Sword and Pen Part 15

Despite such disappointments, however, when the time came, as it soon did, for the prisoners to leave Savannah, they did so with sentiments of grat.i.tude for the comparatively humane treatment they had received at the hands of the Georgians, not unmingled, however, with apprehensions concerning their future, for it was openly rumored that they were destined to join their former fellow-prisoners now under fire of Gilmore's siege guns at Charleston.

CHAPTER XIX.

UNDER FIRE AT CHARLESTON.

Under siege.--Charleston Jail.--The Stars and Stripes.--Federal compliments.--Under the guns.--Roper Hospital.--Yellow Jack.--Sisters of Charity.--Rebel Christianity.--A Byronic stanza.--Charleston to Columbia.--"Camp Sorghum."--Nemesis.--Another dash for liberty.--Murder of Lieutenants Young and Parker.--Studying topography.--A vaticination.--Back to reality.

The next we see of Lieutenant Glazier is in the city of Charleston, South Carolina, on the twelfth of September, 1864. Coming Street on the morning of that day was crowded with people of every variety of calling, from the priest and sister of charity, out on their merciful errands, to the riff-raff and _sans-culottes_ out on no errand at all but to help the excitement. The city was under siege.

At the end of the street a body of six hundred emaciated, broken-spirited, ragged men, escorted by a strong guard, marched along, and the busiest of the pedestrians paused to gaze upon them as they pa.s.sed. Coa.r.s.e and scurrilous was the greeting the captives received from the motley and shameless groups. A few of the more respectable citizens, however, spoke words of grace to them, and some added hopeful predictions of the final triumph of the Union cause. The prisoners were hurried forward to the yard of Charleston Jail, where for the first time in many weary months they beheld the glorious flag of their country floating in the breeze over Morris Island. Weak as they were the patriotic sentiment was still strong within and they gave one rousing cheer! Some, despite the curses of their guard, dancing like children, while others wept tears of joy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Charleston Jail--charleston, South Carolina.]

The jail, as Captain Glazier describes it, was a large octagonal building of four stories, surmounted by a tower. In the rear was a large workshop, in appearance like a bastile, where some of the prisoners were confined. As a lugubrious accessory to his own quarters, he had a remarkably clear view of a gallows, erected directly in front of his fragment of a tent. "The ground floor of the jail was occupied by ordinary criminal convicts; the second story by Confederate officers and soldiers, under punishment for military offences; the third by negro prisoners, and the fourth by Federal and Confederate deserters, and it is complimentary to the good sense of the rebels that deserters from _either_ side were treated by them with equal severity." He gives a sad account of the terrible condition of the negro soldiers and their officers who were captured at Fort Wagner, and says the hospital at this place was "a lazar-house of indescribable misery."

On the twenty-second of September, Glazier makes the following note on the progress of the siege:

"Sh.e.l.ling is kept up vigorously. From sixty to a hundred huge, smoking two-hundred-pounders convey Federal compliments daily to the doomed city."

It appears, however, that, for the most part, the destructive effects of this bombardment were confined to what was known as the "burnt district," and caused little damage to the inhabited portion of the city.

Seven days after the above entry in his journal his heart was gladdened by an order for removal, with his fellow-prisoner and messmate, Lieutenant Richardson, to Roper Hospital; a place much more tolerable as to its situation and appointments, though still within sh.e.l.l-range of the bombarding force. Prior to the transfer, a parole was obtained from each, by which they pledged themselves, while in their new quarters, to make no attempt to escape.

Here our prisoner found opportunity under the usual restrictions for writing the following letter home:

[Only one page allowed.]

C. S. Military Prison, Charleston, South Carolina, Roper Hospital, _October 4th, 1864_.

My Dear Mother:

For a long time you have doubtless waited with anxiety some intelligence of your absent son, which would tell you of his health, and his prospects of release from the disagreeable restraints of prison life; and I am now delighted to find this opportunity of writing to you. Since my last letter, which was dated at Libby Prison, I have been confined at Danville, Virginia; Macon and Savannah, Georgia; and at this point. My health for the most part has been very poor, which I attribute to the inactivity of prison life. I have also suffered much for want of clothing. I have a pair of shoes on to-day that I bought more than a year ago; have run about barefoot for days and weeks during the past summer; many of my comrades have been compelled to do the same. I do not look for a _general exchange_ before winter, though I hope and pray that it may take place to-morrow. There is now an opportunity for sending boxes to prisoners. I should be glad to receive one from home if convenient. Please give my love to all the family circle.

Remember me to my friends, and believe me ever

Your affectionate son, Willard.

The days pa.s.sed anxiously with Glazier, when the yellow fever began its inroads upon the prisoners. He had now, at the same moment, to face death at the hands of man, and by the pestilence--a condition of things to which the bravest spirit might succ.u.mb. One great source of consolation was derived from the visits of the Sisters of Charity, who were always found where suffering and peril prevailed. Writing of these angelic women, Captain Glazier says:--"Confined as we are, so far away from every home comfort and influence, and from all that makes life worth living, how quickly do we notice the first kind word, the pa.s.sing friendly glance! Can any prisoner confined here ever forget the 'Sisters of Charity?' Ask the poor private now suffering in the loathsome hospital so near us, while burning with fever, or racked with pain, if he can forget the kind look, the gracious word given him by that sister.

Many are the bunches of grapes--many the sip of their pure juice, that the sufferer gets from her hands. They seem, they _are_ 'ministering angels;' and while all around us are our avowed enemies, they remain true to every instinct of womanhood. They dare lift the finger to help, they do relieve many a sufferer. All through the South our sick and wounded soldiers have had reason to bless the 'Sisters of Charity.' They have ministered to their wants and performed those kind womanly offices which are better to the sick than medicine, and are so peculiarly soothing to the dying. These n.o.ble women have attended their sick-beds when other _Christian_ ladies of the South looked on unpityingly, and turned away without even tendering the cheap charity of a kind word.

_They_ have done what others were too scornful and cruel to do--they have done what others did not dare do. They were, for some inscrutable reason, permitted to bestow their charities wherever charities were needed. Their bounties were bestowed indiscriminately on Federal and Confederate sufferers, and evidenced a broad philanthropy untainted by party-feeling or religious bigotry. Many a poor soldier has followed them from ward to ward with tearful eyes.... Were other Christian denominations in the South as active in aiding us as the Catholics have been, I might have some faith in 'Rebel Christianity.'"

This is no mean tribute to the beneficent influences of the Catholic church, albeit the pen of a Protestant records it; but the facts fully justify him. Protestant England had _one_--the Church of Rome has her _legions_ of Florence Nightingales. They are found in the camp, and the hospital, and the prison--wherever human sympathy can palliate human suffering; they are to be found where even wives and mothers flee before the dreaded pestilence, and these ministers of divine love, like light and air, and the dews of Heaven, visit alike the rich and poor, the sinner and the saint; the only claim they recognize being the claim of suffering and misfortune.

Willard Glazier remained _under the guns_ of his friends until the fifth of October, and during his sojourn here had various opportunities of forming an acquaintance with vagrant shot and sh.e.l.l that struck or exploded near the hospital building, but fortunately did no greater damage to its inmates than create "a scare."

What was much more serious was the prevalence of the deadly fever, which was of a most malignant type, and carried off, among its many victims, the Confederate commander and his adjutant. The prisoners therefore were removed--the authorities a.s.signing as their reason for the step, the "danger to which they would be exposed on account of the fever;" and although, at the time, it appeared an anomaly to the prisoners, "after bringing them there to be murdered by their own guns, to remove them for the purpose of saving them from death in another shape,"--yet it is possible such was the case. At all events they were removed, and their "Poet Laureate"--Lieutenant Ogden, of Wisconsin--wrote a farewell poem, containing among others, the following "Byronic" stanza:

"Thy Sanctuaries are forsaken now; Dark mould and moss cling to thy fretted towers; Deep rents and seams, where struggling lichens grow, And no sweet voice of prayer at vestal hours; But voice of screaming shot and bursting sh.e.l.l, Thy deep d.a.m.nation and thy doom foretell.

The 'fire' has left a pile of broken walls, And Night-hags revel in thy ruined halls!"

Who will say that a dread Nemesis has not overtaken the metropolis of the Palmetto State? Streets, once the busy scene of commerce and industry, now covered with gra.s.s, in this city of secession--formerly the head and front of treason and rebellion and the defiant advocate of human slavery!

Escorted by the Thirty-second Georgia Volunteers, Glazier and his fifteen hundred companions were marched through the princ.i.p.al streets of the city to the depot, where they took the cars for Columbia, the State capital. None will ever forget the parade of ragged and bearded men through King Street. But the Georgian guards, while strictly attentive to duty, showed the politeness and demeanor of gentlemen. He says of them, at this point in the history of his imprisonment, "the Georgia troops seem to be by far the most civil and gentlemanly of all the Southern army. They were the most respectable in appearance, most intelligent and liberal in conversation, and to a greater extent than others, recognized the principle that a man is a man under whatever circ.u.mstances he may be placed, and is ent.i.tled to humane treatment.

They very generally addressed the prisoners as 'gentlemen.'"

The same kind of unventilated and filthy cattle-cars were employed in their transportation as had been used in their various previous removals. All suffered from want of water, air and s.p.a.ce. The arrival of the captives at Columbia took place in the midst of a drenching rain-storm, and during the entire night, with scarcely any clothing, no rations, and no shelter, they were exposed to the merciless elements, while not twenty yards off, in front of their camping ground, glared the muzzles of a park of loaded artillery. The prisoners, being in a starving condition, looked the picture of despair. A discovery however was made of some bacon suspended to the rafters of the building that enclosed them, in one corner separated by a part.i.tion. As the famished men looked through the bars of a window and saw this tempting food, their eyes watered, and their inventive faculties were aroused. Hooks, strings and poles were brought into requisition, and in a short time most of the meat, by Yankee talent, was transferred from the rafters of the building to the stomachs of the prisoners!

The day following, they were moved to a spot about two miles from the town, and bivouacked in an open field, without any shelter whatever.

Surrounded by the usual cordon of sentries, and menaced with the customary "dead-line," they were turned loose to provide for themselves, neither axe, spade, nor cooking utensils being supplied them. Two days after their arrival some corn-meal and _sorghum_ were issued, the latter a subst.i.tute for mola.s.ses. A great many suffered from diarrhoea and dysentery in consequence, and the place from this circ.u.mstance acquired the sobriquet of "Camp Sorghum."

They had no quarters to protect them from the cold November storms, only huts constructed by themselves of brush and pine boughs. The treatment at "Camp Sorghum" was so exceptionally brutal, that almost every dark night starving men would run the guard and risk their lives to escape dying by inches. Sometimes as many as thirty or forty would run in one night. Generally some daring fellow would act as _forlorn hope_ and rush past the sentries, drawing their fire, at the imminent risk of forfeiting his own life, his comrades joining him before the guards could reload their rifles. The latter would then fire a volley into the camp, killing or wounding some of the prisoners. Lieutenant Young, of the Fourth Pennsylvania Cavalry, was thus shot dead whilst sitting at his hut, and according to Captain Glazier, "no reason for this atrocity was apparent, and none was a.s.signed by the guards." The poor young fellow had been a prisoner twenty-two months. About this time the guards accidentally killed two of their own men, in their reckless and savage shooting, and afterwards observed more care in firing at the prisoners.

Hounds were kept near the prison to track escaped fugitives. Lieutenant Parker, while attempting to escape, was so much torn and bitten by these dogs that he died the day after his recapture.

Mingled with thoughts of home, and the friends gathered around loved firesides, there had by this time arisen in young Glazier's mind a stern determination to win his freedom, or, in the effort, forfeit his life.

As the weather grew colder, the possession of wood became a matter of necessity, and some of the prisoners were paroled to pa.s.s beyond the lines, and gather such broken branches and pieces of bark in the neighboring woods as they could carry back into camp. Glazier availed himself of this privilege, and stored up an abundance of fuel. But a more important acquisition than fuel to him was the knowledge he obtained of the topography of the surrounding country. One great difficulty he foresaw in getting away arose from the sorry condition of his shoes, which were nearly soleless. He succeeded, however, in obtaining the rim of an old regulation-hat, and out of this fashioned a serviceable pair of soles for his worn-out brogans, and thus removed one obstacle from his path.

We need feel no surprise that he and many of his companions thought no risk too great to run for the chance of effecting their escape. Their treatment by this time had become so bad as to be almost unendurable.

For example, to avoid being frozen to death, they were compelled to run around all night, and only when the sun arose in the morning dare they venture to recline themselves on the ground to sleep. The truth is, that our friend, in common with many of his comrades, had arrived at the desperate conclusion that no fate, even death by shooting, or by hounds, could be worse than the misery and suffering he was now enduring. It was not alone that they were starved and shelterless, sick and unattended, nearly naked, with no hope of being clad; it was not alone that they were immersed, day and night, in filth and squalor like hogs, with no prospect of relief to cheer them; but, in addition to all this suffering of their own, they were compelled to witness the sufferings of others--to hear their sighs and groans, and look upon faces that hard usage and despair had made ghastly and terrible. They would greet in the morning a man sick and emaciated perhaps, but still a human being, erect and in G.o.d's image, who, in the evening of the same day, would disappear from among them, making a desperate dash for freedom. The following day a broken, nerveless, shivering wretch would be dragged into their midst, blood-stained, faint, and with the gashes of a blood-hound's teeth covering his face and throat.

Thus it was that existence became unbearable. Their own sufferings were hard, but to continue for many long months looking upon the sufferings of others added to their misery beyond endurance. Accordingly, when Thanksgiving-day arrived, and the excitement created by Sherman's "march to the sea" had reached its highest point, Glazier and a fellow-prisoner, named Lieutenant Lemon, determined that _they_ would wait no longer the slow process of tunneling, but make a bold effort for liberty--or die in the attempt.

"It was customary," says the former, "to extend the guard-line in the morning for the purpose of allowing prisoners (as previously stated) to collect fuel on a piece of timbered land just opposite the camp, and it was our intention this morning to take a shovel, when permitted to pa.s.s to the woods, and make a hole in the ground large enough to receive our two 'skeletons,' and then enlist the services of some friend, who would cover us up with brush and leaves, so that, when the guard was withdrawn, we would be left without the camp." The plan looked feasible, and, if successful, it would not be a difficult matter to reach Augusta, Georgia, at which point they hoped to find themselves within Sherman's lines. The fates, however, decreed otherwise. Their scheme was rendered abortive by the simple fact, that upon that particular morning, the line was not extended at all. Why it was not, is purely a matter of conjecture. Possibly, "the morning being unusually cold and raw," the guard did not care to leave their own snug tents along the line of the encampment, with no greater inducement than that of increasing the comfort of their Yankee prisoners, who, for that day, were left without any fires at all; but, be this as it may, the guard-line was not extended as was usual, and thus the plot of our young friends was frustrated for the time being. They agreed to "watch, pray _and act_" at the very first opportunity that presented. It was not long before that opportunity came.

Early upon the day following that of their disappointment, the conspirators arranged that each should make a reconnaissance of the lines, discover the weak points of the enemy, and, that being accomplished, rendezvous at a given spot, ready to act upon any likely plan that might suggest itself to them. Glazier had become a tolerably expert physiognomist, and singled out an unsophisticated-looking giant, who was patrolling a certain beat, as the best man among the line of sentries on whom to practise an imposition. This individual was evidently a good-natured lout, not long in the service, and very much resembling our conception of "Jonas Chuzzlewit," in respect to his having been "put away and forgotten for half a century." It is only necessary to add that his owners "had stuck a musket in his hand, and placed him on guard." Yet there was some pluck in him. He was just the sort of man who, led by a good officer, would fight like a lion, but whose animal instincts had so befogged his intellect that, if left to his own resources, he would be as likely to ruin friend as foe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Escape From Columbia--crossing The Dead Line.]

When Glazier rejoined his comrade, he described this man, and the friends agreed that they would boldly cross the "dead-line" immediately in front of him, be ready to answer promptly his challenge, and, by the audacity of their movement, attempt to deceive him in regard to their real character and purpose. With such a man as they had to deal with, this scheme was certain to result in one of two things: he would let them pa.s.s, or he would kill them both; therefore, courage and _sang-froid_ were matters of first necessity.

Accordingly, with the utmost coolness, and laughing and chatting together, they sauntered up to and upon the fatal line. The sentinel looked at them in amazement. He then brought his piece to bear upon Glazier completely covering his person, and, with the usual order to "Halt!" added: "Whar in h.e.l.l are you going, Yanks?" As if his dignity was seriously offended by this demand, our hero answered this question by asking another: "Do you halt paroled prisoners here?" "His meek 'No, sir!'" Glazier relates, "was not yet lost in the distance when I boldly crossed the dreaded line, adding: 'Then let my friend in the rear follow me;' and so we pa.s.sed, while the sentinel murmured 'All right!' And right it was, for now we were free, breathing the fresh air, untainted by the breath of hundreds of famishing, diseased and dying men."

They could not proceed very far without falling in with numbers of the paroled prisoners. This they did, but their presence excited no suspicion or comment, as they a.s.sumed to belong to the party. They applied themselves to gathering wood and piling it apparently for transportation, and gradually crept on and on until they reached a point beyond the vision of the gray-jackets, when off they started at the top of their speed; and although before long they were compelled to reduce their pace, they put several miles behind them in a s.p.a.ce of time that at any other period of their lives, or under any other circ.u.mstances, would have seemed impossible. Pausing to regain breath, they turned, and _Columbia_ was no longer within sight. This, in itself, was a relief, for the place was a.s.sociated in their minds with the intense misery they had suffered within its boundaries.

Could these men have _foreseen_ the not very distant future, they would have known that every sigh and groan that cruelty had wrung from them in that place of torture would be avenged; they would have seen loyal soldiers swarming in its streets, their old comrades in misery torn from the grasp of their merciless jailers, and the soulless "Southern Chivalry" thrust into their place; they would have seen red-handed vengeance doom that city of blood to destruction, and the glaring tongues of fire lap up the costly goods and edifices of its vile and relentless citizens; and those who had no mercy for them in their wretchedness and famine, now awe-struck on finding that the men they had so barbarously trampled upon had now the power and the will to retort upon them with interest; they would have seen brothers in arms, who until now had been merciful to their enemies when in their power, suddenly transformed into ravenous wolves, fierce and terrible in their righteous wrath at the treatment their less fortunate brothers had met with in this city of blood. The Avenger had come! and not one house but would fall a smouldering heap of ruins. They would have foreseen this city ablaze with burning homes for its sins against humanity; its men, so lately drunk with pride and satiated with cruelty to their countrymen; its women divested of all womanly attributes, and invested with those of demons, _now_ all cowed and humbled in the dust! They would have seen one noted instance of the interference of a just Providence that occurred amid all this dreadful saturnalia--a woman, pale, but beautiful of feature, delicate of form, madly rushing to and fro in front of her blazing house, crying for her child that lay within it. They would have seen a poor, emaciated prisoner, roused to exhibit strength and courage by the hope of saving life, rush in and drag the cradle and its innocent living freight from the very jaws of death, while burning rafters crashed and fell upon him; they would have seen him place the babe in its mother's arms, and they would have seen that mother turn with streaming eyes to thank the saviour of her child, _and then start back conscience-smitten, and scream and fall, seeing in her child's preserver a man who in the prison had once implored her for a piece of bread because he was starving, and she spat upon him because he was of Northern race_!! Could they have seen the future of the coming months, they would have seen all this and more. But no such prevision was vouchsafed them. Their thoughts were now of themselves. They felt that the shade of a deadly peril encompa.s.sed them. Columbia and its prison were hidden from their sight, but still they were so near that at any moment the hounds might scent them, and if recaptured, all the horrors they had undergone would be light compared with the fate they must submit to in the future.

Fortunately for the purpose of our fugitives, the settlements, whether towns or villages, in that part of the country, were "few and far between." The residences of the planters were also distant from each other and few in number, and the ravines and swamps which abound there, while in many respects disagreeable and dangerous lurking spots, were still the safest refuges for hunted men. The wilder the country, the better it promised to Glazier and his comrade fleeing for their lives.

Their greatest fear was the dreaded blood-hound. Our friends knew they could defeat most of the devices of human ingenuity in tracking them, but they were apprehensive that the instinct of the brutes, which a depraved humanity had enlisted in its service, might render abortive all their plans and precautions. They did their best, however, to baffle their canine foes, and nightfall found them hurrying forward on the Lexington Court-house Road.

CHAPTER XX.