The Bright Side of Prison Life Part 16

Our start was made after a farewell that showed far more friendship than enmity, and we made the fifty miles to Washington in four days, taking it easy.

Of the nine men who composed this squad eight were positively disloyal to the Confederacy, but were forced to fight for it because of their homes and families.

Each one of the eight, at different times, talked very freely to me when the others were not around, and each one told me that they would never have held us at the river if the others could have been certainly depended upon not to report the matter. We got to be very friendly with these guards, and we were really sorry when it came time to part from them.

One of our guards was an old man whom his companions called Captain Payne. He rode a sorry-looking specimen of a horse and was evidently only a private. Wishing to be friendly, he offered to let me ride his horse if I would allow him to hold the halter, which offer I promptly accepted, informing him that he was welcome to hold the halter and the horse's tail as well if he so desired. As an apology for the limitation of my actions with his horse, he informed me that he had positive orders to let us have no chance of escape, and to shoot us without notice if such an attempt was made.

In the course of conversation I asked him why he was called captain while being under orders of a sergeant. His reply was that he had been elected captain of 500 men who had organized to resist the draft and afterwards joined the Federal army; that they had been informed upon and the scheme frustrated, he having been forced to compromise between his neck and the halter by enlisting in the Confederate army as a private.

We were taken up behind on the horses of our guards during part of the trip, and in one of these rides behind Sergeant Rocket I learned that he had been in Missouri with Price, but had disliked the job very much, as had most of his companions. When Price had commenced his retreat he had simply broken ranks and ordered the men to fall in again at Boggy Hollow. They had all been forced to shift for themselves, and for three days he had had nothing to eat. After that they had lived almost entirely on fresh meat, without salt, for twenty-four days, and the organization had been largely broken up.

Rocket told me that most of the people in his part of the country would hail with joy the approach of the Federal troops. He was married to the daughter of a planter, who was a Union man, though a slaveholder, and had joined the Confederate army to save his family. His father-in-law lived on the road ten miles north from Washington, and he described the location and gave directions so that I could find the house if I had another chance to run away, saying that if I ever reached there and made myself known I would certainly get to Little Rock in safety.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SERGEANT E. B. ROCKET.]

Captain Payne, also, gave me directions how to find the home of his people, telling me how to find Dooley's ferry, in the neighborhood, and how Dooley would know me, set me across the river and see that I reached the right place. He also told me that a neighbor of theirs had three sons in the Federal army at Little Rock, and that I could easily get horses and guides to that place.

When we reached Washington, and Ed. Rocket bade us good-bye, he told me that he had never been so sorry for anything in his life as that he had been obliged to capture and hold us.

Ed. Rocket is now a poor Baptist preacher in Arkansas.

We were turned into a guardhouse that was about sixty by twenty feet in size and so full that all could not lie down at once. It was far from being pleasant.

The prisoners confined in this building were three spies and a large number of Confederates, the latter being held for crimes ranging all the way from chicken-stealing to murder, and in this agreeable society we spent ten days.

We got acquainted with a good many of the prisoners, and had considerable fun in various ways, but we were glad to leave.

Cornmeal was the only food served to us during our stay, but the rebel prisoners were treated the same as the others, and we had an extra allowance as officers--by purchase; so we could not complain of any unfair distinctions.

There was one old skillet in the guardhouse, and all the cooking had to be done with this one article. It was never cool. We took turns in its use, and the call of "Next!" was as orderly and regular as in a barber shop.

By common consent the Yankees were given the first turn with this skillet, as preferred guests, and we thereby had our meals at ordinary meal hours.

There were crowds coming in and going out of the guardhouse all the time, as there was a regular system being carried out of securing cavalry horses for other sections.

In this part of the country they had more cavalry than infantry, while in other sections much of the veteran cavalry was dismounted for want of horses. So they would put these cavalrymen under arrest for chicken-stealing or any offense whenever possible and appropriate their horses for service elsewhere. Infantrymen were let off for the same offenses.

One of the rebel officers in charge offered to let us out if we would join his company, but we declined, with thanks.

There was plenty of money among the prisoners, and much poker-playing to kill time.

I had a toothpick, made of bone and representing a woman, for which I got fifty cents in silver. With this amount I bribed one of the guards to get us four dozen eggs. Some of these we ate ourselves, but we sold the most of them to the prisoners for $1 apiece in Confederate money.

These eggs were procured by the guard from some paroled Federal prisoners on the outside.

On the day following our egg deal I got permission to go outside with a guard for some water, and then secured permission to buy some supplies and take them inside. After some hunting around we found a n.i.g.g.e.r who had a lot of turnips, and I bought a bushel for $10 in Confederate money, having a good margin left. We ate all the turnips we wanted, and then got $1 apiece for the balance. Everything went at $1 a unit in Confederate money. Keeping this thing up, we fed ourselves well during our stay, and when we left we had $400 in Confederate money.

Two of the spies mentioned were named Honeycut and Masterson, and the latter was kept in irons. They had money, and secured extra food from the outside, of which we got a share.

Masterson had been captured with a lot of drugs in his possession, and he had claimed to be from Georgia, to which part of the country he was returning after having run the blockade with his drugs from the North, but he had forgotten to make all his stories agree, and they had arrested him as a spy and put leg-irons upon him. Later on, he joined the Confederate army to save his neck.

Honeycut claimed to have been a Copperhead in Ohio, and that he had been drafted and had furnished a subst.i.tute, but had then been drafted the second time, when he had sworn that he would not stand it. He claimed to have sent his family to Matamoras, and that he had gone to New York to join them by steamer, but had been unable to get a pa.s.sport. He had then made his way to New Orleans, and had again failed to slip through. As a last resort he had gone to Arkansas and secured a pony, with the intention of riding through to Mexico, but had been captured and lost the horse and his money.

The provost marshal, Colonel Province, was a very clever gentleman, and he was kind to us in several ways. One of his courtesies was to grant us a parole within the city limits.

When Magruder's chief of staff saw us on the street and learned of our parole he ordered Colonel Province to return us immediately to prison.

The colonel pleaded for us, saying that he knew us to be gentlemen, and that he felt easier in regard to us while we were on parole than he would if we were in the insecure guardhouse, even while he knew that the parole was contrary to orders, for the guardhouse was filthy and crowded with criminals. This plea in our favor had no effect, and the colonel received peremptory orders to place us in prison at once, under penalty of being reported to Magruder for disobedience.

Three guards were sent to take us to the colonel's headquarters, where he told us of his talk with the chief of staff, and expressed his regret that he was compelled to obey, closing his remark with:

"But I want to tell you, gentlemen, I am an original rebel from South Carolina, while that ---- ---- of a staff officer is from Chicago."

The colonel evidently thought that being a Northern man and a rebel would account for most any kind of meanness.

While defeated in his good intentions in the matter of parole, the colonel tried to make up for it in other ways. He gave me a pair of shoes which had been given to him by the Yankees while he had been a prisoner at Johnson's Island, and which I sold to Masterson for $250, for the purchaser could not wear his boots and leg-irons at the same time.

Our stay at Washington was prolonged on account of a lack of provisions to furnish the extra supply needed for a guard and ourselves on a journey. When it seemed certain that provisions were not to be forthcoming we were started off for Magnolia, Ark., which point we had to make without any supplies save what we could gather as we went along.

When we left Washington we stopped in front of the provost marshal's office, and Colonel Province came out to bid us good-bye and express his regrets that he had been prevented from according us the same kind treatment which he had received at Johnson's Island.

The first night out we reached Spring Hill, which was then a courier station, and were confined in an old church. One of the soldiers killed a hog, which proceeding was an outrageous violation of orders, as well as of the rights of the owner, but we had to eat. A guard and myself went to a neighboring house to get a kettle in which to cook the meat.

The difference between pork and beef in that country was about the same in those days as the difference between greenbacks and Confederate money.

The guard found a negro woman in the house, and he asked for something to eat. She gave us some beef and corn bread, but had no pork when asked for it. In the course of the conversation the guard told her who I was and about the escape of my companions and myself, when the darkey remembered that there was some cold pork in an outhouse, and produced it.

We got the necessary kettle and cooked our meat before we went on our way.

After we had again started, the guards paroled us, and several of them went home, appointing a meeting place and promising us more pork and some biscuit when they returned, which promise they kept.

When we reached Magnolia we found a camp of about forty badly wounded Federal prisoners there, who were the remnants of Steele's fight at Jenkins' Ferry.

We were put in jail for several days to await a move of this camp to Shreveport.

When all were ready the convalescent cases were loaded on wagons and we started.

CHAPTER XXII.

FORAGING, AND A NEW PRISON.

During this trip our rations were salt beef and corn bread, but the latter was unfit to eat, and I refused all rations, preferring to take the chances of foraging until we reached Shreveport.

On the first day out we made about twelve miles. At dusk it commenced to rain, and we camped in an old church at a cross roads. The wounded men and ourselves were placed in one end of the building, they on one side and we on the other, while the other end was used by our guards. They piled up all their equipments in one corner, and spread their blankets in the vacant s.p.a.ce, then going off to a stillhouse in the neighborhood, where they got gloriously drunk, and leaving only a sentinel at the door.