a so-called reading room; we had two rival base-ball
teams, and we played the indoor games of chess, checkers, cards, and
dominoes. I spent much time in reading the Bible, besides some of
Scott's novels and the charming story of Picciola.
On Sunday there were Bible classes, and sometimes sermons by men who had
gone from the pulpit into the army. Among them were a Methodist colonel
from Missouri, a Baptist colonel from Mississippi, and a Baptist
captain from Virginia. At one time evangelistic services were held in a
lower room of block No. 5, and a number of converts confessed Jesus
Christ as Lord and Saviour, and declared their denominational
preference. Those who decided to be Baptists were permitted, under
guard, to go out to the shore and were baptized in the bay by Captain
Littleberry Allen, of Caroline county, Virginia; the rest could find
within the walls as much water as they considered necessary for the
ordinance.
Block No. 6 was set apart for a hospital, into which a prisoner might go
in case of sickness. It was superintended by a Federal surgeon, but a
large part of the prescribing was done by Confederate officers who had
been practicing physicians. The nursing was performed by the patients'
more intimate friends, who took it by turns day and night. I have a
sorrowful recollection of sitting up one night to wait on Captain Scates
of Westmoreland county, and to administer the medicines prescribed by
the doctors. The ward was silent save for occasional groans, the lights
were burning dimly, and there was no companion watching with me. About
midnight the emaciated sufferer died, passing away as quietly as when
one falls into healthy slumbers. I closed his eyes and remained near the
body until the grateful dawn of morning. Guarded by soldiers we went to
the cemetery without the walls, and committed the body to the ground,
far away from his family and native land.
Nearly all the men confined on Johnson's Island were officers, of every
rank from lieutenant to major-general, and numbering about twenty-six
hundred. They represented all parts of the South and nearly every
occupation, whether manual or professional. They were men of
refinement,--ingenious, daring; and they were enclosed in this prison
because it was secured no less by an armed guard than by the surrounding
water.
Every man was trying to devise some method of escape, but only a few
succeeded, not only because the difficulty was great, but also because
there were spies among us. Three men tunneled out from Block No. 1, only
to find themselves surrounded by Yankee soldiers. Captain Cole, a portly
man, became jammed in the passage, and was somewhat like Abe Lincoln's
ox that was caught and held on a fence, unable to kick one way or gore
the other. The incident furnished the theme of another minstrel song,
with the chorus, "If you belong to Gideon's band."
I had a secret agreement with Captain John Stakes, of the 40th Virginia,
that if either saw a way of escape he would let the other know. Many a
time with longing eyes we looked upon a sloop that used to tie up for
the night at a wharf near the island. If we only could get to it! And so
we began a tunnel under block No. 9, but finding that our labors were
discovered by a spy, we were constrained to desist.
Two men filed saw teeth on the backs of case knives, and on a rainy,
dark, and windy night they crawled down a ditch to the wall on the bay
shore, and cut their way out; but they were captured and brought back.
There were a few successful escapes. One man, smarter than the rest of
us, when we went to a vessel to fill our ticks with straw concealed
himself under what remained in the hold and was carried back to
Sandusky, whence he wended his stealthy flight. Colonel B. L. Farinholt,
of Virginia, got away in a very artful manner, an account of which has
been published. In January, 1865, when the thermometer registered 15°
below zero and an arctic northwest wind was blowing furiously Captain
Stakes took me aside and told me in whispers that he and five others
were going out that night, and that they had agreed that I might go with
them. I answered that if the Yankees were to throw open all the gates
and grant permission, I would not in my feeble health and with clothes
so insufficient, depart in such bitter weather. When the hour came those
six men rushed to the wall, and setting up against it a bench, on which
rungs had been nailed, climbed over. They were not shot at, perhaps
because the sentries, not expecting such an attempt, had taken refuge
from the cold in their boxes. On the thick ice that begirt the island
they crossed over on the north side and gained the mainland. Captain
Robinson, of Westmoreland, and three others with him, hiding in the
daytime and traveling at night, after enduring many hardships arrived in
Canada, where they were clothed and fed and supplied with money. Taking
shipping at Halifax, they ran the blockade and landed in Wilmington,
North Carolina. One of the six men was recaptured by a detective on a
train in New York. My friend Stakes was overtaken the next morning and
brought back so badly frostbitten that it became necessary to amputate
parts of some of his fingers.
By some means, I know not how, information was received in the prison
that certain agents of the Confederate government in Canada would come
to the island in steamboats captured on Lake Erie to release the
prisoners. It was agreed that when they approached and blew a horn the
prisoners would storm the walls and overpower the guards. We, therefore,
organized ourselves into companies and regiments and waited anxiously
for the sight of the boats and the sound of the horn. Though we had no
arms, except such as the rage of the moment might supply, and did not
doubt that some of us would be killed, we were ready to fulfil our part
of the desperate contract; and we felt no doubt of success, for the
Hoffman Battalion that composed our guard had never been in battle nor
heard the rebel yell. The expected rescuers never came. There must have
been some real foundation for the proposed movement, for very soon the
guard was reinforced by a veteran brigade, and the gunboat _Michigan_
came and anchored near the island and showed her threatening portholes.