Part 13 (2/2)

After we were seated in the cars, we found in some Richmond papers the intelligence that ”a large number of engine-thieves, bridge-burners, murderers, robbers, and traitors will leave this morning for the United States,” also congratulating themselves on the riddance. Our congratulations were not less fervid!

We glided slowly along, pa.s.sing fortifications and rifle-pits, till we arrived at Petersburg; then onward to City Point, the place of general exchange. Here, for the first time in eleven months, we saw the ”flag of the free,” floating in proud beauty from the truce-boat ”State of Maine.” It was a glad sight! Her undulating stars were fairer to us than the brightest constellations that ever sparkled in the azure fields above.

The grossest frauds are often practised by the unscrupulous secessionists in these exchanges. I will give a case that occurred at this time.

A rebel soldier was wounded in the head at the first battle of Mana.s.sas. It affected his brain, and disordered his intellect, so that even after he had recovered physically, he was mentally unable to perform the duties of a soldier. He was confined a short time in Castle Thunder, and then sent to Camp Lee, to try him again. But he was no better than before, and they gave up the attempt in despair. Then they exchanged him to us, and got a sound man in his place!

When the boat rounded out from the sh.o.r.e on its homeward way, our joy knew no bounds. It seemed as if we had awakened from a hideous nightmare dream to find that all its shapes of horror and grinning fiends had pa.s.sed away, and left us standing in the free sunlight once more. Our hearts beat glad music to the thresh of the wheels on the water, knowing that each ponderous stroke was placing a greater distance between us and our hated enemies.

Then, too, the happy welcome with which we were greeted; and the good cheer, so different from our miserable prison fare, and the kind faces, smiling all around, showed in living colors that we were freemen again.

Down the river we went, pa.s.sing the historic ground of the James, as in a delirious dream of rapture! We were scarcely conscious of pa.s.sing events. No emotion on earth has the same sweep and intensity as the wild, throbbing sensations that rush thick and fast through the bosom of the liberated captive!

On we went-reached the gunboats that ply up and down the river, like giant sentinels, guarding the avenue to rebellion-reached the river's mouth, pa.s.sed onward up the bay to Was.h.i.+ngton! As we came in sight, we thronged tumultuously to the vessel's side, and bent eager, loving eyes on the snowy marble front, and white towering steeple of our nation's Capitol.

On our arrival, we were requested by the Secretary of War to give our depositions before Hon. Joseph Holt, Judge Advocate General, that the world at large might know on the surest foundation the truth of our narrative. We were received by the Judge himself, and Major-General Hitchc.o.c.k, who was present, with the most marked cordiality. This interview was merely a friendly one, and was pa.s.sed in familiar conversation.

On our second visit, we found a justice of the peace in waiting to administer the necessary oath, and also a phonographer to write our testimony. We were examined separately, and the result published officially in the Army and Naval Gazette, and also in most of the newspapers of the day.

We then called on the Secretary of War, accompanied by our kind friends, Major-General Hitchc.o.c.k and J. C. Wetmore, Ohio State Agent. Generals Sigel and Stahl, with many other distinguished personages, were in waiting, but we were given the preference, and at once admitted.

The Secretary conversed with us most affably for some time. Then going into another room, he brought out six medals, (see engraving-all are similar,) and presented them to us, saying that they were the first ever given to private soldiers. Jacob Parrott, the boy who endured the terrible beating, received, as he well deserved, the first one.

He next presented us with one hundred dollars each, and ordered all arrearages to be paid, and the money and the value of the arms taken from us to be refunded.

This was not all. He requested Governor Todd to promote each of us to first lieutenants in the Ohio troops; and, if he failed to do so, promised to give us that grade in the regular army. We then received furloughs to visit our homes, and left his presence profoundly convinced that ”republics are” not always ”ungrateful.”

We were then escorted by our friends to the Executive mansion, and had a most pleasing interview with our n.o.ble President. His kindness was equal to that of the Secretary. After relating to him some incidents of prison experience, and receiving his sympathizing comments, we took our leave.

And now-safe in a land of freedom-with the consciousness of having performed our duty-surrounded by fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, wives and children, who had long mourned us as dead-our dangers past, and our sufferings rewarded-I drop the vail.

The End.

Footnotes

[1] One of these I noticed only very lately.

[2] The description of places and distances given in the preceding chapter, was mostly obtained from Confederates, who afterward visited and talked with us.

[3] The rebels thought he was counterfeiting blindness, but I believe it was real.

[4] A refugee from the State of Georgia, now in this city, who witnessed the execution, but, from peculiar circ.u.mstances, does not make his name public, corroborates this statement, and adds, that these brave men were surrounded by three or four hundred guerillas and partisan rangers, as they called themselves, who disputed for the honor of being the executioners. The matter was settled by the party taking a vote, when twelve were selected as the favored ones. The rebel soldiers who perpetrated this outrageous murder, spent the rest of the day in spreeing and jollification, many of them writing to their friends at home an account of the pleasure they felt in a.s.sisting in the hanging of ”seven blue-bellies,” as they termed the Union soldiers.-Note from a Pamphlet ent.i.tled ”Ohio Boys in Dixie,” published in New York in April, 1863.

[5] In one of these papers I noticed a description of two Federal officers who had escaped from Macon, Georgia. It was Captain Geer, with whom I have lectured in several places since my return, and his comrade, Lieutenant Collins. Their adventures are recorded in a book called ”Beyond the Lines.”

[6] All our friends at home believed we were executed. My obituary notice was published in our county paper, and the Rev. Alexander Clark was invited to preach my funeral sermon, which providential circ.u.mstances alone prevented.

<script>