The Boys of '61 Part 50

Of the treatment of Union soldiers in the Southern prisons the United States Sanitary Commission says:-

"The prisoners were almost invariably robbed of everything valuable in their possession; sometimes on the field, at the instant of capture, sometimes by the prison authorities, in a quasi-official way, with the promise of return when exchanged or paroled, but which promise was never fulfilled. This robbery amounted often to a stripping of the person of even necessary clothing. Blankets and overcoats were almost always taken, and sometimes other articles; in which case damaged ones were returned in their stead. This preliminary over, the captives were taken to prison."

At the trial of Wirz, the commandant of Andersonville, Dr. John C. Bates, a surgeon of the Rebel service, testified as follows:-

"My attention was called to a patient in my ward who was only fifteen or sixteen years of age. I took much interest in him, owing to his youth. He would ask me to bring him a potato, bread, or biscuit, which I did. I put them in my pocket. He had scurvy and gangrene. I advised him not to cook the potato, but to eat it raw. He became more and more emaciated, his sores gangrened, and for want of food, and from lice, he died. I understood that it was against orders to take anything in to the prisoners, and hence I was shy in slipping food into my pockets. Others in the ward came to their death from the same causes. When I went there, there were two thousand or two thousand five hundred sick. I judge twenty or twenty-five thousand persons were crowded together. Some had made holes and burrows in the earth. Those under the sheds were doing comparatively well. I saw but little shelter, excepting what ingenuity had devised. I found them suffering with scurvy, dropsy, diarrha, gangrene, pneumonia, and other diseases. When prisoners died, they were laid in wagons, head foremost, to be carried off. I don't know how they were buried. The effluvia from the hospital was very offensive. If by accident my hand was abraded, I would not go into the hospital without putting a plaster over the affected part. If persons whose systems were reduced by inanition should by chance stump a toe or scratch the hand, the next report to me was gangrene, so potent was the regular hospital gangrene. The prisoners were more thickly confined in the stockade,-like ants and bees. Dogs were kept to hunt down the prisoners who escaped. Fifty per cent of those who died might have been saved had the patients been properly cared for. The effect of the treatment of the prisoners was, morally as well as physically, injurious. There was much stealing among them. All lived each for himself. I suppose this was superinduced by their starving condition. Seeing the dying condition of some of them, I remarked to my student, 'I can't resuscitate them; the weather is chilling; it is a matter of impossibility.' I found persons lying dead sometimes among the living. Thinking they merely slept, I went to wake them up and found they had taken their everlasting sleep. This was in the hospital. I judge it was about the same in the stockade. There being no dead-house, I erected a tent for the purpose, but I soon found that a blanket or quilt had been clipped off the canvas; and as the material could not be readily supplied, the dead-house was abandoned. I don't think any more dead-houses were erected. The daily ration was less in September, October, November, and December than it was from the 1st of January to the 20th of March. The men had not over twenty ounces of food in the twenty-four hours."

The prison at Andersonville was established in January, 1864, and was used a little more than a year. It was in the form of a quadrangle, 1,295 feet long, 865 feet wide. A small stream, rising from neighboring springs, flowed through the grounds. Within the enclosure, seventeen feet from the stockade, the dead-line was established, marked by small posts, to which a slight strip of board was nailed. Upon the inner stockade were fifty-two sentry-boxes, in which the guards stood with loaded muskets; while overlooking the enclosure were several forts, with field artillery in position, to pour grape and canister upon the perishing men at the first sign of insurrection.

Miss Clara Barton, the heroic and tender-hearted woman who, in the employ of government, visited this charnel-house to identify the graves of the victims, thus reports:-

"Under the most favorable circ.u.mstances and best possible management the supply of water would have been insufficient for half the number of persons who had to use it. The existing arrangements must have aggravated the evil to the utmost extent. The sole establishments for cooking and baking were placed on the bank of the stream immediately above and between the two inner lines of the pallisades. The grease and refuse from them were found adhering to the banks at the time of our visit. The guards, to the number of three thousand six hundred, were princ.i.p.ally encamped on the upper part of the stream, and when the heavy rains washed down the hillsides covered with thirty thousand human beings, and the outlet below failed to discharge the flood which backed and filled the valley, the water must have become so foul and loathsome that every statement I have seen of its offensiveness must fall short of the reality; and yet within rifle-shot of the prison flowed a stream, fifteen feet wide and three feet deep, of pure, delicious water. Had the prison been placed so as to include a section of 'Sweet Water Creek,' the inmates might have drank and bathed to their hearts' content."[77]

The prisoners had no shelter from the fierce sun of summer, the pelting autumn rains, or the cold of winter, except a few tattered tents. Thousands were dest.i.tute of blankets. For refuge they dug burrows in the ground.

Miss Barton says:-

"The little caves are scooped out and arched in the form of ovens, floored, ceiled, and strengthened, so far as the owners had means, with sticks and pieces of board, and some of them are provided with fireplaces and chimneys. It would seem that there were cases, during the long rains, where the house would become the grave of its owner by falling upon him in the night.... During thirteen long months they knew neither shelter nor protection from the changeable skies above, nor the pitiless, unfeeling earth beneath....

"Think of thirty thousand men penned by close stockade upon twenty-six acres of ground, from which every tree and shrub had been uprooted for fuel to cook their scanty food, huddled like cattle, without shelter or blanket, half clad and hungry, with the dewy night setting in after a day of autumn rain. The hilltop would not hold them all, the valley was filled by the swollen brook. Seventeen feet from the stockade ran the fatal dead-line, beyond which no man might step and live. What did they do? I need not ask where did they go, for on the face of the whole earth there was no place but this for them. But where did they place themselves? How did they live? Ay! how did they die?"

Twelve thousand nine hundred and ninety graves are numbered on the neighboring hillside,-the starved and murdered of thirteen months,-one thousand per month, thirty-three per day! Murdered by Jeff Davis, Robert E. Lee, James Seddon, and John C. Breckenridge! Murdered under official sanction, in accordance with premeditated design. Davis, Lee, Seddon, and Breckenridge may not have issued orders to starve the prisoners; but if cognizant of any inhumanity, it was in the power of Davis to stop it, and of Lee, as commander-in-chief of the army, as also of Sedden, and after him Breckenridge, secretaries of war. A word from either of these officials would have secured humane treatment.

General Lee is beloved by the Southern people for his amiability, his gentleness and generosity, as well as his unselfish devotion to the cause of Secession. But the historian will doubtless keep in mind that to be amiable is to be worthy of esteem and confidence. Those who have espoused the cause of the Union cannot discover much amiability in one who remained in the service of the government as the confidant of the commander-in-chief of the army of the United States till hostilities were commenced, and then, three days after his resignation, accepted the command of the Rebel forces in Virginia. Fort Sumter was fired upon April 12, 1861. General Lee resigned his commission in the service of the United States on the 19th, and on the 22d took command of Rebel troops at Richmond. The State had not then seceded. The ordinance of Secession was pa.s.sed by the convention on the 17th of the same month, to be submitted to popular vote for ratification on the third Tuesday of May. Without waiting for the action of the people of his State, General Lee issued his military orders and waged war against the United States.

The future historian will not overlook the fact that General Lee, if not issuing direct orders for the starvation of Union prisoners, made no remonstrance against the barbarities of Andersonville, or of the course taken to debauch the patriotism of the Union soldiers. It was promised that whoever would acknowledge allegiance to the Confederacy, or consent to make shoes or harness or clothing for the Rebels, should have the privilege of going out from the stockade, and finding comfortable quarters and plenty of food and clothing. Thus tempted, some faltered, while others died rather than be released on such terms, preferring, in their love for the flag, to be thrown like logs into the dead-cart, and tumbled into the shallow trenches on the hillside!

Among the prisoners was a lad who pined for his far-off Northern home. Often his boyish heart went out lovingly to his father and mother and fair-haired sister. How could he die in that prison! How close his eyes on all the bright years of the future! How lie down in death in that loathsome place, when, by taking the oath of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy, he could obtain freedom? His comrades were dying. Every day the dead-cart came and bore them away by scores and hundreds. What a sight their stony eyes, sunken cheeks, and swaying limbs! Around him was a crowd of living skeletons.

"Take the oath and you shall live," said the tempter. What a trial! Life was sweet. All that a man hath will he give for his life. How blessed if he could but hear once more the voice of his mother, or grasp again a father's hand! What wonder that hunger, despair, and death, and the example of some of his comrades, made him weakly hesitate?

Too feeble to walk or to stand, he crawled away from the dying and the dead, over the ground reeking with filth. He had almost reached the gate beyond which were life and liberty. A comrade, stronger and older, suspected his purpose. Through the long, weary months this brave soldier had solaced his heart by taking at times from his bosom a little flag,-the stars and stripes,-adoring it as the most sacred of all earthly things. He held it before the boy. It was the flag he loved. He had sworn to support it,-never to forsake it. He had stood beneath it in the fierce conflict, quailing not when the death-storm was thickest. Tears dimmed his eyes as he beheld it once more. Tremblingly he grasped it with his skeleton fingers, kissed it, laid it on his heart, and cried, "G.o.d help me! I can't turn my back upon it. O comrade, I am dying; but I want you, if ever you get out of this horrible place, to tell my mother that I stood by the old flag to the last!"

And then, with the flag he loved lying on his heart, he closed his eyes, and his soul pa.s.sed on to receive that reward which awaits those to whom duty is greater than life.

"On Fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards, with solemn round, The bivouac of the dead."

This is the contrast between Christian charity and barbaric hate,-not that all the people of the South were inhuman, or that men there are by nature more wicked than all others; but the barbarity was the legitimate outgrowth of slavery.

The armies of the South fought bravely and devotedly to establish a Confederacy with slavery for its corner-stone; but not their valor, sacrifice, and endurance, not Stonewall Jackson's religious enthusiasm or intrepidity, not Lee's military exploits, can avail to blot the horrors of Andersonville from the historic record. Their cause

"Hath the primal, eldest curse upon it, A brother's murder."

CHAPTER XXV.

SCENES IN SAVANNAH.

Dec., 1864.

As I intended to spend some days in Savannah, I set out one afternoon in search of lodgings more commodious than those furnished at the Pulaski House, and I was directed to a house owned by a gentleman who, during the war, had resided in Paris,-a large brick mansion, fronting on one of the squares, elegantly finished and furnished. It had been taken care of, through the war, by two faithful negroes, Robert and his wife Aunt Nellie, both of them slaves.

I rang the bell, and was ushered into the bas.e.m.e.nt by their daughter Ellen, also a slave. Robert was fifty-three years of age,-a tall, stout, coal-black, slow-spoken, reflective man. Aunt Nellie was a year or two younger. Her features were of the African type; her eyes large and l.u.s.trous. Her deportment was lady-like, her language refined. She wore a gingham dress, and a white turban.

Ellen, the daughter, had a fair countenance, regular features, of lighter hue than either father or mother. She appeared as much at ease as most young ladies who are accustomed to the amenities of society.

Aunt Nellie called me by name.

"I saw you yesterday at church," she said.

She placed a chair for me before the fire, which burned cheerfully on the hearth. There was a vase of amaranths on the mantel, and lithographs on the walls. A clock ticked in one corner. There were cushioned arm-chairs. The room was neat and tidy, and had an air of cheerfulness. A little boy, four or five years old, was sitting by the side of Aunt Nellie,-her grand-nephew. He looked up wonderingly at the stranger, then gazed steadily into the fire with comical gravity.

"You are from Boston, I understand," said Aunt Nellie. "I never have been to Boston, but I have been to New York several times with my master."

"Did you have any desire to stay North?"

"No, sir, I can't say that I had. This was my home; my children and friends, and my husband were all here."

"But did you not wish to be free?"

"That is a very different thing, sir. G.o.d only knows how I longed to be free; but my master was very kind. They used to tell me in New York that I could be free; but I couldn't make up my mind to leave master, and my husband. Perhaps if I had been abused as some of my people have, I should have thought differently about it."

"Well, you are free now. I suppose that you never expected to see such a day as this!"

"I can't say that I expected to see it, but I knew it would come. I have prayed for it. I didn't hardly think it would come in my time, but I knew it must come, for G.o.d is just."

"Did you not sometimes despair?"

"Never! sir; never! But O, it has been a terrible mystery, to know why the good Lord should so long afflict my people, and keep them in bondage,-to be abused, and trampled down, without any rights of their own,-with no ray of light in the future. Some of my folks said there wasn't any G.o.d, for if there was he wouldn't let white folks do as they have done for so many years; but I told them to wait,-and now they see what they have got by waiting. I told them that we were all of one blood,-white folks and black folks all come from one man and one woman, and that there was only one Jesus for all. I knew it,-I knew it!" She spoke as if it were an indisputable fact which had come by intuition.

Here Aunt Nellie's sister and her husband came in.

"I hope to make your better acquaintance," she said, courtesying. It is a common form of expression among the colored people of some parts of the South. She was larger, taller, and stouter than Aunt Nellie, younger in years, less refined,-a field hand,-one who had drunk deeply of the terrible cup which slavery had held to her lips. She wore a long gray dress of coa.r.s.e cloth,-a frock with sleeves, gathered round the neck with a string,-the cheapest possible contrivance for a dress, her only garment, I judged.

"These are new times to you," I said.

"It is a dream, sir,-a dream! 'Pears like I don't know where I am. When General Sherman come and said we were free, I didn't believe it, and I wouldn't believe it till the minister (Rev. Mr. French) told us that we were free. It don't seem as if I was free, sir." She looked into the fire a moment, and sat as if in a dream, but roused herself as I said,-

"Yes, you are free."

"But that don't give me back my children,-my children, that I brought forth with pains such as white women have,-that have been torn from my breast, and sold from me; and when I cried for them was tied up and had my back cut to pieces!"

She stopped talking to me, raised her eyes as if looking into heaven,-reached up her hands imploringly, and cried in agony,-

"O Lord Jesus, have mercy! How long, O Lord? Come, Jesus, and help me. 'Pears like I can't bear it, dear Lord. They is all taken from me, Lord. 'Pears like as if my heart would break. O blessed Jesus, they say that I am free, but where are my children!-my children!-my children!"

Her hands fell,-tears rolled down her cheeks. She bowed her head, and sat moaning, wailing, and sobbing.

"You wouldn't believe me," said Aunt Nellie, speaking to her. "You said that there was no use in praying for deliverance; that it was no use to trust G.o.d,-that he had forgotten us!"

She rose and approached her sister, evidently to call her mind from the terrible reality of the past. "You used to come in here and go worry, worry, worry all day and all night, and say it was no use; that you might as well die; that you would be a great deal better off if you were dead. You wouldn't believe me when I said that the Lord would give deliverance. You wouldn't believe that the Lord was good; but just see what he has done for you,-made you free. Aren't you willing to trust him now?"