Chapter XXIX

It is not for prisoners to be too silent.--LOVE'S LABOR LOST.

[Sidenote: STANDING BY OUR COLORS.]

On the way, one of our party enjoined my colleague and myself--

"You had better not say _Tribune_ to the Rebels. Tell them you are correspondents of some less obnoxious journal."

Months before, I had asked three Confederate officers--paroled prisoners within our lines:--

"What would you do with a _Tribune_ correspondent, if you captured him?" With the usual recklessness, two had answered:--

"We would hang him upon the nearest sapling."

This remembrance was not cheering; but as we were the first correspondents of a radical Northern journal who had fallen into the enemy's hands, after a moment's interchange of views, we decided to stand by our colors, and tell the plain truth. It proved much the wiser course.

One of the rescued men, coatless and hatless, with his face blackened until he looked like a native of Timbuctoo, addressed me familiarly. Unable to recognize him, I asked:--

"Who are you?"

"Why," he replied, "I am Captain Ward."[15]

[15] Commander, not of the tug, whose captain was killed, but of the soldiers guarding it and the barges.

[Sidenote: CONFINEMENT IN THE VICKSBURG JAIL.]

When the explosion occurred, he was sitting on the hurricane roof of the tug. It was more exposed than any other position, but the officers of the boat had shown symptoms of fear, and he determined to be where his revolver would enable him to control them if they attempted to desert us.

Some missile struck his head and stunned him. When he recovered consciousness, the tug had gone to the bottom, and he was struggling in the river. He had strength enough to clutch a rope hanging over the side of a barge, and keep his head above water. Permitting his sword and revolver, which greatly weighed him down, to sink, he called to his men on the blazing wreck. Under the hot fire of cannon and musketry, they formed a rope of their belts, and let it down to him. He fastened it under his arms; they lifted him up to the barge, whence he escaped by the hay-bale line.

At Vicksburg, the commander of the City Guards registered our names.

"I hope, sir," said Colburn, "that you will give us comfortable quarters."

With a half-surprised expression, the major replied, dryly:--

"Oh! yes, sir; we will do the best we can for you."

"The best" proved ludicrously bad. Just before daylight we were taken into the city jail. Its foul yard was half filled with criminals and convicts, black and white, all dirty and covered with vermin. In its midst was an open sewer, twelve or fifteen feet in diameter, the grand receptacle of all the prison filth. The rising sun of that sultry morning penetrated its reeking depths, and produced the atmosphere of a pest-house.

We dried our clothing before a fire in the yard, conversed with the villainous-looking jail-birds, and laughed about this unexpected result of our adventure. We had felt the danger of wounds or death; but it had not occurred to either of us that we might be captured. One of the private soldiers had paid a dollar for the privilege of coming on the expedition. To our query whether he deemed the money well invested, he replied that he would not have missed the experience for ten times the amount. One youth, confined in the jail for thieving, asked us the question, with which we were soon to grow familiar:--

"What did you all come down here for, to steal our niggers?"

At noon we were taken out and marched through the streets. "Junius's" bare and bleeding feet excited the sympathy of a lady, who immediately sent him a pair of stockings, requesting if ever he met any of "our soldiers" suffering in the North, that he would do as much for them. The donor--Mrs. Arthur--was a very earnest Unionist, with little sympathy for "our soldiers," but used the phrase as one of the habitual subterfuges of the Loyalists.

[Sidenote: THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF SAMBO.]

While we waited in the office of the Provost-Marshal, I obtained a first brief glimpse of the inevitable negro. Just outside the open window, which extended to the floor, stood an African, with great shining eyes, expressing his sympathy through remarkable grimaces and contortions, bowing, scraping, and

"Husking his white ivories like an ear of corn."

Rebel citizens and soldiers were all about him; and, somewhat alarmed, I indicated by a look that he should be a little less demonstrative. But Sambo, as usual, knew what he was doing, and was not detected.

The Provost-Marshal, Captain Wells, of the Twenty-eighth Louisiana Infantry, courteously assigned to us the upper story of the court-house, posting a sentinel at the door.

[Sidenote: PAROLED TO RETURN HOME.]

Major Watts, the Rebel Agent of Exchange, called upon us and administered the following parole:--

CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.

VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI, _May 4, 1863_.

This is to certify, that in accordance with a Cartel in
regard to an exchange of prisoners entered into between
the Governments of the United States of America and the
Confederate States of America, on the 22d day of July, 1862,
Albert D. Richardson, citizen of New York, who was captured
on the 4th day of May, at Vicksburg, and has since been held
as a prisoner of war by the military authorities of the said
Confederate States, is hereby paroled, _with full leave to
return to his country_ on the following conditions, namely:
that he will not take up arms again, nor serve as military
police or constabulary force in any fort, garrison, or
field-work, held by either of said parties, nor as a guard of
prisoners, dépôts, or stores, nor discharge any duty usually
performed by soldiers, until exchanged under the Cartel
referred to. The aforesaid Albert D. Richardson signifying
his full and free consent to said conditions by his signature
hereto, thereby solemnly pledges his word and honor to a due
observance of the same.

ALBERT D. RICHARDSON.

N. G. WATTS, _Major Confederate States Army, and Agent for
Exchange of Prisoners_.

This parole was regular, formal, and final, taken at a regular point of exchange, by an officer duly appointed under the express provisions of the cartel. Major Watts informed us that he was prevented from sending us across the lines at Vicksburg, only because Grant's operations had suspended flag-of-truce communication. He assured us, that while he was thus compelled to forward us to Richmond, the only other point of exchange, we should not be detained there beyond the arrival of the first truce-boat.

[Sidenote: TURNING THE TABLES HANDSOMELY.]

These formalities ended, the major, who was a polite, kind-hearted, rather pompous little officer, made an attempt at condolence and consolation.

"Gentlemen," said he, with a good deal of self-complacency,
"you are a long way from home. However, do not despond; I
have met a great many of your people in this condition; I
have paroled some thousands of them, first and last. In
fact, I confidently expect, within the next ten days, to see
Major-General Grant, who commands your army, a prisoner in
this room."

We knew something about that! Of course, we were familiar with the size of Grant's army; and, before we had been many hours in the Rebel lines, we found Union people who told us minutely the strength of Pemberton. So we replied to the prophet, that, while we had no sort of doubt of his seeing General Grant there, it would not be exactly in the capacity of a prisoner!

Colburn--who had the good fortune, for that occasion, to be attached to _The World_, and who, on reaching Richmond, was sent home by the first truce-boat--came back to Vicksburg in season to be in at the death. One of the first men he met, after the capture of the city, was Watts, to whom he rehearsed this little scene, with the characters reversed.

"Major," said he, with dry humor, "you are a long distance
from home! But do not despond; I have seen a good many of
your people in this condition. In fact, I believe there
are about thirty thousand of them here to-day, including
Lieutenant-General Pemberton, who commands _your_ army."

[Sidenote: VISITS FROM MANY REBELS.]

We stayed in Vicksburg two days. Our noisy advent made us objects of attention. Several Rebel journalists visited us, with tenders of clothing, money, and any assistance they could render. Confederate officers and citizens called in large numbers, inquiring eagerly about the condition of the North, and the public feeling touching the war.

Some complained that Northern officers, while in confinement, had said to them: "While we are in favor of the Union, we disapprove altogether the war as conducted by this Abolition Administration, with its tendencies to negro equality;" but that, after reaching home, the same persons were peculiarly radical and bloodthirsty.

As political affairs were the only topic of conversation, we had excellent opportunity for preventing any similar misunderstanding touching ourselves. Courteously, but frankly, we told them that we were in favor of the war, of emancipation, and of arming the negroes. They manifested considerable feeling, but used no harsh expressions. Two questions they invariably asked:--

"What are you going to do with us, after you have subjugated
us?" and, "What will you do with the negroes, after you have
freed them?"

They talked much of our leading officers, all seeming to consider Rosecrans the best general in the Union service. Nearly all used the stereotyped Rebel expression:--

"You can never conquer seven millions of people on their own
soil. We will fight to the last man! We will die in the last
ditch!"

We reminded them that the determination they expressed was by no means peculiar to them, referring to Bancroft, in proof that even the Indian tribes, at war with the early settlers of New England, used exactly the same language. We asked one Texan colonel, noticeably voluble concerning the "last ditch," what he meant by it--if he really intended to fight after their armies should be dispersed and their cities taken.

"Oh, no!" he replied, "you don't suppose I'm a fool, do you? As long as there is any show for us, we shall fight you. If you win, most of us will go to South America, Mexico, or Europe."

[Sidenote: INTERVIEW WITH JACOB THOMPSON.]

On Monday evening, Major-General Forney, of Alabama, sent an officer to escort us to his head-quarters. He received us with great frigidity, and we endeavored to be quite as icy as he. With some of his staff officers, genial young fellows educated in the North, we had a pleasant chat.

Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, Buchanan's Secretary of the Interior, and now a colonel on the staff of Lieutenant-General Pemberton, was at the same head-quarters. With the suavity of an old politician, he conversed with us for two or three hours. He asserted that some of our soldiers had treated his aged mother with great cruelty. He declared that Northern dungeons now contained at least three thousand inoffensive Southern citizens, who had never taken up arms, and were held only for alleged disloyalty.

Many other Rebel officers talked a great deal about arbitrary arrests in the North. Several gravely assured us that, in the South, from the beginning of the war, no citizen had ever been arrested, except by due process of law, under charges well defined, and publicly made. We were a little astounded, afterward, to learn how utterly bare-faced was this falsehood.

On Tuesday evening we started for Jackson, Mississippi, in company with forty other Union prisoners. They were mainly from Ohio regiments, young in years, but veteran soldiers--farmers' sons, with intelligent, earnest faces. Pemberton's army was in motion. Our train passed slowly through his camps, and halted half an hour at several points, among crowds of Rebel privates.

The Ohio boys and their guards were on the best possible terms, drinking whisky and playing euchre together. The former indulged in a good deal of verbal skirmishing with the soldiers outside, thrusting their heads from the car windows and shouting:--

"Look out, Rebs! The Yankees are coming! Keep on marching, if you don't want old Grant to catch you!"

"How are times in the North?" the Confederates replied. "Cotton a dollar and twenty-five cents a pound in New York!"

"How are times in the South? Flour one hundred and seventy-five dollars a barrel in Vicksburg, and none to be had at that!"

After waiting vainly for an answer to this quenching retort, the Buckeyes sang "Yankee Doodle," the "Star-Spangled Banner," and "John Brown's Body lies a-moldering in the Ground," for the edification of their bewildered foes.

[Sidenote: ARRIVAL IN JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI.]

Before dark, we reached Jackson. Though a prisoner, I entered it with far more pleasurable feelings than at my last visit; for my tongue was now free, and I was not sailing under false colors. The dreary little city was in a great panic. Before we had been five minutes in the street, a precocious young newsboy came running among us, and, while shouting--"Here's _The Mississippian_ extra!" talked to us incessantly in a low tone:--

"How are you, Yanks? You have come in a capital time.
Greatest panic you ever saw. Everybody flying out of town.
Governor Pettus issued a proclamation, telling the people to
stand firm, and then ran away himself before the ink was dry."

[Sidenote: KINDNESS FROM SOUTHERN EDITORS.]

We remained in Jackson three days. Upon parole, we were allowed to take our meals at a boarding-house several squares from the prison, and to visit the office of _The Appeal_. This journal, originally published at Memphis, was removed to Grenada upon the approach of our forces; Grenada being threatened, it was transferred to Jackson; thence to Atlanta, and finally to Montgomery, Alabama. It was emphatically a moving _Appeal_.

Its editors very kindly supplied us with clothing and money. They seemed to be sick of the war, and to retain little faith in the Rebel cause, for which they had sacrificed so much, abandoning property in Memphis to the amount of thirty thousand dollars. They now published the most enterprising and readable newspaper in the South. It was noticeably free from vituperation, calling the President "Mr. Lincoln," instead of the "Illinois Baboon," and characterizing us not as Yankee scoundrels, but as "unwilling guests"--

"Gentlemen who attempted to run the batteries on Sunday
night, and after escaping death from shot and shell, from
being scalded by the rushing steam, from roasting by the
lively flames that enveloped their craft, were found in the
river by a rescuing party, each clinging tenaciously to a
bale of hay for safety."

Grant's army was moving toward Jackson. We longed for his approach, straining our ears for the booming of his guns. The Rebels, in their usual strain, declared that the city could not be captured, and would be defended to the last drop of blood. But on the night before our departure, we were confidentially told that the Federal advance was already within twenty-five miles, and certain to take the town.

[Sidenote: A PROJECT FOR ESCAPE.]

With forty-five unarmed prisoners, we were placed on an ammunition train, which had not more than a dozen guards. The privates begged Captain Ward to lead them, and permit them to capture the train. We all deemed the project feasible. Ten minutes would suffice to blow up the cars. With twelve guns, we could easily march twenty miles through those sparse settlements to Grant's forces.

But there were our paroles! A careful reading convinced us that if we failed in the attempt, the enemy would be justified, under the laws of war, in punishing us with death; and, after much debate, we abandoned the project.

Rebel officers in Vicksburg had assured us that crossing the Confederacy from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, upon the Southern railroads, was a more hazardous undertaking than running the river batteries. The rolling stock was in wretched condition, and fatal accidents frequently occurred; but we traveled at a leisurely, old-fashioned rate, averaging eight miles per hour, making long stops, and seldom running by night.