<h3><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</SPAN></h3>
<div class="chapquot">
<div>
<p>I have supped full with horrors.</p>
<p class="citation">Macbeth.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="chapquot">
<div>
<p>The weariest and most loathed worldly life<br/>
That ache, age, penury and imprisonment<br/>
Can lay on nature.</p>
<p class="citation">Measure for Measure.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sidenote">Attempted Outbreak and Massacre.</div>
<p>On the 26th of November, while we were sitting at dinner, John
Lovell came up from the yard and whispered me:</p>
<p>"There is to be an insurrection. The prisoners are preparing to
break out."</p>
<p>We had heard similar reports so frequently as to lose all faith in
them; but this was true. Without deliberation or concert of action,
upon the impulse of the moment, a portion of the prisoners acted.
Suffering greatly from hunger, many having received no food for
forty-eight hours, they said:</p>
<p>"Let us break out of this horrible place. We may just as well die
upon the guns of the guards as by slow starvation."</p>
<p>A number, armed with clubs, sprang upon a Rebel relief of sixteen
men, just entering the yard. Though weak and emaciated, these
prisoners performed their part promptly and gallantly. Man for man,
they wrenched the guns from the soldiers. One Rebel resisted and was
bayoneted where he stood. Instantly, the building against which he
leaned was reddened by a great stain of blood. Another raised his
musket, but, before he could fire, fell to the ground, shot through
the head.
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</SPAN></span>
Every gun was taken from the terrified relief, who immediately ran
back to their camp, outside.</p>
<p>Had parties of four or five hundred then rushed at the fence in
half a dozen different places, they might have confused the guards,
and somewhere made an opening. But some thousands ran to it at
one point only. Having neither crow-bars nor axes they could not
readily effect a breach. At once every musket in the garrison was
turned upon them. Two field-pieces opened with grape and canister.
The insurrection—which had not occupied more than three
minutes—was a failure, and the uninjured at once returned to
their quarters.</p>
<p>The yard was now perfectly quiet. The portion of it which we
occupied was several hundred yards from the scene of the <span
lang="fr">mêlée</span>. In our vicinity there had been
no disturbance whatever; yet the guards stood upon the fence for
twenty minutes, with deliberate aim firing into the tents, upon
helpless and innocent men. Several prisoners were killed within a
dozen yards of our building. One was wounded while leaning against
it. The bullets rattled against the logs, but none chanced to pass
through the wide apertures between them, and enter our apartment.
Sixteen prisoners were killed and sixty wounded, of whom not one in
ten had participated in the outbreak; while most were ignorant of it
until they heard the guns.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Cold-Blooded Murders Frequent.</div>
<p>After this massacre, cold-blooded murders were very frequent. Any
guard, standing upon the fence, at any hour of the day or night,
could deliberately raise his musket and shoot into any group of
prisoners, black or white, without the slightest rebuke from the
authorities. He would not even be taken off his post for it.</p>
<p>One Union officer was thus killed when there could be no pretext
that he was violating any prison rule. </p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i006.jpg" width-obs="1000" height-obs="619" class="epub_only" alt="Massacre of Union Prisoners." title="Massacre of Union Prisoners attempting to Escape from Salisbury, North Carolina." /> <SPAN href="images/i006.jpg" target="_blank"> <ANTIMG src="images/i006thumb.jpg" width-obs="400" height-obs="248" class="noepub" alt="Massacre of Union Prisoners." title="Massacre of Union Prisoners attempting to Escape from Salisbury, North Carolina." /></SPAN> <p class="caption">Massacre of Union Prisoners attempting to Escape
from Salisbury, North Carolina.</p>
<p class="click"><SPAN href="images/i006.jpg" target="_blank">Click for larger image</SPAN></p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>Moses Smith, a negro soldier of the Seventh Maryland Infantry,
was shot through the head while standing inoffensively beside my own
quarters, conversing with John Lovell. One of many instances was
that of two white Connecticut soldiers who were shot within their
tents. We induced one of the surgeons to inquire at head-quarters the
cause of the homicide. The answer received was, that the guard saw
three negroes in range, and, knowing he would never have so good an
opportunity again, fired at them, but missed aim and killed the wrong
men! It seemed to be regarded as a harmless jest.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Hostility to "Tribune" Correspondents.</div>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>Though my comrades and myself, either by <span
lang="fr">finesse</span> or bribery, often succeeded in obtaining
special privileges from the prison officers, the hostility of the
Confederate authorities was unrelenting. Our attorney, Mr. Blackmer,
after visiting Richmond on our behalf, returned and assured us that
he saw no hope of our release before the end of the war, unless we
could effect our escape. Robert Ould, who usually denied that he
regarded us with special hostility, on one occasion, in his cups,
remarked to the United States Commissioner:</p>
</div>
<p>"<cite>The Tribune</cite> did more than any other agency to
bring on the war. It is useless for you to ask the exchange of its
correspondents. They are just the men we want, and just the men we
are going to hold."</p>
<p>Our Government, through blundering rather than design, released
a large number of Rebel journalists without requiring our exchange.
Finally, while among the horrors of Salisbury, we learned that
Edward A. Pollard, a malignant Rebel, and an editor of <cite>The Richmond
Examiner</cite>, most virulent of all the southern papers, was paroled to
the city of Brooklyn, after confinement for a few weeks in the North.
This news cut us
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</SPAN></span>
like a knife. We, after nearly two years of captivity, in that foul,
vermin-infested prison, among all its atrocities—he, at large,
among the comforts and luxuries of one of the pleasantest cities in
the world! The thought was so bitter, that, for weeks after hearing
the intelligence, we did not speak of it to each other. Mr. Welles,
Secretary of the Navy, was the person who set Pollard at liberty.
I record the fact, not that any special importance attaches to our
individual experience, but because hundreds of Union prisoners were
subjected to kindred injustice.</p>
<div class="sidenote">A Cruel Injustice.</div>
<p>At the Salisbury penitentiary was a respectable woman from North
Carolina, who was confined for two months, in the same quarters with
the male inmates. Her crime was, giving a meal to a Rebel deserter!
In Richmond, a Virginian of seventy was shut up with us for a long
time, on the charge of feeding his own son, who had deserted from the
army!</p>
<p>In September, a number of Rebel convicts, armed with clubs and
knives, forcibly took from John Lovell a Union flag, which he had
thus far concealed. After the prisoners of war arrived they vented
their indignation upon the convicts, wherever they could catch them.
For several days, Rebels venturing into the yard were certain to
return to their quarters with bruised faces and blackened eyes.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Rebel Expectations of Peace.</div>
<p>During the peace mania, which seemed to possess the North, at
the time of McClellan's nomination, the Rebels were very hopeful.
Lieutenant Stockton, the post-Adjutant, one day observed:</p>
<p>"You will go home very soon; we shall have peace within a
month."</p>
<p>"On what do you base your opinion?" I asked.</p>
<p>"The tone of your newspapers and politicians. McClellan
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</SPAN></span>
is certain to be elected President, and peace will immediately
follow."</p>
<p>"You southerners are the most credulous people in the whole world.
You have been so long strangers to freedom of speech and the press,
that you cannot comprehend it at all. There are half a dozen public
men and as many newspapers in the North, who really belong to your
side, and express their Rebel sympathies with little or no disguise.
Can you not see that they never receive any accessions? Point out
a single important convert made by them since the beginning of the
war. Before Sumter, these same men told you that, if we attempted
coërcion, it would produce war in the North; and you believed
them. Again and again they have told you, as now, that the loyal
States would soon give up the conflict, and you still believe them.
Wait until the people vote, in November, and then tell me what you
think."</p>
<p>In due time came news of Mr. Lincoln's re-election. The prisoners
received it with intense satisfaction. I conveyed it to the Union
officers, from whom we were separated by bayonets—tossing to
them a biscuit containing a concealed note. A few minutes after,
their cheering and shouting excited the surprise and indignation of
the prison authorities. The next morning I asked Stockton how he now
regarded the peace prospect. Shaking his head, he sadly replied:</p>
<p>"It is too deep for me; I cannot see the end."</p>
<p>A private belonging to the Fifty-ninth Massachusetts Infantry, had
left Boston, a new recruit, just six weeks before we met him. In the
interval he participated in two great battles and five skirmishes,
was wounded in the leg, captured, escaped from his guards, while
<span lang="la">en route</span> for Georgia, traveled three days on
foot, was then
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</SPAN></span>
re-captured and brought to Salisbury. His six weeks' experience had
been fruitful and varied.</p>
<p>That hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, began to tell
seriously upon our mental health. We grew morbid and bitter, and were
often upon the verge of quarreling among ourselves. I remember even
feeling a pang of jealousy and indignation at an account of some
enjoyment and hilarity among my friends at home.</p>
<div class="sidenote">The Prison Like the Tomb.</div>
<p>Our prison was like the tomb. No voice from the North entered its
gloomy portal. Knowing that we had been unjustly neglected by our
own Government, wondering if we were indeed forsaken by God and man,
we seemed to lose all human interest, and to care little whether we
lived or died. But I suppose lurking, unconscious hope, still buoyed
us up. Could we have known positively that we must endure eight
months more of that imprisonment, I think we should have received
with joy and gratitude our sentence to be taken out and shot.</p>
<p>Frequently prisoners asked us, sometimes with tears in their
eyes:</p>
<p>"What shall we do? We grow weaker day by day. Staying here we
shall be certain to follow our comrades to the hospital and the
dead-house. The Rebels assure us that if we will enlist, we shall
have abundant food and clothing; and we may find a chance of escaping
to our own lines."</p>
<p>I always answered that they owed no obligation to God or man to
remain and starve to death. Of the two thousand who did enlist,
nearly all designed to desert at the first opportunity. Their
remaining comrades had no toleration for them. If one who had
joined the Rebels came back into the yard for a moment, his life
was in imminent peril. Two or three times such persons were
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</SPAN></span>
shockingly beaten, and only saved from death by the interference of
the Rebel guards. This ferocity was but the expression of the deep,
unselfish patriotism of our private soldiers. These men, who carried
muskets and received but a mere pittance, were so earnest that they
were almost ready to kill their comrades for joining the enemy even
to escape a slow, torturing death.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Something about Tunneling.</div>
<p>We grew very familiar with the occult science of tunneling. Its
<span lang="la">modus operandi</span> is this: the workman, having
sunk a hole in the ground three, six, or eight feet, as the case
may require, strikes off horizontally, lying flat on his face, and
digging with whatever tool he can find—usually a case-knife.
The excavation is made just large enough for one man to creep through
it. The great difficulty is, to conceal the dirt. In Salisbury,
however, this obstacle did not exist, for many of the prisoners
lived in holes in the ground, which they were constantly changing or
enlarging. Hence the yard abounded in hillocks of fresh earth, upon
which that taken from the tunnels could be spread nightly without
exciting notice.</p>
<p>After the great influx of prisoners of war in October, a large
tunneling business was done. I knew of fifteen in course of
construction at one time, and doubtless there were many more. The
Commandant adopted an ingenious and effectual method of rendering
them abortive.</p>
<p>In digging laterally in the ground, at the distance of thirty or
forty feet the air becomes so foul that lights will not burn, and men
breathe with difficulty. In the great tunnel sixty-five feet long,
by which Colonel Streight and many other officers escaped from Libby
prison, this embarrassment was obviated by a bit of Yankee ingenuity.
The officers, with tacks, blankets, and boards, constructed a pair of
huge bellows, like those used by blacksmiths. Then, while one of them
worked with his case-knife,
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</SPAN></span>
progressing four or five feet in twelve hours, and a second filled
his haversack with dirt and removed it (of course backing out, and
crawling in on his return, as the tunnel was a single track, and had
no turn-table), a third sat at the mouth pumping vigorously, and thus
supplied the workers with fresh air.</p>
<div class="sidenote">The Tunnelers Ingeniously Baffled.</div>
<p>At Salisbury this was impracticable. I suppose a paper of tacks
could not have been purchased there for a thousand dollars. There
were none to be had. Of course we could not pierce holes up to the
surface of the ground for ventilation, as that would expose every
thing.</p>
<p>Originally there was but one line of guards—posted some
twenty-five feet apart, upon the fence which surrounded the garrison,
and constantly walking to and fro, meeting each other and turning
back at the limits of each post. Under this arrangement it was
necessary to tunnel about forty feet to go under the fence, and come
up far enough beyond it to emerge from the earth on a dark night
without being seen or heard by the sentinels.</p>
<p>When the Commandant learned (through prisoners actually suffering
for food, and ready to do almost any thing for bread) that tunneling
was going on, he tried to ascertain where the excavations were
located; but in vain, because none of the shaky Unionists had been
informed. Therefore he established a second line of guards, one
hundred feet outside of those on the fence, who also paced back
and forth in the same manner until they met, forming a second line
impervious to Yankees. This necessitated tunneling at least one
hundred and forty feet, which, without ventilation, was just as much
out of the question as to tunnel a hundred and forty miles. </p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="IV" id="IV">IV.</SPAN><br/> THE ESCAPE.</h2>
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