Chapter IX: Prison Life, Point Lookout, MD

In a few days the transports came along, and we boarded them quickly, reaching Point Lookout May 20; and before getting in line each prisoner was subjected to a search and relieved of any valuables or knives and pistols. We found as guards here about eleven hundred colored soldiers, in command of Major H. G. O. Weymouth, of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment. Major Weymouth lost a leg in the battle of Fredericksburg, and this post was given him, and also because he was a good executive officer.

General Grant knew how to economize in men; and as these colored soldiers had not behaved well at the front, he replaced them with white troops and sent the colored soldiers to Point Lookout. This camp occupied some twenty acres of sandy land. It was a peninsula with several wells, and the waters before the war were noted for their medicinal properties. It was situated on Chesapeake Bay at the confluence of the Potomac River. The bay was twenty-five miles wide, and it was eight miles across the Potomac. The camp was surrounded by a fence sixteen feet high, and three feet from the top was a parapet walkway which was the beat of the guards, who were stationed some forty feet apart; besides, there were also a garrison on the outside and artillery, shotted, to be used in case of an insurrection by the prisoners.

Much has been said, written, and spoken of the treatment of prisoners, North and South. In the United States Senate it was on one occasion the cause of a heated debate between Senators Hill and Blaine; and no doubt Senator Hill got the better of the argument, for with the Southern ports all blockaded, our people raising tobacco, cotton, resin, and turpentine, we did not have provisions to feed the army, and consequently the prisoners at Andersonville and other Southern prisons had to fare the same as our army. On the other hand, the United States was teeming with men, provisions, and money, all the ports were open to the world, and a bounty of six hundred dollars had induced a great flood of emigrants from the Old World. While the words I use in describing prison life may be harsh, yet there is no bitterness in my heart. When I took the oath of allegiance at Elmira, N. Y., nearly three months after General Lee surrendered, I turned my back upon the past, and buried it with all its prejudices and animosities. I recognize the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and there is no one with whom I cannot clasp hands.

The quarters at Point Lookout were large Sibley tents, which were cone-shaped. These tents would accommodate seventeen men sleeping in a circle. We did not need any blankets, and for a pillow we raked up a bank of sand. It was very hot in these tents with so many bunkmates. Our rations consisted of salt pork, bean soup, hard-tack, and occasionally fresh meat. We had not been in prison long before we were deprived of coffee. There were three large gates in the fence opening out to Chesapeake Bay, and we bathed and did our washing there. Near Major Weymouth’s headquarters was another gate, opening to the pier where all the vessels unloaded prisoners and supplies. On the bay side at night the gates were closed, and no one could get to the bay. I was at the Point five weeks without change of clothing. I would go into the bay, wash my clothes, hang them on sand to dry, and go into the water up to my chin to keep from getting sunburned. At the end of five weeks I resolved to get some clothing, so I denied myself a ration a day, and after the two days’ fast I sold my two rations to a fellow-prisoner for five cents, and with the money I purchased from the sutler one postage stamp, in those days three cents, and one cent each for sheets of paper and envelopes; and as soon as my letter reached a friend in Baltimore he sent me a package of clothing and a ten-pound package of Killikinnick smoking tobacco. In writing a letter you could use only one side of the sheet, as all letters had to be examined and approved before mailing, and you had to be careful not to write anything contraband. The envelopes were stamped: “Prisoner’s letter, examined and approved.” On receiving letters, they first came to the commandant and were read and stamped approved by him. Remittances of money, by mail or express, were receipted for by the commandant, and then turned over to the sutler. In some prisons I have heard that the commandant and sutler were partners; I do not think that this was the case, however, at Point Lookout. At nine o’clock at night the bugle was sounded for taps or lights out, and every one had to be in his tent at that hour with lights out. The colored soldiers patroled after nine o’clock along the avenues between the tents with six-shooters in their hands; and if they heard any noise in a tent, they would shoot into it; therefore, after 9 P.M. Point Lookout, with its army of ten thousand men, was almost as quiet as a cemetery.

Of course it was very humiliating to Southern men to be thus guarded by some of their former slaves. All the commissaries, wood, etc., was unloaded by details of prisoners; and many of them were anxious to get on this detail, as it gave them a day outside of prison walls, and also sometimes an opportunity to appropriate some extra rations; and again, they could hear what they called grapevine news. Newspapers were not allowed in the prison, and our chance to hear anything from the front was very limited. There was a line inside the prison called the dead line, which was one of the guards’ beats, and no one was allowed to cross this line. One evening a squad which had been on detail on the outside entered the prison, and quite a crowd rushed up to them to hear the news, and some of them were crowded over the dead line. Without hesitation the guard fired into the group, severely wounding two of our prisoners. Major Weymouth had the sentinel removed, but I never heard of his court-martial. Our ears were frequently greeted with the expression from the colored guards: “The bottom rail is on top now; my gun wants to smoke.”

For a great deal of persecution from the guards I do not think that Major Weymouth was responsible. They were, nearly all of them, young negroes from the North Carolina tobacco fields. They were uniformed the same as white troops, and of course they felt their importance. While Major Weymouth was at the head of the troops, he was also to command the prisoners and to see that there was no infringement of the rules and regulations. Major Weymouth was a Mason, and allowed the prisoners to make an appeal to the fraternity at Baltimore for clothing, which was sent to the prison, and he distributed it to them.

Major Wirz occupied the same position at Andersonville in command of our guards, who were all white. There is no doubt that many indignities offered prisoners at Andersonville were without his knowledge or consent. Mr. Oakley, who is at present yardmaster of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, was from an Ohio regiment, and served a term in Andersonville. I heard him say that Wirz was a Mason, and that he had known him on many occasions to read the Masonic burial service over his dead. Mr. Oakley contends that Wirz was not a cruel man, yet the poor fellow was denied the glorious death of a soldier by being shot, but suffered an ignominious death by hanging. If we had gained our independence, I do not think that Major Weymouth would have been hanged for the many crimes committed by the colored sentinels at Point Lookout; but there is no telling what feelings are engendered by a civil war in which father is arrayed against son, brother against brother, and neighbor against neighbor. We lived too close to our brethren in East Tennessee and Kentucky not to be familiar with the bitter sectional hate; but let me digress just here to give an illustration between a civil and a foreign war, in which the treatment of prisoners of war is in marked contrast. During the Spanish-American War I was in Norfolk, Va., just after one hundred and twenty prisoners had been received at the Naval Hospital from Admiral Cervera’s fleet. Our ladies were very kind to them, sending them all sorts of delicacies; and it will be remembered that some enthusiastic American suggested that we purchase a mansion for the Admiral, and induce him to reside with us.

A peculiar malady affected the prisoners at Point Lookout. After dark about half of them were blind, and daylight would restore their sight. One day I asked the doctor the cause, and he said that he thought that the salty soup mixed with the mineral-water had something to do with it, but that the prime cause was the sun’s heat and reflection from the water, the sand, and the white tents.

One day there was quite a commotion in camp, and I saw a crowd gathering near one of the tents. On inquiry I heard, “There is a woman in camp.” It appeared that, in order to be with her lover, who was an artilleryman, she had doffed her feminine garb, cut short her hair, and donned the uniform of an artilleryman. Major Weymouth provided her with feminine wearing apparel and sent her home. Whether either survived the cruel war and afterwards married, “this deponent sayeth not.”

An enterprising prisoner whom I knew many years ago in Lynchburg, Va., made him a gambling house of pieces of cracker boxes, and here gambling was going on from early morn till nearly nine o’clock at night. If the prisoners did not have any money, they put up tobacco as stakes.

In July, 1864, the prison was overcrowded with captures from General’s Lee’s army, and the government was building a new one at Elmira, N. Y., and about the 15th of July commenced to transfer a large number to that point. I left July 30 on a transport. One thousand men were loaded on one steamer. We were packed away in the hull and lower deck, and were not allowed in the cabin. We steamed down the bay, and were en route to Jersey City. Before reaching Elmira it may be well to give some statistics:

White troops enlisted by the United States 1861-65, about 2,100,000
Colored troops 190,000
The Confederate States, about 650,000
The United States captured 220,000
The Confederate States captured 270,000
Died in Northern prisons 26,246
Died in Southern prisons 22,576

The death rate North was twelve per cent., while the death rate South was only nine per cent., and we have already seen that there was little in the South to feed prisoners or any one else. When we landed at Jersey City, I saw a large crowd over at Governor’s Island, and upon inquiring who they were, the answer came: “Bounty jumpers.” I asked what constituted a bounty jumper, and the reply was that a lot of foreigners came to the United States for the six hundred dollars bounty, and after getting the money deserted.

Soon after reaching Jersey City we disembarked, and were loaded into the cars, and a guard stationed at each door. The car windows were small, and there was no chance to get out. While en route we were not allowed to speak to any one at the various stations at which we stopped.