Chapter XXXII

Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil Would not infect
his reason?--TEMPEST.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in
battalions.--HAMLET.

[Sidenote: THE CAPTAINS ORDERED BELOW.]

On the 6th of July, an order came to our apartments for all the captains to go down into a lower room. At this time, as usual, there was constant talk about resuming the exchange. They went below with light hearts, supposing they were about to be paroled and sent North. Half an hour after, when the first one returned, his white, haggard face showed that he had been through a trying scene.

After being drawn up in line, they were required to draw lots, to select two of their number for execution, in retaliation for two Rebel officers, tried and shot in Kentucky by Burnside, for recruiting within our lines.

[Sidenote: TWO SELECTED FOR EXECUTION.]

The unhappy designation fell upon Captain Sawyer, of the First New Jersey Cavalry, and Captain Flynn, of the Fifty-first Indiana Infantry. They were taken to the office of General Winder, who assured them that the sentence would be carried out; and without pity or decency, selected that hour to revile them as Yankee scoundrels who had "come down here to kill our sons, burn our houses, and devastate our country." In reply to these taunts, they bore themselves with dignity and calmness.

"When I went into the war," responded Flynn, "I knew I might be killed. I don't know but I would just as soon die in this way as any other."

"I have a wife and child," said Sawyer, "who are very dear to me, but if I had a hundred lives I would gladly give them all for my country."

In two hours they came back to their quarters. Sawyer was externally nervous; Flynn calm. Both expected that the order would be carried out. We were confident that it would not. I predicted to Sawyer--

"They will never dare to shoot you!"

"I will bet you a hundred dollars they do!" was his impulsive reply. I said to Flynn--

"There is not one chance in ten of their executing you."

"I know it," he answered. "But, when we drew lots, I took one chance in thirty-five, and then lost!"[17]

[17] Our Government, upon learning of this, ordered the commandant at Fortress Monroe, the moment he should learn, officially or otherwise, that Sawyer and Flynn had been executed, to shoot in retaliation two Rebel officers--sons of Generals Lee and Winder. On the reception of this news in the Richmond papers at daylight one morning, the prisoners cheered and shouted with delight. As they supposed, that settled the question. Nothing more was heard about executing our officers; and soon after, Sawyer and Flynn were exchanged, months before their less fortunate comrades.

On the same evening came intelligence that, at an obscure town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg, Meade had received a Waterloo defeat, was flying in confusion to the mountains of Pennsylvania after losing forty thousand prisoners, who were actually on their way to Richmond. It was entertaining to read the speculations of the Rebel papers as to what they could do with these forty thousand Yankees--where they could find men to guard them, and room for them--how in the world they could feed them without starving the people of Richmond.

[Sidenote: THE GLOOMIEST NIGHT IN PRISON.]

We did not fully believe the report, but it touched us very nearly. Those reverses to our army came home drearily to the hearts of men who were waiting hopelessly in Rebel prisons, and weighed them down like millstones.

Success kindled a corresponding joy. I have seen sick and dying prisoners on cold and filthy floors of the wretched hospitals filled with a new vitality--their sad, pleading eyes lighted with a new hope, their wan faces flushed, and their speech jubilant, when they learned that all was going well with the Cause. It made life more endurable and death less bitter.

Already suffering from anxiety for Flynn and Sawyer, and disheartened by the reports from Pennsylvania, we received intelligence that Grant had been utterly repulsed before the works of Vicksburg, the siege raised, and the campaign closed in defeat and disaster. It was a very black night when this grief was added to the first. The prison was gloomy and silent many hours earlier than usual. Our hearts were too heavy for speech.

But suddenly there came a great revulsion. Among the negro prisoners was an old man of seventy, who had particularly attracted my attention from the fact that when I happened to speak to him about the National conflict, he replied, after the manner of Copperheads, that it was a speculators' war on both sides, in which he felt no sort of interest; that it would do nobody any good; that he cared not when or how it ended. I wondered whether the old African was shamming, lest his conversation should be reported, to the curtailing of his privileges, or whether he was really that anomaly, a black man who felt no interest in the war.

[Sidenote: GLORIOUS REVULSION OF FEELING.]

But about five o'clock, one afternoon, he came up into our room, and, when the door was closed behind him, so that he could not be seen by the officers or guards, he made a rush for an open space upon the floor, and immediately began to dance in a manner very remarkable for a man of seventy, and rheumatic at that. We all gathered around him and asked--

"General" (that was his _soubriquet_ in the prison), "what does this mean?"

"De Yankees has taken Vicksburg! De Yankees has taken Vicksburg!" and then he began to dance again.

As soon as we could calm him into a little coherence, he drew from his pocket a newspaper extra--the ink not yet dry--which he had stolen from one of the Rebel officers. There it was! The Yankees _had_ taken Vicksburg, with more than thirty thousand prisoners.

Good tidings, like bad, seldom come alone. Shortly after, we learned that there was also a slight mistake about Gettysburg--that Lee, instead of Meade, was flying in confusion; and that, while our people had captured fifteen or twenty thousand Rebels, those forty thousand Yankee prisoners were "conspicuous for their absence."

How our hearts leaped up at this cheering news! How suddenly that foul prison air grew sweet and pure as the fragrant breath of the mountains! There was laughing, there was singing, there was dancing, which the old negro did not altogether monopolize. Some one shouted, "Glory, hallelujah!" Mr. McCabe, an Ohio chaplain, whose clear, ringing tones, as he led the singing, cheered many of our heaviest hours, instantly took the hint, and started that beautiful hymn, by Mrs. Howe, of which "Glory, hallelujah" is the chorus:--

"For mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

Every voice in the room joined in it. I never saw men more stirred and thrilled than were those three or four hundred prisoners, as they heard the impressive closing stanza:--

"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let _us_ die to make men free!"

[Sidenote: EXCITING DISCUSSION IN PRISON.]

Despite reading, conversing, and cutting out finger-rings, napkin-rings, breast-pins, and crosses, from the beef-bones extracted from our rations, in which some prisoners were exceedingly skillful, the hours were very heavy. A debating-club was formed, and much time was spent in discussing animal magnetism and other topics. Occasionally we had mock courts, which developed a good deal of originality and wit.

Late in July, a mania for study began to prevail. Classes were formed in Greek, Latin, German, French, Spanish, Algebra, Geometry, and Rhetoric. We sent out to the Richmond stores for text-books, and all found instructors, as the motley company of officers embraced natives of every civilized country.

July 30th was a memorable day. The prisoners had become greatly excited on the momentous question of small messes _versus_ large messes. There were only three cooking-stoves for the accommodation of three hundred and seventy-five officers. A majority thought it more convenient to divide into messes of twenty, while others, favoring small messes of from four to eight each, determined to retain those organizations. The prisoners now occupied five rooms, communicating with each other.

A public meeting was called in our apartment, with Colonel Streight in the chair. A fiery discussion ensued. The large-mess party insisted that the majority must rule, and the minority submit to be formed into messes of twenty. The small-mess party replied:--

"We will not be coerced. We are one-third of all the prisoners. We insist upon our right to one-third of the kitchen, one-third of the fuel, and one of the three cooking-stoves. It is nobody's business but our own whether we have messes of two or one hundred."

I was never present at any debate, parliamentary, political, or religious, which developed more earnestness and bitterness. The meeting passed a resolution, insisting upon large messes; the small-mess party refused to vote upon it, and declared that they would never, never submit! The question was finally decided by permitting all to do exactly as they pleased.

Prisoners kept in the underground cells heard revolting stories. They were informed by the guards that the bodies of the dead, usually left in an adjoining room for a day or two before burial, were frequently eaten by rats.

[Sidenote: STEALING MONEY FROM THE CAPTIVES.]

From want of vegetables and variety of diet, scurvy became common. With many others, I suffered somewhat from it. On the 13th of August, Major Morris, of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry, died suddenly from a malignant form of this disease. His fellow-prisoners desired to have his body embalmed. The Rebel authorities had one hundred dollars in United States currency, belonging to the major, but they refused to apply it to this purpose. Four hundred dollars in Confederate currency was therefore subscribed by the prisoners. Several brother-officers of the deceased were permitted to follow the remains to the cemetery.

[Sidenote: HORRIBLE TREATMENT OF NORTHERN CITIZENS.]

Thirty or forty Northern citizens were confined in a room under us. They were thrust in with Yankee deserters of the worst character, and treated with the greatest barbarity. Their rations were very short; they were allowed to purchase nothing. We cut a hole through the floor, and every evening dropped down crackers and bread, contributed from the various messes. When they saw the food coming, they would crowd beneath the aperture, with upturned faces and eager eyes, springing to clutch every crumb, sometimes ready to fight over the smallest morsels, and looking more like ravenous animals than human beings. Some of them, accustomed to luxury at home, ate water-melon rinds and devoured morsels which they extracted from the spittoons and from other places still more revolting.

Several schemes of escape were ingenious and original. Impudence was the trump card. Four or five officers took French leave, by procuring Confederate uniforms, which enabled them to pass the guards. Captain John F. Porter, of New York, obtaining a citizen's suit, walked out of the prison in broad daylight, passing all the sentinels, who supposed him to be a clergyman or some other pacific resident of Richmond. A lady in the city secreted him. By the negroes, he sent a message to his late comrades, asking for money, which they immediately transmitted. Obtaining a pilot, he made his way through the swamps to the Union lines, in season to claim, on the appointed day, the hand of a young lady who awaited him at home. He was an enterprising bridegroom.

During the long evenings, when we were faint, bilious, and weak from our thin diet, some of my comrades, with morbid eloquence, would dwell upon all luxuries that tempt the epicurean palate,--debating, in detail, what dishes they would order, were they at the best hotels of New York or Philadelphia. These tantalizing discussions were so annoying that they invariably drove me from the group, sometimes exciting a desire to strike those who _would_ drag forward the unpleasant subject, and keep me reminded of the hunger which I was striving to forget.

[Sidenote: EXTRAVAGANT RUMORS AMONG THE PRISONERS.]

The exchange was altogether suspended, and new prisoners were constantly arriving, until Libby contained several hundred officers.

Extravagant rumors of all sorts were constantly afloat among the captives; hardly a day passing without some sensation story. They were not usually pure invention; but in prison, as elsewhere during exciting periods, the air seemed to generate wild reports, which, in passing from mouth to mouth, grew to wonderful proportions.