LIBRARY OF_CONGRESS 0001520243'=^ %4 ^ ''^^ <^ %- \' 'P. -. v*^ ^^ v"^ 0^^ '-^ v^ J.V. ^>- ,c^' •^^^^' n.- >^^ ■^- '!>, ^.^ o> .5 '^>, « 1 ^ " \V %-^ •s- a\>' p^\ FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA: ADVENTURES WITHIN AND BEYOND THE UNION LINES: KMBEACmG A GREAT VAMETY OP FACTS, mCIDENTS, AND EOMAICE OF THE WAE. rSCLUDtSG The Author's Capture at Vicksburg, May 3, 1863, while running the Eebel Batteries ; his Imprisonment at Vicksburg, Jackson, Atlanta, kichmond, and salisbury; his escape and perilous Journey of Four Hundred Miles to the Union Lines at Knoxville. JUNIUS HENRI BROWNE, BPKOIAL WAB 0OEEE8PONDBNT OP THE NEW TOEK TBIBUNB. MH^ Hhtstrations. HARTFORD : 0. D. CASE AND COMPANY. CHICAGO: GEO. & C. W. SHERWOOD. LONDON: STEVENS BROTHERS. 1865. r Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, By O. D. case & COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Connecticut. / f>6 ?/ TO THE PRIVATE SOLDIERS OF THE UNIOJf, THE tJNRECORDED AND FAMELESS HEROES OF THE "WAR, "WHO DESERVE THE ETERNAL GRATITUDE OF THE REPUBLIC THEY HAVE PRESERVED, THIS UNPEETENDING VOLUME IS ADMIRINGLY INSCRIBED. PEEFAOE. Most first books either are, or assume to be, written at tlie request of that apocKrypbal class known as Friends. Having a very limited acquaintance witb that somewhat intangible portion of the community, I would state that this unpretending volume owes its unfortunate parturition to the urgent solicitation of my publishers, who, unsolicited, offered me such terms as a Gentleman of very slender income (his valuable estates in Castile being entirely inconvertible in Wall Street) and somewhat expensive habits could ill afford to refuse. The contents of " Four Years in Secessia" are merely poor pieces of patch- work clumsily stitched together with a needle that grew very rusty in the long damp- ness of Rebel Prisons, The little labor on the book has been, under very adverse circumstances, iiTegularly and hurriedly performed, not extending beyond a VI PREFACE. fortniglit's duration, and this, thougli no excuse, may be some reason for the poverty of its contents. If my readers are half as much wearied in its perusal as the author was in its preparation, he can only entreat them to remember the Spaniard's advice to men about to choose a wife : " Shut your eyes, and commend your soul to God." The Author New York, May 1, 1865. / ILLUSTEATIONS. PAGE OTJE CAPTURE BEFOEE VICKSBUEG Frontispiece. THE BOHEMIANS AS HOUSEKEEPERS 42 BOHEMIA AS A BELLIGERENT 66 GUNBOAT FIGHT AT FORT PILLOW 170 UNION BUSHWHACKERS ATTACKING REBEL CAVALRY 346 THE ESCAPED CORRESPONDENTS ENJOYING THE NEGRO'S HOSPITALITY 370 CONFERENCE OF THE CORRESPONDENTS WITH BUSH- WHACKERS 386 THE BOHEMIANS CLIMBING THE MOUNTAINS 394 GOIsrTEK'TS. CHAPTER I. THE WAR CORRESPONDENT. His Anomalous Position.— A RuralistV- Idea of a Bohemian.— How the Name was Obtained.— Genesis and Purpose of the War Correspondent.- His Duty and Obligation.— The Difficulty of his Task.— His Habits, Peculiarities, and Defects. — What he Requires of tlie Service. — His Just Claims . . 13 CHAPTER II. THE FREMONT CAMPAIGN, Life in Jefferson City, Mo.— Efifect of the Sudden Change from MetropoUtan Life.— A Contrast to the Glory of War.— A Romantic Soldier.— A Camp Picture. — The Original Bohemian Brigade 23 CHAPTER III. . CAMP-LIFE AT SYRACUSE, MO. Effects of Camp-Life. — Sentimental Reflections on War. — A Modern Penthesilea. — Woman's Military Influence Beautifully Exemplified. — The Rural Females of Missouri. — Their Unpoetic Appearance 21 CHAPTER IV. A NIGHT WITH THE FLEAS. Unanticipated Attack. — Inexplicable Sensations. — Prosaic Revelation. — Our In- tense Suffering. — A Novel Remedy. — Extraordinary Ride through a Tempest- uous Night. — Finale of the Tragi-Comedy 33 CHAPTER V. ROMANCE AND REALITY IN CAMP. Conversion of a Fair Secessionist. — Disadvantage of Securing a Guard. — A Grand Mule Concert. — Sonorous Imitations of the Opera. — High-Art Jackassical Performances. — Terror Excited by the Unique Entertainment . . 38 4 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. ON THE MARCH. Brutality of Officers.— Shameful Treatment of a "Woman. — Change of Base. — A Model Missouri Hotel. — Resumption of the March. — Bohemian Philosophy. — Its Necessity in the Field 42 CHAPTER VII.. WILSON'S CREEK. Yisit to the Battle-Ground. — Its Appearance. — Cause of Sigel's Discomfiture. — Scenes on the Field. — Ghastly Spectacles. — The Sleeping Camp. — A Skyey Omen 46 CHAPTER VIII. ZAGONYI'S RIDE TO DEATH. Charge of the Fremont Body-Guard. — Its Desperate Character. — The Heavy Loss. — Scene of the Engagement. — Description of the Battle. — Progress of the Ride.— FUght of the Foe.— After the Struggle 49 CHAPTER IX. THE RETROGRADE MOVEMENT. The Return to RoUa. — A Ghastly Jest. — A Brace of Fair Bohemians. — The Discrediting Efiect of Camp Attire. — A Night in a Barn. — Potency of an Army Pass 55 CHAPTER X. SECESSION IN MISSOURL The Feminine Secessionists of St. Louis. — Their Parrot-like Raving. — Their Re- semblance to Barnaby Rudge's Raven. — Harmlessness of Petticoated Traitors. — Sale of Rebel Property. — Curious Scene. — A Mysterious Article . .61 CHAPTER XI. BATTLE OF DONELSON. March from Fort Henry to the Field. — Troubles of the Correspondents. — DiflBculty of Subsistence. — Courage of our Soldiers. — Examples of Sacrifice and Heroism. — Gallant Charge. — Amateur Sharpshooting. — Mortification of the Enemy after the Surrender. — Desperation of the Rebels. — Repudiation of the Five to One Boast. — Ghastly Wounds. — Touching Incidents .... 66 CHAPTER XII. AFTER THE BATTLE. Extracts from my Note-Book. — Sensations of a Reasoning Man Under Fire. — A Novel in Brief. — ^A Faithless Woman and a Sacrificed Lover. — A Juvenile CONTENTS. Hero. — Difficulty of Dying on the Field. — Ultra-professional Correspondents. Ludicrous Incidents of their Journalistic Devotion . . . . 78 CHAPTER XIII. OCCUPATION OF COLUMBUS. The Departure for the Rebel Stronghold. — Uncertainty of the Situation. — Doubts and Apprehensions. — Pleasant Discovery. — Enthusiasm on Board the Flotilla. — Abortive Defenses of tlie Enemy. — Evidences of Excessive Orthodoxy. — Superstition and Swagger. — Pikes and Long Knives in Abundance . 87 CHAPTER XIV. BATTLE OP PEA RIDGE. The Three Days' Fighting. — Desperate Struggle for the Possession of the Train. — Sigel's Heroism. — Tremendous Contest for tlie Guns. — Hand-to-Hand Com- bats. — An Epic of War. — Triumph of the Republic. — Retreat of the Rebels, 93 CHAPTER XV. PROSE AND POESY OP WAR. Facts and Fancies from Pea Ridge. — The Preservative Power of Tobacco. — A Song- Book doing the AVork of a Bible. — Mysterious Instance of Sympathy. — Another Fabian dei Franchi. — Painful Fate of a Union Lieutenant. — A Reckless Indianian. — A Magnanimous Rebel. — A Gallant Iowa Colonel, 103 CHAPTER XVI. INDIAN ATROCITIES. Aboriginal Outrages and Barbarities at Pea Ridge. — Minds of the Savages Poisoned by the Rebels. — Wliisky and Gunpowder Stimulant. — The Indians Scalp Friend and Foe Alike. — Slaughter of the Red Men by their own Allies 109 CHAPTER XVII. BENIGHTED ARKANSAS. Semi-Barbarism of the People. — Benton County as an Example. — Extent of the Conscription. — Modern Harpies in the Shape of Women. — The Loyal Senti- ment of the State. — Chivalrous Mode of its Suppression . . . 113 CHAPTER XVIII. DOWN THE MISSISSIPPL A Weary Siege. — Inaneness of Existence on the Flotilla. — Monotony and Dreari- ness of the Scenes. — Melancholy Character of the Mighty River. — Out in the Night. — A Celestial Symbol. — A Canine Convert. — A Perplexed Correspond- eli" and Would-be-Bohemian 117 6 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIX. INAUGURATION OF BATTERY-RUNNING. The Carondelet and Pittsburg Defying the Guns of Island No. 1 0. — Preparations for the Hazardous Enterprise. — Scenes on the Flag-Ship. — Departure of the Pittsburg. — An Anxious Period. — The Artillery of the Rebels and of Heaven — Thunder, Lightning, and Gunpowder. — Safe Passage of the Union Ves- sels 123 CHAPTER XX. SURRENDER OF ISLAND NO. X. A Mysterious Vessel astern. — Preparations for Battle on the Benton. — Prop- osition from the Enemy to Surrender. — Unconditional Terms asked. — The Rebel Prisoners and theu: Opinions. — Curious Scene. — Feminine Accom- paniments to a Siege 128 CHAPTER XXL SHILOH. Desperate Determination of the South. — Confidence of the Enemy. — Cause of the Early Action. — The First Day's Fighting. — Fearful Struggle. — Intensity of the Excitement. — Recklessness of Life. — Panic-stricken. Regiments. — Arri- val of General Buell. — The Second Day's Fighting. — Defeat of the Foe . 135 CHAPTER XXH. OFF FORT PILLOW. Ravages of the Musqnitos. — Their Secession Proclivities. — Battles between the Insects and Correspondents. — Anecdote of General Pope. — Discovery of an Unexpected Official 147 CHAPTER XXni. LIFE ON THE FLOTILLA. .A Profane Captain. — Piety of Commodore Foote. — Interruption of Religious Service. — Easter Sunday on the Flag-ship. — Horrible Persecutions of Unionists in Tennessee and Arkansas. — A Loyal Man Crucified. — Cold-Blooded Mur- ders in the South 151 CHAPTER XXIV. FEATURES OF SECESSIA. Melancholy Suicide of a Slave. — Triumph of the American Eagle. — Reminiscence of John A. MurreU — His Decease a Loss to the Secession Cause . . 156 CONTENTS. 7 CHAPTER XXV. MAYING IN AEKANSAS. A Beautiful Day. — Prodigality of Nature. — Assault of Gnats and Sand-Flies. — Eidiculous Adventures. — An Altered Physiognomy. — Saturnine Reflections. — A New Jeremiad 159 CHAPTER XXVI. COMMODORE FOOTE'S FAREWELL. Impressive Scene on the Flag-Ship. — Address of the Commodore. — Emotion of the Sailors. — Exciting Tug-Chase 164 CHAPTER XXVn. NAVAL ENGAGEMENT AT FORT PILLOW. Unexpected Appearance of the Hostile Vessels. — Commencement of the Attack. — Character of the Enemy's Boats. — Warm Work on a Warm Day. — The Rebel Sharpshooters. — A Gallant Captain and Determined Lieutenant. — Explosion of a Rebel Ram. — A Paymaster acting as Gunner. — Incidents of the Fight. — Victory Decided in our Favor . 169 CHAPTER XXVHI. FALL OF MEMPHIS. A Gasconading Rebel. — The Brilliant Gunboat Fight. — The Vessels Engaged. — The Nautical Situation. — Commencement of the Action. — Union Rams Taking Part. — Increased Warmth of the Contest. — Sinking of the General Lovell. — Magnanimity of our Seamen. — Flight of tlie Southern Commodore. — Explosion of tlie Jeff. Thompson. — Harmony of Northerners and Southerners after the City's Occupation 179 CHAPTER XXIX. THE EXPEDITION UP WHITE RIVER. Its Object and Strength. — Cautious Progress. — Character of the Stream. — Des- peration of the Arlcansans. — Progress of the Fleet. — The Engagement near St. Charles. — Position of the Hostile Fortifications. — Explosion of the Mound City. — Terrible Destruction by Steam. — Horrible Scenes of Sufiering. — Inhu- manity and Barbarity of the Rebels. — Their Defeat and Punishment . 192 CHAPTER XXX. THE BRAGG-BUELL CAMPAIGN. Trip from Louisville to Frankfort. — The occupation of the Kentucky Capital by 8 CONTENTS. the Enemy. — Sudden Conversion of Romantic "Women to Loyalty. — Tlie In- auguration of the Pseudo-Governor. — Sudden Exodus of tlie Usurpers ; their Strange Self-Dehision. — Bohemians in the Horse Market. — The Battle of Per- ryville. — A Journalistic Rebel Colonel. — Sketch of John H. Morgan. . 201 CHAPTER XXXI. THE RAM ARKANSAS DEFYING OUR FLEET. The Expedition up the Tazoo. — Unexpected Meeting of the Rebel Monster. — Her Engagement with the Union Vessels. — Their Discomfiture and Retreat. — Her Passage of the Union Flotilla. — Her Exposure to a Terrible Fire. — Ex- plosion on Board the Lancaster. — Casualties on both Sides. — Bohemian Re- flections on Running Batteries 213 CHAPTER XXXH. PLANTATION LIFE IN THE SOUTH. Expedition in Search of Cotton, Cattle, and GuerrQlas. — Plantations along the Mississippi. — Anxiety of the Negroes for Freedom. — Sad Scenes on Shore. — An African Andromache. — A Miscegenated Southern FamUy . . 224 CHAPTER XXXni. CAPTURE OP THE TRIBUNE CORRESPONDENTS. Reflections on our Return to Freedom. — The Effect of Imprisonment. — Rapidity of Restoration to One's Normal Condition. — Running the Batteries of Vicks- laurg. — Incident of the Undertaking.— Terrible Fire from the Rebel Strong- hold.— Complete Wreck of our Expedition.— Brilliant Prospects for Dying. — Adventures of the Bohemians. — Grotesque Appearance of the Prisoners, 229 CHAPTER XXXIV OUR IMPRISONMENT AT VICKSBURG. Consignment to a Mississippi Jail. — Repnlsiveness of the Place.— Character of the Inmates.— Rebel Idea of Comfortable Quarters.— A Fragrant Spot.— Parole of the Captives. — Our Removal to the Court-House. — Courteous Treat- ment—Kindness of the Citizens. — Peculiarities of Union Men. — Miscompre- hension of the Enemy 240 CHAPTER XXXY. AT JACKSON AND ATLANTA. The Marble-Yard Prison. — Visit to the Appeal Office. — Kindness of the Editors. — Tremendous Excitement and Panic at the Mississippi Capital. — A Terrified and Fuo-acious Mayor. — The Mississq^piaii OfQce Preparing for an Exodus. — Curiosity Excited by the Yankees. — Southern Fondness for Discussion and Rhodomontade. — Our Continuous Inflictions along the Route. — Incidents of the Journey. — The Whitehall Street Prison. — A Pertinacious Hibernian. — Abusive Editorial in a Newspaper, and its Efiects . . . . 24t CONTEN^TS. 9 CHAPTER XXXVI. THE LIBBY PRISON. Arrival at Richmond. — Our Reception from the Union Officers. — Mistaken Idea about Human Endurance. — The First Shock in Prison. — Entomological Re- searclies. — Sickness and Sentiment. — Violation of The T^r^'fietwe Correspondents' Paroles — Character of the Rebel Commissioner. — Determination of the Enemy to Hold us to the End of the War 257 CHAPTER XXXVH. THE LIBBY PRISON". Arrival and Release of Union Officers. — Therapeutic Power of the FaU of Vicka- burg. — Its Wholesome P^ffect on the Prisoners. — Gradual Resignation to Con- finement. — Means of Killing Time. — Journalistic Desire to Write, and the Impossibility of its Indulgence. — Exhibition of the Loyal Captives. — Summer Costumes. — Cruelty of our Keepers. — Petty Meanness of the Commandant. — The Drawing of Lots. — Horror of the Scene. — Barbarous Treatment of Citi- zens. — Consideration Shown the Officers. — Removal of The Irihune Corre- spondents 263 CHAPTER XXXVni. THE KITCHEN CABINET AT THE LIBBY. Disappointment and Disgust in Prison Life. — The Union Officers as Servants and Scullions. — Journalistic Cooking and its Trials. — The First Breakfast. — Hor- rors of the Cuhnary Art. — Interior View of the Kitchen. — Grotesque and Mortifying Scenes. — Battles of the Saucepans and SkiUets. — Complaint, Clamor, and Confusion 277 CHAPTER XXXIX. CELL-LIFE IN RICHMOND. Prison within a Prison. — Full Appreciation of Sterne's Starling. — Evil Destiny of The Tribune Correspondents. — One of our many Failures and its Result. — Interior View of a Rebel Cell. — The Rare Society we found there. — Glance at the Gross Corruption in Secessia. — Novel Means of making Confederate Cur- rency. — Horrors of Southern Dungeons 284 CHAPTER XL. CASTLE THUNDER. Contrast between the Castle and Libby. — A Southern Bombastes. — Cruel Treat- ment of Prisoners. — Absurd Charges against Innocent Men. — The Prison a Regular Bastile. — Energetic and Enterprising Captives. — Difficulty of Obtain- ing Supplies Sent from the North. — Peculation and Plundering of the Chiv- alry. — Their Begging and Trading Proclivities. — Tlieir Ridiculous Assumptions and Exposure. — Bohemian Arrivals. — Comparative Comfort of the Corre- spondents. — Rebel Anxiety to Purchase Treasury Notes. — Campaignmg with the Small Pox . . . • 295 10 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XLL EXECUTION OF A LOYAL TENNESSEAN. Brief Account of his Antecedents. — His Attachment to the Union Cause. — His Betrayal. — His Cruel Treatment in Prison. — A Second Judas. — Conviction on False Evidence. — His "Wretched Condition. — The Closing Scene. — An Lahuman Detective. — Revolting Spectacle at the Gallows 307 CHAPTER XLH. SALISBURY PENITENTIARY. Our Removal from Riclimond to Salisbury. — Character of our Companions. — Troubles of Transportation. — Strange Scene and Sensation at Petersburg. — Arrival at the North Carolina Prison. — Interior View of our Quarters. — A Heavy Blow for my Confrere. — The Horrors of Southern Captivity. — Difficulty of their Realization 313 CHAPTER XLIH. • PHOTOGRAPHS OF HORROR. Great Influx of Prisoners at Salisbury. — Barbarity of the Enemy. — Intense Suffering and Wholesale Murder of the Captives.— Pen Pictures of the Prison. — Agonizing Scenes. — Enlistment of our Soldiers in the Rebel Ser- vice. — Shuddering Strangeness of the Past. — The Secretary of War Respon- sible for the Sacrifice of Ten Thousand Lives 321 CHAPTER XLIV. TUNNELS AND TUNNELING. Respecf for Tunnels. — Their attractive and absorbing Power. — Tunneling at Castle Thunder. — Difficulty of their Construction. — The Libby Prison Enter- . prise. — Uncertainty of their Completion. — Frequency of Excavations at Salis- bury. — Desires to obtain Subterranean Freedom. — Ideal Regrets . 333 CHAPTER XLV. MUGGING. The Meaning of the Term. — Who the Muggers were. — Their Plan of Operation. — Character of their Victims. — Indifference of the Authorities on the Subject. — Flogging of Northern Deserters. — Their Cruel Treatment. — Mugging in Richmond and Salisbury. — Its Reduction to a System. — Our Own Soldiers in the Business. — A Vigilance Committee Proposed 339 CHAPTER XLVI. DESPERATE ESCAPE. Constant Effort of Prisoners for Freedom. — Practicability versus Planning. — A Trio of Desperadoes. — Cause of their Extraordinary Gayety. — Their Remark- able Exodus 34:1 CONTENTS. 11 CHAPTER XLVIL UNION BUSHWHACKERS. Cause of Bushwhackers. — Repulsiveness of the Custom. — Its Excuse. — Their Sufferings and Wrongs. — Collisions with Home-Guards. — Victories of Union Men. — Terror of their Name. — The Vendetta in the Mountains. — Virtues of the Southern Loyalists. — "War of Extermination. — A Fearful Avenger, 350 CHAPTER XLVni. THE ESCAPE. Our Efforts Useless in the Salisbury Hospitals. — Bohemian Talent for Forgery. — Mode of our Exodus from the Penitentiary. — Sensations of Freedom. — Our First Night in a Barn. — A Long Fa.st. — A Rebel Officer Sound on the Main Question. — Commencement of the Journey toward Liberty. — Our First Two Nights' March. — Hunger, Cold, and Exhaustion. — Our Assistance from the Negroes 358 CHAPTER XLIX. THE MARCH TO FREEDOM. The Third, Fourth, and Fifth Nights Out. — Missing the Road. — Extremely Cold "Weather. — Our Sufferings in a Barn. — The Slaves our Faithful Friends. — Torture of the Boot Revived. — Our Pursuit and Masterly Retreat. — Our Re- inforcement with Mules and Whisky. — Incidents along the Route. — Arrival in Wilkes County.— The Haven of Rest 369 CHAPTER L. THE HAVEN OF REST. The Union Settlement in Wilkea County. — Frequent Change of Base. — Christmas in a Barn. — Ghostly Marches. — Alarms and Adventures in Yadkin County. — A Bohemian Model Artist. — An Eventful Night. — Storm and Sentiment. — Love-Making in a Tempest. — Parting with our Loyal Friends. — Their Devo- tion and Regret. — Battles between Unionists and Rebel Home-Guards. — In- extinguishable Fidelity of the People 377 CHAPTER LI. THE MARCH ONWARD. Accession of Escaped Prisoners. — Resumption of our Journey. — Excessive Roughness of the Route. — Character of North Carolina Roads. — Flanking of Wilkesboro'. — Losing our Way. — Crossing the Yadkin. — Skeptical Women. — Interview with Bushwhackers. — Consoling Counsel. — Passage of the Blue Ridge. — Hard March over the Mountains. — Narrow Escape from Union Rifles. — Contradictory Reports about our Lines 386 CHAPTER LH. THE HEGIRA IN EAST TENNESSEE. Traveling in that Region. — Passage of the Piney and Stone Mountains. — Cross- 2 12 CONTENTS. iiig the "Watauga River. — Invitation to a Frolic. — Peculiar Eeason for our Dec- lination. — Recklessness Engendered by our Situation. — Meeting with Dan Ellis, the Pilot, and his Party. — His Kindness and Generosity. — The Efifect *of Apple Brandy. — Mysterious Disappearance of a Bohemian. — Severe March- ing. — Strain on the Nervous System. — Reports of the Rebels in our Vicinity. — A Valuable Steed and his Fate. — Anxiety of our Guides to Meet the Enemy 399 CHAPTER LIII. DAN ELLIS, THE FAMOUS PILOT. Sketch of his Life and Career. — His Uncompromising Loyalty. — Efforts to Sup- press Him. — His Success as a Pilot. — Mode of Joining his Expeditions. — His Adventures and Narrow Escapes. — His Attachment to his Carbine. — His Opinion of the Confederacy. — A Rebel OfScer's Views of his Usefuhiess to the Union Cause • , . 409 CHAPTER LIV. THE NAMELESS HEROINE— UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES ONCE MORE. Pursuit of the Enemy. — Alarm and Separation of our Party. — Our Fair Guide. — Appearances and Antecedents. — Our Continued March. — Confiscation of Horses. — Our Last Night Out. — Sensations on Approaching the Union Lines. — Chagrin of the Rebels at our Escape. — Their Absurd Stories about the Departed Bohemians . . . . • 417 CHAPTER LV. * THE SOUTH AND THE WAR. The Popular Idea of the South. — Its Fallaciousness. — Character of the South- erners. — Their Best Society. — Slavery and its Pernicious Influence. — The Real Cause of the Rebellion. — The Great Revolution in Public Opiuion. — Dis- graceful History of the Past. — Our National Atonement . . . 432 CHAPTER LVI. THE FUTURE OF THE SOUTH. Its Undeveloped Resources. — Its "Wealthy Planters and the Northern Farmers. — Slave Labor and Its Defects. — The Blighting Effect of the Peculiar Institu- tion. — Contrast between the Free and Slave States. — Occupation of Secessia by the Yankees. — The Changes Consequent thereupon. — The Much-Vexed Negro Question. — The Riglits of the Freedmen 441 Conclusion 447 FOUR YEARS IN SEGESSIA. CHAPTER I. THE WAR CORRESPONDENT. His Anomalous Position. — A Ruralist's Idea of a Bohemian. — How the Name was obtained. — Genesis and Purpose of the War Correspondeut. — His Duty and Obligation. — The Difficulty of his Tasli. — His Habits, Peculiarities, and Defects. — What he requires of the Service. — His Just Claims, &c. During tlie few days I liave passed in tlie Free States since the breaking out of tlie Rebellion, I have been so often questioned about the province, purpose, and liabits of a War Correspondent, that I deem it well, in the initial chapter of this volume, to state what manner of animal he is, and what ai'e his peculiarities. That the War Correspondent is a hybrid, neither a soldier nor a citizen ; with the Army, but not of it ; is present at battles, and often participating in them, yet without any rank or recognized existence, has mystified not a few, and rendered his jDOsition as anomalous as un- desirable. "Do you belong to the Army ?" inquired a bumpkin, riding up beside myself and a couple of journalistic com- panions, as we were moving toward Fayetteville during 14 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. the Bragg-Buell campaign in Kentucky, in the autumn of 1862. ' ' Yes, ' ' was the answer. ' ' Are you soldiers ?' ' "No." "Are you officers?" "No." " Are you sutlers ?" * ' No. " " What are you, then f " War Correspondents. ' ' *'0h, that's what you are, is it?" and after this comment on our response, he seemed lost in reflection the most pro- found. Fully a minute must have passed, when his face "brightened, and he seemed to have solved some mental problem. "Oh, well, Iboys, you're all right. War Correspondents, eh? Why, they're the fellows that fought in the Revolution!" Droll idea that of the Bohemians, as they have been christened, from their nomadic, careless, half-literary, half-vagabondish life; but not much more so than far more intelligent persons entertain of them. What they are, and what they do, I will endeavor to explain. The War Correspondent is the outgrowth of a very modern civilization ; though Xenophon and Julius Csesar were early examples of the profession. They, however, told the story of their own deeds, and the nineteenth- century Bohemians narrate the acts of others ; make their name and fame without themselves gaining any glory. They are the outgrowth of the great and constantly augmenting power of the Press, and were first fully developed and their influence felt during the Crimean contest. There were War Correspondents before that day: in the Napoleonic struggle for universal domina- tion, and in our own little affair, as it now appears, with Mexico ; but, until the time mentioned, it had not become a regular and recognized department of military-civic life. THE WAR COERESPONDENT. 15 Since tlie first gun discliarged at Fort Sumter awoke the American world to arms, War Correspondence on tliis side of the Atlantic has been as much an avocation as practising law or selling dry goods. Every newspaper, of ]Drominence in the metropolitan cities, has had its Corre- spondents in the field and mth the Navy. IS'o army in the East or West hut has had a journalistic representa- tive, No expedition of importance has set out without its writing medium between it and New York, Phila- delphia, Boston, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis. The War Correspondent is the proper and natural medium between the Army and Navy and the people at home, and ought to be, and is generally, the purest, be- cause the only unprejudiced medium between the military and civil phases of existence. He only has. as a general thing — and there should be no exceptions — no friends to reward, and no foes to punish. He is at his post to relate what he sees ; to applaud valor and merit wherever found ; to point out abuses and blunders that would not otherwise be reached, save through tlie endless duration of military investigations and courts-martial. His duty is to illustrate the situation so far as is prudent ; to describe the movements, actions, and combinations of the forces ; in a word, to photograph the life and spirit of the com- batants for the benefit of the great Public, united to them by blood and sympathy, and who thrill and suffer with the gallant warriors, and mourn over and honor the heroic, dead. Such being the duty and obligation — and it should be a solemn one — of the Correspondent, he has as much place and fitness in the field as the Commander-in-Chief : and is 10 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. as much entitled to consideration. That he is not what he should he often, is true of him, as it is of every other class ; and that many of his profession have, hy unworthy conduct, reflected discredit upon its members, is equally true. The misfortune is, that the unworthy, hy their assurance, carelessness, and lack of principle, give such false impressions of the entire trihe, that I marvel not a most wholesome prejudice exists against them on the part of many officers. The ill-starred Bohemian has a most delicate and difficult task to perform. He must do his duty, and yet offend no one. He must praise, but not censure. He must weave chaplets of roses without thorns for the brows of vanity, and applaud modest merit without wounding pompous conceit. Every thing is expected of him — impossibilities and virtues more than human. Few give him commend- ation ; yet many are willing to denounce him. What he does well passes in silence ; what he does ill is blazoned to his shame. War Correspondence is a most thankless office. The Correspondent may do,, and dare, and suffer ; but who yields him credit ? If he die in the service by disease or casualty, it is thought and declared by many that he had no business there. The officers frequently dislike him, because they have not received what they conceive to be their meed of praise ; and the peoj)le do not appreciate him. So, on the whole, he is always between Sylla and Charybdis, and never avoids one without encountering the other. No disposition have I to laud my profession ; but I do think its members are unkindly and ungratefully treated. THE WAR CORRESPONDENT. 17 I have known many of them intimately, of course ; and while I have been called to blush for some, I can testify to the high and noble qualities of more. As a class they are brave, loyal, talented, and honorable gentlemen ; a little too prone, perhaps, to recklessness of conduct and statement, and unduly sensitive about their own dignity and the importance of the Press. They believe implicitly in the aphorism : Cedant arma togce, and do not ahvays understand that the customs of Peace are incom- patible with the exigencies of War. Yet, in the main, they perform their duty conscientiously, and deserve more kindly of the Army, the Navy, and the general Public, than they receive. The worst feature of their profession is — and they deplore it as much as any one — they are compelled, from the great competition in respect to news, to write up their accounts so rapidly, and forward them so early, that correctness of statement and excellence of style are often precluded. When they write their letters, as I have seen them, in the midst of action ; on their knee and upon the ground ; in crowded railway cars and on thronged transports ; under every variety of adverse circumstance, I have wondered, and still wonder, at their fluency, propriety, and exactness. They certainly accomplish marvels, considering their sur- roundings and facilities, and at least suggest what they might do if leisure and opportunity were given them. The Correspondents have figured in the casualties again and again ; have been killed, and wounded, and captured ; have, perhaps, had quite their share of the accidents of war. Yet, on the whole, they have been rather fortunate, for they go so recklessly hither and thither on the march 18 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. and in action, wherever their liumor or fancy prompts, that it seems strange a larger number have not lost life, limb, and freedom. They have splendid opportunities for observation, being a privileged body, under no orders, and consequently at liberty to roam when and where they please. They have probably seen more of the romance of the War than any other class of men in the Army — much of which they have not given to the public, and which they cannot give con- veniently or prudently until the struggle is over. They usually enter some officer' s mess, on taldng the field ; have their own horses ; pay their proportion of the expenses ; and live exactly as the officers do, except that ithey are not subject to orders. During a battle they can ;go where they list — to the skirmish line or to the rear ; to .the right or left wing ; with the infantry or artillery. If they have any fondness — and many of them have — for fighting, they can always be accommodated. I have more than once seen them in the field, musket in hand, and frequently trying their skill as sharpshooters. They very often act as voluntary aides on the staff of General Officers, and have, in numerous instances, played a con- ;spicuous and important part in engagements. They have again and again joined hazardous expeditions for which volunteers have been called ; have gone on perilous raids and scouts ; run batteries, and taken risks purely from a love of adventure — to have the experience — which is a very natural desire with the poetico-philosophic temperament. Tliey have done a number of what many would call very foolish and reckless, though certainly courageous, acts — all the more courageous because they had no inducement THE WAR CORRESPONDENT. 19 of glory, and would not at all have been honored as an officer or a soldier would if they had fallen, as they some- times have, in what would be considered obedience to a freak or feeling, instead of a conviction of duty. ' ' Why do they not enter the service regularly V ' I pre- sume has been often asked, ' ' and so do some good V ' They perform their part as Correspondents, would be a fair an- swer. They do good, though in a different way, just as much as the Captain of a battery, or the Lieutenant of cavalry, or the Major of an infantry regiment does. They are, in my judgment, as much a portion of the Army or N'avy as any of the officers of the Army or N^avy, and render perchance as essential, though less interested and heralded, service. Moreover, I suspect the Bohemians, from a certain im- patience of restraint and a Shelley-like hatred of obedience, are often opposed to entering the ranks or accepting a commission. They want more freedom than a regular connection with the Army or N"avy gives them ; but that such fantastic scruples are not infrequently removed is shown by the number who have entered both branches of the service. The profession of AYar Correspondence has, it seems to me, declined somewhat during the past two years. Or it may be that I see no more the names of those who were in the field when I passed out of it into a Rebel Prison, and fancy the new men inferior to the old campaigners because I do not know them. This supposition is quite probable, and I am very willing it should be regarded as the cause of the apparent decadence. One thing is certain, however. There has been so much 20 FOUR YEARS IN SEOESSIA. inlaarmony between tlie Officers and Correspondents, so many unpleasant jarrings and misunderstandings, tliat most of the gentlemen avIio were in the field, when I had any knowledge of it, have resigned their positions and taken new ones. There are some of my retired intimates who insist that a gentleman cannot be a Correspondent without detracting from his dignity, or abrogating a por- tion of his proper pride. I have not found it so in the Pa^ ; I trust I shall not in the Future. I am aware there are officers — some of very high standing — who are ab- surdly and causelessly prejudiced against the Bohemians ; but I cannot perceive why the two should not be en rap- port^ and administer to each other' s advantage. That the Correspondent ought to liave some fixed and recognized position in the Army and Navy, or be expelled from both, there can be little question. There is no middle ground. Either he has full right there, or he has not. Then recognize or remove him. He is always in the field, and always will be ; but he is really regarded, so far as the Regulations go, as a kind of camp-follower or hanger- on. Our readers remember, no doubt, the trouble that occurred between General Halleck and the Bohemians before Corinth in the summer of 1862, which seemed very unmse and unnecessary on that officer' s part, and which, I am glad to say, has never been repeated. If the Correspondent had a defined position, it Avould be far more agreeable to him ; for, however well he may be treated, it is rather unpleasant to know that he is, to a certain extent, merely tolerated. The Bohemians with whom I have associated have always been politely re- ceived by the officers, often courted and flattered ; THE WAR COREESPONDENT. 21 but still that does not remove the objection of wliich I have complained. Accept them entirely, or suppress them utterly. They have complete right there, as I have said ; but their right must be established before the genuine gentlemen of the profession can feel altogether at one with themselves and perfectly at their ease. The Bohemians have faults not a few, as has been stated ; but they are the best abused class of which I have any knowledge. They are too much inclined to publish their information before prudence and patriotism permit ; but tliat is the fault of their employers, and ought to be wholly discouraged. The man who can forget the duty he owes his country in his desire to serve the journal he represents, ouglit to be disgraced and punished. The Bohemians generally give the facts about as they are, and to few of their letters from the field are excep- tions taken unless by those officers — alas, how many ! — • who insist that their company, regiment, brigade or divi- sion, did all the fighting, and saved the fortunes of the day. It is well known to all veteran campaigners that every soldier and commander has a different story to tell, but each regards it as his religious obligation to praise his own company or corps, at tlie expense of all others. Such jealousy, envy, and heart-burning as are in the ser- vice, are painful to any and every true patriot, and prove that, after all that has been said, " Our Special" or " Our Own" is more trustworthy, and has less motive for mis- representation than any other individual on land or sea. We should look leniently on the Bohemian, and will, I apprehend, when we reflect how extremely, difficult his 22 FOUE YEARS IN SECESSIA. duty is, and liow utterly impossible it is to give general satisfaction. Let us yield liim some credit, if not for wliat he does, for what he refrains from doing ; and if we look into his life and avocation, we will find he is far more sinned against than sinning, and less a journalist than a patriot ; that he undergoes hardship, and exposes himself to dangers because he is earnest and loyal, and truly devoted to our great and glorious cause. THE FREMONT CAMPAIGN. 23 CHAPTER II. THE FREMONT CAMPAIGN". Life in Jefferson City, Mo. — Effect of the Sudden Changes from Metropolitan Life. — A Contrast to the Glory of "War. — A Romantic Soldier. — A Camp Picture. — The Original Bohemian Brigade. The Fremont campaign was the first in wliicli I fairly took the field, and, consequently, many things impressed me then, that, later in the War, would not have affected me at all. The prominent features of that campaign have passed into history, and would not bear repetition here. There- fore I shall merely give my personal impressions and ob- servations when I reached Jefferson City, early in Sep- tember, 1861, fresh from the pursuits of peace and the comforts of metropolitan life. I arrived at the capital of Missouri some weeks before General Fremont quitted St. Louis, when Jeff. C. Davis, then Colonel, commanded the post. There was very little doing there then in the military way, and very sudden transplanting to that rude frontier town made me merely vegetate in that most uncongenial atmosphere. I put up at a miserable hotel, and for a fortnight I was so lonely and wretched, that, if there had been an agree- able woman in the place, I should have faUen in love with her from sheer desperation. Safe enough was I, however, in that particular. There were no women of any kind, not to speak of lovable ones, 24 FOUR YEARS IX SECESSIA. visible in tlie streets, through which I sauntered listlessly and gloomily, wondering when my brother Bohemians, whom I had left in St. Louis, would make their apj)ear- ance at the dreary capital. I had no books with me, and could get none in the town worth reading. I did not know how to pass the hours. I was extremely miserable. I am not ashamed to confess it now — I was home-sick ; and, if it had not been for pride, I should have resigned my position of War Corre- spondent, and hurried back to peaceful avocations and metropolitan life, with a keener appreciation than I had ever known before. Having little to occup}^ me, I was a great observer, and grewatriiie sentimental, perhaps, as indolent and unhappy persons usually do. One saw just then much of "the pomp and circum- stance of glorious war." While cavalry companies were constantly dashing through the streets, regiments march- ing to the inspiring strains of martial music, officers hurrying to and fro on prancing steeds, artillery rumbling along, bugle-notes and drum-rolls rising from the adja- cent camps, a funeral cortege passed my window. A rude car contained a coffin, enveloped in the Ameri- can colors ; a squad of soldiers followed, with reversed arms ; a bugle played a mournful dirge ; but no one noticed the sad procession. All had too much of life to care for the dead. No one paused to tliink of the poor fellow in the coffin, who sickened and died afar from home and friends, in a military hospital. No kind sister had spoken comfort to him ; no mother's THE FEEMONT CAMPAIGN. 25 hand had smoothed his pillow ; no nearer and dearer friend — kindred only in heart — had bathed his brow or moistened his fevered lips, or received his last word, or sigh, or kiss. He had not even had the consolation of dying in battle, poor fellow ! Disease had struck him down ; but his death was not therefore less glorious. Happy soldier ! his troubles were over. He had suffered, and was at rest. Nor care, nor pain, nor strife could reach him evermore. IN'o one noticed the funeral cortege, I have said. Yes, there was one. A young man stood on the sidewalk, with head un- covered, his face beautiful with sympathy, and his eye moist with pity and with love. Men are not all careless and selfish, even there. He who pitied and who felt, whate'er his creed or station, must have been, in the largest sense, a Christian and a gentleman. One night, as I was at the railway depot, I observed a young man, with an unusually intelligent and comely face, standing sentry, in the uniform of a private. I had rarely seen such a face in the ranks, and I stopped a minute near him, gazing at the stars, which were unusually bright and numerous. "A beautiful night this," he said. "External nature is charming, but human nature is ever melancholy. How calm and beautiful the stars are ! They seem silently to rebuke the scene of arms on which they gaze." My impression of his superiority to his station was corroborated. 26 FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. Few private soldiers think or talk as lie liad done ; and at once we fell into conversation, wliicli continued for an hour. I learned from him — for he at once unbosomed himself — that he had been in love with a beautiful girl, the only daughter of a wealthy merchant of Cincinnati, and been affianced to her. During three months' absence in the East, she had been flirting desperately Avith another young man, and my soldier-friend, learning, on his return, that the two were engaged, concluded to call on her no more. The girl wrote to him, and he answered, informing her of what he had heard. She acknowledged the truth, but declared her atfair with his rival merely a flirtation ; that she loved the youth she addressed, and never could love any one else. This was not satisfactory. The enamored youth was wretched and desperate, and, declaring all women false, volunteered as a private, and went to Missouri. He informed me that, but for the war, he would have committed suicide ; that he was anxious to fall in the first charge, for life had for him no further charms. I smiled at his infatuation, and told him that nearly all women were fickle; that his "Louisa" was less so, pro- bably, than most of her sex ; tliat he should have more philosophy than to think of dying for a silly girl, and that he should congratulate himself on his escaj^e from matrimony. He thought me jesting, at first, and then wondered how one at my age — I was far younger than now — had become so cynical. THE FREMONT CAMPAIGN". 27 " Through observation and reason," I answered; and, assuring him he would soon forget "Louisa," and fancy he loved some other woman, bade him good-night. He vowed I was mistaken ; that I would hear of his death in his first battle. I never did. He will go through the war unhurt, no doubt, and live long enough after to laugh at his boyish passion, and experience, perhaps, that Love, as young hearts imagine and poets paint it, is a myth that Reason immediately removes. About the 1st of October we went into camp, and on the evening of the 4th, all was activity, and the scene was quite picturesque. The sky was dark with clouds, and the lightning in the southern horizon, and the low-muttering thunder, blend- ing with the neigh of horses, the rattling of sabres trail- ing on the ground, the " good-by" of officers, as they rode off to join their commands, already in advance, the hoarse cry of the artillerymen and teamsters, the music- swell of the National bands, coming in waves over the slopes and through the trees, with the illuminated tents, the camp-fires reddening the oaks and beeches — all gave a strange but attractive wildness to the mezzotinto land- scajDC before our eyes. With all its monotony, all its painful suggestions, there is a kind of charm in camp-life — in its freedom, from ordi- nary restraint, its out-door existence, its easy, reckless tone, its devil-may-care indifference, and utter disregard of the formal barbarians the enlightened world calls " Society." 28 FOUR YEARS IN SEOESSIA. "The Bohemian Brigade" was the name the little corps of army correspondents and artists that soon assembled at Jefferson City had received. They were only seven or eight in number : Albert D. Richardson, of the New York Tribune, Thomas W. Knox, of the Herald, Franc B. Wilkie, of the Times, Richard T. Colburn, of the World, Joseph B. McCullagh, of the Cincinnati Commercial, Geo. W. Beaman, of the St. Lonis Democrat, Henri Lovie, artist for Frank Leslie, and Alex. A. Simplot, for Harper's Weeldy ; with several other scribblers and sketchers, who were there for a few days, but grew tired or disgusted, and did not accompany our exj)edition to the South- West. Of course, we had considerable leisure, and amused ourselves as best we could, in the absence of books, which were very scarce. We smoked pipes, played whist, discussed Poetry, Metaphysics, Art, the Opera, Women, the World, the War and its future, and various themes on which we then could merely speculate. Most of our Brigade were bachelors — unless Michelet's idea of bachelordom, as represented in "L' Amour," be correct — and enthusiastic members of the anti-matrimonial school of philosophy. The unwedded bore camp-life resignedly and cheer- fully ; but the Benedicks seemed delighted with it, because, as the most confirmed celibates declared, they then had an excuse for absenting themselves from their domestic hearths, and, to use that exquisitely satirical phrase, the *' blessings of connubial life." OAMP-LIFE AT SYRACUSE, MO. 29 CHAPTER III. CAMP-LIFE AT SYRACUSE, MO. Effects of Camp-Life. — Sentimental Reflections on War. — A Modern Penthesilea. — "Woman's MOitary Influence Beautifully Exemplified. — The Rural Females of Missouri. — Their Unpoetic Appearance. In tlie early days of October, 1861, Fremont's army began to move from Missouri' s capital, for the purpose of intercepting, if possible, and certainly of giving battle to, Price' s forces, who had from some mysterious cause been allowed to take Lexington, and then retreat southward without opposition or hindrance. Whose the fault was, I will not here attempt to show. I will simply accom- pany Fremont to Springfield, describing such noteworthy incidents of the camp and march as have not already become familiar to the general reader. When the correspondent of the Herald and myself reached Syracuse, Mo., about the 13th or 14th of October, I was becoming accustomed to camp-life, though I could hardly say I liked it, nor did I believe I ever should. It was certainly a change, and on that account I sought it. It was very ditferent from existence at the Fiftli Avenue or Metropolitan — about as different as a transfer from Paris to Canton, or from the equator to tlie north pole. I had not expected to find agreeableness in camp- life, but rather its opposite ; and therefore I was not to be disappointed. so FOUR YEARS IX SECESSIA. Residence in camp lias a decided effect in removing the romantic idea of War, wliicli, by the by, I have ever regarded as the most prosaic and unattractive of actual- ities. No spirit of poesy, no breath of sentiment enters into War ; no sesthetic principle animates it. War bristles with facts — is terribly real, repulsively practical. War may be beautiful on the historian's page, and through the idealization of time and distance ; but to the spectator or the actor it is divested of its charms, and becomes a reign of horrors and a civilized monstrosity. And yet it has its fascinations, as drunkenness, licentious- ness, murder, journalism, and the stage have theirs. What is War, after all, but scientific assassination, throat-cutting by rule, causing misery and vice, and pain and death by prescribed forms ? It seems high time War had ceased to be. It is a palpable anachronism, and yet it continues, and will until the mental millennium arrives ; until this sphere is spiritualized, and mankind have grown philosophers. So I thought then ; but my duty was to write of, not against, War ; and, stretched on the earth beside my tent, in the shade, on a warm, bright, beautiful day, full of the loveliness of October, I proceeded to discharge my jour- nalistic obligations as best I could, reserving my senti- mental opinions about War for the private ears of my sentimental friends. A great deal of disharmony and trouble occurred about that time in a Missouri cavalry regiment, which threat- ened then to, and eventually did, break it up completely. About the 1st of October, the commander had placed a number of the inferior officers under arrest at Tipton, and CAMP-LIFE AT SYRACUSE, MO. 31 a detachment at Jefferson refused to o1bey liis orders, and were insubordinate because tliey were not armed. Much of this trouble was reported to have arisen on account of the interference of the wife of the Colonel with the affairs of the regiment, in which she took the most lively in- terest. I was told she threatened to horsewhip some of the refractory officers, drew revolvers upon others, and adopted the most masculine measures to restore order out of chaos. Of course, a woman's interference was resent- ed by the officers, who murmured loudly against petticoat domination, and were extremely anxious to get rid of her. The Madame, however, would not be gotten rid of, and continued to play the part of Penthesilea Avitli a degree of boldness and perseverance which, in the days of the Amazons, Avould have made her their queen. She bore dispatches, rode through storm and tempest, faced curses and opposition, met insult with maledictions and menaces, and evinced an energy, a resolution, and a courage, that rendered it a pity sue was not born of the opposite sex. Notwithstanding her feminine gendership, she was said by those who knew her to be most masculine in character, and that she would be very effective in leading a cavalry charge, or attacking a death-dealing battery. From all accounts, she seemed unfortunate in her genesis — to have been created physically a woman and mentally a man. The virago finally demoralized the regiment, caused its disbandment, and her husband's removal from the army. She had her way ; but she ruined her liege-lord, who, the last I heard of him, had taken to superlative potations 32 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. and the exhibition of seven-legged calves and Irish giants, still accompanied, and haunted, and tortured by the pur- suing Nemesis of his life, the precious friend whom we have honored with the fragment of a chapter. After my arrival in the rural regions of Missouri, and my association with the army, I often wondered how men fond of women managed to endure ; indeed, I, who had always regarded the softer sex as works of art — and are they not such ? — from the level of cold criticism or pure sesthetics have been compelled to commiserate, though I could not sympathize with, those countless amorous Alfonsos. Fine women did not appear indigenous to the disloyal soil of Missouri, They were in the rough, as sculptors phrase it ; lack- ing the refining chisel of Art and Culture to fashion them into loveliness. A lover of the beautiful looked in vain for the classic features, the spiritual expression, the soul-reflecting eye, the charming symmetry, the voluptuous proportions, the elegant drapery, the delightful but airy nothings that appeal to the Imagination more than the Sense. In their stead, he saw brown and brawny women, that offended his taste, and chilled his gallantry ; that re- pressed his chivalrous sentiment, and falsified his mem- ories of the blue-eyed "Belles" and hazel-haired "Heroes" he had met, and made them seem the angels of a dreamy Past. A NIGHT WITH THE FLEAS. 33 CHAPTER IV. A NIGHT WITH THE FLEAS. Unanticipated Attack. — Inexplicable Sensations. — Prosaic Revelation. — Our In- tense Suffering. — A Novel Remedy. — Extraordinary Ride through a Tempes- tuous Night. — Finale of the Tragi-Comedy. Until I began to follow the camp, I had never known, save by auricular evidence, of those unpoetical insects known as fleas; but one night in Syracuse, Mo., "our mess" experienced the cruelty and savageness of the diminutive foes of man, to our bodies' extremest dis- satisfaction. We were all lounging in the tent, reading, undreaming of enemies of any kind, when we all became restless, and the interest of our books began seriously to di- minish. There were various manual applications to various parts of the body, multifarious shiftings of position, ac- companied with emphatic expletives that sounded mar- velously like oaths. "What is the matter?" was asked by one of us of another. "What renders you so uneasy?" " Heaven knows !" was the answer ; "but I itch like Satan." "My body seems on fire," observed one. "I wonder," said another, "if I have contracted a loathsome disease!" "Confound it! what ails me?" 34 • FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. "And me — and me — and me?" was echoed from my companions. One hand Ibecame insufficient to allaj the irritation of onr corporeality. Both hands "became requisite to the taslv, and our volumes were necessarily laid asi^e. No one yet appeared aware of the cause of his suffer- ing. If we were not all in Tophet, no one could deny we had gone to the old Scratch. We seemed to be laboring under an uncontrollable nervous complaint. We threw our hands about wildly. We seized our flesh rudely, and rubbed our clothes until they nearly ignited from friction. One of the quartette could stand it no longer. He threw off his coat and vest spasmodically, and even his under garments, and solemnly exclaimed — "Flee from the wrath to come!" The mystery was explained — the enigma solved. The martyr's person was covered with small black spots, that disappeared and reappeared in the same instant. To be practically expressive, he was covered with fleas. The rest of us followed his example, and converted ourselves into model artists. We were all covered with fleas. % Fleas were everywhere. Tent, straw, books, blan- kets, valises, saddles, swarmed with them. The air scintillated with their blackness. We rushed out of the tent. They were there in myriads. Tlie moonlight fell in checkered beams through their innumerable skippings. A NIGHT WITH THE FLEAS. 35 They made a terrible charge, as of a forlorn hope, and drove us back. We roared with anger and with pain, and loud curses made the atmosphere assume a violet hue. Three of the flea-besieged caught up canteens of whisky and brandy, and poured the contents over their persons and down their throats ; scratching meanwhile like a thousand cats of the Thomas persuasion, and leaping about like dancing dervises. The more the fleas bit, the more the victims drank ; and I, having no taste for liquor, began to envy them, as, in their increasing intoxication, they seemed to enjoy themselves after a sardonic fashion. The fleas redoubled their ferocity on me, and I surren- dered at discretion ; and at last became resigned to their attacks, until, a few minutes after, a storm that had been gathering burst with fierce lightning, heavy thunder, and torrents of rain. A happy idea seized me. I caught up my saddle and bridle, and placed them on my sable steed "Festus," which stood neighing to the tempest, a few feet from the camp. I mounted the fleet-footed horse, and, nude as the Apollo Belvidere, cried "go" to the restive animal; and off we sped, to the amazement of the sentinels, through the darkness and the storm. Every few moments the lightning blazed around us with a lurid sheen, as we went like the wind through the tempestuous night. "Festus" enjoyed it, as did his rider ; and six swift- speeding miles were passed ere I drew the rein upon the 3G FOUR YEARS IN" SECESSIA. neck of the panting Ibeast, covered witli white flecks of foam. I paused, and felt that the fleas had been left behind. The pelting rain and rushing blast had "been too much for them ; while the exercise had made my attireless body glow into a pleasant warmth. "Festus" galloped back, and soon I was in the tent, rolled so closely in a blanket that no new attack of the fleas could reach me. My companions, overcome with their exertions, sufifer- ings, and ]3otations, had lain down ; but the fleas were still upon them, and they rolled and tossed more than a rural tragedian in the tent scene of "Richard the Third." They were asleep, and yet they moaned piteously, and scratched with demoniac violence. In spite of my pity for the poor fellows, I could not refrain from laughing. With the earliest dawn I awoke, and the tent was vacant. Horrid thought ! Had the fleas carried them off ? I went out to search for them ; and, after a diligent quest, found them still in natiire's garb, distributed miscellaneously about the encampment. In their physical torture they had unconsciously rolled out of the tent. One lay in an adjacent ditch ; a second under an artil- lery wagon ; and the third was convulsively grasping tlie earth, as if he were endeavoring to dig his own grave ; believing, no doubt, that, in the tomb, neither Fortune A NIGHT WITH THE FLEAS. 37 nor fleas could ever liarm liim more. The unfortunate two were covered witli crimson spots, and looked as if recovering from the small-pox. I pulled them, still stupid from their spiritual excess, into the tent again, and covered them with blankets, though they swore incoherently as I did so, evidently "believing that some giant flea was dragging them to perdition. When they were fully aroused, they fell to scratching again most violently, but knew not what had occurred until tliey had recalled the events of the previous night. They then blasphemed afresh, and unanimously con- signed the entire race of fleas to the Bottomless Pit. The fleas still tried to bite, but could find no new places, and my companions had grown accustomed to them. They felt no uneasiness for the coming night ; they were aware that the new fleas would retire from a field so completely occupied, and that the domesticated creatures were in sufficient force to rout all invaders. So ended that memorable Noche Triste, an exemplifica- tion of the Scriptural declaration, "The wicked flee when no man pursueth." 38 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. CHAPTER V. EOMAlSrCE AND REALITY IN CAMP. Conversion of a Pair Secessionist. — Disadvantage of Securing a Guard. — A Grand Mule Concert. — Sonorous Imitations of the Opera. — High- Art Jackassical Per- formances. — Terror excited by the Unique Entertainment. A Captain on one of tlie general's staff in McKinstry's division, while we were at Syracuse, sent a guard to pro- tect the house of a secessionist in this neighborhood, who felt very needless alarm about his property ; and learning that the rebel had a pretty and interesting daughter (re- markable circumstance in Missouri), paid frequent visits to her domicil, and assumed the deepest interest in the protection and welfare of the family. This was, as may be supposed, the effect of the attrac- tiveness of the daughter, whose acquaintance, of course, the officer made on his first visit. He found the fair girl a violent advocate of that meaningless phrase, " Southern Rights;" but, like a sensible man, he was the more at- tracted to her therefor. Here let me state what Brantome and Crebillon, and the other French writers on women and their peculiarities, have failed to mention. The man of perseverance, who eloquently opposes a woman's ruling opinion, excites her love through her hate. So it proved witk the Captain. ROMANCE AND REALITY IN CAMP. 39 The girl was furious at first ; declared him an abolition- ist and an assassin ; vowed she would not many a Yan- kee if her soul's salvation depended on it, and so on to the end. The Captain blended vehement Unionism with his pas- sionate gallantry, and in a week the girl struck her Seces- sion colors, and is now warmly in favor of the Govern- ment, and betrothed to the young officer. Her father knows not the change of his daughter's sentiments. When he does, he will regret asking a guard for his property. He should rather have requested a guard for "Helen's" heart, which was hopelessly lost, even to a rebel lover she had in Tennessee. What is called "winning a woman's heart" is generally a melancholy business. It is often less difficult to get it than to get rid of it ; and is, on the whole, a very uncomfortable and unremunerative acquisition. We had an amusing entertainment one night at Syra- cuse, and an entertainment of an original character. 1 am passionately fond of music ; could listen to sweet music, I think, until my hair turned gray, and be "unaware of the passage of time. I have heard all the great vocalists and artistes that have visited this country ; but never, until the night in question, had my melody-longing ears been greeted with so unique a performance as a mule concert. It was irresistibly droll to hear, though it can not be described, and would have made Heraclitus laugh. My army-correspondent companions and myself were 40 FOUR YEARS IN" SECESSIA. talking about the prospects of the campaign, while rolled in our blankets in the tent, when our voices were drowned by the loudest and shrillest and most space-penetrating bray I remember to have heard. A moment passed, and the bray was repeated in a baser key ; then another, and another, and another, each with a different modulation. All the mules in the camp volunteered for the operatic role, and the atmosphere quivered with the cacophonous notes. Sometimes all the mules but one would cease ; and he would execute the solo part, the rest coming in most energetically by way of chorus. All voices were repre- sented, to the extent of a mule' s capacity. We had the soprano, mezzo and pure ; the first and second tenore ; the baritone the basso profundo and secondo ; the alto and falsetto. One mule would attempt a florid passage, and in the midst of a roulade would break ; when the others, either in applause or ridicule, would indulge in a species of mule music that was positively infernal. Ten thousand tom-cats, a million of screaming babies, a billion of rusty saws carelessly filed, with four trillions of intoxicated Teutons, endeavoring to play "Hail Colum- bia" with the wrong end of a cornet, might give a faint idea of the sound. If we could obtain that noise in a concentrated liquid form, and pour it out on the battle-field, it would fright- en the Rebels out of their senses, and make the moon blink with terrified amazement. Indeed it would. KOMANOE AND REALITY m CAMP. 41 For at least four hours tlie mules kept up their infernal noise. The soldiers started from their slumbers ; the sentinels turned pale ; those of the Catholic faith crossed them- selves, and said an "Ave Maria;" the horses neighed wildly ; and the general impression seemed to be that Hades had broken loose, and emptied itself into Camp McKinstry. I thought I had heard unpleasant noises, but I confess I was in error. 'No man can justly declare he knows what perfect discord is, until he has listened to a mule concert of the high art style. I have often been told mules were vicious, but now I am convinced they are totally depraved ; that they are possessed of a devil, and that they let him out through their mouths on the night of the ever-to-be-remembered jackassical entertainment. 42 FOUR YEARS IN" SEOESSIA. CHAPTER yi. ON THE M A K C II , Brutality of Officers. — Shameful Treatment of a Woman. — Change of Base. — A Model Missouri Hotel. — Resumption of the March. — Bohemian Philosophy. — Its Necessity in the Field. The injustice and brutality with wliicli private soldiers are often treated by their officers, is enough to render any sensitive nature cynical. I have seen repeated instances of this, and I wonder some shoulder-strapped ruffians are not often assassinated, as they deserve to be, by the men they so grossly abuse. As an instance : One day, at Syracuse, a private who had a cUnteen of liquor, and had been drinking, was knocked down, beaten, and kicked in the most brutal manner, before a dozen Captains, Colonels, and Majors, all of whom, doubtless, j)i'ofessed to be gentle- men, and yet not one of them remonstrated against the outrage, or interfered to prevent it. Gentlemen, indeed ! They were not even human. Not a voice was raised against the cowardly and ruf- fianly officers, except that of a woman, whose instincts of humanity could not be repressed. When she spoke of the grievous wrong, she was insulted by the " military gentlemen" who had failed to prevent the cruelty the weak woman only had courage to rebuke. ON" THE MARCH. 43 Another instance : Two soldiers, who had "been in the hospital in St. Louis, and who, extremely anxious to join their regiment, had left their Ibeds before they were ahle, arrived one day at Syracuse ; and, still pale and wan, but with patriotism and enthusiasm flashing from their eyes, went up to the Colonel, and said : "Well, Colonel, we are about again. We got iip against the Surgeon's orders ; but we were afraid we'd be left behind, and we always want to be with the brave Seventh." The Colonel, contemptible puppy as he was, looked angrily at the poor, brave fellows, and said, in the most angry tone : " Well, G d you, go and report yourselves, and don't trouble me." After seeing and hearing the brutality of a portion of the officers to their men, I do not wonder the former are so often killed in battle, though I presume they often fall by other hands than those of the enemy. It must be a sweet satisfaction, as well as a species of poetic justice, to shoot the brutal tyrants, for whose loss Humanity is better, and the World improved. After tarrying for eight or ten days at Syracuse, wait- ing in vain for McKinstry's division to move, several of the Bohemians determined to join Fremont at Warsaw, and therefore rode through the country, infested as it was by guerrillas, without any accident or event of interest. The only hotel, so called, in Warsaw, was an antique frame tenement, somewhat larger than a dry-goods box, without its cleanliness, however, that rejoiced in the name of the Henry House — apt enough in one respect ; for 4 44 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. whoever boarded there no doubt thought he had gone to the old Harry. It was said, moreover, to be kept in the same recherche, though rather profane manner that characterized the Bonifacial administration of Mr. Henry Achey, formerly of Cincinnati. The proprietor of the Henry being asked if he could prepare dinner for the "Bohemian Brigade," said he would do so with pleasure if we would furnish him with flour, butter, beef, coffee, sugar, potatoes, salt, and mutton ; but that those small superfluities were just now lacking in his larder. Such was life, then, in the Secession regions of Mis- souri ; and I apprehend it is not much better now. We did not remain long in Warsaw. As soon as the bridge over the Gasconade was completed, we pushed on towards Springfield, whither it was reported Price was moving in all haste. We had few incidents of consequence to relate on our march, and the " Bohemian Brigade" was barren of news for its war correspondence, though its personal experience and observations might furnish a rather racy chapter of gossip by itself. At Quincy we took possession of a Rebel deserted mansion, I was about to say, but cabin is the word ; and from a most desolate abode we made it quite endurable in half an hour by our own diligence. We laid aside our metropolitan ideas, cut and gathered wood, carried furniture from adjacent unoccupied houses, collected corn for our horses, swept up the floor, lighted the fire and our pipes, and made ourselves very comfort- able under the circumstances. With our books and correspondence and conversation ON THE MARCH. 45" we contrived to pass away half a dozen liours, tliat would ordinarily have been most tedious and monotonous. At Yort' s Station we appropriated the negroless slave quarters attached to a Secession domicil to our own use, and for a day placed ourselves in quite a cosy condition, and had begun to feel somewhat at home, when the order to march came, and we bade adieu to our extemporized dwelling-place. We adopted the true Bohemian code of doing the best we could for our comfort, and of laughing away the multifarious annoyances that were inseparable from camp- life, even in its best and most endurable forms. No one complained, no one grumbled ; though I doubt not more than one of us wished the war and its wagers to the devil, and resolved in his own heart that military existence was a Behemothian bore. A man must become philosophical in camp, if he would not follow the example of Cato and Brutus, or perish in a fit of choler. One looks for his blankets, and they have been stolen ; for his books, and they are gone ; for his spurs, and they have been borrowed ; for his pipe, and it is broken ; for his boots, and one is missing ; for his gauntlets, and they are in the fire. So it goes, day after day. Make what effort you will, you can find nothing when you want it most ; and I very much question if St. Paul would not have been very profane, if he had ever at- tached himself to the Army, 46 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. CHAPTER YII. Wilson's ceeek. Visit to the Battle-Qround. — Its Appearance. — Cause of Sigel's Discomfiture. — Scenes on the Field.— Ghastly Spectacles.— The Sleeping Camp.— A Skyey Omen. After our arrival at Springfield, Mo., I paid a visit to tlie battle-ground of Wilson's Creek, some ten miles from that place, and found a number of persons wan- dering over the hard-fought field. I can imagine few more disadvantageous localities for a battle. The country is very rolling, sloping down to the little stream, now made historic, and is covered with timber and underwood, so that troops can readily conceal themselves when the foliage is as thick as it must have been in August. The ridges are quite steep, and it is difficult to move cavalry or artillery over them. The battle must have raged over four or five miles of space, and General Sigel began the attack far down the creek, while Lyon, and Totten, and Sturgis, with the Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri regiments, and the regulars, fought at the upper end of the field. During my sojourn in Springfield, I learned the cause of Sigel's discomfiture in the early part of the engage- ment. He was ordered to go to a certain point, where he was to meet a part of our forces ; and seeing a regi- ment from Louisiana advancing, he supposed from their WILSON'S CREEK. 47 gay uniforms that they were the Iowa troops ; nor did he discover his mistake until within thirty yards of them, when the Rebels opened a tremendous fire upon liis command, tlirowing them into a confusion from which they could not recover. I saw the spot where the noble Lyon fell ; where every officer of distinction fought and died ; where Totten drove back with fearfal slaughter the Rebel cavalry ; where every memorable act of that eventful day occurred. I beheld, too, the traces of the August battle in frag- ments of clothing ; in occasional cups and canteens ; in the rude and unmarked graves ; in the skeletons of horses and mules, and in the whitening bones of some of the soldiers whose bodies had not been found, and were therefore deprived of sepulture. Out of the short grass and among the brown and yellow and crimson leaves looked more than one grin- ning skull — a grim satire on the gloiy of War, and the pomp of the hollow world. One skeleton in particular impressed me. It lay in a bent position on the back, with out- stretched arms, as if begging for mercy, or seeking to protect itself from an advancing foe. The flesh was all gone ; but the woollen socks were still on the feet ; the pantaloons upon the bones where once the legs had been ; while the eyeless sockets, the prominent and gleaming teeth, the bony horror of the skull, seemed to rebuke the pretensions of Life and make a mockery of Death. In a tree, at the foot of which the skeleton lay, the birds were singing, and out of the clear sky a flood of 48 FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. warm and genial sunshine was falling, as if Nature, in its largeness and goodness, failed to recognize the strifes and errors of Man, and paved with splendor even the once sanguinary spot where her laws had been profaned. In a few days, not far from there — then I thought — that dreadful scene will be re-enacted ; and hearts that now beat high with Hope and Love and Ambition, and lips that are yet moist with memories of sacred kisses, will, ere long, be moldering in the dust, and the Autumn winds singing their requiem in the vast cathedral of this whirling sphere. Looking out of the tent as I so reflected, all was formless before my baffled eyes. I heard no sound. A hush as of death rested over the canvas city of the outspread plain. How many were dreaming there of Home and Happi- ness, of Honor and Success, that would never know them beyond the domain of Dreams, or have the long- ings of their spirit satisfied until the angel of the Ideal rests its flight upon the rough marble of the Actual, and with the magic sliadow of its wings makes the Real seem the Beautiful and True. The sky that night was dark and mysterious — deep- ening with blackness in the North — no star visible — no watching moon — as if out of that quarter were coming an element of wrath to punish the perfidious and tyrannic South. May the omen be verified ! my heart murmured then ; and the omen has been since, my knowledge -now de- clares. ZAGONYI'S RIDE TO DEATH. 49 CHAPTER YIII. ZAGONYl'S EIDE TO DEATH. Cliarge of the Fremont Body-Guard. — Its Desperate Character. — The Heavy Loss. — Scene of the Engap;ement. — Description of the Battle. — Progress of the Ride.— Flight of the Foe.— After the Struggle. That terrible charge, whicli lias been aptly named "Zagonyi's Ride to Death," was the theme of conversa- tion at Springfield weeks after its occurrence ; and, though many censured the act as entirely unnecessary, and there- fore unmilitary — a needless sacrifice of life, in a word — all agreed in pronouncing it one of the most daring and brilliant achievements in the annals of modern warfare. While, from a mere military point of view, every one must condemn the charge ; while it shows no more gener- alship than would an order for a squad of raw troops to charge in the face of a hundred death-belching batteries, no one can fail to admire the perfect dare-devilism and magnificent recklessness with which one hundred and fifty young men, entirely inexperienced in war, swept like a whirlwind, through a most murderous fire from a double column they could not reach with their sabers, upon fif- teen hundred determined troops, and, in spite of prepar- ation and position, put them to a most inglorious flight. All things taken into consideration, I doubt if that martial feat has ever been surpassed on the field. The Fremont Body-Guard were all young and uninitiated, 50 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. scarcely one of them having "been hefore under fire ; without any food worthy of mention, or rest, for forty- eight hours, or a cavahy drill on horseback, and having ridden over seventy-eight miles previous to the engage- ment ; and yet, under all these overwhelming disadvan- tages, they did not hesitate to attack, with all the odds against them, a force of fresh troops nearly fourteen times greater than their own. Large as their loss was — ascertained to he seventeen killed, twenty-eight wounded (tAvo mortally), and ten missing, with sixty horses killed, and one hundred and forty more or less wounded — it seems incredible that their loss was not much greater; that every other man did not perish on the field. I have visited the scene of the terrific engagement sev- eral times, and the more I learned of the charge, the more I wondered it could have been successful. Surely it was horribly grand, sanguinarily glorious. Even now I see the charge as plainly as if it were passing before my eyes. Ghastly, but glorious picture ! My heart would have sunk if it had not swelled ; my blood would have curdled if had not tingled, as the wild panorama flashed before my mental vision ! On that warm, bright, beautiful, autumnal afternoon, the breezes voluptuously dallying with the golden and crimson leaves of the drowsy trees, and the birds singing a glad hymn to lovely though pensive October, a gallant troop of cavalry go prancing down the broAvn and dusty road, their voices sounding merrily, and their sabers clattering harmoniously at their sides. On they go, and suddenly, out of a thick wood, where the birds are still ZAGONYI'S EIDE TO DEATH. 51 singing, and Nature seems performing lier silent myteries in the ancient groves, five hundred muskets rain their leaden messengers upon the little band. The horses plunge and neigh, and four brave riders reel upon their saddles and fall without a groan heavily to the ground. No enemy is visible through the trees ; but a glance to the east, over the little hill, shows fifteen hundred foemen, with deadly weapons in their hands and a deadly glitter in their eye, ranged on each side of the narrow road through which they must pass. Inevitable death seems to stare them in the face. The floating clouds above their heads seem like their descending shrouds. The bright sun seems shining the last time for them. All their past rushes in a moment through their mind. Forsaken scenes of home, of friends, of those beloved, rise in painful contrast to their swimming view. But with the seconds speed recollection and regret. The dread present stands there, inexorable, and demands to be answered. The commander's voice rings out like a clarion : " Fol- low me, my brave boys !" "Fremont and the Union !" "Victory or death!" No hesitation now ; no pause. Determination flashes from every eye. The Will has triumphed, and Nature has succumbed. The cry is caught up, and along the entire line echoes and re-echoes : " Fremont and the Union ! Yictory or death!" The horses plunge forward as the rowels are buried in 52 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. their sides, and, yelling like savages, the cavalry rush down the road through a continuous and deadly fire. Here a rider tumbles ; there a noble steed falls. On this side, a Guard clasps his hand to his breast, as a ball strikes home. On the other, a stream of blood starts from the temple of a youthful warrior ; his limbs relax ; his saber falls from his nerveless hand ; his eye glazes ; his head sinks upon his horse' s neck ; he is dead upon his bounding steed. The dust and smoke arise in clouds, and commingle, and the din of battle swells ; and the noise of musketry shatters the surrounding silence of the charming after- noon. Still goes on the ride of the horsemen — the ride to death. Their carbines and pistols are in their hands, and they return the galling fire, and many a Rebel dies ere he can ask Heaven' s pardon for his sins. While an absent mother or sister is praying for his safety, there he lies dead, with a bullet through his heart. Now the fearless cavalry have ridden through the fire of death, and paused before one of the fences separating them from their malignant foes. The fence must be let down, and four brave fellows are soon dismounted, and, under a heavy fire, perform their task as coolly as if they were executing an every- day labor. At this point four or five of the Guard are shot down, and in a moment all who are unhurt are dashing through the opening into the adjacent field, where the Rebels are formed in a hollow square. The Body Guard form in a double column, and spread out, fan-like, to the north and south, and with tremendous cries of "Hurrah for Cincinnati!" "Old Kentucky for- ZAGONYI'S RIDE TO DEATH. 53 ever!" " Rememlber the Queen City, Iboys ! do nothing she will be ashamed of!" they charge upon the Rebels with a terrible energy. The foe endeavor to sustain the shock, and for a minute stand their ground ; but the Body Guard, Major Zagonyi at their head, fight like devils ; and cutting with their sabers to the right and left, and riding over the enemy, and trampling them under their horses' feet, the Seces- sionists give way, and, breaking their square, retire to a central position. Here the Guards are again upon them, and their energy and ferocity seemed to increase as the fight continues, and the Rebels, unable to resist their furious attack, break into small bodies, and run in every direction, seeking shelter in the bushes and behind the trees ; firing, as rapidly as they can load, upon their pursuers. The Rebels are soon dislodged from their ylsice of shelter, and those on horseback place a safe distance between themselves and harm, and seek the adjacent country through the woods. The infantry fly to the corn-fields and down the road leading to Springfield, and are closely followed by the victorious Guards, who, with pistol, carbine, and saber, continue the work of destruction until their blades reek with blood, and their tired arms hang heavy at their sides. Up and down the streets of the town fly the afi'righted Rebels, still retaining their weapons. Women and children stand pale with fear, gazing, with the strange fascination that courage excites, through closed windows at the horrid spectacle. Here a youth lies with his skull cloven to his cheek ; 54 FOUR YEARS IN" SECESSIA. tliere the life of an aged man elDbs away through, a purple wound. Before that peaceful dwelling an expiring Rebel glares with powerless hatred upon an unhorsed Gruard whose eyes are swimming in death. In the public square, two foes are breathing their last in each other' s arms — the embrace of tliose who grapple at one another' s throats while falling into the grave. At the entrance of the Court-house, a son lies dead upon the corpse of a father he had sought to save in vain ; and in the bend of yonder lane two brothers of the Gfuards are striving to gasp out last words to each other, before this World fades forever from their glassy eyes. After a dreadful hour, that must have seemed a minute to some, to others an age — the battle, the rout, the slaugh- ter is over. The sinking sun looked with a crimson glow upon the gory battle-held, upon the piles of lifeless chargers, upon the wounded, the dying, and the dead — Unionists and Rebels — who had sealed their devotion with their blood. A melancholy offering was that upon the altar of patriotism. Human victims lay upon the disputed ground ; loud, agonizing groans and cries of pity, and even bitter curses, went up together to the peaceful heaven, bending in blue beauty over all — upon the Northman and the Southron alike, upon the friend of the Union and its foe. And, long after the voiceless midnight, the moon glided up the clear sky, like a celestial nun, telling her rosary of stars, and praying silently for the gallant spirits that had so bravely fought, so bravely died. THE EETKOGRADE MOVEMENT. 55 CHAPTER IX. THE EETROGEADE MOVEMENT. The Return to RoUa. — A Ghastly Jest. — A Brace of Fair Bohemians. — The Discrediting Effect of Camp Attire. — A Night in a Barn. — Potency of an Army Pass. Evert one knows liow Fremont was removed at Springfield, and tliat Hunter, after succeeding liim, made a grand retrograde movement to Rolla. The ex- citement produced by that event I do not care to par- ticularize, nor to exjDress at this late day any opinion of the justice or injustice of the measure. Fremont is out of the service ; and let the dissensions to which his enthusiastic friends and his bitter enemies gave rise die with the causes that made them. At that time hardly any of the War-Correspondents had witnessed a battle worthy of the name ; and when they turned their back upon Springfield, where they had fully expected to chronicle a decisive engagement, and share in some of its hazards, they were vexed, chagrined, and disappointed, as was the whole Army — I have never seen a better one of its size — on its countermarch to EoUa. The Correspondent of the St. Louis Democrat — for tjiree years past an officer in the Navy — and myself brought up the rear, and journeyed leisurely with Gen- eral Wyman's brigade over the Ozark Mountains back toward St. Louis. 56 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. On our retrograde movement in Laclede County, on tlie night of November 11th, a very sudden death occurred at Camp Plummer, proving that the skeleton-king oft comes when least expected — passing from the blazing battery to strike his victim in the midst of security and peace. A young man, Henry Holt, bugler of Major Power's cavalry, attached to the Thirteenth Regiment, was com- plaining of feeling rather ill, when the Quartermaster, Captain Henderson, who had a passion for aught like fun, proposed to bury the musician ; and, in the spirit of merriment, seized a spade, and, after measuring the com- plainer, dug a grave of his exact proportions. The bugler laughed, as did his companions, at the humor of the officer, and soon after went away to dis- charge some duty with which he had been intrusted. About nine o'clock the same evening. Holt was sit- ting, with seven or eight of his company, about a camp fire, within a few feet of the grave, when some one pointed to it and remarked, in a tone of badinage, " Come, Harry, get ready for your funeral !" The youth looked over his shoulder at the gloomy cavity in the earth, put his hand to his head, and fell from his stool. His companions laughed at the little piece of acting, as they supposed it, and were surprised that he did not rise from the earth. They went up to him, asking, "Are you asleep, Harry?" He made no answer, and yet his eyes were open. They shook him in vain. THE EETROGRADE MOVEMENT. 57 His friends grew alarmed. One placed his hand upon Harry' s heart. It was still : he was dead ! He had perished of a stroke of apoplexy, and was buried at midnight, in the grave made for him in jest by a merry-hearted friend. And so the droll jest was drowned in the hollow sound of the earth falling upon a rude cofRn, and sol- emnly waking the stillness of the night-morn amid the solitude of a broad prairie of the Southwest. During the last two or three days of our march, its monotony was relieved by the companionship of two young and cultivated women who were on their way to St. Louis, under the protection of the army. With a positive passion for Beauty, Nature, Poetry, and Romance, their conversation beguiled the weary hours, and often their light-hearted laugh made the desolate mountain silences echo with gladness. Quite Bohemianish, and certainly fond of adventure, were those fair girls, who frequently regretted they were not men, that they might be emancipated from the narrowness Society imposed upon them, and follow the bent of their large inclinations. My journalistic companion and myself explained to them the character of the Bohemian Brigade, and with their full permission elected them honorary members of that unique society. The girls and we duo of Bohemians had a good deal of amusement in riding, walking, fording creeks and rivers, and exploding, to our satisfaction, the multifa- rious shams of modern society and present-day custom. Our journeying was romantic, and certainly agreeable, 58 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. after our long absence from feminine society. We parted with the fair girls, not, I believe, without mutual regret, and never probably to see them more. They were Bohemians then ; but Society and Oustom have perhaps ere this made them conform. They are still young and romantic ; but a few years will doubtless find them deteriorated into domestic drudges, shut out forever by household necessities from the land of Bohemia and the realm of the Ideal. Arriving near Rolla on Saturday, the correspondent of the Democrat and myself concluded to go to town and stop at a hotel, hoping to become accustomed ere long to civilized life once more. We did so in our campaign costume ; and before the landlord learned who we were, he evinced great distrust of our honesty, and asked iis, in a very polite manner, just as we were about to take a walk after dinner, if it would be convenient for us to pay for our meal. We laughed, and told him our profession, and that our baggage was in his house — a fact of which he was unconscious — when he apologized, and said he thought we might have forgotten so small an amount of indebted- ness, as we doubtless had many more important things to remember. This little incident proves the truth of Herr Teufels- droch's opinion respecting the power of clothes. Had we been attired as we would have been in the city, he would have danced attendance on us all day ; but, fresh from camp, he imagined us suspicious char- acters, designing to swindle him out of the poor price of a most wretched meal. THE RETROGEADE MOVEMENT. 59 That is a fine sentiment Sliakspeare put in the month of old Polonins : "It is the mind that makes the body rich; And as the sun breaks througli the darkest cloud, So honor peereth in the meanest habit." But I fear the sentiment is not at all true with the great mass of the people, who believe tliere is an in- separable association between dishonesty and damaged attire. When night came we found every particle of hotel space in the miserable village of Rolla occupied ; and as a last resource we repaired to the barn, never before having had the pleasure of sleeping in such a place ; expecting, however, we might be a little lioarse in the morning. We carried our blankets to the barn, where we found several other bed-despairing individuals, and were soon ensconced in a self-made couch composed of woolen and hay. As there was a heavy stonn during the night, the rain on the roof and the wind sighing through the loose weather-boarding conjured up poetic pictures to the imagination, and transformed the desolate old barn into an Aladdin's palace of fancy. About daylight, one of the sleepers discovered he liad fallen into a hay-rack ; another was awakened by a hostler endeavoring to put a halter around his neck ; and a third by the thrusting of a pitch-fork within an inch of his head, which had been mistaken for a part of a bundle of oats. We paid our bill to the rural Boniface, including fifty cents for lodging in the barn — that was cheap, consider- 60 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. ing tliat more was cliarged for reposing in tlie shadow of tlie town-pump — and we are soon on the eve of de- parture for St. Louis by the railway, which appears odd enough after long weeks of nothing but equine journeys. An incident occurred the evening after our arrival in St. Louis, at one of the dancing halls in the city, of rather an amusing nature. Two of the Bohemian Brigade were admiring the danc- ing of a pretty girl on the stage, when one of them de- termined to go behind the scenes and pour his tale of burning passion into what he conceived would neces- sarily be her all-attentive ear. He accordingly presented himself at the stage-door, and was very naturally refused admission ; whereupon he drew out an army pass, and said that gave him the privilege of going anywhere, at any time, in the territory of the United States, and that whoever disobeyed the order would be arrested at once. This very bold statement was accompanied by such a magnificent manner of authority and importance that the guardian of the portal, without reading the pass, allowed the holder to enter, and in a few minutes the adroit Bohemian was seeking to convince the Terpis- chorean divinty that he had never believed in love until he had seen her an hour before, and that for the future the earth would be desolate unless revivified by her smile. SECESSION IN MISSOURI. 61 CHAPTER X. SECESSION IN MISSOUKI. The Feminine Secessionists of St. Louis.— Tlieir Parrot-like Eaving.— Their Re- semblance to Barnaby Rudge's Raven. — Harmlessness of Petticoated Traitors. — Sale of Rebel Property. — Curious Scene. — A Mysterious Article. The principal element of Secession in St. Louis, early in tlie AVar, was, and probably is still, in tlie women, who, having the privilege of saying what they pleased, were often loud in their denunciations of the Government, and profuse in their expressions of sympathy with the South. They talked an infinite deal of Rebel fustian ; but it meant nothing, and did no harm. There, as in the other Slave State cities, Secession was the mode, and that, combined with what was then the newness of the doctrine, was sufficient to make almost any woman its exponent. Many silly girls in St. Louis thought they would not be fashionable unless they talked treason ; and they did it systematically, just as they wore a certain kind of mantle or a peculiar style of bonnet. Brainless women spoke of the outrages of the !N"orth and of the wrongs of the South, without having any more idea of the meaning of the words than a parrot that has caught the sound has of a metaphysical phrase of Fichte or Hegel, and screams it out to every passer-by. The political conversation of many of the feminine 62 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. Secessionists in that town reminded one of the raven, Grip, in "Barnaby Rudge," on the night when that sagacious bird endeavored to recollect the valuable ad- monition to a popular though mysterious Polly, respect- ing the preparation of the evening meal. Grip could recollect "Polly put the ket ," but there Ms memory failed, and drowsiness overcame liim. At last he caught the remainder of the quotation, and littered : " Polly put the kettle on, And we'll all take tea. I'm a devil ! I'm a devil ! I'm a devil ! Fire, fire, fire ! Never say die ! I'm a kettle on ! I'm a fire ! Never say kettle on, we'll all take Polly. I'm a fire — kettle — on devil — I'm a ." and he fell asleep again. All that would have been necessary to complete the comparison between the women and Grip would have been for him to declare himself a Secessionist, for certainly Ms speech was no more mixed and irrelevant than the arguments of the petticoated traitors. All they could tell you was that they were Secession- ists ; but what that meant, or why they were so, or what they wanted, or how they were injured, was beyond their power of representation. Secession women are amusing, at any rate, and, so long as they confine themselves to talking, do no harm, unless to some false reputation they may have acquired for understanding. Women, at best, are what men make of them. They shine by a borrowed light, and see through the eyes of their last lover. SECESSION IN MISSOURI. 63 Let me know a woman' s nearest friend, and I will tell you what are her opinions and her tastes. I have been not a little entertained at the conversation I have had with some of the pretty Rebels in the South, who, with their little doll faces, express the most sangui- nary sentiments, and hope the "Yankees" will all be killed, in the blandest of tones, and with the sweetest of smiles. Their efforts to perform the role of desperate traitors api)ear like the endeavor of a rose-bud to convert itself into a Paixhan gun or a sub-marine battery. But endugh of those dear little know-nothings, all of whom would not mar the peace of the most sentimental school-boy that ever moistened with his tears the pages of the " Children of the Abbey." The sale in St. Louis, during February, 1862, of the goods seized from assessed Rebels, by a Fourth street auctioneer, attracted a very dense crowd of the most miscellaneous character. So great was the curiosity excited, that the thorough- fare before the building was blocked, the street-cars comj)elled to stop, and the serried mass on the track dispersed, before the conveyance could advance. ■ Several of the war correspondents then sojourning in that city, waiting for coming events, witnessed the sale of the confiscated pianos, tables, buggies, mirrors, center- tables, vases, rugs, lamps, chess-boards, and other arti- cles of household furniture and ornament, and were amused at the grotesque appearance of the pressing, jostling, excited, anxious crew of bidders and lookers on. Old and young women, peddlers and pickpockets, Jews and journalists, bar-keepers and book-wonns, stevedores 64 FOUR YEARS IX SECESSIA. and strumpets, printers and pugilists, authors and actors, loafers and litterateurs, were tliere in profusion and con- fusion. Here was a venerable, desiccated proprietress of a Broadway Iboarding-liouse — who, for a lover of paleontol- ogy, would have been an interesting study — in close contact with a youthful and pretty woman, whose ele- gance of toilette was surpassed only by her vapidity. Here was a stalwart shoulder-hitter peeping over the glossy hat of an elaborately done-up dandy, who had braved the inclement weather to purchase his "darling Julia's j)ianali- stool," if it cost him, as he heroically expressed it, the last droj) of his blood. Near the awning-post leaned a begrimed artisan upon the shoulder of a llashily-attired gambler ; and, a feAV feet off, a juvenile vender of matches was pushing his basket into the parabolic apron of a feminine figure, in a laanner that would have delighted a disciple of Malthus. Some article of furniture, said by the auctioneer to have been the property of the beautiful Miss ■ , but which I could not see, created a sensation, and was immediately inclosed by a living wall of young men, as if they wished to act as a body-guard, fearful that some other and more enterprising citizen would carry off the mysterious what-not. The bidding was very animated, and it appeared a point of honor and a piece of gallantry to obtain it at any price. "Five — ten — fifteen — twenty dollars," said the auc- tioneer; "will you see this wonder of art, this glorious instrument, sacrificed at such a rate ? SECESSION m MISSOURI. 65 ' ' No man of feeling Ibut would give twice the sum. Be generous, gentlemen ; this is a rare opportunity. "The owner of this is not poor, but she is beautiful. Bid now, like men who are true to themselves, but truer to the sex," Thirty, forty dollars was offered, and finally fifty was named, and the apocryphal article sold. I here made another desperate but unsuccessful effort to obtain a glimpse of the furniture, and still marveling what it could have been, even after I had heard a fellow say: "It was not worth one-tenth so much, but I sup- pose it was valuable from association." The sale of seized property was, I learned, quite profit- able, and certainly attracted a large crowd, who enjoyed the auction exceedingly, and carried off the various articles as if they had been trophies of war, instead of the most harmless instruments of peace. 66 FOUE YEAES IN SECESSIA. CHAPTER XI. BATTLE OF DONELSON". March from Fort Henry to the Field. — Troubles of the Correspondents. — DifSculty of Subsistence. — Courage of our Soldiers. — Examples of Sacrifice and Heroism. — Gallant Charge. — Amateur Sharpshooting. — Mortification of .the Enemy after the Surrender. — Desperation of the Rebels. — Repudiation of the Five to One Boast. — Ghastly Wounds. — Touching Incidents. The army correspondents liad no power, tlirough love or largess, to obtain horses on tlieir February campaign in Tennessee, tlie second year of tlie War. The talisman of the Press had lost its equine potency, and most of the war-pursuing Bohemians were compelled to go to the field from Fort Henry over a rDugh and miry road in a pedestrianizing capacity. Philosophers complain of nothing ; but, to a vivid imagination, the prospect of the approaching fight was more unique than fascinating. I fancied the Bohemians w^andering over the field knee- deep in mud, liable, without uniforms or any badge of distinction, to be mistaken by each side for foes, and, in the event of a defeat, to be ridden down and shot at, under suspicion of being Rebels, in the most miscella- neous and magnificent manner. So I fancied ; and my fancies were more than half realized. . No one cares for a Bohemian, I hope, and no ti'ue Bohemian cares who cares for him. If, to speak typograpliically, he is set up leaded with a BATTLE OF DONELSON. 67 sliooting-stick, or liis form is knocked into everlasting pi "by a shell, no column-rule will be turned for him. There will Ibe merely one journalist less in the World, and one more phase of boredom exhausted. For any ill-fated quill-driver who may breakfast with Proserpine one of these dull mornings, I have composed an epitaph, which nothing but regard for my readers, and the memory of the deceased that is to be, prevents me from inserting here. Well I remember how we of the Press wandered about that hard-fought field, half-starved and half-frozen, hav- ing left our blankets and india-rubbers behind, and brought no rations with us ; supposing, as did every one in the army, that the capture of Donelson would be a simple before-breakfast recreation. Few of us, as I have said, had horses ; and, being •without tents, provisions, or sufficient clothing— particu- larly after the sudden change, on the day of our arrival, from Spring-life softness and warmth to raw, biting, penetrating wind and storm, followed by sleet, snow, and severe wintry weather — Ave suffered greatly, but, fortunately for us, not long. At Fort Henry an explosion of a box of ammunition had dashed a piece of cartridge-paj)er into one of my optics, which soon inflamed the other through sjanpathy, and made me nearly blind. For three days I groped over the frozen and snowy ground, and, with my companion of the New York World, followed, from time to time, army wagons, to pick up pieces of hard bread which were jolted out semi-occasion- ally over the rough roads. 68 FOUE YEAES IN SECESSIA. I tlioiiglit that difficult to endure then ; but, since my long apprenticeship in Rebel prisons, I regard by com- parison all previous experience of my life, however unpleasant and painful, as a path of roses and a stream of joy. The battle of Donelson, or siege of Fort Donelson, as it is often called, was continued by land and water for four days, February 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th ; though, from the position of the Rebel works on the river, our gun- boats were enabled to do little toward the obtainment of the victory. The country about Donelson was very uneven, being surrounded by high hills, and covered in many places with trees and undergrowth, so that nothing could be seen of the main work from any point of land that our men were able to reach. Although I was wandering over the field all four days, I did not see the fort proper myself, nor meet a single person who had seen it, though the outworks were visi- ble from various places, and the Rebels working the guns. On Saturday, the 15th inst., our troops, though most of them had never been under fire, fought like veterans, under the most disadvantageous circumstances, having been without sleep for two or three nights, and without food for twenty-two hours. All the officers acted coolly and gallantly, and encour- aged the soldiei'S by word and example. A lieutenant seized the colors of one of the regiments, after the ensign had been shot down, and bore them for a quarter ^of an hour in the tliickest of the fight. BATTLE OF DONELSOK 69 A captain of one of tlie companies received two balls through liis hat and three through his coat without being conscious of his narrow escapes until after the battle. Tliree or four of the officers had the hair of their head and their faces grazed by musket-balls ; and, in two in- stances, the skin was removed from the ear by the leaden messengers of the Eebels. An orderly sergeant, seeing a Rebel pointing a rifle at the captain of his company, threw himself before his beloved officer, received the bullet through, his breast, and fell dead in the arms of the man he had saved. The sergeant, I learned, had been reared and very gen- erously treated by the father of the captain, and had declared, when he first enlisted, that he would be happy to die to save the life of his benefactor' s son. Most nobly and gloriously did he redeem his promise. The severest and the decisive contest was on the left at the close of Saturday. General C. F. Smith, with his division, composed of Indiana, Iowa, and Illinois regi- ments, marched up to the breastworks, and engaged the enemy in the most spirited manner. The Iowa Second was the first regiment that scaled the breastworks, performing the hazardous and brilliant movement in masterly style, after the manner of the veterans who immortalized themselves in the wars of Napoleon. They never hesitated, they never faltered, but with firm step and flashing eye, passed, without firing a gun, into the Rebel works. In a few seconds other regiments followed, and a terri- ble strife ensued between the contending jparties. The S^ce^onists secerned KrsoliTed to dm^e ti»>XriiMii^^ and die latier eqnalh- deieiwMd sot to smxmd^r :lr advaBti^ tber liad obtuned. For at lASt two Imois the nlfiii^ of ^ ~ ^ UBceaaiefy iKud. and tlfte anned naises - fiou FioitBBe ^H^eaoed to feTor«am--:_ ~ aaoflieK. £r«r atnd smm, a load <^Bar v»t «p for tibe Usiom, «ftl fliat v^ cao^it iqp at a ^fedtaace and e<^Mied by •>9ar 8oldi»s. anl joxoo^ le-edioed by Ae sanocniiz^ lulls. sa^es R^led im deaUi, aai fiis ^im wesL Srir I bave T-e^ iinle ^iH ;&s « IsK qaaedr *L"se>?pTed tie Ezr5rld, viai the air Ft s^oie iv3sc» or odier, itr rrjn -ktss liiX £z>^ fc^* ta- looked at ste irtdi -vtHider aad adni- .. :3^ ^ I Hd^ TtPR fixed lam that tnM," k t!>? lifle I landed kim as if ikexe woaM be „dfee£mae. "I ^MMjdm'i be saBipiis«ed.~" I lo&aikied to mj ctMi- poauoB, sad ^itl"^ " _ ~ "7 a-w:ajr wiiile r: ' ris Thai :^faflr^bc»:-rr -=-_. losbetlic 1 I bope as lie ' Sooftal^llL - - , - ^ , ^e iroods lerti - -. - soldiexs leroead^e-i rr :. ~ _ .. .zxiClea mto pct^ —ed ii iroDid do zBBcb to decide i^ bauje. A^am aad ^vm tbai gim souaded. a&d die ^»*^^Aytii] bauMX- framed, and tbe Rebefe ^•ihy Dr. Wm. W. Worthiugton and his brother Samuel, both ad- vanced in years, and having four sons in the insurgent army. They were very wealthy before the Rebellion, owning three plantations each, and some two or three hundred negroes, many of whom had been taken back into the swamps and to Texas. The private residences and grounds of the brothers Worthington were far superior to those one usually sees PLANTATION LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 225 in tlie South. Tliey made some assumption to comeliness as well as comfort, and were on the whole rather pleas- ant, which must be attributed to the fact of their owners coming from Kentucky, which has been largely influenced by the spirit and enterprise of the North. While at the Bend I had frequent talks with the con- trabands, and found them without exception most anxious for freedom. They were willing to run any risks almost, provided they could have any assurance of escaping bondage. They manifested the utmost aversion to slavery, and declared they would rather be free, if they had to toil harder and live upon the merest pittance in the North, than be idle and live in comfort in the South. An elderly negress, Harriet Garratt, told me a sad story, which, though by no means novel, will, I think, bear repetition, and which I know to be true, from the names of persons, and from circumstances she mentioned in Kentucky, where I was quite well acquainted. She belonged to a young woman residing in Mason county, Kentucky, and after her mistress's marriage, was taken to Cincinnati, and there manumitted. Harriet, hearing soon after that her husband was to be sent to Mississippi, determined to follow him, and accordingly accompanied him, with her free papers on her person. Arrived there, a slave-dealer, one Hines, in whose Keeping she and her husband, with other negroes, were, discovered and destroyed her papers, and sold her to Dr. Worthington, from which time she worked in the cotton- fields. Harriet was very desirous of going North, and her eyes moistened at the mere idea, though she had long ceased. 226 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. slie said, to liope for tlie freedom of wliicli she had Ibeen so "basely defrauded. Her tale interested my Bohemian companion and myself, and we made an arrangement with, the captain of one of the transports to take her and her youngest daughter — she had three- — as washerwomen. The next morning we visited the sable auntie, and com- municated the intelligence to her. She received it with delight, but with conflicting emotions. Her eyes filled with tears ; her bosom heaved ; she spoke with difficulty. Had her nerves been more delicate she would have fainted ; but swooning is a pretty trick the unenlightened daughters of Africa have not yet learned. At first she poured out her heart in gratitude. She would go at once ; asked us a hundred questions in as many seconds ; told her daughter, who stood near, to make preparations for their departure, and was tremulous with excitement, laughing and weeping hysterically by turns. In a few minutes, however, a new idea seemed to enter the old woman' s mind, and a shadow fell upon her face that was visible even through her sable skin. Her hus- band and her other two daughters, whom she had forgot- ten in the first ebullition of her feelings, had occurred to her. " I cannot leab de ole man and dem ere childern, my good massas. Dey would grieb demselves to deff, suah. I couldn't hab any joy in de dear old ISTorf when I knowed my ole man and de gals was down heah in Dixie workin' in de cotton wid de hard lashes on deir back. no ! Gawd bress you bofe for your kindness to ole auntie ; but I couldn't do it. I nevah feel right in my heart if I did." And the old slave was silent, for her voice was choked with tears, and her frame trembled with emotion. PLANTATION LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 227 Many otlier negroes of "both sexes stood near, as we were at the slave quarters, and tliougli they did not hear what was said, they felt what was passing, and looked on in silence and in sympathy. It was a touching scene — that struggle between love and the desire for freedom, both so natural, and yet so opposed — the yielding to one destroying the hope of the other. Most gladly would we have furnished to auntie and her whole family the means of going IS'orth ; hut we could not. We had no power. We had done all we could ; and so we told her. " I knows dat, my young massas," she sobbed out. " You's bery good. I'se bery tankful. God bress you !" 1 lay no claim to rehgion, as it is usually understood, and see little meaning in theological terminology ; but there was an earnestness in the woman' s benediction that was not without its impressiveness. Many a time I have heard " God bless you !" which " By daily use hath almost lost its sense," and from lips that were fresh with youth and rosy with beauty ; but the celestial invocation, I am sure, never came from a more grateful heart, or fell from a tongue, albeit uneducated, more sincere in its impassioned ut- terance. When the devotion of this poor ignorant negress to her husband and children was made so pathetically manifest, I could not help but contrast it with the connubial and maternal feeling of many of the fair daughters of Fortune, the darling favorites of Society, who lounge on satin sofas, 228 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. or tread with dainty feet the luxurious iDOudoirs of Fifth Avenue or Madison Square. -» * ^ * •55- * Finding it very difficult to ohtain cattle at the American Bend, we returned below to Sunny-side Landing, Arkan- sas, hoping to have our quest tliere rewarded. At that place, very near the TsTorthern Louisiana line, was the plantation of a third brother of the Worthingtons I have mentioned. His name was Elisha, and he had never been married, though he had availed himself of the recognized succeda- neum of the South, having, many years before, taken as his mistress the daughter of a Choctaw Indian and a ne- gress, and admitted her to all the privileges and advan- tages supposed to belong to the uxorial state. That gentleman of rare taste and choice morals had two children — a son and daughter — probably eighteen and seventeen years old, whom he educated in Ohio, and sent to Europe, but who still bore the appearance and some- thing of the manners of the native African. They lived in their father' s mansion, one of the most comfortable I have seen in Arkansas, keeping house for him during his absence in Texas, whither he went last June, after the fall of Memphis. He was a notorious Rebel, and fled from what he believed to be the Yankee wrath, knowing, no doubt, far better than we, how well he deserved hanging. THE CAPTURE. 229 CHAPTER XXXIII. CAPTURE OF THE TRIBUNE COEEESPONDENTS. iections on our Return to Freedom. — The Effect of Imprisonment. — Rapidity of Restoration to One's Normal Condition. — Running the Batteries of Vicks- burg. — Incidents of the Undertaking. — Terrible Fire from the Rebel Strong- hold. — Complete Wreck of our Expedition. — Brilliant Prospects for Dying. — Adventures of the Bohemians. — Grotesque Appearance of the Prisoners. Wot many weeks ago, when tlie author dwelt in the midst of Filth and Misery, Despair and Death ; when those had been his constant companions for long and wearisome months, and dreary seasons that knew no change ; it seemed as if no other than a prison-life had been his — that Freedom, Beauty, Abundance, Pleasure, were mere ideals of an aspiring soul, and had only shone upon the soft landscape of his dearest dreams. Even so does the Past now shrink before the Present. The by-gone horrors appear phantasms of the brain amid the comforts and the luxuries of metropolitan life. As I peer out of the window at the vast and varied human tides of Broadway, and hear the hum and roar of its mighty throng, and the heavy peals of the passing hours from the City-HaU clock, the intermediate space between two periods of liberty is stricken out. The years before and since the War come together like the shifted scenes of the theater, shutting from view a dark dungeon and its darker recollections. 230 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. As freedom and civilization were once too good, so rebel prisons and their painful associations are now too hideous, to be believed. The existing sensation is the measure of the mind, which realizes with difficulty a past consciousness of opposite impressions. "How happy you must be !" has often been my greet- ing since my arrival within our lines ; and the expression is very natural. If a man who has been a prisoner in the hands of the enemy for a long while could only preserve the remem- brance of his surroundings as a criterion for the future, his restoration to freedom would be a return to paradise. But the truth is, the man changes with his situation. He glides so easily and readily into his normal status that the abnormal seems at once insupportable. Therefore, the Fifth Avenue, the Central Park, the Academy of Music, Beauty, Banquets, Diamonds, have no special charm. They are the things of coui'se, the every-day garniture of civilized existence. But the retrospect of not many weeks makes us shud- der, and wonder at what now appears an impossible philosophy. Walked I ever amid those pestilential scenes un- moved? Stood I ever, calm and steady- voiced, beside all those suffering forms? Bore I ever those heavy burdens, physical and spiritual, so long, without faint- ing or perishing on the weary way ? We know not what we can endure, is as true as truth, and is no oftener considered than by the poor wretch whom the fortunes of war have consigned to a Southern prison. He finds, after months have passed, that he is THE CAPTURE. 231 still alive and sane, in spite of starvation, freezing, tyranny, and isolation, and believes himself of iron mold. The scene changes, and liberty and kind fortune dawn upon him. Then he looks behind, as the traveler who has passed the brink of a precipice in the darkness, and shudders while he thinks how narrow has been his es- cape ; how horrible would have been his death. A few months since I would have relished the coarsest food, and deemed it delightful to dwell in the meanest hut. Now — so soon does man grow pampered in places of purple — the choicest viands tempt me all in vain, and I toss with restlessness upon the softest couch. An age ago it seems, and yet the almanac tells me it was on the night of May 3d, 1863, since my confrere, Mr. Albert D. Richardson, and Mr. Richard T. Colburn of the World newspaper, with some thirty-two others, left the head-quarters of General Grant at Milliken's Bend, Louisiana, to run the batteries of Yicksburg, Warrenton, and Grand Gulf, where hostilities had already begun. I had tried to run the batteries of Yicksburg before ; but circumstances ijiterfered ; and, as the Calvinists would say, I was pre-ordained. The expedition, — consisting of a steam-tug, the Sturges, and two barges loaded with provisions and bales of hay, — was YGTy badly fitted out ; the hay lying loosely about, where any bursting shell might ignite it, and neither buckets, in the very probable event of a conflagration, nor small boats as a means of escape, having been provided. In addition to this, the moon was at its full, whereas the other battery-running expeditions had gone down on dark nights ; and, about the time we reached the point of 232 rOUE YEAES m SECESSIA. danger, was in the zenith of the heavens. The night was as light as day. As we sat smoking our cigars on the Ibarges, we conld see every tree on the banks of the mighty river ; and as we neared the peninsula opposite Vicksburg, we could observe the different streets and buildings of the city that had so long defied the combined power of our army and navy. An officer with us had a bottle of Catawba, and as there was some probability that, in the storm of shot and shell which awaited us, its flavor might be damaged, we quaffed its contents to the speedy downfall of the hostile stronghold, and the early suppression of the Rebellion ; to the women we loved — divellers in the region of the Infinite — and to the consolation of the unfortunately mar- ried — surely a generous sentiment in favor of an ample class. Ours was indeed a merry party ; and long shall I remem- ber the agreeableness of the occasion before Rebel gun- powder interfered with its harmony. We smoked, and laughed, and jested, and chatted, say- ing if that was to be our last appearance on any (earthly) stage, that we would remember it with pleasure when we obtained a new engagement — on some celestial news- paper. There seemed no anxiety among our little band. They had all volunteered, and were desirous of an ad- venture, which they had in extenso. As we neared the hostile stronghold, we lighted fresh cigars ; destroyed our private correspondence ; settled our affairs, in the event of accident, after the Bohemian THE CAPTURE. 233 fashion ; and would have commended our souls to our creditors, if we had known we had any — i. e., either the one or the other — and our bodies to the classic process of incremation. The incremation process was a flight of romance. We knew, if lost in the Mississippi, we would furnish cold collations for catfish. About midnight, or a little after, we were within a mile and a half of Vicksburg by the bend of the river, but not more than a quarter of that distance in a direct line, and directly in range of the heavy batteries planted for sev- eral mUes above, below, and in front of the town. We were moving very little faster than the current of the stream ; and as we began to round the peninsula, the trees on which had all been cut down, to give the enemy an open space for the operation of his guns against ap- proaching vessels, the Rebel pickets, who had most need- lessly and very unwisely been permitted to cross the river and take position on the Louisiana shore, gave the alarm by discharging their muskets at us — without detri- ment, however ^followed by a signal-rocket from the city, and the opening of the fiery entertainment to which we had invited ourselves on that bright, soft, delicious night of May. Now the heavy guns opened with their thunderous roar, and the first struck one of the barges, as we knew from the jar of the boat. " Well done for the Rebels," said we, admiring acciu'acy of aim even in our foes. The truth was, the insurgents had, from various causes, never had a fair opportunity on the previous expeditions. The night had been dark ; the artillery- 234 FOUR TEAES IN SECESSIA. men had not Ibeen on the alert ; the guns had not been well trained ; the fuses had been defective. That time, as we subsequently learned, the Rebels were well prepared. They had, from past experience, obtained the exact range, and felt confident of blowing any craft that made the venture out of the water. Cer- tainly they made a good beginning, and we a bad end of it. The round-shot howled, and the shells shrieked over our heads, and sometimes cut the straw of the hay-bales in a manner calculated to give any one not entirely hlase something of a sensation. We tried to count the shots, but they were so rapid as to defy our power of enumeration. I had witnessed a » number of heavy bombardments during the War, but had hardly known more gunpowder to be burnt in the same space of time. All along the shore we saw the flashes of the guns. The fire seemed, to leap out of the strong earthworks for at least a mile, and the bright and quiet stars ap- peared to tremble before the bellowing of the scores of batteries. Clouds of smoke rose along the river like a dense fog, and the water and the atmosphere shook with reverbera- tions. Opposite Yicksburg the Mississippi is narrow and deep, and at the same time was rather low, so that at times we were not more than three or four hundred yards from the ten-inch guns. It did seem strange our frail vessels, which were struck again and again, were not blown to pieces. But the little THE CAPTURE. 235 tug — semi-occasionally we lieard its quick, sliarp puff — passed on and we were yet unharmed. We liad now passed tlie bend of the river just albove the city, where a sand-bar, on which we had been told we would probably strike and ground, was plainly visi- ble, and the greatest danger was over. Still we moved on, and the Rebels, as if disappointed and enraged, seemed to augment their efforts. Faster and heavier the batteries thundered, and louder howled the shot and shrieked the shell above, below, around. Again and again the shells burst over head, and the iron fragments fell about the little crew ; but no groanS: nor cries were heard. We seemed fated to run tha gantlet in safety, — to go .beyond the power of harm. For three-quarters of an hf ur we were under the terrible fire, and were near the lower end of the city. Another quarter would put us out of danger, for we had passed the heaviest batteries. Still the guns opposite, from above and below, belched forth their iron messengers of death ; and the stars blinked, and the waters shook, and the sulphurous mist crept like a troop of phantoms along the turbid river. Every moment we thought a shot might wreck our expedition ; but in the occasional pause of the artillery, as I have said before, we could detect the rapid puff, puff, puff of the little tug, which was the sure sign that we still floated. Suddenly a huge crash by our side, of wood and iron. A deep and heavy and peculiar report. A rush of steam, 16 236 FOUR YEARS m SECESSIA. and a descending sliower of cinders and aslies that covered our persons. We heard the puff of the tug no more ; but in its place went up a wild yell which we had often heard in the front of battle — shrill, exultant, savage ; so different from the deep, manly, generous shout of the Union soldiers, that we knew at once it was the triumphant acclamation of our cruel foe. The boiler of the tug had been exploded by a plunging shot from one of the upper batteries. The shot was acci- dental, but extremely effective. It wrecked our expedi- tion at once. After passing through the boiler, the shell exploded in the furnaces, throwing the fires upon the barges and. igniting the loose hay immediately. " The play is over," said Richardson ; "Hand in your checks, boys," exclainied Colburn; "A change of base for the Bohemians," remarked the undersigned ; and we glanced around, and heard the groans and sharp cries of the wounded and the scalded. We rushed forward to try and trample out the flames, but they rose behind us like fiery serpents, and paled the full-orbed moon, and lit up the dark waters of the Sty- gian river far and near. The Rebels, who had ceased firing for a moment, now •bent themselves to their guns once more, and the iron missiles swept over and around us, and several of the soldiers on board were wounded by fragments of burst- ing shells. Every one was now bent on saving himself. A few of the privates and some of the tug's crew plunged madly overboard, with fragments of the wi'eck in their THE CAPTUKE. 23*7 hands, and in tliree minutes none but the wounded and the journalistic trio remained on the "burning barges. We threw the bales of hay into the river for the benefit of the wounded and those who could not swim — for we had early learned Leander' s art — and then arranged our own programme. Richardson went off first on a bale of hay, from wliich a large round-shot, passing near, and dashing a column of spray into the air just beyond him, soon displaced his corporeality. Colburn followed ; and 1, seeing my field of operations hemmed in by rapidly advancing fire, answered his sum- mons, and dived, after divesting myself of all superflu- ous clothing, into the aqueous embrace of the Father of Waters. Several bales of hay were floating below, but I swam to the one nearest Colburn, and there we concluded to get beyond the town and pickets, and then, striking out for the Louisiana shore, make our way as best we could back to the army. The Rebels had then ceased firing — certainly not for humanity' s sake, we thought — and the reason was patent when we heard the sound of row-locks across the water. The chivalrous whippers of women were evidently coming to capture us. My companion and myself believed if we kept very quiet, and floated with our faces only out of the water, we would not be discovered. A yawl full of armed men passed near us, and we fan- cied we would escape. Like the so-called "Confed- eracy," we wanted to be let alone. 238 FOUR YEARS IN" SECESSIA. Jnst as we were internally congratulating ourselves, a small boat darted round the corner of tlie burning barge, and we were hauled in by a couj)le of stalwart fellows, after the manner of colossal catfish, without even the asking of our leave. In fifteen minutes we were under guard on shore, where we found our coUaborateur Richardson safe and sound. About half our small crew had been killed and wounded, .and the rest were prisoners. More unlucky than the defenders of Thermopylae — one of them reached Sparta to bear the tidings — not one of us returned to tell the story. We were all reported lost, we learned afterward ; though General Sherman's humorous comment, when apprised that three of the Bohemians had been killed — . "That's good! We'll have dispatches now from hell before breakfast" — did not prove a veracious prediction. The gifted General's mistake arose from his confused topogra]Dhy. The army correspondents do not usually date their dis- patches at his head-quarters. The Bohemians lost all their baggage ; and I, having prepared myself for Byronic exercise, went ashore with nothing on but shirt and pantaloons. Barefooted was I also, and I appeared most forlorn as I walked in company with the others through the moonlit streets of the town. A sudden metamorphosis was ours, from freedom to captivity ; and we discovered by crossing the river we had reached another phase of civilization. THE CAPTURE. 239 We prisoners formed a sad and droll procession, as "we moved across tlie l^ayou towards the town. A number of tlie captives were eitlier wounded with fragments of shell or scalded by the steam, and groaned and wailed piteously as we walked along ; while others, barefooted, bareheaded, coatless, and begrimed with cin- ders and ashes, looked like Charon' s ferrymen on a strike for higher wages. The author bore a close resemblance to old Time with- out his scythe, endeavoring to rejuvenate himself by hydropathic treatment. All of us, save the poor fellows^ who had been wound- ed and scalded, were in the best of spirits ; and we marched merrily through the streets, chatting and laugh- ing at our mishap — which proved a farce, so far as we the unhurt were concerned, for it was an escaped tra- gedy — and gayly sj)eculating upon what would be the next turn of Fortune. The night was exceedingly lovely; and the moon, poured down its tranquil radiance, and the soft May breezes kissed our brow and cheek, while we moved through the Rebel town closely guarded, as if they pitied our condition, and would have consoled us for our ill-starred fate. 240 rOUK YEARS IN SECESSIA. CHAPTER XXXiy. OUE IMPKISOJSTMENT AT VICKSBUEG. Consignment to a Mississippi Jail. — Repulsiveness of the Place.-^Character of the Inmates. — Rebel Idea of Comfortable Quarters. — A Fragrant Spot. — Parole of the Captives. — Our Removal to the Court-House — Courteous Treat- ment. — Kindness of the Citizens. — Peculiarities of Union Men. — Miscompre- hension of the Enemy. •• One of my journalistic companions, wlien we were examined by the Provost Marshal, before whom we were taken as soon as we were collected on the shore, remark- ed, in a rather pompons and exacting tone: "Captain, we have not slept much for two or three nights past, and we would like to have as comfortable quarters as you can give us." The officer replied, that they were rather short of ac- commodations just then ; but we should have as good as the town afforded. I can not for the life of me determine how the idea crept into my brain ; but I fancied that, at least for that night, we (the officers and War-correspondents) would be given a tolerable lodging-place. Were my impressions well founded ? We shall see. After our examination, we were marched out under guard through several streets ; and, at last, about dawn, were stopped before a dingy iron gate and a dingier brick OUR IMPRISONMENT AT VICKSBURG. 241 wall, wliich my recollections of the city tanght me was the jail. There a bell was pulled, and we were admitted into the yard by an ill-favored turnkey, who might have been a pirate without doing any dishonor to his physiog- nomy. We soon found he was in harmony with his surround- ings. The jail-yard was filled with thieves and malefactors of every kind, Rebel deserters, and the riff-raff of the pseudo " Confederacy." They were filthy, ragged, coarse-featured, vile- spoken, and every way disgusting. They slept on the ground, with very little, if any, cover- ing, and cooked their fat bacon on sticks in the fire. At least one-quarter of the inclosure was a sink dug about the beginning of the War, and when the May sun arose, hot and sultry in that latitude, the odor that per- meated the place was most demoralizing. That huge sink emitted its reeking odors towards the starry heavens in such intensity, that I imagined I saw the glistening sentinels shudder and try to hold their celes- tial noses above that fragrant spot. That certainly, we thought, Avas the place where Shak- speare declared the offense was rank and smelt to Heaven. If rank, by the by, were as offensive as that Mississippi vale of Cashmere, I am sure no one could hire any of our little street-sweepers, for an ordinary sum, to be Major- Generals. We trio of Bohemians, who naturally had a love of comfort, and even luxury, could not help but laugh at the delicious locality into which we had been thrust, and 242 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. the distinguished consideration with which we were re- ceived. "We concluded, if a man took excellent care of himself there, he might live five or six days, which was a most undesirable longevity in that fecundity of filth and Par- adise of perfumes. "Good quarters," laughed 1 to my companions, after I had surveyed the yard : "By Jove, it would be delight- ful to go hence to Hades a while, for change." We all laughed — a little sardonically, I suspect ; but what could we do else ? The idea of putting gentlemen in such a hole as that, was like inviting Lucullus to a banquet in a sewer. We were all new to prison-life in Secessia ; and many things struck us with abhorrence then, which we afterwards learned to regard with resignation. Still, it was not until some months after my removal to Rich- mond, that I witnessed any thing equal to the squalid scenes of the Yicksburg Jail. To complete the delightfulness of the place, I should say the ground seemed covered with vermin, and the prisoners there swarmed with them. We had not at that time grown practical entomolo- gists, nor had it become a daily duty to examine' our gar- ments in quest of insects that tortured us. And hence, what we saw, filled us with excessive uneasiness. We were afraid to sit down, or even to stand still, lest we should be overrun ; and so we continued to walk backwards and forwards, with that aimless prison jDace that subsequently became so familiar. Heroes of novels can not perish until the close of the OUR IMPRISOXMEXT AT A^ICKSBIJRG. 243 last volume ; and even we matter-of-fact gentlemen — two of us at least — were spared the very opposite of dying of a rose in aromatic pain, and reserved by some ill-natured divinity to pursue entomological researches, and eat corn- Ibread and bacon in six other Southern Prisons. Before noon of the 4th of May, the three Correspon- delits, and two officers of the Forty- Seventh Ohio, captur- ed with us, were transferred to the Court-House, whose dome we had so often seen from our camps across the river, and were there paroled by Major Watts, the regu- lar agent of exchange at Vicksburg, then the point of exchange for the West. He assured us we would be sent to Richmond, and thence ISTorth by the first flag of truce ; that the sole rea- son he did not return us to the Army from Yicksburg was, that General Grant had refused to receive paroled prisoners from that city. We believed the Major's storj^, and understood our parole as a solemn covenant which the Rebels and we were mutually bound to observe. At the Court-House we had fresh air, and a fine view of the Mississippi and much of the surrounding country from the altitude of our position. We could see our transports across the Louisiana j^eninsula, and our camps up the river from the Court-Room ; and we felt not a little annoyed that we were captives almost within mus- ket-range of our friends. Tlie Rebel officers treated us with courtesy, when they learned Avho we were. Strange to say, not even the name of The New York Tribune excited their anger, although we had been assured by Southern Majors and Colonels that if any of the Correspondents of that journal 244 FOUE YEARS IN SECESSIA. were taken, tliey would be executed "by the infuriated soldiers. The officers at Vicksburg did not offer to search our persons, or even ask what we had upon them. That was not their rule, however, as we learned from a party of men captured after us. Those persons were badly treated, and their money and other valuables stolen — or, in other words, taken, with fair promises, but never returned. The three days we remained in Yicksburgh we were visited by a great many officers and citizens, who showed us all the courtesy we could have expected. We were even taken out at night to the head-quarters of General Officers, to be catechised about the opinions of the people of the N'ortli respecting the duration of the War ; what the North intended to do with the Rebels after they had been whipped ; and, especially, what dis- position the Yankees proposed to make of the negroes. As we were New York journalists, and had been with the Army from the breaking out of the War, the officers attached some weight to our opinions ; but if they obtained any consolation from our responses, their conso- lation must certainly have appeared to them as a "bless- ing in disguise." Some of the citizens who called on us offered to give us clothes and lend us money, for which we thanked them, but which we did not accept. They were of course loyal at heart ; and here let me say that almost without an exception, during my captivity, I found that the Southerners who revealed any humanity or generosity of disposition were Union men ; that their OUR IMPPvISOMMENT AT VICKSBURG. 245 kindness was in j)roportion to tlieir fealty to tlie Re- public. Secessionism, by some means that I will not attempt to explain, extinguishes, or at least represses, the better qualities of our nature, and develops the worst elements of human character. It is quite possible, of course, for an honorable and upright man to be a Rebel ; but it is very difficult to find one among the enemies of his country. The few there are of the honorable-exception kind do not gravitate to Prisons, I will be sworn ; for Prison attaches in the South are generally men who have been very little if at all in the field, with tyrannical, brutal, and cruel dispositions, and so cowardly withal that they will ever use their power harshly when they know they can do so with impunity. On the whole, we were as politely treated at Yicksburg as we had any reason to expect ; and we departed thence with the idea that the "Confederates" were not so bad as they had been represented — a gross error, which we had ample time to correct during the twenty months we enjoyed their compulsory hospitality. During our brief sojourn in the Southern stronghold, we were rather lionized than otherwise. The paj^ers there spoke favorably of us, and complimented us upon what they were pleased to term our singular fearlessness in volunteering without any particular motive to go upon so perilous an expedition. The editors paid us several visits, and indeed we were the recipients of calls every hour in the day. At our quarters, in the upper part of the Court House, 246 FOUR YEARS IN SEOESSIA. we miglit have been said to be liolding informal levees. We were certainly regarded with no little curiosity and some degree of admiration, for Avhat the Rebel officers insisted upon considering our devil-may-care spirit, and thorough contempt for their powerful batteries. One morning, having been invited to visit a General up town, I was compelled to appear in the streets with- out shoes or hose. My feet, which at least were white, and looked delicate, attracted the attention of some ladies in front of the Court House, as I limped painfully over the rough stones ; and when I returned, I found they had been kind enough to send me a pair of socks and shoes, though I was compelled to buy the latter of the Provost- Marshal, who did not inform me they had been given me by the generous-hearted women. The Provost pretended, as all the Southerners who have the least education do, to be a high-toned gentle- man ; and yet he could stoop to the petty meanness and dishonesty of taking money from a prisoner of war for a pair of shoes of which a lady had made him a present. In Vicksburg I made some additions to my wardrobe, having been "presented" with a dead soldier's caj) by the jailer, who afterward sent in his bill for the article ; and having borrowed a common military overcoat from the assistant surgeon captured with us. So attired, I traveled to Richmond in the unifoiTQ of a private soldier— the first time I had ever donned a uni- form — and on such an occasion I must say I was very proud to wear the attire that our brave boys had made so hateful to Rebel eyes, and so honorable in the eyes of the Nation and the World. AT JACKSON AND ATLANTA. 247 CHAPTEE XXXV. AT JACKSON AND ATLANTA. The Marble- Yard Prison. — ^Visit to the ^^ipeaZ Office. — Kindness of the Editors. — Tremendous Excitement and Panic at the Mississippi Capital. — A Terriiied and Fugacious Mayor. — The Mississippian Office Preparing for an Exodus. — Curiosity Excited by the Yankees. — Southern Fondness for Discussion and Rodomontade. — Our Continuous Inflictions along the Route. — Incidents of the Journey. — The Whitehall Street Prison. — A Pertinacious Hibernian. — Abusive Editorial in a Newspai^er, and its Effects, etc. On the evening of tlie .5tli of Ma}^, tlie two Ohio officers and the Bohemians, with a numher of privates, were sent to Jackson, Mississippi, and for two days were treated politely in the Marble -Yard Prison. We were permitted to visit the Appeal Office — at last accounts the Memphis-Grenada-Jackson-Atlanta-Mont- gomery Appeal, very justly styled a moving Appeal, with whose editors we were personally acquainted before the war — and to write notes to our friends in the North that we were still among the living, instead of waltzing obliviously with the catfish in the turbid eddies at the bottom of the Mississippi. We had no blankets, and had made no additions to our wardrobe, and found it difficult to sleep in the rude quarters assigned us, without even a stick of wood for a pilloAV. Still we were journeying toward Freedom, we fondly 248 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. imagined, and could afford to put up witli a few incon- veniences. The editors of the Appeal and one or two others treated us very kindly, lent us money, and gave us such articles as we most needed, for which we are still very grateful, Ibecause friends under such circumstances are friends indeed. Great excitement prevailed in the Mississippi Capital at the time of our arrival, on account of the report that General Grant, at the head of his victorious army — he had then captured Grand Gulf — was marching on the town. At the street corners were knots of excited men, dis- cussing the prospects of the future with more feeling than logic. To us, who had long been careful observers, it was evident they were at a loss what to do ; and you can imagine we rather enjoyed the trepidation of the Rebels. We saw a number of vehicles of various kinds loaded with household furniture, and men, women,, children, and black servants, all greatly excited, moving rapidly out of town. A panic of the most decided kind existed among all classes of society ; but we had no difficulty in perceiving that the 'negroes of both sexes, young and old, enjoyed the quandary of their masters and mistresses. Whenever we passed, they recognized us as Yankee prisoners, and glanced at us with a meaning smile that to us was perfectly intelligible. The Mayor had put forth a gasconading hand-bUl, designed as a placebo, which was posted in prominent parts of the capital, informing the citizens that there was not the least cause for alarm ; calling the people of Mis- AT JACKSON AND ATLANTA. 249 sissippi to arms, to repel the barbarous invader from the soil he polluted with his footsteps, and all that sort of stereotyped rant and braggadocio for which the South has ever been famous. The bellicose poster, so far as our observation extended, did not seem to have the desired effect. If the citizens were flying to arms, they must have con- cealed them someAvhere in the country, and have been making haste in that direction to recover them. Tliey were certainly leaving town by all possible routes, and by every obtainable means of conveyance. The Mayor, I subsequently learned through loyal citi- zens of Jackson, was himself a fugitive before the paste on his defiant j^ronunciamiento was fairly dry. The office of the Mlssissippian^ one of the most virulent Secession sheets in the whole South, was manifestly disturbed and distressed, and not only contemplating, but indulging in, an hegira to a safer quarter. When Ave went by the office, there were cases of type on the sideAvalk ready for instant removal, and the entire concern Avas in a j^alpable state of chaos and confusion. Under the existing condition of affairs we were anxious to tarry in Jackson, hoping we might very soon be greeted Avith the music of Grant' s guns. We had no doubt then our parole Avould be observed ; but we preferred recapture to any regular release, and we would much rather have rejoined the Union army at once than be sent three or four thousand miles a round- about wa}^ to accomplish the same purpose. The Rebel officer, a Lieutenant of a Louisiana regiment, no doubt feared our wishes might be realized, and hur- 250 rOUE YEARS IN SECESSIA. ried iis away on the cars after we had passed two days in the town. We had not been placed under guard, the officer accompanymg us merely as escort, nor were we until we reached Atlanta. Along the route we had a great many privileges, and could have escaped at any time, but having been paroled, we considered ourselves bound by our parole, and thought our best interest would be served by remaining with our escort, and getting to Richmond as speedily as possible. When the cars stopped at the station for meals, we repaired to them as if we had been traveling in the ^fiTorth, without the least surveillance. On the boat, at Selma, we wandered about wherever we chose, as we had done at the village of West-Point, Georgia, and other places. In Montgomery, we put up at the Exchange Hotel, the Rebel Lieutenant sleeping in a different part of the house from where we lay ; and in the evening, having stated that we would like to bathe in the Alabama, he ordered a corporal, without arms, to accompany us to the river, and show us the best place in the vicinity for our balneation. On the route we attracted a good deal of attention, especially at the small way- stations ; and whenever the cars stopped any time, we were surrounded by persons who plied us with questions, the chief of which were those put to us at Yicksburgh, respecting the disposition we would make of the Rebels after they were whipped, and of the negroes after we had given them their freedom. Our responses might not have been able ; but they were AT JxiCKSON AND ATLANTA. 251 certainly ultra, and more calculated, on the wliole, to fire tlian to freeze tliat much talked of portion of sectional anatomy, the Southern heart. The pragmatical fellows who gathered about us were very anxious to discuss the main question, the causes of the War, the wrongs of the South, the encroachments and injustice of the North, and all the subjects that had been argued to death before the secession of South Carolina. We told them it was useless to employ logic then ; that bayonets and batteries had supplied the place of argument ; that the period for reasoning had passed ; and that the cause of the Republic had been submitted to the arbitrament of arms. They could hardly comprehend that very well ; but finding we would not revive and refute old and exploded arguments, they assured us we never could conquer the South ; that we would have to kill every man, woman^ and child before we could subjugate the " Confederacy," and all that quintessence of bosh to which they seem so. indissolubly wedded. Not being feminine, we grew weary of talking at last, and were very desirous of some kind of privacy, and of enjoying for a little while the luxury of silence. That we discovered very difficult of obtaining. We could not sit doAvn under the trees as we did at Montgomery, where we lay over on Sunday, without gathering a crowd ; and the oflicer with us was at last forced to order peremptorily those resolved on our loqua- cious martyrdom to let us alone. Gods ! those were serious inflictions ; and we concluded we had rather run the batteries half a dozen times than ir 252 FOUR YEARS IN SEOESSIA, undergo tlie boredom of talking to tlie countless fools we met all tlie way between Vicksburgli and Richmond. Speaking of tlie Sunday we remained in Montgomery reminds me of an incident that occurred while we were strolling up the avenue toward the State House, in the afternoon, which represents a peculiar phase of Southern inconsistency. As we passed a dwelling, a coarse, brutal-looking fel- low thrust his head over a porch, and addressing a mu- latto girl standing on the sidewalk, used the following extraordinary language : "Mary, G — d — your soul; have you said your prayers to-day 1" , "JS'o, master," in a tone quite free from the African accent "Well, by G — , if you don't do it before to-morrow, I'll lash the skin off your back, G — d — you !" So extraordinary was the. language — so singular the connection between the man's anxiety about Mary's prayers and his excessive profanity, that we all looked up in surprise, each one supposing he must have misun- derstood the fellow. On asking each other what the brute had said, we all repeated the same language ; and there can be no doubt we interpreted his orthodox solicitude and his vulgar swearing aright. It is not at all unusual in the South, such intennixture of professed Christianity with the violation of all prac- tical morality and decency. Men who transgress all the Commandments, will prate of God and the Bible very :flipi)antly, and denounce a gentle and generous skeptic, AT JACKSO]!T A^D ATLANTA. 253 wliose life is entirely "blameless, as violently as if he were a poisoner or a parricide. On tlie 9tli of May we readied Atlanta, Georgia, The Union soldiers were marched off under guard, the Rebel Lieutenant accompanying them, and leaving us in a sitting posture under a tree near the depot. We sauntered about the city for a while, answering a few questions asked by persons at the doors of the houses we passed, and then repaired to the Whitehall-street Prison, to which the privates had been consigned, to inquire of our escort where we should stop, whether at the Trout House or some other hotel. Arrived at the Prison, the Lieutenant, somewhat to our surprise, introduced us to Colonel somebody, the com- mandant, who invited us very politely to walk in'. We did so ; the door closed behind us ; the key turned in the lock with a harsh and grating sound, and we were in close confinement. No one visited us during the days we passed there, except a most pertinaciously offensive Hibernian, an attache of the Prison, who entered every fifteen minutes to inquire if we did not want some liquor, or other con- traband article, which he was very willing to get if we would only be kind enough to pay him a "thrifle" for his trouble. Learning we did not wish any stimulant, he was very anxious to exchange some Treasury Xotes for Rebel cur- renc}', declaring he knew an ancient Israelite round the corner who would give more for them than anybody in the city. We gave the Celtic individual some money to get 254 FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. exchanged, and after trying to cheat ns out of it by at least a. dozen ingenious manoeuvres and flagrant false- hoods, he at last succeeded, with the greatest difficulty, and after the most untiring exertion, he said, in obtain- ing one dollar and three quarters of the scrip for one dollar of our currency. My associate of Tlie Tribune^ while we were standing on the platform of the cars, going from Jackson to Merid- ian, had had his hat stolen from his head by a South- Carolina Major moving rapidly by on a train passing in an opposite direction. That generous and chivalrous act, depriving my com- panion of any article of covering, reduced him to the necessity of tying a handkerchief about his head, and of subsequently employing the son of Erin as an agent to replace his lost hat. Various were the assumed or actual expeditions made into the city by our Hibernian custodian to procure a head-covering ; and the things he brought in were gro- tesque enough. Some of them looked like patent hen-coops ; some like dilapidated coal-scuttles ; others like rat-traps on an improved plan. Mr. Richardson tried them all on, and suffered from a severe headache, and great demoralization in consequence. At last a cotton cap, dirt-color, and amorphous in shape, was obtained — it reminded me of the head of the woolly horse, as it would probably appear after it had been struck by lightning — and worn by my friend for many months after. I always felt convinced that it was fortunate for the AT JACKSON AND ATLANTA. 255 wearer lie was in prison while under the influence of that cap. Otherwise I think he must have turned highway- man, horsewhipped his father, murdered his grand- mother, or committed some other outrage entirely foreign to his nature. The following Autumn the cotton anomaly passed into the possession of an old and very honest farmer, confined in Castle Thunder for his loyalty; and such was the moral or rather immoral weight of the cap, that the gray- haired ruralist immediately began to steal. Poor fellow, he was not to blame ! Who could resist so potent a pressure, such a thing of evil as that fleecy aboniination ? Up to that time we had traveled, as I have said, with a Lieutenant, merely as escort ; but an amiable and a chivalrous article in the Confederacy — edited, I am almost ashamed to say, b}^ two Yermonters who had been two years in the South — declaring Correspondents the worst persons in the Army ; that they, and we par- ticularly, ought to be hanged ; and that they (the editors) would be only too happy to hold one end of the rope for our hempen accommodation, caused us to be treated somewhat rigorouslj^, and marched through town, on our way to the depot, under a heavy guard. The two Lieutenants under whose escort we had trav- eled from Vicksburgh to Atlanta did not know much, but they were at least respectful and courteous. The third Lieutenant, who took charge of us from At- lanta, was a coarse, ignorant, brutal fellow, who endeav- ored to interest us by telling stories, to which the most depraved females of Church-street would have declined 256 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. to listen, and to compensate himself for liis entertainment "by begging our knives and rings, or any of the few arti- cles we had that attracted his fancy. At the depot we were not even permitted to purchase a paper ; and the Lieutenant pretended, as did the com- mandant of the Prison, that we were in danger of "being mobbed, on account of the odium excited against us by the grossly abusive editorial in the Confederacy. Whether there was or was not any ground for apprehen- sion, I am unaware ; but certainly we felt none ; albeit we deemed it quite in keeping with the generous conduct of the Southerners to mob tAVO or three prisoners of war who were entirely unarmed, and therefore at their mercy. No one threatened or attempted to harm us at Atlanta, which place we left with no little satisfaction, because we were getting so much nearer, as we fondly thought, to our freedom. Our journey to Richmond, by way of Knoxville, was without accident or excitement. We were bored as usual with questions as we stopped at the stations, and greatly fatigued, on reaching what was the E^bel capital, from riding in box, platform, hog and cattle cars, night and day, without any opportunity or means of sleeping, and at about as rapid a rate as that of a towboat on the Erie canal. THE LIBBY PRISON. 257 CHAPTER XXXVI. THE LIBBY PEISON. Arrival at Richmond. — Our Reception from the Union Officers. — Mistaken Idea about Human Endurance. — The First Shock in Prison. — Entomological Re- searches. — Sickness and Sentiment. — Violation of the Tribune Correspondents' Paroles. — Character of the Rebel Commissioner. — Determination of the Enemj to Hold us to the End of the War. Arrived at Richmond, albout daylight on the morning of the 16th of May, the journalistic trio were told that they must become inmates of the notorious Libby Prison until the flag-of-truce-boat came up, which would be in a day or two, when we would be sent North. While we stood in Carey street, near the corner of Twenty-first, the Union officers in the upper part of the building looked out of the windows, and cried "fresh fish ! fresh fish !" with a vigor of tone and an unction that I must say disgusted me to a point of indignation. I thought men who could make stupid jests in such a dismal building as the Libby seemed to be, from an exter- nal view, ought to be kept there for life. They certainly looked distressed enough to be dignified ; and I was anxious the dramatic proprieties should be observed. Ushered into the officers' quarters, we were loudly greeted with " Halloo, Yanks !" and plied with questions concerning the place, mode, and time of our captui'e. 258 FOUK YEAKS IN SECESSIA. The Libby, tliougli bad enough, was not so bad as I had anticipated. The floor was clean and the walls were whitewashed ; but I thought if I were compelled to remain there a month, I should die outright. How little we know of ourselves ! I passed sixteen months in places far worse than that — in rat-holes, and damp cellars, and noisome cells ; and yet resolved to survive the Rebellion if I were allowed half a chance. And, thanks to an elastic constitution, which, by the "by, required no anti-slavery amendments, and the prac- tice of a daily philosophy of the Xenocratic sort — to use the politician's interpretation of Webster's last words — "I am not dead yet." What first shocked me in the Libby more than aught else was, that my fellow-prisoners, at least once a day, thoroughly examined their garments, for what purpose I will not be unpoetic enough to state — and accompanied their researches with much profanity and considerable phlebotomy. A few hours proved the urgent necessity of the custom, and from that time until after my escape I made a quoti- dian investigation — in which, like a jealous husband, I looked for what I feared to find — that never failed to fill me with aversion and disgust. I envied the Emperor Julian's indifference on a subject which no man less great than he could possibly feel. The fact, too, that the prisoners were obliged to cook such little food as they could procure, wash dishes, clean floors, and do the general work of scullions, as I have mentioned in detail elsewhere, and all under the most THE LIBBY PRISON. 259 adverse circumstances, rendered me a very rebellious loyalist ; and, in connection with a system not yet fully recovered from an attack of intermittent fever in the Louisiana swamps, prostrated me, before two days were over, on the bare floor, with flaming blood and a burning brain. Sickness was somewhat new to me, and sickness there was a sensation one would not care to have repeated. I am not much given to Sentiment ; but those dreary walls and hard floors, that rough fare and desolate cap- tivity, suggested their opposites, and brought to mind soft couches and softer hands, sweet voices and cooling draughts, thoughts of the Beautiful and memories of Sym- pathy, that were a torment and a torture there. "Sick and in Prison, and you visited me not." I found a meaning in those simple words I had not before discovered, and felt in my inmost soul how dreadful an accusation that would be against a heart that had ever assumed to love. On the 21st of May, the truce-boat reached City Point, and on the day following all the persons captured on our expedition were sent off, except myself and my confrel'e of the New York Tribune. The enemy kept faith with them, and broke it with us ; evidently believing that Tribune men had no rights he was bound to re- spect. Commissioner Ould, when asked by our journalistic friend if he did not design releasing us also, replied, with as many oaths as Hector McTurk, that we were the very men he wanted and intended to keep ; that he would hold us until a certain fabulous number of innocent Con- 260 FOUR YEARS m SECESSIA. federates in JSTortliern bastiles were set free; and vaguely intimated that we should stay in prison until skating became a popular amusement in the Bottomless Pit. When my collaborateur and I were informed of that shameful violation of faith, we knew our case was ho23e- less ; that the Tribune correspondents were in for the War ; that no substitutes could be obtained, and that no self-sacrificing and intelligent contrabands need apply. Subsequently, desirous of obtaining some official repu- diation of our paroles, we put th.em in the hands of an attorney, and stated our case to him. He declared we were unjustly detained ; that no prisoner regularly paroled, as we were, had ever before been held ; but that, as we belonged to the Tribune, he could do nothing for us. Nor could he. . Ould, with the unbounded effrontery and superlative falsification that characterize him even above other Rebels, declared Major Watts had no right to parole us, and if he had had the right, he (Ould) would have pos- sessed the authority to revoke the parole. Eminent descendant of Ananias, like Ferdinand of Arragon, he only values a promise for the pleasure he experiences in breaking it. Trickster, hypocrite, and liar, he represents each char- acter so well that it is impossible to determine in which he excels ; nor has he in any one of them any equal but himself. He is one of the loudest mouthers about Chivalry and Honor in the American Gascony ; and jei the only idea he can have of either of those much-abused terms is by practicing their opposites. THE LIBBY PRISON. 261 When our case was referred to the Southern Secretary of War, in an unanswerable memorial, the following October — that we might have all the official evidence pos- sible of the perfidy of the Rebels — Mr. Seddon's sole answer was our consignment to the Salisbury (N. C.) Penitentiary, as general hostages for the good conduct of the Government. Who ever heard of making a pair of individuals hos- tages for the conduct of a Nation ? Of course the thing was a farce. The Rebels only used that form that they might retain us to the end of the War. The}^ might as well have held a box of sardines for the preservation of the morals of Sardinia ; and they knew it ; but they employed the phrase with all seriousness, and packed us off to Salisbury accordingly. I mention these circumstances to show the animus of the Richmond authorities toward the Ti'ibune men, and, if I must be entirely candid, out of pride at the high, but, I hope, deserved compliment they paid us. Never during the War have I known of another instance in which prisoners have been held, as we were, who had been paroled regularly by an accredited agent of exchange at a regular point of exchange. For the most honorable exception made in our favor, I feel thankful to the Rebels, generally and individually. Their whole history is one of inhumanity, and their name is Perfidy ; yet are they prolific of excuses and explanations for their perfidious conduct, as may be seen •by a single instance. When I asked Major Thomas P. Turner, the Command- 262 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. ant, if lie was aware we were paroled, and had the paroles in our pockets — "Oh, that makes no difference," he re- plied ; "your paroles do not go into effect until after you are on the truce-boat." " AVhat in Heaven's name do we want of paroles when we are on the truce-boat V ' inquired I. ' ' That is like telling a criminal sentenced to execution that he is par- doned, but that he is not to be benefited by his' pardon until after he has been hanged an hour." When Major Turner is hanged, as I am quite sure he ought to be, I trust he will be pardoned with that special proviso. LIBBY PEISON. 263 CHAPTER XXXVII. LIBBY PEISON. Arrival and Release of Union Officers. — Therapeutic Power of the Fall of Vicks- burg. — Its "Wholesome Effect on the Prisoners. — Gradual Resignation to Con- finement. — Means of Killing Time. — Journalistic Desire to "^'rite, and the Impossibility of its Indulgence. — Exhibition of the Loyal Captives. — Summer Costumes. — Cruelty of our Keepers. — Petty Meanness of the Commandant. — The Drawing of Lots. — Horror of the Scene. — Barbarous Treatment of Citi- zens. — Consideration Shown the Officers. — Removal of The Tribune Corre- Bpoadeuts. When" we first readied the Libby, not more than seventy or eighty officers "vyere confined there, mostly prisoners taken at Chancellorsville ; Ibnt on the after- noon of the day of our arrival, Colonel A. B. Streight and his command joined ns ; and in a day or t"WO more, Captain George Bro"vvn, of the gunboat Indianola, and his officers, were added to the number, making about one hundred and seventy-five in all. All of us felt very gloomy, at least ; but we kept up a cheerful exterior, and endeavored to make the best of our very obnoxious sur- roundings. About the 1st of June, the Chancellorsville and naval captives were released. I remember the latter were quite demonstrative over the prospect of their return to freedom; so much so that I expressed to my confrere 264 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. my surprise at their lack of self-discipline. "You must remember, Junius, tliey have been prisoners for three months," was his answer ; and, on reflection, I ceased to marvel at their display of excessive joy. Three months in Prison ! What an age it seemed ! I did not believe I could endure close confinement so long as that : I supposed I must die perforce before a similar period had elapsed. How little do we know ourselves — least of all, what we can bear of trial and of suflering ! The loss of my freedom and the uncertainty of its restoration, with the close atmosphere and the hateful surroundings of the Prison, were, as I have said, too much for me. My system gave way, and ere a week had passed I was prostrate on the floor with a raging fever. Those who felt any interest in me became alarmed, thinking I would die in that wretched place. I did not share their apprehensions. My opposition was excited, and I determined to live if I could, and part with my soul under better auspices. Through eight weeks I sufiered, and yet took no med- icine ; trusting to the best of physicians, Nature, for my healing. I was cured at last in an unexpected, but most agree- able way. We were all anxious about Yicksburg, hearing, as we did through the Richmond papers, that Johnston was besieging Grant in turn, and would soon have him be- tween two hostile armies. On the afternoon of July 8th, while I lay tossing with fever on my blankets in the hot, confined, unwholesome atmosphere of the Prison, a negro came up stairs and LIBBY PPJSOiT. 265 told lis Yickslburg was in our hands. The effect was instantaneotis with me. No cordial of Zanoni's could l)etter have done its therapeutic errand. I rose at once,. and joined in a tremendous chorus of the " Star Spangled Banner," which made the air vibrate, and, pouring out into the street, caused one of the Rebel officers below to say: "Do you hear that? Those d — d Yankees must have got the news." That news, so glorious, proved more potent than an Arabian philter. I had no fever nor ailment of any kind for many a long month after. The fall of Vicksburg gave me a new lease of life, and strengthened the hearts of the Union prisoners to endure, like the blast of a defiant bugle in the hour of defeat. That was a happy evening for us, even in Prison. We all said we could afford to be captives as long as the Rebels were soundly whipped ; and not a few declared the fall of Yicksburg worth twelve months of freedom. We sat up till midnight, and awoke the echoes of that quarter of Richmond with the most vociferous singing of National airs, not forgetting "John Brown's body," which was especially obnoxious to the Rebels, and there- fore particularly agreeable to us. We could hear the insurgent officers swearing beneath our windows in the pauses of silence ; but their curses were music to our ears, and we chanted louder and more defiantly than before. Though the Libby, materially considered, was the least bad Prison of the seven in which I was confined in the South, it seemed often that I must die or grow insane 266 , FOUR YEARS IX SECESSIA. there. We had a few books, "but I could not read, and I was afraid to think any more than I could avoid, for thought became brooding, and brooding misery, and despair. When the fever was not upon me, I tried every way to dissipate the dark and haunting fancies, the desolate and desj)ondent feelings, that crowded upon my brain and heart. I tried tobacco for consolation, and, lighting a common clay pipe, I would pace the floor for hours, to and fro, in company with some of the officers, talking of the Past and speculating on the Future. How weary and monotonous Avas that walk over that wide Prison floor ! How it grew into, and became a part of, my life ! My blood leaped and my soul sickened when I stared into the unborn days, and saw no one through which the light of liberty streamed. Weary, worn, restless, I often pressed my pale face against the window-bars and gazed across the river, to the South, at the green slopes and cool forests, that seemed so sweet and refreshing and delicious in the distance. To walk there appeared like Paradise ; for there was no restraint, no compulsion. How I longed for the magic tapestry in the Arabian tale, which could transport me where I willed ! At last I began, by slow degrees, to accustom myself to my unnatural situation. I reflected on all the philo- Bophic theories I had entertained, on all the stoical prin- ciples I had tried to cultivate, and determined to steel myself to the necessities of the occasion. The determina- tion brought its fruit. AVill bountifully repaid me for its exercise. I found, after a few weeks, I could read, and reading was a great consolation. It aided me to LIBBY PRISON. 267 strangle tlie pangfiil hours ; to prevent constant introspec- tion; to turn back the surging tide that threatened at times to deprive me of reason. All the day, when I was not compelled to be in the kitchen, I stretched myself on my blankets near the win- dow, and strove to forget myself in the pages before me. I could do that but partially ; yet it was a great relief ; and I was very tliankful I had early formed the habit of seeking society in books. After dark we had no lights, unless a small tallow candle, which we were compelled to extino'uish at nine o' clock, could be called so ; and then a few of us would get together, and talk far into the night. Fortunately for me, I slept well at that period, and real- ized in dreams what Fortune denied me. Every night I was free. The body could be imprisoned, but the Rebels could not fetter the spirit. That returned to the dear old North, and dwelt during the sweet hours of slumber amid the scenes it once had loved. So much did; I dream of freedom, that, at last, I lost all faith in my vis- ions of the night ; knowing they were delusions even' while I was under their influence. When I fancied myself in converse with my intimates ; sitting at a luxurious board ; surrounded by objects of beauty ; joyous amid the joyful, it was most painful to awake and behold the familiar beams above my head, and the rafters of the roof, and the hateful walls of the Libby. I had suffered in that way so often that my reason would no longer succumb to my imagination ; and when pleasant and sympathetic voices seemed to fall upon my ear, I knew they were recollections, not realizations, 18 268 FOUR YEARS m SECESSIA. the reflected desires of my own, not the outpouring of another, heart. As prisoners gathered to the Libby, as they did from Winchester and Gettysburg, greater efforts were made for passing the time resignedly and profitably. Classes in Latin, French, and German were established ; books were procured in quantities in the city ; debating socie- ties were formed, and manuscript papers begun. I con- fess I had not the heart, nor was I in the mental condition, to take advantage of those means to lighten the burdens of confinement ; but my coUaboraietcr, Mr. Richardson, recreated himself frequently in the debating society, and became the most prominent of its members ; drawing the officers largely whenever it was known he would par- ticipate in the discussion. Had I possessed the facilities, I should have liked to write something ; but how could I do so when we had no tables, except the rough boards from which we ate, and they were always in use ; no chairs, or stools, or boxes even, to sit upon; no space, however- small, which was free from invasion and disturbance ? The book I Avould have written would not have been on prison-life, or had aught to do with prisons : it would have been something like a novel of society, and filled, I fancy, with misan- thropy and bitterness, combined with soft imaginings and voluptuous coloring — the one produced immediately by the scenes about me ; the other, through contrast with them. Reading, smoking, talking, scrubbing, walking, and cooking, made up my slender existence in the Libby. 3fany of the officers were gentlemen of intellect, culture, LIBBY PRISON. 269 taste, and "breeding ; but some, unfortunately, were so destitute of dignity and mafiners that we were compelled to blush for them when prominent Rebels, either in mili- tary or civil life, were brought into the Prison, as they frequently were, by Major — then Captain — Thomas P. Turner, commandant — to see the collection of Yankee cu- riosities. The Rebels would walk about the rooms very much as if they were in a zoological garden, and this General, that Colonel, or that Major, was pointed out as would be a Bengal tiger, an African giraffe, or a Polar bear. Colonel Streight, while we were in the Libby, was the principal lion. The Richmond papers had abused him so much, though for what reason it was impossible to conjecture, that they had rendered him famous. He had failed on his raid, through lack of fresh animals, to strike the enemy the severe blow he had intended ; but he was hated as heartily as if he had been altogether suc- cessful. The hatred of the "chivalry" disturbed him very little, however : indeed, I am quite confident he enjoyed it ; and hated them back with an intensity that must have left some margin in his favor. Of course The Tribune correspondents had their share of attention, and were occasionally exhibited among the Northern monstrosities. Had we been statues we could, not have been more frozen and formal to the hostile vis- itors or the attaches of the prison. We never spoke to any of them, save in the way of business inquiry, unless we were addressed, and then briefly and pertinently as possible. They generally knew our status, antecedents, and opinions — and if they did not they could easily have 270 FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. discovered them — and therefore questioned us very little respecting our views and expectations. We were freed from the perpetual annoyances to which we had iDeen subjected on the way to Richmond, and we profoundly appreciated the relief. Various were the methods the officers adopted to pass the time. Those of a lymphatic temperament slept about fifteen or eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. Those of a very nervous and active mental organization played cards — poker, euchre, and whist — checkers, and back- gammon ; wrestled, romped, and skylarked — as the sail- ors term it — read and talked about past campaigns and future prospects ; crushing the Rebellion, and set- tling the aifairs of the ISTation, every few hours of the day. The weather was very warm and sultr}^, and in the Prisofi, of course, extremely close, and sometimes stifling. We were accustomed, consequently, to wear as few clothes as possible, but went around in nothing but draw- ers and shirt, without shoes, and, sometimes, even with less attire. Fortunately, there was a bathing-tub in our quarters, and somebody was in it all the while. At any hour of the night we could hear the water running, and the splashing and plunging of the aqueous enjoy ers. No doubt that had much to do with our health, which, contrary to all expectation, was quite good throughout the Summer. There were few deaths during the four months of my incarceration, and not much serious illness. Yery strange it was so, when we remember how impure and vitiated the atmosphere was, and how little care and comfort we could obtain when once sick. During the mid-Summer some of us profited by a ladder LIBBY PRISON. 271 leading to tlie roof of the building, by wbicli the subordi- nates of the Prison ascended for the purpose of raising and taking down the "Confederate" flag that flew every day over the Libby. When we went to the hole cut in the roof for ventilation, and placed our faces over it, the air from below was so corrupt, heated, and steam-like, as to almost sutfocate us ; and yet in that atmosphere we were forced to live, and breathe, and have our being. When it was discovered that we were obtaining a little fresh air after sunset upon the roof, our cruel custodians ordered us down, and threatened to punish us severely and close the aperture for ventilation if we persisted in going up there. They even did fasten down the sky- light for a fortnight, at the most torrid season of the year, because some unfortunate had disobeyed orders. That was a fair specimen of the cruelty of our keepers. We did no harm on the roof ; no one could even see us there from the town ; and yet they would not permit us to enjoy the blueness of the sky and the genial air of the evening, when they knew we were gasping and panting in our mephitic quarters for the very thing they denied us. Shame, shame, upon such inexcusable barbarity, such motiveless cruelty ! Soon after our arrival in Richmond, a paragraph was copied from The Tribune into the papers there, speaking of Major Turner as the "infernal brute that coipamanded the Libby." At that time Turner had not revealed him- self, and I supposed the denunciation unmerited. One day, in conversation with the Major on this subject, he remarked, that if he were caught in New York he would probably be hanged. I told him I thought not ; that he 272 FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. had no doubt been misrepresented, as I believed tlien lie had. Subsequently I learned better ; and now I indorse the paragraph in question most fully and cordially. I think if justice were meted out to Major Turner, he would be executed summarily, and that the Prison In- spector, one Richard Turner — no relative of the com- mandant's, but formerly a Baltimore blackguard, and aspirant for the honors of Plug-uglyism — and a little puppy named Ross, once a resident of New York, would share his fate. They did every thing in their power to persecute prisoners, and richly deserve death at the hands of those they treated so cruelly. Major Turner did not do harsh things himself, so far as I knew ; he was too politic for that ; but he permitted them to be done, and is, of course, responsible for the outrages, and they were many, practiced upon the captives under his charge. Speaking of him, he was guilty of a very small, but entirely characteristic meanness towards us. When Mr. Colburn of Tlie World was released, he very kindly left $50 in Treasury Notes with Major Norris for our use, as we were likely to remain in durance for an indefinite period. Major Norris handed the amount to Major Tur- ner, who informed us there -were $50 in "Confederate" currency in his office to our credit. I told him Mr. Colburn had agreed to leave us the sum in our money, which, as he was aware, was worth far more than the issues of the South. The Major I'eplied, somewhat nervously, that the notes handed to him were "Confederate ;" and that was all he kiiew about it. He simply told a deliberate false- hood for the purpose of. cheating us out of a few dollars. LIBBY PEISON. 273 And yet he assumes to be a high-toned, honorable gentle- man ; and, according to the Southern standard, perhaps he is. During our confinement at the Libby, Captains Flinn and Sawyer were selected by lot to be executed, in retal- iation for two Keutuckians whom General Burnside had caused to be shot for recruiting within our lines. Well do I remember the morning — it was during the latter part of June, I think — the Captains were called out of their quarters. They hurried down stairs gayly, and even boisterously, supposing they were to be paroled. They were taken into a vacant room on the lower floor of the prison, formed in a hollow square, and there informed solemnly and impressively, by Major Turner — even he seemed moved on the occasion — that he had a very painful duty to perform, at the same time reading an order from General Winder to select two of the officers present for immediate execution. Imagine the sensations of the Captains — some fifty in number — at that moment ! What a terrible reaction must have followed ! What an icy chill of horror must that announcement have struck to their hearts, swelling a few minutes before with the hope of early restoration to free- dom. ^ It was not the fear of death that blanched so many war- worn cheeks, and shook so many brave hearts ; it was the suddenness, the horror of the idea — the cold, deliberate determination, by lot, of a violent death to two of their innocent companions-in-arms. One of our chaplains was requested to draw the names that had been written on slips of paper and thrown into a 274 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. box, and the first two were to be the victims. One might have heard the fall of a rose-leaf at that awful moment. Every breath seemed suspended ; every heart bursting with its pulsation. Eyes kindled with burning anxiety, and lips quivered with suppressed emotion. Fearful scene ! who can forget it ? The names were drawn and announced ; and that hollow square took a long breath that Avas audible in the painfully silent room. The selected Captains did not change countenance. Tliey were pale before ; but they turned no paler. Their mouths closed more firmly, as if they were summoning the resolution of brave men to die bravely, and they walked mournfully, though silently, away. * They were taken before General Winder — I am very glad he is dead — who abused them shamefully when he knew they believed they had only a few days, perhaps hours, to live — and thence removed to the subterranean dun- geons of the Libby. Every one knows how General Lee, the son of Robert E. Lee, and Captain Winder were made hostages for Flinn and Sawyer, and how the Rebel au- thorities finally released the chosen victims, although the Richmond papers clamored for their blood, and bitterly denounced Jefiersou Davis Ijpcause he did not dare to ex- ecute them. As I told them they would, the very day of their allotment, they obtained their freedom long before Tlie Tribune Correspondents ; and yet their position was by no means pleasant. The Rebels were growing despe- rate even then ; and it was not unreasonable to suppose they might attempt the inauguration of a bloody retalia- tion in the hope of compelling, what they had otherwise LIBBY PRISON", 275 « failed to secure, the interference of European powers for tlie sake of humanity. Tlie day of the drawing was a gloomy one in the Libby. We all felt if the Captains were executed, that no one was safe ; that retaliation once begun, no one could say where it would end. Mr. Richardson and myself knew our prospects would be unusually brilliant for sudden removal from the terres- trial ball, if the execution of prisoners once became the fashion ; and we discussed with a grim kind of humor the sensations we would possibly experience when we were led out to be shot or hanged. I expressed a decided parti- ality for shooting, as more military, genteel, and dramatic ; and denounced hanging as an undignified and ungentle- manly mode of exit even out of Rebeldom. I remem- bered what a strong bias I had always had against the gallows, and began to believe that the early developed feeling was a premonition of my fate. I lost no sleep, however, over the matter. I had as much as I could do to live there, anyhow, and concluded, if I had to stay in Southern prisons for many months, hanging might not be so bad, after all. On the 2d of September, 18C3, we were transferred from the Libby to Castle Thunder — a movement we by no means relished, as the reputation of the Castle was ex- tremely bad even in Richmond — but of which, of course, we would have been too proud to complain, even if com- plaining had been of any advantage. To leave the officers with whom we had been for four months, and among whom we had many warm friends, was a sore trial, especially when we were going to a place 276 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. where the worst class of prisoners was kept ; but we "bundled up our blankets ; shook hands with hundreds of men whose countenances we could not recognize in the crowd ; and hurried down stairs into Carey street, to gaze at the pallid faces peering at us through the bars, and wishing us good fortune wherever we might go. The Libby, as I have said, was the most endurable prison of which we were inmates ; and I may here state that our officers were in every way better treated than any other class of prisoners. Indeed, they can have little idea of the sufferings of captives in the South, judging by their own experience. Citizens who were held in another part of the Libby, while we were there, were most inhumanly treated : they were not allowed to purchase any thing, though their rations were so short that they were con- stantly hungry, and we, in the officers' quarters, supplied them surreptitiously with bread and a few of the common necessities of existence, which they devoured like famish- ing men. The Southerners have such love of approbartion, and draw the line so markedly between gentlemen and com- moners, that they hesitate to show to the officers, supposed by the Army Regulations to be of a different race from the privates, the worst side of their character. Beyond the petty tyranny, superciliousness, and generally offensive bearing of the officials at the Libby, we had, during our stay, little to complain of, at least compared to what we saw and suffered elsewhere in Secessia. THE KITCHEN CABINET AT THE LIBBY. 217 CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE KITCHEN CABINET AT THE LEBBT. Disappointment and Disgust in Prison Life. — The Union OfiQcers as Servants and Scullions. — Journalistic Cooking and its Trials. — The First Breakfast. — Horrors of the Culinary Art. — Interior View of the Kitchen. — Grotesque and Mortifying Scenes. — Battles of the Saucepans and Skillets. — Complaint, Clamor, and Con- fusion. Before my capture, I had imagined all manner of repulsive surroundings and annoying incidents in Rebel Prison ; but I had supposed that War-captives were at least allowed full leisure, as some compensation for the loss of freedom. When I reached the Libby Prison, I was surprised and exceedingly indignant to learn that it was the duty of the OflBicers, the Correspondents of the Tribune in- cluded, to clean their own quarters and prepare their own food. That seemed an outrage upon propriety, designed to degrade gentlemen by association, education, and pro- fession, to the rank of cooks and scullions, and filled me with a violently insurgent spirit. When I came to reflect, however, that what we did was for our own good ; that we preserved our health and insured our comparative comfort by attending to those really menial offices, I grew reasonably resigned. 278 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. Subsequently, wlien I burst into an expression of anger and disgust to the Commandant of the Libby one day, he informed me he would be glad to cook our rations, but that the Officers generally preferred to prepare them for themselves. That statement — very remarkable do I regard the fact — I found to be true. The rations— bread, bacon, and rice at the time — were so vilely cooked by the negroes, that the Officers had requested permission to perform the culinary duties, and obtained it. They disliked watery soup, with dirt, hemp, pebbles, and roaches as condiments, and muscular beef boiled to superlative dryness. They believed they could sup- port life by the consumption of less dirt, if they took the matter into their own hands ; and they deemed the experiment worth trying. The officers were divided into large and small messes — the former containing twenty to thirty, and the latter four to six members — and every day one or more of the mem- bers was appointed to do the cooking and dish-washing, and perform the other poetic et ceteras for the twenty-four hours. The third day, it came my turn to preside over the destinies of the Kitchen ; and most alarming was the announcement. I would rather have attempted to capture Richmond, or pay off the National Debt, or be happy in the Libby ; but, as I could employ no substitute, I was bound to rely on myself. The cooking was not very extensive, nor were the THE KITCHEN CABINET AT THE LIBBY. 279 means ; but I felt as awkward as if I were about to address the Tycoon in Japanese. Imagine the situation of an unfortunate mortal who not only had never done any thing of the kind, but had never seen it done. The stewing of " Saddle-Eocks" in a chafing-dish, or the preparation of a lobster salad, was as far as I had ever advanced in the mysteries of the cuisine. If I could have had another wish beside that for my liberty, I would have asked to be metamorphosed into the humblest of cooks. There was no use of fretting. Complaint never cooked a piece of bacon, nor made a fire in a broken stove. I set to work ; my companions, who had had their experience, laughing at my earnest endeavors, and my ill-concealed disgust. There were very few dishes ; the stoves were in a wretched condition ; the wood was green ; the bacon was tough ; and my knife was dull. After laboring an hour, the perspiration streaming down my face, I succeeded in getting some pieces of bacon over the fire, and spilling the grease upon the only pantaloons I possessed. In another hour I had fried some bread in the pan, and at the close of the third I had boiled a little water impregnated with burnt corn, which the Rebels, with a delightful idealism, termed coffee. We stood up to breakfast, — ^memories of the Fifth Avenue and Delmonico's, come not near ! — one tin dish, a block of wood, and a piece of brown paper serving as 280 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. the plates ; a pen-blade, our fingers, and a sharp stick, as knives and forks. I was very hungry when I undertook the matutinal meal ; but my efforts had destroyed my appetite. I stood and looked on the rough board that served for a table, and if I had been a woman I presume I should have wept like !N"iobe, and declared I would be a nun. Again and again I had to cook that day, which seemed as if it would never end ; and Ihough for four months I sacrificed myself on the altar of the Kitchen, I never became reconciled to the ultra-prosaic obligation. Heavy and desolate as was Prison life, the hours that divided me from my cooking-day appeared like minutes, when I thought of that dire necessity. From seven o' clock in the morning until quite dark I then passed in the Kitchen ; watching my opportunity to get some vessel on one of the fractured stoves, and seeing that no one took it off when it was once on. Cooking at the Libby was a perpetual struggle, jar- ring, tumult, and annoyance ; not infrequently involving a personal encounter. A man who could have preserved his temper there would have excelled human nature. The process of operating in the kitchen would have irritated a saint, and made Fenelon blasphemous. Just picture the place to yourself. In a room twelve by twenty feet were three broken stoves, in which at least seven or eight hundred men had to cook. The pans, pails, and cups were very few ; not one where twenty were needed. The stoves smoked like Vesuvius ; the apartment was THE KITCHEN" CABINET AT THE LIBBY. 281 always sky-color ; the atmosphere hot and pine-impreg- nated to suffocation. One was required to wait sometimes an hour before he could get a place on the stove ; and, as soon as had, he was likely to lose it by some other person removing his dish, and putting his own in its stead. One could not lay down a knife or fork without miss- ing it ; could not turn his back without being deprived of some portion of his rights. I would have liked to see the South try to get its rights there. Astrsea herself could not have obtained hers. Under such circumstances there was constant bicker- ing, wrangling, and contention, with more violations of the Third Commandment than I care to record. Threats were made, insults offered, and even blows exchanged ; all of wliich appears now very sUly and undignified ; but then I did not wonder at it. We were all in a condition of suppressed irritation. Our nerves were morbidly acute. The law of our Being read backwards. Our temperament was revolutionized. We were disposed to visit on each other what under dif- ferent circumstances would have been visited on the common foe. The mishaps and contretemps of the Kitchen were too numerous to mention, and, to a man who could keep his temper, exceedingly ludicrous. It was singular, such was the aggravation and provo- cation at all tunes, that there were so few actual pugilis- tic engagements. We had a hundred incipient affairs of the kind every day, and several personal encounters 282 FOUE YEARS IN SECESSIA. were usually generated out of that number. Generally, however, the bitterness of feeling wasted itself in words. All the prisoners felt that it was disgraceful for officers of the United States Army to be engaged in personal quarrels ; but when a man had his vessel, which he had been two hours in getting, stolen almost before his eyes ; had hot soup poured down his back; scalding coffee - turned into his boots ; or his rice-paH filled with pota- toes ; was it strange that he was deprived of his amiabil- ity, and ventured the assertion that he could whip somebody — it mattered not whom ? The scenes that occurred there every morning were worthy of the pencil of Hogarth or Cruikshank. The room was crowded to excess. Everybody was trying to do what only one-twelfth of those present could accomplish. There were fifty claimants for every vessel. The small messes came into collision with the large messes. The war raged with the bitterness of the con- tests between the houses of York and Lancaster, or the rival factions of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Such a conglomeration of interests and purposes ; such a chaos of voices ; such a jostling and confusion ; such an oUa podrida of the absurd, the excited, the belliger- ent, and the profane could not well have been witnessed anywhere else. And then the conviction that the resentments and quarrels were altogether mean and unworthy ; the idea that gentlemen should fly into a passion, and descend to the morals of the Prize Ring, about a few miserable iron skillets and tin pans ; should for no higher object imitate THE KITCHEN CABINET AT THE LIBBY. 283 the fisliwomen of Billingsgate, mortified all concerned when coolness and reflection came. Every officer, when the cooking was over for the day, promised amendment, and vowed for the future he would observe decency and decorum. But when the dreadful cooking-day came around again, those good resolutions were dispersed into thin air, and the ancient Adam asserted itself in spite of good-breed- ing, self-discipline, and the sense of propriety. Through the thick smoke of the Libby Kitchen a con- fusion of tongues was heard that reminded one of his idea of the Tower of Babel. Some of the foreign officers became so excited that they could not do justice to their feelings in the English ver- nacular, but appealed to German, French, and Italian — we had a number of nationalities in the Prison — for full expression of their fancied wrongs and woes. Many of them declared that they would rather go through a battle than spend a day in the kitchen — and I shared their opinion fully ; for, grotesque and contempt- ible as those things appear at present, they were our life then, and weighed with a now incomprehensible burden on our spirit and our brain. Who that was tliere will ever be able entirely to forget the Libby Kitchen ; the struggle between the small and the large messes ; the great contest of the pans and plates ; the sieges of the skillets ; the raids upon the wood-pile ; the defeats at breakfast ; the drawn battles at dinner ; the triumphant victories at supper ; the irre- pressible conflict between bacon and business ; rice and rhetoric ; dried apples and despair ? 19 284 FOUR YEAES IN SEOESSIA. CHAPTER XXXll. CELL-LIFE I^ RICHMOND. Prison within a Prison. — FuU Appreciation of Sterne's Starling. — Evil Destiny of the Tribune Correspondents. — One of our many Failures and its Result. — Interior View of a Rebel Cell. — The Rare Society we found there. — Glance at the Gross Corruption in Secessia. — Novel Means of making Confederate Cur- rency. — Horrors of Southern Dungeons. To dwell in a prison witliin a prison is one of tlie ex- periences the War Correspondents enjoyed in Riclimond, and wliicli not a few of our officers and soldiers have shared with them. As I have mentioned, we of the Tribune were always endeavoring, like Sterne's Starling, to get out — hy the by, I never fully felt the truth of that bit of fine writing in the "Sentimental Journey" until I had been a prisoner nearly a year — and, like the poor bird, we found it a hard task to accomplish our freedom. At Castle Thunder we always had some plan ; and as often as we failed, we formed another. We had made arrangements, through trusty messengers, where to go in the city, in the event of our breaking the bonds that fettered us ; and we felt confident our escape could not be much longer delayed. The Destinies seemed opposed to us, however. All our endeavors blossomed without fruit. We failed almost always through some other agency than our own ; and at CELL-LIFE IN" RICHMOND. 285 last we came to look upon ourselves as tlie Jonahs of any enterprise of the kind. Any tunnel in which we were interested was sure to "be exposed, or too long deferred, or to tumble in at the very moment it was ready to be tapped. Any guard that we had gotten into a proper condition to take our money, and give us our freedom, was certain to be detailed, or fall sick, or die, or get drunk just when we needed him. An}" night on which we depended for complete dark- ness, proved to be decked out with at least a thousand additional stars and an extra flood of moonlight. The Elements and Fortune both seemed to have arrayed themselves against the "historians of the War ;" and we marveled much when the long night of adversity would end. In one thing we were lucky enough. The authorities of the Prison either did not suspect us of being Catilines, or, if they did, gave us no intimation of their suspicion. That was somewhat singular ; for a citizen of Maryland, who assumed to be a most earnest Unionist and a most zealous Christian, we knew was a perpetual spy upon all the inmates of the room in which we were confined ; and we knew also that he was morally certain we had tried a score of times to get out. On a certain night the thing was all arranged. There was to be no postponement on account of the weather, and positively no change of performance. At twelve o' clock one of the KeiD Torlc Herald Corre- spondents, Mr. Richardson, myself, and several others, Were to go out of the room — the sentinel having agreed 286 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. to unlock tlie door — down into the street, by other guards who were in our pay and confidence. We arose* from our blankets — we had lain down for a feint — ^put on our clothes, and were ready to set out. The sentinel wished to see our money. The Herald man handed him a roll of bank-notes, and when they were returned, they proved to be ones instead of fives, as the Correspondent insisted. That was a pal- pable theft ; and we concluded if the guard would cheat us on the inside of the bars, we could not depend on liim on the outside. So we fell back with maledictions on the perfidious Rebel. The next morning the Bohemian discovered his mistake. He had given the guard the wrong roll of notes ; and we lost our chances for freedom — that time at least — by our own blunder. The subsequent afternoon we three Bohemians were called out, and informed that we would be consigned to a cell ; and before evening we were transferred there. A dismal, dirty place, that cell. It was about twenty by twelve feet ; the floor incrusted with filth. But one window served to let in any light. The walls and ceiling were begrimed with smoke and years of accumulated dust. No ventilation in the cell, which was sorely needed, as there were tubs in the den that had stood there, and in- fected the atmosphere for many weeks, if not months. A temple of Cloacina was a charming abode, and a smoke-house a rosy Eden, compared to that cell. Not a box, bench, or even stick of wood, was in the place. CELL-LIFE I^ RICHMOKD. 287 A small iDrokeii stoye constituted its sole piece of fur- niture. The cell brought to our mind the Yicksburg jail, and we laughed at tlie magnificent preparations made for our reception. The first tiling we did was to give two or three handfuls of Rebel currency — we certainly could afford to be generous with that kind of "money" — to an attaclie of the Castle, and ask for wood, a wash-basin, a stool, &c. We did not relish the change, but we concluded to make the best of the worst, and immediately set about rendering ourselves — in the true Bohemian style — as little uncomfortable as possible. We lighted our pipes to im- prove the atmosphere, and talked of New York hotel- life ; of handsome furniture, epicurean dishes, and the very opposite of our surroundings. At a late hour we rolled ourselves in our blankets, and slept quite well, in spite of the repulsiveness of the place. In the morning, our companions in the room we had left sent us various articles of food from the boxes received from the North, and kind expressions of sympathy and hopes that we would soon be released from our prison within a prison. The same day some seven new personages were sent into our cell for a similar offense to ours. They were decidedly mammals sujets, and had all belonged to the Southern army. For two years they had been guilty of all manner of crime — theft, burglary, forgery, stabbing, shooting, and I know not what else. Their faces reflected their characters, and would have been admirable additions to the Tombs' gallery of notorious rogues. 288 rOUE YEARS IN SECESSIA. Deliglitful society, tliought we, for gentlemen ; and we referred to Young Mirabel in the company of the bravos. Alas ! there was no Oriana to deliver us from our pecu- liar friends ! We were obliged to await the inexorable logic of events, and we waited long. Our bevy of fresh visitors, with all their vices, treated us with entire courtesy and kindness. They offered to do little offices, and really assisted us in many ways. One of them was extremely desirous to have me write him a love- letter to his inamorata, a bar-maid or kitchen queen re- siding in the city. I gratified him, and indited a classical Mllet-doux to his proletarian mistress, with which he expressed much delight ; the only objection to it being his inability to understand what it was all about. The rogues grew very communicative, and told us how much money they used to make, twelve or fifteen months before, by "shoving a Mick," "running a kink," and other entertainments, the nature of which, from the occult language of the revealers, was entirely enigmatic. Our friends undertook to enlighten us on the character of their speculations, informing us that "running a Mick" was to get an Irishman drunk ; induce him to enlist for two or three hundred dollars ; obtain five times that sum from some citizen desirous of procuring a substitute ; and after sending the Hibernian to Camp Lee in the forenoon, to go out for him towards evening ; bring him in again, and sell him to some other individual requiring a repre- sentative in the field. "Coming the kink" was to steal a negro from the country, and dispose of him in town ; one of the party CELL-LEFE IN EICHMOND. 289 liimself pretending to be an African — having previously blacked np, and -put on a wig — and a brother or near relative of tlie melantlirope in question. Those fellows would steal the Ethiop and sell him again ; and some- times they had bartered away the same darkey seven or eight times in one month. Those revelations were highly edifying, of course. They gave us such a new idea of the peculiarities of trade that we have ever since confessed our ignorance of some of its branches. Some of the rogues had been traveling through the South for two years, drawing the pay of Lieutenants, Captains, and Majors, though they never had been more than privates, and had only carried muskets until they found it convenient to run away. In the line of desertion they had. been very energetic. They assured me they had belonged to twelve or thirteen regiments at different times, and had engaged themselves as substitutes whenever opportunity offered. They were a rare coterie of gentlemen, and I greatly admired the delicacy of their organization, and their sublimated ideas of honor. They furnished us with some knowledge of the corruption that existed in Secessia, by assuring us that there were hundreds of bogus offi.cers in every State, who had swindled the Treasury out of millions of dollars. "Confound their old rags !" said our heroes of Alsatia, in justification of their dishonesty, "what harm is there in stealing their d d trash? They ought to pay a man for putting it in circulation." The fellows were adventurous, too. 290 FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. They liad frequently made tlieir escape, Ibut always contrived to be brought hack. They had changed their names so often that they did not recognize, or had for- gotten, the one they originally bore. They had been in , every department of dishonest enterprise— from watch- stuffing to garroting, and had not committed murder only because they did not believe it good policy. I asked one of their number: "What is Mr. 's calling 1 What does he do for a livelihood ?" " He ? Oh, he doesn't do much now. He's in the bur- glary business a little, but it hasn't paid him very well lately." The burglary business ! My question-answerer spoke as if it were an entirely legitimate avocation, and no doubts were to be expressed thereof. The sacred seven related their manner of escape at different times, which displayed no little ingenuity, and rather interested us who had yet so much to accomplish in that way. They had gone out of the Castle in broad daylight, with pens behind their ears and slips of paper in their hands ; the guards supposing they were clerks connected with the Prison. They had sooted their faces, and changed clothes .with some of the negroes, and gone out at night to their quarters, whence they could pass over the roof of an out- house, and, dropping down into an alley, get away before the guard could fire on them. They had slipped out behind detectives, pretending to be their deputies, and had exhausted their ingenuity in their endeavor to deceive the guard. One of them had CELL-LIFE m RICHMOND. 291 contrived to obtain a woman' s apparel, and, habiting liim- self in it, had passed tlie sentinels without exciting sus- picion. They had even gotten into empty barrels, and been driven out in wagons by the negroes. For nearly two weeks we were kej)t in the cell, during which we smoked a great deal, and became exceedingly disgusted with ourselves and the world at large. How we paced the floor to and fro ! How we wore smiles rather sardonic on our lips, and forced every day' s bitterness of feeling into our hearts ! How we grew skeptical of every one, even our nearest friends, and doubted if we had any! How we scoffed at the "dis- interested motives" of the great World, and vowed that such things as affection and sympathy did not exist out- side of the poet' s page. We became cynical in spite of ourselves, and reached Schopenhauer's plane — hoping notliing, expecting noth- ing, caring for nothing. Few persons, unless they have had the experience, can. determine how much a long captivity dries up the heart, narrows the mind, and withers all the freshness of exist- ence. Shut out from every refining and humanizing influence, deprived of the sight of Beauty, of the sense of Fra- grance, of the sound of Melody, a man of any imagination or sensibility must be uneducated back to a condition of spiritual barbarism, and be inoculated with a moroseness and skepticism years will not eradicate, nor the assurance of love and friendship altogether remove. His captivity leaves on his soul the shadow that is never lifted, and so rudely shatters fi'ail barks of Hope 292 FOUE YEARS IN SECESSIA. and Beauty, wliich erst sailed smoothly on the unruffled sea of his Being, that they never dare venture forth in the future from the closed harbor of his isolated heart. Out of that noisome, repulsive cell went we to our old quarters, parting from our fortnight-old companions of " Mick- sho vers" and "kink-comers" without any agony of spirit, that the sumptuous splendor of that most roman- tic of Castles, and the deliciousness of its aromatic atmos- phere would not soon remove. In the Citizens' room, as it was called, we were greeted by those from whom we had been temporarily separated, as if we had come out of bondage to freedom ; and indeed the old quarters, dreary and disagreeable as they were, opened to us on our return with a breath of the far-off fragrance of Paradise. A brief sketch have I given here of cell-life as expe- rienced by us ; and though it presents no very attractive picture, it was bright and beautiful as a Claude or Poussin, compared to the experience of some other cap- tives. Some of the cells of the Libby Prison and Castle Thunder were sudh as we would not think to find in the present century. The former were under ground — damp, dark and dismal in the extreme, and so unwhole- some that I have known officers confined there a week to sink under the infliction, and suffer from a serious illness. The brutes at the Libby^ — most conspicuous among whom were the Turners — have thrown Union officers into those vile cells for accidentally expectorating on the floor, for giving a piece of bread to some captive more unfortunate than they, and other trivial offenses. CELL-LIFE m EICIBIOND. 293 Wlien officers attempted to escape, or were recaptured after escaping, they were placed in tliose sulbterranean dens, and kept tliere on the smallest and most obnoxious rations for weeks, and sometimes months, — as long gen- erally as they could be kept without imminent peril to their lives. I have known our officers so starved there, that they caught rats, and ate them with the greatest relisli ; and so broken in health and constitution, that they did not recover for months, and will not, some of them, to their dying day. The Rebels have had a great deal to say since the War, of JSTorthern bastiles, but never a word about Southern ones. I confess to a much longer and more varied acquaintance with the Southern than those at home ; but I feel confident such confinement as has been the rule in Dixie would not be tolerated in the more liberal and enlightened part of the Republic. I have again and again seen Union captives come out of cells in Richmond pallid and emaciated as consump- tive corpses — mere ghosts of men — with mouldy clothes and mildewed hair, burning with fever, bent with rheu- matism, wasted with dysentery, who had been detained in those dungeons with a fiendish malignity, until their wretched existence held by a single thread. At the Castle, too, I have often been surprised at the tenacity with which incarcerated victims clung to their frail tenements of clay in the cells and dungeons that admitted hardly a ray of light ; too small for the inmates either to lie down, or sit, or stand with ease. The air of those dens was pestiferous. They reeked 294 rouE YEAES m secessia. with filtli and vermin. They would liave delighted the Doges in the days of "Venetian crime and Venetian mystery. They would have closed forever the bab- bling lips of those who talk of our generous but erring brothers — our brave but wayward sisters of the South, Brave and generous people cannot be cruel, and cruelty was an inextinguishable element in the character of most of the Prison authorities of Secessia, They were malevolent without pretext, and inhuman without pas- sion — an anomaly only to be explained by the enuncia- tion of a truth I have long recognized, that "Slavery is barbarous, and makes barbarians." CASTLE THUNDER. 295 CHAPTER XL. CASTLE THUNDEE. Contrast between the Castle and Libby. — A Southern Bombastes. — Cruel Treatment of Prisoners. — Absurd Charges against Innocent Men. — The Prison a Regulai Bastile. — Energetic and Enterprising Captives. — Difficulty of Obtaining Sup- plies Sent from the North. — Peculation and Plundering of the Chivalry. — Their Begging and Trading Proclivities. — Their Ridiculous Assumptions and Exposure — Bohemian Arrivals. — Comparative Comfort of the Correspondents. — Rebel Anxiety to Purchase Treasury Notes. — Campaigning vpith the Small-Pox. Castle Thunder, tliougli more disagreeable on account of tlie character of its occupants, was preferable, on tlie whole, to the Libby, because there was less tyranny and contemptible malice there than at the other Richmond Prison. At the Libby we could relieve the tedium of captivity by conversation with intelligent and well-bred officers ; but at the Castle we were forced to depend almost entirely on our own society, — Mr. S. T. Bulkley, of the Herald^ had been added to the Bohemians, — as our fellow-iDrisoners were for the most part deserters, thieves, swindlers, and loyal but ignorant men, far more interest- ing abstractly than socially. The commandant of the Castle, a regular Bombastes Furioso, happened to have some literary pretensions — they were purely pretensions — and therefore treated journalists with a certain degree of consideration. We had privileges others had not, and rather congratulated 296 rOUE YEAES m SECESSIA. ourselves upon our transfer, albeit tlie Riclimond author- ities had designed it as an augmented severity There, as I have said elsewhere, we first began to put in practice our ideas of escape, and, in conjunction with others, to dig tunnels, sound guards, enlist negroes in our service, and make arrangements, in the event of our exodus, for concealment in the city. At the Castle we witnessed a great deal of suffering ; though, from the causes already mentioned, and from the fact that while there we received several boxes of sup- plies from the North, we Bohemians were enabled to make ourselves comparatively comfortable. We were in the least bad quarters in the Prison — it was formerly a tobacco warehouse and factory — and had gathered during our long incarceration a number of such articles as are usually considered necessary to housekeeping. Compared to those about us we were the purple-robed patricians of the place. Generally, we were neither hungry nor ragged ; and yet every day we saw poor devils so cold in their squalid fragments of attire, that they could hardly hold the hard corn-bread doled out to them to their pale and wasted lips. !No Union captive ever received a single gannent or blanket from the Rebels : he was thrown into the prison to shift for himself as best he might. If he froze, they cared not ; if he perished, they had only one less Yankee to feed. They were as indifferent to the sufferings of the prisoners as tliey would have been to those of the Feejee Islanders ; and they made no pretense of sympathy or commiseration. The Southern citizens were treated quite as badly as the CASTLE THUFDEE. . 297 Yankees — even worse, sometimes, I thought — especially if they were poor and friendless. Old men, with white hair and forms bent with years, were incarcerated there on charge of having given food to their sons, who had deserted from the Army. Others were snatched from their homes on vague accusations of disloyalty to the so-called Confederacy, and allowed to die there untried and unknown. A large number of persons were there as spies — when the Rebels could trump up no other charge against a man, they called him a spy, knowing that would hold him for an indefinite period — who had not brains, or energy, or courage enough to incur the sus- picion of any sane person. They had actually thrown into the Castle as a spy, a poor lunatic who had broken out of the Jackson (Mississippi) Asylum ; and when I went farther South he was still in captivity, with a pros- pect of ending his days there. It was even reported among the traditions of the Prison that blind men had been there as spies, and dumb persons on charge of giving information to the enemy ; but for those reports I do not vouch. Certainly, how- ever, men were there on the most absurd grounds, and likely to remain unless they had money or friends. There was no assumption of justice in the Castle. Any one might perish within its walls from sheer neglect, or, once confined there, all trace be lost of him. It was indeed a Southern Bastile. Almost everybody in Richmond got into the Castle some time or other, prom- inent Rebel officers, men, women, and children. That it was employed for the most nefarious purposes .298 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. I cannot doubt. During the reign of General Winder and his Baltimore plug-ugly Detectives, the grossest abuses were practiced. Any man bearing malice against a citizen of Richmond had only to trump up some story, relate it to a Detective, and, presto, the unfortunate found himself in the Castle. As the nature of his oifense was not stated even to him, he could make no defense, and unless some good Rebel outside interested himself in his behalf, his prospects of long imprisonment were surprisingly brilliant. An old occupant of the Prison assured me that a Southern officer, having become enamored of a citizen's wife, breathed some secret suspicion of her husband's loyalty to Winder's ruffians, and instantly the ill-starred liege-lord was looking at Virginia' s capital through iron gratings. The husband removed, the libertine officer prosecuted his suit without interruption ; and when the former re-obtained his freedom, his wife had become openly the mistress of the licentious Major. Such instances were not uncommon. The odious lettre de cacliet was revived. The Castle was made the vehi- cle of personal malice and private revenge. The commandant, Alexander, was accused of all man- ner of debaucheries and cruelties, and arraigned before the "Confederate" Congress on the gravest charges. !N'otliing came of them beyond the removal -of tlie official, and the substitution of a much meaner man in liis place, who, subsequent to our transfer to Salisbury, woukl not allow any of the prisoners to purchase a particle of food, or even a copy of a newspaper. Tliat contemptible piece of malice was carried into execution until the fall of CASTLE THUXDER. " 299 Riclimoiid, and the inmates of tlie Castle suffered greatly from the premeditated cruelty. A more energetic set of conspirators, or more enter- prising planners of escape, than were at the Castle, I have not seen. They were always contriving some means to get out, and exhausting ingenuity to that end. They dug tunnels enough to undermine the City, and worked subterraneously like moles. Whoever wanted to escape, "brought himself into sympathy with the Bohemians. We were generally in league with most of the villains in the Prison, for they were more industrious and auda- cious than the honest fellows. Yet were we unsuccess- ful in our endeavors for many months, though it seemed our activity earlier merited the reward which ultimately came. One night, some ten of the prisoners essayed to escape Iby digging a tunnel, hut were informed upon by a traitor in their midst, and their attempt frustrated. They were taken before the Commandant, the Bobadil I have men- tioned, who, with a pompous and Jupiter-Tonans air, thus delivered himself: "There is no use, men, of trying to get out of here : it is absolutely impossible ! You can make no movement ; you can not breathe ; you can not have a thought that is unknown to me. You might as well attempt to scale Heaven as escape from the Castle ; so you had better behave yourselves, and become re- signed to your situation." The very next night, the harangued captives, with twelve others, got out, and were never afterward heard of by the Rebels. During the latter part of our confinement at the Castle, 20 300 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. as I have said, we were the happy recipients of several "boxes. To get them was a pure piece of good fortune ; for the chance of losing any thing sent from the North was as ten to one. The officer in charge of the Rebel warehouse had known us at Vicksburg, and was \inusually obliging to us. As soon as we were advised by letter of a ship- ment of supplies, we would obtain permission to visit the warehouse under guard, and get hold of our box before it was broken open or stolen. If a package remained there any number of days, it was pretty certain to be pillaged. Hardly any thing ever came through unimpaired. The Union officers could obtain very little without bribery, and they fre- quently offered a quarter and even half the contents of a box, to procure the remainder. ' No class of people I have ever met are so susceptible to a bribe as the Rebels. From the pompous, swagger- ing, pseudo gentleman down to the lackey, they would all, like old Trapbois, in the "Fortunes of Nigel," ■do almost any thing for a consideration. They out- did the stage Yankees in their fondness for barter- ing and exchanging, and talked of swapping and tra- ding you out of whatever you had or wore, in a man- ner I had not known — often as I have been in New Eng- land — to exist, save in histrionic Solomon Swops and Solon Shingles. They even play the mendicant almost as well as professional lazzaroni. You can not have any thing gay or striking on your person, any bright color or sliining metal, but some fellow, wlio professes to be a gentle- CASTLE THUITDER. 301 man, will ask you, directly or indirectly, to give it to him. Poor devils ! tliey have no surplus of attire or adorn- ment ; but one would imagine, with all their pretension, they might, during the present century, have learned at least the first lesson in good-breeding. They are shams in manners, as they are in chivalry, hospitality, culture, and every thing else. They are brave, of course, because they are Americans ; but they must even jjretend a recklessness of life and a passion for death that is not natural to humanity, and assuredly not to them more than to any other part of the great family. With all their braggadocio and bombast about perish- ing in the last ditch, and dying to the last man, woman, and child, they know when they are whipped, as thor- oughly and quickly as any other people, and have no more natural appetite for coffins and graveyards than the rest of mankind. Of course the leaders will fight while they can keep a formidable army in the field ; and when they can not, they will submit quietly, or run away. They have been prating since the War began, as if, in the event of their subjugation, which is as certain to take place as the sea to ebb, or buds to bloom, they would imitate their more generous and chivalrous brothers the Japanese, and perform a general hari-kari upon them- selves. They won't do any thing of the sort : they can't be induced to do it. I wish they could. If they can endure the ripping up, I fancy we can ; and as the mat- ter-of-fact individual told the fond mamma, who informed 30.2 FOUR YEARS IN" SECESSIA. him that her daughter was of a very gushing nature : "Let her gush, marm !" we can say, with a very com- mendable degree of composure, when the insurgent leaders adopt self-dissection as a business : ' ' You never had any bowels of compassion to spare, gentlemen ; bat if you are so minded, let them rip." Since the above was written, Richmond has fallen, and Lee's grand army, which was the main-stay of the Rebellion, has crumbled to pieces. Therefore what I have said may be regarded in the light of a prediction. The Rebels now do know they are whipped, and Jef- ferson Davis, his Cabinet, and the principal leaders have run away — are at this moment fugitives in the land. The power of the great Insurrection is broken. The cause of the Secessionists is hopelessly lost, and yet we hear of no general hari-kari ; no gratuitous dying of women and children ; no perishing in the last ditch. It is extremely difficult to write any thing about the War, while events are developing so rapidly as they have been in the last few weeks. The prophecy of to- day becomes the fact of to-morrow. The speculation of one hour passes into history the next. No one can doubt at present, however much he may sympathize with the South, that the War, so far as any largeness of operations is concerned, is practically over ; that the giant of Treason has been laid low. He may rave and wrestle in his chains ; he may struggle to rise, and ma}^ yet do us some injury, but he has ceased to be formidable : his power for permanent evil is forever and forever gone. To return from great to small things, let me go back CASTLE THUNDER. 303 to tlie Castle, wiiicli is now a prison for the enemy, and not for tlie loyal wlio sufiered there so long ; whose suf- ferings are more than atoned for by the glory of the Present ; the triumph of the Right ; the establishment, after four years of sanguinary strife, of the integrity of the Republic, and the restoration of the Nation beyond the power of future harm. During the month of November, if I remember rightly, two more Bohemians were added to our triad, Mr. L. A, Hendrick and Mr. Gfeorge H. Hart, of the New York Herald. They had been captured by Colonel Mosby, Avhile acting as safeguards at the house of a Virginia lady, who stated the circumstances, and begged that they be released, as justice and honor demanded. Mosby said he was compelled to send them to Richmond, but assured the lady they would not be detained. They were kept there for three months, and obtained their liberty at last only by securing the services of able lawyers, and by the fact that they did not belong to the Tribune. Early in January, 1864, it was proposed by Commis- sioner Ould to exchange for them two attaches of the Richmond Enquirer., who had been captured in some piratical expedition on the Chesapeake, and who had no right to claim the treatment of Correspondents or journal- ists. Ould sent Colonel Tyler, the proprietor of The Enquirer., to them to arrange the exchange — ignoring The Tribune writers altogether^informing them if the Richmond journalists were not released from irons, in which he said they had been put — as they deserved to be, I presume — that the Southern authorities would be 304 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. compelled to place two of tlie five Correspondents in the Castle in a similar position. Mr. Eicliardson and I lauglied at the one-sided arrangement, knowing that if any pair were to he put in irons, it would in all proha- hility be ourselves, although no opportunity was given us for freedom. The irons proved a mere threat, or at least there was no excuse for their employment, as Hart and Hendrick were paroled, and sent North to ohtain the release of the Richmond scribes, which they did, al- though they had then been prisoners only about one- third the time that Tlie Tribune correspondents had. Mr. S. T. Bulkley, also of the Herald^ was soon after released : proving conclusively, were any proof needed, that the Richmond officials had no particular animosity against War Correspondents, so long as they were not members of Horace Gfreeley' s staff. The five Bohemians, while together, were in the same mess, of course, and, as they were rather congenial, as- sisted each other not a little in relieving the tedium of prison life. With the boxes and the books we had re- ceived from the North, we continued to live with com- parative comfort. The days of our cooking and playing scullion had passed ; we had assistants there to perform menial offices ; and, consequently, we had ample leisure for reading and indulging in our favorite amusement of whist, in which, from long practice, we attained consider- able skill. The Castle was lighted with gas, which was burned all night when we did not turn it off to hide some attempt to escape — so that we could sit up as late' as we chose. We had nocturnal lunches from our bountiful supplies, and CASTLE THUNDER. 305 often sat oyer coffee, and sardines and preserves, smoking our cigars, nntil tlie sentinels Tbeneatli.tlie grated windows called the liours of two and three in the morning. During no ^Deriod that we were in captivity, did we of The Tribune subsist beyond a few days at a time on the prison rations. Had we . been compelled to do so, we would have been occupying long since a few feet of the sacred soil of Virginia or North Carolina. We would not have starved to death positively, perhaps ; but our sys- tems would have so run down on the meager and un- wholesome diet that we would have fallen ill, and never have gained strength sufficient for restoration. Having no expectation of release save through our own agency — and that was highly improbable — we always looked ahead, and prepared for the coming months. We managed almost always to keep in funds, receiving Treas- ury Notes secretly in cans of preserves, butter, and books sent us in our boxes. We experienced no difficulty in ex- changing the ISTationalcurrency for Rebel scrip, as there was always an active demand for the former in all the prisons to which we were consigned, from Yicksburg to Salisbury, at rates varying from two to fifteen of their stuff for one of our money. The Rebel officers were ever anxious to buy, and when they did not do so openly, they employed agents to purchase the Yankee issues for them. I remember an Israelite who had been sent to the Castle from Mobile for receiving Treasury Notes for some gar- ment ; and no sooner had he gotten inside of the Prison than a young man employed there entered the Citizens' Room, and asked in a loud tone who had any greenbacks to sell. The Hebrew opened his eyes in astonishment, and 306 FOUR TEARS IN SECESSIA. declared it " vash a tarn pretty pisliness to put a slientle- mans in such a tarn hole as dat for doing vat de tarn Reb- els vash doing demselves." The clothes-dealer's enuncia- tion was somewhat at fault ; hut no one could controvert his logic. At the Castle we made our &st acquaintance in the South with the small-pox. We had a great many cases in the Prison — a number in the room where we were con- fined. In fact, we walked, ate, and slept with it for sev- eral months, there as well as in Salisbury, without contracting the disease. Persons suffering from the small-pox were permitted to lie in our quarters until they had broken out ; but we had no fear of it ; — why should a man in a Rebel prison fear any thing ?— and to that, per- chance, may be attributed our escape from infection. We even administered to those who had been seized, bent over them, and inhaled their breath and the contagion supposed to emanate from the body ; yet we passed through two long campaigns with the obnoxious ailment entirely unscathed. There was a great variety of sickness at the Castle du- ring our five months' incarceration, and a number of our fellow-prisoners went to the hospital and died ; but I al- ways contrived to keep out of the Rebel lazar-houses, in the capacity of patient, at least ; and with the exception of several desperate flirtations with the fever, I enjoyed far better health than I had any reason to expect. Indeed, I felt vexed at myself sometimes that I did preserve such an enviable hygienic position ; believing no gentleman had any right to live in a Southern prison more than a month, at the furthest. EXECUTIOI«IOF A LOYAL TENKESSEAN. 307 CHAPTER XLI. EXECUTION OF A LOYAL TENNESSEAN. Brief Account of his Antecedents. — His Attachment to the Union Cause. — His BetrayaL — His Cruel Treatment in Prison. — A Second Judas. — Conviction on False Evidence. — His Wretched Condition. — The Closing Scene. — An Inhuman Detective. — Revolting Spectacle at the Gallows. Of the many military murders committed in tlie South, since the inception of the War, none have been more cruel and revolting than the hanging of Captain Deaton, of East Tennessee, in the prison-yard of Castle Thunder, Richmond, Virginia, during the winter of 1864. Deaton was a strong Union man in that most loyal part of our country, and had been very efficient in resisting the encroachments of the Secessionists from the period of the earliest troubles. He was a well-built, finety-propor- tioned, muscular fellow, in the prime of life and full flush of health, intelligent, courageous, determined ; and, as may be supposed, a most annoying and dangerous per- sonage for the Rebels to deal with. As the struggle continued, the intensity of feeling in- creased in Tennessee, and finally Deaton was compelled to leave his home — in Knox County, I believe — and take to the bush, as it is technically termed in the South. The loyalists were outnumbered by the regular forces sent into their neighborhood, and were coerced to adopt guerrilla warfare as a means of protection. 308 FOUR YEARS IN SEOEgSIA. Deaton, seeing tlie cliange in tlie situation, felt tliat organization was necessary, and soon raised a company of loyal Tennesseans, whom lie was chosen to command. With these he did effective service, and he soon gained a name and fame for his daring and exploits. He was desirous of admission into the regular army, but whether he succeeded in his purpose, I am unaware. The Rebels hated him with exceeding hatred, and, it is stated, set a price upon his head. They made every effort to ensnare him, but he was too wily for them. He had numerous hau'-breadth escapes ; was fired upon again and again ; his clothes pierced with bullets ; and yet he was unharmed. He seemed to bear a charmed life ; but he had his unguarded moments, as all men have, and fell into a trap the enemy had prepared for him. Like most of the middle and poorer classes of the South, Deaton had strong home attachments, and for a number of months he had been unable to hear directly from his wife and children, whom he most tenderly loved. His foes were aware of that, and sent him word by a person whom he deemed trustworthy, that if he would call at a certain place on an appointed night, he would obtain news of his family. Deaton went ; and while in the house, which was sur- rounded by armed men, he was surprised before he could use his weapons ; bound hand and foot, and thrown into a wretched negro-pen. He was charged with all the crimes in the calendar, the least of which were arson, rape, and murder. But as it was not easy to prove him a person with whom Caligula would have been a saint, he was accused of being a spy, and kept in a loathsome . EXECUTION" OF A LOYAL TENNESSEAN. 309 dungeon for four or five months. His health gave way ; his constitution was Ibroken ; his nervous system was shattered, and he Ibecame a wreck of himself. The Rebels were always threatening him with execution, and for many weeks he lived in hourly expectation of being put to death, l^o one was admitted to see him, and he fell into a condition of mental imbecility. About that time he was transferred to Richmond, where it was thought he might be treated with some humanity. Strange mistake ! Humanity is not indigenous to the Rebel capital. There the meanest, and vilest, and most tyrannical of the insur- gents can be ever found. At Richmond he was thrown into the condemned cell of Castle Thunder ; a cold, dark, noisome, filthy hole, next to the room in which my confrere and myself were confined, and which we never passed without closing our nostrils with our fingers, in lieu of those perfumed hand- kerchiefs that ceased to be the mode with us soon after our capture. Up to that period nothing had been proved against Deaton ; but he there unfortunately made a confidant of a villain, formerly a Lieutenant in the old United States service, who had tried to be a Secessionist, but by his vacillations had been suspected and consigned to the Castle. The ex-Lieutenant betraj^ed him of course. The morning after he heard Deaton' s story, he asked for an interview with the Commandant of the Prison ; and soon after the Captain was loaded with irons, and treated more cruelly than ever. A few days subsequent he was tried by Court-Martial, and convicted of being a spy uj)on what was declared to 310 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. be false evidence. Deaton was then returned to liis cell ; and I have rarely witnessed a more melancholy spectacle. Haggard, emaciated, ragged, almost barefooted, bent as with a crushing weight, a strange light in. his sunken eye, he seemed then more dead than alive. "VVe obtained for him two or three times the privilege of coming into our room, while the cell was being relieved of a portion of its filth, to warm by a poor stove his frozen feet. We gave him a seat ; he took it with a vacant stare, and crouched over the fire, but spoke no word in answer to the tender pity we expressed for him. His mind wan- dered : his spirit was broken : long and persistent bar- barity had killed in him the gallant and noble Man. The fatal Friday came on which poor Deaton was to be executed. Certainly it was a hangman's day — dreary, lowering, bitter cold. The scaffold was erected in the yard adjoining the Prison on the west side ; and into the inclosure the unfortunate victim was taken about the hour of noon. He was too weak to walk without sup- port ; and he was assisted down the stairs to the ground floor. An effort had been made to improve his external appearance ; but his better clothes only made him seem more wretched. Though the thermometer was little above zero, the perspiration stood in drops upon the con- demned man' s brow, and a spot of crimson glowed in his ghastly cheek. He looked up at the scaff'old with a leaden gaze, and when asked some question by the ai- iacJies of the Castle at his side, made an incoherent reply, a muttered mystery. Detective Caphart — a gray-haired villain of sixty, who has been known to pay a large price for the privilege of EXECUTION OF A LOYAL TENNESSEAN. 311 hanging a man, and who boasts he has assisted at the death of all the persons executed in Richmond for many- years — was very active on the occasion, and in the best of spirits. Indeed, like the laughing hangman of Louis XI., he was only happy at such a time. He pulled the Captain rudely about ; cursed him for his dullness ; and vented spleen on an unfortunate who had but a few minutes to live. Caphart and Warden Wiley hurried through the dreadful aifair as if it were any ordinary en- gagement, and the scoundrel Detective glowered on the prisoners, who had been invited to witness the execution, as if he regretted very much that he could not perform the same amiable office for them. The estimable twain having borne D eat on to the scaf- fold, released their hold of him, and told him to stand up. They then descended, and ordered an underling to pull the drop. Tlie fellow had his hand upon the rope, when the Captain looked around with a ghastly, half-idiotic smile, muttered something, and sat down on the scaffold. Old Caphart flew up the scaffpld again ; and shaking Deaton with great fury, while his cracked and wiry voice poured forth curses upon the "d d Yankee son of a ," called Wiley again to his assistance. Once more Deaton was held up; and that time he turned upon them, and smiled with a soft, sweet expres- sion that transfigured his whole face. All the old, unset- tled look fled. Courage, love, j)ity, benison came back to him. He tried to nerve himself to stand. The officers released him— as he seemed to desire. He staggered, and he would have fallen. The momentary inspiration passed : his head drooped : a half groan, a half sigh escaped him. 312 FOUR TEARS IN SEOESSIA. "Hurry, hurry !" cried out Capliart, in Ms liarsli, "broken tones ; "tlie d d Yankee will die in our arms if you don't hang him quick !" The drop fell, and the loyal Tennessean was swaying in the air, struggling with death, and struggling hard. So worn and wasted was he, that the tension of the rope was slight. For nearly ten minutes the victim writhed and twisted and turned. It seemed as if he would never die. The few prisoners who had gone down to witness the tragedy were shocked ; and most of them hurried away. Caphart alone enjoyed it. He grinned like a fiend, and was evidently happy in his way. At last the struggles ceased. The sufferings of the loyal martyr were over. The horror of the scene impressed every one, save the gray -haired ruffian ; and more than one of the Rebel officers shuddered and turned pale. The bleak wind blew upon the scaffold, and moved the strangled corpse. A few snow-flakes fell through the frosty atmosphere, like scattered rose-leaves on a grave. The sun broke through the heavy clouds, and a little light streamed down, as if the path were opened, and they had parted to let a passing spirit in. SALISBURY PENITENTIARY. 313 CHAPTER XLII. SALISBUET PENITENTIAET. Our Removal from Richmond to Salisbury. — Character of our Companions. — Troubles of Transportation. — Strange Scene and Sensation at Petersburg. — Arrival at tlae North Carolina Prison. — Interior View of our Quarters. — A Heavy Blow for my Confrere. — The Horrors of Southern Captivity. — Difficulty of their Realization. On the 2d of February, The Tribune correspondents were ordered from Richmond to Salisbury, and long be- fore dawn we were standing in Carey Street, in the midst of seventy or eighty Rebel deserters and desperadoes wearing balls and chains. We were the only Northern- ers in the Southern shipment, and, I might say, the only persons, save a few straggling Tennessee and Virginia Unionists, who would not have picked their father's pocket, or. sold their grandmother, for a sufficient pecu- niary inducement. We were not very well attired, and our nine months of captivity had not contributed to the elegance of our ap- pearance ; but, compared to those about us, we must have seemed like robes of velvet upon hovel walls. We had a great deal of baggage in the shape of blankets, a box of provisions and cooking utensils, two old valises that we had purchased in prison ; and even after distributing our household goods to some of our retainers, we were fairly overburdened with our possessions. We very frequently 314 FOUR YEAES IN SEOESSIA. asked ourselves the question Mrs. Wragge so patheti- cally put to herself : " What shall we do with our things ?" and found no small difficulty in practically answering the query. The large box fell to our individual management. It was very heavy, and the single pole, run through the rope handles, by which we carried it, turned and twisted in our hands until they were blistered, and our muscles were sore with the weight we bore ; having been com- pelled to carry it over a mile at Petersburg, a quarter of a mile at Weldon, and three quarters of a mile at Salis- bury. At Petersburg we stood for an hour and a half in one of the most public streets, near the railway depot, subject to the gaze and comment of the masculine and feminine passers-by. Rare company was that for a gentleman. I should have blushed had I not been proud — proud to be hated by the Rebels — proud that I hated them as well. As I stood there, I saw well-dressed men and women gaze at that ragged crew with ill-concealed contempt and even disgust — I wonder if they were more disgusted than I was — and heard them utter denunciations upon ' ' those scoundrels" that were just enough in the main. Strange thoughts stole through my mind in that public thoroughfare. The situation was novel, and the sensa- tion somewhat so. I had never fancied before the War that I should be a show and a spectacle in an American city — one of a crowd of ruffians and villains, from whom I could not be discriminated, passing from one prison to another — to be leered at by the vulgar and miscompre- hended by my peers. Neither my confrere nor myself felt humbled even SALISBURY PENITEXTIARY. 315 tliere, swept away as our individuality was in that un- wholesome mass of humanity. The earnest conviction of what we were, elevated us above our surroundings and beyond the Present. We felt self-possessed, haughty, fearless. The blood burned in our cheek ; but it was the kindling of a defiant soul ; and if any close observer, any studier of countenance, had been there, he would have descried through the marble of the statue the suppressed passion of the sculptor, the repose of Art with the scorn of the Real. The Richmond authorities had very kindly furnished us with a special detective to see that we did not escape. We had no idea of doing so on the way, having been led^ to believe Salisbury the best base of operations we could find. The detective proved to be a Unionist, and we told him frankly we had no intention of leaving him, so that he need give himself no trouble on the subject., We could have gotten away a number of times en route to Salis- bury, and we regretted afterwards we had not done so on principle. On the afternoon of the second day we reached Salis-^ bury, and, entering the inclosure of the Penitentiary, were warmly greeted by prisoners we had known at the Cas- tle, and officers, held like ourselves as hostages, whose acquaintance we had made at the Libby. At the Peni- tentiary tliere were Rebel convicts. Northern deserters, hostages. Southern Union men, and all persons that the enemy designed to hold for a long time. There were then but six or seven hundred inmates of the place, which we preferred either to the Castle or Libby, because we had the privilege of the yard, and had a daily opportunity to 316 FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. breatlie tlie external atmospliere, and l)eliold tlie over- arcliing sky. The quarters in which we were confined were very undesirable, being about ninety by forty feet, with barred windows, dirty floor, partially occupied by rude bunks, and two broken stoves that gave out no heat, but a perpetual smoke of green pine-wood that made the atmosphere blue, and caused us to weep as though we had lost the dearest mistress of our soul. There, with rags and vermin, filth and odors, as little Sabean as possible, we passed the long, cold, desolate nights, shivering in our light blankets, and striving, for many a dreary hour, in vain to sleep. What a dismal den it was ! Trophonius' famous cave, as described by Pausanias, would not have more deeply shadowed the soul of its occupant. What ages I seem to have passed there : what weary, pangful, endless nights ! How cruelly Morpheus deceived me ; how he painted to my mental eye the peace and pleasantness of scenes far away ! How oft I awoke from dreams of mental magni- ficence to the cold, staring, stony walls of that wretched abode ! How frequently I was aroused from the fancied breath of roses, and the enchanting strain of unseen in- struments, and the soft-sweet pressure of lips of balm and beauty, by the bite of insects and the tramp of some unfor- tunate tatterdemalion upon my fatigued form, steeped in half-voluptuous, half-spiritual imaginings, and surren- dered quite to precious oblivion of its surroundings ! If any place more than another is the antipodes of Poetry, that surely was it. SALISBUEY PENITENTIARY. 317 I see it now, so barren, Weak, and squalid, so associated witli tlie meanest bondage and the most repulsive objects ; and I wonder any one can have lived there, and preserved the least sense of Beauty. Rare old den of disorder, disgustfulness, and deformity, your form glowers through time and distance like a vision of Hades upon the distempered mind of some early Father of the superstitious Church ! I often wished I could obtain a photograph of that room, for I can give no idea of its repulsiveness and superlative squalor. A gentleman seemed more out of place there than the Angel Gabriel would in a prize-ring, or the Pope of Rome at a Five Points dance-house. There it was my fellow-journalist, Mr. Richardson, first heard of the sudden and altogether unexpected death of his wife. Amid all that meanness and coarseness and desola- tion, the heavy blow fell upon, and almost crushed him. Heavens ! what a place to be informed of such a grief ; of the loss of the nearest and dearest of relations ; of one whose life was full of beauty and of promise ! His future had been all interwoven with hers ; and when cruel For- tune severed two such hearts, in his there must have seemed no bright to-morrows. Those quarters at Salisbury and their- associations, will my bereaved friend ever forget them ? Can I even 1 The antique junk-shop— such it seemed— was filled with odors of the most obnoxious kind, especially at night, from additional agencies that politeness will not permit me to name. Vermin swarmed everywhere ; they tortured us while we tried to sleep on our coarse blan- 318 FOUR YEARS IN" SEOESSIA. kets, and kept us in torment wlien awake. !N'ot a square mile of Secessia seemed free from them. No light of any kind was furnished us ; and there we sat, night after night, in the thick darkness, inhaling the foul vapors and the acrid smoke, longing for the morning, when we could again catch a glimpse of the "blue beam- ing sky. Think of that death-life month after month ! Think of men of delicate organization, accustomed to ease and luxury, of fine taste, and a passionate love of the Beauti- ful, without a word of sympathy or a whisper of hope, wearing their days out amid such scenes ! Not a pleasant sound, nor a sweet odor, nor a vision of fairness ever reached them. They were buried as com- pletely as if they lay beneath the ruins of Pompeii or Herculaneum. They breathed mechanically, but were* shut out from all that renders existence endurable. Every sense was shocked perpetually, and jet the heart, by a strange inconsistency, kept up its throbs, and preserved the physical being of a hundred and fifty wretched captives, who, no doubt, often prayed to die. Few persons can have any idea of a long imprisonment in the South. They usually regard it merely as an ab- sence of freedom — as a deprivation of the pleasures and excitements of ordinary life. They do not take into con- sideration the scant and miserable rations that no one, unless he be half famished, can eat ; the necessity of going cold and hungry in the wet and wintry season ; the constant torture from vermin, of which no care nor pre- caution will free you ; the total isolation, the supreme dreariness, the dreadful monotony, the perpetual turning SALISBURY PEmiENTIARY. 319 inward of tlie mind upon itself, the self-devouring of the heart, week after week, month after month, year after year. Most strange that captives there do not lose their rea- son, or die of inanition and despair. How hard it is to kill a man, I had not fully learned, until fortune threw me into Rebel hands. Frequently I thought, in prison, of the suggestive words of Glanvil : ' ' Man does not yield to death, nor to the angels even, save through the weakness of a con- quered will ;" and my spirit seemed to grow stronger and control the failing flesh. Man must be a brute or a philosopher to bear up under all the trials of confinement in Rebeldom ; and I wonder now how the stoicism I had so long cultivated stood me in that period of most urgent need. Much do I marvel that I passed through the ordeal un- scathed ; whether I am the same mortal who bore with outward calm and uncomplaining fortitude nearly two years of Southern captivity. Was it my other or my actual self who passed those ages of months in Secessia ? I fancy I see myself still in Richmond or Salisbury, pacing those filthy floors, and that he who dashes the pen across the page is another identical form of my developed consciousness. More fortunate, as I was, than most of my fellow- prisoners, still am I surprised that I did not perish in pure self-defense. What motives or purpose had I to cling to the Planet? Perhaps, unwittingly, my in- stincts held me, and informed me vaguely of the day of deliverance. 320 FOUR TEARS IN SEOESSIA. All that somlbre Past appears now like a nightmare dream, and this restoration to a free and normal condition the glad awakening. The recent realities seem shadows ; and yet they were such shadows as struck terror to the soul of the tyrant-king. While one beholds the vast, throbbing, rushing life of the great, free, enlightened North, he finds it difficult to believe but a few days divide him from the meanness and misery, the despair and death and horror, that were the constant companions of the helpless victims immured in the prison-pens of the South. PHOTOGRAPHS OF HORROR. 321 CHAPTER XLIIL PHOTOGRAPHS OF HORROE. Great Influx of Prisoners at Salisbury. — Barbarity of the Enemy. — Intense Suffering and Wholesale Murder of the Captives. — Pen Pictures of the Prison. — Agonizing Scenes. — Enhstment of our Soldiers in the Rebel Service. — Shuddering Strangeness of the Past. — The Secretary of "War Responsible for the Sacrifice of Ten Thousand Lives. After nine months of confinement, at SalislDury, some ten thousand enlisted men were sent thither from Rich- mond and other points ; and then "began a reign of pain and horror such as I had not believed could exist in this Republic under any circumstances. Our poor soldiers had been robbed of their blankets, overcoats, often their shoes and blouses, and were sent there in inclement weather, and turned for some weeks into the open inclosure without shelter. After a while they were given tents capable of accom- modating about half their number ; and there they began to sicken and die from cold and hunger — the rations being sometimes only a piece of corn bread in forty-eight hours, until the daily mortality ranged from twenty-five to forty-five per day. The soldiers dug holes in the earth and under the dif- ferent buildings in the yard, constructed mud huts and shelters of baked clay, showing extraordinary energy and industry to shield themselves from wind and storm. 322 FOUR YEARS IN SEOESSIA. But their attire was so scant, and their diet so mean and meager, that they died necessarily "by hundreds. Hospital after hospital — by which I mean "buildings with a little straw on the floor, and sometimes without any straw or other accommodation — was opened, and the poor victims of Rebel barbarity were packed into them like sardines in a box. The hospitals were generally cold, always dirty ^nd without ventilation, being little else than a protection from the weather. The patients — God bless them, how patient they were ! — ^had no change of clothes, and could not obtain water sufficient to wash themselves. Nearly all of them suffering from bowel complaints, and many too weak to move or be moved, one can im- agine to what a state they were soon reduced. The air of those slaughter-houses, as the prisoners were wont to call them, was overpowering and pestiferous. It seemed to strike you like a pestilential force on entrance, and the marvel was it did not poison all the sources of life at once. Imagine nine or ten thousand scantily clad, emaciated, woe-begone soldiers — unnamed heroes, who had battled for our sacred cause on twenty blood-drenched fields — in an inclosure of five or six acres, half of them without other shelter than holes they had dug in the earth, or i under the small buildings employed as hospitals. ' The weather is cold ; perhaps a chilly rain is falling, or the ground is covered with snow. There are the soldiers— hundreds of them with naked feet, and only light blouses or shirts, hungry, feeble, despairing of the PHOTOGRAPHS OF HORROR. 323 Present and hopeless of the Future — huddling over a small and smoky fire of green wood, in a crowded tent, whose very atmosphere is poisonous ; or standing shiver- ing against the outside of the chimneys of the squalid hospitals, hoping to warm their Iblood a little from the partially heated bricks ; or drawn up in their narrow caves, inhaling the curling emanations of the burning pine, and striving to shelter themselves from the bitter wind ; or begging, with pallid and trembling lips, for shelter at the door of those lazar-houses where their com- panions in arms are lying in dirt, distress, and despair, breathing out their lives at the rate of thirty and forty a day. Look into those hospitals — strange perversion of the name ! — which are small brick and log buildings, twenty- five by sixty feet, and see how a people who boast of their generosity and chivalry can treat the prisoners they have taken in honorable warfare. There lie the prisoners, in the scant and tattered clothes they were graciously permitted by the Rebels to keep, filthy from the impossibility of obtaining water to wash themselves, with no beds nor bedding, no covering even, perchance without straw ; tossing and groaning their miserable lives away. Fires blaze at one end, it may be at both ends, of the tenements ; but the heat extends not far, and the cold wind rushes in from the broken windows and through the crevices in the walls ; while the air is mephitic and noisome to such a degree, that when you breathe it first it is almost suffocating. What a ghastly line of faces and of figures ! To have 324 FOUPw YEAES IN SECESSIA. seen them once is to remember tliem always. Tliey are more like skeletons in rags than human beings. Ever and anon some of them strive to rise and obey such calls as Nature makes ; and a companion, less weak and wasted than they, hears them, as if they were children, over the dirt-mcrusted floor, and lays them down again to suffer to the end. Here lies a boy of sixteen or seventeen — whose motner, in some far-off Northern home, is praying for him every night and morning ; to whom sisters are writing words of cheer and sympathy he will never see — muttering in fever, and beckoning with shrunken hands to forms no mortal eye can discover, but which may be waiting to bear his brave young spirit home. There is a gray-haired man, who left his fann and fii-e- side when the traitorous gun at Sumter woke a world to arms. He has passed unscathed through forty battles, to die an unrecorded hero here. His eyes are fixed, and his minutes are numbered. Children and grand-children will look with anxious faces at all dispatches and letters from the Araiy of the Poto- mac, but will not learn, for months, the fate of one who was only a private. "Is this man here?" carefully inquires a soldier, look- ing in at the door and reading the address of a letter. The answer is in the affirmative, and the ward-master calls out, "Mr. , here's a Northern letter for you." There is no eagerness to hear. The person addressed does not even turn his head. Strange, for he has waited many weary weeks to see the characters of that well-known hand; has dreamed PHOTOGRAPHS OF HOEROR. 325 nigM after niglit, amid the pauses of his pain, of reading N the sweet assurances of his dear wife's love. s These are the words: "Dearest Husband: I have not heard from you for months. I can not believe any harm has befallen you ; for I have faith that Heaven will re- store you to me at once. I feel sure my deep and earnest prayers have been answered ; that my affection will be as a shield to you, and my fond bosom again be your pillow." Blessed words ! what would he give if he could behold them. Alas ! they have come too late. Her love has been lost in a greater love, and the life that is in a life to come. Through all the day and night corpses are carried from the hospitals to the dead-house, where the bodies are piled up like logs of wood, until the rude cart into which they are thrown is driven off with its ghastly freight. At any hour one may see men bearing across the in- closure the pallid and wasted figure of a soldier, whom tlie Rebels had starved or frozen to death with malice prepense. There goes into the dead-house a young man who, four years ago, was the idol of his circle. Possessed of beauty, genius, fortune, friends — all that could make Earth sweet — he quitted the attractions of a life of ease and a luxurious home, and took up his mus- ket that his country might be truly free. Not even she who loved him better than a sister, more intensely than a mother, would recognize him among the heaped up dead. The unclosed eye and gaping jaw make that once hand- 326 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. some face hideous to view ; and suffering, and neglect, and cruelty, have changed it into a vision of repulsive- ness and horror. But why seek to paint these scenes which defy descrip- tion ? Everywhere is pain, squalor, and horror. All day long, one sees wretched, haggard, sick, and dying men in every part of the inclosure. Their faces tell their story — an unwritten epic in the saddest num- Ibers. Their wasted forms reveal the inhumanity and "barbarity of a savage foe. Amid all that assemblage of thousands of men, though the sun shines, and the birds sing in the groves near by, not a laugh nor a jest is heard — not the faintest sound of merrymaking. Not a single face relaxes into a smile ; every eye is dull with despondency ; every cheek sunken with want ; every lip trembling with unuttered pain. Disease and Death there hold high carnival, and the mirror of misery is held up to every vacant stare. The air is heavy with plaints, and prayers, and groans, and over that accursed camp hangs the pall of despair. Guercino could paint no darker picture. Indeed, no limner, no artist in words or colors, could give a just idea of the scenes of that terrestrial Tophet. Suffering everywhere, and no power to relieve it. In every tent and hole in the ground, wherever you tread or turn, gaunt and ghastly men, perishing by inches, glare on you like accusing spectres, until you find your- self forced to exclaim, ' ' Thank God, I am not responsible for this!" Little, if any thing, could be done for them medically. Hunger and exposure could not be remedied by the PHOTOGRAPHS OF HORROR. 327 materia medica ; and to seek to heal them "by ordinary means was like endeavoring to animate the grave. What advantage had quinine and opium when they could get neither bread nor raiment? The sending of physicians into the Prison limits was a ghastly farce, for the Rebel officers premeditatedly starved and froze our brave men, hoping to compel the Government to ex- change, or to force the soldiers into the Southern service. Hundreds of the privates, anxious to save their lives, joined the enemy, trusting to the future to escape. I can not blame them. Who could demand that they should await certain destruction in the form of disease, and cold, and hunger, when relief was offered them even by a cruel and barbarous foe? No, I cannot censure those who forgot in such fearful hours all but their own salvation ; yet I can find no language too strong to praise the heroes that stood firm when they seemed deserted by their friends, their country, and their God. The Rebels, apparently not content with the ravages of disease, almost entirely superinduced by starvation and cold, fired upon the wretched prisoners whenever the humor seized them ; killing and wounding them without reason or pretext. The guards seemed influenced by a diabolical spirit, shooting men in their tents, and in holes in the ground, seemingly in the merest wantonness. No one was safe. Whenever a sentinel felt in the mood, he would murder a "Yankee" without being removed from his post, or even asked why he did it. Again, and again, I myself saw soldiers fired upon by the guard, and that too when they were transgressing no rule, and violating no order whatever. \ 328 FOUR YEARS m SECESSIA. My readers may well ask, what motive liad the enemy for such nefarious crimes ? I can only answer, that I have often put that question to myself ; that I am utterly at a loss to conceive his motive ; that he seemed actuated only by a fiendish malignity, to maim and murder as many Yankees as possible. On the 25th of N'ovember last, a few of the prisoners, perhaps a hundred or two, feeling that their condition was entirely desperate ; that they were being deliberately mur- dered by starvation and exposure, determined to attempt an outbreak ; knowing they could, at the worst, only be killed, and that death was almost certain if they remained in prison. Such arrangements as were practicable they speedily made, without giving any intimation to the other captives ; and, about one o' clock in the afternoon, fell upon the relief-guard, some twenty in number, when they entered the inclosure, and seized their muskets. Some of the guard resisted, and a fight occurred, in which two of the Rebels were killed and five or six wounded, with about the same loss on the part of the insurgents. The alarm was immediately given. The whole garri- son mounted the parapet ; and though, in a minute, the emeute was suppressed, the effort to get out of the gate having failed, they began firing indiscriminately upon the prisoners, albeit it was evident to the dullest obser- ver that the great majority had nothing whatever to do with what was called the insurrection. The prisoners, seeing they were to be shot down in cold blood, took refuge in the tents, behind the outbuild- ings and hospitals, and in the caves they had dug. But PHOTOGRAPHS OF HORPvOR. 329 tliat made no difference. The Rebels discharged two of '" the field-pieces bearing on the camp, and continued firing into the tents upon the poor captives, who were trying to screen themselves from the murderous balls. For fully half an hour the shooting went on, and, in that time, some seventy men were killed and wounded, not one of whom, I venture to say, lilB. any intimation of the outbreak before it was undertaken, and who were as guiltless of any attempt at insurrection as infants unborn. That was a fair example of the animus of the foe. He found a pretext for wholesale slaughter, and availed him- self of it to the uttermost. Woe to those who are responsible for all that hideous suffering ; to the inhuman Rebels who plundered our poor soldiers of their clothing, and turned them into that filthy pen to die ; who had store-houses full of provi- sions, and yet starved their unfortunate captives with a fiendish persistency which one must be a believer in total depravity to understand ! The truth is, the minds of the Southern people have for many years been so abused by their leaders and news- papers ; their source of information respecting the ISTorth has been so poisoned ; the feelings, opinions, habits, and intentions of the Free States have been so grossly misrep- resented, that it is not singular the loyal citizens of the Republic should be regarded by those dupes as thieves and assassins, barbarians and monsters. The Southern people, as a class, have had no means of judging of the IS'ortherners, for they rarely traveled, or met socially those who had traveled ; and the consequence was, they believed whatever absurd and infamous state- 330 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. ments they heard from their demagogues, or read in their newspapers. For at least ten years — ^twenty-five would be nearer the truth — the South has heen carefully and constantly sti- mulated and goaded into the bitterest hatred of, and direct enmity to, the North, The Southern leaders had long prepared for the Overthrow of the Government, and believing the time ripe when Mr. Lincoln was elected, undertook the aggressive form of treason. Secession became a mania. It drove the embracers of the doctrine mad. All their worst passions were enkin- dled by it, and they swept through four years of agony and war to break themselves in pieces at the feet of the magnanimous and triumphant Nation, Now that I have escaped from that Hades of Salis- bury, I marvel how I ever endured to breathe that pesti- lential air ; how I continued, week after week and month after month, to keep my hold upon that dark point of the Planet. Truly, it seems like a nightmare dream ; and I can hardly realize I ever lived, and walked, and labored, in that place of shuddering horrors. While I sit writing in an easy-chair, glancing out of the window at the gay throng of the ever-changing Broadway, hear the peals of Trinity and the vast roar of the Metropolis, I wonder if I have not been drowsing, after reading Poe, and following his ghastly fancies into the mystic sphere of sleep. It is not real, I think. With all this bustle, and energy, and beauty, and plenty, and enlightenment, and Christianity about me, it cannot be that a thousand miles PHOTOGRAPHS OF HOPwEOE. 331 away Imndreds of heroes, who had "borne our flag on dozens of immortal fields, died every week from the pre- meditated cruelty of the Rebels. Surely it cannot be, for the Government was aware of all the atrocities of Southern prisons : it had heard the story over and over again from the lips of sufferers ; and, if it had been as was represented, the Government would certainly have made some effort to relieve its stanch supporters and its brave defenders. Alas ! the story is too true ; it is written in thousands of unknown graves, whose occupants, when alive, cried to the Government for redress, and yet cried in vain ! As soon as Mr. Richardson and myself reached our lines, we determined to visit Washington even before returning to New York, to see what could b& done for • the poor prisoners we had left behind, and determine what obstacles there had been in the way of an exchange. We were entirely free. We owed nothing to the Rebels nor to the Government for our release. We had obtained our own liberty, and were very glad of it ; for we be- lieved our captives had been so unfairly, not to say inhumanly, treated at Washington, that we were unwil- ling to be indebted to authorities of that city for our emancipation. We went to Washington — deferring every thing else to move in the matter of prisoners — and did what we thought most effective for the end we had in view. Du- ring our sojourn there, we made it our special business to inquire into the causes of the detention of Union pris- oners in the South, although it was known they were., being deliberately starved and frozen by the Rebels. We 332 FOUR YEARS IX SECESSIA. particularly endeavored to learn wlio was responsible for tlie murder — for it was nothing else — of thousands of our "brave soldiers ; and we did learn. There was but one answer to all our questions ; and that was, Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of "VYar, Although he knew the exact condition of affairs in the Rebel prisons, he always insisted that we could not afford to exchange captives with the South ; that it was not policy. Perhaps it was not ; but it was humanity, and possibly that is ahnost as good as policy in other eyes than Mr. Stanton' s. After our departure from Washington, such a storm was raised about the Secretary' s ears — such a tremen- dous outside feeling was created — that he was compelled to make an exchange. The greater part of the Northern prisoners have now been released, I believe ; but there was no more reason why they should have been paroled or exchanged since February than there was ten or twelve months ago. No complications, no obstacles had been removed in the mean time. Our prisoners might just as well have been released a year since as a month since ; and if they had been, thousands of lives would have been saved to the Republic, not to speak of those near and dear ones who were materially and spiritually dependent upon them. Dreadful responsibility for some one ; and that some one, so far as I can learn, is the Secretary of War. I hope I may be in error, but I cannot believe I am. If I am right, Heaven forgive him ! for the people will not. The ghosts of the thousand needlessly sacrificed heroes will haunt him to his grave. iryyzLS Ayi> Tr:s:s"ZLrN'G. E33 CHAPTER XLIY. Tr33TLS AST) T^X^'ZLIS■*^. Bespect fat Tininels. — TLeir attracrire £zid absorbing Poirer. — Txzineliag at Castle Tn-Jinder. — DiSc-ulTj of ileir CJi-strjcTlon. — The libbj Prls-tn Er-TcT- prlse. — UnciertaizLty of their CompietioiL — Freq-jencrr of ExcaTatio~5 at Salis- boiy. — Desires to Obiain Sabierraneaii FT^edoro. — ^Ideal Eegrets. Ses^cx my incarceration in Rebel Prisons I have had a profonnd respect for the Thames Tunnel; because, unlike those with Trhich I had the fortune to be connected in Secessia, it was an established success. Well was it for the fame of Brunnell I had no interest in his great enterprise, which in that erent would, I am confident, nerer have been carried out. Tunnels were my thought by day and my dream by night for nearly twenty months. I was always a large stockholder in some Timnel con- templated, begun, or completed. I helped to plan Tunnels ; watched over them ; sat up with them ; crept into them and out of them ; but alas ! never crept throngh one of them. Freedom was in some way associated in my mind with a TunneL I fancied Adam must have crawled into Paradise through a TunneL A Tunnel to me was the greatest work of Man, 334 FOUR YEAES IX SECESSIA. Dig a Tunnel, and get out of it, appeared tlie injunction of the Gods ! With attent ear I heard the divine injunction ; and yet its latter portion I could not obey. AVitness all those weary, dreary months, how often and how energetically I tried, and only tried to fail ! In the Libby Prison the Union officers had no oppor- tunity to dig a Tunnel while I was there, their quarters being too far removed from mother Earth. But when I was removed to Castle Thunder I fell in with a number of amateur engineers, who believed the way to Liberty lay through the sacred soU of A'ii'ginia. They so believed, and acted upon their belief. Tunnel after Tunnel was made there ; but they were always so long in its construction, that it was either exposed by traitors, or discovered by the officials. It is singular how much the prisoners accomplished with slender means. They rarely had more than a case knife or an old hinge ; and yet with that they would dig, in a few days, a hole large enough to admit the body of a man, through ten and even twenty feet of earth. The greatest difficulties in the construction of a Tunnel are the disposition of the dirt and the lack of fresh air, which, as soon as the excavation is carried to a distance, very soon becomes exhausted. A Tunnel is so old and well-known a means of egress from Prison, that the authorities are ever on the alert to find one ; and the appearance of any quantity of dirt would at once excite suspicion. Hence the greatest pre- caution is necessary. Haversacks and small bags are brought into requisition, and the dirt is carried, little by TUyXEI^ AXD TTXyELIXG. 335 little, from tlie montli of the Tuimel to some place where it will not attract attention. Operators nsnallv select some spot where they think they will not be iatermpted, near the ontside limits of the Prison, and go to work. They toil like beavers, laboring often day and night with changes of hands, because they feel the danger of delay. I have known nnmerons Timnels to be discovered because their com- pletion had been deferred over a single night. At Castle Thunder, by getting down into an old store- room below the Court-Martial room, as it was termed, one could begin his Tunnel beside the rear wall of the Prison, skirting an alley fifteen feet wide : and as few i>ersons went there, the prospect of disturbance was small. The design was to commence digging in the morning, and finish it before dawn the following day. That never could be accomplished, or at least never was while I remained there. If it had been, I should have gotten out certainly ; for I frequently sat up watching the progress of the subterranean bore, all ready to wake my com- panions, and depart at a moment's notice. During the five months I was at the Castle, more than a dozen Tunnels must have been constructed, all running under the alley mentioned, and designed to come up the other side of the fence, out of sight of the sentinels, where one could have walked through a military-hospital yard to Main-street, and made good his retreat. The most extensive and successful Tunnel in the South, during my compulsory sojourn there, was that made by the officers at the libbv Prison, in the month of February, 336 FOUR YEARS IX SECESSIA. ' '63, by whicli over one hundred and twenty escaped, and some sixty-five got through into our lines. There the officers had ample leisure to work, and were engaged three or four weeks in the enterprise. They removed the bricks of a hearth in a store-room on the ground floor, cut through a stone wall two feet thick, and then began the Tunnel proper, which was carried some fifty or sixty feet into an inclosur-e, passing the prisoners under, and placing them beyond, the beat of the sentinels. The officers relieved each other constantly, and con- ducted their labor so adroitly that Major Turner had not the faintest suspicion of what was going on. When so large a number was missed, the morning after the escape, the Rebel authorities were nonplused. They could not imagine, for an hotir, what had become of them. They went to the store-room and searched carefully, but still could find nothing of the Tunnel ; nor was it till late in the afternoon that they made the discovery. The nature of Tunnels is sucli, that the work neces- sarily makes slow progress. As soon as they are fairly started, and tlie operator is below the surface, he is com- pelled to lie flat on his face, at full length, and, using his knife, or whatever implement he may have, he throws the dirt behind him, which is gathered up by an assistant, and removed in a pan or bag. The mole performance is continued day after day until it is supposed the Tunnel is ready to be tapped or opened. That is an important matter, and it is requisite that the distance be accurately measured. AwkAvard mistakes and needless discoveries have been made by neglect of proper precautions in tliat respect. I remember distinctly a Tunnel by which the Corre- TUNKELS AND TUNNELIN"G. 337 spondent of tlie Cincinnati Gazette and myself expected to escape at Salisbury, during the month of November. We were assured it would be ready for opening at ten o' clock ; but after examining it, and sitting up with it until after twelve, we concluded there was no hope for it that night, and we went disappointed to our bunks. The next morning, about daylight, it was tapped, and came up nearly two feet this side of the inclosure instead of the other side. And, to complete the ill fortune, a Rebel officer stepped into it before noon the same day. A woman's humor is not more uncertain than a Tunnel. I never knew any man to make a correct calculation of the time of a Tunnel' s completion. But you can always conclude, when its engineers declare positively that it will be done in two days, that it will still require some finishing strokes at the close of a week. Tunnels linger longer than rich relatives whom expectant heirs are waiting to bury. Two or three begun at Salisbury, that were to be com- pleted by November 1st, were only half dug in the middle of Decenaber. The truth is, that the operators are so anxious to finish a Tunnel that they calculate their capacity for perform- ance, even with their wretched implements, by the intensity of their desire. When we three Bohemians escaped from Salisbury, there were four Tunnels completed, and at least seven more in a half-finished state. The former would have been tapped weeks before, had not some wretches who had been interested in them enlisted in the Rebel service, and exposed them to the authorities. ^38 FOUR YEARS m SECESSIA. The officers of the prison could not find where they were located, or exactly where they were to come out ; Ibnt they placed extra guards at all the points designated, so preventing any chance of escape. "We regretted that greatly, because we preferred to pass out of a Tunnel, as we could then have carried with us blankets and provisions ; but, going in the way we did, we were compelled to travel light. I was anxious to realize my long dream, and pass to the outer AVorld, from which I had been so long separ- ated, by a Tunnel ; but when I found myself fairly free, I ceased to mourn that my long-cherished hopes as to the means of exit had been blasted. A Tunnel is a Tunnel ; but Liberty is Liberty ; and the latter is acceptable in any form, while the former alone is but an abstraction. Possessing Freedom, I have small general regrets that a Tunnel did not help me to it ; though in my loftiest moods I lament in spirit that a Tunnel, on whose tawny bosom I had lain, like a subterranean Antony hanging upon an earthy Cleopatra'^s lips, bore me not to the upper air and the blessings of the disenthralled. In my rapt moments of the Future, in my visions of the Night, I shall still dwell on the perfidy of Tunnels — the Elfridas of excavations. I shall, perhaps, endeavor — my mind going back to the dreariness and horror I have left behind — to pass out of some Broadway Hotel by undermining the Brussels carpet, and carrying out the ottoman in an imaginary haversack, and so realize in sleep the passionate prompting of Prison hours, distant, thank Heaven ! and departed, I trust, forever. MUGGING. 339 CHAPTER XLV. MUGGING. The Meaning of the Tenn.— "WTio the Muggers were. — Their Plan of Opera- tion. — Character of their Victims. — Indifference of the Authorities on the Subject. — Flogging of Northern Deserters. — Their Cruel Treatment. — Mugging m Richmond and SaUsbury. — Its Reduction to a System. — Our Own Soldiers in the Business. — A Vigilance Committee proposed. Few of our readers wlio have enjoyed the blessings of freedom all their lives will understand the meaning of the caption of this chapter, the purpose of which is to explain in detail Avhat the term represents. Mugging is the argot expression for robbing, and one of the most popular words in the Southern-Prison lexi- con. Every place in Secessia where miscellaneous cap- tives are held contains its Muggers in abundance. They were originally Rebels, but so demoralizing was their example, and so extensive their practice, that they added quite a number of our own men to their ranks. In the Libby, being in the officers' quarters, we saw no mugging, although a great deal of it was going on in other parts of the Prison ; and after we were removed to Castle Thunder and the Salisbury Penitentiary, we were daily witnesses of its operations. The chief Muggers in every instance were Rebels, — natural thieves, born bullies, and thoroughly-developed ruffians, — who had lost their liberty by deserting, swin- 340 rOUR YEARS m seoessia. dling, stealing, and violating in various ways the military as well as the civil law. A few of them formed the nucleus for all the rascals who might l)e consigned to the Prison from time to time ; and as they were organized, they had strength, and large capacity for mischief. The Muggers, like most hullies and ruffians, manifested a fine discrimination respecting the party they attacked, selecting those they thought they could rob with little resistance and entire impunity. Any person they saw fit to make their victim had small chance of escape. They would fall on him at night in numbers, throw a blanket over his head, hold him down, and rifle his clothes at will, the surrounding darkness preventing him from determining who were the robbers. If he resisted, he was cruelly beaten, and often was so served when he submitted quietly to the plunderers. They generally selected some unsophisticated fellow or ruralist to "go through," as they termed it, and did it most effectually. The unfortunate, at first taken by sur- prise, and then terrified by the terrible threats they would make in the event of his raising an alarm, would permit himself to be robbed without an outward protest or murmur; and in the morning would find himself moneyless, coatless, shoeless, and hatless. Sometimes I have known men to be completely stripped of their clothing, and cruelly belabored beside. Proba- bly tlie victim would not be aware who the Muggers were ; and if he did, would be afraid to expose them to the authorities, on account of the sanguinary menaces promulgated against all infonners. That honest men should be plundered and beaten by MUGGING. 341 scoundrels wlio were notorious, and be prevented by apprehension of physical consequences from giving their names, is a hardship, independent of the severity of Prison, which must be diificult to endure. The princi- pal Muggers were very well known in Richmond and Salisbury to the commandants there ; but only in a few instances were they punished. As the "Yankees" were for the most part the suf- ferers, — the Southern captives had little to lose, — perhaps the authorities felt no disposition to cast over them the mantle of protection. Whatever the cause, they most shamefully failed to perform their duty. They said, if they could obtain the Muggers' names, they should be severely punished ; but made no effort to ferret out the perpetrators of the outrages. They could have put a stop to the nefarious practice in forty-eight hours, if they would have done so, as was shown by the flogging at Salisbury of a dozen Northern deserters who had been guilty of mugging their own class. Captain Gr. W. Alexander, who inflicted the punish- ment, refrained from bestowing it upon the Rebel con- victs, although they were far worse than our deserters, — proving that his conduct arose from passion instead of principle. Indeed, he afterwards ordered a number of lashes given to the unfortunate deserters because an attempt had been made to escape from their quarters, and they would not expose the parties who had partici- pated m the enterprise. That was infamous ; and plainly indicated that Alex- ander, who was at heart a brute and bully, — and, if the opinion of his intimates might be trusted, not possessed 342 rOUR YEARS m SECESSIA. of that extraordinary courage to wliich lie pretended, — •would liave flogged every prisoner at Salisbury, if lie had dared, for the smallest infraction of discipline. The deserters had no friends, North or South, and he fell on them for that reason. Little love have I for our deserters or for Muggers ; but when I saw them tied to a whipping-post, and lashed with a leather thong by a muscular Sergeant, my blood boiled with indignation, and every nerve in my body thrilled. The punishment seemed an insult to the Race, and degraded, I thought, all who witnessed it. Although Alexander, when he whipped the deserters, sent armed soldiers to all the Prison quarters to compel attendance in the yard, for the purpose of witnessing the revolting spectacle, I always contrived to avoid beiag present. Years before, my pulses had throbbed and my blood leaped to my cheek when I had accidentally seen negroes lashed in the Soutli, — thank Heaven, I shall see no more of that ignominious brutality in this fair country ! — and I was in no better frame of mind, years after, to witness the beating of members of the Caucasian family. When the mugging continued ; when old and innocent men were pounded so severely that they could not be removed from the hospital for weeks, merely because they were unwilling to be robbed of what served for their physical salvation ; when, night after night, the most brutal assaults were made by the worst of ruffians upon all who had any thing to lose, I changed my opinion somewhat ; concluding that if whipping were the only MUGGING. 343 remedy for mugging, — wliicli I did not believe, — it ouglit to be well laid on. Our deserters I ratber pitied, when I found they were made the scapegoats for others' offenses ; that the Rebels took advantage of their position to treat them with unde- served harshness. "Who ever heard of a people, unless they were "chivalrous," imprisoning and persecuting the soldiers who, they were bound to suppose, had fled from our Army to theirs out of sympathy with the Southern cause-1 At Castle Thunder, in Richmond, the Mugging was mainly confined to two of the rooms of the Prison, one of them immediately above the apartment in which I was confined. Almost nightly a rush would be made on the floor above ; several bodies would be heard to fall ; perhaps a loud outcry, with "murder, murder, murder" attach- ments ; then a heavy struggle and a general confusion, followed by a return of quietude. Those were the mugging demonstrations, and rarely attracted any attention. In the morning, several new men would report that they had been robbed and beaten ; though they would be entirely ignorant of the jierpetrators, as the assault had been committed in the darkness. iNTo investigation would be made, no inquiry estab- lished. The whole thing would be taken as a matter of course, and repeated as soon as any fresh subjects presented themselves. At the Penitentiary in Salisbury, Mugging was reduced to a system. 344 . FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. Men were frequently mugged in tlie Prison-yard. Sev- eral of the band would gather round the intended victim, who on a sudden would be thrown to the ground ; his pockets turned inside out; his coat and hat, sometimes Ms shoes, taken ; after which he would be let alone until he obtained more money or clothes to invite a fresh attack. The Rebel room, in the third story, where the convicts were confined, was the principal field for mugging. The wildest cries of pain and terror emanated from that quar- ter every night or two ; and daylight would reveal some poor fellow with black eyes, swelled lip, and badly cut face, deprived of all his valuables and a large portion of his clothes. The Rebels would be abroad at an early hour, and dispose of their stolen goods to some of the guards who were in league with them ; thus removing all traces of the theft. Complaint, as I have said, proved of no avail. The authorities would return the stereotyped answer : Point out the men who robbed you, and they shall be punished. The victims, even if they knew the thieves, were afraid to give the names, knowing they would be beaten half to death as soon as they were shut up again with the convicts. So far as my observation extended, the officers of the Prison seemed to favor the most notorious scoundrels of the place, provided they were on their side. They re- served their wrath for the Northern deserters, who soon became weary of the mugging business, from the fact MUGGING. 345 tliat tliey were made to answer for tlie sins of all the other thieves without reaping any fair proportion of the ill-gotten gains. JSTo attempt was ever made to mng either my confrere or myself, although we frequently anticipated and pre- pared ourselves for an attack, in conjunction with some more muscular allies, offensive and defensive. Frequently we lay down with clubs under our heads, and slept, as the phrase is, with one eye open. Amiable as we were by nature, the constant repeti- tion of such outrages made us feel a trifle bellicose ; and we concluded, if we were mugged, we would endeavor to give the muggers something to show for it. Well perhaps for our expectations and our physical condition, the experiment was never tried on us. We were not sorry, for we did not regard it as an experience we particularly needed. When the nine or ten thousand Union soldiers were sent to Salisbury, many of the most worthless formed a league with the Rebels, and the two forces carried mat- ters with a high hand up to the time of our escape. Rob- beries continually occurred. Men were stabbed, and their skulls cracked ; some thrown out of the windows, and their necks broken ; but the authorities in no manner interfered. The better class of prisoners talked seriously of insti- tuting a "Vigilance Committee," and hanging some of the principal Muggers, as had been done at Anderson- ville, Georgia, a few months before — by the by, four of the individuals executed there had gone from Salisbury, where they had been held as deserters, — but no definite 34G FOUK YEARS IN SECESSIA. plan of action had. Ibeen agreed upon at the period of our hegira. Justice, whicli had long sluml3ered at Salisbury, fell, I fear, into a sleep too deep for waking. DESPERATE ESCAPE. 347 CHAPTER XLVI. DESPERATE ESCAPE. Constant Effort of Prisoners for Freedom.-PracticabiHtj versus Planning.— A Trio of Desperadoes.— Cause of their Extraordinary Gayetj.- Their Remark- able Exodus. In Prison, the inmates tliink and talk of little beside escape. To them, freedom is everything ; all else, nothing. By day and night they revolve one plan and another in their mind ; hope and despond ; try and are frustrated ; attempt and are punished. Yet they return to their favorite idea, and endeavor and re-endeavor, though failure ever follows. Dungeons and bayonets have Httle restraining influence. Few men who will not brave the possibilities of death, when freedom beckons, and they are encircled by the horrors of a Eebel Prison. How well I remember the numerous trials and failures of my co77frere and myself to escape ! It seemed as if we never could get out. Our genius, we thought, did not lie in that direction. Our plans were elaborate, and so were our preparations. We speculated constantly on what we might do ; talked of the feasible in our blankets far into the night, amid the pulsings of the stars and the ravages of insects. While we theorized grandly, some dull fellow, with 348 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. only one idea, but tliat in the riglit direction, got out, and brought us, with our fine reasoning and subtile calcu- lations, to overwhelming shame. Was the fault with us, or with the Gods ? It matters not now, for at last the Gods were kind. While at Castle Thunder, we were taught what enter- prise and nerve will accomplish. Three prisoners on capital charges were in the con- demned cell, heavily ironed. They were desperate fel- lows, no doubt, and endured their situations very cheerfully — laughing, singing, and howling in the most uproarious style. Their gayety seemed to increase daily ; for they soon began dancing in theu' chains, and dropping their iron balls on the floor as if sporting with their misfortunes. This latter entertainment they kept up so regularly, I began to suspect there was meaning in it, and that it covered a design. Nor was I mistaken, as the sequel proved. About two o' clock we heard a row and a rush below ; the discharge of several muskets, and the general indica- tions of a disturbance. "We could learn nothing then; but after breakfast, — the eating of a piece of corn-bread, the throwing away of a bit of fat, rancid bacon, and the swallowing of a cup of water, was so denominated in the Castle, — we were apprised of the adventure of the tur- bulent trio. It appears they had made all the noise to drown the sawing through of the floor which was over a store-room ; and at an hour of the night or morning when the sentinels were apt to be careless, ihey took up a part of the DESPERATE ESCAPE. 349 boards, and slowly and silently slipped into the under apartment, having let themselves down by strips of a blanket they had torn up for that purpose. The enterprising scoundrels then quietly forced open a window into a passage leading to the street door of the Prison ; and in the shadow of that quarter seized three muskets placed against the wall on racks. They then rushed upon the guard nearest them, and struck him with the butt of the piece, knocking him senseless over an iron railing that ran across the passage. The outer sentinel saw this movement, and prepared for it, bringing his gun to the position of a charge. He had mistaken his men, if he supposed that would stop them. They dashed upon him, and he was just on the point of firing, when the nearest prisoner discharged the contents of his musket into the breast of the guard, liter- ally tearing his breast to pieces, and of course killing him instantly. They then ran into the street, past the outer sentinels, who were too much surprised to act, and who forgot to use their muskets until too late. The fugitives were nearly to Seventeenth street, when the Rebels gave a dropping fire as harmless as it was useless. The alarm was given, and the garrison of the Prison beaten to arms, but no traces of the bold prisoners could be found. Where they went, how they went, and by what route, was never known ; but a week or ten days after, their arrival at Fortress Monroe was publicly announced. They had gallantly earned their freedom, and I hope they enjoyed it more honestly and worthily than I fear they did before they became inmates of the Castle. 350 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. CHAPTER XLYIL UNION BUSHWHACKERS. Cause of Bushwhackers. — Repulsiveness of the Custom. — Its Excuse. — Their SufiFerings and "Wrongs. — Colligions with Home-Guards. — Victories of Union Men. — Terror of their Name. — The Vendetta in the Mountains. — Virtues of • the Southern Royalists. — "War of Extermination. — A. Fearful Avenger. Bushwhackers are peculiar features of this War, whicli indeed gave them birth. So much has been said, and so little is known, of them, that a chapter on their life, man- ners, and habits, cannot be out of place in a volume like this. During my long march from Salisbury to Straw- berry Plains, I had abundance of opportunities to make their acquaintance, learn their history, and observe their idiosyncrasies. This great struggle has made Bushwhackers on both sides ; but it is of the Union class I propose to speak. They are confined to the Border States, or to those sec- tions where political feeling is greatly divided ; where military power has usurped the right of the people, and compelled them to resist aggression by the most stealthy and deadly means. It is difficult for an honorable or a courageous man, who has seen aught of military life, to endure, much less sanction, bushwhacking. All one' s instincts revolt at it. It is slaughter without any of the palliating circumstances of hot blood, generous passion, struggle for principle. UNION BUSHWHACKERS. 351 It is treacherous, coldly calculating, brutal ; and yet, "believing all that, I cannot find it in my heart to blame many of the men who resort to it in the mountainous regions of North Carolina and Tennessee. They were quiet, peaceable, industrious, loyal ; opposed to the doctrine of Secession, and all its attendant heresies ; the natural antagonists of the Slaveholders ; lovers of the Union for the Union's sake, and regarded as an enemy whoever would seek its destruction. When the Rebels brought on the War, those loyalists held themselves aloof, determined to take no part in it unless on the side of the Republic. The contest continued, and the Conscription Act was passed. Then those innocent and patriotic citizens were forced either to enter the insurgent army or run away ; leaving their property and wives and children — all they held most dear — behind them, and seek some new locality that, to their slender observation and limited knowledge, appeared like another sphere. Domestic by nature and habits, they were unwilling to quit their firesides and the few acres that had been and were their World. They would rather die than surrender all they valued in life. Yet they could not stay at home. If not carried off to the aiiny, they were hunted, harried, persecuted ; driven into the woods and mountains like wild beasts. Frequently they were killed or wounded by the Home-Guards ; oftener captured and sent bound to Richmond, where they were put into the field. At the earliest opportunity they would desert, of course, and return to their humble dwellings. Then would begin the persecution anew. They had forfeited their lives by 352 FOUR YEARS IN SEOESSIA. desertion. Whenever the Guard saw them, they would be fired on. It is not difficult to conceive how a few months of such experience would transform a man from an enduring saint to an aggressive demon. Amiable, gentle, merciful at first, the process by which they were transformed into Bushwhackers rendered them vicious, passionate, bloodthirsty. They were coerced to live in caves, or pits dug in the earth ; and while they were absent, the Guards or Rebel cavalry would visit the houses of the fugitives, and steal whatever could be found. • The wives and children of the Unionists were robbed of horses, mules, and even personal attire and small sums of money — all because they were loyal. In addition to that, they were occasionally abused corpo- really. Terrible threats Avere made against them unless they disclosed where certain property or articles were concealed. Their barns and even dwellings were burned down ; and in many instances Bushwhackers have found only smouldering embers or a heap of ashes where they looked for a pleasant home. In North Carolina and Tennessee I met men who had not slept under their own roof for two and even three years. All that time they had been "lying out," as it is termed. When there was no danger, they would go to their houses for an hour or two, but would not venture to remain there overnight. If the Home-Guards were in the neighborhood, or approaching, word was sent immediately to the Bush- whackers, or some signal given which was understood. Horns would be blown, cowbells rung, peculiar cries UNION^ BUSHWHACKEKS. 353 given, and in less tlian a minute all the Bushwliackers in tlie neigliborhood would l)e on tlie wing towards mountain-tops, caves, or some secure hiding-place. In the Union settlements, every one is trained to be a messenger. The children of ten and twelve years, if they see persons resembling the Guards or Rebel cavalry, bear the tidings at full speed to the nearest house, and so the intelligence is spread far and wide. If there be any number of Unionists compared to the Rebels, the former give them battle ; and so often have they proved victorious, that the latter shrink from au engagement unless in greatly superior force. Those small fights are of common occurrence, and I encoun- tered many families who had lost near relatives in such warfare. When the Rebels pass through a section of country favorable to bushwhacking, the persecuted loyalists profit by the opportunity of revenge to the fullest extent. All may be quiet, and outwardly peaceful ; the enemy will be walking or riding doAvn a mountain-road, or through a gap, or past a thicket of laurel, when half a dozen rifles will crack, and perhaps two or three of his squad be shot dead or wounded. All men, however brave, have a natural dread of being attacked by a concealed foe. It is like stabbing in the dark. The mystery and uncertainty of the character and strength of the assailant lend a horror to the surprise ; and well disciplined must be the courage and firm the nerves which do not take refuge in flight. The Bushwhackers have not infrequently frightened away thrice their number. Many of them have Spencer, 354 FOUK YEAKS IN SECESSIA- Henry, and other carlbines, wliicli discharge from six to sixteen times without reloading, giving the party attacked a very vivid idea of the strength of the attackers. In Wilkes County, North Carolina, twelve determined Union men have compelled from seventy to a hundred Guards to flight. • And in Carter County, Tennessee, they tell a story of a declaration by the "Confederates" that those tories (meaning loyalists) have guns they»can wind up Sunday morning, and fire all the week. Of course, the Bushwhackers are held in great dread. The Eehel cavalry are in perpetual fear of them, and aever pass a turn in the road, or by a sheltering rock, or a heavy undergrowth, without extreme caution. The breaking of a twig alarms, and the projection of a branch startles them. Where there is so much fear, there must be a corresponding hatred. Alas, for the poor Bush- whacker who falls into Rebel hands ! Short will be his shriving, and speedy his exit from the Planet. His cap- ture is synonymous with his execution. He is shot through the head as coolly as a bullock would be, and probably before the week is over, his executioner is a corpse also. The war in the mountainous regions of the two States I have mentioned is a war of extermination, and has already become a kind of Yendetta. Oaths of vengeance are sworn against those who have killed relatives and friends, and the oaths are most bloodily kept. A son shoots a father, and the son of that father shoots the father of the first son. One brother kills another brother in an adjacent family, and in turn loses his brother by violence. These feuds are handed down season after UNION BUSHWHACKERS. 355 season, and year after year, as in the medieval time. Life is paid with life, and death answers to death. I remember meeting in Castle Thunder, Richmond, Vir- ginia, two Tennesseans who had vowed revenge upon cer- tain parties in their section. They ol)tained their freedom long liefore I did ; and when I passed through the neighborhood where the former captives resided, they had redeemed their word. The men who had wronged them had ceased to live. They were kiUed in their own homes. In Western North Carolina, particularly in Wilkes and Watauga, and in the northern counties of East Tennessee, few prisoners are taken. The black flag is ever raised there. No quarter is given or asked by the inhabitants ; and the escaped prisoners who travel in that quarter, understand that "liberty or death" is no mere figure of speech, but a dreadful reality. Everywhere we were told if we were captured that we would be pushed off the precipice of Time very sum- marily, and doubtless we would have been. Had we not succeeded in our search after liberty, no one, I pre- sume, would have ever known our fate. Our bones would have whitened on some mountain-side ; and though it would have been unpleasant at the time, we would have rested as peacefully there as under a marble shaft in Greenwood. One would expect to find the Bushwhackers fierce, cruel men ; yet many of them are quiet, though deter- mined — warm-hearted, but excitable. Their peculiar life has quickened all their senses, and perpetual anxiety and frequent alarm have given them a certain wild 356 FOUR YEARS m SECESSIA. expression of face, especially of the eye, tliat belongs to hunted men. Tliey are as much attached to Northerners, as they are opposed to the Rebels. They received us with kindness, and even welcomed us to their homely fare. They piloted us in many places, and would have protected us at the risk of their lives. When we had crossed the Yadkin, and were within twenty miles of the Blue Ridge, a party of Bushwhackers informed us we could not get over on account of the snow ; that we would be tracked and murdered. After learning that, we thought seriously of waiting where we were, even until Summer, if necessary, and the generous fellows, poor as they were, offered to take us to their dwellings, and jorovide for us as best they could. In Johnson County, Tennessee, we encountered a bevy of Bushwhackers of the most reckless character. One day, while lying in a barn, we heard a tremendous yelling, and soon discovered that it proceeded from three of the fraternity. Instead of remaining concealed, they were using their lungs to the utmost to attract attention. They defied the Rebels, and as they were armed to the teeth, they would have proved formidable foes. One of the trio, known as Canada Guy, was a type of the most savage class. He had been arrested as a Bush- whacker nearly two years before ; was sent to Richmond to be tried for several murders ; and yet contrived to deceive the authorities to such an extent that he was transferred to Belle Isle as a prisoner of war, and ex- changed soon after. Reaching Annapolis, Guy told the Provost-Marshal he wished to resume operations in Tennessee. The Pro- UmON BUSHWHACKERS. 357 vost gave liim a certain sum of money, and bade him go on Ms way rejoicing. Guy, on Ms return, had many old scores to wipe oflF ; and the sole erasive compound he knew was blood. In less than six months he killed seven men, all bitter Secessionists, and vowed he would not forego the pleas- ure of killing more of the number for any consideration on earth. No wonder he was ferocious. The Rebels hanged his father, some sixty years old, .because he would be loyal in spite of threats, and shot four of his brothers. "But I'll be even with them," he exclaimed; "I'll kill at least twenty for every one of my kinsmen." He bids fair to keep his word. He delights in exterminating the Secessionists, and his glee is almost fiendish at times. I could not sympathize with or like such a man, though I doubt not his wrongs had rendered him the reckless, bloodthirsty creature he was. Gruy believed religiously that no Rebel had any right to property or life ; so he robbed the enemy wherever found, and was only too desirous of generating a difficulty that would give him a pretext for adding another to his list of victims. To the Bushwhackers I am indebted for many kind- nesses which I shall not forget. I found in them virtues that are rare in civilization, and possibilities of far better things. They have been compelled in self-defence to take the course they have ; and I am not at all sure that many of us who have loftier aims, and larger culture, and higher instincts, would not do worse if we had been so foully wronged as those hardy and naturally humane mountaineers. 358 TOUE YEAES IN SECESSIA. CHAPTER XLVIII. THE ESCAPE. Our Efforts Useless in the Salisbury Hospital. — Bohemian Talent for Forgery. — Mode of our Exodus from the Penitentiary. — Sensations of Freedom. — Our First Night in a Barn. — A Long Fast. — A Rebel Officer Sound on the Main Question. — Commencement of the Journey toward Liberty. — Our First Two Nights' March. — Hunger, Cold, and Exhaustion. — Our Assistance from the Negroes. Two of my journalistic friends and myself, as soon as the large influx of Union soldiers had been made into the Prison, entered the hospitals, hoping to be of some ser- vice to the sick. We found the task extremely difficult, because there was no co-operation on the part of the au- thorities ; and the longer we remained, although we worked very hard, the more fruitless we perceived our labor. We concluded, therefore, to try another plan of es- cape. We had been very industrious in that way, for mouths, at Salisbury, but had met with our old ill-fortune. The tunnels in which we had been interested had been ex- posed ; the schemes we had formed had been frustrated ; the agencies on which we had depended failed in the mo- ment of need. We resolved thereafter to trust only Fortune and ourselves, and we prepared to make our exodus on tiie evening of Sunday, December 18. Two of us Bohemians — Mr. William E. Davis, of the THE ESCAPE. 359 Cincinnatti Gazette^ and myself — had passes to the Rebel hospital, outside of the first inclosure and the first line of guards, and we spent an hour of Saturday night in forg- ing a pass for my associate of Tlie Ti^ibune. It was my first essay in that department of the Fine Arts, and I congratulated myself I had done well ; nor was I without a lingering suspicion that if my talents in that direction had been properly developed, I might have been a rival of Monroe Edwards. There was this differ- ence, however, in his chirographical experiments and mine : his resulted in getting him into, while mine were designed to get a friend out of, a Penitentiary, Our graphical labors went for naught. My confrere, the following morning, concluded it would be wiser to use my genuine pass, and let me trust to going by the sentinel without any. "VVe agreed to that ; and so, a little before dusk, the night promising to be dark and stormy, two of us went out to the Rebel hospital, to wait for the development of events. Mr. Richardson took a box employed for carrying medi- cines, and, filling it with empty bottles, walked boldly up to the guard, who stopped him, and asked if he had a pass. "Certainly," was the reply ; "you have seen it often enough ; have you not V ' " I do not remember," responded the Rebel. " Let me look at it." It was handed him, and, after scrutinizing it carefully, he returned it to Mr. Richardson, with the remark that it was "all right." My confrere walked out, and met, in the second inclo- 360 FOUR YEARS IN SEOESSIA. sure, the Adjutant of tlie garrison and a paroled Relbel con- vict, botli of wliom knew liim intimately. Feeling that assurance alone would prevent suspicion, he accosted them both, exchanged some ordinary remarks about tlie weather, and passed on. A fourth prisoner, Thomas E. Wolfe, captain of a mer- chant vessel taken by the Kebels off the Balize — who also had a pass, and, just before we started, had concluded to try the adventure with us — was looking on, determined, if Mr. Richardson failed, to notify Mr. Davis and myself, that we might be off before the whole plan was apparent. Richardson's coolness liad disarmed suspicion. He walked quietly to a vacant office at the end of the hos- pital, placed his box and bottles therein, and moved leis- urely by the guards, who were on the parapet at his right, to a small dut-house, into which he stepped for conceal- ment until it became darker. Having loitered about the hospital as long as it seemed prudent, I walked by the guards — who supposed, no doubt, we belonged to the garrison — to the outhouse in question. Tliere I talked with Richardson in a low tone of voice, and agreed, as it was quite dusk, to go out to the gate in the fence skirting the road, and which was unguarded ; and, if I were discovered, to return to the hospital. If I continued on, he was to follow. I started, and just as I put my hand on the bar of the gate, to force it open, I felt it move from the other side. Our old ill-fortune, I thought. We are discovered, and our hope of freedom once more blighted. The gate opened, and I was vastly relieved to see Mr. THE ESCAPE. 361 Davis, of the Gazette^ and the Captain. They believed it hardly dark enough ; but I pushed on across a small bridge over the railway ; having told them I would meet them at the appointed place, on a public road about a quarter of a mile from the Prison. Richardson followed, and in half an hour we were all four together, lying down in the rain in a fence corner. While there, a man crossed the field, and walked so near us that we thought he would step on us. We held our breath, and heard our hearts beat, as we had so often done before, believing we must be discovered. He con- jectured not our presence, however, and walked off into the thick and all-enshrouding darkness. In another hour we had crawled into a barn, and were lying under the straw and fodder, waiting for the next night, when a Union man had agreed to procure us a guide, of whom we stood in great need, as not one of our party had any knowledge of Avoodcraft, or of the country we had to travel through. Long shall I remember the fresh, free air that greeted me like a benison when I stepped out of the Prison limits on that murky, rainy evening. The old worn-out feeling, the inertia, the sense of suppression, seemed to fall from me as a cast-off garment ; and I believed 1 could walk to the ends of the Earth, if I could but find the sweet goddess of Liberty — dearest and best of women — at the end of my long, long journeying. To the barn, in which we lay concealed, we were aware a number of small negroes came every few hours of the day ; and it was therefore necessary for us to keep very still lest they should discover and betray us, not from 362 FOUR TEARS IN SECESSIA. perfidy, but througli indiscretion. AVe covered ourselves entirely over with, the fodder, and never spoke a word above our breath. We were in sight of the grim and cruel Prison where we had passed almost eleven months of anxiety and agony, and we had, you may imagine, a most whole- some horror of being taken back there before we had fairly started on our travels. From the time we escaped, on Sunday evening, until Monday night, we had not a drop of water, and we had no food, save a few broken mouthfuls, from Sunday noon until Tuesday evening. Yet we did not seem to suffer. Our ardor for freedom was such that it displaced all other desires, even those of a physical nature. We hardly knew we were thirsty until a Captain in the Rebel service gave us a canteen of water, after we quitted tlie barn. He had been several times wounded, having fought through nearly all the great battles in Virginia ; and yet was a Union man at heart. In our presence he anathematized the Rebels, and expressed the pious wish that they were all plunged so deep in a certain igneous region that even the Petro leum-seekers could not reach them. We had become acquainted with him while in Prison, and knew, when we got out, we could depend upon such aid as it was in his power to give us. It no doubt seems anomalous that loyal men should be in the Southern armies, and fight for a cause in which they do not believe. Yet the instance of our friend the Cap- tain was one of many. Hundreds of persons, at the beginning of the troubles, THE ESCAPE. 363 rushed into the War, believing it would be only a kind of parade of arms, with perhaps a few skirmishes, followed by a recognition of the independence of the "Confederacy." How fearfully they were deceived, let the mourn- ing in every Southern home, and the countless graves in every insurgent State, from Virginia to Texas, testify in terror and in tears! Four years of devastating conflict have taught them the great issues at stake, and the hope- lessness of the struggle ; the weakness and the woe, the crime and penalty of Slavery ; and the day has dawned at last, when the South will, for the first time, be truly free. To resume : after leaving the barn and repairing to the place appointed, we met the Lieutenant of militia I have mentioned, and waited for the guide who, he said, would soon be along. An hour or more passed, and the guide coming not, we concluded he had already gone on, or had failed to redeem his promise, and set out upon our jour- ney, with Wilkes County as an objective point, where a number of relatives of the Lieutenant resided, and who, he assured us, would welcome us with warm and loyal hearts. ^ We went at a rapid pace through two miles of mud from six to twelve inches deep, almost losing our boots often in the adhesive loam, the. blood bounding in our veins, and the perspiration starting through our pores, until we reached 'the Statesville and Morganton Railway, which we proposed to follow for at least twenty-five miles, and then strike a more Northerly direction. We had not gone more than three miles before we espied a camp and a fire before it, and, thinking they 24: 364 FOUR YEAES IN SEOESSIA. might be pickets, we concluded to flank the locality, and did so, but not without much difiiculty. We made a wide circuit through the woods, and as the night was very dark, we fell over logs and stumps ; got into thorn- bushes and tore our clothes ; tumbled into bogs and ditches ; had the skin brushed from our noses and cheeks, and our eyes nearly put out by sharp twigs and swinging branches. That first flanking was truly amusing ; I could hear my companions plunging over logs, and occasionally uttering expletives more forcible than orthodox, as they struck their heads against trees, or had their mouths rudely opened by an entering twig. Splash, splash Ave went, through the water and mire, and then crackled through the sodden leaves and dead branches, and then crept noiselessly by some wayside tenement, and then halted with suspended breath at some actual or imaginary sound. Whenever we observed a camp or fire near the railway we made a flank movement, to the serious detriment of our boots and clothes, and then struck the road again, thus^^stly increasing the distance and time of our jour- neying. The first night we made only eleven miles in a direct line — how much in detours, it would be impossible to conjecture — when one of my companions declaring himself utterly exhausted, we endeavored to find a place of concealment. That was very difficult, as there was, during the Win- ter, no undergrowth to furnish a hiding-place. We tried haystacks in vain. We penetrated into woods, and cx)uld not get out of sight. Everywhere we went, we THE ESCAPE. 365 found ourselves too near some road, and tlie out-liouses too unsafe. We walked farther and farther from the railway, through one piece of timber and then another, and yet were ever likely to be seen from the highways or some wagon-way. At last the early dawn had deepened into broad day. We could go no farther. We crept into a pinery and lay there, not more than a hundred yards from the road, within sound of the voices of men at work, and the bab- ble of children at the farm-house. The day was very raw and cold, but we durst not light a fire. So we lay flat on the ground, never speaking in other than the lowest sotto voce tone, shivering, and anx- ious and longing for the shades of evening. I was very thinly clad, having no other coat than a light blouse ; and, unable to move about to start the cir- culation of the blood, I suffered much from the cold, as did my companions. "If we are not captured to-day," we said, "the Gods who have been so long opposed must be on our side." The welcome dusk came at last. No one of those who had been in our immediate vicinity had seen us ; and with glad hearts we went forth, like the beasts of prey, in search of food. We repaired to the quarters of the slaves on an adjoining plantation, and soon obtained a promise from one of them, if we would go to a barn on the place, that he would send us food. Before this time a chilly, penetrating rain had begun to descend, and as we were quite wet, a roof was very acceptable. The master of the plantation had company that night, 366 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. and consequently we were compelled to wait until nearly- midnight iDefore we ol)tained any provisions. We did not know liow hungry we were until a liberal sup- ply of corn bread and bacon was banded us by the negro. Those are means of sustenance I naturally abhor ; but no Fifth Avenue dinner, however recherche, ever pleased my palate so much as those Southern staples. When we were ready to resume our march, a negro offered to guide us back to the railway ; and we set forth in a driving, drenching ,storm, through such a pall-like darkness, that we could not see the nearest object. We walked in what is known as Indian file, sometimes one leading, and some- times another, with preconcerted signals for doubt, dan- ger, and recognition. When our leader paused we stopped, and a motion of the hand, if it were light enough to see, or, if it were not, alow "hush!" brought us to an instantaneous halt. If we were scattered, a sudden quick cough was the sign of recognition, and a low whistle, in imitation of a night- bird, brought us together. Through that tempestuous night we marched wearily on, our clothes dripping, like a jealous woman's eyes when the storm is subsiding, and running into our boots, until they were fuU of water. Harder and harder the rain fell, and colder and colder it grew. We were chilled from head to heel,' and- our saturated garments became a burden, chafing our limbs and clog- ging our steps. How often I thought of the line of Shakspeare about "biding the peltings of this pitiless storm," and- marveled THE ESCAPE. 367 if even old Lear had encountered a rougher and a drearier night. There were a number of cattle-guards and pits along the road, filled with mire and water ; and as we had to walk over them on the rails, the condition of our boots and clothes, added to our chilliness and fatigue, made our pace unsteady, and frequently we fell, waist-deep, into those turbid and ungrateful baths. The ties, too, were slippery, and often we lost our equilibrium, and wounded our weary and paining feet. The sea-Captain badly sprained his foot, and could barely hobble along ; occasionally requiring our support for a mile or two. One of the greatest sources of our anxiety was the fear of a sprain, or some manner of maiming," knowing that such an accident must greatly diminish our prospect of freedom. In the superlative darkness, and in a region entirely unknown, we were liable at any moment to make a misstep that would place us beyond the power of marching farther. How we prayed, in our Bohemian way, for sound feet and strong limbs, for continued health and the favor of Fortune. The negro who had guided us to the railway had told us of another of his color to whom we could apply for shelter and food at the terminus of our second stage. Him we could not find until nearly dawn, and when we did, he directed us to a large barn filled with wet corn- husks. Into that we crept with our dripping garments, and lay there for fifteen hours, until we could again venture forth. Floundering about in the husks, we lost our 368 FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. haversacks, pipes, and a hat that belonged to the speaker, and deprived of which, he was, indeed,' uncov- ered. About nine o'clock we procured a hearty supper from the generous negro, who even gave me his imique head- covering — an appropriate presentation, as one of my com- panions remarked, by an "intelligent contraband" to the "reliable gentleman" of The N. Y, Tribune — and did picket-duty while we hastily ate our meal and stood against his blazing fire. The old African and his wife gave us "God bless you, massas !" with trembling voice and moistened eyes, as we parted from them with grateful hearts. "God bless the negroes!" say I, with earnest lips. During our entire captivity, and after our escape, they were ever our firm, brave, unflinching friends. We never made an appeal to them they did not answer. Tliey never hesitated to do us a service at the risk even of Hfe, and under the most tr3dng circumstances revealed a de- votion and a spirit of self-sacrifice that were heroic. The magic word "Yankee" opened all their hearts, and elicited the loftiest virtues. They were ignorant, op- pressed, enslaved ; but they always cherished a simple and beautiful faith in the cause of the Union and its ultimate triumph, and never abandoned or turned aside from a man who sought food or shelter on his way to Freedom. THE MARCH TO FREEDOM. 369 CHAPTER XLIX. THE MARCH TO FEEEDOM, The Third, Fourth, and Fifth Nights Out.— Missing the Road.— Extremely Cold "Weather. — Our Sufferings in a Barn. — The Slaves our Faithful Friends. — Torture of the Boot Revived. — Our Pursuit and Masterly Retreat. — Our Re- enforcement with Mules and "Whisky. — Incidents along the Route. — Arrival in "Wilkes County. A New Hampshire soldier, Charles Thurston, a ser- geant of the Sixth regiment, had joined us before we left Salisbury. He had been a fellow-conspirator for many- weeks, and had been going out with us through various tunnels ; but when they were all exposed, we were com- pelled to resort to some other mode of exodus. Having heard privately that we had gone, on Sunday night, he managed to slip out of the hospital bakery, where he was employed, behind one of the Prison Detectives, about four hours after our escape, and get into the town unobserved. Our party then consisted of five, and we continued our march on the railway in better condition, having gotten our clothes partially dry, and satisfied our hunger. That was our third night, and we were only seventeen miles from Salisbury. We were desirous to go nearly to Statesville — eight miles to the west — and then, flanking the town, move in a northwesterly direction toward 370 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. Wilkes County. We liad been directed by the negro, at the last stopping-place, to Allison' s Mill, wliich was to Ibe our guide in the way we wanted to go. We flanked Statesville, and found Allison' s MiU, which proved after- ward to be the wrong one — ^we had not been told there were two — and therefore missed the road entirely. We knew not where we were going, but we took first one road and then another ; marching very rapidly, as we needed to do, for the wind had veered round to the North, and the night had grown very cold. We climbed fences, examined haystacks and dilapidated cabins, but found no negro tenements, nor any place where we could stay without danger of freezing. Our limbs became stiff" and our lips blue when we paused ; and as we were afraid to light a fire, we went on in the teeth of the biting wind, until the tears streamed from our eyes, and our faces and hands and feet were like ice. It was nearly dawn when we descried, by the light of the moon, a plantation at a distance. One of us went to the negro quarters, and returned with the information that we could go to a large barn near by, and cover our- selves with hay until the principal house-servant had an opportunity to bring us food. All five of us climbed into the barn, built of logs piled "cob-house" fashion, and consequently very cold; the wind driving through the open spaces, and chilling us through and through. We buried ourselves completely in the hay ; but there was no possibility of getting warm. I shivered against Mr. Richardson' s side, and he against . mine. We put our arms around each other, and snug- THE MAECH TO FEEEDOM. 871 gled up, as cliildren say, to no purpose. We tliouglit we would freeze to death if we fell asleep ; so we crawled out of tlie liay, and began moving about in the loft, and soon induced our companions to come out also. We were still very cold, but we suffered less than we had done, because our blood circulated more. About eleven o' clock the negro came to us with a bas- ket of pork and corn-bread, which we ate with great relish. He was delighted to see us, and was very intel- ligent, having been a servant to a Rebel officer in the field. He said his master was a violent Secessionist, and would kill him, and us too, if he knew we were there ; but that he was not afraid. He had helped the Yankees before, and would help them again. After dark the negro took us to his cabin, gave us our supper, and let us thaw before his fire, guided us to ihe Allison' s Mill — when we learned Ave had walked about fifteen miles and accomplished only half a mile iil the right direction — and there told us what road to follow, piloting us a mile and a half on our way. When I escaped I had been compelled to wear a very large, coarse, stift' pair of boots — the sole ones I could procure in the Prison — which. I could keep on only because they were tight across the instep and around the ankles. They tortured me at every step, and wore holes in my ankles that resembled wounds from buck-shot ; while their weight and clumsiness tired me greatly, and made me stumble as if I were intoxicated. They had become soaking wet again and again, and frozen on my feet, so that they were like wooden shoes, entirely without elasticity or power of expansion. Mr. Richard- 372 FOUR TEAES IN SECESSIA. son' s foot- coverings were very much of the same kind ; and as we marched along through the darkness over the rough and broken ground, it was with great difficulty we could often suppress cries of pain. When we slipped, or stepped into ruts, our feet were wrenched as if they were in a vice ; and still we had but begun our march of four hundred miles ; and the most arduous and toilsome part was yet to come. What were boots, or pain, or cold, or hardship, com- pared to freedom ? We marched on through the moonless night until we reached Rocky Creek, in Rowan County, where we paused, very cold and fatigued, and built a fire — we had taken the precaution to supply ourselves with matches — in an adjacent pinery. There we warmed ourselves as well as we could, and about four o'clock Friday morn- ing, crossed the creek on a log on our hands and knees ; the frost having made it so slippery there was no secu- rity in walking. We then struck a dirt road going from Statesville to Jonesville ; and about six o' clock began to think we were ofi* the direct route. Sergeant Thurston determined to apply for information at a liouse standing at the forks of the road, and did so. When he returned, we concluded the man he had seen was a Rebel, and might raise the dogs, old men, and boys, armed with rifles and shot-guns, and hunt us down, as is the custom in Secessia. Our conclusion was correct. When daylight came, one of us perceived the old fel- low following us, and the Sergeant ran back toward THE MARCH TO FREEDOM. 873 Mm in a threatening manner that frightened him into a rapid retreat. We had no fear of him alone, but appre- hended that he would excite an alarm, and bring the whole human and canine neighborhood upon us. We thought we were so tired we could go no farther ; but the prospect of pursuit so strengthened our limbs that we started upon a run ; darting into woods, over fences, through quagmires ; crossing' and re-crossing fields ; moving to every point of the compass so rapidly that an African blood-hound would have found it diffi- cult to scent out our progress. At last we paused, about nine o'clock, in a pinery, and soon had a blazing fire of dry wood, which caused very little smoke. We would not have made the fire, but, as we were freezing, it was a military necessity. We were quite anxious all day ; but we heard and saw nothing that led us to believe we were pursued. If we were, our pursuers must have lost the trail, which would not have been singular, as we were at least two miles from any road or even footpath, so far as we could determine. We then concluded that another night' s march would take us to the settlement in Wilkes County, to which the Lieutenant of militia had directed. Then I first began to have some well-defined hope that we would get through. When I escaped, I did so on principle, trusting that we might at least be out a week, or possibly two, and be- lieving if we were shot we would have the satisfaction of dying in the laudable efibrt to obtain our freedom, as be- came American citizens. We had but fifteen miles further to go before we should find a haven of rest, which we sorely needed. We re- 374 FOUR TEARS IN SEOESSIA. sumed our march in excellent spirits, though, greatly worn and exhausted ; and no wonder, as we had heen un- aWe to sleep more than a few minutes at a time, on ac- count of the cold. Indeed, I do not know that I had lost my consciousness after our exodus from the Penitentiary. I struck out boldly, however, and summoned all my will. The miles seemed endless, and every step increased my fatigue. At last I was forced to lean on my confrere' s arm, as he had done on mine the first night out. My "breath was short and hot, my head was heavy, and my limbs trembled. My associate insisted upon it that I was on the eve of a severe typhoid fever. I knew I merely wanted rest. He urged me to stop at a way-side public-house, the only one we encountered in all our journey, and said he would remain with me. I would not consent, fearing my doing so would endanger the whole party. Therefore I endeavored to go on, tell- ing my companions to leave me if I failed. To that they would not agree. Mr. Richardson, with characteristic generosity, declared he would not separate from me. At the public house, or shanty rather, we procured some food, and learned to our satisfaction that the pro- prietor was a Unionist. Hearing we were all greatly fa- tigued, he offered for a certain sum — and we had abun- dance of money in our party — to loan us two mules to help us onward. We accepted his proposition, and Captain Wolfe, still suffering from his sprain, and myself, mounted the ani- mals. Their equipments were very inferior. My mule was saddleless, and the sharp backbone almost bisected me, THE MARCH TO FREEDOM. 375 wliile my legs pained me excessively, and seemed as if they would part company witli my body. After proceeding two or three miles, we halted at a caMn to get two or three more mules, and while there the host pressed us to drink some whisky. The distillation of corn is very repulsive to me ; but I thought it might give me temporary strength, and I swallowed a large quantity before we resumed our journey. It improved my condition at first ; but very soon I began to grow very ill. The liquor had nauseated me, and for three hours I swayed from side to side, and resembled Vesuvius in a constant state of eruption. Jove ! but I was sick ; I almost lost my senses. Every atom of my frame ached. It seemed as if I would fall to pieces. Riding on that mule was purgatorial. I dis- mounted, and stumbled over the road. Finally, we reached the vicinity of the settlement in Wilkes County. We parted with our mule-owners, and Mr. Richardson went in quest of the Lieutenant's mother, leaving me lying on the ground, begging to be let alone. He returned after a long search, and half supported, half carried me, with genuine tenderness, to the cabin where the good woman lived. There the other three preceded me, and were leaning against the chimney corner fast asleep. I was soon un- dressed, and in a soft, warm bed. What a luxury it was, after twenty months of lying on hard floors and rude bunks ! Hardly had my head touched the pillow before I lapsed into a slumber as sweet and deep as if I lay a child again uj)on my mother's bosom. 37(3 FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. In four hours I awoke, entirely refreshed and healed, to find my associate by my bedside, with a cup of rye coffee and a plate of fritters in his hand, asking me to eat some- thing. I had a good appetite, and gratified it, and went to bed again, to sleep once more a dreamless and delicious ■sleep. THE HAVEN OF BEST. 377 CHAPTER L. THE HAVEN OF EEST. The Union Settlement in Wilkes County. — Frequent Change of Base. — Christmas Spent in a Barn. — Ghostly Marches. — Alarms and Adventures in Yadkin County. — A Bohemian Model Artist. — An Eventful Night. — Storm and Senti- ment. — Love-Making in a Tempest. — Parting with our Loyal Friends. — Their Devotion and Regret. — Battles between Unionists and Rebel Home Guards. — Inextinguishable FideUty of the People. A The settlement we had reached was chiefl}^ composed of relatives of the loyal Lieutenant, who gave iis a most cordial and generous welcome. They could not do enough for us — some of them had never seen a "Yankee" before — and they were delighted to meet us. They were very demonstrative, and asked us more questions in a minute than we could answer in a day. Though entire strangers, we were regarded from the first as their dearest friends. Men, women, and children were anxious to serve us ; and we felt, indeed, as if our lines had fallen in pleasant places. They offered us their fullest store, and would have given us half of what they possessed if we had needed it. More kindness, affection, devotion, I have never seen. Those noble-hearted people — for the most part poor — gave me a higher idea of humanity ; and their efforts in our behalf, and their spirit of sacrifice, filled me with the 378 FOUR YEARS m SECESSIA. deepest sense of gratitude, whicli I long for an opportu- nity to display in something more than words. The loyal Lieutenant had requested us to tarry in the settlement for two or three days, and he would join our party and go through with us to our lines. The evening of the day — Saturday, December 24 — we arrived in the county, we left Mrs. ' s house, and repaired to the barn, about a quarter of a mile distant, of a relative of the family, for increased security, and from unwillingness to jeopardize the good people who so generously sheltered lis. We remained there that night and the next day (Christmas), when a number of men and women visited us to congratulate us on our es- cape, alJd to assure us of their unswerving fidelity, of which we had no doubt. Christmas night, one of our friends told us it had been whispered about that there were five Yankees in the set- tlement ; and, fearing the Rebel Home Guards might be apprised of the fact, deemed it prudent to remove us to the adjoining County of Yadkin, where the wife of the Lieutenant resided. Under the man's guidance we walked through the woods by by-paths to the new place of shelter, a distance of four or five miles. The night was dark as Egypt, and we moved along as cautiously and noiselessly as if we stepped about the couch of our dying mistress. We called those nocturnal journeys the marches of death. We spoke not a syllable; we suppressed our breath, and moved as lightly as if our life depended — and perhaps it did — upon our perfect quietude. Not a twig broke beneath our careful feet. The THE HAYEN OF EEST. 379 silence was almost painful in its impressiveness. The stirring of the dry leaves, as the wind swept through them, sounded loudly to our strained ears. Every sense was on the rack of apprehension ; every nerve at its highest tension. We seemed like unquiet ghosts as we stalked along — disembodied spirits wandering on the Stygian shore. In an hour and a half we reached the desired habita- tion, and the same generous welcome greeted us as before. The wife of the Lieutenant assured us we would not en- danger her home by resting beneath her humble roof, and that night we lay in comfortable beds. She was a native of Virginia, an intelligent, calm, brave, quick- witted woman, fruitful in expedients and resources. In the morning her children, two of them little girls of four and six years, stood picket while their mother and their elder sister prepared our breakfast. Strange and thorough teachers are danger and devo- tion. Those children, as all others we met, were un- naturally developed ; their senses acute ; their secretive- ness perfect; their self-possession complete. We could trust them as we could matured persons. We had no fear of their indiscretion : we relied on them fully. Custom and order were reversed. Strong, self-reliant men who had passed two years in the field, who had often looked death in the face, who had stood by count- less couches of suffering and death, to aid, to comfort, and console, were protected by, and leaned on, women and children. They could do for us what our own sex could not, and they did it with a silent and unconscious heroism that made it all the more beautiful. 25 380 , FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. Soon after Ibreakfast a squad of Breckinridge' s cavalry were reported coming up the road — the house stood at the roadside — and we were advised to conceal ourselves under the l)eds. We were not long in taking our posi- tions, and then the Lieutenant's wife went out on the porch with an unconcerned air. The cavalry men stopped, and she talked to them in a quiet, easy way, well calcu- lated to disarm suspicion, if any had been excited. They did not enter the dwelling, as we feared, and after a few minutes rode on. She then called us to come out, saying, " All is safe, "boys." But we had hardly assumed an erect position when several suspicious-looking characters were an- nounced, and again we crept under the beds. Some of our party may have been compelled to indulge in that kind of thing before ; but I conjecture it was under very different circumstances. The pursuit of gallantry had nothing to do with the recreation there ; and I confess I did not like it altogether, although it was for the sake of that dear woman who holds the shield of the Republic, and wears the garment embroidered with stars. The precaution was unnecessary that time. The suspi- cious-looking characters proved to be rude hinds who went quietly by the dwelling. Once more we went forth in a vertical form, ascended to the corn-loft and removed our clothes — for what pur- pose, those who have been in Rebel Prisons need not be told. I was still lingering over my poetic toil when two tithe-officers knocked at the door, to collect their dues ta corn. THE HAVEN OF REST. 381 Mr. Davis cried out : "Hurry, Junius, those men are coming up !" and immediately darted "below. Poor me ! But a single garment graced my slender form at tliat junc- ture, and, seizing tlie remainder of my wardrobe, I rushed into the apartment we had quitted a few moments before. There I fouiud the kind-hearted woman, who a third time told us to get under the bed. My companions laughed at my costume ; but I declared with imperturbable sang-froid tliat I did not care. My feminine friend smiled, and very sensibly remarked that it made no difference whatever ; that such things would happen sometimes ; and that she had seen men in that guise before, which, as she was the mother of four children, is not at all improbable. The same night, Monday, we concluded that Yadkin County was not as safe as it might be, judging from our single day' s experience in it ; so we marched back, the same dark, silent, breath-bated march as before, to Wilkes County, and the friendly barn we had quitted. We lay there concealed in the corn-husks and hay until Tuesday evening. Then we heard the guards were searching for us, and we divided; three going to the habitation of the Lieutenant's mother, and two to his sister' s. Wednesday morning, while at breakfast, two men en- tered the cabin, taking us by surprise. The dog on which we had depended had gone away, and therefore the strangers came unannounced. There was no means of retreat, as the cabin had but one door, and we knew our greatest safety would be in a calm manner. We continued our humble meal, therefore. 382 FOOi YEAES IX SECESSIA. yeiy deliberatelj and nnconcdmedly, and at its close were not displeased to learn the strangers were deserters from tlie Rebel army, and entirely tmstwortliy. The day we spent in a bam, and at night we returned to the cabin. TTe were at snpper when a low whistle was heard outside, indicating a surprise, perhaps a sur- rounding of the house by the fenemy, with the intention of shooting down whoever attempted to escape — the custom in that section of country. The wife and her adopted daughter, a girl of sixteen or seventeen — we "vvill call her Lucy — were greatly alarmed. They threw ashes on the burning logs in great haste, to extinguish the glare of the fire, and told us to get under the bed and to go out of the door at the same time. "We chose the latter, and out we dashed into the dark and stormy night, more than half expecting to be greeted with several rifle-flashes as we emerged from the dwelling. A minute after I felt some one clinging to my arm, and a voice saying, in a suppressed tone : *• Come this way I'' I could hardly see the face, it was so dark, but I knew it was the black-eyed, black-haired, intensely loyal Lucy, who took as much interest in our welfare as if we were lovers and brothers combined. *• TVliat are you doing here, my dear child i" I inquired whisperingly, •• Why don't you go in out of the storm, and let me care for myself ?'' '• O, I want to stay with you,"' she answered earnestly. '• Do come with me. I will show you where to hide. I wouldn't have any thing happen to you for the world. I'd rather die than have harm come to you.'' Poor girl I Her appeal was resistless. I forgot the THE HA VEX OF REST. 3 S3 danger of the atnation in my pity and regard for her. Her voice and manner had tonclied even my wom-ont heart. The rain was falling in torrents, and the thunder bel- lowing through the sahle vault overhead ; hut still Lucy clung to my arm. The other, disengaged, I threw about her waist — a taper one, even though she had always lived in Xorth Carolina, and had never worn a corset — and drawing her plump figure to my bosom, kissed her long and closely — ^more for gratitude than gallantry, more from a sense of duty than affection ; and yet duty just aX that moment appeared not disagreeable to discharge. The sensation was not unpleasant to me. I do not believe it would have been to any man who had not touched a woman's lips for at least two years. In the midst of that rather sentimental scene we learned that the whistle we had heard proceeded from a Eebel deserter who had come to the house to see Lucy — she said she liked him because he had shot two Home Guards ; but as a man he was not agreeable to her — and who had given the signal, fearing the masculine voices he had heard inside might be those of enemies. In less than an hour we had another alarm, and once more we ran out into the rain ; but that alarm was also causeless, and returning to the cabin, we went to bed — the members of the family and ourselves all in one room, which was indeed the whole house. I slept quite well, and dreamed tLat Lucy was a princess in disguise, who introduced me to a black-robed magician, that famished us with a winged dragon, that mounted, with us on his back, and flew away to Xew 384 FOUR YEARS IN SEOESSIA. York, and set us down to an elegant supper at tlie Maison Doree. About tliat time I awoke, and Lucy was sitting de- murely in tlie chimney corner, preparing our plain break- fast before the fire. So Lucy was no princess, and the dragon could not be procured, and the magician was absent ; and as I could not have any of those fine things, I took a piece of corn bread instead, and swallowed it with relish, and a new longing after the Ideal. The next night, believing ^the Lieutenant would not come, and that our delay was dangerous, we parted from our good friends with saddened hearts. Old men took us in their arms and blessed us ; women, young and old, wept at our departure, and children nestled to our bosom as if we were the nearest and dearest of their kin. All that was not for us personally. It was the out- pouring of loyalty from those noble spirits toward the representatives of that element in the great Republic ; the homage paid to the principle of patriotism ; the gushing forth of suppressed Unionism toward those who had suffered in its cause. Wilkes is one of the strongest Union counties — proba- bly the strongest — in North Carolina. The Eebels call it old United States, and declare it irrepressible. Deserters from the Southern service went about there with impu- nity, but generally carried their Aveapons. Often fights took place between them and the Home Guards, and the latter were generally worsted. At Traphill, some twenty miles from the settlement in which we were, the Unionists and Rebels had had a THE HAVEN OF EEST. 385 dozen fights, tlie former being intrenched, and capable of defending themselves against large odds. The Guards were tolerably quiet when we were there, so far as deserters were concerned, but they would have been very glad to capture or shoot an escaping Yankee. The Union "tnen were increasing every month, and the insurgents diminishing. Some of the latter had under- gone a great revolution during the year. A man who had been a prominent Secessionist invited us to his house, but we went not. The loyal population had suffered greatly. The War had deprived them of their property, their protectors, and their peace ; but still they clung to the belief that the cause of the Republic must prevail ; that all would be well with those who held out to the last. 386 FOUE YEARS IN SECESSIA. CHAPTER LI. THE MAECH OIN^WAED. Accession of Escaped Prisoners. — Eesumption of our Journey. — Excessive Eoughness of the Eoute. — Character of the North Carohna Eoads. — Flanking of Wilkesboro. — Losing ou» "Way. — Crossing the Yadkin. — Skeptical "Women. — Interview with Bushwhackers. — ConsoliDg Counsel. — Passage of the Blue Eidge. — A Severe March over Mountains. — Safety ever Eetreating. — Narrow Escapes from Union Eifles. — Contradictory Eeports ahout our Lines. While in Wilkes County, t"wo of our fello"w-prisoners, a captain of a small trading- vessel from Philadelphia, and a North Carolina Unionist, having escaped by bri- bing the guard at Salisbury, arrived in the settlement, and sent us "word they "would like to journey in our company ; but, deeming it prudent for us to travel in small parties, we declined, and Sergeant Thurston joined the other t"wo, "who, with a deserter from Lee' s army, set out to"ward Wilkesboro, the capital of the county, the day before we did. Wednesday night, December 28, we resumed our march. It was very dark and stormy, and one of our many loyal friends guiding us for five miles to the cabin of a free mulatto, who in turn piloted us on, we reached Glass's mill, a distance of fourteen miles, without fatigue. Our long rest had materially benefited us, and we felt THE MAECH ONWAED. 387 mncli fresher tlian when we quitted the Penitentiary so abruptly. At the mill we found the other party of four, and going to the habitation of a Unionist, he directed us to his corn-crib, where we lay concealed until the follow- ing night. After dark we obtained a substantial meal, and continued our progress toward Wilkesboro, having secured the services of a guide. The road was extremely rough, being so excessively cut up and frozen that we stumbled along like men in the last stage of intoxication, frequently falling on our knees and at full length. One who has not traveled in North Carolina since the War can form no idea of the state of the roads, which de- serve not the name. They have not been repaired for years, and were never in a good condition. There are ruts, gullies, embankments, ridges, cuts, over which no ordinary wagon could move beyond a snail' s pace with- out upsetting half a dozen times every mile. And then, traveling upon them at night vastly augments the labor and the difficulty. The march is exhausting to the last degree. Cold as the weather often was, our bodies were bathed in perspira- tion ; our blood burned ; our limbs ached ; our feet were twisted and strained until they seemed as if they must re- fuse their office. They became numb and sore, fevered and frozen by turns. The frozen earth cut through our boots like knives, and lacerated the tender flesh. It appeared often as if we must sink down by the way- side — that even the strong magnet of Liberty could draw us no farther. Yet we exercised our Will. We thought • of the prisons we had left ; of the wretched death that 388 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. might overtake us if we lagged behind in that wild and dreary country ; and then of the helbved North and the dear friends from -whom we had heen so long separated, and who would greet us there as if we had risen from the tomb ; and the contrast spurred us on. Our strength re- vived, and our sinews were braced afresh. About midnight we were within a mile of Wilkesboro. We essayed to flank the town, and, losing our Way, were compelled to retrace our steps for several miles. We were all tired out, and obliged to halt when we had finally passed around and beyond the place. Our blood was chilled ; our limbs were stiff ; our frame shook as in an ague-fit. We paused and lighted a fire, knowing not where we were, for our guide had lost his reckoning entirely. We lay down on the frozen ground, but, exhausted as we were, we could not sleep. While one side of our bodies was hot from the flames, Ave were icy cold on the other. We suffered more from the sharp, frosty air and the wintry wind than when in motion. We must go on, and on we went for five miles, until we reached the banks of the Yadkin River. It was then broad day, but it was highly important we should cross the stream at once ; for we had been assured that when we were on the other side we would be safe. Fortunately, we met a Unionist who directed us to the ford, which we found, after wandering up and down for an hour. A woman was crossing the river in a canoe, and when she reached the eastern bank we asked for a man who had been recommended to us. The woman was wary, fearing we were Home Guards in search of her THE MARCH ONWARD. 389 husband, the person for whom we inquired. We soon succeeded in convincing her of her error, when she told us she was his wife, on her way to Wilkesboro to sell some butter. We crossed the stream, but before we could reach the habitation we were seeking, we heard a horn blow, and knew it was a signal to the " liers-out." Having arrived at the dwelling, not a man was visible, and an elderly woman there proved as absolute a know- nothing as it was possible to conceive. She declared she was utterly destitute of information of any kind on any subject. We assured her we were friends ; that we were escaped Yankee prisoners ; but she could not be con- vinced ; remarking that the Rebels often went about in disguise, pretending to be what they were not, and plainly intimating that she did not believe a word of what we said. Almost an hour' s argument was requisite to prove to the female skeptic that we were what we had stated. Then she offered us something to eat — fat pork, butter- milk, and corn-bread, which, as we were very hungry, we consumed voraciously. She told us to hide in the "bushes, and that the man we wished to see would soon join us, as she had sent a messenger for him. We did so, and ere long the bushwhacker made his •appearance, and was very glad to see us. He introduced us to several others of his class, and three or four of Colonel Kirk's regiment. We inquired about the pros- pect of crossing the Blue Ridge, twenty miles to the West, and the answer was, that it was useless to make the attempt ; that the mountains were covered with snow ; that, if we endeavored to go over them, we would 390 FOUE TEARS IN SECESSIA. certainly "be tracked, caught, and killed. "It is two hundred miles to Knoxville," continued tlie spokesman, "and no one ever reaches there. All who try it are murdered on the way." That was encouraging, certainly, to us, who had been assured our peril would Tdc past when we had crossed the Yadkin. I laughed at the consolation we had receiv- ed ; though, I confess, the laugh was not from the heart. We told the "bushwhackers we were willing to take the risk ; that we would pay any of them liberally who would undertake to guide us across the mountains. N^one of them would consent ; but informed us, if we would wait until the snow had disappeared, they would pilot us, but not till then ; and that we could live with them until that time arrived. Knowing from past experiences, that dangers and difficulties generally diminish when we confront, or as we approach them, we resolved to push on at least to the base of the Blue Ridge. That night we started, although we had been told the passes were guarded, and accom- plished seven ISTorth-Carolina miles— the longest in the world, except those of Tennessee — when we found another Union family. We went into an open corn-crib, and thinking we could sleep, as the weather had moderated, we threw ourselves on the ground. We had barely lain down before the wind veered round to the North, and blew so coldly on our thinly attired bodies that sleep was impossible. We had little or no protection from the blast ; and believing I would freeze there, I removed to another out-house, and was endeavoring to bury myself among the ears of corn, when THE MAECH ONWARD. 391 the Unionist came np and said: "Boys, it's too cold here. I'll put ^^ou in my store-house. ~ There's a good deal of fodder there. My wife will send you food and quilts, and I reckon you can make yourselves comfor- table." In a few minutes our party of eight — we had discov- ered and greatly frightened a couple of deserters from Alabama and Florida, who had traveled on foot all the way from Richmond, by coming suddenly upon them in the corn- crib, but whom we left there asleep — were in the store-house, and very agreeably situated, compara- tively. I rested very little that night, but my compa- nions slumbered soundly ; and the next morning — the last day of the year — we told the other four they had better go on, and that we would wait until January 1st. So we divided again, and after passing New- Year' s Day in the store-house, we started again that night — clear, bright, and cold — but not before I had exchanged the cape of an army over- coat for a quilt — and walked ten miles, crossing AVilson' s Fork at least twenty-five times, and falling into it at least twelve, arriving about four o'clock in the morning in Watauga County. The Laurel Spur of the Blue Ridge we ascended with little difficulty, and were taken in by a Unionist, who put . lis in the upper part of a store-house, on a feather-bed, and gave us several coverlets. Strange ! I could not sleep ; I never tried more energetically in all my life ; but I lay there stark wide awake all day ; the infernal ver- min, of which we had not gotten rid, torturing us exceed- ingly, and driving away repose ; our inability to bathe and change our under-clothes, as we had done regularly 392 FOUR YEARS m SECESSIA. in Prison, rendering our condition very uncomfortable in tliat respect. On the night of January 2, we engaged the loyal man who had sheltered us to take us over the Blue Ridge, which, he informed us, there was no difficulty in cross- ing, as the passes were not guarded, and the snow was not deep enough to imjj^de our progress. We had anticipated vast difficulty and extreme fatigue from that part of the journey, and we were greatly pleased to hear him express himself so encouragingly, particularly as we fancied, once beyond that range of mountains, we would have a fair prospect of getting through. Experience proved the correctness of our guide's ob- servation. We found the ascent far easier than some of the roads we had traveled, and we enjoyed a fine view of the surrounding country at the summit, twenty-five hundred feet above sea-level. We were in fine condition. We descended, obtaining very picturesque views of mountain scenery, which we were hardly in a proper frame of mind fully to appreciate, and reached and crossed New River. We were very glad, to see a river sensible enough to run North, as that did, and we knelt down and kissed and quaffed its limpid waters in token of our admiration for its judgment. Made fifteen miles that night, much of it very hard traveling. Fell into a number of mountain streams, and were quite wet when we reached our destination. The weather cold and wind cutting, as we crawled into our usual place of shelter and concealment — a barn. Were very hungry, and ate a piece of corn bread with exceed- THE MAECH ONWARD. 393 ing relish, as we lay covered up, l)ut sMvering, in the hay. My note-book reads : " How I long for the snowy sheets and soft pillows — shall I say the softer snowy arms ? — I have known in the beloved and blessed North !" I presume, as the feeling is very natural, that the wish must have come from the heart. January 3, we made the first march by day, having been assured it was perfectly safe. No doubt it was, for it was by foot-paths over very steep, rough mountains, through laurel thickets and rocky streams, and over fallen timber. The snow was ten to twelve inches deep on the mountains, and we were eight hours in going ten miles. We often fell head over heels in descending, and sometimes hurt ourselves not a little, by striking trees and stumps ; and in ascending we had to drag ourselves up by the branches of trees, and with the aid of our stafis almost constantly. At the end of our stage we learned we were in Johnson County, Tennessee, three miles from the North-Carolina line. Out of that State we were at last ; and much we felicitated ourselves on the fact. That began to ■ look like successful escape — like a reward for all our endu- rance and suffering. We had been told when we arrived in Tennessee we would be perfectly safe. In fact, those stories were repeated to us all along the route. The place we chanced to be in was very dangerous ; but just beyond — ten, twenty, or thirty miles — there was another place, where there "was no danger Avhatever. When we left Salisbury, to reach Wilkes County was to be secure. When we quitted the Union settlement, 394 FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. all we needed for safety was to get "tayond Wilkes- Iboro. Then, when we had crossed the Yadkin, we could lay aside all apprehension ; and beyond the Yad- kin we met reckless l)ushwhackers and hardy moun- taineers, who would not venture to go with us over the Blue Ridge, Ibut told us it was madness to make the attempt. Our natural deduction was, from all this, that no local- ity was safe except that over which the blessed Banner of Stars waved ; and to see that once more was our aim, our anxiety, our .aspiration. In Johnson County we obtained an excellent supper for that region — the best we had had — and we ate raven- ously after our mountain climbing, and a fast of fifteen hours. The Union people to whom we went put us in their barn, advising us to be very cautious, as the North Caro- lina Home Guards frequently came into that county, and robbed and burned without the least regard to person or property. The loyalists of that section had suffered fearfully. Marauders had frequently been through there, and stolen women' s and children' s clothes, broken open trunks and drawers, and carried off articles of which they had no need. They had stolen provisions, until the poor people were sometimes compelled to beg ; had applied the torch to the dwellings of honest farmers before their eyes, and threatened to hang them if they complained of the out- rage. We assured our protector, if we were discovered, that we would fully exculpate him; that we would make tHE BOHEMIANS CLIMBING THE MOUNTAINS' THE MAECH ONWARD. 895 oath, if need tliere were, tliat lie knew notliing of our being in Ms barn. We crept under some fodder, and slept at intervals until morning, wlien we returned to the house and ate breakfast, while two of the old man's daughters stood picket. We then learned we had had several narrow escapes in coming down the mountain. We had been mistaken for Home Guards ; and several of the bush- whackers had had their rifles leveled at us, when some fortunate circumstance intervened to prevent them from pulling the trigger. None of us were anxious to be shot, but if that was our destiny, we preferred to be perforated by a genuine Rebel rather than by our natural allies and political friends. Our boots being cut and burst out, we set forth to find a cobbler, and did so. While we were waiting for the return of our foot-coverings, in a hay-loft, we were vis- ited by a number of bushwhackers, who wanted- us to stay with them ; assuring us we would make excellent members of the profession. They related many of their adventures, and entertained us for some time, though we did not feel inclined to accept their proposition. Re- ceived a great deal of advice as to the best course for us to pursue ; and if the adage be sound, that in multiplicity of counselors there^s safety, we should have been entirely out of danger. Heard a great deal about Home Guards, Rebel scouts, and cavalry ; were advised to stay where we were, and depart at once ; but as we could not do both, we con- cluded to remain in the neighborhood of Drake's Creek 26 396 FOUR YEARS IN SEOESSIA. until we could learn something of the situation further on. The other party were in the vicinity, waiting, as we were, for information, which was very difficult of obtain- ment. We were naturally very anxious to learn where our forces were, having heard some miles back that they were at Peach Orchard, Tenn. It was then reported they were not there, but were certainly at Carter's Depot, in Carter County, and that the cars were running to Greenville, on the East Tennessee and Virginia Railway. Our hearts leaped at that intelligence ; for we could make Green- ville in three or four days more. Our hope of getting through to our lines became something tangible, and we had no higher boon to ask than Freedom, which, after the repair of our boots, we had less fear of losing through any failure of leather. After burrowing in the corn-husks of a barn, on the night of January 4th, we were informed by our Unionist friend that some hundreds of the enemy' s cavalry were reported coming down the road, and that, as they would certainly search all the stables and outhouses for fodder and horses, we had better flee to the mountains for con- cealment. We had had so many alarms that The Tri- bune scribes put little faith in the story, and were dis- posed to lie still ; but as the others were uneasy, and extreme prudence is the best policy of unarmed men, we crawled out of our nests, and sallied forth into a bright, still, cold night, resembling, with the snow, the moun- tains, and the frosted pines, the Polar regions far more than the sunny South. The more we reflected on the report of the Eebel cav- THE MARCH ONWARD. 397 airy the less we believed it ; and therefore, instead of climbing the mountains, we elected to invade some other shed, in a more secluded place. We roamed about for two hours, like Scandinavian specters, over the rough, frozen, snow- covered ground, and at last crept into a barn, where I lay sleepless until morning, and almost frozen, being barely able to stand when I rose to my feet. Yery weary and wearing was that species of existence ; but through the heavy clouds we had faith the sun would ere long break in golden glory. Referring to my note-book, I find these words : " This experience will be pleasant some day to look back on, and talk about ; but it is difficult to undergo, requiring all the patience and phi- losophy I can master. Any thing for freedom ! Though I perish in the effort to regain it, I shall not regret it, I am sure, if conscious in a future state of what has occurred in the present." Tliat very day, January 5, we made preparations to go forward, having found an individual who said he would guide us to Carter' s Depot. Very glad were we to be on the march once more, as we were tired enough of freezing in haystacks and corn-lofts, and skulking from barn to barn, from valley to mountain, from ridge to ravine. We met the second party, consisting of Sergeant Thurs- ton, the other two escaped prisoners, and the three Rebel deserters, at the cabin of a loyal woman, whose husband had gone to the Yankees ; and after obtaining a hearty meal, and taking rations enough in our haversacks for two days, we waited for the guide. While we were waiting, several of us ascended an 398 FOUR YEARS IN SEOESSIA. adjacent mountain, to see a party of Unionists wlio were lying out. Some of tliem liad been in the Rebel service, and others had fled from home to avoid conscription. They had been living in rude huts or holes in the ground for twelve, some for twenty-four months, obtaining pro- visions from their relatives or friends, but never remain- ing at home or sleeping in a bed for a single night. The men were hardy, determined fellows, only violent when they spoke of the enemies of the country and the wrong they had suffered at their hands. They all had their stories of outrage and wrong to relate ; and no one who heard them could refrain from pitying their condi- tion, and sharing their hatred of the Rebels. THE HZGIEA IM EAST TENNESSEE. 399 CHAPTER LII. THE IIEGIRA IIST EAST TENNESSEE. Traveling in that Region. — Passage of the Piney and Stone Mountains. — Cross- ing the Watauga River. — Invitation to a Frohc. — PecuUar Reason for our Declination. — Recklessness Engendered by our Situation. — Meeting with Dan EUis, the Pilot, and his Party. — His Kindness and Generosity. — The Effect of Apple Brandy. — Mysterious Disappearance of a Bohemian. — Severe Marching. — Strain on the Nervous System. — Reports of Rebels in our Vicinity. — A Valuable Steed and his Fate. — Anxiety of our Guides to Meet the Enemy. The guide arrived at the cabin about tliree o'clock in the afternoon, and we set out at once for Carter' s depot. We crossed Piney and Stone Mountains, the steepest and most difficult we had encountered, and had a fine view of the Alleghanies from their summit. They reminded me of an earth- storm ; the barren peaks looking like vast billows frozen into stone. The snow was some twelve inches deep, and the march arduous, but romantic. We slipped, tumbled, and fell along in the most ludicrous style, and tore our newly mended boots worse than ever. Leather appeared to have no power to endure those mountain marches. It was like paper against the sharp stones and rough rocks. We had not proceeded more than twelve miles before our pilot said he must return. We told him he had promised to take us to Carter's depot ; but he vowed he had not ; though he would do it if his wife were not sick, 400 rOUE YEAES m SEOESSIA. and in need of liis attention. We offered Mm any re- muneration if lie would accompany us ; even proposed to pay for his consort sliould slie die in Ms absence ; but lie would not be persuaded or liired, and we were compelled to give him up, though very reluctantly. ^ Kindling a fire in one of the gorges, we sat by it until dark, when we continued our march under our own supervision. We stoj)ped at the house of a Tennessee clergyman about ten o'clock, and there had an ample meal. He was a fine specimen of an upright, bold, out- spoken loyalist. He had four sons in the Union service ; said he wished he had four more, and that he would have been there himself if his years and health would have allowed him to be. He congratulated us on our escape, and said he would pray for our safe arrival within our lines ; told us what direction to take, and what people to see, regretting he could not pilot us Mmself on account of his rheumatism. After resting we proceeded, and about three o'clock the next morning reached the farm to which we had been directed, and, as usual, went to the barn — having made some eighteen miles from the last settlement. iN"© sleep worthy the name, of course ; arose from our couch of hay about eight o' clock, January 6, and accepted our host' s invitation to breakfast with remarkable promptness. He told us we were in quite a secure region, and that there would be little danger in traveling to and along the Watauga River by daylight. We took liun at his word, bathed in Roan' s Creek, and felt refreshed and lighter-spirited. We had a pleasant ramble along the Watauga, which reminded me of the THE HEGIRA IX EAST TEITITESSEE. 401 Kentucky River, being quite picturesque and romantic, for eiglit miles, when we crossed in a canoe to Carter County, and, going to one of our cordon of Union men, received a warm welcome, and the hest and freest of his hospitality. We slept in a bed, with more comfort than usual, undetermined whether to wait for some time or push on the next day. We heard all the Rebels had left below, and were once more assured that our forces held Greenville, but not Carter's depot. We breathed more and more freely as we progressed, the prospect of freedom growing brighter every day. Where we then were we met a number of Union Ten- nessee soldiers, who had come home on furlough, some of whom were soon to return to their regiments. They Were going about very openly, giving us an idea there was not much danger in that neighborhood from the enemy. They even had what they called a "frolic" one night, and invited us ; but, as we had no arms, we did not deem it prudent to go ; for it was not unusual for the Home Gfuards to surround the houses in which the company gathered, and shoot the men as they went out. - Several cases of the kind had occurred a few weeks before our arrival in Wilkes County ; and when the de- serters were gathered in force, they would invite the Guard to call again ; but, Avhen expected and prepared for, they invariably stayed away. I remember some years ago, in N'ew Orleans, I was amused to see in the papers advertisements of masquer- ades, to the effect that gentlemeli were requested to leave their weapons at the door. But not until I became a fugi- 402 rOUE YEAES m secessia. tive in Secessia had I ever declined an invitation to join a social circle because I had no weapons to take there with me. Unique country that, and peculiar state of society down there, particularly since the War ! Our party had been entertained, from the time of its escape, by assurances of people we met along the road that Aye were likely to be shot at any time by our friends from the brush, or in the mountain passages. Life was evidently of no value in the sections through which we passed, as we learned from the stories of mur- ders and butcheries almost daily told. , That wild moun- tain life generated recklessness and indifference, no doubt, as we ourselves experienced. Though seemingly in the midst of perpetual danger, we cared little, if any thing, for the possibilities or probabilities of the future ; but often amused ourselves with representing how ' ' our special Correspondent" would appear with a rope about his neck, or a bullet through his brain. On the whole, that nervousness we expected to have on the march through the enemy' s country, and that con- stant anxiety about our capture or massacre, we did not feel to any extent. We determined to do all that lay in our power to effect our escape and reach our lines, and left the result in tlie hands of the Gods. We became for the time being fatalists, as most men are prone to who lead hazardous lives, and were resolved not to worry ourselves about the Unseen, or en1:ertain grave apprehen- sions respecting the Untried. About noon of January 7, our host agreed to take Tis across the country by a secret path to a relative of THE HEGIEA IE EAST TENNESSEE. 403 his, residing on the Ibanks of the Watauga ; telling ns that a famous guide, Dan Ellis, of whom we had heard a great deal, was soon to go through to our lines with a party, and that, if we could strike him, there would iDe little danger of our failure to seeing our freedom. That was exactly what we wanted, and we marched off very briskly ; crossed the river about three o' clock in the after- noon, and were soon comfortably ensconced by the fire- side of the most comfortable dwelling we had seen on our journey. At that resting-place we converted ourselves into washer- women, going out on the bank of the river, light- ing a huge fire under an iron kettle, and abluting our under-clothes with more energy than skill ; and all night, though it was frosty, denuding and bathing ourselves in the stream. Of course we must have felt quite secure to do those things, and we did, from the fact that the house where we were stopping was on the other side of the river from the road — the stream was so high, too, as to be unfordable, and situated in front of a gap between the mountains, furnishing an excellent means of retreat if we were pursued. It was really an intrenched position, and we could afford to expose ourselves there. Sunday, January 8, we deemed it well to push forward to the rendezvous from which Dan Ellis was to start that night. We crossed the river in the morning, and after going five miles found the other party, and took a boun- tiful luncheon, furnished by a generous-hearted Unionist, in an open field. We then set out for the rendezvous, and heard that Ellis would certainly be there. Soon after he sent word for the footmen to move on ; that he would 404 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. speedily- Ibe along and overtake us. That was sufficient ; for Ellis' s word was not to be doubted. • Our united party of seven escaped prisoners and three deserters started with some fifteen more that had as- sembled to join Ellis, but had not gone more than two miles before the famous pilot was up with us. We three Correspondents were presented to Ellis, who assured us we should be put through in the right kind of style ; that all we had to do was to keep with him, if we wanted to see the Stars and Stripes again. His party was very miscellaneoiis, made up of Tennes- see Union soldiers. Rebel deserters, loyal Southern citi- zens, conscripts who would not serve, and escaped pris- oners. He had about twenty horses and mules, and he offered us Bohemians an opportunity to ride, which we accepted ; but I found the animal that I strode so slow and indolent that it tired me more to urge him along than to walk, and I dismounted after a mile of persevering toil to little purpose. Ellis loaned his mule to Mr. Richardson, and, carrying his carbine, which fired sixteen times without re-loading, walked more rapidly than almost any horse could. Most of his party were mountaineers, and quite fresh, while we had been twenty months in prison, and had then ac- complished over two hundred miles under very adverse circumstances. I for one found it very difficult to keep up with the party at first, having fallen behind by being on that Rosinante. On several occasions I was compelled to run for more than a mile at a time, falling over logs and into streams in my usual fashion. I had grown so accustomed to falling in that mountain THE HEGIRA IK EAST TENNESSEE. 405 travel that it interfered very little with my progress. I found I could get along about as well by standing on my head, turning somersaults, and performing acts of ground and lofty tumbling generallj^, as by regular pedestrianizing. That night' s march was tremendous. We went twenty- seven miles long before dawn, and found, after crossing the Nolechucky, that we had lost several of our party, three mules, most of the rations, and I know not what else. The truth was, some of Ellis' s ♦men had drank too much apple brandy, becoming so intoxicated that they parted with their reason, and, when asked, could not tell where any thing was. One of them, indeed, really lost his iden- tity, and declared he was somebody else ; that the other fellow — giving his own name — was so d — d drunk that they had left him behind. Among the mysterious disappearances was Mr. Rich- ardson. It was supposed he had gotten behind, and that the mule had taken the wrong road. We were unwilling to go on without Tlie Tribune scribe, so we bivouacked, and sent scouts out to obtain tidings of the missing indi- viduals. They all came to light, having run off the track by some means unknown to themselves. My associate trusted to his mule, and the mule, having delightfully original instincts, wandered off in a North-Easterly in- stead of a South- Westerly direction. The journalist, dis- covering his confidence in the animal had been betrayed, concluded to suspend operations, and put up for the night on a log. When the morning dawned, he found a farmer who informed him of the right road, and in four hours after he was in our camp. The other mules were discovered, but the rations never revealed themselves. 406 FOUR YEARS m SECESSIA. Monday, January 9, we quitted camp in Washington County albout eleven o'clock in tlie morning, and set out to cross the mountains, Big Butt being the highest and hardest to climb of any we had seen. It is seven thou- sand feet above sea-level, and seven miles from summit to base. By Jove ! how we did toil up that steep ! It seemed as if we never would get up, and, once up, as if we never would get down. The horses and mules could hardly be dragged to the top, though they had nothing to carry. My strength and endurance were augmenting, although I rarely was able to sleep ; and that day I followed immediately behind Ellis until we had de- scended to the valley in Greene County. The rain and sleet had been falling for hours when we paused for the night ; we had had nothing to eat and we were quite wet. We had no shelter, but tried to arrange an old roof of a house, that had fallen down, for that purpose ; and failing to effect it, Messrs. Davis and Richardson, and myself, undertook to discover some farm-house where we could procure food. We were successful in that, as well as in engaging a few bundles of corn-husks for a couch in a wretched fodder-loft. We rested far better than we had expected, owing, no doubt, to the extreme hardships we had undergone. For the first time, I felt a tremendous strain on my nervous system, caused by the fact that it was always on the rack whUe with Ellis, for fear, from his rapid movements, I should be left behind and lost, which was equivalent to forfeiting all hope of freedom, if not of life. Those mountain men never halted ; they rushed on without looking back or waiting for any one. They THE HEGIRA m EAST TENNESSEE. 407 would go through a ravine or gorge, leap across a creek, dart into a laurel or an ivy thicket, and all trace of them T^e gone, though you were l^ehind them only five seconds. I rememl>er, after keeping at the head of the file for a number of hours, I stopped to give a soldier a drink from my canteen, and I lost nearly a mile. So it was. There was little resting, and instead of march- ing steadily and leisurely, they would go at a break- neck pace that fatigued all of us more in a mile than three miles would have done at an ordinary and regular gait. My boots became more broken than ever on the 9th, and, having split across the joint of the foot, when they grew wet and shrank they gave me much pain in walk- ing. I began to be very anxious about getting through after my seven-leaguers showed such unmistakable signs of complete dissolution, knowing that to lose their use- fulness was to lose all else. January 10. — We thi-ee procured a light breakfast at a farm-house, proving much more fortunate than most of our companions, who were half famished. Heard an immense deal about Rebels — that there were several squads in the neighborhood, and so many scouting the country that it was hardly possible to get through. Two men who had come from North Carolina with us became alarmed and turned back, selliag their horses to the highest bidder. Mr. Richardson purchased one of the steeds, and though neither very fleet nor handsome, he had quali- ties to wear — out his rider. My confrere was much exhausted, and needed an animal to ride, even if it did 408 FOUR YEARS IN SEOESSIA. not appear well, or evince any indications of patrician lineage. He rode the beast through to Strawberry Plains, and then paid a negro ten dollars to give him Christian burial, wliich he deserved, for the service he had ren- dered. The poor horse did not wish to defer his ob- sequies, for, having eaten several bushels of corn, he exploded into so many pieces that they could not be collected for interment. Poor Rosinante was not a serious loss ; for, although my associate paid fifty dollars in treasury notes for him, his original cost, with eleven other animals like him, was at the rate of five dollars per dozen in Rebel cur- rency. The rain continued to fall steadily, and we were all drenched ; the roads becoming almost impassable from mud. About eleven o'clock the sky cleared, and we resumed our march on the alert for the enemy ; having no fear of any small squad, for there were eight or ten carbines in Ellis' s party, and as many revolvers, which the owners knew how to use, as the Rebels had learned in past times to their cost. At least ten of the Unionists were old scouts and rangers, who had frequently en- gaged the "Confederates," and, so far from being desirous to avoid them, were extremely anxious to come in collision with any thing like their own number ; feeling confident, as they expressed it, that they could " sweeten their coffee" for them in a very few minutes. DAN ELLIS, THE FAMOUS PILOT. 409 CHAPTER LIII. DAN ELLIS, THE FAMOUS PILOT. Sketch of his Life and Career. — His uncompromising Loyalty. — Efforts to Suppress him. — His success as a Pilot. — Mode of Joining his Expeditions. — ^Hrs Adventures and Narrow Escapes. — His Attachment to his Carbine. — His Opinion of the Confederacy. — A Eebel Ofiflcer's Views of his Usefulness to the Union Cause. Dan Ellis, or Captain Dan Ellis, as lie is often called, is one of the notabilities of East Tennessee. He is a native of Carter County, and one of tlie most ultra and irrepres- sible Unionists in that extremely loyal section. From the beginning of the troubles, he took a most decided stand for the Government, and has maintained it ever since. He was at all times open, bold, and decided in 'his oppo- sition to, and hatred of, the Rebels, and declared, what- ever temporary success they might have, they would be ultimately crushed, and the so-called "Confederacy" with them. Ellis is about thirty-five years old ; rather slight, but muscular, and agile as a cat ; of vigorous constitution and immense endurance ; brave as Belisarius, but prudent and cunning ; entirely familiar with the country within a ra- dius of four or five hundred miles ; accustomed to all the hardships and adventures of frontier life ; candid, gener- ous, and amiable to everybody but the Rebels, whose right to existence he does not clearly perceive. 410 FOUR YEARS IF SECESSIA. Thougli uneducated, Ellis is intelligent, a close obser- ver, a good judge of men, strictly lionest and abstemious, and, with all his fondness for a wild and reckless life, tenderly attached to his wife and children. He has the greatest regard for his word, and all who know him accept his simple statement with the most implicit faith. His promises every one relies on ; and among the people of his county, "Dan Ellis says so" is an indubitable evidence of truthfulness. His outspoken sentiments at the inception of the Re- bellion, and his uncompromising hatred of the enemies of his country, soon made him a marked man, and excited against him the most violent hatred of the Secessionists. He was rather an unpleasant person to draw into a quar- rel, and therefore many of the traitors, who would have been delighted to find an excuse for attacking him, hesi- tated to do so, knowing his courage and determination, and the violence of his passions when once aroused. His foes tried to intimidate him, sending him warnings, and making the most sanguinary menaces. He heeded them not, but continued his labor on his farm, neither seeking nor avoiding quarrels if they were thrust upon him. Before the Summer of 1861 ended, he had several rencounters with Secessionists, and had been shot and stabbed once or twice, but not seriously. At last, so bitter was the feeling against Ellis, that numerous plots were formed to murder him ; and he would certainly have fallen a victim to some of them, had the designs of the villains not been revealed to him in season for his own security. Yielding to the solicita- tions of his wife and friends, he quitted his home, and DAX ELLIS, TEE FAMOUS PILOT. 411 resided in Kentucky for a wliUe, but soon returned in tlie capacity of guide or pilot to tliose wlio wislied to reach our lines. The qualities we have named admirably fitted him for that business ; and though he frequently took charge of parties of one and two hundred at a time, he alwaj^s conducted them through safely. For many months EUis pilote(J Unionists and Southern deserters all the way from Carter County to Louisville, Kentucky ; and, after the fall of Donelson, to N'ashville, Tennessee. For a year and a half previous to our meeting him, he had been piloting parties to Knoxville ; and so well was he acquainted with the men, women, and children belong- ing to every loyal family in Western North Carolina and East Tennessee, and with every by-road and bridle-path and mountain way and ford of river and of stream, that there was li^itle fear of his failing to take those under his guidance to their destination. Indeed, those who knew Ellis best, said the Captain had never lost but one man, • and that he was captured through his own indiscretion. Since the beginning of the war, Ellis, it is said, has con- ducted to our lines fully five thousand men, most of whom Avould have been forced into the Rebel service if they had remained in Secessia. His name is known all over Tennessee. He makes regular journeys between Knoxville and Carter County, and the time when he pro- poses to move from his own home to our lines is under- stood for miles around. All who want to go join his party on the way, he and his experienced scouts being in advance, and giving directions to the rest. Old men and boys, conscripts and deserters, sometimes 27 412 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. • women and children, flock to Ellis' s cavalcade as it moves by, and lie takes the best care of them, often j)urchas- ing provisions for those who have not the means. He makes no charge for his services, though they who wish to remunerate him can do so. He has supplied a number of soldiers to the Tennessee Union regiments, and the Government has paid him for many that he has furnished, which, with the horses and mules he buys and sells, and not unfrequently confiscates, when they prove the pro- perty of Rebels, enables him to live ; and I understand he has accumulated a fair amount of property. The "Confederates" have declared he should not live in Tennessee ; but he has sworn he would, whether they like it or not, and he has kept his word. He is often ab- sent from his home in the mountains for months at a time ; but he generally sees his wife and children every few weeks, sometimes being compelled to steal into and out of the house. The Rebels have threatened to burn his house frequently, but have not carried their menaces into execution, — whether from the fact that his wife is a very amiable and kind-hearted woman, though as loyal, and al- most as courageous, as her husband, or that they fear the vengeance of her liege-lord, I cannot say. I presume it is from the latter reason. Ellis' s house has been surrounded a number of times by armed bands, on several occasions when he was there ; but he has either hidden where they could not find him, or gotten out surreptitiously, or run the gantlet of their fire without injury to himself. Few men have had more narrow escapes ; though he says the traitors have been trying to put his light out for four years, but that he does DAN ELLIS, THE FAMOUS PILOT. 413 not think lie was Iborn to be hurt loy them. He has be- come a predestinarian in the fullest sense of the term. All kinds of ingenious plans have been laid to entrap Ellis, but he has had so many friends among the people who would give him timely information, that he always contrived to defeat the purpose of his foes. They even set a price upon his head at one time, and Rebels skulked about his farm, for weeks, to shoot him. But, as several of them were shot while they were watching for Dan, they concluded it would not be worth their while to en- gage in the business permanently, and at once embraced safer and more profitable avocations. The poor and loyal people of East Tennessee have a most enthusiastic admiration for Ellis, and would secrete him, or work or fight for him, under any circumstances. He has been extremely kind to them ever; has given them provisions and money when they were in need ; brought dresses for the women and children, and en- deared himself to the loyal community in the most extra- ordinary manner. They all regard him as a very near friend, and if he were to be a candidate for any ofiice in that section, I venture to say he would obtain every vote of the laboring classes. The number of adventures Dan has had would make a large and very readable volume. He says little of them himself; but his companions informed me how many chases the Rebels had given him ; how they had emp- tied their cartridge-boxes at him again and again ; how they had shot through his hat, coat, and boots ; killed his horse, and pursued him on foot without injuring him seri- onsly, or making him prisoner. They would not capture 414 FOUE YEARS IN SECESSIA. him, or if tliey did, they would dispatch him, as they have often threatened. They sent him word, once, that they would never take him prisoner, unless he ceased to assist ' ' citizens and soldiers of the Confederacy' ' through to the Union lines ; and his answer was, that he did not design to give them any oj^portunity ; but that he would put every Union man in God's country who wanted to go there, if the Rebels built a wall round the State five hundred feet high. Dan' s carbine he never allows to go out of his hands, sleeping with it in his arms, and setting it at his side when he takes his meals. On one occasion he was pursued for at least ten miles, through a mountainous region, and had emptied his piece of its sixteen cartridges ; but still, though his life depended on his rapid flight, he would not throw away his beloved carbine, heavy as it was, and much as it impeded his progress. "That old gun," said Ellis, "has saved me a dozen times ; and if the Rebels ever kill me, that carbine shall be the last thing I will hold on earth." "Give that up! throw that away!" exclaimed Dan, passionately, holding up the piece ; " why, it's my best friend ! I' d as soon think of giving up my wife as that old blazer ; without that, I' d have been under the sod long ago. Oh no, I can't let that go ;" and he drew his carbine to his breast as if it had been a woman, and his keen gray eye glistened with emotion at the very idea of parting with so old and faithful a companion. During 1863, Ellis went to Knoxville, and was elected Captain of a company of one of the loyal Tennessee regi- ments, mainly composed of men he had brought through DAN ELLIS, THE FAMOUS PILOT. 415 t the lines ; but after "being in tlie service a few months, the Commandant of the post told him he thought he could Ido of much more advantage to the cause and country by resuming his old avocation. Dan thought so too, say- ing the Army was rather dull after scouting, and gladly resigned to return to the wilder, more exciting, and daring life he had before followed. Many of Ellis's friends were anxious he should remove his family from Carter County to Knoxville ; but he de- clared he would remain just where he was. "I worked and paid for that, patch of ground," he remarked, "and I'm going to stay until the ' Confederacy' is moved down to the Gulf, and towed out to sea and sunk where there's no bottom. What's the use of my moving when the Rebels are moving so fast? Why, if I were to dodge around as the ' Confederacy' is doing, rolling up and growing thinner every day, I'd have no place to stand on — not even the last ditch, ISTo, sir, I can't move a bit. Let the ' Confederacy' move off of my farm, where it has no business. I've only got to stay there a little while longer, and there won't be any 'Confederacy' to move out of." Dan was right, as recent events have proved. 'No one man, I venture to say, in all Tennessee, has done more to injure the Rebels and the Rebel cause than Ellis. He has taken away their deserters and conscripts ; spread disaffection and despondency among the half- se- cessionists ; confiscated their horses and mules ; bush- whacked their soldiers and officers, and more or less demoralized the entire community in which he lived. Hundreds of persons, less strong and self-reliant than 416 FOUR YEARS IN SEOESSIA. he, looked up to Mm for support and counsel. When the days of the Republic were darkest, he bade them be of good cheer ; when they were about to yield and go over to the enemy, he strengthened their weak knees, and pointed to a radiant future they could not see. One of the insurgent leaders said : "Ellis is worse than a Yankee regiment, and I would rather have one stationed in Carter County than have Dan there. Confound the Tory scoundrel ! he must be in league with the devil. We have hunted him, shot at him, put a price on his head, watched his house, and had him surrounded and almost in our hands a score of times ; and yet he always con- trives to give us the slip. "D him to H ! I'd rather hang him than Andy Johnson or old Brownlow. He's done us more harm, I believe, than both of those Tories, for he comes right into our midst, and finds out what we are doing ; and before we learn he is among us, he' s off to Knoxville again, giving information to the Yankee authorities. If I could hang him, I'd die easier, I believe ; and I'd give my last nigger for the privilege ; I would, by Gr !" THE NAMELESS HEROINE. 417 CHAPTER LIY. THE NAMELESS HEKOIJ^TE. — UNDER THE STAES AND STRIPES ONCE MORE. Pursuit of the Enemy. — Alarm and Separation of our Party. — Our Fair Guide. — Her Appearance and Antecedents. — Our Continued March. — Confiscation of Horses. — Our Last Night Out. — Sensations on Approaching the LTnion Lines. — Chagrin of the Rebels at our Escape. — Their Absurd Stories about the Departed Bohemians. Early in tlie afternoon of January 10, we hear five or six of the hostile cavalry are in advance of us only a few miles. Ellis immediately calls for those who have arms to follow him, and away they dash in pursuit of the foe ; while the rest of us, who are on foot and weaponless, trudge along the road toward Kelly' s Gap in the Nole- chucky mountains, arriving there just before sunset. That was the appointed rendezvous, and Ellis and his party reached there about dusk, after a long and useless chase, and we prepared to camp for the night. Dan went to one of the Union houses, a few miles distant, and returned with the information that we were almost sur- rounded by the Rebels ; that it would be necessary for the horsemen to separate from the- footmen, so that in the event of pursuit the latter would not be taken. All was activity at once. Those who had lain down, in the deserted and dilapidated cabins of the abandoned plantation to which we had repaired, were aroused. 418 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. Horses and mules were saddled, fires extinguished, and every preparation made for speedy departure. The cavalry were to move first, the infantry to fol- low, after the others had gone far enough in advance. Ellis ofiered me a mule — Richardson and Davis were mounted — but as it had no saddle, and I remembered my partial bisection the night we journeyed to the Union settlement in Wilkes County, I respectfully declined ; preferring to walk rather than to undergo a repetition of those tortures. I even gave Davis my quilt to use as a saddle-cloth, and bade my friends good-bj^, fully expect- ing to see them again in the morning, at the furthest. After they had been gone about half an hour, a scout named Treadway, who had been placed in charge of the footmen, told us to fall in ; that we were to cross a mountain and descend into a ravine, where we would camp until the next night. "But where are we to meet the other party ?" inquired I, "0, we won't see them again until we reach Knox- ville, if we ever have the good luck to get there." We had learned the day before, that all the stories about our forces being at Greenville and other adjacent points were without foundation ; that our lines were at Strawberry Plains, iifteen mUes East of Knoxville ; and that we must go there before we could have any hope of freedom. That was nearly a hundred miles farther, and the in- telligence was rather disheartening, for we had been imagining our journey was nearly at an end. IN'o doubt many of us felt like the North Carolinian of the party, who had been in prison nearly three years, when asked THE NAMELESS HEKOINE. 419 if lie was tired. "Tired?" eclioed lie, with a mingled air of disgust and contempt. "Wliy this would wear out an iron man." The reply of the scout : "We won't see them until we reach Knoxville," smote on my heart like the sound of my death-knell. Separation from my friends — the three companions with whom I had escaped, with whom I had endured so much in prison and on the march to freedom — seemed a calamity I could not bear. It foreshadowed to me every thing gloomy and horrible — recapture, dungeons, despair, and death. And while I stood there in the darkness — not to advance for twenty-four hours — they were every minute hurrying away, making the distance greater between us. They are going to freedom, I thought, and I am left behind. My doom is written. Liberty is not for me. I shall perish here in these mountains, and the few who feel an interest in me will never know my fate. Materially considered, too, I had lost my quilt, which had saved me much suffering, and I was penniless, my Bohemian brothers having all the money there was in our party. The record in my note-book is : "I have no more hope now of getting through ; yet will I do my utmost, and compel the strong spirit to rule the weak flesh. I will march till I fall fainting on the road from hunger, cold, and exhaustion. I am resolved never to give up. Still am I most worn, weary, and wretched ; and all my dark views of Human Life and Experience come up mentally darker and grimmer than before." 420 FOUR YEAES IN SEOESSIA. The pedestrians proceeded to the ravine, and built a big fire ; the weather was too cold to sleep. We were hungry, having had nothing to eat for twenty -four hours, and there was little prospect of getting any thing. The scout went off somewhere, and left us alone, most of the party being ignorant, silly, coarse, imprudent fel- lows — mere children in character, whom I could not induce to stand picket, or act cautiously about any thing. They disgusted me greatly, and I saw there was little safety with such simpletons. The scout returned, having visited a number of Union- ists, who reported us in a very dangerous vicinity ; that we yet had many perils to encounter, and must be ex- tremely cautious if we wanted to reach our lines. The worst of our perils, it seemed to me, were hunger, cold, and exhaustion. About noon we had an alarm from some Rebel cavalry, who passed along a road so near us that we distinctly heard their words. Supposing they had seen us, we pre- cipitately left our camp fire, and ran up the mountain in fine confusion. After running at high speed for some hundreds of yards, I paused to observe if any one was following us ; and perceiving no one, I called out, and we all stopped ; then reconnoitered ; then returned to our camping-place. The fire of dry wood was still burning in the chilly, crisp air, and several haversacks and blankets, left in the rapidity of retreat, lay there undis- turbed. It was evident the enemy had not known of our whereabouts, and had passed on unconscious of our presence. Toward evening I began to be resigned to my new sit- THE NAMELESS HEROINE. 421 nation, having the consolation of knowing that the sep- aration between me and my companions wonld prevent the probability of the recaptnre or extermination of all of ns. The fate of Tlie Tribune Correspondents was at least likely, nnder existing circumstances, to be different. If Mr. Richardson were retaken, I might get through ; if I were retaken, he might. Just before leaving the ravine the scout obtained some provisions for us, which we enjoyed after our long fast. We then started at a break-neck pace over the ridges, falling every few hundred yards so violently that I mar- veled some of us did not break our limbs. Once my knee came in contact with the root of a tree so forcibly that it seemed shattered, and I did not recover from the sore- ness and lameness occasioned by the fall for days after. About sunset our party was on the summit of a ridge looking down into the valley where resided a girl who, the night previous, had guided Dan Ellis and his com- panions, by a private path, out of the way of the Rebels believed to be in the vicinity. For more than an hour we sat there watching the house in which she lived, and seeing ten or twelve Rebel cavalrymen ride up to the dwelling, and then depart in squads of two or three. At dusk we descended to the valley cautiously, and met her at the appointed place, mounted, and ready to act as our guide. That girl, not more than sixteen or seventeen, belonging to one of the stanchest loyal families in East Tennessee, was known to all the Unionists in the county. She had assisted many true men out of awkward pre- dicaments and dangerous situations, and had shown herself wiUing at aU times to aid them. She had often 422 FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. arisen at night when she obtained intelligence of impor- tance, and communicated it to loyalists some miles dis- tant, preventing their capture or mnrder by the enemy. Ellis had known Jier from childhood, and depended on her for information whenever he was anywhere in her neighborhood. She had told him the preceding night of the presence of the enemy, and recommended the divi- sion of his band, as pursuit was possible ; assuring him that she would guide the footmen, as she would him, if they would be at a certain place at a certain hour. The girl, whose name I will not give — though I can state, for the benefit of the romantic, that it is a pretty one, and would sound well in a novel — was decidedly fair, intelligent, of graceful figure, and possessed of that indis- pensable requisite to an agreeable woman — a sweet voice. I confess I looked at her with some degree of admira- tion as she sat there, calm, smiling, comely, with the warm blood of youth flushing in her cheek, under the flood of mellow moonlight that bathed all the landscape in poetic softness and picturesque beauty. It was natural that almost any man of gallantry and imagination should idealize her, under the circumstances ; but I did not. I gazed at her as I do at most of her sex, with the cold eye of Art, and at the unvaxying angle of aesthetic criti- cism. That scene was a good theme for a picture. Tlie girl mounted, and the central figure, with some eighteen men in half military, half civil garb, with bronzed faces and a certain wild appearance, travel-stained, ragged, anxious-eyed, standing around her in groups, listening THE NAMELESS HEROINE. 423 to what she said in a low but earnest and pleasantly modulated tone She gave directions as quietly and composedly as a veteran commander in the field, requesting us to keep some distance behind her ; saying that, if she were halted, we should stop, and lie down ; that, when all was safe, she would cough ; and that, if she saw any danger, she would sneeze to give us warning. All ready, she struck her horse, a spirited animal, and darted oflf at a pace that we pedestrians could hardly sustain, even running. Confound that girl ! I thought. What does she rush along at this rate for ? I have not had much experience in following in women's lead ; and if this is a specimen, I want no more of it. We were out of breath, all of us, and had fallen so often in our haste, that we were suffering from numerous bruises and abrasions ; but she dashed on mercilessly, dragging us after her. I reached her side once, and told her to go a little slower ; that we were greatly fatigued, and that some of us must fall hopelessly behind if she did not check her pace. She drew in her rein until those who had been nearly distanced came up, and then only walked her impatient steed for the remainder of the distance. She guided us seven miles through woods and ravines, over mountains and along valleys, away from the fre- quented roads and paths, until we came to a long bridge over the Nolechucky River. We were fearful that might be guarded. So we waited on one side, while she crossed to the other. If she went on, we were to follow. If she stopped, we were to wait on the ridge where we lay con- 424 FOUR YEAES IN SEOESSIA. cealed until slie returned to tell us what was in the way. Silently we crouched on the frosty ground, hearing her horse' s hoofs ring out clearly and sharply upon the cold night on the planks of the bridge. But no challenging voice greeted our attentive ear. The bridge must be unobstructed, we thought, as the hoofs grew fainter and fainter ; and, at last, when they were no longer audible, we knew she was on the road riding toward her sister's house— as she had told us she would — and that, her mis- sion accomplished, we had parted with our fair guide, and would see her no more. For the sake of my romantic readers, if I have any, I wisli I could relate the occurrence of some sentimental scene between one of the Bohemians and the nameless heroine. It would look well on paper, and read well, too ; but, so far as I can learn, neither of my fellow-jour- nalists exchanged a word with her the night before ; and as for myself, my only feeling toward her was one of irri- tation at her extreme haste, and my sole words — "Do go a little slower !" Nothing like sensational coloring, and sentimental glitter in composition. If I were not a conscientious journalist and a veracious historian, I should relate a parting interview with the fair stranger much after the manner of Contarini Fleming' s separation from the pretty gipsy. I should tell how I, or somebody else, took her hand, and kissed her lips in the moonlight, and saw the tears start to her eyes ; how my heart, or some other person' s heart, beat wildly for a moment, as that vision of beauty, THE NAMELESS HEROINE. 425 more "beautiful in its sorrow, beamed upon tlie wintry, Luna-lighted niglit, and then faded away forever. But, as nothing of the kind occurred, I shall say no- thing of the kind. I shall only wish the dear, devoted girl the truest and tenderest of lovers, and the brightest and happiest of lives. Upon her youthful head may the choicest benisons of Heaven fall unstinted ! May violets of beauty and lilies of sweetness bloom ever in her path- way, and fill with fragrance all her coming days. What was remarkable about the girl was, that none of the Rebels suspected her of giving active aid to the Union- ists. They knew she was loyal ; indeed, she did not deny her loyalty ; but, on the contrary, told them her sympathies were all with. the North, and her most earnest wishes for the suppression of the Rebellion. She said what she pleased with impunity. She was young, pretty, and intelligent. Everybody liked and petted her as if she were a child, when she had the feelings, the earnestness, the convictions of a woman ; and, from her openness and candor, they presumed she told them all she did. They never dreamed of her secret excursions, her nightly expeditions, her communications with their enemies. The Southern officers were half in love with her, and told her, with great indiscretion, all their plans and ex- pectations, never imagining she would make use of them, which, of course, she did most effectually. No doubt, being feminine, and possessing feminine tact, she encour- aged her admirers sufficiently to elicit from them what information she needed, and, in that way, was enabled to be of invaluable service to her friends. 426 FOUE YEARS I¥ SECESSIA. For nearly four years, slie had devoted lier time to the service of the Republic ; had risked her liberty, perhaps her life ; had acted the heroine on the stage of our great National Drama without the least self-consciousness, or any other inducement than her attachment to the cause. Her parents were in comfortable circumstances, quite wealthy, indeed, for that region, and had given her a very fair education, and some accomplishments wliicli were very remarkable for a girl reared in the rural regions of the South. She had been petted and flattered by Seces- sionists of both sexes, who had in vain attempted to seduce her from her allegiance ; but she ever remained true to her country, and to those who befriended it in the time of its extremest need. That she may some day be generously compensated in a higher than material form for her services, is my earnest hope and desire ; though I feel assured that recent events, establishing the integrity of the Republic, will be to her the most precious reward she could receive. After leaving the heroic girl we marched seventeen miles, camping on top of a mountain about two o'clock in the morning, and kindling a fire, when I crept under a blanket that one of my companions kindly offered me. Before reaching our camp, I had been an involuntary witness and apparent sharer in an enterprise which I did not anticipate and could not countenance. The scout who was our guide had heard that a notorious Rebel was at the house of his father-in-law, and accordingly went there in search of him. He told us to surround the house, and we did so — for what purpose I did not know. He then began beating on the door, and crying to the THE 1^"AMELESS HEROINE. 427 "d d scoundrel"— that was the mildest of his epi- thets — to come forth, or he would blow out his brains. An old man and woman came to the door, and declared their son-in-law was not at home. They were greatly frightened, and I felt very sorry for them, and would not have seen them hurt if I could have prevented it. No one threatened them ; hut many of the Tennesseeans swore and bellowed so loudly, that I do not wonder the j)oor people were alarmed. "Where are that d d traitor's horses ?" was roared out a dozen times in a quarter of a minute. The old man showed the way to the stable, and in a brief while the two animals were bridled and saddled, and two of the Tennesseeans on their backs riding away. The horses belonged to the Rebel, who was an officer in some guerrilla band, and no doubt ought to have been confiscated, but I could not reconcile myself to the con- fiscation, which seemed to me very much like vulgar horse- stealing ; and I inwardly determined, if my fellow- travelers designed making a general business of that de- partment of fine art, that I should separate from them, and journey towards freedom on my own account. I had quitted Salisbury to obtain liberty, not horses ; and it did not appear that my prospects for the former would be materially augmented by any acquisition of the latter. Fortunately, however, there were no more confis- cations on the route ; and consequently I had no occasion to put my determination in practice. That equine appropriation was aboi^t the last adventure we had. At dusk on the evening of January 12, we set out for Russellville — eighteen miles distant — crossing 28 428 FOUR YEAES IN SEOESSIA. Lick Creek, and passing into the corner of Hawkins and into Granger Counties before four o'clock the following morning. We struck the Yirginia and East Tennessee Railway at Cheek' s Cross Roads, and walked at a rapid rate to our camp, where we bivouacked. We learned after dawn that Ellis' s party were safe, and had • camped where we were the night previous. Our guide told me that the coming night (Friday, January 13th) would probably be the last we would be out ; I truly hoped so. My boots were worn out ; my attire in rags ; my nervous system strangely sensitive, and perhaps deranged, from absence of sleep and constant exertion, with long fasts and perpetual anx- iety. Yet I felt a degree of strength and freshness that was extraordinary, under the circumstances. I was calm withal, and unagitated, although freedom seemed so near at hand. Indeed, the idea of Liberty I could not realize — ^it seemed too great a blessing to be enjoyed. I often asked myself: " Shall I indeed see the dear old flag, and breathe the free air of the North once more V ' We had nothing throughout Friday but a little corn, which we parched in the ashes of our camp-fires, until just before setting out, when we procured the best meal we had had. The Tennessee scout accompanied us until we struck the railway again, and there left us, having, as he said, some important business to transact on the mor- row. Always before. Freedom, as I have said, had seemed too blissful to be realized ; but when I found myself within one night' s march of our glorious destination, I could no longer doubt that on the morrow I might plant my foot UNDER THE STAES AND STRIPES. 429 on loyal soil, and again behold the glitter of Union bay- onets. I was filled with a new life : I could not be restrained : my blood tingled : my pulses leaped : my whole being glowed. Rapidly I walked along the broken railway. The mile- stones seemed to whirl by me as if I were on an express-train. The wind was from the North — keen, cutting, penetra- ting ; I loved it because it was from the North — and I still was very thinly clad. But I felt not the low temperature : a blast from an ice- berg would not have chilled me. Within me was the sacred fire that has made martyrs and heroes through ages,— the fire which the love of Liberty has lighted, and which will burn forever. My companions, fatigued and exhausted and half- frozen, fell off one by one, and in little squads. But a single man remained, a tall, stalwart, muscular fellow ; and he declared he would go with me to the end. On, on, on we went, faster, faster, faster. The mile- stones still whirled by like ghosts of departed fears and expired miseries. Colder and colder blew the wind ; but it was more grateful than breezes from Araby the Blest. The night was dark and lowering ; but to me the heavens were lighted as with an auroral splendor. Through the encompassing shadows I fancied visions of beauty and landscapes of delight. The arid plain blossomed with association, and the bow of promise spanned every accomplished mile. 430 FOUR YEARS IN SEOESSIA. Just before the dawn, the fires of the Union pickets crimsoned the somber sky in our front, and a few minutes of hurried striding brought us within the voice of the challenging sentinel. " Who comes there ?" — " Friends without the counter- sign — escaped prisoners from Salisbury," was the an- swer. "All right, boys ; glad to see you," again awoke the silence ; and I walked within the lines that divided Freedom, Enlightenment, Loyalty, from Slavery, Bigotry, Treachery ; was once more an American citizen, emanci- pated, regenerated, and disenthralled. Still from habit I looked to the A¥est, whither the pole of my spirit so many anxious days had pointed, and I beheld there, as in the East, the coming dawn, typified in the dawn of a better and prouder day for the Republic after its purifying baptism of blood ; and saw the star that all along our toilsome march had beamed toward us as the harbinger of the glorious to-morrow, when the tide of War that has swept over the regenerated JSTation will have washed clean as polished amethyst the Slavery- stained record of ninety years. •5fr * * ^ * * % Some weeks after our arrival in the North, we learned that all kinds of stories were in circulation in the Peni- tentiary about our escape. One was that a Rebel Gen- eral had come for us in a carriage, and borne us away — quite after the manner of the good princes in the Fairy Tales ; another, that we had obtained Southern officers' uniforms and passed the guard ; a third, that we had bribed the sentinels ; a fourth, that we had tunneled out ; and I know not how many njore, all of them equally untrue. UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES. 431 As many of those stories came from head-quarters, no doubt they were believed by the Rebel officers there, who probably had no correct idea of our mode of exit. They seemed greatly agitated on the subject, and made every effort to recapture us ; sending out scouts to the East and West ; believing, I presume, that we had gone directly to N'ewbern or Morganton. "We lay over the first night — Tuesday — that we got out, and, on the third night after the commencement of the march, quitted the railway near Statesville ; and to one of those facts, perhaps, we owe our avoidance of the scouts, who, however, hardly attempted to travel after dark, as we did almost constantly. When the scouts returned to the Penitentiary, after their unsuccessful search, some of the Rebel officers, both in Richmond and Salisbury, declared we had been caught, and sent farther South ; while others swore we had been shot by guerrillas. They seemed very unwilling to admit that we had gotten through, even after the Richmond papers had published the fact ; and from the tenacity with which they had held Tke Tribune Correspondents, it was natural they should feel a little chagrined that we were fairly out of their clutches. With thanks to none but ourselves we did re-obtain our liberty, making the journey from Salisbury to Knox- ville in eighteen traveling days, being the best time on record by the over-the-mountains-pedestrian-prisoner-line — one of the least convenient and comfortable routes while in progress, but the most satisfactory and delight- ful after its completion, in the known World. 432 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. CHAPTER LV. THE SOUTH AND THE WAK. The Popular Idea of the South. — Its Fallaciousness. — Character of the South- erners. — Their Best Society. — Slavery and its Pernicious Influence. — The Real Cause of the Rebellion. — The Great Revolution in PubUc Opinion. — Dis- graceful History of the Past. — Our National Atonement. The popular idea of tlie South in tlie North is, or used to be, rather, as singular as erroneous. The South -was excessively idealized, even in the minds of persons little troubled with imagination. They believed the country lying the other side of Mason and Dixon' s line, espe- cially the Cotton States, the home of Refinement and Culture, Beauty and Luxury, Elegance and Ease. Few Northern travelers had journeyed to or dwelt in the farther sections of the South ; and those who had, had done so to little purpose, seeing with the eyes of people among whom they went, rather than with their own. Southerners had gasconaded so persistently and per- petually about their sunny homes, their floral fields, their orange groves, their statue-bordered walks, their sparkling fountains, and their palatial residences, with many other highly colored phrases that might have dropped out of Claude Melnotte' s sophomorical descrip- tion of the Lake of Como, that those who heard and read what they said, actually believed them literally. THE SOUTH AXD THE WAE. 433 Northerners, living in a region comparatively unfertile, to loe sure, but cultivated and useful, productive and picturesque far beyond that of their rodomontadic neighbors, really began to think, even came to the set- tled conviction, that they were little blessed ; that their school-houses and academies and daily newspapers and galleries of art went for nothing, brought in juxtaposi- tion with the sandy cotton and uuAvholesome rice-fields, the miasmatic marshes and muddy lagunes of the Gulf States. They knew there were fine men and lovable women among the hills of New England and on the prairies of the great West ; but the most exquisite gentlemen and the most charming ladies must be sought in the Southern plantations. Marvelous mistake, extraordinary delusion ! The hun- 1 dreds of thousands of our soldiers who have "invaded" i Dixie have had ample opportunities to undeceive them- 1 selves since the War, They have found out, what thel unbiased and observing found out long before, that the South is a large sham ; that the beauty of its scenery, ^ the generosity of its people, the splendor of its homes, \ the luxury of its surroundings, exist only in the imagin- ^ ation ; that negroes and indolence, swagger and igno- '^ ranee, are the poor bits of glass which have assumed such attractive forms in the kaleidoscope of Fancy. Of course there are a few genuine gentlemen and ladies ^ i in the South — or were at least, before the War — who are ''^ such in spite, not on account of the peculiar institution ; whom even that great wrong and unnatural condition ^ have not blunted or brutalized. 434 FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. But as for tlie many, wliat are they ? Uneducated, coarse, ignorant, vulgar people, wlio liave no idea of comf(frt or convenience ; but live in wretched cabins, on pork, corn-bread, and hominy, thanking God they are not negroes, but having no conception of a higher or worthier existence. Even the oligarchs, the privileged few, who hold slaves, and rule the whites as thoroughly, though in a different way, as they do their human chattels, have little to boast of. They have wealth and education, generally. They have expanded their area of observation. They have been in the N"orth, and sometimes in Europe. They have learned there is a World outside of plantation limits and negro quarters. They are as broad, perhaps, as men can be who are born, and reared, and pass their lives in the midst of Slavery and its narrowing and blighting influences. Yet, their best Civilization is of a mediaeval character. Compared to the free North, they are a half a century behind the age. They are semi-barbarians. Their gen- erosity is carelessness ; their hospitality, vanity ; their frankness a lack of self-discipline ; tlieir bravery phys- ical rather than mental, and fostered by a false stand- _^ard of honor and a pernicious notion of chivalry. The virtues that appertain to them are the virtues of an imperfectly developed race, and peculiar to their form of society. They are self-loving to a degree of morbidity ; amiable and anxious to be agreeable while they are Avhee- dled and flattered ; but impatient of contradiction and restraint, and violent, unjust, and cruel when opposed or THE SOUTH AND THE WAR. 435 thwarted, even 'by those they have assumed to regard as their dearest friends. They are a little more than intelligent TDarl)arians, the "best of them ; nor is it strange, when we reflect that they are ever exposed to the baleful influences of Slavery. What can be expected of men who found their ideas of superiority upon their elevation above an ignorant, persecuted, servile race, who are in the habit of beat- ing, or seeing beaten, men, women, and children ; of in- dulging their basest passions with the unfortunate females who dare not oppose their desires ; and in whose embraces they degrade themselves even more than the sable partners of their lust. ^ Respecting the mode of living, how unwise they are ! They have profusion, but not proj)riety ; liberality, but not taste ; abundance, but not fineness. Nothing is com- plete with them. Elegance and fitness are things un- known, and aught like harmony is ignored. Their dwellings, grounds, furniture, and table show this. There is ever somewhat lacking in one place, and some- what of excess in another. Nothing is finished ; nothing is repaired. The trail of the negro is over them all. They imbibe all the defects of the slaves, with none of their virtues. They seem indeed to be ruled, rather than the ruling race, since they take hue, and tone, and habit, from their dusky bondsmen. They have their deceitful- ness, indolence, animalism, and even their accent. On them, and their section, the negro is indelibly stamped, and all their interests, purposes, and performan- ces are made subservient to the peculiar institution. It is that which has mildewed the South, which has drained 436 FOUR YEARS m SECESSIA. the spirit of progress, and has made her the disloyal, purhlind, violent wrong-doer she long ago l)ecanie, and which generated in her the culminating folly and crime of Secession. I remember, when the War first broke out, a Virginian of education and wealth, and a slaveholder in Missouri, but still a Unionist, who, deprecating the Rebellion, told me how, in that State, every interest had been made sub- servient to Slavery. When the thinking and progressive people wanted schools, the Pro- Slavery party opposed the measure, because, if they had schools, they must have teachers, ^d teachers must be brought from the Abolition Free States. When manufactures were advocated in Missouri, they were decried, because the operatives must be Northern- ers, and haters of the peculiar institution. Railways were unpopular with the men who afterward blossomed into Secessionists, for the reason that the roads would furnish facilities to fugitive slaves for escape. So, through and for Slavery, every measure for the development and prosperity of the State was discour- aged, misrepresented, and counteracted as far as possible, and all advocates of reform and advancement denounced as Abolitionists. The history of Missouri has been the history of every other Southern State, except that the feeling of opposition and the determination to stagnancy have been augmented in the Cotton regions. Slavery, from the beginning, has been the curse of the Republic, and the sole cause that threatened its dissolu- THE SOUTH AND THE WAE. 437 tion. It is, and always was, this very War in a state of suppression. No one need say that the Rebellion has proved the impracticability of self-government. It has merely proved that two irreconcilable elements — two utterly different systems of labor, engendering opposite customs and conditions of society — must sooner or later clash, and struggle with each other for the mastery. All the talk and theories in the Rebel papers about the difference, of race — about the Cavaliers and Puritans — in the early settlers of Southern and Northern States, is the merest gallimatia. The" only difference there is between the two sections has been made by Slavery. And as to the War, it was certain to come. Every possible effort was made to stave it off— as the History of our compromises — compromises too often of principle with temporary interest — abundantly shows ; but human endeavor was useless. The cause lay deeper than it was thought, and could not be reached by public enactments or plausible harangues. Our forefathers, for mere expediency, had compromised with a palpable injustice, a grievous wrong ; and we were compelled to pay the penalty. They, no doubt, regarded Slavery as a temporary thing, which would be abrogated in the South, as it was in the North, after a few years. They did not see — nor could any one then have seen — what an immense interest cotton would become, through the invention of the cotton-gin, and how millions of people would be made insane, by consulting what they conceived to be their pecuniary advantages. To Slavery — and it alone — we may justly ascribe aU 438 rOUR YEARS IX SECESSIA. the calamities of tlie Nation, all the horrors of this War. ^ The loyal people did not perceive this at first ; l^nt now their minds have been illumined by remorselessly logical events and indubitable facts. Hence they have grown Abolitionists ; not so much, I am sorry to say, out of their sympathy with the negroes, as out of a cold and calm consideration that, inasmuch as Slavery generated the Kebellion, there never can be a permanent peace, so long as any part of the territory embraced within the United States is cursed with the power to hold human beings in bondage. ^ So feeling and believing, they have determined to have no more of it, and they have done wisely. Very useless and idle is it, therefore, to speculate on the immediate causes of the War. Mr. Lincoln's election was made the pretext by the South ; but if the advocates of State Rights had not had that pretext, they would have found another. They had remained in the Union so long as they held the political power. When they lost it — when they saw the progress of the Anti- Slavery sentiment had been such that they never could hope to regain what had slipped away from them, they resolved to destroy the Government they could no longer control. They tried it, and they have destroyed — themselves. What a wonderful revolution has taken place in public opinion in a few years ! Few of my readers, I fancy, who do not remember when they would have felt grossly insulted if they had been called "Abolitionists." But, THE SOUTH AND THE WAR. 439 I opine, there are still fewer at present who are not proud to know that they are Abolitionists. That once huge bugbear has lost its power to frighten. Men are no longer children, to be terrified by a word. The term of odium has become an expression of praise ; and men of this age and generation will be proud to say, in the future : "I was an Abolitionist in the days of the great Rebellion." The scales have but begun to fall from the eyes of the people. They have just commenced to perceive the anomaly, the anachronism, the enormity and crime of Slavery. "Tlie land of the free and the home of the brave," shouted on every possible occasion, for half a century, and containing the most bitter satire on the in- stitutions of the country, means something at last ; and an American can sing it now without a shame. Unborn generations will wonder at the fact that the model Republic, for nearly a century, not only permitted Slavery, but went down on its knees before the Slave power, and prayed for a deeper humiliation. Whose cheek does not tingle when he thinks for how long a time the North succumbed to the South ; how long its representatives in Congress were insulted, bullied, and even assaulted, for words spoken in debate ; how long its Press played the sycophant, and groveled in the dust that the Slave State leaders shook with disgust from their feet ? No history of a great Nation is more disgraceful than ours was for the twenty-five years previous to the War. Thank Heaven ! it will never be repeated, and that we bore all the ignominy and shame to preserve the Repub- 440 FOUE YEARS IN SECESSIA. lie and tlie Constitution as we received them from those we had been taught to honor as something more than mortal. If we were too conservative and reverential, it was only natural. When the first gun from Sumter sounded, our false scruples were scattered. We all became icono- clasts. Right then began to rule over Precedent, and Justice grew stronger than Authority. We have atoned for the errors of the Past by the sacrifices of the Present. We have liidden the fatal blunder of our ancestors beliind the glory of our struggle for a people degraded and enslaved. We have lifted the age of romance and Chivalry to a hight it never knew, from the time of Coeur de Lion to Francis I., by a long, obstinate, unyielding war, not for an idea only, but for humanity and freedom, for the very principle that underlies the foundations of our Repub- lic. THE FUTURE OF THE SOUTH. 441 CHAPTER LYI. THE FUTUEE OF THE SOUTH. Its Un^Ieveloped Eesources. — Its "Wealtliy Planters and the Northern Farmers. — Slave Labor and its Defects. — The Blighting EflFect of the Peculiar Institution. — Contrast between the Free and Slave States. — Occupation of Secessia by the Yankees. — The Changes Consequent Thereupon. — The Much-Yexed Negro Question. — The Rights of the Freedman. In the preceding chapter, I have spoken of the un- developed resources of the South ; of the uncomfortable manner of living there ; of the lack of accommodation and ease among the people ; wliich all who have traveled in what has since the War received the name of Secessia must have observed. The people were contented enough, with their slender means and small resources, because they had no higher ideas of living ; because they had not, to any extent, obtained a loftier standard from communication with the North. The prosperous and educated Southerners, having visited our leading cities and principal watering-places, of course learned something ; and their knowledge was made apparent by the improved order of architecture and laying- out of grounds which began to reveal them- selves, particularly a few years before the Rebellion. 442 FOUR YEAES IN SECESSIA. Yet, as I have remarked, there was almost always a lack of completeness and taste, even in the houses of the wealthiest planters — a kind of barbaric profusion without fitness, a sort of ostentation, without a just adaptation of means to tlie end. A species of coarseness ran through their mode of living ; and one Avitnessed, in the dwellings of the cotton ■ lords and sugar barons, less genuine comfort and elegance than could be found in the far less pretentious homes of New England, New York, or Ohio farmers. All the labor was performed by negroes, and conse- 'quently but half done. No reforms were introduced, and no changes made. All the improved methods of agriculture, the new implements, the advantageous inno- vations of the North, were neglected at the South, and, where they were known, were regarded suspiciously, as the result of Yankee ideas, and therefore not to be adopted. If patent plows, reapers, thrashing-machines, or what not were introduced at the South, they soon got out of order, on account of the ignorance of the slaves, and were of course never repaired. The South did very little, until compelled by necessity, to establish manufactures of any kind, because they de- pended wholly upon the inventive genius and extra- ordinary energy of the "Yankees." The South was purely agricultural, and they believed they could do better by raising cotton, rice, tobacco, and sugar, than by attempting to make mills, engines, or locomotives. They could not summon practical energy enough to THE FUTURE OF THE SOUTH. 443 furnisli for themselves what they needed, and they lacked the inventive faculty almost altogether. They had untold wealth at their very doors, in coal, iron, lead, and other minerals ; yet in very few of their States were the mines worked to any extent. Whatever passed into their possession seemed affected Iby the mildew of Slavery. A splendid carriage, pur- chased l)y a planter in the North, would very soon lose its polish and freshness, very probably a hub, and two or three spokes ; and these would hardly be replaced. A tine set of harness would soon part company with some of its buckles, which would be supplied with a broken twig and a tow string. A beautiful span of horses, all symmetry, mettle, and sleekness, would, in a few weeks after exchanging owners, appear rough, lean, and broken down. Babiecas would be transformed into Rosinantes, almost as suddenly as Cinderella's mice into prancing steeds. A grand piano required but a brief sojourn in a Southern home, to be deprived of its gloss and its tone, and mayhap one of its legs. And so with every thing else. Importation from the North to the South proved destructive to fine qualities, material as well as mental. Unremunerated compulsory labor manifested itself in every part of the South, in the way of stupidity, blun- ders, and inexcusable carelessness. Who that has ever steamed down the river, between Kentucky and Ohio, needed to be told which State was free, and which was Slave ? On one bank, neat, comfort- 29 444 FOUR YEARS IN SECESSIA. able dwellings and stirring farms looked across tlie beau- tiful river at poor cabins or dilapidated frame tenements, with uncleared fields, partially tilled, as if they won- dered at the unfinished appearance of their opposite neighbors. In descending the Mississippi, low, bleak, and barren are the shores of the mighty stream, with their unvarying sand and their ghastly cotton-woods ! Even after reach- ing the coast country below Baton Rouge, the much- talked-of beauty disappoints him sorely. It is an agree- able contrast to what met his eye above, and to that fact I have always attributed the exaggerated notion of the delightfulness of the Louisiana coast. When the Rebellion is crushed ; when Slavery no longer blights the soil of the South ; when that section is settled, as it will be, by a new people, possessed of in- dustry, energy, and perseverance, how metamorphosed all that region will be ! The "barbarous Yankees" will supersede the chival- rous sons of the Cavaliers, and desert places will blossom like the rose. The mining and agricultural interests will be developed to their fullest, and wealth will be poured into the lap of the new-comers. Elegant villas, such as adorn the Hudson, will beam «out of handsome groves, and marble fountains will sparkle where turbid pools have stood poisoning the atmosphere, and difiusing fever and ague to all the country round. Factories, and school-houses, and graceful churches, will rise where cabins crumbled, and hay-ricks grew jnoldy in the pestilential air. THE FUTURE OF THE SOUTH. 445 The song of clieerful laborers will go gladly up to Heaven where the dusky Slave bent to his irksome toil beneath the overseer's lash. The South, in that not distant future, will be actualized into the ideal through which it has been seen. I perceive it now, fruitful and glorious because of its freedom; gathering the harvest of abundance after its long period of bondage has passed away forever. Then, indeed, will it be the sunny South — sunny with sweet associations and happy memories ; beautiful with peace and benison ; grand with its history of an emanci- pated race and a regenerated Republic. Very many of us have perplexed ourselves with the question, so often asked me while a prisoner. What will we do with the negroes? What will we do with the Rebels? is the first and most important interrogatory. That once settled — and it seems rapidly settling — the other will arrange itself in due season, as do all other things, by the force of Circumstance and the consequence of Universal Law. N'othing, however, let me remark, seems more incon- sistent and irrational than the supposition that the negroes, who have for generations raised the products of the South, while enslaved, will be unable to do so when emancipated. The theory of the necessity for compulsory labor is a false one. There is no human creature living, black or white, who can not work as well, and far better, when free than when in bonds ; when he has the genuine instincts of manhood in his breast, in place of the haunting and hope- I 446 rOUE YEARS IN" SECESSIA. less conviction of perpetual slavery ; wlien he is cheered with a golden future instead of "being burdened Tvith a rayless past. To declare the contrary is the worst form of doubt, the darkest shade of disbelief, the repudiation of Nature and her generous promptings. Whatever the fate of the Rebels, the land they once possessed will not be destroyed ; and the freedmen can certainly till, with their unshackled hands, the soil they have watered with their scalding tears and bloody sweat. The experiment will doubtless be tried, and it will be proved that the yield of rice and tobacco, and sugar and cotton, under the new system, will be far greater than under the old and degrading one. The climate of the South is favorable and congenial to the negro. "Why should he not remain there if he so elects ? Let him, in the name of justice and humanity, reap something of the harvest for which he has suffered and fought, has bled and died ! The true principle of a free Government is to give every man a chance, whatever his station or antecedents. That we will give to the negro, as his right. No bugbear about negro equality will deter the people from meting out to the emancipated slave the long-demanded jus- tice of making to him that late atonement for what the country has compelled him to endure. The man who fears the African will become his equal, must have a shuddering conviction within that he merely CONCLUSION. 447 needs an opportunity to become such. Away with the base apprehension ! The World was given to us all, to do the best work of which we are capable ; to try for its rewards ; to make endeavors for its happiness. Unworthy and ungenerous is he who asks what he is unwilling another should have. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, are our natural rights, the African'' s as well as the Caucasian' s ; and I, for one, welcome the negro on the threshold of his new career, and bid him Grod speed in whatever he is able honestly to obtain ! CONCLUSION. While this volume has been in press, and the proof- sheets has been undergoing revision, the great Rebellion has been hastening to its close, and may now be consid- ered fairly ended. Few weeks in ancient or modern times have been more eventful, more prolific of History than those of April and May, 1865. When the first chapters of this book, which were very irregularly furnished, were written, the Rebellion still looked extremely formidable, and caused very grave doubts whether it might not survive the year, and linger on until the returning spring ; whether thousands of lives 448 POUR YEAES m SECESSIA. might not be reC[iiired for sacrifice upon tlie altar of the Republic before the colossal insurrection was completely crushed. Thanks to Fortune, those days of darkness and anxiety and doubt have gone forever. The dawn has come at last. After tliat long and fearful night, shaken with tempest, and pregnant with terror, watched with throbbing hearts and suspended breath by every loyal American, the sun of Freedom has re-arisen, and its glory is streaming over a regenerated Land. Within a few weeks, Richmond, the key-stone of the arch of the bastard " Confederacy," has crumbled; Lee, the head and front of traitorous opposition, has surren- dered, and Johnston, and Taylor, and others of less im- portance, have imitated his example through force of necessity. Amid all the radiance of victory there was a sudden eclipse. In the highest hour of rejoicing a chill was struck to every gladdened heart. The Chief of the Nation, the great and good man who had steadily and conscientiously, and skillfully guided the Country through the terrible trial of battle, fell a mar- tyr to Freedom by the hand of an assassin, a desperate, but wretched tool in the hands of his masters in treason and in crime. He fell, but not an hour too soon for his glory : his cup of honor was full : his immortality was determined ; and if it had not been, the explosion of the murderous pistol would have rendered it secure. While the Republic still weeps, the death of the assas- sin, and the capture of the arch traitor (Jefferson Davis), are announced. There seems a destiny in all the closing CONCLUSION. 449 scenes of the grand drama which for four thrilling years has kept possession of the American stage, and held all civilized N'ations in painful suspense. It appears as if no relic of the Rel)ellion were fated to escape ; as if no part of the vast crime against Nature and Liberty were to be left unanswered for ; as if all the vile falsehoods of the enemy were to be exposed beyond capacity to doubt, and his braggart insolence and ridicu- lous swagger forever humbled in the dust. What a bitter mortification it must be to the Southern- ers who for fifty years have filled the air with their vaporings, and disgusted the World with their assump- tions ; who have arrogantly claimed superiority of race and civilization ; who have heaped all manner of abuse upon the Free States and their citizens ; to know and feel that they have been completely defeated, utterly subju- gated by the stout hands and brave hearts of the people they had affected to despise ! Where now is all that rant about the impossibility of conquering eight millions of free people born on horse- back, and destined to rule ? Where is the last ditch ? Where are all the men, women, and children who were to die so delightedly and so melo-dramatically before they would submit to the ' ' Yankee' ' yoke ? Tell me, gentle shepherd ; tell me where ! Very glad ought we of the loyal North to be, that we are not Rebels ; that we are this day spared the galling consciousness that we owe our wretched lives to the mag- nanimity of the Nation we have sought to destroy. I should think our foes would seek some remote corner of the* world and hide themselves from the public gaze, and 450 rOUK YEARS IN SECESSIA. from private scorn ; that they would beg the earth to swallow, and the mountains to cover them. Never was so vast a bubble as that of the pseudo Chiv- alry pricked before ; never was such pompous assump- tion so effectually extinguished ; never was such lofty arrogance so deeply humiliated. Give the Rebels their wish at this final hour — all but the prominent leaders — at least, and leave them alone. If they do not go and hang themselves — and they wont by any means — they are as devoid of sensibility and a sense of fitness as they are of chivalry and shame. The end of the War has been obtained. Tlie Republic has fulltiUed its destiny. Slavery, the plague-spot upon the fair body of our Country, is dead, and no trumpet, though it were an angel' s, can awake it to resurrection. America for the first time is trulj?- free. For the first time her people can sing her national songs without a blush; and the poorest of her sons can declare: "I am an American !" with, not uncovered head, but with mein erect, and a glow of purest satisfaction before the proudest potentates of the admiring world. THE END,