<h3><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII.</SPAN></h3>
<div class="chapquot">
<div>
<p>Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil<br/>
Would not infect his reason?</p>
<p class="citation">Tempest.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="chapquot">
<div>
<p>When sorrows come, they come not single spies,<br/>
But in battalions.</p>
<p class="citation">Hamlet.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sidenote">The Captains Ordered Below.</div>
<p>On the 6th of July, an order came to our apartments for all the
captains to go down into a lower room. At this time, as usual, there
was constant talk about resuming the exchange. They went below with
light hearts, supposing they were about to be paroled and sent North.
Half an hour after, when the first one returned, his white, haggard
face showed that he had been through a trying scene.</p>
<p>After being drawn up in line, they were required to draw lots,
to select two of their number for execution, in retaliation for
two Rebel officers, tried and shot in Kentucky by Burnside, for
recruiting within our lines.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Two Selected for Execution.</div>
<p>The unhappy designation fell upon Captain Sawyer, of the First
New Jersey Cavalry, and Captain Flynn, of the Fifty-first Indiana
Infantry. They were taken to the office of General Winder, who
assured them that the sentence would be carried out; and without
pity or decency, selected that hour to revile them as Yankee
scoundrels who had "come down here to kill our sons, burn our houses,
and devastate our country." In reply to these taunts, they bore
themselves with dignity and calmness.</p>
<p>"When I went into the war," responded Flynn, "I
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</SPAN></span>
knew I might be killed. I don't know but I would just as soon die in
this way as any other."</p>
<p>"I have a wife and child," said Sawyer, "who are very dear to me, but
if I had a hundred lives I would gladly give them all for my country."</p>
<p>In two hours they came back to their quarters. Sawyer was externally
nervous; Flynn calm. Both expected that the order would be carried
out. We were confident that it would not. I predicted to Sawyer—</p>
<p>"They will never dare to shoot you!"</p>
<p>"I will bet you a hundred dollars they do!" was his impulsive reply.
I said to Flynn—</p>
<p>"There is not one chance in ten of their executing you."</p>
<p>"I know it," he answered. "But, when we drew lots, I took one
chance in thirty-five, and then lost!"<SPAN name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17" href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">17</SPAN></p>
<p>On the same evening came intelligence that, at an obscure town in
Pennsylvania called Gettysburg, Meade had received a Waterloo defeat,
was flying in confusion to the mountains of Pennsylvania after losing
forty thousand prisoners, who were actually on their way to Richmond.
It was entertaining to read the speculations of the Rebel papers as
to what they could do with these forty thousand Yankees—where
they could find men to guard them, and room for them—how in the
world they could feed them without starving the people of Richmond.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote">The Gloomiest Night in Prison.</div>
<p>We did not fully believe the report, but it touched us very
nearly. Those reverses to our army came home drearily to the hearts
of men who were waiting hopelessly in Rebel prisons, and weighed them
down like millstones.</p>
<p>Success kindled a corresponding joy. I have seen sick and dying
prisoners on cold and filthy floors of the wretched hospitals filled
with a new vitality—their sad, pleading eyes lighted with a new
hope, their wan faces flushed, and their speech jubilant, when they
learned that all was going well with the Cause. It made life more
endurable and death less bitter.</p>
<p>Already suffering from anxiety for Flynn and Sawyer, and
disheartened by the reports from Pennsylvania, we received
intelligence that Grant had been utterly repulsed before the works
of Vicksburg, the siege raised, and the campaign closed in defeat
and disaster. It was a very black night when this grief was added to
the first. The prison was gloomy and silent many hours earlier than
usual. Our hearts were too heavy for speech.</p>
<p>But suddenly there came a great revulsion. Among the negro
prisoners was an old man of seventy, who had particularly
attra<ins>c</ins>ted my attention from the fact that when I happened
to speak to him about the National conflict, he replied, after the
manner of Copperheads, that it was a speculators' war on both sides,
in which he felt no sort of interest; that it would do nobody any
good; that he cared not when or how it ended. I wondered whether the
old African was shamming, lest his conversation should be reported,
to the curtailing of his privileges, or whether he was really that
anomaly, a black man who felt no interest in the war.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Glorious Revulsion of Feeling.</div>
<p>But about five o'clock, one afternoon, he came up into our room, and,
when the door was closed behind
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</SPAN></span>
him, so that he could not be seen by the officers or guards, he made
a rush for an open space upon the floor, and immediately began to
dance in a manner very remarkable for a man of seventy, and rheumatic
at that. We all gathered around him and asked—</p>
<p>"General" (that was his <span lang="fr">soubriquet</span> in the
prison), "what does this mean?"</p>
<p>"De Yankees has taken Vicksburg! De Yankees has taken Vicksburg!"
and then he began to dance again.</p>
<p>As soon as we could calm him into a little coherence, he drew from
his pocket a newspaper extra—the ink not yet dry—which he
had stolen from one of the Rebel officers. There it was! The Yankees
<em>had</em> taken Vicksburg, with more than thirty thousand prisoners.</p>
<p>Good tidings, like bad, seldom come alone. Shortly after,
we learned that there was also a slight mistake about
Gettysburg—that Lee, instead of Meade, was flying in confusion;
and that, while our people had captured fifteen or twenty thousand
Rebels, those forty thousand Yankee prisoners were "conspicuous for
their absence."</p>
<p>How our hearts leaped up at this cheering news! How suddenly that
foul prison air grew sweet and pure as the fragrant breath of the
mountains! There was laughing, there was singing, there was dancing,
which the old negro did not altogether monopolize. Some one shouted,
"Glory, hallelujah!" Mr. McCabe, an Ohio chaplain, whose clear,
ringing tones, as he led the singing, cheered many of our heaviest
hours, instantly took the hint, and started that beautiful hymn, by
Mrs. Howe, of which "Glory, hallelujah" is the chorus:—</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"For mine eyes have seen the glory of the
coming of the Lord."</span></div>
</div>
<p>Every voice in the room joined in it. I never saw men more stirred
and thrilled than were those three or four
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</SPAN></span>
hundred prisoners, as
they heard the impressive closing stanza:—</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was
born across the sea,</span>
<span class="i0">With a glory in His bosom that
transfigures you and me;</span>
<span class="i0">As He died to make men holy, let
<em>us</em> die to make men free!"</span></div>
</div>
<div class="sidenote">Exciting Discussion in Prison.</div>
<p>Despite reading, conversing, and cutting out finger-rings,
napkin-rings, breast-pins, and crosses, from the beef-bones extracted
from our rations, in which some prisoners were exceedingly skillful,
the hours were very heavy. A debating-club was formed, and much
time was spent in discussing animal magnetism and other topics.
Occasionally we had mock courts, which developed a good deal of
originality and wit.</p>
<p>Late in July, a mania for study began to prevail. Classes were
formed in Greek, Latin, German, French, Spanish, Algebra, Geometry,
and Rhetoric. We sent out to the Richmond stores for text-books, and
all found instructors, as the motley company of officers embraced
natives of every civilized country.</p>
<p>July 30th was a memorable day. The prisoners had become
greatly excited on the momentous question of small messes <span
lang="la">versus</span> large messes. There were only three
cooking-stoves for the accommodation of three hundred and
seventy-five officers. A majority thought it more convenient to
divide into messes of twenty, while others, favoring small messes of
from four to eight each, determined to retain those organizations.
The prisoners now occupied five rooms, communicating with each
other.</p>
<p>A public meeting was called in our apartment, with Colonel
Streight in the chair. A fiery discussion ensued. The large-mess
party insisted that the majority must rule, and the minority
submit to be formed into messes of twenty. The small-mess party
replied:— </p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"We will not be coerced. We are one-third of all the prisoners. We
insist upon our right to one-third of the kitchen, one-third of the
fuel, and one of the three cooking-stoves. It is nobody's business
but our own whether we have messes of two or one hundred."</p>
<p>I was never present at any debate, parliamentary, political,
or religious, which developed more earnestness and bitterness.
The meeting passed a resolution, insisting upon large messes; the
small-mess party refused to vote upon it, and declared that they
would never, never submit! The question was finally decided by
permitting all to do exactly as they pleased.</p>
<p>Prisoners kept in the underground cells heard revolting stories.
They were informed by the guards that the bodies of the dead, usually
left in an adjoining room for a day or two before burial, were
frequently eaten by rats.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Stealing Money from the Captives.</div>
<p>From want of vegetables and variety of diet, scurvy became common.
With many others, I suffered somewhat from it. On the 13th of August,
Major Morris, of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry, died suddenly from
a malignant form of this disease. His fellow-prisoners desired to
have his body embalmed. The Rebel authorities had one hundred dollars
in United States curren<ins>c</ins>y, belonging to the major, but
they refused to apply it to this purpose. Four hundred dollars in
Confederate currency was therefore subscribed by the prisoners.
Several brother-officers of the deceased were permitted to follow the
remains to the cemetery.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Horrible Treatment of Northern Citizens.</div>
<p>Thirty or forty Northern citizens were confined in a room under
us. They were thrust in with Yankee deserters of the worst character,
and treated with the greatest barbarity. Their rations were very
short; they were allowed to purchase nothing. We cut a hole through
the floor, and every evening dropped down
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</SPAN></span>
crackers and bread, contributed from the various messes. When they
saw the food coming, they would crowd beneath the aperture, with
upturned faces and eager eyes, springing to clutch every crumb,
sometimes ready to fight over the smallest morsels, and looking more
like ravenous animals than human beings. Some of them, accustomed
to luxury at home, ate water-melon rinds and devoured morsels which
they extracted from the spittoons and from other places still more
revolting.</p>
<p>Several schemes of escape were ingenious and original. Impudence
was the trump card. Four or five officers took French leave, by
procuring Confederate uniforms, which enabled them to pass the
guards. Captain John F. Porter, of New York, obtaining a citizen's
suit, walked out of the prison in broad daylight, passing all the
sentinels, who supposed him to be a clergyman or some other pacific
resident of Richmond. A lady in the city secreted him. By the
negroes, he sent a message to his late comrades, asking for money,
which they immediately transmitted. Obtaining a pilot, he made his
way through the swamps to the Union lines, in season to claim, on the
appointed day, the hand of a young lady who awaited him at home. He
was an enterprising bridegroom.</p>
<p>During the long evenings, when we were faint, bilious, and
weak from our thin diet, some of my comrades, with morbid
eloquence, would dwell upon all luxuries that tempt the epicurean
palate,—debating, in detail, what dishes they would order,
were they at the best hotels of New York or Philadelphia. These
tantalizing discussions were so annoying that they invariably drove
me from the group, sometimes exciting a desire to strike those who
<em>would</em> drag forward the unpleasant subject, and keep me reminded of
the hunger which I was striving to forget. </p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote">Extravagant Rumors among the Prisoners.</div>
<p>The exchange was altogether suspended, and new prisoners
were constantly arriving, until Libby contained several hundred
officers.</p>
<p>Extravagant rumors of all sorts were constantly afloat among the
captives; hardly a day passing without some sensation story. They
were not usually pure invention; but in prison, as elsewhere during
exciting periods, the air seemed to generate wild reports, which, in
passing from mouth to mouth, grew to wonderful proportions. </p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</SPAN></span></p>
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