Part 16 (1/2)

For a considerable time the whole of our party took turns in the leaders.h.i.+p of our devotions, but finally this work devolved on the writer, and, after some months, the guards and other prisoners began to call me the ”preacher,” though, as yet, I was a member of no church, unless our prison band can be dignified by that t.i.tle.

Two Southern ministers visited us at this period. The first requested permission of the guard, and was allowed to enter with the express provision that his conversation should be confined to religious topics.

His name was Scott, but I am not sure what denomination he belonged to, and his conversation gave no clue. His first question did not contribute to a good understanding. He asked how we could be so wicked as to enter the Federal army, to fight against the Southern people and free their negroes? We were sorry enough about many things, but had not yet repented of those particular sins, and therefore answered a little tartly, by asking how he and his friends could be so wicked as to rebel against a good government? A heated dispute followed. Our visitor talked so loudly and vehemently that the officer of the guard entered and told him that he ”had given those men religious counsel enough for one time and had better leave.” He never came again, and we were not sorry.

Our jailer, Mr. Turner, had a very kindly feeling towards us, and hearing us so often singing and praying, asked if we would not like to talk with a minister. Knowing that ministers were not all alike, we a.s.sented. Rev. George G. N. MacDonell, of the M. E. Church South, then visited us. We were glad to see him, and a very profitable conversation took place. A little offence was occasioned by his first prayer, in which he pet.i.tioned that our lives might be spared, if consistent with _the interests of the Confederacy_. But we made no comment, and were richly rewarded for our complacency. He not only gave us Christian sympathy and counsel above all value, but on leaving sent us some excellent books. When the first lot of books was finished--of which we took the best of care, reading most of them aloud--we returned them, and received others,--continuing the process of borrowing until we had perused nearly the whole of the good man's library. Only those who know what a terrible trial it is to pa.s.s day after day with no definite employment, no company, and no means of diverting thought from one never-ending round, can form any idea of the great boon thus bestowed upon us. The Christian kindness and disinterested benevolence of this minister will never be forgotten. But even these books were not sufficient. I sold my vest--not expecting to live until cold weather--and my pocket-book,--which my captors had left when they took all its contents,--and with the proceeds the jailer bought me three little books--all gems,--”Paradise Lost,” ”Pilgrim's Progress,” and Pollok's ”Course of Time.” These I deliberately set to work to memorize.

It was a pleasant and profitable employment, helping very much to shorten those interminable days.

Our room was of greater size than that in Chattanooga; the windows larger, and our number reduced; yet the heat was fearfully oppressive.

One of the party, Mark Wood, was very sick. He had been prostrated with fever for nearly a month, and at this time his life was despaired of.

This was not thought by the others to be any great misfortune to him, and they accordingly administered consolation in a style worthy the best of Job's friends. They would say, ”Now, Wood, I wouldn't try to get well, if I were in your place. They will only hang you if you do. Better try to die and save them the trouble.” Wood, however, did not relish this counsel, and, becoming contrary, he recovered, ”just for spite,” as he often declared.

The black waiters of the prison were very friendly. They a.s.sisted us by every means in their power, and seemed willing to take any personal risk on our behalf. It was not long before they found that we desired few things so much as to read the news, and they tasked their ingenuity to gratify us. Newspapers were prohibited, as they had not been at Knoxville. But the waiters would watch until the jailer or some of the guard had finished reading a paper and laid it down, when they would slyly purloin it, put it into the bottom of the pan in which our food was brought, and thus hand it to us unsuspected. It had to be returned in the same way to avoid suspicion. Our ministerial friend also, as he acquired confidence in us, gave us reason to think that he was not so much devoted to the Confederacy as his first prayer (made in hearing of the guard) indicated. He asked permission of the jailer to give us some old files of religious papers, and sent in a bundle weekly, or oftener.

They were acceptable, but their value greatly increased when we found that an old religious paper might have a new daily folded carefully inside! These acts of friends.h.i.+p were deeply grateful to us, and lightened many a weary hour.

One morning our jailer came to our door and asked if we knew John Wollam. We were startled, and hesitated to answer. For three weeks we had heard nothing of Wollam, and hoped that one member of our devoted band had escaped. Now we knew that the jailer was in possession of some news, and while we burned to hear it, we feared the possibility of doing Wollam an injury by acknowledging the acquaintance. But while we deliberated John himself came up, and put an end to our doubts by greeting us heartily. The door was unlocked, and he entered. All the survivors of our party were now together, as those who had been separated from us at Chattanooga were put into our room immediately after the execution of our comrades. Our number, including Captain Fry, who remained in our room, was fifteen.

The first thing in order, when left alone, was for John to tell us all his adventures from the time he and Andrews had broken out of the Chattanooga dungeon. He was fired upon while still suspended in the air by the blankets upon which he was descending, but fortunately the hands of the guards were too unsteady to inflict any injury. He succeeded in getting safely to the ground, and then out of the prison-yard and through the guard-line.

In his efforts to escape Wollam displayed qualities which would have done credit to an Indian. A few moments' running brought him down to the river-side in advance of all pursuers. Finding no means of crossing, the brilliant thought struck him of making his enemies believe he had crossed. This idea was instantly acted on. He threw off his coat and vest, dropping them on the bank of the river, and then walked a few rods in the water to throw any hounds that might be following off his track.

He next slipped quietly back and hid in a dense thicket of canes and rushes. He heard his pursuers on the bank above him, and all around, talking of their various plans. At last they found the clothes, and at once concluded that he had taken to the river. Accordingly they ferried the blood-hounds to the other side, and searched for the place of his exit from the water. As might be expected, the dogs were unable to find that, and after a due time spent in consultation, the Confederates concluded that he had been drowned and gave over the search.

Wollam spent the day in great anxiety, but night gave him the opportunity of leaving his hiding-place. He made his way cautiously down the river on the Chattanooga side for some miles. At length he found a canoe, in which he drifted down the stream by night, while hiding it and himself in the bushes by day. On two occasions he would have been saved if he had only known it. General Mitchel had captured a steamboat and fitted it up as a cruiser, with which he patrolled the river as far as his lines extended. In his night-voyaging Wollam pa.s.sed this extemporized gunboat twice, but fearing that it was some rebel craft, he crept quietly by in the shadow of the sh.o.r.e without discovery.

At length he felt sure that he was inside the Union lines, and beyond the probable danger of capture, and therefore ventured boldly forward in the daytime. This was a fatal mistake. The danger of capture is never so great as in the debatable ground between two armies, where both exercise their utmost vigilance. This boundary in most cases is also a s.h.i.+fting one. It was so in this instance. A band of rebel cavalry on the sh.o.r.e saw the lonely voyager, and, riding on ahead, procured a boat and came out to meet him. He was unable to escape, and thus the poor fellow was captured on the very brink of safety. As usual, he tried to persuade them that he was a Confederate, but unfortunately a certain Lieutenant Edwards, who had a.s.sisted in his previous capture, happened to be present, and at once recognized him by his bold and reckless bearing. He was then taken to join us at Atlanta.

Our provisions here became worse and less, until the starvation point was very nearly reached. Constant hunger was one of the torments of our life. We only received a very small fragment of half-baked corn-bread, without salt, and a morsel of pork,--the latter always spoiled, and frequently covered with maggots. But none of it was wasted! Several had very little appet.i.te, because of malarial or intermittent fever. The allowance of _such_ food was abundant for these, but the others ate all that the sick spared. Many a Barmecide feast was spread by the description of rich dainties that would be enjoyed if ”at home” once more; and what was even worse, the same banquets would be spread in dreams, from which the tantalized sleepers awoke more hungry and miserable than ever. I am not sure that the aching head and burning fever were more painful than the constant pangs of unsatisfied hunger.

However, I need not linger over these details. In the mere matter of starving I presume we suffered no more than thousands of our fellow-soldiers in Andersonville and other prisons. Alfred Wilson, whose iron const.i.tution bore up well under all hards.h.i.+ps, and whose appet.i.te was always good enough for all the rations of every kind he could get, felt these privations most keenly. He says of the food that it was ”almost enough to convulse the stomach of a hungry dog. I have found by experience, and I think I will be corroborated by all the men who have been in rebel prisons and have suffered the protracted pangs of hunger and starvation, that man, when forced to it, is as ravenous, reckless, unreasonable, and brutish in his appet.i.te as the lowest order of animal creation.” In other prisons, it was not uncommon for the inmates to fight over their miserable allowance; but our common sympathy and discipline were so strong that few disputes arose, and these were quickly settled by the general voice. The religious influence that had grown up in our midst also tended powerfully to prevent any interference of the stronger with the rights of the weaker.

Indeed, the completeness of our voluntary discipline and the systematic manner in which we employed our time was little less than marvellous. To sleep was always in order, when possible, but the disposal of waking hours was not left to the will of each person. The only game permitted was that of checkers or drafts, and over the rude board carved on the floor eager players bent during all the hours allotted to amus.e.m.e.nt.

Then we had a couple of hours daily for debating, and discussed questions of every kind. No little ingenuity and skill were thus exercised. Often great political questions occupied our attention, and evoked real and strong differences of opinion. Strange as it may seem, there were but two of us--Buffum and myself--who avowed ourselves out and out abolitionists. The name had not yet lost all its reproach, but we held our own in argument, especially when we pointed out the natural result of slavery in making men barbarous and inhuman even to whites, as ill.u.s.trated in our condition. _That_ argument never failed to give us the advantage!

We also set aside two hours in the forenoon and two in the afternoon for reading. During this time not so much as a whisper was permitted, and few schools have kept better discipline. Any one not wis.h.i.+ng to read was permitted to sleep or occupy himself in any quiet manner. Frequently some one was selected to read aloud for a time, but this only took place by general consent, that those who wished to read silently might be undisturbed. The extraordinary character of these exercises will be better appreciated when it is remembered that we had no ”light reading,”

but mainly theological works, with a few volumes of travels, biography, and poetry,--just what the good minister's library could furnish, for we read everything we could get. The Bible was not forgotten. When the supply of books ran short, we resorted to our memories. All the prominent incidents of our lives had been told in our terribly close a.s.sociation, and we next began to repeat for the common benefit the books we had read so far as we could remember them. One night about dark I began to tell something about a weird book I had read a few months previously. A few questions elicited fuller detail, and it was after midnight before the story was finished. Buffum, especially, was so deeply impressed that when released he took the earliest opportunity of getting and reading the volume, but he gave me a great compliment by saying that the original was not half so good as the copy. The changed circ.u.mstances, perhaps, made a more natural, if less flattering, explanation of his diminished interest. We also had our regular hours for gymnastic exercise,--wrestling, boxing, acrobatic feats, etc. One of our party, Hawkins, having once been connected with a circus, now trained us in all the exercises that our enfeebled condition and close quarters permitted. Much of the health and vigor that we retained during so long an imprisonment was due to our systematic and diversified employments.

This careful division of time, and endeavor after constant employment, was, doubtless, of great advantage, but it could not change the fact that we were close prisoners in a stifling room, and far from our home.

Those summer days, as month after month glided away, were terribly long and oppressive. The tediousness and vain longing for action pressed upon us more and more closely. We fought the dreadful weight with all the strength of our wills, but even will-power grew feebler. The engineer Brown, who was one of the most restless of mortals, all nerve and fire in action, capable of enduring tremendous hards.h.i.+p if it were only of an active character, would pace the floor back and forth like a caged tiger; when this, too, grew unendurable, he would stop at the door, shake its woven iron bars till they rang again, and say in the most piteous tones (of course, meant only for _us_ to hear), ”Oh, kind sir, please let me out! I want to go home!” The feeling he expressed was shared by all. Never before could I realize the full value of liberty and the horror of confinement. In previous prisons the novelty of our situation, the frequent removals, the painful excitement of trials, prevented the blank monotony of imprisonment from settling down upon us as it did here, after the first few weeks of our stay in Atlanta rolled by, and no whisper regarding our probable fate reached us. It was like the stillness and death that brood over the Dead Sea!

We would sit at the windows in the sultry noon and look out through the bars at the free birds as they flew past, seemingly so full of joyous life, and foolishly wish that we were birds, that we, too, might fly far away and be free.

At long intervals, two of us at a time would be permitted to go down into the jail-yard to do some was.h.i.+ng for ourselves and the party. This great privilege came round to me at last. It was then three months since I had stepped out of that prison room, and the un.o.bscured vision of open air and sky made it seem like another world. I remember looking up at the snowy clouds, my eyes dazzled by the unusual light, and wondering, as I gazed in admiration upon their beautiful and changing forms, whether beyond them lay a world of rest in which there were neither wars nor prisons. Oh, how I longed for freedom! to be where I could look up at the sky every day and go where I wished! Yet with the thought came a great fear. If I was ever removed from the pressure of immediate danger, and allowed to mingle in the interests and cares of the thronging world, might I not forget my prison-made vows and lose my claim to the world beyond the clouds and stars? Such a sense of weakness and helplessness came over me that I felt greatly relieved when, my task being done, I was conducted back to the dark and narrow prison room, where the contrast between freedom and bondage was less palpable!

All this time we hardly permitted ourselves to indulge a hope of getting home again. The friends we had known in happier days were separated from us by an impa.s.sable gulf; and when fancy called round us the loved scenes and friends at home, it was like treading upon forbidden ground.

But when the long day had dragged its hours away, when we were weary with fighting against weariness, the night removed every restraint, and for a few golden hours love and freedom were ours again.

Often in dreams have I seen the streets and buildings of my own town rise before me, and have felt a thrilling pleasure in contemplating each feature of the landscape around as I wended my way in fancy towards the old log cabin forever consecrated by affection. But the waking from such dreams of earthly paradise was sad beyond measure. The evening hour, when the burning heat had abated, and when we were settling to rest,--though it was on the bare floor, and without even a stone like that upon which Jacob pillowed his head,--was our happiest time. Then prayer and song and more cheerful conversation prepared us for rest and often for happy dreams. But the morning hours, when we wakened, hungry, sore, unrefreshed, with no food but our miserable bit of vile bread and spoiled meat, and a long day to look forward to,--these were always dreary. After prayers, and our apology for a breakfast, we grew more cheerful, and again took up the task of living.