LIBBY LIFE 
 
 (1) 
 
EXPEEIENCES 
 
 A^ PRISONER OF ^W^A-R 
 
 IJ^ mCHMONI), VA., 1863-64, 
 
 LIEUT. COLONEL F. F. CAVADA, 
 
 <^ OK Co., 
 
 ^i?y 
 
 '^'r'cOPYRIGHT'^ 
 
 ^fimm''^ 
 
 yK 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 KING & BAIRD, 607 SANSOM STREET. 
 
 ■ 1864. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 
 
 EOBEET P. KING, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court in and for the Eastern District of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 PRINTED BT KING & BAIRD. 
 
 Z (>•) ^- 
 
TO 
 
 l}^ ^nwu ird^nz 0if Sljil^bielpl^iiJ, 
 
 THIS BOOK 
 
 AN HUMBLE TOKEN OF SYMPATHY WITH THEIR 
 PATRIOTIC EFFORTS, 
 
 MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 
 
 (5) 
 
o o i<r T E ]sr T s 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 I. 
 
 1863. July: — The Libby Prison— Early Experiences — A 
 Rainy Day — Our Commissariat — Unpleasant Reflections — 
 Scrubbing Day, and Wliite-wasbing Day — The Lyceum, 
 and the Libby Chronicle — A Lecture on Mesmerism and 
 its consequences 21 
 
 11. 
 
 August :-T-Killing Time — The New Arrival — Experiences of 
 a " Fresh Fish" — Episodes of Daily Life — A Prayer— Star- 
 vation— About a Tub— A Mock Trial. ... 39 
 
 III. 
 
 September : — Amatory — The Catechism — Nocturnal Sports 
 — The Fate of a Union Officer, charged with being a Spy — 
 Distribution of Rooms 59 
 
 IV. 
 
 October : — Preparing for Winter— Sports — The Elections — 
 
 A Yankee Trick " . . 71 
 
 (T) 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 V. 
 
 Novembek: — Various Forms of Melancholy — Confederate 
 Wails— Surgeons and Chaplains— Supplies from the North— 
 The Great Conspiracy 81 
 
 VI. 
 December : — Shadows — Musical — Christmas — New Year's 
 Eve— A Story about Six Eggs — Another Story. . 93 
 
 VIL 
 
 1864. Januaby: — New Year's Day — Speculative and Re- 
 trospective — Lugubrious — Escapes from the Prison — Belle 
 Isle 123 
 
 VIII. 
 
 February : — A Sermon from a Candle — The Prison World — 
 Crowded Condition of the Prison — Cooking Experiences — 
 Letters — The Grand Escapade. .... 147 
 
 IX. 
 
 March : — Reveries — Matter of Fact — Matrimonial — Consola- 
 tory — Rumors — Huckster Officers — Confederate Currency 
 and Prices — " Tunnel on the Brain" — A Search — Boxes — 
 Gen. Kilpatrick's Raid— The Gunpowder Plot — Paroled — 
 Conclusion. . • 177 
 
 APPENDIX 201 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 rjlHE following notes were written, ana the sketches 
 wliich illustrate them were drawn, not with 
 the object of presenting a sensational picture of the 
 military prisons of the Confederacy, but simply to 
 while away the idle hours of a tedious and pro- 
 tracted captivity. Such scenes were therefore pre- 
 ferred aS; owing to their entertaining character, 
 were best calculated to dispel the gloom of the 
 prison, and those were treated as briefly as possible, 
 which would have only added to that gloom, by a 
 prolonged contemplation of Iheir miseries. A jour- 
 nal, or connected narrative, would have proved too 
 monotonous ; I have endeavored, however, so to ar- 
 range the order of events described, as to preserve a 
 
 sufl&cient degree of chronological consistency. My 
 
 (9) 
 
1 PREFACE. 
 
 chief aim in these humble pages has been to perpet- 
 uate for my companions in captivity, a compliance 
 with their request, a truthful record of our prison 
 experiences, — a record which, while it cannot fail to 
 bring back upon our hearts some of the gloomy 
 shadows which once darkened them in the prison- 
 house, may also renew upon our lips the irrepressi- 
 ble smiles which were wont to wreathe them at 
 times, in spite of hunger, suffering and despair. 
 
 F. F. 0. 
 
 Continental Hotel, Philadelphia, ) 
 May, 1804. j 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 (11) i 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 T?ARLY in the morning of the 3d of July, ISGB. 
 ■'-^ a long, straggling column of Federal prisoners, 
 captured during the preceding day on the battle-field 
 of Gettysburg, was marching on the Chambersburg 
 road to the rear of the R^el lines. With the gray 
 dawn We had seen General Lee and his staff making 
 their way to the front ; and soon after, the fearful 
 cannonading commenced which opened the contest of 
 that memorable day. On reaching Willoughby creek 
 we were halted, and lay down to rest in the woods. 
 We were only three miles from the field of battle, and 
 the incessant reverberations of the artillery, and the 
 rapid discharges of musketry, reached our ears with 
 a continuous roar, which told how bloody was the 
 struggle, and how well disputed the ground. The 
 following day we heard rumors of the repulse and 
 defeat of the Rebels, and unmistakable indications 
 
 2 (13) 
 
14 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 soon led us to believe that our captors were in full 
 retreat. 
 
 On that 4th of Jul}^, so glorious for our arms, our 
 column was once more started, drenched with the 
 torrents of rain which fell without intermission. The 
 Rebel trains and artillery were moving rapidly in the 
 direction of Chambersburg. Before we had proceeded 
 far we were joined by the prisoners captured during 
 the engagement of the 1st, making an aggregate of 
 about two thousand. We were marched steadily over 
 the rough mountain roads until after midnight, having 
 proceeded as far as Monterey Springs. It would be 
 difficult to give a description which could do justice 
 to the trials of that weary night-march ; we were 
 pressed forward at the utmost speed of which we 
 were capable, and many, unable to keep up with the 
 column, fell exhausted by the road side. Along with 
 us were long trains of wagons, and a motley assort- 
 ment of vehicles of all kinds, impressed from the 
 farmers of the neighborhood, loaded with the Rebel 
 wounded. 
 
 The next morning, before we had time to partake 
 of a generous breakfast prepared for us by some of 
 the inhabitants of the place, we were again ordered 
 into line, and resumed our march towards Hagers- 
 town. We had proceeded but a short distance when 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 15 
 
 we heard rapid firing in our rear, and we flattered 
 ourselves with the hope that we might yet be rescued. 
 The cannonading, we ascertained, was by the artillery 
 of General Kilpatrick, who was harassing the Rebels 
 in their retreat, and endeavoring to cut oS their 
 trains. We could distinctly see the shells from the 
 Federal pieces burst in the vicinity of the Monterey 
 House. This day's march was also a trjdng one ; 
 worn out, and most of us with torn shoes and bleed- 
 ing feet, we were urged on at our utmost speed, over 
 slippery, stony roads, and through mud, that in^many 
 places was knee-deep. We were, besides, compelled 
 to follow close behind a wagon train, which brought 
 our column to a halt in every hundred j^ards. 
 
 Late in the evening we passed through Waynes- 
 boro, and continued marching all night without being 
 allowed an hour of rest or sleep, and urged on in 
 many cases, at the point of the bayonet. 
 
 At nine o'clock next morning we reached Hagers- 
 town, but were hurried on through it to within one 
 mile of Williamsport, Md., where we were allowed a 
 few hours of repose. The suffering among us from 
 fatigue and exhaustion, owing to the fearful rate at 
 which we had been marched, and from hunger and 
 wet, and in many cases from wounds, may readily be 
 conceived. 
 
16 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 All along the road from Hagerstown to Williams- 
 port we noticed indications of General Kilpatrick's 
 cavalry dash into Hagerstown. Our dead cavalrymen 
 were lying in the road, and on either side of it, com- 
 pletely stripped of their clothing, and dead horses, 
 broken caissons, and other remains of the conflict, 
 were scattered here and there. 
 
 The excessive rains which had set in on the 4th, 
 had not yet ceased, — it poured in torrents day and 
 night. Whilst we lay near Williamsport, rations of 
 flour and beef were distributed among us. We were, 
 of course, compelled to do our own cooking. We 
 roasted the beef on the end of a stick, and mixed the 
 flour into a paste with water, and baked it on stones 
 in front of the fire. This wretched condition of our 
 commissariat continued unimproved during all the 
 rest of our journey through the valley of Virginia. 
 
 On the 8th we were marched through Williams- 
 port to the rope-ferry, on the Potomac. The river, 
 swollen by the recent rains, was not crossable at snay 
 of the neighboring fords. This rope-ferry was, at 
 that time, the only means the Rebels had of crossing 
 the stream. The crossing was a slow and tedious 
 process, though no doubt more so to the Rebels than 
 to ourselves, for we felt that after the Potomac 
 should be between us and our army there would be 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 17 
 
 no hope of rescue, and but few opportunities for 
 escape. 
 
 We had been told that once on Yirginia soil our 
 march to Staunton would be made by easy stages, 
 and that the provisions furnished us would be more 
 abundant, and of better quality. Neither of these 
 conditions, however, was realized. All the stores 
 which could be collected were needed by their armj^, 
 and even our guards fared but little better than 
 ourselves. 
 
 By the 11th, we had reached a place called Wash- 
 ington Springs, five miles from Winchester. Here 
 we first saw, in a copy of the Richmond Enquirer, 
 the official report of the surrender of Vicksburg to 
 General Grant. A round of hearty cheers went up 
 from our column, and we pushed forward on our 
 weary journey with a lighter heart, in spite of shoe- 
 less and bleeding feet, for we knew what jo}^ was 
 thrilling, at that moment, the great Union heart of 
 the nation. 
 
 On the 13th, a portion of General Imboden's com- 
 mand took charge of our column. The guard 
 consisted of Captain McNeil's Partisan Rangers, 
 Captain Patterson's Companj^ of Cavalry, and the 
 61st Yirginia State Militia. 
 
 We were repeatedly compelled to countermarch 
 2* 
 
18 LTBBY LIFE, 
 
 through the fields, the streams which traversed the 
 road being much swollen with the recent rains ; in 
 passing Newtown, the turnpike was impracticable, 
 owing to this cause, and we were forced to wade 
 waist-deep through mud and water. 
 
 By the 16th, we had reached Harrisonburg, having 
 marched successively through Middletown, Strasburg, 
 Woodstock, Mount Jackson, and New Market. Three 
 miles beyond Harrisonburg we were shown a tree 
 with an inscription upon it, which marks the spot 
 where the Rebel, Ashby, of cavalry fame, fell the 
 previous year. 
 
 In our march through the several towns we had 
 often drawn upon us the wrath of the inhabitants, 
 especially the women, who more than once taunted 
 us with remarks not calculated to prove very grati- 
 fjdng to our ears. Here and there, however, a Union 
 kerchief was waved to us from some solitary window, 
 and sometimes a fair face would bestow upon us a 
 commiserative glance, or a sweet voice would bid us 
 be of good cheer. 
 
 On the morning of the 18th, our jaded column 
 entered the town of Staunton from the Winchester 
 road. We were a squalid set, way-worn and weary, 
 and covered with the dust of long foot-travel ; with 
 haggard faces, and uncombed hair; some carrying 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 19 
 
 their wounded arms in slings ; many with bare and 
 lacerated feet ; and all bearing the unmistakable 
 impress of the days of hunger, exposure, and fatigue, 
 through which we had just passed. We had been 
 marched on foot a distance of nearly two hundred 
 miles, through the mud and the heavy rains, through 
 the dust and under the scorching summer sun ; for 
 near three weeks we had lived chiefly on flour-paste 
 and water ; we had been swept along in hurried 
 marches with the retreatiug columns of the Rebel 
 Army through Maryland, had slept night after night 
 under pouring rains, and had finally walked the 
 whole length of the great Valle}^ of Virginia, over 
 its stony hills and through its swollen streams, to the 
 sources of the Shenandoah. It was a beautiful 
 country through which we had just passed, but it 
 had presented no charms to weary eyes that were 
 compelled to view it through a line of hostile ba3"0- 
 nets ; we felt but little sympathy for the beautiful ; 
 on our haggard countenances only this was written : 
 " Give us rest, and. food." 
 
 On the evening of the same day, our sorry column 
 was marched through the streets of Richmond from 
 the depot of the Yirginia Central Railroad to the 
 Libby Prison. The gloomy and forbidding exterior 
 of the prison, and the pale, emaciated faces staring 
 
20 
 
 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 vacantly at us tlirongli the bars, were repulsive 
 enough, but it was at least a haven of rest from the 
 wear}^ foot-march, and from the goad of the urging 
 baj^onet. Had we known that we were entering this 
 loathsome prison-house not to leave it again for 
 many, many weary days and months, more than one 
 heart would have grown faint with a mournful pre- 
 sentiment, for there were among us some who were 
 doomed never to recross its threshold as livino- men. 
 
I. 
 
 18 6 3. 
 
 ^w\v^\ — The Libby Prison — Early Experi- 
 ences — A Eainy Day — Our Commissariat — • 
 Unpleasant Eeflections — Scrubbing Day and 
 AVhitewashing Day — The Lyceum, and the 
 Libby Chronicle — A Lecture on Mesmerism, 
 AND its Consequences. 
 
 (21) 
 
THE LTBBY PRISON. 23 
 
 THE LIBBY PPJSON. 
 
 "TTTE are now fairly launched upon the mysterious 
 ^ ^ ocean of Libby life. Before embarking, how- 
 ever, we have had our pockets well searched by the 
 prison warden, and everything deemed to be of a 
 contraband nature has been confiscated. Most of us 
 possessed but little that warranted the search, having 
 bartered away, to obtain food, all our dispensable 
 articles, during our sojourn in the valle}^ of Yirginia. 
 Soon after crossing the Potomac, southward bound, 
 there were numerous melancholy instances of a 
 breakfast made on a pocket-knife, a dinner off a felt 
 hat, and a supper off a pair of boots. One officer 
 had subsisted for three days on a Colt's revolver. 
 
 The room we are in is long, low, dingy, gloomy, 
 and suffocating. 'Some two hundred officers are lying 
 packed in rows along the floor, sleeping the heavy, 
 dreamless sleep of exhaustion. But there are some 
 who cannot sleep ; they are thinking of the camp, of 
 
24 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 home, and of friends ; the}^ are quarreling with the 
 fortune of war ; they are longing for the termination 
 of a loathsome and hateful captivity, which has only 
 just begun. B3"-and-by even the most wakeful yield 
 to the imperative demand for rest, and with one arm 
 for a pillow, have stretched themselves out on the 
 bare floor. 
 
 The shadows, as they thicken on the prison walls, 
 seem to be spreading over these long files of stirless, 
 outstretched* men, the black pall of a living death. 
 It may be many days, many months, before the free, 
 pure air of Heaven fans their temples again, and 
 before the cheerful sunshine once more traces their 
 shadows upon the green, scented grass ! 
 
 The day has dawned clear and full of sunlight. I 
 look out of the window on the James river. Imme- 
 diately below is the canal ; beyond it flows the river, 
 with a rapid, murmuring current, reflecting here and 
 there the purple flush of the morning clouds ; there is 
 a cluster of tall factories on the Oj^posite bank ; be- 
 yond these is the village of Manchester on one side, 
 and on the other are broad fields, and the rolling 
 hills which fringe a distant curve of the river. 
 Looking up-st¥eam, there is a lovely little island, 
 three long white bridges which span the stream, half 
 
THE LTBBY PRISON. 25 
 
 concealed by the thick foliage, and beyond these, a 
 full mile off, is Belle Isle, with some white tents 
 crowning an eminence. The scene is beautiful at this 
 hour, bathed in the rich roseate mist of early morn- 
 ing, which pours over the gilded edges of the eastern 
 clouds as if it overflowed from a golden vase. 
 
 I pass to another window : this one looks upon the 
 street. Yonder building, with the barred windows, 
 I am told, is " Castle Thunder," and on the opposite 
 side of the street may be just seen the gable end of 
 another prison, known by the significant title of the 
 " Cage." Nearer is an antiquated Meeting House ; 
 then comes a negro shanty, a stable, a church, an 
 empty lot, and a large warehouse, used as a con- 
 valescent hospital for Confederate soldiers ; place 
 behind these some rows of brick dwellings, by way 
 of a horizon, and a pretty correct idea may be formed 
 of what we are destined to behold every day during 
 our sojourn here. This, with the group of tents, the 
 headquarters of the guard, at the opposite corner of 
 the street, and a row of sentries pacing up and down 
 on the pavement below, is all that the windows of 
 Libby offer in the way of an immediate prospect. 
 
 Now for the Libby itself It stands close by the 
 
 L3''nchburg canal, and in full view from the river. It 
 
 is a capacious warehouse, built of brick and roofed 
 
 3 
 
26 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 with tin. It was a busy place previous to the Rebel- 
 lion ; barrels and bales obstructed the stone side-walk 
 wliich surrounds the building on all four of its sides ; 
 barrels and boxes were being constantly hoisted in 
 and hoisted out ; numberless boats lined the canal 
 in front of it, and loaded drays rattled over the cob- 
 ble pavement of Carej'' street. There was a signboard 
 at an angle of the building, whereon you might have 
 read in black letters on a white ground : " Libby & 
 Sons, Ship Chandlers and Grocers." This sign-board 
 is still at its post ; but a wondrous change has come 
 over the place. There are now no bales and boxes 
 coming in at one end, and going out at the other ; no 
 laden boats on the canal ; no drays rattling over the 
 stone pave. There is something about it indicative 
 of the grave, and, indeed, it is a sort of unnatural 
 tomb, whose pale, wan habitants gaze vacantly out 
 through the barred windows on the passer-by, as if 
 they were peering from the mysterious precincts of 
 another world. 
 
 The building has a front of about one hundred and 
 forty feet, with a depth of about one hundred and 
 five. There are nine rooms, each one hundred and 
 two feet long by forty-five wide. The height of ceil- 
 ings from the floor, is about seven feet ; except in the 
 
THE LIBBY PRISON. 2t 
 
 upper story, which is better ventilated owing to the 
 I)itch of the roof. At each end of these rooms are 
 five windows. 
 
 Nothing but bread has, as yet, been issued to us, 
 half a loaf twice a day, per man. This must be 
 washed down with James River water, drawn from a 
 hydrant over the wash-trough. To-morrow, we are 
 to be indulged with the luxury of bacon-soup. 
 
 There are some filthy blankets hanging about the 
 room ; they have been used time and again by the 
 many who have preceded us ; they are soiled, worn, 
 and filled with vermin, but we are recommended to 
 hell? ourselves in time ; if we do so with reluctance 
 and profound disgust it is because we are now more 
 particular than we will be by-and-by. 
 
 We have tasted of the promised soup : it is boiled 
 W&t3r sprinkled with rice, and seasoned with the rank 
 ju^ '-es of stale bacon ; we must shut our eyes to eat 
 It 5 the bacon, I have no doubt, might have walked 
 into the pot of its own accord. It is brought up to 
 us in wooden buckets, and we eat it, in most cases 
 without spoons, out of tin-cups. " Quis custodiet 
 ipsos custodes ?" 
 
 It has been raining for several daj^s. How much 
 more gloomy the prison looks, robbed of the little 
 
28 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 scattering sunlight which, on clear cla3^s, comes creep- 
 ing timidly in between the window-bars I The effect 
 on the minds of all in the prison is very perceptible : 
 there is a tendency to lie about on the floor, to 
 grumble, to be irritable, to have the blues. No 
 wonder. The little ration of sunshine which Heaven 
 is wont to issue to us is cut off. There is, here, some- 
 thing delightful in letting a ray of sparkling sunshine 
 fall upon one's face ; you can sit and look at it for 
 hours. The pleasure which it affords is not difficult 
 to account for : this sunlight comes from the sky, 
 pure, and untainted ; it comes, free and unshackled, 
 from without ; it is a link between the captive and 
 that liberty which he has learned to prize so dearly ; 
 it is a golden bridge over which his thoughts, ren- 
 dered morbid by gloomy reveries, pass out through 
 the prison-bars, and go forth into the free realm of 
 space, to wander wheresoever they will. 
 
 The rain pattering on the tin roof overhead has a 
 mournful sound. It is singular how this music of 
 the beating rain will always carry one back, far back, 
 into child-life ; it is apt to have a strange, sad influ- 
 ence on us whenever we hear it ; but nowhere so 
 strange, nor so s^d, as in a prison. 
 
 We have received permission to purchase provisions 
 
t&»k. A.^ 
 
 
 i ii 
 
 
 '■III' 
 
THE LIBBY PRISON. 29 
 
 outside the prison. We have elected an officer, of 
 the Quartermasters' Department, to be our " Commis- 
 sary -in- Chief:'' He has divided us into messes of 
 fifteen to twenty, and we are to do our own cooking ; 
 stoves are being put up, and the cook-room parti- 
 tioned off. It is a great privilege to be allowed to 
 cook for ourselves ! An assistant commissary is 
 elected for each mess : to these the chief commissary 
 issues, and they in their turn issue to the cooks. 
 The hours are so distributed that more than two 
 hundred may be able to cook on two small stoves. 
 The prison authorities issue meat and rice, of which 
 we will make soup ; with the boiled meat from the 
 soup a hash will be made for breakfast next morning. 
 All extras will be at the expense of individuals. Rj^e 
 Coffee sells at one dollar per pound ; sugar, three dol- 
 lars ; eggs, two dollars per dozen ; butter, four dollars 
 per pound — So much for our culinary prospects. 
 
 ' The officers of the gunboats *' Satellite-' and " Re- 
 liance" are now with us. It is humorously rumored 
 in the prison that they were captured by a desperate 
 charge of the Rebel cavalry on the gunboats. These 
 jolly tars will suffer less than the landsmen from 
 their imprisonment ; they have only to imagine them- 
 selves in the hold of some huge three-decker, during 
 
 a dead calm. 
 
 3* 
 
30 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 There has been much excitement in the city abont 
 a rumored movement of Federal troops up the Penin- 
 sula with the design of capturing the capital ; the 
 bells all over the city were rung this morning, and 
 only a few moments ago, being attracted to the win- 
 dow by an unusual rattling of wheels on the street, 
 we had a glimpse of one of the celebrated " Mule 
 Batteries" which fulmine over Rebeldom, and whose 
 bellicose braying is no doubt destined to strike terror 
 into the hearts of the northern hay^hai^ians. 
 
 It is difficult for one who has never before been 
 compelled to look out upon the world from behind 
 the bars of a prison, to convince himself of the fact 
 that he is really deprived of his libert}^ There is a 
 merry group of children, romping and playing near 
 the river ; I listen to their joyous laughter, and, some- 
 how, it has a very mournful sound. Most people 
 have sighed, at times, to be 3^oung again ; that sigh 
 is a longer and a deeper one when we yearn, not only 
 for the happy insouciance of childhood, but for its 
 freedom also. These thoughtless little ones romping 
 and laughing under the very windows of our prison- 
 house ; these happy hearts beating quick with the ex- 
 citement of their merry sport in the pleasant shadows 
 of a summer afternoon, how near are they to other and 
 
UNPLEASANT REFLECTIONS. 31 
 
 older hearts which are heavy with the gloom of cap- 
 tivit}^ But is not this after all a counter-part of the 
 great world, in which, Mde. De Stael remarks, one 
 half is always laughing at the other half ? Truly : 
 joy and sorrow, good and evil, how near grow they 
 to one another in the vale of human life 1 The 
 passers-by on the pave below, with what indifference 
 they glance up at the pale faces that peer out between 
 the bars ! 
 
 These are not the pleasantest reflections in the 
 world, but they are such as force themselves upon 
 the mind of a prisoner. When Hood wrote in the 
 ''Bridge of Sighs" the line " Anj^ where, anywhere, 
 out of the world," he must have been thinking of a 
 place not much worse than this we are now in. I can 
 imagine a '' Convict Ship" on its way to Australia — 
 far out in mid-ocean — with nothing but a limitless 
 waste of blue water around it, and nothing but a 
 limitless waste of blue air above it — and crowded 
 with sorrowing human beings. It seems to me that 
 this prison bears some resemblance to it. We are 
 indeed much like so many passengers, who feel that 
 in a common danger and a common fate, there is 
 much that creates a mutual interest. Our ship-simile 
 might be carried very far, but it is too vivid to be 
 j)leasant. Ours is a voyage, not of pleasure, but of 
 
32 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 necessity ; there is no convivial wine in our locker 
 over wliicli to toast the friends we love, and wherein 
 to drown the tedium of the journey ; we are on short, 
 ver}^ short rations; and, to replace sea-sickness, we 
 have a fearful substitute in home-sickness, by far the 
 more trying of the two. 
 
 I am interrupted in my profound reflections by the 
 sudden influx into the room of a dozen negroes carry- 
 ing buckets and brooms. I know but too well what 
 this portends. It is scrubbing-day. These are the 
 clouds which portend the storm. 
 
 All that has ever been written, grumbled, or solilo- 
 quized, b}^ forlorn and outraged husbands driven from 
 the sanctity of their homes on those dismal occasions 
 when their demented spouses have been seized with 
 the " scrubbing-fever," and have pulled up all the 
 carpets in the house, and crowded the furniture in 
 pyramidal confusion in all the by-ways, and have 
 lathered the floors, and the stairs, and the windows, 
 and have rendered the entire premises fit to be in- 
 habited, for the next twenty-four hours, only by 
 improbable web-footed husbands of aquatic propen- 
 sities, — when the flying spray of soap and water is 
 dashed into their faces even from the doors of their 
 private sanctums, and splashed over their best beaver 
 from the parlor window-panes, — when, in fine, the 
 
SCRUBBING DAY AND WHITEWASHING DAY. 33 
 
 whole female household seems to have gone stark 
 mad with an irrepressible insanity for soap-snds, — 
 all, I repeat, that has ever been uttered, under circum- 
 stances so aggravating, by exasperated husbands, 
 cannot do justice to a scrubbing-day in the Libby. 
 For the anti-lavatory husband can at least, when hotly 
 pressed by the enemy, make good his retreat out of 
 the front door : here, there is no line of escape ! 
 Everything, pretty much, that you possess, your bed, 
 3^our baggage, and your dinner, are on the floor, and 
 that floor, will be in a few moments a tempestuous 
 ocean of splashing, filthy water. You may baffle the 
 foe, perhaps, for a short time, by rapid and well-con- 
 ducted retreats to little islands of dry floor here and 
 there, where you stand on tip-toe, your blanket over 
 your shoulders, your day's rations in one hand, and 
 your coffee-pot in the otlier ; but you will, finally, be 
 compelled to surrender, and resign yourself to your 
 watery fate. 
 
 There is only one other day, with us, which can, in 
 any manner compare with the tortures and the terrors 
 of this : that is, "whitewashing" day. You are then 
 harassed, not from below, but from above ; this 
 operation seems to have been invented by the fiendish 
 ingenuit}^ of some monster in human shape, for the 
 
34 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 express purpose of completing the ruin of your 
 already dilapidated wardrobe. Your only coat is 
 sure to come out of the ordeal spotted and streaked 
 with white down the back ; your only hat will look 
 as if 3^ou had just come in from a severe snow-storm, 
 and you will walk about the rest of the day like a 
 sort of hitherto undiscovered specimen of the Leo- 
 pard family, deeming j^ourself fortunate enough, if 
 you do not create a, to jou, unaccountable laugh 
 wherever you go, by a snow-flake of lime glued on to 
 the end of jonv nose. 
 
 In order to while away, to some extent, the tedium 
 of our monotonous life, we have, among other pas- 
 times, organized a Lyceum, or Debating Club. The 
 scenes which it, at times presents, are worthy the 
 graphic pencil of an artist. The chainnan sits on 
 the floor a la Turqiie, the " chair" itself being an 
 empty name, without any local existence. The mem- 
 bers sit in a circle on the floor, like Indian Chiefs 
 at a war council. 
 
 The debates are very spirited, and grave questions, 
 involving the destinies of the whole human race, 
 and the future destiny of " Our great Country," are 
 discussed with intense enthusiasm, sometimes even 
 
THE LYCEUM AND LIBCT CHRONICLE. 35 
 
 with political virulence, and not seldom with very 
 bad grammar. 
 
 An eloquent orator, naked to the waist [for the 
 weather is very warm], rises on his bare feet, and 
 flourishes his sleeveless arms about in a style as 
 imposing and forcible as it is original. He is por- 
 tra3'ing, with the glowing and picturesque colors of 
 an inspired imagination, the sublime beauties of the 
 ancient philosophy. He is patriotically suicidal with 
 Socrates ; suicidally heroic with Cato ; astutely criti- 
 cal with Horace ; mysteriously profound with Seneca, 
 and profoundly mysterious with Cicero, when he is 
 ludicrously interrupted by a vociferous call from the 
 cook-house, of ''Fall in, small messes, for your black 
 beans !" A shrewd debater on the negative side of 
 the question, taking immediate advantage of this 
 laughable interruption, rises promptly and obtains the 
 ''floor." He reviews rapidly, but with remarkable 
 perspicacity, the fallacious arguments of his shirtless 
 predecessor ; overturns the illogical conclusions to 
 which ''the gentleman on the affirmative side who 
 has just addressed 3'ou," would lead the intelligent 
 members of the Association ; scatters to the four 
 winds of Heaven all the philosophy of the past, all 
 the philosophy of the present, and all the philosophy 
 of the future ; and, in conclusion, triumphantly calls 
 
36 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 the attention of the learned chairman to the scanty 
 wardrobe of his misguided opponent, as circumstan- 
 tially corroborative of the scantiness of his wit. 
 
 All this is quite comical and perfectly harmless, 
 and aids admirably in passing away the time ; no 
 one would think, therefore, of discountenancing the 
 " Lj^ceum." Besides, it publishes a newspaper, called 
 the " Libby Chronicle," which is edited by a witty 
 and intelligent chaplain, and which descants with 
 considerable acumen upon the various occurrences of 
 our prison-life. When the reading of the Chronicle 
 is announced throughout the building, which occurs, 
 generally, once a week, there is a great rush to listen 
 to its contents. The audience collects in a circle on 
 the floor, and the Editor, standing in the centre, 
 reads the various articles from the slips of paper on 
 which they have been written. This mode of publi- 
 cation, besides being quite economical, is decidedly 
 sociable. 
 
 One of the officers lectures to us, on the subject of 
 mesmerism. He tells us about the electric fluid 
 which permeates all space, about clairvoyance, about 
 the magnetic spheres, and about many other interest- 
 ing facts connected with the mesmeric science. The 
 fact, whether mesmerism be a science, however, is 
 
A LECTURE ON MESMERISM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 37 
 
 caviled at by some of the medical faculty present, 
 and at the succeeding meeting of the Lyceum, the all- 
 important question : " Is Mesmerism a true science V^ 
 is discussed with much warmth, and at great length. 
 The Faculty being reinforced by an astute corres- 
 pondent of the New York Tribune, assail the mes- 
 meric party with redoubled energy, and finally, so 
 much is said, on both sides, that the learned chair- 
 man of the Debating Association, bewildered at first 
 by the rapid discharges, from the opposing batteries, 
 of all sorts of technical canister and scientific grape, 
 and lost, soon afterwards, in a labyrinth of anatomi- 
 cal dissertations and a complication of magnetic 
 incomprehensibilities, is drawn into a vortex of irre- 
 trievable confusion, and, ere the close of the meeting, 
 is seized with the frightful hallucination that he is 
 attempting the desperate feat of walking over ]S[iagara 
 Falls on a telegraph wire, with a twelve jar galvanic 
 battery in full blast in his coat-tail pocket I 
 
 The mesmeric excitement gains ground with alarm- 
 ing rapidity, and soon becomes general ; all sorts of 
 impromptu mesmerisers may be seen here and there 
 about the rooms, surrounded by anxious and serious 
 groups, and endeavoring, with all the earnestness of 
 mesmeric faith, to worry suspected mediums into an 
 impossible sleep. It is shrewdly argued by some 
 
38 
 
 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 that a state of chronic somnolency would be an 
 admirable mental condition in which to pass through 
 the horrors of a protracted captivity ; and that, as by 
 mesmeric influence, all kinds of hallucinations may 
 be produced on the brain of the sleeper, nothing 
 would be easier than to eat stale bread and imagine 
 it to be sponge-cake ; to turn James River water 
 into sparkling champagne ; and to convert into 
 '^ Floating islands" the vapid juices of weak bean 
 soup ! These admirable results, and the startling 
 phenomena which accompany them, however, are, 
 unfortunately for us, not obtained ; the medium, in 
 spite of him, cannot hear anything of the luxurious 
 jingle of silver about his smutted tin-cup, and the 
 same old prison-odor of superannuated bacon still 
 clings, with anti-mesmeric tenacity, to the incor- 
 rigible vapors of the cook-house. 
 
^ OR/AN - 
 
 The Tub. 
 
II. 
 
 1863. 
 
 ^VV€[,VK§»\\ — Killing Time— The New Aeri- 
 
 VAL — ExPEEIEKCES OF A "FeESH FiSH" — EPISODES 
 
 OF Daily Life — A Peayee — Staevation — About 
 A Tub — A Mock Teial. 
 
 (39) 
 
KILLING TIME. 41 
 
 KILLING TIME. 
 
 T AM repeatedly struck by the fact of how much 
 -^ prisoners become like children. The importance 
 of momentous events is given to the merest trifles, 
 and in order to elicit that most contrary and proble- 
 matical result ironically styled killing time, recourse 
 is had to the most insignificant and primitive pas- 
 times. Unwearable finger rings, and sacrilegious 
 looking crosses are sawed and filed out of ration 
 bones ; the handles of brushes and the backs of combs 
 are carved with touching mottoes ; gray heads become 
 speculative over jack-straws ; and, sedate and digni- 
 fied patriots indulge in the grotesque antics of "leap- 
 frog." Then, to see them crowding up, tin-cup in 
 hand, to receive the meagre allowance of pale, ambig- 
 uous soup ; to watch them lying about the floor in 
 unique groups, or sauntering through the rooms, bored 
 
 to death with ennui, — a host of shoeless, shirtless, 
 
 4* 
 
42 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 shameless spectres, each one wandering wildly about 
 in the preposterous effort to get away from himself ! 
 
 It is laughable — and in that mirth there is a moral 
 — to see a brigadier-general, sitting down philosophi- 
 cally to peel onions for a stew ; a colonel of cavalry, 
 sweeping the floor; or, a Division Quartermaster in 
 carpet slippers, and become irascible in a violent con- 
 troversy about the distribution of spoons ! 
 
 There is a new arrival of prisoners. The cry is 
 started of "more Yanks !" " Fresh Fish !" and there, 
 is a general rush to the windows to obtain a glimpse 
 of the new-comers, followed, in all likelihood, by a 
 spirited interchange of amicable recognitions. 
 
 The ''Fresh Fish" are taken into the lower passage, 
 where they are formed in line, their names registered, 
 and their pockets searched. They are then, if they- 
 be officers, conducted up-stairs into their future 
 domicil, and, if enlisted men, into a lower room, or 
 they are sent to Belle Isle, or to one of the other 
 prisons in Richmond. 
 
 In the general thirst for the latest news, the hapless 
 " Fresh Fish" who just enters, is beset by the whole 
 bevy of jail-birds, whose haggard countenances, dis- 
 hevelled hair, and supernatural attire, are sufficient 
 to inspire him with feelings not the most enviable, 
 
THE NEW ARRIVAL. 43 
 
 either as to his personal safety for the present, or as 
 to his personal comfort for the future. A number 
 of questions are asked him, all at the same time, 
 whilst one pulls him this way, and another that : — 
 " What news from the Army of the Potomac ?" 
 " Where is such a Corps, or such a Division ?" 
 *' When were you captured ?" " Where were you 
 captured ?" How were you captured ?" And so on 
 for a quarter of an hour, until at last the poor 
 fellow, breathless and exhausted, drops his haver- 
 sack out of one hand, and his coat out of the other, 
 that he may wipe away the torrents of perspiration 
 that stream down his face. There is then a commis- 
 erative counter-cry of " give him air !" " don't 
 crowd him !" and so forth, during another period 
 of noise and confusion. At length the unfortunate 
 man recovers his breath, and silence is enforced, that 
 not a word falling from his lips may be lost, when 
 he informs the gaping listeners, to their utter dis- 
 comfiture and dismay, that he comes from the south- 
 west, and was captured five months nc;o ! This 
 provoking revelation is likely to elicit some such 
 charitable suggestion as "put that fellow out!" 
 which being impracticable under the circumstances 
 is probably modified to " dip him in the bath-tub I" 
 Once let alone, the new arrival proceeds to 
 
44 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 enquire about Ms " quarters," a term wliicli lie soon 
 discovers is only applied by courtesy to six feet by 
 two of bare floor ; he is perhaps furnished, in addi- 
 tion, with a blanket which many a captive has here, 
 during the past two years, wrapped like a "martial 
 cloak around him," and which is pretty sure to be 
 colonized. Being fiow provided for, to the full 
 extent of the prison charity, and having sauntered 
 about the rooms to satisfy his curiosity as to the 
 peculiar features of his new abode, he finally stretches 
 himself out on his " six by two," arranges his haver- 
 sack comfortably under his head, and does precisely 
 what all the new arrivals have done before him : he 
 begins to think. 
 
 Just at the culminating point of some wild revery 
 about his far-off wife and innocent babes, he is 
 suddenly aroused by a terrific commotion in the 
 room ; the prisoners, with a savage halloo, are rush- 
 ing frantically to the windows. What can it mean ? 
 "What is the matter?" asks the new arrival, as he 
 springs to his feet, in accents tremulous with the 
 excitement of terror. Will no one tell him ? no ; 
 every one is in a hurry, and no one tells him. The 
 most frightful suspicions dart through his brain. 
 Have the prisoners mutinied, and are they slaughter- 
 ing the guards ? He has read a barbarous article 
 
EXPERIENCES OF A FRESH FISH. 45 
 
 in the ^' Biclimoncl Enquirer'''' about retaliation, and 
 the raising of the black flag — no ! would they dare 
 to — and he grasps his throat convulsively. Perhaps 
 the building is on fire. A horrible thought I Five 
 hundred human beings struggling through one con- 
 tracted doorway ! The alarming narrowness of the 
 staircase also recurs vividly to his memory. He 
 rushes madly after the crowd ; in his blind career he 
 treads upon the countenance of a slumbering con- 
 valescent, and materially retards the recovery of the 
 afiiicted man ; or he puts his foot into a coffee-pot 
 and overturns its contents ; or ruins some choice 
 and expensive preparation of stewed apples ; or plays 
 the deuce with some valuable collection of tin-ware, 
 thereby subjecting himself to the violent abuse of a 
 "private mess." At length, after much spirited 
 elbowing, during which he regrets the necessity of 
 being rough upon a reverend member of the clergy, 
 he finally reaches a window. Are the prisoners 
 leaping madly into the street to avert an agonizing 
 death amid the flames ? This would be a fearful 
 alternative for a man with a far-off wife and innocent 
 babes I By a desperate effort he obtains a full view 
 of the street ; the extraordinary commotion is satis- 
 factorily accounted for. He laughs outright. The 
 frightful phantoms which haunted his brain but a 
 
46 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 moment since, have fled. He beholds the mysterious 
 cause of this wild excitement : it is a woman passing 
 along the pavement below. 
 
 So he goes sauntering back to his ''six-by-two," a 
 wiser, if not a better man. 
 
 As night approaches, the situation of the fresh 
 arrival becomes somewhat critical. He succeeds, 
 after awhile, in bringing about a not altogether 
 satisfactory compromise between his blanket, his 
 haversack, and himself; after Ijdng, first on one 
 side, then on the other, then on his back, and then 
 on no side in particular, he finally falls into an 
 ambiguous slumber, and dreams unutterable miseries. 
 But he has not yet emptied to the dregs the bitter 
 cup of his first day's experience in the Libby. In 
 the midst of a thrilling night-mare, he is awakened 
 by startling and confused yells in the distance ; they 
 approach, rendering the night hideous with their 
 echoes ; nearer and nearer they come, repeated at 
 short intervals, by weird voices, and wafted up from 
 the street by the night wind. But this suspense 
 becomes insupportable ; he leaps to his feet, and 
 makes his way to the nearest window ; it is raining, 
 and the sidewalk below is shrouded in impenetrable 
 darkness, but a shrill Confederate voice informs him, 
 as it takes up in piercing accents the diabolical 
 
EPISODES OP DAILY LIFE. 4T 
 
 refrain, that it is "Twelve o'clock," and that at 
 " Post IS^o. 10, all's well !" This gratifying intelli- 
 gence restores the alarmed prisoner's presence of 
 mind, and chastened and subdued by the Christian- 
 like resignation and buoyancy of spirits of "Post 
 No. 10," he once more returns to torture himself into 
 an unresolvable problem of chaotic anatomy, and 
 falls asleep for the last time that night, with the 
 pleasing reflection that to-morrow, thank Heaven, 
 he will have ceased to be a "Fresh Fish!" 
 
 The first thing we hear in the morning is the 
 stentorian voice of a certain fertile colored genius, 
 familiarly known in Libby as "Old Ben." This 
 voice daily announces to the half-awakened prisoners 
 that there is " great news in de papers ! Talagraphic 
 dispatches from ebery whar ! Ease I'm bound to 
 trabel !" 
 
 Old Ben is followed by "the General," another 
 colored attache of the prison, whose chief duty is to 
 go through the rooms every morning and fumigate 
 them with tar-smoke. The " General" is a staunch 
 supporter of the old flag, and qualifies his fumigatory 
 process by calling it " a good Union smoke !" 
 
 The next announcement is, that of " Mess number 
 so-and-so — ^breakfast !" There is then a general rush 
 
48 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 of the memlDers of said mess to their morning repast, 
 which is spread in true alms-house style, upon a 
 long, bare, pine table. To the casual observer, the 
 meal would appear to consist wholly of deformed 
 tin plates and pewter spoons, but an oniony odor 
 which pervades the premises is a welcome earnest of 
 ''hash" to come. If a newly arrived member in the 
 mess has been unfortunate enough to oversleep him- 
 self — ^which will never occur to him twice — he may 
 rest assured that his slumbers will not be disturbed ; 
 this would be the very height of madness, because, 
 by a shrew algebraic calculation, we arrive at the 
 following gratifying result : 
 
 a =^ total members of mess. 
 J) = slumbering ditt( 
 X = rations of hash. 
 
 J) = slumbering ditto of ditto. 
 
 Now then, we have the quantities I'' — 1^, and 
 20^ — P, from which will naturally be deduced the 
 following equation : 
 
 20^— P=19=^ + 19^ t 1^. 
 
 Yarious little episodes diversify the monotony of 
 Libby life. There are two roll-calls daily, when the 
 
EPISODES OF DAILY LIFE. 49 
 
 prisoners are counted ; there is the Sergeant, who 
 every morning conjures up a host of dilapidated 
 spectres with the necromantic words, *' Fall in, sick, 
 and go down" — which means down to the Surgeon's 
 office — but which the uninitiated might imagine to 
 imply a diabolical desire, on the part of the Con- 
 federate authorities, that the sick might fall into 
 some dreadful place — perhaps the canal — and go down 
 never to rise again. 
 
 Each prisoner must serve his tour at policing, and 
 putting things in order, during which he is in all 
 likelihood dispatched hy the chief commissary on a 
 spirited reconnoissance in quest of secreted spoons. 
 Of course there is your little washing to be done, 
 also ; you rub and soap away for dear life, like a male 
 washer- woman, and the difficulty of getting things to 
 look clean teaches you a wholesome lesson ; you learn 
 thereby to dul}'' appreciate the merit of lavatory 
 labors, and j^ou behold in all its glaring monstrosity 
 that mean and criminal practice of palming off coun- 
 terfeit six-pences upon hard-working laundresses. 
 
 The last days of summer ! — All our hopes of being 
 exchanged or paroled, have been dissipated one after 
 another, and our captivity is passing with rapid 
 
 5 
 
50 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 strides from the last green of summer to tlie sere 
 yellow of autumn ; from faint hope to settled despair. 
 Rumors of battles which are being fought, and of 
 victories which are being won, reach us from time to 
 time, and cheer us in our seclusion. The hopes of 
 the Confederacy are paling fast, and its social status, 
 if we may judge by that of the capital as portrayed 
 in its daily journals, deteriorates with a steady down- 
 ward course that must soon lead to utter anarchy. 
 
 Among the prisoners are quite a number of chap- 
 lains. This time the rude grasp of Mars has not 
 respected the inviolable sanctity of the holy robe. 
 Sermons, and prayer-meetings are of frequent occur- 
 "rence ; the minister takes his position in the centre 
 of the room, and the congregation sit, or kneel, 
 around him on the floor. It is a service well befit- 
 ting the prison-house, with its prospects of long 
 suffering and self-denial, and its menaces of weary 
 hours, and days of languishing tedium. The spirit 
 of the Almighty is ardently invoked to descend to us 
 in our gloomy abode ; to pour the sunshine of Its 
 glory upon the dismal prison-walls, and the balm of 
 Its mercy into the weary heart ; to give to the mind 
 of Its holy strength, that looking wistfully out through 
 the prison-bars at the light and the liberty without, 
 
STARVATION. 61 
 
 the captive may temper his coinplainiDgs with faith, 
 and his despair with hope. 
 
 In the room under the one we occupy, are confined 
 a large number of Federal non-commissioned officers, 
 and citizens captured in Maryland and Pennsjdvania 
 during the late invasion by General Lee's Army. 
 They are even more poorly fed than ourselves. 
 Through a chink in the floor we pass them down 
 crackers, and pieces of bread, wdienever we can spare 
 them from our own slender store. It is pitiful to see 
 these starving men struggling with their thin, lank 
 hands, at the hole, to catch the bits we drop through 
 to them. We often see them fight desperately over 
 a morsel of bread, even beating and knocking one 
 another down. I never look through that chink, but 
 I can see below some anxious, wasted face, and a pair 
 of sunken eyes, peering up in wistful supplication for 
 a crust ! The Confederate authorities assert that 
 they are doing all they can for us ! If unavoidable, 
 this system of starvation would be frightful enough : 
 if intentional, it is too revoltingly cruel to ever meet 
 with its fall punishment upon earth. 
 
 The water we use, is drawn at a hj^drant, under 
 which a bath-tub, or rather trough, has been con- 
 
52 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 structed, which serves for all washing purposes gen- 
 erally. This tub, which would under ordinary con- 
 ditions of comfort inconvenientl}^ hold one bather, is 
 often made to accommodate three or four at a time, 
 with a crowd in waiting and ready to squeeze in at 
 the first opportunity. A misty spray of muddy soap 
 and water constantly envelopes the tub, so that it 
 presents somewhat the appearance of a rock by the 
 sea-side, against which the rising waves dash them- 
 selves incessantly. In this unusually hot weather 
 the prison is heated into a huge oven, in which sev- 
 eral hundred human beings are thoroughly baked in 
 the most approved style of a first class steam bakery. 
 Of course under such circumstances, the pressure 
 upon the tub is tremendous — for it is a well in the 
 prison-sands, and the splashing and spluttering which 
 take place there, may readily be conceived. 
 
 A prisoner lately arrived, and not j^et well ac- 
 quainted with the prison rules, was, some da^^s ago, 
 anxious to take a bath, and wash away the accu- 
 mulated dust and mud gathered during a journey 
 from the banks of the Rappaliannock. After several 
 abortive efforts to achieve an ablution, he shrewdly 
 resolved to wait until after dark, and in the silence 
 and secrecy of the midnight hour, when all should be 
 soundly asleep, to creep stealthily to the tub, take tri- 
 
ABOUT A TUB. 53 
 
 umpliant possession, and scour himself to his heart's 
 content. 
 
 Night creeps on apace ; one b}^ one the bathers 
 retire ; the "all's well !" is cried by the sentries ; the 
 prisoners are all asleep, laid out snugly side by side 
 over the whole superficial extent of the floor, as if it 
 were an unearthed cemetery originally distributed 
 into private lots ; a variety of naso-orchestral sounds, 
 alone breaks the profound stillness of the hour. 
 Everything proving propitious, the ''newly arrived,'^ 
 rises, on tiptoe, soap and towel in hand ; steps out 
 cautiously between the heads of the sleepers ; takes 
 breath and steps again, within the eighth of an inch 
 of a captain's ear ; next plants his bare heel within a 
 hair's breadth of a colonel's nose ; steps forward 
 carefully again and feels something soft under his 
 foot, — easy ! it is the head of a second lieutenant 
 of cavalry. He has at length reached, in compara- 
 tive safety, a window which is near the tub, — is star- 
 tled by the intoxicated appearance of the moon, just 
 seen looming above the horizon, and no doubt stao-- 
 
 C3 'CD 
 
 gering down to bed with a glass too many in her 
 head ; he experiences a half superstitious and guilty 
 feeling. Finally the tub is reached, and the goal 
 won. With a tremulous hand he turns the water on : 
 
 5* 
 
54 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 fizz ! froth ! splash ! out it comes, gushing in a pow- 
 erful stream. What a thundering noise it makes in 
 the stilhiess of the night ! a cry goes up from among 
 the awakened sleepers ; a fearful cry, followed by 
 loud yells, and shouts of " Stop that water !" " Come 
 out of that tub!" "Strike a light!" ''Boot him I 
 boot him !" If any doubt is created in the mind of 
 the terrified bather as to the precise definition of the 
 last exclamation, this doubt is soon dispelled by 
 the storm of heterogeneous missiles, which pour upon 
 him from every quarter of the room ; panic-stricken 
 and unable to understand the meaning of the fright- 
 ful uproar he has originated, and only able to com- 
 prehend distinctly that he is the radical cause of it, 
 by the boot which whistles past his nose in fearful 
 proximity like a grape shot, and by the broomstick, 
 which cuts him across the legs in the manner of 
 " rail road iron." He makes his way back as best he 
 can to his blanket, never stopping, of course, to check 
 the water. The tumult in consequence, increases, 
 and there is, finally, a general rush to the tub to 
 seize the offender. The greatest confusion prevails 
 in the room. " Who is it ?" " Stop that water !'^ 
 ''Put him out!" "Strike a light!" A light is 
 struck, and a large crowd has gathered about the tub. 
 
ABOUT A TUB. 55 
 
 It is, of course, found empty. Loud denunciatious 
 are uttered, accompanied with violent tlireats of bring- 
 ing the offender to justice, whilst the half distracted 
 cause of all this mischief, lies closely enveloped in his 
 blanket, snoring with unnatural ferocity. 
 
 Gradually the tumult ceases, and ere long, all are 
 gathered once more to slumber under the raven's 
 wing. There is one, however, who sleeps not, — it is 
 the "new arrival." "Why should I have created 
 such a diabolical commotion ?" he asks of himsell. 
 " I am sure I was only going to take a bath, without 
 doing a particle of harm to any one." Yes, poor 
 fellow ! you are " green" yet in the prison. You do 
 not know that it is one of the strictest rules here 
 that the wash tub shall not be used after 9 P. M. ; 
 you little think you have been guilt}- of a crime, 
 the penalty for which is to be locked up in the 
 dungeon for a week on bread and water ! 
 
 There is a certain captain who is a great stickler 
 for the enforcement of prison rules and regulations — 
 a dignified and retiring gentleman, and a great 
 favorite. He is very severe on the subject of the 
 tub, near which he sleeps. Woe unto the offender 
 who turns on the water after nine P. M. All are in 
 the habit of looking up to the captain on the subject 
 
56 \ LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 of the tub; it is his favorite battle ground, and all 
 are too cognizant of the astuteness of his strategy 
 to risk a nocturnal skirmish with him. Many will 
 long remember one memorable night in which he 
 attacked no less a personage than a fall quarter- 
 master, and after a bloody and obstinate conflict,, 
 routed him with great slaughter, cutting off his 
 communications, and capturing his trains. This ac- 
 tion is humorously related in the prison as '' The 
 Battle of the Tub." 
 
 Not the least amusing incident to which the tem- 
 pestuous history of this devoted tub has given rise, 
 is the trial b}^ a mock court of one of the most 
 discreet and dignified of the officers, charged with 
 endangering the peace and discipline of the prison 
 community, by an attempt somewhat of the nature 
 of the one just related, to enjoy the secret raptures 
 of a clandestine bath. Much humor and mirth were 
 created by this comical trial. A gra}'- headed cavalry 
 officer acted as judge upon the occasion, and the mock 
 gravity and professional air he assumed, as well as 
 his shrewd wit, convulsed the court with laughter 
 during the proceedings. 
 
 The empanelling of the jury was rendered amusingly 
 
A MOCK TRIAL. 57 
 
 difficult by the fact that nearly all who were subpoe- 
 naed had been selected out of the foreign element : 
 French, Germans, and Hungarians, especially those 
 who knew but little of the language. The accused 
 of course became the target at which all the mischiev- 
 ous witticisms were aimed ; but he bore himself 
 throughout the trying ordeal with the most admirable 
 good-nature. Among the many amusing arguments 
 urged by the defence was one, sustained by powerful 
 evidence, that the accused had never been known 
 even, to wash his face, since his arrival in the prison ; 
 one of the Faculty was produced who testified to the 
 effect that the accused suffered from frequent attacks 
 of hydrophobia ; another in assisting him to an alibi, 
 testified that he had seen the prisoner on the night 
 m question coming out of an ice-cream saloon on 
 Main street, in Richmond, with a Confederate lady 
 on his arm ; a fragment of a letter had been picked 
 up by another, near the tub, signed by one " Susan," 
 the contents of which aspersed the fidelity of the aged 
 warrior, and brought to light some highly amusing 
 incidents of his amatory experiences. The prisoner 
 at the bar listened to these jokes with charming good 
 temper, and none seemed to relish more than himself 
 the drollery of the whole affair. 
 
58 
 
 LTBBY LIFE., 
 
 A verdict of '' guilty" was brought in, with a recom- 
 mendation to the mercy of the court ; and the sen- 
 tence, which terminated the proceedings, was to the 
 effect that the accused should be drummed out of the 
 prison into the Federal lines, and that, in view of the 
 recommendation to mercy, the prosecution should 
 pay all the costs I 
 
 OLD "smoke. 
 
III. 
 
 1863. 
 
 Se>^\c.mV>e.v •. — Amatory — The Catechism 
 — ^I^ocTUENAL Sports — The fate of a Union 
 Officer charged with being a Spy — Distribu- 
 tion OF EOOMS. 
 
 (59) 
 
AMATORY. 61 
 
 AMATORY. 
 
 THAT felicitous German author, Weber, in his 
 " Lachenden Philosophen," relates of an Italian 
 lady that she was heard to express the wish that ice 
 cream might be forbidden — it would taste so much 
 better ! It was no contemptible philosophy, this of 
 the fair Italian ; for, what an exaggerated value do 
 we not at times attach, even to the merest trifles, 
 simply because they are inaccessible to us. This 
 spirit of contradiction is wonderfully developed by 
 the quasi-barbaric existence we lead here, what 
 though the yearnings of our palates are far less lux- 
 urious than those of the Italian Donna, — ice cream 
 and other delicate confections taking up no room 
 where so many of the simplest accessories of civilized 
 life are lackiug. Indeed it is not so mnch the 
 famine of food for the bod}^, as that for the mind, 
 which lays so stubborn a siege to the philosophic 
 patience of the many. We may be resigned to be fed, 
 
 physically, upon anything ; but when the mind is in 
 
 6 
 
62 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 question one is apt to be less easily satisfied. Ah, 
 yes 1 The heart yearns for its home-confections, its 
 social sherbets, its amorous Heidsick ! 
 
 I have been led into these profound reflections by 
 the serio-comic, semi-tragic manner in which I have 
 seen several photographs tremulously extracted from 
 newly received letters, and by the mercurial manner 
 in which the restless recipient, with an absolutely 
 transparent effort at nonchalance, and an ill-feigned 
 simplicity of purpose, wanders about the room with 
 one hand suspiciously inserted in his breast i^ocket, 
 seeking for some recondite corner where with the 
 pretty treasure concealed in a book, he may decoy all 
 passers-by into the impression that he is absorbed 
 in the paradigms of his French Grammar, or in the 
 touching mysteries of '-'Aurora Floyd." As he sits 
 there, dreaming over the faithful counterpart of a 
 pair of sentimental blue eyes, the graceful sweep of 
 an arching eyebrow, or the amorous pout of a sugges- 
 tive mouth, — such a youth is, I dare say, highly to be 
 envied ; for, one of those weird little birds, with 
 beaks of gold and wings of purple, which haunt the 
 heart-world and warble such pleasant music in the 
 ears of parted lovers, is no doubt singing sweet tunes 
 to hmi, perched in a reckless curl of his unpomatumed 
 hair ! 
 
THE CATECHISM. 63 
 
 Let me not be deemed guilty of a breach of prison 
 confidence, or of limning in colors too trivial th© 
 stormy sorrows of the heart ; rather than brood over 
 such Tfoes — a practice which only tends to render the 
 mind of the prisoner morbid and misanthropic — far 
 better is it to gild the storm-cloud with the faint sun- 
 shine of a patient smile. 
 
 One of the most original institutions among the 
 prisoners is that practiced every night, after the lights 
 are put out. It is styled "the catechism." It con- 
 sists of a series of satirical, critical, serio-comic 
 interrogatories, referring either to events of recent 
 occurrence in the prison, or to incidents connected 
 with the previous experiences of some of the officers ; 
 they are invariably personal in their application, and 
 wo unto him who falls into the clutches of these noc- 
 turnal catechisers, or who attempts to remonstrate 
 against so popular an amusement. Such significant 
 questions are asked as " Who hid behind the big 
 gun ?" " Who has Brigadier on the brain ?" '' Who 
 washed his clothes in the soup bucket ?i' " Who sur- 
 rendered for humanity's sake ?" and these are replied 
 to with the names of the several oflendcrs much to 
 the gusto of those acquainted with the circumstances 
 referred to. 
 
64 LTBBT LIFE. 
 
 This more original than intellectual amusement is 
 occasionally^ varied by a sequence of hideous imita- 
 tions of all known fowls and quadrupeds, with a 
 menagerie-like effect which would not sound unnat- 
 ural in a virgin forest of central Africa. 
 
 These highlj^ refined entertainments invariably 
 terminate with a grand bombardment, by way of a 
 finale a la militaire, during which all kinds of mis- 
 siles, even to the fragments of stale corn-bread, are 
 violently and rapidl}'' discharged from numberless 
 masked batteries and go whirring all over the room, 
 crashing among the tin-ware, and barrels, and boxes, 
 with a continuous rattle which quite reminds one of a 
 brisk skirmish, and is not unaccompanied with some 
 serious apprehensions as to the safet^^ of uncovered 
 heads. 
 
 A gloom has hung over our prison community for 
 some da3^s past, owing to the appearance in the Rich- 
 mond papers, of the letter and local item transcribed 
 below : 
 
 " Castle Thunder, Kichmond, Yirginia, 
 September 23d, 1863. 
 " Dear Father : — By permission and through the 
 courtesy of Captain Alexander, I am enabled to write 
 
THE FATE OF A UNION OFFICER, ETC. 65 
 
 you a few lines. You, who before this have heard 
 from me in regard to my situation here, can, I trust 
 bear it, when I tell you that my days on earth are 
 soon ended. 
 
 "Last Saturday I was court-martialled, and this 
 evening, a short time since, I received notice of my 
 sentence by Captain Alexander, who has since shown 
 me every kindness consistent with his duty. 
 
 '' Writing to m}^ dear parents, I feel there can be 
 no greater comfort after such tidings than to tell you 
 that I trust, by the mercy of our Heavenly Father, 
 to die the death of a Christian. 
 
 'Tor more than a year, since the commencement 
 of my confinement, I have been tr3dng to serve Him in 
 my own feeble way, and I do not fear to go to Him. 
 
 " I would have loved to see you all again ; God 
 saw best not ; why should we mourn ? Comfort your 
 hearts, m^^ dear parents, by thoughts of God's mercy 
 unto your son, and bow with reverence beneath the 
 hand of Him who 'doeth all things well.' 
 
 << * * I sent a ring to my wife by a clergj^man, 
 Monday last ; I also sent a telegram to yourself, which 
 will arrive too late, as the time of my execution is set 
 for the day after to-morrow. 
 
 '' Dear parents : There are but a few more moments 
 
 left me ; I will try to think often of you, God bless 
 
 6* 
 
66 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 and comfort you ; remember me kindly and respect- 
 fully to all my dear friends and relatives. Tell Kitty 
 I hope to meet her again. Take care of Freddy for 
 me; put him often in remembrance of me. 
 
 " Dear mother, good-bye. God comfort you, my 
 mother, and bless you with the love of ha^Dpy chil- 
 dren. Farewell, my father ; we meet again by God's 
 mercy. 
 
 "Spencer Kellogg." 
 
 " At eleven o'clock yesterday forenoon a detail of 
 one hundred men from the City Battalion, marched 
 from Castle Thunder with Spencer Kellogg, the re- 
 cently condemned spy, in custod}^ 
 
 " The cavalcade reached the scene of execution 
 about half-past twelve o'clock, where, as usual, a vast 
 concourse of people, of both sexes and all ages, were 
 congregated. After a few moments spent in prelimi- 
 nary arrangements, the prisoner was escorted, under 
 guard, to the gallows. While seated in the hack 
 awaiting the perfection of the arrangements for his 
 execution, he conversed gaily, with the utmost non- 
 chalance with Dr. Burrows, frequently smiling at some 
 remark made either by himself or the minister. 
 
 "Arriving under the gallows, the charges preferred 
 against the accused and the sentence of the court- 
 
THE FATE OP A UNION OFFICER, ETC. 67 
 
 martial were read. A short but impressive praj-er 
 was then offered by the minister, at the conclu- 
 sion of which the condemned man, unaccompanied, 
 mounted the scaffold. 
 
 " In a few moments Detective Capehart followed, 
 and commenced to adjust the rope over the neck 
 of the condemned, in which he assisted, 'all the while 
 talking with the officer. On taking off his hat, to 
 admit the noose over his head, he threw it one side, 
 and, falling off the scaffold, it struck a gentleman 
 beneath, when the prisoner turned quickly, and bow- 
 ing, said : ' excuse me, sir !' 
 
 " A negro next came on the scaffold with a ladder, 
 and proceeded to fasten the rope to the upper beam, 
 the prisoner meanwhile regarding him with the 
 greatest composure. The rope being fastened, the 
 negro was in the act of coming down, when the 
 prisoner, looking up at the rope, remarked : ' This 
 will not break my neck ! It is not more than a foot 
 fall ! Doctor, I wish 3^ou would come up and arrange 
 this thing !' The rope was then arranged to his 
 satisfaction, and the cloth cap placed over his head. 
 
 " The condemned man then bowed his head, and 
 engaged a few seconds in praj^er, at the conclusion 
 of which he raised himself, and Standing perfectly 
 erect, pronounced in a clear voice : ' All ready !' 
 
68 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 " The drop fell, and the condemned man was 
 launched mto Eternity !" 
 
 Kellogg was a man of prepossessing appearance. 
 His skin, from his long confinement, some fifteen 
 months, had become as fair and delicate as a girl's. 
 He was about thirty-five years of age. He was ac- 
 cused of liavino; «one into the Confederate Ens^ineer 
 Corps, at Island Number Ten, for the purpose of 
 gaining information for the benefit of the Federal 
 Government, and is said by his captors to have died 
 with the conviction that he had furnished more valu- 
 able information, in the character of a spy, to that 
 Government, than any other ten men in the United 
 States service. These facts have been denied by the 
 friends of Kellogg at the North, who assert that he 
 was innocent of the charge. Surely, he died with that 
 calm heroic courage which wins the admiration of 
 every true soldier. Poor Kellogg ! It will be a 
 worthier hand than mine which shall write your name 
 on that page of your country's history, which records 
 the story of the martyr, and the fallen brave ! 
 
 "We have been largely reinforced, by General 
 Bragg, with a host of prisoners from Chickamauga. 
 Seven rooms in the building, besides one other, used 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF ROOMS. 69 
 
 as a hospital, are now filled with Federal oflScers, 
 numbering in all, near one thousand. The officers be- 
 longing to^the armies of the Potomac and Cumberland, 
 and those of General Milroy's and Colonel Streight's 
 command, occupy separate rooms. We have now 
 the upper and lower, (second and third stories,) east 
 rooms, the first floor and basement being assigned to 
 the hospital ; these are occupied by the officers of the 
 Potomac army ; — the upper and lower middle rooms, 
 are occupied by the officers of the Cumberland army, 
 the lower floor being used as a general kitchen ; — and 
 in the upper and lower west rooms, are confined 
 the officers of Milroy's and Streight's command. 
 The middle rooms are familiarly known as " Chick- 
 amauga." 
 
 When asked where we " live," we answer, for in- 
 stance, "north west corner, upper east room," or 
 ^' such post, or window, lower west room." Our com- 
 munity has assumed imposing proportions; it is a 
 rapidly growing colony and represents nearly every 
 state in the Union. 
 
ilMi 
 
 JL 
 
 :'i"h;!i;il!i!::it,;:; ■■.;h 
 
 ill.,, 
 
 
 IMPROVISED lAMP. 
 
Five for a Dollar 
 
IV. 
 
 1863. 
 
 Oe\o\>e;V •. — Preparing for AYinter- 
 Sports — The Election — A Yankee Trick. 
 
 (U) 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER. tS 
 
 PREPARING FOR WINTER 
 
 A S the cool weather gains upon us, lying about 
 ^ ^ on the bare floor, en deshabille, must be fore- 
 gone. It has never entered into the calculations of 
 our keepers to furnish our prison-home for us ; so, we 
 must set to work, and by a desperate effort of our 
 ingenuity, furnish it ourselves. Every day I observe 
 great improvements in this dejoartment of our house- 
 keeping ; diminutive, unpretending stools, made from 
 spare ends of shelf-boards and blanket racks, have 
 given way to more aspiring attempts at chairs ; boxes 
 from home have been worried into rickety, phthisical 
 looking little tables, or hung up to serve as cup- 
 boards ; commissary barrels have been sawed and 
 hammered into unsightly, and somewhat uneasy 
 "easy-chairs;" a stray piece of blanket makes, here 
 and there, a tolerable table-cloth ; a suspended barrel 
 hoop replaces the long lost luxury of a clothes perch ; 
 a splinter forced into the wall in the interstices be- 
 
 \ 
 
H LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 tween the bricks, will support your hat in a cheap 
 and decorous manner ; an empty can, once the 
 receptacle of some highly prized delicacy, makes an 
 admirable lamp, in which, with a wick made from the 
 nether extremity of a cotton garment, and fed with 
 the waste fat of sundry pork rations, diffuses a fair 
 amount of light, backed by its compound metallic 
 reflector. With a seat, a table, and a lamp, at the 
 prisoner's disposal, the long winter evenings will not 
 find him totally unprepared. Indeed there is at times 
 experienced in the midst of the long room, scattered 
 all over with little squatter-like colonies gathered 
 round a cluster of their rude furniture and pork-fat 
 lamps, a something almost akin to a faint resem- 
 blance of comfort. Such is the force of habit, that 
 we conceive our few feet square of mess room, to 
 ]30ssess something of a home character — if that can 
 in any manner be coupled with the name of home, 
 which is, in the world, perhaps the least like it. 
 
 Some of us at the foot of a post, some near a win- 
 dow, some against a wall, or even in the centre of the 
 room, with our clothing hung up on every projecting 
 angle, our eatables perched upon all manner of shelves 
 and ingenious contrivances, and our rough little table 
 and chair, we look like so many gregarious Crusoes ; 
 a large invoice of poll-parrots from one of the many 
 
SPORTS. 75 
 
 Societies at the North, would render tliis last illusion 
 complete. 
 
 In order to lessen the tedium of the winter even- 
 ings, recourse is had to all sorts of games, in which 
 the majority participate with great zest. Sometimes 
 it is a ludicrous imitation of a country show, in which 
 figures an elephant represented by throwing a blanket 
 over the shoulders of two oflScers, or a grotesque 
 female giant, in which one is mounted upon the 
 shoulders of another ; these are paraded through the 
 rooms, preceded by torch bearers and a band of 
 music performing favorite airs on hair-combs — the 
 whole headed by some comical genius carrying a 
 broom, in the character of an absurd drum-major. 
 At other times a grand cock-fight is inaugurated, in 
 which the two combatants selected, having patiently 
 submitted to that arbitrary process known as ''buck- 
 ing," butt at each other around the ring in fine style, 
 the defeated '' rooster" being overset in the most 
 ludicrous manner. Bets are made, and great faith 
 exhibited in the fighting qualities of the several 
 "birds." 
 
 Another species of amusement is that barbarous 
 one called "raiding," which consists in that some 
 twenty of the most desperate characters dash through 
 the room, sweeping before them all the}^ meet, over- 
 
T6 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 setting card-tables and chairs, and throwing into 
 confusion eveiything and everybody that comes in 
 their way. This lieathenish practical joke is the 
 terror of the more sedate portion of the community, 
 for the raiders respect nothing and no one, and the 
 just complaints of such as do not relish the rude 
 sport only adds to their zeal and contributes to their 
 merriment. Gymnastic exercises are also much in- 
 dulged in ; an old hickory broom suspended at each 
 end from one of the cross-beams furnishes a trapeze, 
 which although not ver;;^ safe is perhaps not much 
 more dangerous than a sharp skirmish, or a desperate 
 cavalry charge. 
 
 There has been great rejoicing of late in the prison, 
 owing to the arrival of numerous boxes from the 
 north, containing clothing and eatables for the pris- 
 oners. There is an almost child-like delight exhibited 
 over these timely bounties from home. An officer 
 with a " box" becomes at once the admired of all 
 admirers, and receives congratulations as hearty as if 
 he had just *' married a fortune." 
 
 Truly, ''men are but children of a larger growth." 
 Shut a man up in a prison, deprive him of his habit- 
 ual comforts, torture him with hunger, and it is singu- 
 lar how soon he " remounts the river of his years." 
 
THE ELECTIONS. *l*J 
 
 There is considerable excitement here about the 
 gubernatorial elections going on at the north in 
 Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. To-day being the 
 13th of October, polls have been opened to test the 
 political sentiment of the prison. The excitement 
 waxes high ; for several days past there has been stump 
 speaking, there have been torchlight processions, much 
 canvassing, and cheering, and spirited debates as to 
 the issue. The Curtin, and Brough parties are san- 
 guine ; Yallandigham stands but a poor chance. 
 
 There is quite a crowd at the polls, and consider- 
 able challenging and quizzing. 
 
 The polls have been closed. The returns show the 
 following results : 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Whole number of votes cast 114 
 
 For A. Gc. Curtin, (Union) 95 
 
 " G. W. Woodward, (Democrat) ... 18 
 
 Scattering 1 
 
 Majority for Curtin Yt 
 
 OHIO. 
 
 Whole number of votes cast KU 
 
 For John Brough, (Union) 160 
 
 " C, L. Yallandigham, (Democrat) ... 
 
 Scattering 1 
 
 Majority for Brough 159 
 
 Total Union majority .... 236 
 
•78 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 This result proves how scarce among us in the 
 prison is the " copperhead" element. Indeed, any 
 one who has been even but for a short time in the 
 Southern Confederacy, learns that the Rebels despise 
 no class of people more heartily than they do their 
 own sympathizers at the North. They shrewdly 
 say that if these "copperheads" are "for^^ them they 
 ought to be there "witJV^ them, to help them fight 
 their battles, and to share their privations ; and they 
 look with a well-merited scorn upon these prudent 
 patriots who would revolutionize the country from 
 the luxurious precincts of cozy back-parlors, and who 
 seek to disparage and to disgrace, by stealth, that old 
 flag which they have not the courage openly to for- 
 sake ! 
 
 Two officers* have lately escaped from the hos- 
 pital, under rather amusing circumstances. It 
 appears that one of them, who had been a tailor in 
 his pre-military life, offered to make up a uniform 
 coat for one of the Confederate surgeons on duty at 
 the hospital. The unsuspecting surgeon i^rocured 
 the materials, and the " Yankee" kept his word and 
 made the coat ; he did not intend it for the surgeon, 
 however, but for himself; for, one bright afternoon, 
 
 * Major Halsted, 132d N. J., and Lieut. Wilson, 1st Md. Cav, 
 
YANKEE TRICK. T9 
 
 donning the gray garb of the Confederacy, he coolly 
 walked out of the hospital, accompanied by another 
 Federal j^atient also disguised as a rebel, and not only 
 walked out of the door, but all the way down the 
 Peninsula into the Federal lines. He had the admi- 
 rable impudence to adopt his victim's title as well as 
 his coat, and assuming considerable airs, gave himself 
 out as a Confederate surgeon on duty in the Rich- 
 mond hospitals ! 
 
 OM THE CAJXAh. 
 

 II 
 
 'The hole In the Floor 
 
 
V. 
 
 1863. 
 
 *^ov-c.vw\>c.v •. — Yaeious forms of Melan- 
 choly — Confederate Wails— Surgeons and 
 Chaplains — Supplies from the North — The 
 Great Conspiracy. 
 
 (81) 
 
VAEIOUS FORMS OF MELANCHOLY. 83 
 
 VARIOUS FORMS OF MELANCHOLY. 
 
 TTTHILE some of the prisoners endeavor by all 
 ' » sorts of ingenious stratagems to divert their 
 minds from the ennui and monotony of captivity, 
 others give up to their sorrows and pine away in the 
 midst of morbid reflections and dismal forebodings. 
 There is a pale, sallow, resurrected-looking youth 
 whom I see wandering like an ill-fed spectre from 
 room to room ; he has been a prisoner during many 
 months, and is reduced to the narrowest possible 
 limits of anatomical contraction. He has large eyes 
 which brighten, at times, when you address him 
 kindly or jocosel}^ ; but they are eyes which brighten, 
 not with intellectual sunshine, but rather with the 
 weird radiance of moon-light. 
 
 This youth has a hobby. — That hobby is, to make 
 his escape from the prison. He dreams of imprac- 
 ticable rope ladders to be manufactured surreptitiously 
 out of blankets, and to be ingeniously concealed from 
 
84 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 the keen eye of the Inspector, — perhaps of being 
 lowered from the wmdows m a basket, like Saul from 
 the walls of Damascus. Over his souj^, over his coffee, 
 over his stewed apples, over his huckleberries, that 
 one deep and mysterious scheme absorbs all his 
 faculties ; at all hours that restless incubus, urged on 
 by an enraged and merciless rider, gallops fiercely to 
 and fro through the bewildering mazes of his brain, — 
 especially during those periods of fearful tedium when 
 he gazes out through the barred windows at the green 
 fields and forests beyond the swift waters of the 
 James. 
 
 One stormy night he resolved to carry his long 
 projected plan into execution, by lowering himself 
 from one of the windows. Already his hands reso- 
 lutely clutched the bars and his foot actually pro- 
 jected beyond the sill, when upon looking more 
 intently at the pavement below to reassure himself 
 before the final spring, he discovered that he was 
 about to alight upon a Confederate hat ; now, it so 
 happened that this hat contained a head, and that 
 this head was an indispensable portion of the anatomy 
 of a Confederate sentinel. The lamentable results 
 which would have attended his descent under such 
 adverse circumstances were sufficient to deter him 
 from bringing about so fatal a catastrophe, and he 
 
VARIOUS FORMS OF MELANCHOLY, 85 
 
 sullenly relinquished his purpose, with a dark and 
 secret vow, the realization of which, if more bloody 
 and terrible than would have been a desperate en- 
 counter with a Rebel guard, will not, I dare sa}^, be 
 attended with the same amount of personal peril. 
 
 This morbid misanthropy assumes many different 
 forms ; it is always melancholy, though variously 
 expressed. 
 
 There is a gaunt, sandy -haired individual who may 
 alwaj^s be seen seated on a hrick, — why on a brick, I 
 cannot conceive — with his elbows on his knees, and 
 his head between his hands, moaning continually from 
 morning till night, with a pitiable expression of 
 countenance : silent, uncommunicative, and morose. 
 He evidently pets up his grief; I am persuaded that 
 he loves it, and would feel provoked at any one who 
 should cause him to smile. They say he is a Scotch- 
 man. 
 
 Another eccentric mortal is one whose aberrations 
 follow an entirely different channel. This one has 
 alwa3^s a black streak somewhere on his face : no 
 wonder, — he is continually in the cook-house, boiling, 
 frying, or stewing something. I do not know when 
 he eats, for I have never seen him yet that he was not 
 cooking : it seems to be his only solace, and his only 
 
86 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 occupation. I never pass Mm that some rare and 
 pleasant odor does not greet my olfactories : some- 
 times of fried eggs, or onions, or nutmeg. He evi- 
 dently loves to envelope himself in a perpetual atmo- 
 sphere of culinary fragrances. It is, I dare say, Ms 
 plan, to cook up his melancholy into all sorts of 
 delicious concoctions, and to feed upon it in a sub- 
 stantial and rational manner. I am informed that he 
 is a Frenchman. 
 
 Then there is that quiet, reserved, and portly body, 
 who is seldom out of his corner, unless for an evening 
 walk, and who reclines so comfortably in his capacious 
 box-arm-chair, with a huge double-barrelled pipe in 
 his mouth. Pie envelopes himself in an impenetrable 
 atmosphere of tobacco smoke, puffing it out like a 
 steam-engine, and smacking his lips after every dis- 
 charge, as though he had just sipped of the exhilar- 
 ating contents of an invisible glass of Lager. This 
 one smokes up his melancholy ; he consumes it ; he 
 sends it curling upward out of the prison window in 
 huge, serpentine coils of odorous vapor ; he puffs out 
 around him a tempestuous little firmament, in the 
 midst of which his incandescent pipe-bowl, like an 
 ominous sun, looms red through the infuriated swirls 
 of stormy smoke-cloud ! He smokes, not with ordi- 
 nary gusto, but with the violence and ferocity of de- 
 
CONFEDERATE WAILS. 87 
 
 spair ; he must do it ; it is his only hope ; take his pipe 
 from him, and in less than twenty-four hours he will 
 be in a strait-jacket in the Insane Asylum ; suggest it 
 to him and you will hear him reply : " Gott bewahre ! 
 Kicht um die ganze welt ! Sie ist mir lieber als 
 das Leben !" 
 
 There is yet another : a singularly contradictory 
 specimen of the morbid. He is constantly singing, 
 dancing, or sleeping. His irresistible merriment 
 wrings an echo even from the sober prison walls : he 
 shakes the very bars in the windows, as he leaps about 
 in his jolly dance ; he convulses the whole prison with 
 his laughter. He is always ready with a song, a jig, 
 or a joke. And yet I know he is very miserable ; I 
 am positively sure that he is racked nearly to death 
 with ennui, weary in mind, and sick at heart. He 
 hails from the Emerald Isle. 
 
 There is a great outcr}^ in the Confederacy about 
 the exorbitant prices which have to be paid for articles 
 of first necessity. Truly do they say : 
 
 '' The question of high prices is, perhaps, the one 
 now most urgent. How are the people — the soldiers 
 —their wives and children to live— how is the Govern- 
 ment to get along — with the enormous and increasing 
 prices required for all necessaries ? This is a matter 
 
88 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 which must press upon the heart and mind of every 
 thinking man and lover of the country. The first 
 step towards solving the problem, is to ascertain the 
 chief cause of this depreciation of the value of our 
 mone}^. Extortioners are a curse to our country. 
 As an affair of equity, if prices must advance, all 
 prices should advance simultaneously, and none 
 should receive more justice in this respect than the 
 defenders of the countr}^ — The value of our currency 
 is not fixed and stable, and therefore no change of 
 wages will remedy the injustice, or meet the difficulty. 
 The principal cause of our monetary troubles is the 
 inflation of our currency. — Energy and wisdom in the 
 Government alone can furnish an adequate remedy 
 for the evils of our disordered country." 
 
 Lieutenant Skelton of the 17th Iowa, and a fellow 
 patient, escaped j^esterday from the Hospital by 
 bribing one of the sentinels. Lieutenant Skelton 
 had been lying in the Hospital a long time, severely 
 wounded. 
 
 The Federal surgeons confined here since the sus- 
 pension of the cartel are, at last, to be sent North. 
 There is great rejoicing among the Faculty inview 
 of their joyous deliverance from thralldom; we join 
 
STORES FROM THE NORTH. ' 89 
 
 them heartily in their self-congratulation, for there 
 are noble fellows in the number of these ingenious 
 menders of earthen- ware, who go once more into the 
 field to cement together, as best they can, the human 
 pottery cracked in the shock of armies. 
 
 The chaplains, detained on either side notw^ith- 
 standing the non-combatting sanctity of their office, 
 were sent away more than a month ago. Thus de- 
 prived of the medical advice of the one class of Doc- 
 tors, and of the spiritual comfort to be derived from 
 the other, w^e feel the loss to be a severe one, both 
 to our bodies and our minds. In a social point of 
 view we must regret their absence, however much we 
 may philanthropically rejoice at their deliverance 
 from this abnormal little world of ours, in which the 
 body is always ailing and the mind is never at rest. 
 
 A number of boats laden with clothing and com- 
 missary stores from our Government are lying in the 
 canal, fronting the prison. These are intended to 
 relieve the needy condition of the Federal prisoners 
 here and on Belle Isle. There are also contributions 
 from various Northern Sanitary Commissions, and 
 other charitable Societies ; also generous donations 
 from private individuals, and boxes from the families 
 
 of prisoners. 
 
 8* 
 
90 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 A monster plan for the deliverance of all the Fede- 
 ral prisoners in Richmond, and for the capture and 
 destruction of the city, has lately come to light. 
 The plan was more or less as follows : 
 
 The officers confined in the Libby, headed by the 
 most determined and desperate of their number, were 
 to break out of the prison by force, overpower the 
 sentries, and seize the arms stacked at the Head-quar- 
 ters of the guard on the opposite corner of the street; 
 the prisoners on Belle Isle, and in the various prisons 
 in Richmond, were then to be liberated, the arsenal 
 seized, and all the insurgents armed ; the garrisons 
 in the fortifications having been driven out, or over- 
 powered, the city was to be held. The conspirators 
 were to be aided by numerous Union S3anpathizers. 
 The time appointed for the explosion of this insur- 
 rectionary bomb-shell was the fi.rst day of the meet- 
 ing: of the Rebel Cono-ress. Jeff'erson Davis, and as 
 mau}^ of the leading legislators as possible were to be 
 secured, and sent prisoners into our lines. 
 
 This movement was to be seconded by a force of 
 cavalry and infantry which was to make a dash upon 
 the Rebel capital from the direction of the Pen- 
 insula. 
 
 The discovery of this huge plot might have led 
 to serious uneasiness on the part of the Rebel 
 
THE GREAT CONSPIRACY. 91 
 
 Government, on the score of future attempts of the 
 same sort ; but the fact that not only the whole plan, 
 but even a detailed and ''reliable" account, in one 
 of our leading Northern Journals of the actual occur- 
 rence of these events, while the}', as yet, existed only 
 in the visionary minds of the conspirators, must have 
 had the effect of setting the fears of the Rebel 
 authorities completely at rest on the score of such 
 future attempts ; the aforesaid newsj^aper, a co-con- 
 spirator, and fully informed of all the most secret 
 plans, would, no doubt, anticipate the actual explo- 
 sion, and thus afford the Confederacy ample time to 
 guard against the emergency. The first and most 
 vital requisite for the success of conspiracies, is 
 secrecy : a secret, connected with a conspiracy for 
 the capture of Richmond, and shared with a news- 
 paper, might as well have been shared at once with 
 Secretary Benjamin himself 
 
 Notwithstanding the self-complacency of the Rich- 
 mond authorities after the rcA^elation of this grand 
 conspiracy, it is a historical fact, that a few days ago, 
 several pieces of Confederate cannon were planted 
 near the prison so as to command the streets leading 
 to {Ind from it, and that the p'uards have been doubled 
 and paraded in unusual numbers before us. Whether 
 by this display of Rebel strength and vigilance, it is 
 
92 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 intended to intimidate the most desperate, or appeal 
 to the self-preservative instincts of the more timid, I 
 cannot say ; but, from what I see and heaj* around 
 me, the vital points in question among the prisoners, 
 just now, appear to be. — the stewing of rations, and 
 the scouring of cook-pots ; from which I gather that 
 most of them are of opinion that, under the present 
 unpromising circumstances, it would be far more 
 philosophical to continue to live uncomfortably, than 
 to attempt to die uselessly. 
 
 /"fe%-^ 
 
 CASTLE THUNDER. 
 
" Our Mess. 
 
VI. 
 1863. 
 
 "Q eee>wC^e.v ; — Shadows — Musical— Christ- 
 mas — New Year's Eve — A Story about Six 
 Eggs — Another Story. 
 
 93 
 
SHADO'^S. 95 
 
 SHADOWS 
 
 "ITTINTER is upon us, to add new evils to tlie cata- 
 ' ' logue of those we already suffer. There is no 
 more sitting at the windows now, in the pleasant, 
 thoughtful twilight, and watching the changes in the 
 sky. The landscape of the James Eiver, — that same 
 little picture set in a window frame and bars, which 
 we somehow never grew weary of looking at — is now 
 cheerless indeed ; the lea;ves have dropped from the 
 trees, and the fields look brown and barren ;- there is 
 ice on the canal, and patches of early snow on the 
 river-banks ; the little green island with the beauti- 
 ful trees looks dismal and deserted, and the river is 
 muddy, swollen and fretful. Those who love nature 
 had made a great deal of this little picture, uninter- 
 esting enough, perhaps, under ordinary circumstances ; 
 we had watched the fresh wind whirling the cloud- 
 shadows across it, under the summer sunshine, and 
 blowing the green boughs about, and rippling the 
 
96 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 surface of the river ; we had marked the storm gather 
 above it and break upon it, in the hot dsijs, in 
 showery waterfalls of sparkling cloud-spray ; we had 
 seen its glistening, glowing green, shimmering through 
 the last golden gushes of the sunny rain ; and we had 
 followed day after day, the evening sunlight as it 
 died behind it, leaving it sad and shadowy, but still 
 lovely, with a pale star above- it. There was some- 
 thing to be learned, and much to be remembered by 
 it ; for memory wandered on bej^ond the purple hori- 
 zon, to loved, familiar places far away, and the keen 
 arrow of thought, piercing the veil which shut them 
 out, went speeding through the far azure to fall at 
 the threshold of a home ! 
 
 Captivity with a patch of green, and a ray of sun- 
 light to cheer the e3^e and refresh the heart, now and 
 then, was somehow less hard to bear than now, in 
 the dull and sombre winter days. 
 
 They who have never been shut up for months in 
 a gloomy prison-house, can form but a faint idea of 
 the beneficial influences of light upon the human 
 mind. We naturally associate darkness with all that 
 is dread, with all that is sinister, repulsive and un- 
 natural. Light, on the contrary, is typical of all that 
 is good and true, of all that is innocent and happy. 
 Death, ignorance, sorrow, hatred, sin : these are of 
 
SHADOWS. 9Y 
 
 the shadow. Hope, wisdom, truth, religion, love : 
 these are of the light. 
 
 Even the wretched Confederate candle which helps 
 US while away the tedium of these long winter 
 evenings, exercises upon our minds far more impor- 
 tant influences than we would be ready, at the first 
 glance, to ascribe to its humble charity of light. 
 Physiologists tell us how much light contributes to 
 the preservation of health, and to the proper develop- 
 ment of all forms of life. If it be of so great a value 
 to the body, how infinitel}^ greater must be its value 
 to the mind. I am satisfied that there is less health 
 in the prison since the sun began to shorten his daily 
 pilgrimage, and more gloom in the prison faces since 
 his rays, which used to shoot such glittering golden 
 arrows at us between the window bars, have wearied 
 of their sport and come now among us, quietly and 
 strangely, asif they were merely Distributing Agents 
 for some Celestial Sanitary Commission. 
 
 I can remember with what a strange blending of 
 awe, repugnance, and curiosity, I used, when a child, 
 to lift up stones in the dark, damp cellar-corner, and 
 hunt for the pale, bloodless, sickly shoots, which had 
 sprouted there in the darkness, and how I used to 
 drop them quickly again, for they seemed like grave- 
 stones with livid, ghastly corpses under them. — Our 
 
98 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 prison is full of such pale, sickly sprouts, and if the 
 Diahle Boiteux were to lift the roof off of it, and afford 
 some sunny habitant of the outer world a glimpse into 
 its interior, he might experience something like my 
 childish superstition, and quickly" ask the lame gen- 
 tleman in black to let drop the sarcophagus lid again 
 over this unnatural sepulchre of the living ! 
 
 The passion for music is quite general in the 
 prison ; a tolerable orchestra has been organized, 
 consisting of a violin, banjo, guitar, tambourine, and 
 the bones. They have done much to enliven the 
 gloom of the prison, and invariably attract a large 
 crowd of listeners. They have given several perform- 
 ances imitative of the Ethiopian Minstrels, in the 
 cook-room ; these performances are quite creditable 
 to the musical taste of the performers, and are at- 
 tended by large and enthusiastic audiences* — Not- 
 withstanding the Scotch mist of tobacco smoke which 
 ascends in a perpetual cloud from the inevitable pipes 
 of the Teutonic element of the assemblage, and which 
 reminds one of the gauze curtains in the Midsummer 
 Night's Dream ; and notwithstanding the necessarily 
 abortive illumination of the dingy apartment by a 
 tier of suicidal tallow dips ; and notwithstanding the 
 fact that the spectator must lug down his own barrel 
 
MUSICAL. 99 
 
 to sit in, or must stand on a dining-table at the risk 
 of breaking his neck, and with the certainty of suf- 
 fering from a severe attack of the cramp in the legs ; 
 and notwithstanding the odor of slops, and the rancid 
 vapors from the cooking stoves, which are apt to 
 transfer the cramp from the calves of the legs to the 
 pit of the stomach ; — notwithstanding all these un- 
 avoidable collaterals of the Libby Concert Room, the 
 result is beneficial, and merits, and receives, the 
 encouragement of all. The performers have a grand 
 and exciting time preparing their performances — and 
 the spectators while pleasantly awa}^ in listening to 
 their humorous jokes, the tedium of the long evenings. 
 
 Captain J. B. Litchfield, 4th Maine Infantry ; Cap- 
 tain E. E. Chase, 1st Rhode Island Cavalry, and 
 Captain J. L. Kendall, 1st Massachusetts Infantry, 
 have just been selected to be sent to Saulsbury, North 
 Carolina, sentenced to hard labor during the war, in 
 retaliation for an alleged sentence of the same nature 
 by the Federal authorities. 
 
 Major H. White, G'Tth Pennsylvania Infantry, has 
 also disappeared from our midst, and has been sent 
 to Saulsbury ; upon what ground, we cannot con- 
 jecture. 
 
100 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 Christmas ! at that name, what pleasant visions 
 come thronging to the prisoner's mind, visions of 
 home and the heartli, — of mince pies, plum-puddings 
 and bon-bons, of Christmas trees and child-laughter, 
 and pretty little rosy mouths, sweeter for the sugar- 
 plums, puckering into Christmas kisses 1 What 
 prison-thoughts, that laugh at the rebel bars and 
 ba3'^onets, go traveling by swift air lines, afar off into 
 cozy cottages among the northern snows, and over 
 the wide prairies into western homes; north, south, 
 east and west — over the whole land ; fond thoughts, 
 winged with love-lightning 1 
 
 The north wind comes reeling in fitful gushes 
 through the iron bars, and jingles a sleigh-bell in the 
 prisoner's ear, and puffs in his pale face with a breath 
 suggestively odorous of egg-nog. 
 
 Christmas day ! a day which was made for smiles, 
 and not for sighs, — for laughter, and not for tears, — 
 for the hearth, and not for the prison. The forms 
 which I pass as I saunter up and down the low, 
 gloomy rooms, are bowed in thought, and their cheeks 
 are pale with surfeit of it ; it seems very cruel, but 
 the loving little arms that are felt twining about the 
 neck, — ^the innocent laughing little faces that will 
 peep out of the shadows, with sunbeams in their ej^es, 
 — the warm hands which grasp ours in spite of us, — 
 
CHRISTMAS. 101 
 
 all these must be thrust aside, and the welling tear- 
 drop in the e^^e must be brushed away, and . . . tut 
 tut ! what's in a uniform, after all, if the soldier can- 
 not make his brain as thread-bare as its sleeve, nor 
 his heart as hard as its buttons ! 
 
 There is a group in a dusky corner that I can see 
 from here : some one is playing " Home, sweet 
 home ! " on a violin. It is a very dismal affair, this 
 group : the faces are all sad, — no wonder, for the 
 tune is telling them strange, wild things : there are 
 whispering voices in its notes : I see that one b}^ one 
 the figures stroll away, and that they all seem to 
 have discovered something of unusual interest to look 
 at, out of the windows. 
 
 I am invited out to-day to a Christmas dinner. 
 Good ! There is not much inducement left for phan- 
 tasmal visitations, after a hearty meal. When I say 
 I am invited out, I mean over there in the north-east 
 corner of the room : I shaved my face, and combed 
 my hair, this morning, for the occasion. I am pro- 
 mised a white china plate to eat from ! 
 
 When I arrive at the north-east corner, I enquire 
 
 after my host, who is not present. I am informed 
 
 that he is down in the kitchen, stewing the mutton(!) 
 
 There he comes, in a violent perspiration, with a 
 
 skillet in one hand and a tea-pot in the other. 
 
 9* 
 
102 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 There are four of us, — the dmner is excellent, — 
 I have never tasted a better, even at the liaison 
 Dore^; the wme, not very choice, of course, — it is 
 put down on the bill of fare as " Eau de James, cou- 
 leur de boue." 
 
 It is true that the table is made from a box, that 
 the table-cloth is a towel, and that I was requested 
 to bring with me my own fork and spoon ; but it is a 
 decidedly j^echercJie and ceremoni(2us affair, notwith- 
 standing ; my host is polite and elegant to a fault. 
 
 After dessert, having stepped over to my " house " 
 for my pipe, which I had forgotten in the excitement 
 of making my toilet (an absence of mind probably 
 due to my having combed my hair,) I return with 
 unexpected celerity, and I find my host, and the two 
 other guests, with their sleeves rolled up to the elbow, 
 scouring the kettles, and washing up the dishes ! 
 
 So Christmas-day passes away ; there are many 
 extra dinners gotten up, and numerous invitations to 
 admired friends. Towards evening, the gloom has 
 in a measure passed off from most of the faces ; there 
 is some laughing, and even cracking of jokes. A 
 "ball" has been advertised to take place in the lower 
 east room ; an unusual array of tallow candles ren- 
 ders the room as clear as day — a cloudy day, at least ; 
 there is a great deal of sport and merriment, after a 
 
NEW YEAH'S EVE. 103 
 
 while, and a great deal of bad dancing; toes are 
 trampled upon with impunity — ^hats crushed — ^trow- 
 sers torn ; — ^but the violinist scrapes away with super- 
 natural tenacity, and he is the best-natured man in 
 the room, for he is a " fiddler " whom " nobody pays." 
 At nine o'clock there is a loud cry of "lights 
 out ! " from the sentries ; the ball breaks up ; blankets 
 are spread on the floor ; and dancers, spectators, fiddler 
 and all, are soon wrapped in the arms of the Libbyan 
 Morpheus. Many strange visions are beheld ; many 
 pleasing dreams experienced ; and man}^ fond, fami- 
 liar faces are photographed in that wondrous camera 
 obscura which sleep makes of the dreamer's brain. 
 
 It is New Year's Eve. The prison authorities have 
 granted us the privilege of burning candles until 
 midnight : we experience something of the bewilder- 
 ment of owls, — we have seen nothing clearly after 
 nine p. m., for the last six mouths. 
 
 A group of us are sitting, a let Turque, on an out- 
 spread blanket : we are waiting to see the K'ew Year 
 in. We have no wine wherewithal to ofier up a libation ; 
 but we have in a black flask, a very small quantity 
 of Drake's Plantation Bitters, which has been hoarded 
 up for some weeks past to serve on this occasion. 
 
 We while away the time by relating anecdotes of 
 
104 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 soldier-life. There is in the party an old Hungarian 
 veteran ; a genuine old "dog of war," with a coi:)ious 
 dash of quaint humor about him. He is telling us 
 how General Lee got between Mm and six fresh eggs ; 
 I will let him relate the story himself 
 
 " On the morning of the second day of the battle of 
 Gettysburg, I had been ordered to the front by 
 General , to ascertain the cause of some scat- 
 tering discharges of musketry on our right. I rode 
 to the picket line, and having satisfied m3'self as to 
 the true state of affairs in that direction, I was re- 
 turning to headquarters with the information I had 
 gathered, when I discovered a small farm-house at a 
 short distance from the road I was following. I had 
 Hans, my old orderly', with me. 
 
 " ' Isten neki! Hans,'' said I, placing my hand on 
 my stomach, 'there's a farm-house !' 
 
 " ' So there is !' ejaculated Hans, placing his hand 
 on his commissariat. 
 
 " I was very hungry. Hans was very hungry, too. 
 We had eaten nothing that day; indeed, we had 
 eaten scarcely any thing for several daj^s, for you 
 may remember what a hasty march we had of it 
 through Virginia and Marjdand. ' Hans,' con- 
 
STORY ABOUT SIX EGGS. 105 
 
 tinned I, suggestively, 'that farm-house looks yeiy 
 cozy.' 
 
 " 'It wouldn't surprise me, sir,' added Hans, tipping 
 his cap to me, ' if you could get a bite of something 
 there, sir,' 
 
 a i Terringcttet! We'll try it !' exclaimed I ; for I 
 was of Hans' opinion. 
 
 " So we put spurs to our horses, and a few moments 
 afterwards I was dismounting in front of the house. 
 
 '' The good woman, and a number of little urchins, 
 whom I found there were very much alarmed ; the 
 little ones ran away to hide themselves. The woman 
 said, in answer to my queries, that she had not a 
 thing to eat in the house ; but I was too hungr}^ to 
 be turned away in that style. I reassured her by 
 stathig that I was a Federal officer, (a fact about 
 which she had evidently entertained some misgiv- 
 ings,) and upon my displaying a formidable roll of 
 'green backs,' she finally acknowledged that she had 
 about six fresh eggs in the larder. 
 
 " * Six fresh eggs !' cried I, ' Isten neJci! a feast for 
 the gods ! my good woman, I am very hungry. I 
 have eaten nothing to-day. Now, here's the price of 
 the six eggs ; have them ready to fry for me in about 
 half an hour, when I will return. On no account 
 allow any one else to get hold of them. ' 
 
106 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 " I then paid her liberally for the eggs, and mount- 
 ing my horse, in high glee at the prospect of a glo- 
 rious meal, I hastened back to headquarters. 
 
 " When I arrived there, I found the General 
 mounted ; he asked me to accompany him to the 
 front. 
 
 " Hans and I exchanged a look of dismay. 
 
 " It was of no use ; duty before fresh eggs I 
 
 " I was never before so much put out in my life. 
 We made a long and tedious reconnoissance ; it seemed 
 to me to last an age ; for, as you may suppose, I was 
 growing more hungry all the time ; I thought we never 
 would start back for headquarters. At last, how- 
 ever, the General, satisfied with his inspection, turned 
 his horse's head in the desired direction. 
 
 " Hans and I exchanged a knowing wink, expressive 
 of our supreme satisfaction. 
 
 " We had been out several hours, and the cool morn- 
 ing wind had sharpened my appetite to a wonderfully 
 keen edge. Arrived at headquarters, I was about to 
 dart off at once in the direction of my eggs, when the 
 General called to me, saying he wished me to write 
 out some urgent orders. I dismounted with a mut- 
 tered exclamation which was any thing but compli- 
 mentary to orders in general, and these in particular ; 
 I set myself to work with very bad grace ; of course, as 
 
STORY ABOUT SIX EGGS. 107 
 
 I was in a hurry, I blotted the paper, I spilled the 
 ink, I made mistakes and had to rewrite the orders 
 several times ; — ^no wonder, for I was very hungry, 
 and was thinking of my eggs. 
 
 " At last I finished the orders ; I was free for a few 
 moments ; Hans was holding my horse, ready for me ; 
 we leaped into our saddles and dashed at full speed 
 in the direction of our breakfast. I imagined I could 
 already hear those glorious fresh eggs frying and 
 spurting in the hot lard on the kitchen stove, — I 
 could scent their delicious odor as if it were wafted 
 towards me through the kitchen door 1 
 
 "All at once we heard a discharge of musketry in 
 that direction. A frightful presentiment took posses- 
 sion of me. 
 
 " A heavier, louder, and longer discharge followed. 
 
 " I shouted to Hans to spur on ; I was resolved to 
 resort to any desperate measure rather than go break- 
 fastless that day. 
 
 ^' Suddenly there came a terrific discharge of artil- 
 lery. It grew louder, and more terrible ; peal after 
 peal shook the earth and air ; we spurred madly on, 
 and reached the summit of a little eminence on the 
 road : alas ! what a sight met our ej^es ! 
 
 " The enemy in tremendous force was pressing to- 
 
108 l-IBBY LIFE. 
 
 ward us ; our little farm-house was bej^ond the 
 advancing columns, half concealed by the smoke. 
 
 " The Rebel artillery was between me and my break- 
 fast ! 
 
 " I will not attempt to describe my feelings at that 
 disheartening spectacle ; I only know this, that to 
 this day I feel the blood tingle in my head when any 
 of m}^ fellow-officers begin to relate (as a good joke) 
 around the camp-fire, how General Lee got between 
 me and my six eggs." 
 
 We have a hearty laugh over the story, and express 
 it as our unanimous opinion that no doubt General 
 Lee must have enjoj^ed those six eggs for his break- 
 fast. 
 
 '' Isfen nekiP^ exclaims the emphatic Hungarian, 
 striking the palm of his left hand with his right fist, 
 " I will make it a personal matter with General Lee, 
 when the war is over !" 
 
 Another officer relates the following adventure : 
 "What I am about to relate, occurred last winter 
 during the long period of inaction which preceded 
 the battle of Chancellorsville and the invasion of 
 Pennsylvania by General Lee's Army. 
 
 '* I was on General 's staflT, in the Valley of Vir- 
 ginia. We had gone into winter-quarters, and except 
 
ANOTHER STORY. 109 
 
 an occasional rencontre with the guerrillas, but little 
 occurred to break the monotony of our daily duties. 
 
 " One day, while visiting the picket line, I noticed 
 a very neat looking cottage about half a mile in front 
 of our advanced line. 
 
 " You all know that to a soldier in the field, a house 
 is always an object of peculiar interest : there may be 
 fresh edibles obtainable there, — or quarters, or infor- 
 mation, or good water ; or there may be a pretty face 
 about the premises, — a thing by no means objection- 
 able, anywhere, and which is well calculated to 
 improve the morale of fighting-men. 
 
 " Well, I was seized with an irrepressible desire to 
 ride over to this house, and would have yielded to it 
 had I not feared exposing myself to a reprimand for 
 passing unnecessarily beyond the lines. One morn- 
 ing, however, being informed by Captain W who 
 
 was on duty at the picket line, that suspicious sounds, 
 indicative of the presence of cavalry, had been heard 
 the previous night in that direction, I at once gave the 
 afiair an air of great importance, and directed the 
 Captain, with a few men, to accompany me to the cot- 
 tage, that we might ascertain something more positive 
 about the matter. When near the house t\x placed the 
 men in ambush in a convenient place, and proceeded, 
 
 the Captain and myself, to take a closer view of the 
 
 10 
 
110 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 premises. We failed to discover any indications of 
 tlie recent presence of the enemy ; nor did we succeed 
 in attracting any of the inmates to the windows, not- 
 withstanding that we tallied in a loud voice, coughed 
 boisterously, and slammed the garden gate with pre- 
 meditated violence. 
 
 ''Captain W and myself were old and tried 
 
 friends : we held a short council of war, and arrived 
 at the conclusion that it was our duty to ascertain 
 something about the inmates of this mysterious 
 domicile. 
 
 " Acting upon this decision, we mounted the steps 
 of the pretty little verandah, and knocked, in a 
 soldier-like and official manner, at the main door. 
 It was not until the third application of our knuckles, 
 administered crescendo, that the door betrayed any 
 symptoms of animation ; when it did so, we were not 
 a little disappointed at discovering that its mobility 
 was due to a lank and shrivelled hand, to which was 
 attached an elderly gentleman in a broad-brimmed 
 felt hat and intensely green spectacles. 
 
 " We did not, of course, state the real object of our 
 visit ; we had recourse to the usual expedient, — an 
 interrogatory as to the possibility of purchasing fresh 
 milk and vegetables. The old gentleman, notwith- 
 standing his apparent gentility, was so cold in his 
 
ANOTHER STORY. Ill 
 
 manner, and so crusty in his replies, that the neces- 
 sity of beating an awkward and precipitate retreat 
 became obviously imperative. We were on the point 
 of doing so, when I observed one of the parlor cur- 
 tains drawn gently aside, and a most angelic female 
 face peep out modestly at us. 
 
 " Had I been suddenly struck in the pit of the 
 stomach by a thirty-two pound solid shot, I could 
 not have experienced a more violent shock ! 
 
 " I was alwaj^s a great ladies^ man ; indeed, to be 
 candid, that is my weak point, and I can trace back 
 nearl}^ every casualty and conhetemps of my life to 
 
 my experiences with the fair sex. Captain W , 
 
 who had been also just attacked in liis weak point, 
 stood like myself, staring stupidly at the lovel}^ visi- 
 tation in the parlor window, and, in all human pro- 
 bability, neither one of us would ever have taken any 
 further notice of the old gentleman, had not he also 
 turned toward it, and ordered back the fair vision 
 with an authoritative wave of his bony and wrinkled 
 hand. 
 
 '' I felt as though I could, at that moment, have 
 condensed the old fellow, spectacles and all, into the 
 crown of his hat, had not so insane a purpose been 
 checked by the timely reflection that he might be the 
 legitimate author of that beautiful creation, and that 
 
112 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 SO sanguinary a proceeding might be calculated to 
 impair my prospects of winning her good graces. I, 
 therefore, changed from an offensive, rather to a 
 defensive S3^stem of tactics. All my efforts in that 
 direction, however, proved futile, and when I left, a 
 quarter of an hour later, the old porcupine was as 
 bristling and forbidding as ever. 
 
 " On our way back to our lines, not a word with 
 reference to the exquisite creature we had beheld, 
 
 passed between W and myself. You can readily 
 
 surmise how it was: we were already rivals. Un-, 
 
 fortunatel}^ for me, W was remarkably handsome, 
 
 very clever, and shrewd as a fox. 
 
 " I could not, during several dajs, drive away that 
 beautiful vision from my brain ; it haunted me con- 
 stantly ; it pursued me night and day ; as I stood 
 time after time, gazing at the pretty cottage from 
 our lines, I often imagined I could distinguish a 
 white handkerchief waved to and fro among the ever- 
 greens which fenced the little garden, and more than 
 once, on such occasions, I had Wistar^s Lozenges re- 
 commended to me as an infallible specific for a 
 severe cold in the head. 
 
 " I dreamed of that fatal beauty every night. Some- 
 times I would dream that the sky was a huge parlor 
 window, and that between two curtains of fleecy 
 
ANOTHER STORY. 113 
 
 cloud, suddenly parted by a gush of wind, her blush- 
 ing face looked out, and smiled upon me : some 
 mornings this pleasant hallucination would be due to 
 the sun, which as it rose shone full in my face, — or 
 it would be Joe, m}^ colored boy, who would suddenly 
 throw open the tent flaps to call me to breakfast. 
 
 " It was not long before I found an excuse for going 
 again to the cottage. This time I did not wait to be in- 
 vited into the house ; the fair angel was in the parlor ; 
 I had given my na'me to the old gentleman ; he could 
 
 not do less than to say : ' Caj^tain , my daughter, 
 
 sir.' Thus was I rewarded with her acquaintanc 
 for my consummate impudence. What a lucky dog 
 I thought myself, to be sure ! I did not feel quite 
 so well satisfied, however, when during our pleasant 
 little chat, she mentioned quite familiarly, the name 
 
 of Captain W . So, so, thought I, that rascal has 
 
 forestalled me ! 
 
 '' I will not weary you with a detailed account of all 
 the cunning stratagems I had recourse to, in order 
 to advance my suit ; suffice it to say that I seemed 
 to have made a most decided impression upon the 
 lovely girl, — at least, so my vanity interpreted her 
 tender manner, and her encouraging smiles. One 
 fact I was confident of: I had ousted W , and 
 
 had driven him completely from the field. That 
 10* 
 
114 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 painful and awkward coolness which arises between 
 the best friends when there is a contest between them 
 for a woman's heart, had sprung up between us ; we 
 were quite shy of each other ; we never alluded, even 
 distantly, to the pretty cottage or the precious jewel 
 it contained. 
 
 " Well, the affair continued to prosper in the most 
 charming manner for me ; I had, now and then, a 
 stolen interview with my lovely tormentor, in which 
 I must admit, in justice to her modesty, that she 
 always compelled me to speak to her from the oppo- 
 site side of the hedge. I deemed her a model of 
 angelic purity and feminine reserve, and these pre- 
 cious qualities of course added a keener zest to my 
 tender passion. After a time, however, I insisted on 
 a clandestine interview without a hedge ; she objected 
 emphatically, but tenderly ; I pressed my advantage, 
 and opened every battery I could bring into position, — 
 she wavered, — I charged with all my cavalry, and, after 
 a desperate resistance, she finally consented to grant 
 me an interview, such as I solicited. This meeting 
 was to take place in the parlor, the following evening. 
 
 '' There is no hedge in the parlor, dreamed I, as I 
 returned to our lines ; I will propose to her, and who 
 knows, after the war, what maj^ come of it. It was 
 so romantic to be loved by a beautiful enemy (for she 
 
ANOTHER STORY. 115 
 
 was the rankest kind of ' Secesli') ; and the personal 
 peril of these secret interviews, — it was so exciting 
 and exhilarating ! 
 
 '' The day following was one, to me, of the greatest 
 nervous agitation ; the hours seemed days — ^the day 
 a week. I met W early in the evening ; he evi- 
 dently observed my nervous condition, and it seemed 
 to render him quite nervous also — poor fellow ! I 
 pitied him; it was a shame to 'cut him out;' but 
 how could I help it ? Are we to be expected to con- 
 trol the hurricane blasts of love ? Are its volcanic 
 fires to be extinguished with a mouthful of water ? 
 Are its seething whirlpools to be stilled by a drop of 
 sweet oil ? Are its alpine avalanches to be staid with 
 the toe of one's boot ? Of course not I Oh, had he 
 only suspected what happiness awaited me that night ! 
 I could not repress a commiserative smile. He smiled 
 too (of course it was in defiance). 
 
 " At last, night came — a beautifal night ! There 
 was no moon, to be sure, — but then, after all, moon- 
 light is so hackneyed ; there were, instead, innumer- 
 able stars — delicious, poetical stars, so like an en- 
 chanted shower of silver rain, spell-bound in space ! 
 
 " I had my confidential orderly with me ; I am- 
 bushed him in a wood near the cottage, and proceeded 
 alone, as was my wont. How fast my heart throbbed 
 
116 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 as I opened the garden gate ! It might be all a 
 dream ! I dreaded, every moment, that my boy Joe 
 would throw open my tent and wake me up for break- 
 fast ! Might she not have repented her promise ? I 
 was soon convinced of the fallacy of this last dire 
 suspicion, for I descried her graceful form enveloped 
 in a shawl, leaning in the half-darkness, out of the 
 parlor window, she saw me approach, and came, 
 softly, to open the door for me. There was a little 
 vestibule, through which it was necessary to pass in 
 order to reach the parlor ; she whispered, ' Follow 
 me ! ' Follow her — follow that angel form — that 
 celestial voice — yes ! to the very end of the universe 
 would I have followed her I 
 
 '' It was very dark, but I guided my steps by the 
 rustle of her gown; she opened the parlor door — I 
 entered after her — I heard the key turn in the lock. 
 ' Shade of Yenus ! ' thought I, ' this is more than my 
 most sanguine anticipations could have led me to 
 hope for !' 
 
 '' ' Where are you ? ' I whispered, with a tremulous 
 and excited accent, natural enough under such pecu- 
 liar circumstances. 
 
 '' She returned no answer. 
 
 '' I reached out for her with my hands. 
 
 " I touched the door. 
 
ANOTHER STORY. 117 
 
 " She was gone ! 
 
 " The door was locked — on the outside ! 
 
 " ' Zounds ! ' I exclaimed, growing apprehensive. 
 ' What can this mean ? Perhaps she only wishes 
 to make sure that I shall not be disturbed by the 
 parent in spectacles, while she perfects the arrange- 
 ments for our interview.' 
 
 '' I waited patiently for awhile ; finally, I heard her 
 step approaching the door again ; I had been listen- 
 ing, with my ear to the key-hole. 
 
 '' She unlocked the door. 
 
 " Oh ! what a mysterious thrill of happiness shot 
 through my heart. 
 
 '*I drew back, that my previous apprehensions 
 might not be suspected. 
 
 " She entered : I heard her step on the carpet. 
 
 " The door was locked again. 
 
 '' This was glorious ! 
 
 "■ ' Dearest ' I whispered tenderly ' at last !' 
 
 " I stretched forth my hand to clasp her own. 
 
 " I did clasp it. 
 
 ''But it was not her's ! 
 
 '' It was a man's ! Oh ! horror ! A rough, bony, 
 hairy hand. 
 
 "'What does this mean' I exclaimed indignantly, 
 ' Who are you, sir ? ' 
 
118 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 " ' The deuce ! ' answered the familiar voice of Cap- 
 tain W . 
 
 " ' Is that ?/ow ? ' 
 
 " If I had accidentally stepped on a torpedo I 
 could not have been more completely blown up ! 
 
 " ' What hvmgsyoii here,' I demanded imperatively, 
 as soon as I had collected the exploded fragments of 
 myself 
 
 " 'My dear fellow,' whispered he, ' I fear we have 
 been most confoundedly sold.' 
 
 " ' What ? I shivered out ' a trap ? ' 
 
 '"A trap,' shivered he. 
 
 " We were not long permitted to indulge in our 
 gloomy vaticinations. After the lapse of a few 
 moments, a stream of light suddenly shot through 
 the key-hole of another door at the farther end of the 
 room, and the old gentleman in the green spectacles 
 entered, holding a candle, and followed by a dozen 
 men in gray coats, armed to the teeth, and headed 
 by a ferocious-looking officer. 
 
 '' The whole frightful truth flashed upon us in an 
 instant. 
 
 " We had been betrayed ! 
 
 " The officer advanced towards us pistol in hand. 
 
 " 'Gentlemen,' he said, levelling his vreapon, 'you 
 are my prisoners ! " 
 
ANOTHER STORY. 119 
 
 " For my part, I was so completely stupefied and 
 thunderstruck by the startlmg occurrences of the last 
 ten minutes that I candidly believe I would have sur- 
 rendered unconditionally to the old gentleman, had 
 he come all alone, and simply armed with a broom- 
 stick ! 
 
 *' As we were being led out, I caught a last glimpse 
 of a charming famil}^ group : my beautiful angel, 
 laughing to kill herself, was pressed in the arms of 
 the ferocious officer, who was calling her his darlin'g 
 loife ! (Hang the fellow !) — The old gentleman was 
 looking after us, holding the candle above his head, 
 with the first, last, and only smile I had ever yet 
 seen upon his crabbed, surly, and frigid physiognomy ! 
 
 '* Our feelings, as we mounted doggedly behind 
 two of the Rebel troopers, I will not attempt to con- 
 vey : shame, at the consequences of our dishonorable 
 capture, — indignation at the base treachery of that 
 beautiful fiend, tortured us into a vortex of agony 
 
 which baffles all description. W and myself 
 
 beheld in our common fate, a merited punishment 
 for our common folly. 
 
 ''But, fortunately, this awkward affair was not 
 destined to terminate as fatally for our reputation as 
 we at first had reason to expect. 
 
 "■ The force which guarded us was small ; their 
 
120 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 horses, too, were evidently much jaded ; my orderly 
 had in all likelihood heard, and suspected, what was 
 going on ; we might yet he rescued. 
 
 ''So, indeed, it happened. We had not travelled 
 far before the sound of horses at full gallop was heard 
 behind us. Our captors quickened their own pace in 
 proportion. 
 
 "Ere long our pursuers had caught up with us, 
 and a brisk skirmish ensued, during the confusion 
 
 and excitement of which, W and ni}- self contrived 
 
 to make our escape. 
 
 *' The full history of our affair did not become gene- 
 rally known ; such encounters with Kebel guerrillas 
 were of too frequent occurrence to excite much 
 attention. Those who did learn the true history of 
 it, however, gave us no rest for a long time after- 
 wards, and many a joke was cracked at our expense. 
 
 ''W and I, became better friends than ever. 
 
 Neither of us ever went near that cottage again, nor 
 did we ever after meet with any of its occupants ; 
 indeed, a short time after our adventure, our forces 
 moved up the valley to a new position — a change 
 of locality upon which we congratulated ourselves 
 heartily. 
 
 " We had been taught a salutary lesson ; the moral 
 of it is this : 
 
ANOTHER STORY. 
 
 121 
 
 ''A Federal may sometimes, under peculiar circum- 
 stances, trust a Rebel man, — but a Rebel woman, 
 never /" 
 
 As he delivered himself of this excellent maxim, 
 the narrator winked his right eye with an emphasis 
 which must have caused a mj^sterious thrill to curdle 
 the heart of every rebellious female in the Confede- 
 racy. 
 
 A RATION OF CORN BREAD. 
 
 11 
 
VII. 
 1864. 
 
 "Sawviavv^ •. — New Yeae's Day — Specula- 
 tive AND EeTROSPECTIVE — LUGUBEIOUS — ESCAPES 
 
 FROM THE Prison — Belle Isle. 
 
 (123) 
 
NEW year's day. 125 
 
 NEW YEARNS DAY. 
 
 ^^rpWELYE o'clock! Post No. 1— all's well!" 
 -*- suddenly breaks upon the stillness of the 
 night. 
 
 The New Year is in ! 
 
 Simultaneously a voice in the prison begins to sing 
 The Star-Spangled Banner; it is taken up, voice 
 after voice, until the swelling strain rises from every 
 room in the building, and floats out upon the mid- 
 night air, and up to the starry sky, in one grand 
 chorus of enthusiastic voices ! 
 
 After this follows Auld Lang Syne. 
 
 That over, there follows such a noise of cheers, 
 yells, clattering of tin-ware, shouts of " Happy New 
 Year !" and such a hideous concatenation of demo- 
 niacal sounds, as might with considerable reason have 
 been expected to frighten the new year from coming 
 into the prison until next day. 
 
 New Year's day is spent much in the same manner 
 11* 
 
126 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 as Christmas ; there are extra dmners, and a great 
 deal of extra noise. In the evening there is a " Grand 
 Ball" in the kitchen. The musicians are mounted on 
 a table placed against the wall ; they discourse toler- 
 able music from a tambourine, violin, banjo, and 
 bones ; there is a great crowd ; with one exception, 
 all are men — that one is a man also, but disguised 
 into a ludicrous representation of a negro woman — 
 well blacked up, and with a wreath of flowers on her 
 (his) head, — this Ethiopian female is a First Lieu- 
 tenant of Regulars ! The pseudo-feminine is accom- 
 panied by a comical representation of a colored beau ; 
 they are the great centre of attraction, and they open 
 the Ball in fine style. 
 
 What a sight ! — to see several hundred men dancing 
 together at this inhuman, unnatural Ball, in the 
 gloomy cook-room of a prison ! I say gloomy with 
 all due deference to the weak-eyed, near-sighted, 
 tallow-dips, which seem to understand, and to feel, 
 the absurdity of their position, and are flickering 
 away, and guttering down, as though making all 
 haste to use themselves up as soon as possible. 
 
 Among these heathenish dancers, there are many, 
 — young men of the fashionable stamp, — who whilom 
 sported dress coats and lemon-colored kids at cere- 
 monious parties in aristocratic parlors ! 
 
NEW year's day. 127 
 
 Oh, what base uses we may come to ! To thmk of 
 placing one's arm around, and gracefully seizing the 
 hand of, some rough, hairy Iloosier, or some porpoi- 
 sine ''gun-boat," and whirling them through that 
 exhilarating maze, reserved only for delicious con- 
 tact with slender waists and soft, white hands. 0, 
 shade of Terpsichore ! 
 
 When the Ball is over, the frightful serenade of the 
 previous night is again inaugurated. Are these men 
 mad ? What a deafening clatter of tin-ware ! What 
 insane yells I What stamping, and leaping, and 
 shouting I I am informed that it is a War Dance. 
 If so, the Sioux and Camanches are utterly outdone ! 
 
 On the floor below, two sane men are near the 
 termination of a highly interesting game of chess ; 
 there is a great thumping and clattering of feet on 
 the floor over-head, but it does not seem to interfere 
 with the labor of those mental engines, whose potent 
 energies are absorbed in the profound tactics of the 
 chess-board ; a large circle of intelligent spectators 
 are intent upon the next move, which must be deci- 
 sive. Black's hand is outstretched, tremulous with 
 ill-controlled excitement : White turns pale, for those 
 nervous outstretched fingers clutch a portentous black 
 rook, and in another instant the white king will be 
 mated. . . . When lo ! from the ceiling overhead, 
 
128 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 where it was hung, down comes a huge ham, and 
 drops like a bomb-shell into the very midst of the 
 contending hosts ! The pieces are scattered right 
 and left ; the board, and the rickety table on which 
 it stood, are overset ; and the black and the white 
 general both spring to their feet with a cry of horror, 
 which is only drowned in shouts of the heartiest 
 laughter from the bystanders. The icar-dance was 
 still going on overhead, and a gigantic Indian warrior 
 having leaped five feet into the air, and come down 
 directly above the suspended ham, had jarred it from 
 the nail on which it hung, and had thus ruined the 
 most brilliant game of chess ever played in the 
 prison ! 
 
 Much in the same style ends the celebration of the 
 New Year's advent. 
 
 The horizon of the future is bright with rumors of 
 "exchange;" there is a frightful epidemic of that 
 alarming malady known as "Exchange on the brain;" 
 some are sanguine ; most are hopeful ; and all are 
 anxious for the arrival of* that happy day of libera- 
 tion which has been looked forward to so long in 
 vain. Should the ensuing month bring with it that 
 glorious millenium, it will not have been an empty 
 hope which prompted us all to-day to wish one 
 another ''A happy New Year!" 
 
SPECULATIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE. 129 
 
 In this prison-life of ours, so cariously interwoven 
 are the sublime and the ridiculous, the pathetic and 
 the humorous, that it is no easy task to separate the 
 one from the other. There are hours of profound 
 melancholy, and moments of reckless sans-souci. 
 
 Most of the prisoners, being soldiers only pro tem. , 
 have at variance within them two distinct elements 
 of feeling : one springing from their habitual, and the 
 other from their temporary mode of life ; one springs 
 from peaceful associations with the seclusion of home, 
 or the luxury or business activity of city life, — the 
 other from the more recent influences of the camp 
 and the battle-field. These incongruous elements 
 are in constant antagonism. One moment it is the 
 soldier, improvident of the future, reckless of the 
 present, laughing at discomfort and privation, and 
 merry in the midst of suffering ; then again it is the 
 pacific citizen, complaining of misfortune, sighing for 
 home, dreaming of seclusion and peace, yielding to 
 despondency and to sorrow. And this is perhaps 
 fortunate — for thus, at least, there is less danger that 
 ,the prisoner shall become either a prodigal with the 
 one element, or a miser with the other. 
 
 Most people are apt, when left continually to their 
 own thoughts, to indulge in a sort of post-mortem 
 
130 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 examination of their previous life ; to dissect that 
 portion of their personal history, which is seldom 
 anatomized without arriving at the conclusion that 
 our present misfortunes are, in nearly all cases, due 
 to some radical error in our own record. 
 
 How many have, at' some time, sighed to them- 
 selves : Alas! my life has been a failure ! 
 
 Misfortune renders some men reckless ; they lash 
 the helm — ^take in sail — and scud away under bare 
 poles over the tempestuous ocean of the world. 
 Others, on the contrary, become cautious through 
 adversity and wise through failure, and such, retra- 
 cing in their leisure hours their path of life, go back 
 and question the sorrowful spectres of perished hopes, 
 which haunt the crowded grave-3'ards of the past ; 
 they draw from its cerements the cold, wan reality 
 of by -gone years ; they cut into the body of their 
 blighted, dead past-life, and seek to learn of what 
 disease it died. This is rational, — it is instructive, — 
 it is courageous ; unfortunately, it is not agreeable. 
 Much j)leasanter it is, amid the platitudes of our 
 daily existence, to lean toward the amenities, rather 
 than the duties, of thought. Better, we deem, to 
 light anew about the corpse of the dead Past the halo 
 of a specious existence ; to enwreathe the torn hair 
 with blossoms, — to tinge the livid cheek with the 
 
SPECULATIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE. 131 
 
 purple flush of health, — to enkindle tlie glazed e3^es 
 with eloquent lustre, — to breathe into the pallid lips 
 the wonted echoes of a familiar voice which may dis- 
 course to us pleasantly of long departed J03''s, and of 
 old, happy hours. There is indeed, a sort of piteous 
 consolation in doing this ; * it is like the mournful 
 solace sought by those who, having lost some being 
 near and dear to them, love to plant the honored 
 grave with flowers. 
 
 It is this inward self which is all his own, that the 
 prison-leisure leads the speculative captive to dissect 
 and to analyze. He is allowed ample time for 
 thought. After a long voyage with memory over the 
 ocean of the past, he returns to the present with a 
 better heart, and endeavors from the new-kindled 
 stars which have risen above the vapory horizon of his 
 prison-life, to cast the horoscope of a wiser future. 
 He has held his post-mortem examination, and in all 
 likelihood, has not failed to discover the nature of 
 the disease. 
 
 Prisons, like death-beds, are fertile in repentances ; 
 like the regions of Avernus they are paved with good 
 resolutions : fortunately they neither resemble the 
 former in their brevity of duration, nor the latter in 
 their eternity of time, — so that the prison-repentance 
 ma}^ be genuine if enduring, and the good resolves 
 
132 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 fruitful of good if unbroken. It is, indeed, a pity 
 that the fair promises we make to ourselves in cap- 
 tivity, are so apt to be cast aside unfulfilled when we 
 are once free. 
 
 But the hour of retrospect and self-humiliation 
 must come for all, sooner or later. Even the scoffer 
 who has journe3^ed over the path of a long life with 
 his back to Heaven, will turn, as he dies, and take 
 one step towards it ! 
 
 Glorious and beautiful is the Shakespearean philo- 
 sophy which teaches us to see good in everything ; 
 veril}^, there are books in the prison bars — and ser- 
 mons in the prison stones. 
 
 Every afternoon I notice in the street, beneath my 
 window, a group of ill-clad juvenile beggars, of both 
 sexes. They hold up their red little hands to us, as 
 they stand there shivering in the cold. We throw to 
 them spare fragments of corn bread, and occasionally 
 a macerated ham bone, which they scramble for 
 greedily, to carry home with them. 
 
 There is a loyal, patriotic, and attenuated old cow, 
 who also comes regularly every day to munch at the 
 edible bits and scraps thrown out to her from our 
 windows. When she fails to attract our attention, 
 she shakes her head impatiently, and jingles the bell 
 
LUGUBRIOUS. 133 
 
 at her neck, gazing wistfully up at the barred win- 
 clows. 
 
 So it is : these children, who are innocent and 
 hungry — this poor beast, who is neglected and starved 
 — ^these are the only inhabitants of the Confederate 
 Capital, who dare openly to acknowledge their misery, 
 and to show their attachment to the Yankee bar- 
 barians, who, wretched and hungr}^ enough them- 
 selves, Heaven knows ! are yet ready to share even 
 with them the meagre rations on which they are com- 
 pelled to subsist. », 
 
 The extinction of the last hope of an exchange of 
 prisoners — at least within a reasonable time, has had 
 the effect of depressing our spirits to an extent truly 
 deplorable. The usual games and pastimes are aban- 
 doned ; even those villainous nocturnal catechizers, 
 generally impervious to the most grievous calamities, 
 have sunk into a condition of despondency which 
 would be almost gratifying, were it only limited to 
 their own number. 
 
 To add to this doleful aspect of affairs, no boxes 
 from home have been distributed among us for several 
 weeks, — so that the majority of us are subsisting 
 chiefly on corn cake, tobacco smoke, and the recol- 
 lections of former prosperity, — the latter, a species 
 
 12 
 
134 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 of retrospective diet wliich makes a, capital honne 
 bouche for a post-pranclial chit-chat under straitened 
 circumstances, but which, unfortunate!}^, is not pos- 
 sessed of very nutritious qualities. Hence, we are 
 daily becoming more and more depressed, ph3^sically 
 as well as mentallj'-, — a depression, which if not 
 checked in its alarming rapidity, will before long 
 bring about a state of collapse, and will probably 
 lead to a series of " special exchanges " into the lines 
 of that bourne from which no Libby traveller ever 
 returns. ^ 
 
 I must admit that it requires a great deal of that 
 kind of philosophical sang froid so characteristic of 
 the nobles during the French Revolution, who joked 
 and laughed in the tumbrils which conveyed them to 
 the guillotine, to treat so serious a calamity in a 
 manner so trivial. But, as I have been solicited by 
 my fellow-prisoners to compose a readable book of 
 our prison experiences, and as I am inclined to believe 
 that the few who will ever get out of this modern 
 Bastile (there is, in parenthesis, a strong anatomical 
 probabilit}'', at present, that the author himself will 
 never get out to publish it,) will be like all men who 
 have been prisoners, and like many philosophers who 
 have not, that is — disposed to laugh, rather than to 
 weep over departed evils, I, therefore, take it for 
 
LUGUBRIOUS. 135 
 
 granted that I am pursuing the course most in ac- 
 cordance with their wishes. It has been wisely sug- 
 gested that " To be great, is to be unhappy !" Oh ! — 
 if it be requisite to lift one's mental energies from 
 the stagnating platitudes of prison existence, up to 
 the empyreal sublimities of authorship, — if it be 
 necessary to struggle through the torpid vapors of 
 a lugubrious " stale, flat and unprofitable " life, up to 
 the dignities and responsibilities of literary compo- 
 sition, — if Rabelais did not express the truth when 
 he asserted that a body emasculated by famine, and 
 tortured b}^ disease and privation, is incapable of fur- 
 nishing the intellect which tenants it, with noble and 
 excellent thoughts ; if it be absolutely essential to 
 laugh when one feels like crying, — to smile when one 
 would frown, — to write, when one is languid and tor- 
 pid, on meagre fragments of unsized paper, mutilated 
 fly-leaves of books, and greasy covers of cheap pub- 
 lications, with a fork-pointed pen, — to answer roll- 
 call precisely at the culminating period of a pathetic 
 and intricate passage,— to hasten down to the kitchen 
 in order to concoct an indigestible dinner, and to' 
 have 3'our pot boiling over on the stove and 3^our 
 very best ideas boiling over in 3'our brain, — to have 
 hickory brooms inserted unceremoniously between 
 your literary legs at sweeping hours, and the floor 
 
136 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 washed, and filthy water dashed about in insane and 
 perilous cataracts under your literary nose, on scrub- 
 bing days, — if, I groan, it be requisite to endure all 
 this, pending the composition of a readable book of 
 23rison experiences, — Oh, then, that this wise saying 
 might be for once reversed, and that it might prove 
 equally true that "To be unhappy, is to be great !" 
 
 But to return : Seven mortal days and nights with 
 nothing to eat but stale corn cake, and nothing to 
 drink but cold hydrant water, would, I dare say, have 
 made one of those Revolutionary aristocrats as brisk 
 as a grass-hopper and as merry as a cricket ! The 
 result, in our case, is by no means so gratifying ; for, 
 our prison presents, just now, not so much the lively 
 prospect of a clover field as of some antiquated 
 museum, in which a rare collection of Eg3^ptian 
 mummies might, by means of a necromantic spell, 
 have been suddenly recalled into existence. 
 
 I could not repress a ghastly smile this morning 
 as I sat observing a mess of four, whose breakfast 
 consisted simply of a ver}^ small quantity of \ery 
 weak coffee, and who, with all the gravity of Puri- 
 tans, employed the time they would, under more 
 favorable circumstances have devoted to eating, in 
 singing " Glory, glory hallelujah !" 
 
 Except during the first three weeks following our 
 
ESCAPES FROM THE PRISON. 137 
 
 arrival here, we have never been reduced to so 
 wretched a condition, with regard to provisions, as 
 we are at present. Empty shelves and empty boxes, 
 meet the eye every where ; the pegs which whilom 
 displayed juicy hams and savory tongues, now sup- 
 port only their meagre carcasses, which look, as they 
 pend there, like the shrivelled remains of so many 
 vile criminals hung for piracy. 
 
 It is a well-known fact, that those who perish from 
 starvation behold, amid their expiring agonies, visions 
 of superb banquets, tables loaded with the most suc- 
 culent viands and the choicest and most delicious con- 
 fections, which, Tantalus-like, they may gaze upon, 
 but cannot reach. I know not if what we are expe- 
 riencing of the same sort at present, be a premonitory 
 symptom — but it certainly is the prevailing affliction 
 among us. Ah, yes ! Miss Leslie's Cookery Book 
 reads like a novel ! 
 
 This month has been among the most eventful of 
 our prison history. 
 
 Its advent was made joj^ful by the unusually pro- 
 mising aspect of the exchange question, and although 
 the sanguine hopes entertained of its speedy adjust- 
 ment, and our liberation, were doomed to experience 
 
 a sudden and unexpected demise, leaving us more 
 12* 
 
138 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 gloomy and disheartened than ever, yet, its exit has 
 been attended by a thrill of excitement so unusual a's 
 to be almost unprecedented. 
 
 The Libby has been, I believe, alwaj^s considered 
 the safest military prison in the Confederacy ; its iso- 
 lated position, and the vigilance of its commanding- 
 officer, Major Turner, having entitled it to high enco- 
 miums in this regard. If it be true that love laughs 
 at bolts, when its object is a woman — captivity, unfor- 
 tunately, cannot always indulge its risibility at the 
 expense of bars, even though its object be liberty- 
 one quite as worthy of the affections. A prisoner, if 
 he deserve the name, is always more or less occupied 
 with the idea of making his escape ; he becomes a 
 plotter, in spite of his scruples ; he forms a thousand 
 plans in his mind, all of which begin by appearing 
 more feasible, and almost invariabl}^ end by being 
 considered more impossible, than they reall}^ are ; the 
 strength and resistance of bars are accurately calcu- 
 lated ; the pregnability of walls cautiously and satis- 
 factorily tested ; the elevation of windows from the 
 street shrewdly estimated ; the vigilance or careless- 
 ness of sentries cautiously observed, and their peculiar 
 habits and propensities systematically analj^zed. All 
 these preliminary facts having been properly weighed 
 in the balance, the plan is matured, and the opportu- 
 
ESCAPES FROM THE PRISOx^. lo9 
 
 nity for cariying it into effect is patientl}^ awa-ited. 
 But, as it happens with those schemes in life which 
 depend for their success more upon accidental and 
 fortuitous contingencies than upon natural and pre- 
 conceived events, that very opportunity which is the 
 last requisite on the list calculated upon by the 
 schemist, is also the chief one in importance. With- 
 out it the shrewdest and best matured plans are des- 
 tined to fail. Opportunities have changed, at times, 
 the destinies of whole nations. 
 
 It happens that the prisoner seldom finds an oppor- 
 tunity ready for him when he could take advantage of 
 it, and quite often it presents itself when he cannot. 
 Now, some officers in the Libby having, notwith- 
 standing the vigilant . ej^e of Major Turner and the 
 fidelity of his guards, discovered some flaws in his 
 precautions for the safe-keeping of his prisoners, 
 arranged their plans accordingi}^ — they were ready 
 for the opportunity precisely at the critical moment 
 when it was ready for them, and five in number, they 
 coolly walked out of the prison one fine afternoon. 
 The first flaw was this : that visitors, .mostly citizens 
 of Kichmond, were permitted to enter the prison and 
 to leave it without being challenged b}^ the sentries. 
 The next, flaw was, that when the in^^lid officers 
 attended "sick call," every morning, they passed 
 
140 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 through the same door on their way to the doctor's 
 ofSce, through which these visitors passed in and out 
 unmolested. It was no difficult matter for them to 
 attire themselves in citizen's clothing, or like work- 
 men, or Rebel soldiers, and to avail themselves of this 
 door as a means of exit, not toward the doctor's 
 office, but-up the nearest street into the cit}^ 
 
 Had not this successful trick been discovered in 
 time, no doubt every man in the prison would have 
 eventually converted himself pro tem. into a fine old 
 "Virginia gentleman, or belligerent Butternut, and 
 some pleasant morning the visitors who walked out 
 of it would have been far more numerous than the 
 visitors who walked into it. The consummate impu- 
 dence of this trick was its most admirable feature, — 
 indeed, it was the true key to its success. 
 
 These escapes have been productive of much merri- 
 ment in the prison, and of joy at the liberation of 
 these, our quondam fellow-sufferers. To be sure, they 
 have still to reach the Federal lines in safety, an 
 undertaking by no means eas}^, when we consider 
 that the whole -Confederacy is indeed a sort of huge 
 Military Penitentiary.* 
 
 * Captain J. F. Porter is the only one who has succeeded in reaching the 
 Union lines. Major Bates, 80th Illinois, Lieutenant King, 3d Ohio, Lieutenant 
 Cupp, 167th Pennsylvania, and Lieutenant Carothers, 3d Ohio, have been 
 recaptured. 
 
BELLE ISLE. 141 
 
 Two more of our number have been sent to Sauls- 
 bury, North Carolina, to remain at hard labor during 
 the war, carrying a hall and chain. This is also done 
 upon the plea of retaliation. They are Captain Ives, 
 10th Massachusetts, and Captain J. E. B. Reed, 51st 
 Indiana. 
 
 Belle Isle, where some 6,000 Federal prisoners, en- 
 listed men, are confined, is beautifully situated in a 
 bend of the James River, about half a mile above 
 Richmond. In the summer season, it is a delightful 
 spot, and was much frequented, previous to its use as 
 a prison, by pic-nic and other pleasure parties from 
 the city. 
 
 The river, which is here very swift of current and 
 broken into innumerable cascades, is full of fantastic 
 groups of rocks, and islets covered with luxuriant foli- 
 age, among which it dashes, white with sparkling foam. 
 
 The island, which contains some thirty or forty 
 acres of superficial extent, rises, at the- lower ex- 
 tremity into a gentle, sandy elevation : upon this is 
 situated the camp for prisoners, occupying a space 
 of about four acres. The upper extremity of the 
 Island is bold and precipitous, rising abruptly into a 
 rocky bluff, crowned by an earth- work which com- 
 mands the river up-stream. 
 
142 LTEBY LIFE. 
 
 The view both up and down the river, from the 
 summit of this bluff, is very fine. Looking up-stream 
 the river is seen winding down between hilly banks 
 of cultivated land and luxuriant foliage, its number- 
 less little cascades flashing among the rock-islets ; on 
 the right bank are some earthworks commanding the 
 approaches to Kichmond in that direction ; on the 
 left bank is the cemetery, where the tomb of Presi- 
 dent Monroe is just discovered among the pines, and 
 below, on the edge of the river are the Water Works 
 which supply the cit}^ 
 
 Looking from the bluff down-stream you have a full 
 view of Kichmond, with the Capital crowning the 
 highest eminence ; on its left the State Penitentiary 
 with its castellated turrets ; below it the Tredegar 
 Works, and on your extreme right, Manchester, a 
 village opposite Kichmond, on the right bank of the 
 James. 
 
 Between Belle Isle and the city, three long bridges 
 span the river, almost shrouded in the rich foliage of 
 the banks and of numerous picturesque islets. 
 
 Immediately below you is the prisoners' camp, 
 divided into two sections, each surrounded by a ditch 
 and breastwork, — looking like a crovfded, walled, little 
 city of Siblc}' tents ; at the very extremity of the point 
 is a leaning flag-staff from which float the white field 
 
BELLE TSLE. 143 
 
 and red cross of Rebeldom ; on the right bank of tlie 
 islands are a few brick and frame houses, the onl}^ 
 buildings on it ; on the left of 3' ou, at the foot of 
 the bluff, is the prisoners' grave-yard. This grave- 
 yard contains ninety-seven graves ; at the head of 
 each is a wooden head-board neatly lettered, with the 
 name, rank, and regiment, and date of decease of the 
 occupant. The oldest grave dates back to June, 1863. 
 The day upon which most deaths occurred was the 
 5th of January, 1864, on which day four new graves 
 were added.* The grave-j^ard is located on a slightly 
 elevated bank, close to the edge of the river, which 
 as it rushes past among the rocks, ceaselessly chaunts 
 a mournful requiem over the hapless tenants of that 
 lonely spot. 
 
 Lieutenant Bossipux, a Virginian, is in command 
 at Belle Isle : he is a humane and courteous officer. 
 
 The sufferings of the Federal prisoners on Belle 
 Isle are severe indeed. The rigors of an unusually 
 cold winter, and the precarious and meagre commis- 
 sariat of the Confederacy, have at times rendered 
 these sufferings terrible in the exti'cme. I have been 
 assured by the prisoners themselves that the com- 
 
 * This refers to deaths -which occurred on the island, — the sick were regu- 
 larly sent to the hospitals la Richmond. 
 
144 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 manding officer has ever done all in his power to ren- 
 der their imprisonment supportable. 
 
 There is a bakery on the island for the use of the 
 prisoners and garrison, as also a sutler. 
 
 Many attempts to escape, some of them successful, 
 have been made at different times by the prisoners. 
 Among the graves in the lonely little graveyard, is 
 one which shows by the inscription on the head- 
 board, that its tenant was drowned while attempting 
 to swim across the river to the opposite shore ; having 
 one day managed to elude the vigilance of the guard, 
 he had secreted himself until night, when he en- 
 deavored to swim the stream, but was drowned among 
 its whirls and eddies. His lifeless body was dis- 
 covered on the following day, caught in a fish-trap 
 in which it had become entangled. 
 
 The small-pox has broken out among us. Here 
 and at Belle Isle its ravages have been much miti- 
 gated, but at Danville it has made frightful havoc 
 among the Federal prisoners, hundreds having been 
 already carted (I use the Kebel expression) to the 
 grave-yards, and it is probable that many more, both 
 there and here, are destined to fall victims to this 
 loathsome and pestilential malady. This frightful 
 accessor}^ alone was needed to complete the sadness 
 of a picture already gloomy and repulsive enough. 
 
BELLE ISLE. 145 
 
 Bat these horrors have not been endured by men 
 alone. Latel}^, a woman disguised as a soldier, was 
 discovered among the prisoners on Belle Isle. She 
 had for more than a month endured the terrors of a 
 situation which needs no comment, and had preserved 
 her incognito unsuspected until compelled by sick- 
 ness to repair to the hospital, where she confessed 
 her true sex. She is a young girl of seventeen or 
 eightee^u years of age, of prepossessing appearance, 
 and modest and reserved demeanor. She persistently^ 
 refused to throw any light upon her previous history, 
 or to reveal the motive which had induced her to 
 adopt the garb and the calling of a soldier. She had 
 served during more than a year in a cavalry regiment 
 in the West, when made a jprisoner. She had pro- 
 bably followed to the field some patriotic lover, or 
 adventurous spouse. When these facts became known 
 to us in the Libby, a sum was at once contributed by 
 the officers, sufficient to purchase the female soldier 
 garments suitable to her sex, wherewith she might 
 present a more becoming appearance on her return 
 to the Union lines. 
 
 13 
 

 
 r/:;^/^'' '%x^/V'^-' 
 
VIII. 
 1864. 
 
 ^cNavvvavv^', — A Sermon from a Candle — 
 The Prison World — Crowded condition of 
 THE Prison — Cooking Experiences — Letters— 
 The Grand Escapade. 
 
 (147) 
 
A SERMON FROM A CANDLE. 149 
 
 A SERMON FROM A CANDLE. 
 
 T T is a wondroush^ pleasant thing to sit, on a winter 
 -■- evening, in one's comfortable room, leaning lazily 
 back in a cnshionecl arm-chair, one's feet propped up 
 b}^ the burnished fender and warmed by the glow of 
 the crackling anthracite. The wind IioavIs without, 
 and drives the cutting sleet against the window 
 panes, with a sound which serves marvellously to 
 increase our sense of comfort, and our store of thank- 
 falness. Ah, how pleasantly we ruminate then, as 
 we watch the gleaming jets of ruby and of azure 
 darting and winding among the glowing coals ! Those 
 ma}^, indeed, be grateful and pleasing thoughts of 
 happy morning hours, fresh and green, islanded 
 here and there along the downward current of life's 
 river ; of present noon-day hopes sailing calmly 
 onward to peaceful havens ; of a tranquil, bright 
 horizon, gleaming down the stream, under an evening 
 sk}^ of violet and of gold ! 
 
 k 
 
150 LIBBY LIFE, 
 
 Bnt, alas ! it is quite another affair to sit in your 
 stiff-backed, hard-seatecl flour-barrel-arm-chair, in a 
 cheerless prison, with the winter wind blowing polar 
 needles in your face through the paneless, shutterless 
 windows, — your hat slouched down on the windward 
 side of your head for a shield, — and to behold around 
 you your shivering fellow-prisoners, blowing their 
 fingers to keep them warm, and all muffled up in 
 their gray blankets, as if the}^ were so many uneasy 
 Rebel ghosts stalking about in Confederate winding- 
 sheets ; to have no letters to write, and no book to 
 read, a^d to sit there staring at your one yellow 
 Confederate tallow candle, stuck in an impracticable 
 cake of corn bread for a candle-stick — staring at it 
 as though you might, by some hitherto unsuspected 
 optical process, extract, for your own bodily comfort, 
 the meagre caloric of its flickering flame, — then from 
 the candle passing your eye to the candle- stick, and 
 staring at that, as though you were speculating upon 
 the frightful probability of having to devour it for 
 your breakfast to-morrow, tallow-drippings and all. 
 
 This, I repeat, is quite another case, and the rumi- 
 nations which occupy your brain are of a corres- 
 pondingly diverse character. It is all very well to 
 recollect that jou once read a beautiful and instruc- 
 tive lecture by Doctor Farraday on the wonderful 
 13* 
 
A SERMON FROM A CANDLE. 151 
 
 chemical processes which take place in a burning 
 candle ; it may have interested you hugely at the 
 time to read about ox^^gen and hydrogen, and the 
 many extraordinary antics which these gases play in 
 the blaze of your tallow-dip, and how if it were not 
 for the nitrogen in the air, it would burn itself up in 
 a snap of 3^our fingers. Your thoughts do not flow in 
 this channel just now — unless, indeed, the alarming- 
 rapidity with which your candle uses itself np, not- 
 withstanding the charitable assistance of the nitre- 
 gen, should suggest the melancholy reflection that 
 this distressed, bilious-looking taper has cost you the 
 round sum of one dollar ! 
 
 Your thoughts are resolutely cast in the rigid 
 mould of that gloomy philosophy which teaches 
 you, not so much to endeavor to fly from the evils 
 which beset you, but rather to grapple with them, and 
 trample them under foot. But this admirable system 
 of ethics it is not always easy to put into practice ; 
 so 3^ou continue to stare at your candle, and you stare 
 so intensely and so long, that if you are a hypochon- 
 driac (and of course you are one) you may readil}^ be 
 led into the suicidal hallucination that you also are 
 made of tallow, and have a burning wick protruding 
 from the top of your head, and that, after all, 3'ou are 
 only two candles staring blankly at one another, and 
 
152 LIEBY LIFE. 
 
 watching each other melt away, inch by inch, with a 
 sort of silent, demoniacal satisfaction ! 
 
 Finally, you arrive at one, and only one conclu- 
 sion, which is, that if there be any one thing in this 
 world more utterly unsatisfactory than any other, it 
 is to be a prisoner of war. He who is imprisoned for 
 the commission of a crime, has at least the consola- 
 tion of knowing that he deserves the punishment he 
 suffers. But the idea of being shut up in a dreary 
 and loathsome tomb, for weeks and months — to be 
 tortured, and pinched, and starved — ^merely for serv- 
 ing your country, and endeavoring, through it, to 
 serve humanity ! Had you failed to answer at your 
 country's call, such tortures might be fully merited. 
 Stop ! you must call your moral ethics here to your 
 aid, for you feel that the burning wick in your head 
 is playing the deuce with your cerebral tallow. You 
 moralize for a while, and you finally arrive at the 
 conclusion, (you could not very well arrive at any 
 other,) that it is all for the best. Now, with Portia 
 you exclaim : 
 
 " How far that little candle throws his beams ! 
 So shines a good deed in a naughty world !" 
 
 Then you fall to making a series of quaint, but whole- 
 some similes, and you begin by considering that after 
 
A SERMON FROM A CANDLE. 153 
 
 all, if yon are a Iwpochonclriac, and have conceived 
 yourself to be even that most disgraceful of cereous 
 concoctions, a Confederate candle, there is some 
 analogy and truth in the illusion ; for, is it not thus 
 our fleeting life melts away in this rude world ? — and 
 if 3' 01* are righteous adamantine, and not impure tal- 
 low, will you not burn the brighter, and shine the 
 farther for it ? — if the rude winds of sorrow assail 
 you, will you not flicker, and gutter, and melt away 
 the sooner ? — if you do not trim your wick, now and 
 then with a pair of moral snuffers, will jon not run, 
 and drip, and splutter, and become an abomination in 
 the eyes of all good people ? — and are there not mo- 
 ments in your weary captivity, oh, ivicked prisoner ! 
 when you wish some merciful gush of the winter 
 wind through the iron bars would blow you out, and 
 be done with it ! 
 
 The sentinel under my window is crying out at the 
 top of his voice : "Nine o'clock ! lights out !" 
 
 As I creep in between my blankets I feel that I 
 owe something to that poor candle for the little ser- 
 mon it has preached to me. I shall wander off" now 
 into the empyrean fields of a pre-slumberous reverie — ■ 
 a sort of nocturnal campaign against the evils of dis- 
 content, with my dollar's worth of moralit}^ in my 
 haversack — and ere I fall asleep I shall be sure to 
 
154 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 have strayed on, and on, very far into the future, or 
 perhaps even to the doors of that eternal prison, nar^ 
 rower, and colder, and darker, than the Libby, at 
 whose threshold Death, the grim sentinel, will cry 
 out, ''Mne o'clock! lights out I" and I will answer 
 as I have done to-night : 
 
 "Out, out, brief candle !" 
 
 People are in the habit of speaking of the other 
 world, as if there were but two : I would suggest that 
 there are three — the third is the Prison World. 
 
 In the species of posthumous existence which thfe 
 prisoner leads, the memories of the past, the kindly 
 sympathies, expressed in tender messages, of the dear 
 ones far away in the sphere of a real life, the affec- 
 tionate tokens which reach him warm from the hearts 
 of unforgetting friends — all these seem but like the 
 echoes of familiar voices borne to him from another 
 world. 
 
 The life of the prison-house is simply inhuman, 
 unnatural. Different minds are no doubt affected to 
 a different degree b}^ it ; but whatever the mental 
 constitution, it must be influenced to a certain extent, 
 and deflected, as it were, from its habitual angle. The 
 speculative become morbid and misanthropic ; the 
 excitable and buoyant, languishing from the lack of 
 
PRISON WORLD. 155 
 
 mental stimulus, sink by reaction into the stagnation 
 of a morbid apath}^ It is the calm and philosophical 
 who are best calculated to endure the weary monotony 
 and the tedious routine of ^Drison life. Not but that 
 most men are apt to become to some extent selfish 
 and irascible under suffering and privation ; but the 
 one naturally callous and uncharitable becomes re- 
 pulsively egotistical, and the one naturally ill-tem- 
 pered converts himself into an insupportable monster, 
 actuated by the ferocity of the bear, and bristling all 
 over with the quills of the porcupine. But if the bad 
 qualities of some are so forcibly developed, the good 
 in others are apt to expand in the same ratio : the 
 amiable become almost feminine in their kindness ; 
 the generous carry their liberality into improvidence ; 
 the charitable become self-sacrificing in their bounty ; 
 — to such, the influences of prison life are fraught 
 with beneficial tendencies. Keligion, the ghild of 
 woe, cradled in humility, and reared in misfortune, 
 takes a deeper root in their hearts. The mind lack- 
 ing occupation turns inevitably to thought, — thought 
 leads it to investigation — investigation to truth. The 
 daily contemplation of suffering and misery, of help- 
 lessness and want, teach the necessity of faith — and 
 faith is the leaf of that plant whose blossoms are of 
 hope. Cut off from comforts and tender sympathies 
 
156 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 ■ — from the daily intercourse of friends — from the 
 habitual avocations of life — shut out from social 
 pleasures — doomed to the tedium of a solitude which 
 is the heaviest to bear : the solitude of the heart ; ,and 
 to a melancholy which is the saddest : in which day 
 after day, and month after month, the same gloomy 
 scenes are contemplated, the same cold faces beheld, 
 the same narrow circle w^alked, — he is lost indeed, 
 who loses hope. 
 
 Imprisonment generally renders men serious — with 
 that seriousness of the heart which lifts it to purer 
 thoughts, and to better actions. No place, surely, is 
 better adapted than the prison-house for the study 
 of human nature. Suffering develops the real char- 
 acter. It is in the midst of bodily or mental anguish 
 that we are apt to cast off the mask unreservedly, and 
 indeed, unawares. This is a crucible to the heart. 
 In such an imprisonment as ours, there is no privacy ; 
 there are no moments of truce for hypocrisy — of rest 
 for the daily wearing of the mask ; we liA^e continually 
 as if in the midst of a crowded street — held up to the 
 observation of the curious — always under the eye of 
 some one. Under such circumstances, that goodness 
 must indeed be sterling which never forgets itself, 
 and that merit genuine which stands firmly upon its 
 pedestal to the last. 
 
TRISON WORLD. loT 
 
 Captivity is a flail which threshes the chaff out of 
 human pride. Men are not apt to be supercilious 
 when they are starving ; they suffer, and must bow ; 
 they are tortured, and must yield. Thej^ must battle 
 against idleness, and they become diligent ; they must 
 elude their implacable foe, ennui, every hour of the 
 day and every day of the month, and when their re- 
 sources are exhausted they must stoop to trivial pur- 
 suits and pastimes to bafflie their enemy, — beiug no 
 longer able to amuse themselves as men, they remem- 
 ber how they used to amuse themselves when they 
 were children. They are surprised to find that the 
 whittling of toj^-boats and playing at jack-straws, and 
 romping like school-boys, can afford even a passing 
 occuiDation. 
 
 All silly pride and squeamishness must be set aside : 
 the future brigadier must sit, barefoot, with a bucket 
 between his legs, while he washes his own stockings ; 
 the dashing cavalry officer, who led that glorious 
 charge of which the newspapers were so full, must 
 inevitably serve his turn at cooking and scouring, 
 like a good patriotic cook and scullion that he is, — 
 he must accommodate his genius to circumstances, and 
 display as much gallantry in charging a row of cook- 
 pots as he did in scattering a battalion of the enemy's 
 
 cavalry. 
 
 14 
 
158 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 It is curious to see with what earnestness and 
 alacrity every branch of learning is undertaken. 
 There have been at different times in the prison, 
 classes of French, German, Spanish, Italian, Latin 
 and Greek, English Grammar, Phonography, Fencing, 
 Dancing, Military Tactics and a Bible Class. Of course 
 this educational enthusiasm is very ephemeral ; these 
 studies are taken up with avidity, to be dropped in 
 disgust at an early day. What the prisoner seeks, 
 in most cases, is not so much instruction as novelty 
 —not so much information as amusement ; — much 
 good is no doubt derived from this morbid thirst, 
 for here and there a good seed takes root in a fruit- 
 ful brain, and glimpses are afforded into the rich 
 arcana of science which may, at some future period, 
 lead to more substantial results. Tlie prison-world 
 must have its educational system ; the student turns 
 down the leaf of his Natural Philosophy to set to 
 work at chopping his hash ; he lays down his Logic 
 or his Pi^hetoric to go to the trough to wash his shirt. 
 This is a capital system — for it renders the student 
 humble, wdiile it makes him learned — and this humility 
 will in after life, rather add to than detract from the 
 merit of his wisdom. He is compelled to learn some- 
 thing of housekeeping also — which will prove of 
 great benefit to him in matrimony, and which will 
 
CROWDED STATE OF THE PRISON. 159 
 
 be considered by his wife decidedly charming and 
 economical. Indeed, no system of training could be 
 better adapted to prepare a young man for the duties, 
 the responsibilities, the vicissitudes, and may I with 
 all deference be permitted to add, the little counter- 
 revolutions of niarried life. 
 
 He learns something of the real world too : he 
 studies it by contrast ; he learns properly to appre- 
 ciate the evils of idleness, the blessings of freedom, 
 the sympathy of friends, the necessity of social com- 
 munion ; he learns, by sad experience, how many 
 blessings there are in the world, which he had 
 ignored. If gratitude be indeed the memory of the 
 heart, he feels how bright that memory should be 
 ever kept by those who have never read their own 
 names written in the book of suffering, as well as by 
 those who have thumbed its drearjr pages in the 
 prison-house. 
 
 Most people's notions about imprisonment are con- 
 nected with the idea of an unbroken solitude ; of 
 that constant association with self, which no heart, 
 hoAvever gifted and pure, and no mind, however fruit- 
 ful in resources and rich in lore, can long withstand 
 without drooping into weariness, and languishing into 
 melancholy. With us, here, the case is in mau}^ 
 
160 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 respects different. More than a thausand human 
 "beings crowded into the narrow limits of the prison, 
 subjected to the same trials and privations, forced 
 constantl}^ into one another's society, and continually 
 under each other's e3^es, we suffer intensely from the 
 want of that very privacy of which the victim of 
 solitary confinement has too much. 
 
 This forcing together of spirits often uncongenial, 
 of diverse tastes, and antagonistical ideas, is a curse 
 to the mind. 
 
 This jamming together of hapless mortality, this 
 endless "crush of matter," aiid ceaseless shock of 
 tortured humanity, is a curse to the body. 
 
 The prison is crowded to its utmost capacity ; 
 every nook and corner is occupied ; we jostle each 
 other at the hydrants, on the stairs, around the cook- 
 ing stoves ; at night we must calculate closely the 
 horizontal space required on the floor for the proper 
 distribution of our recumbent anatomy. Everywhere 
 there is crowding, wrangling and confusion. 
 
 " If there is society where none intrudes," there is 
 surely very little of it where the intruders are so 
 numerous. As to being exclusive — the attempt 
 would be preposterous ; — as to living secluded — that 
 is out of the question. You are in a whirlpool, and 
 you must kee^j whirling round daily with the merci- 
 
CROWDED STATE OF THE PRISON. 161 
 
 less eddy in a sort of diabolical gyration. This is 
 apt to render one irascible and crabbed, and some- 
 times even nnjust, — which horribly jangles that pre- 
 cious little silver bell in the human heart — good 
 nature, wont at times to ring out, amid the wilder 
 chimes, such pleasant music ! 
 
 To add to the unwholesomeness, and to the incon- 
 veniences of such a mode of life, we are allowed no 
 out-door exercise. The prison is too much crowded 
 to admit of our walking about with any degree of 
 comfort. Some of the prisoners now here, have not 
 once stepped outside the prison door during more 
 than eight months ! 
 
 Perhaps no periods of our prison life are so trying 
 as those melanchoty episocles in it connected with our 
 cooking experiences. 
 
 I feel constrained to devote a few remarks to this 
 subject, in view of the probable benefits to be derived 
 from them, in future times, by such unfortunate mili- 
 tary gentlemen as may be condemned to pass through 
 the smoky ordeal of a prison cook-house ; for, a sol- 
 dier, however much accustomed to stand fire, will 
 occasionally find himself, under such circumstances, 
 in a place quite as hot as the battle-field, and unless 
 he pay some attention to the theory and practice of 
 
162 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 minor strategy, he will more than once be comjDelled 
 to go dinnerless. 
 
 You are reminded by the members of your mess, 
 (whose memories seldom prove treacherous in this 
 connection,) that it is your turn to cook. If you are 
 in a large mess your tour of duty will be of two or 
 three days' duration ; if you are in a small one, it will 
 last, perhaps, a week. 
 
 The first question you ask of yourself, when this 
 gratif3dng information is conveyed to you, is apt to 
 be this : " What shall we have for dinner ?" The 
 same question is being asked every da}^ and has been, 
 since time immemorial, by ingenious housewives with 
 reduced larders ; you have probably heard it yourself 
 more than once at home, perchance during the happy 
 years of your improvident adolescence, and you may 
 now philosophize a little upon the supreme inconve- 
 nience, under peculiar circumstances, of having to 
 answer this question. 
 
 In the Libby, to be sure, you will not be quite so 
 much puzzled for a reply. "Let me see," you will 
 soliloquize, casting an anxious and searching glance 
 at your boxes and shelves, "we have corn -bread, and 
 vinegar, and salt, and pepper, and a little rye-coffee, 
 and ..." Here you will pause and scratch your 
 head, for it is very awkward to finish a sentence with 
 
COOKING EXPERIENCES. 163 
 
 a conjunction ; but you will have to waive your gram- 
 matical scruples, and resign yourself to the commis- 
 sion of a harmless solecism ; for you will probably 
 recollect that there is an unprofitable "and" at the 
 end of every thing, pretty much, about the Libby, 
 where "ands" are as common as are "ifs" in the 
 outer world, and unfortunately quite as useless. So, 
 finding that 3^our '' and" must remain in hopeless celi- 
 bacy owing to the absence of any edible to wed it to, 
 3^ou will take up your corn-bread and study what you 
 may concoct out of it, or how you may disguise it, 
 and make it look like something else than so much 
 baked saw-dust ; you may grate it down — (Oh, shade 
 of So3^er !) saturate it with water, and fashion it into 
 the semblance of a corn-meal pudding ; or, you may 
 fry it, with pork-fat, into corn-cakes — or, . . . but 
 your " or" may prove quite as troublesome to you as 
 your "and," — so you decide upon the pudding, which 
 sounds so homelike and civilized. You mix }^our 
 pudding, and with it on a tin plate in one hand, and 
 your coffee-pot in the other, you proceed down to the 
 cook-room. 
 
 You find the cook-room crowded ta suffocation, the 
 latter process being admirably facilitated by the cloud 
 of impenetrable smoke which is the prevailing atmo- 
 sphere of the cook- world ; the stoves are completely 
 
164 LIBBY LIFE 
 
 covered with all sorts of ingenious culinary contri- 
 vances in the shape of pots, skillets, pans, mugs, and 
 cans, and to back this formidable assortment of motley 
 utensils, is an army of ferocious cooks, armed with 
 ladles, forks, and spoons, all struggling to look into 
 their '' stews" at one and the same time — an operation 
 w^hich is utterly impracticable where only three small 
 stoves are to render edible so large a quantity of the 
 most uncookable and indigestible materials. 
 
 You marvel why it is that all these insane men 
 should have been seized with the unreasonable whira 
 of cooking just at that particular time, when the 
 members of \jour mess expect you to prepare their 
 dinner. You wait a long time, standing there, and 
 staring vacantly, and painfully too, through the thick 
 smoke ; the aspect of affairs is very unpromising, but 
 you must arrive at some decision : your messmates 
 will not agree with you that it would be more whole- 
 some to dine after dark ; so, jovl advance a few steps, 
 and make a frantic effort to wedge yourself in between 
 those fratricidal cooks. In all probability some 
 crabbed fellow lets fall upon your legs a little 
 summer shower of scalding w^ater ; or, some piratical 
 looking foreigner, with overgrown moustaches curled 
 up at the ends like a pair of infuriated scorpions, runs 
 the handle of a ponderous ladle into your ribs ; or, 
 
COOKING EXPERIENCES. 165 
 
 an accidental back-hander from some gigantic Hoosier 
 jostles a fair proportion of your ground coffee into 
 your eyes ; — ^but you must push on bravely, regard- 
 less of all personal peril, and persevere undismayed 
 until you have had your toes trodden upon for the 
 hundredth time — until joii are red in the face as a 
 dry-T\^eather moon — until you have smutted your 
 nose, and burnt your fingers — until you are half 
 stifled, half distracted, and completely disgusted — 
 until, in fine, you have baked your pudding, and 
 rescued the voracious members of your mess from 
 presenting a melancholy instance of Confederate 
 starvation. 
 
 Then the dinner— that is to say, the pudding — over, 
 you must remove your coat and roll up 3^our sleeves, 
 and go to work at "washing up the things." You 
 make a great ado with your soft soap and hot water, 
 looking for all the w^orld, as you loom up out of a 
 cloud of greasy steam, like a species of domestic 
 cherub ; and you rub, and splash, and scour — pre- 
 senting a picture which would stir to the very core 
 the good old heart of your maternal grandmother ! 
 
 Then, too, you must be very careful that the 
 *' things" are safe. You must keep an eye to them 
 until they pass into the keeping of your successor ; 
 for pilfering is not deemed a cardinal sin in the 
 
166 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 Libby ; your tin dippers and your pewter spoons are 
 apt to be spirited away in the most miraculous 
 manner, and your little store of eatables diminishes, 
 at times, most unaccountably. Borrowing is safe to 
 practice ; but lending is an imprudence against which 
 3^ou must guard, unless you are thoroughly convinced 
 of the integrity and previous good character of the 
 borrower. We were lately compelled to carve upon 
 the coffee-pot of our mess, the following significant 
 inscription : 
 
 " To borrow, is human — to return, divine." 
 
 An order from Major Turner was read to us a few 
 da3'S since, to the effect that henceforth we will be 
 permitted to write home but one letter per week — no 
 letter to exceed six lines. This is a severe limitation. 
 The only unalloyed pleasure we experience in our 
 imprisonment is the writing and receiving of letters. 
 Much ingenuity must be exercised to enable one to 
 crowd into six lines the thousand messages expected 
 at our hands by mothers, wives, and sweethearts. 
 The following is a model specimen from an incar- 
 cerated husband to his afflicted spouse : 
 
 " My Dear Wife : 
 *' Yours received — no hope of exchange — send corn- 
 
THE GRAND ESCAPADE. I6t 
 
 starch — want socks — no money — rheumatism in the 
 left shoulder — pickles very good — send sausages — 
 God bless you — kiss the baby-;--Hail Columbia ! 
 " Your devoted 
 
 "HUSBAND." 
 
 The 8th of this month has been one of the most 
 eventful in the history of our prison-life. It will be 
 long remembered on account of the escape of more 
 than a hundred of our number from bondage ; some, 
 destined to reach the Federal lines in safety ; others, 
 less fortunate, doomed to be recaptured, and to suffer 
 additional tortures at the hands of our keepers. 
 
 As far back as last fall, various attempts had been 
 made by officers confined in the prison, under the 
 direction of Colonel Rose of the TTth Penns^dvania, to 
 excavate a tunnel, through which they might hope 
 to effect their escape. To Colonel Rose is chiefly due 
 the credit of these explorations. Animated by an 
 unflinching earnestness of purpose, unwearying per- 
 severance, and no ordinary engineering abilities, he 
 organized, at different times, working parties of ten 
 or fifteen officers, whom he conducted every night 
 into the cellars of the prison. These cellars were 
 very dark, and entirely unguarded, being seldom 
 visited, even in the day time. To these they de- 
 
168 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 scended through an opening in the flooring of the 
 room above them used as a kitchen for the prisoners ; 
 this opening was carefully concealed by a well-fitted 
 board during the day. 
 
 The earliest excavation made led directly into a 
 stratum of rock, and was soon abandoned as imprac- 
 ticable. The next attempt was made in the direction 
 of the main sewer, which runs under the street be- 
 tween the prison and the canal. The plan was to 
 dig from the cellar into this sewer, and by creeping 
 through it, to gain the street at a safe distance from 
 the prison, by means of one of the inlets. After 
 many nights of labor, performed under the most 
 trying circumstances, water began to filter into the 
 excavation, and finally poured in so rapidly that it 
 was impossible to continue the work. This tunnel 
 was abandoned with the greatest reluctance ; it was 
 admirably planned, and had it proved successful, 
 would no doubt have emptied the prison of its 
 inmates in a few hours. Several thrilliug incidents 
 occurred in connection with it. The cellar from 
 which it was started was sometimes used as a work- 
 shop, and. a carpenter's table stood directly under 
 the aperture through which the nocturnal diggers 
 dropped doAvn nightly from the kitchen above. The 
 descent and ascent were made by means of a rope 
 
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THE GRAJSTD ESCAPADE. 169 
 
 or blanket. One night, as one of the officers was 
 being drawn up, the rope broke and he fell from a 
 height of several feet npon the table. His fall made 
 a fearful racket. A sentry whose beat was within a 
 few 5^ards of the locality of this untoward accident, 
 immediately called out for the corporal of the guard. 
 After a lengthy and profound discussion as to what 
 might have occasioned this unusual noise, both the 
 corporal and the sentry ascribed it to some trifling 
 cau^e, and no further notice was taken of it. 
 
 nother night Colonel Rose was digging under 
 i.e ver}^ beat of a sentinel, when a small portion of 
 ' V- earth and pavement caved in. The sentinel, 
 racted by the circumstance, ran immediatelj^ to 
 the spot. "What is it?" asked the soldier at the 
 next post. " A thundering big rat," cried the first 
 one, running his bayonet into- the hole. The point 
 of the bayonet grazed the Colonel's cheek. He 
 remained for a long time motionless and almost 
 breathless, until the unsuspecting sentinel resumed 
 his beat, little dreaming what were the real propor- 
 tions of this Federal rat! 
 
 After many fruitless attempts to penetrate into the 
 sewers, it was resolved to make an effort to tunnel 
 under the street east of the prison, and to reach the 
 
 yard of a ware-house opposite. This street was 
 
 15 
 
lYO LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 paced day and night by sentinels. Early in Janu- 
 ary, Colonel Rose organized a working party of 
 fourteen officers, who were to relieve each other 
 regularly in the work, one always remaining on 
 guard near the excavation to prevent a trap being 
 set for the capture of the remainder of* the party, in 
 case of discovery by the prison officials. Having 
 succeeded in lifting out the bottom of the fire-place 
 in the cook-room, they removed the bricks from the 
 back of the flue, and penetrated between the floor 
 joists into the cellar, under the end room used as a 
 hospital. Passing through this aperture, they could 
 with facility lower each other down into the cellar. 
 An opening was commenced in the wall near the 
 northeast corner of the cellar. This opening was 
 about two feet by eighteen inches. It was found 
 necessary to cut through the piles on which the 
 building was supported, and this tedious labor was 
 at length successfully completed with no other tools 
 but pocket knives. As they penetrated into the 
 earth, great difficulty was experienced on account of 
 the candles, which refused to burn in the close air 
 of the tunnel. One of the party was compelled to 
 stand constantly at the opening, fanning air into it 
 with his hat. The tunnel fell with a slight depres- 
 sion for a distance of about twelve feet, then con- 
 
THE GRAND ESCAPADE. HI 
 
 tinued slightly' ascending for about the same distance, 
 and was nearly level the remainder of its length. It 
 was about fifty-three feet long. The first depression 
 was rendered necessary by the fall of the ground 
 towards the ware-house. 
 
 The tunnel, at its entrance, was about two feet by 
 eighteen inches, and for some six feet of its length 
 ran at right angles with the street, it then turned a 
 few degrees to the right with a diameter of only six- 
 teen inches, and continued at this angle increasing 
 gradually to a diameter of about two feet to its exit. 
 In order to pass through, it was necessary, of course, 
 to lie flat on one's face, propelling oneself with the 
 hands and feet, as the space was not sufficient to 
 allow of creeping on hands and knees. 
 
 As they approached the yard of the warehouse, a 
 slight error in the computation of the distance nearly 
 proved fatal to the enterprise. Thinking they had 
 reached the enclosure, they dug up to the surface and 
 upon breaking through discovered that they had come 
 out in the street, outside the fence, and within a few 
 yards of the sentinels. This hole was quickl}- filled 
 up with a pair of old joants and some straw, and the 
 digging was continued a few feet further to the 
 desired point under a shed in the j^ard. An empty 
 hogshead was drawn over the opening to conceal it 
 
172 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 in the daytime. During more than three weeks this 
 severe labor had been perseveringiy carried on. The 
 only implements used were a large chisel furnished 
 with a long handle, and a wooden spit-box brought 
 down from one of the rooms above ; to each end of 
 this box a cord was attached, by which it could be 
 drawn into the tunnel and filled with the removed 
 earth by the digger, and drawn out by his assistant. 
 The earth and gravel thus taken out was carefully 
 concealed under some straw and rubbish in the cellar. 
 
 On the night of the 8th, the tunnel was finally pro- 
 nounced practicable for the proposed escape of the 
 party. About twenty-five of the prisoners are said to 
 have been in the secret ; these were to make their 
 escape early in the evening, and were to have two 
 hours start ; after that, the rest of the prisoners were 
 to be informed, and all who were strong enough to 
 make the attempt were to be allowed to go out. 
 
 Colonel Streight and his party were the first to go, 
 and succeeded in making their wfxj out undetected 
 Once in the yard of the warehouse, they had but to 
 pass out through a gate into the street, between the 
 two lines of guards, and walk boldly away along the 
 canal. During the night one hundred and nine of 
 the officers thus made their escape. Of these only 
 fifty-three have succeeded in reaching the Federal 
 
THE GRAND ESCAPADE. 173 
 
 lines. The remainder have been recaptured at dif- 
 ferent points along tlie roads leading down to the 
 Peninsula, and are now in the dungeons under the 
 prison, on corn-bread and water. Colonel Rose, to 
 whose protracted labors and untiring zeal, the final 
 success of the plan of escape was mainly due, is un- 
 fortunately among the recaptured. After a series of 
 thrilling adventures and narrow escapes, he had suc- 
 ceeded in approaching within a mile or two of 
 Williamsburg, where he deemed himself safe from 
 further pursuit. While resting by the roadside, he 
 was approached by two soldiers dressed in the Fede- 
 ral uniform ; convinced that they were Union soldiers, 
 he did not hesitate, in answer to their questions, to 
 state who he was. They proved to be Rebel scouts. 
 After they had taken him at a full run more than a 
 mile out of the way of the Federal scouts and pickets 
 who were close by, one of the Rebels left. Colonel 
 Rose, though well nigh overcome with exhaustion, 
 and fainting from hunger, made one last desperate 
 effort for his liberty. Springing suddenly upon the 
 remaining Rebel, he clutched him by the throat, and 
 endeavored to throw him to the ground and disarm 
 him ; he was so feeble, however, that after a brief 
 struggle his strength entirely deserted him. He had 
 
 contrived to get his finger on the trigger of his oppo- 
 15* 
 
IH LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 nent's musket, and had discharged the piece during 
 the struggle. The report of the gun having brought 
 back the other scout, Colonel Rose was then secured 
 and brought once more into the Confederate lines. 
 
 We are now subjected, in the prison, to an endless 
 ordeal of roll calls, and every precaution is being 
 taken by Major Turner to prevent any further at- 
 tempts at escape. This rigid exercise of vigilance 
 comes, of course, a day too late, and will not make 
 up for the late laxity of discipline about the prison. 
 Indeed it is wonderful how the grand escapade could 
 have been effected without detection. During the 
 exodus, at about midnight, a sudden panic seized the 
 crowd of prisoners who were gathered about the fire- 
 place in the cook-room, all endeavoring to be the first 
 to get out through the tunnel. Some one said the 
 guard was coming, and a general stampede took place 
 up the stairways to the rooms above, with a frightful 
 noise of feet, and oversetting of boxes and barrels, 
 that must have been heard a square ofl*. But the 
 guards did not suspect what was in progress ; one 
 of them, indeed, was heard to call out jocosely to a 
 companion on the next beat " Halloa, Bill — there's 
 somebody's coffee-pot upset, sure !" 
 
 The recaptured oflScers give many thrilling accounts 
 of their adventures. One party got into a boat on 
 
THE GRAND ESCAPADE. 175 
 
 the James River, and followed the stream in the hope 
 of reaching Hampton Roads. Unfortunately they 
 got into the Appomattox River by mistake, where 
 their little craft was upset in the darkness of the 
 night, and they were compelled to take to the shore, 
 nearly frozen to death. The next morning they were 
 discovered by some Rebel soldiers and recaptured. 
 Another party had concealed themselves in the 
 swamps near the Chickahominy, where they were 
 hunted out by the aid of dogs and finally secured. 
 
 Among the escaped are the following Field Offi- 
 cers : 
 Colonel A. D. Streight, 51st Indiana. 
 
 " Thomas E. Rose, Ttth Pennsylvania.* 
 C. W. Tilden, 16th Maine. 
 
 " W. a. Ely, 18th Connecticut.* 
 W. B. McCreary, 16th Maine. 
 
 " W. P. Kendrick, N. Tennessee Cavalry. 
 Lieutenant- Colonel J. C. Boyd, Quartermaster's De- 
 partment. 
 
 D. E. Miles, 1%h. Pennsylvania.* 
 J. C. Spofi'ord, 9nh ^^ew York.* 
 J. Walker, 5th Kentucky Cavalry. 
 
 E. L. Hayes, 100th Ohio.* 
 C. H. Morton, Kentucky Cavalry. 
 T. G. West, 24th Wisconsin. 
 
176 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel H. 0. Hobart, 21st Wisconsin. 
 Major J. H. Hooper, 15th Massachusetts. 
 
 " Mulholland, 30th Indiana. 
 
 " Yon Mitzell, t4th Pennsylvania. 
 
 " Fitzsimmons, 30th Indiana. 
 
 " B. B. McDonald, 101st Ohio. 
 
 -' J. P. Collins, 29th Indiana. 
 
 " J. Henr}^, 6th Ohio Cavalry.* 
 Those marked with a star were retaken. 
 Of the Line Officers thirty were Captains, and 
 fifty-eight were Lieutenants. 
 
 The recaptured officers state that they were treated 
 with kindness by those who retook them, — especially 
 by the officers and soldiers on duty in the neighbor- 
 hood of the Chickahominy. Indeed, it was not until 
 their return to the prison, where they were locked up 
 in the cells on bread and water, that they experienced 
 any harsh or unsoldierlike treatment. 
 
 THE DUNGEON. 
 
iiffWifWWWf^nwi^ 
 
IX. 
 
 1864. 
 
 *^^avc\v. — Eeveries — Matter of Fact — 
 Matrimonial — Consolatory — Eumors — Hucks- 
 ter Officers — Confederate Currency and 
 Prices — "Tunnel on the Brain" — A Search 
 — Boxes — General Kilpatrick's Eaid — The 
 Gunpowder Plot — Paroled — Conclusion. 
 
 (in) 
 
REVERIES. 179 
 
 REVERIES. 
 
 "P E YERY is the presentiment of the heart : the 
 ■^^ visions it evokes are but our hopes made 
 visible. 
 
 The prisoner has ample time, and an ample field 
 for thought. He must think; and he cannot think 
 without dreaming. 
 
 He sees the hour arrive when the prison doors are 
 thrown open ; he drinks in eagerly the first breaths 
 of the pure, untainted air; he sees the blue sky, 
 nothing but the deep gulf of the sky, above him — an 
 eternity of space ; the sun dazzles him with the radi- 
 ant splendor of its light, and' its rays fall, warm and 
 genial upon him, like a glorious rain of golden fire. 
 He feels himself borne with a speed all too slow for 
 his love, swiftly, swiftly, over the water, and over the 
 echoing rails ; he stands at the threshold of his home, 
 breathless, panting, the heart almost pulseless with 
 happiness ; his mother's, sister's, wife's, children's 
 
180 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 arms are about liis neck ; there is a volcano of hearty 
 greetings — a whii-lwind of happy words — a hurricane 
 of kisses ! The dream has culminated, but the 
 dreamer does not relax his mind's hold upon it ; he 
 clings to it with a sort of ohild-like tenacity, until the 
 brain can retain it no longer, and the bright vision 
 fades — a purple flame — farther and farther, to wane at 
 last like a fainting star, in the cold da^dight of 
 reality I 
 
 If the asperities of an activ^e campaign are calcu- 
 li 
 lated to moderate the romantic ardor with which the 
 
 incipient soldier looks forward to the glorious expe- 
 riences of the camp and the battle-field, a six months' 
 incarceration in a Richmond prison may not unrea- 
 sonably be expected to dissipate the last lingering 
 vestige, which may still float vapor-like through his 
 brain, of what is in any way connected with the 
 romantic and the sentimental. 
 
 We are not Lion-hearted Richards here, who list 
 at the turret casement of a new Tenebreuse, for the 
 harp and the song of a faithful Blondel ; we are not 
 Byronical Bonnivards chained in the dungeons of a 
 modern Chillon, and destined to leave our prison 
 "with a sigh;" this is no Spielburg to be rendered 
 classfcal by a thousand Silvio Pellicos ; — it is only a 
 
MATTER OF FACT. 181 
 
 plain matter of fact warehouse, dating back only a 
 dozen 3^ears into the past, — a rectangular, unturreted, 
 unbattlemented brick house, with a James River for 
 its Danube — a canal for its lake Leman — and the 
 rear of a row of brick dwellings for its Moravian 
 hills. 
 
 Very little of the romantic there is about a cap- 
 tivity in which the cutting up of a hash, the washing 
 of a pair of socks, and the scouring of a cook-pot, 
 are among the unavoidable contingencies of daily 
 life. There is nothing of the heroic about it. The 
 prisoner may urge a claim to sympathy, not for what 
 he does, but rather for what he cannot do, — for what 
 he sutlers, and not for what he achieves. His is a 
 negative and abnormal condition : a soldier without 
 a sword — a man with all the helplessness of a child, — 
 if he is not fed, he must starve — if he is not clothed 
 he must go naked, — he is a gentleman who cooks his 
 own dinner, does his own washing, manufactures his 
 own furniture, mends his own clothes, and cobbles 
 his own shoes ; he may be rich enough at home, but 
 here he must rest contented with the meagre pittance 
 of pin-money which may doled out to him from time 
 to time ; he is, in fine, the most deplorable human 
 being that can be conceived of. But few in the 
 world are so wretched, and so poor, that they cannot 
 
182 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 creep out where the fresh wind blows, and the sun 
 shmes, and feel that the wholesome air and the warm 
 glow of Heaven, are blessings as boundless for him as 
 for the richest ! What poverty is equal to the isola- 
 tion from the exciting avocations of the field, the 
 comforts of home, — to the prison penury of air and 
 light — the misery of idleness — the famine for action 
 — ^the thirst for liberty ? 
 
 Of all poetry the most unsubstantial is the poetiy 
 of sorrow — it is the poetry of the plant which withers 
 that its fruit may ripen. Bonnivard would no doubt 
 have been much better satisfied with his long captivity 
 in the castle of Chillon, had he been able to while 
 away the tedium of his prison hours by reading 
 Byron's superb manner of immortalizing his imprison- 
 ment. 
 
 But there are some forms of suff"ering and sorrow 
 which baffle the most skilful alchemy of the poet ; for 
 it is seldom that he can stoop gracefully from the 
 spii'itual to the purely material Let him paint if he 
 can, the poetry of hunger, at a breakfast made up of 
 a tin plate, a pewter spoon, and a very small onion ; 
 of a hard blanket-bed on a bare floor ; let him, if he 
 can, extract passion from the tasteless solidity of cold 
 corn bread, — evaporate romance out of the vapid im- 
 purities of James River water, — resolve into ideality 
 
MATRIMONIAL. 183 
 
 the rancid impracticabilities of Confederate bacon, — 
 or worry sentiment out of tlie greasy convolutions of 
 a Richmond sausage 1 
 
 It is a fact, I dare say not generally ignored, that 
 many of the natives of Bulgaria are in the habit of 
 emigrating to Constantinople, where they either be- 
 come traders, or, what is more usual, earn an honest 
 livelihood by all sorts of manual labor. These are 
 mostly newly married men, who, after a number of 
 years of separation from their young wives, — years 
 spent in amassing their little fortune, — return home 
 richer by their savings, to spend the remainder of 
 their lives, contentedly and happily, in their comfort- 
 able homes. 
 
 I do not know exactly how this fact about the sen- 
 sible bridegrooms of Bulgaria happened to creep into 
 my inkstand ; but I suspect it was owing to the 
 alarming rumors, just now prevalent, of the perma- 
 nent suspension of the cartel for the exchange of 
 prisoners, and the strong probability of our being 
 compelled to remain in captivity during the entire 
 continuance of the war. It has occurred to me that 
 it would be as well for us to settle down in Libby in 
 good earnest, — to send home for furniture and all 
 the appurtenances of civilized domesticity, — marry 
 
IM LIBBY LITE. 
 
 some patriotic Northern girl by proxy, — and make 
 ourselves as comfortable and cosey as possible. Then, 
 the war over, we may with good grace plunge all at 
 once, a la Bulgarian^ into the consummate blissful- 
 ness of a home, and feel that our years of captivity 
 have not been a mere useless void. 
 
 The monotonous routine of prison life is not the 
 most grievous of its evils. We are surprised, on 
 looking back upon the past days of our prison his- 
 tory, to feel that weeks and months seem to have 
 slipped away so quickly : — this surprise is whole- 
 some. Memor}", in reviewing the past, depends 
 upon marked incidents to guide it : "on such a day 
 •I was captured ;" " In such a year I entered the 
 army," are the kind of remarks with which the 
 mind is apt to assist memory. By such aid it 
 compintes the relative dates of the occurrence of 
 eve6ts, — these events are its landmarks. The more 
 of these landmarks memory can see, the more it 
 remembers of past life. Over the monotonous uni- 
 formity of prison life, memory wanders back as over 
 a trackless shore, and its landmarks are so few, that 
 it sweeps over the breadth of months with a swift- 
 ness, by which, to be deceived is to be benefited. 
 Were it not for this melting away of trivjal inci- 
 
RUMORS. 185 
 
 dents into an oblivious vacuity, what mind, however 
 strongly fortified behind the ramparts of philosophy, 
 could bear the fearful burthen of all the tedium of 
 the present multiplied by all the tedium of the past ? 
 This waveless sea over which time sails on, and 
 leaves no wake, — this Sahara over which the little 
 caravan of daily sorrows journeys on its way to 
 Lethe, and on which the foot-marks of to-day are 
 buried under the shifted sands of to-morrow, — such 
 as it is, is better than too clear a record of an epi- 
 sode in our lives which could not be too vividly 
 remembered vfithout a shudder, nor all unveiled 
 without a sigh. 
 
 ''Enter Rumor — painted all over with tongues," 
 might head a chapter of Libby life with quite as 
 much pertinence as the opening scene in a Shake- 
 spearean tragedy. 
 
 These rumors are generally about the exchange of 
 I)risoners, or Rebel retaliation ; but when these pro- 
 lific subjects have been temporarily exhausted, new 
 tongues are painted on the imp's motle}^ garb. The 
 fact is, that I suspect Rumor to be the child of Idle- 
 ness ; for it is those among the prisoners who are 
 seldom seen to read, stud}^, or devote their time to 
 any rational occupation, who premeditate and circu- 
 
186 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 late such startling reports as "an immediate ex- 
 change of prisoners" — ''flag of truce boat just up,'^ 
 or "lots to be drawn for hanging." 
 
 It is no wonder that I am called aside some twenty- 
 times a day by some lugubrious hypochondriac, and 
 mysteriously informed that " Oh, it is horrible! too 
 horrible to think of! — The Rebels have raised the 
 black flag, and ten Federal oflScers are to be hung, 
 every day for the next three weeks, in retaliation 
 for an equal number slaughtered in cold blood by 
 Butler !" (probably for his breakfast.) Or perhaps it 
 is some youthful and excitable Second Lieutenant on 
 the highway to promotion by the War Department, 
 and to lionization by a score of patriotic young 
 ladies at the North, who taps me on the shoulder, ac- 
 companying this jocose and amiable manifestation 
 by an expressive wink of his favorite e3"e, and who 
 whispers in my ear (loud enough to be heard all over 
 the room) that "the commissioners have met, and 
 have agreed to a general exchange, and that in less 
 than a week we will all be out !" And away he goes, 
 smacking his lips over the savor of a premature 
 brandy-punch at Willard's, or a dim-visioned goblet 
 of Hcidsick at " an evening party at home." 
 
 It requires all the philosophy and stoicism acquired 
 by a long acquaintance with this sort of prison necro- 
 
HUCKSTER OPFICERS. 18 1 
 
 mancy, and the vivid recollection of numberless veiy 
 bitter disappointments, to enable one to arrive at the 
 conchision that the ''hanging" and the "punch" are 
 the one about as likely to transpire as the other — 
 with some degree of probability, and certainly the 
 " advantage of position," in fkvor of the former. 
 
 Among the many curious and interestiug opera- 
 tions of the human mind, none appeal to us more 
 forcibly than those which are the result of habit, or 
 are due to the influences of education. The mer- 
 chant continues to invest, long after the acquisition 
 of affluence has lifted him above the necessity of 
 speculation ; the actor, long retired from the stage, 
 still walks the highway of real life with something of 
 his professional strut ; the sailor, in his old age, still 
 fixes a shrewd glance upon the gathering cloud, and 
 watches the changing wind ; the old soldier, propped 
 by his crutch, beholds in the world but another bat- 
 tle-field, lives strategically, and dies with the word 
 of command on his lips. 
 
 I am led to these reflections by a sight which 
 I repeatedly witness here, in the prison : that of 
 Federal officers, in full uniform, sitting behind 
 barrels, and peddling apples and segars to their 
 fellow-prisoners. These enterprising, if unsoldierly 
 
188 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 ■ — and ingenious, if undignified, gentlemen — must 
 present a broad and interesting field for philosophi- 
 cal investigation to the Confederate strangers who 
 visit our prison. For, what though it be no crime 
 against humanity to peddle apples at five for a dollar, 
 or segars at thirty-seven and a half cents a piece, in 
 a Rebel prison, it might have occurred to these 
 huckster-gentlemen, that neither the brick walls nor 
 iron bars of the Libby can, with good grace, trans- 
 mute a commissioned officer in the service of the 
 United States, into a segar pedlar, or an apple 
 dealer. There is but one conclusion which can ex- 
 plain this anomal}^ and it is a profoundly philosophi- 
 cal one : these gentlemen are the creatures of habit. 
 
 The steady and significant depreciation of the 
 Confederate currency may be judged of by the fact 
 that in Jul}^, 1863, a one dollar United States Treas- 
 ury note was valued at four dollars in Confederate 
 scrip ; in August at six ; in SeiDtember and October, 
 at seven ; in K'ovember, at ten ; in December, at 
 twelve ; in January, 1864, as high as twenty. A 
 gentleman's coat will cost about $300 ; a lady's 
 bonnet $250 ; a pair of shoes $50 ; a pair of chickens 
 $20 J a pound of sugar $5 ; a small loaf of wheat 
 
CONFEDERATE CURRENCY AND PRICES. 189 
 
 bread $1 ; a box of matches 25 cents. The monthly 
 23ay of a Rebel soldier is eleven dollars ! 
 
 The great escapade through the tunnel seems to 
 have completely destroyed the mental equilibrium of 
 our young Commandant of the Prison, Major Turner. 
 He seems determined that not another prisoner shall 
 escape from his clutches, and spares no precaution to 
 insure our safe-keeping. The iron bars in the win- 
 dows have been strengthened, and rendered impreg- 
 nable. A corporal's guard patrols the building every 
 two hours during the night, (to the tune of the 
 " Rogue's March," whistled by the unterrified cap- 
 tives as they lie in their blankets) ; this patrol ex- 
 amines carefully every fire-place, window, nook, and 
 corner, of every room. Major Turner seems to have 
 been suddenly seized with the frantic idea that we 
 might tunnel ourselves out of a third-story window, 
 or that we might be constructing a huge balloon 
 wherewith to elevate ourselves from the roof of the 
 prison ! 
 
 We have now roll-calls without number. We are 
 counted and recounted, from morning until night. 
 Even in the middle of the ni^ht we have been waked 
 up out of our blankets to be counted, because one of 
 the sentries happening to look down into a sewer at 
 
190 LIEBY LIFE. 
 
 the corner of the street, imagined that he saw a 
 *' Yankee," or the shadow of one, crawling up out 
 of the inlet — when, no doubt, it was his own shadow 
 that he saw. 
 
 Any one late at roll-call is compelled to stand up 
 under guard, in the kitchen, for four hours. Yester- 
 day I saw a row of five or six thus standing against 
 the wall, for being late. 
 
 A day or two ago we were all ordered down into 
 the kitchen, a room one hundred feet by forty-five. 
 We were, one thousand in number, crowded into that 
 filthy apartment. The smoke was so thick that it was 
 with difficulty we could breathe. Even Dick Turner, 
 the Warden (whose cruelty has, evidently, been much 
 exaggerated) was softened at the sight ; he went to 
 Major Turner, and begged that we might be allowed 
 to occupy one of the rooms up stairs. But the fossil- 
 ized little Commandant was inflexible : 
 
 ''You have heard my orders, Sir," said he, no 
 doubt raising high his belligerent eye-brows, striking 
 his spurred heels together with a very warlike and 
 most imposing jingle, and dismissing poor Dick with 
 a senatorial wave of his right hand, '' you have heard 
 my orders. Sir, and they — must — be — obeyed !" 
 
 *'But," persisted the lesser Turner, "they will be ' 
 choked to death with the smoke, and " 
 
CONFEDERATE CURRENCY AND PRICES. 191 
 
 " Hem !" interrupted the pompous little Command- 
 ant, curling his hairless lip which looked as though 
 a moustache was afraid to grow there, and coughing 
 a portentous cough which sounded as though he had 
 another pair of spnrs in his throat. 
 
 Poor Dick felt that in such a cough might indeed 
 be involved the future destinies of the whole Confede- 
 racy, — so back he came to us, and in that suffocating 
 kitchen we had to stand, jammed together, durmg 
 four mortal hours. 
 
 What was going on up stairs ? 
 
 What was all this about ? 
 
 It was a search for miners' tools, and fire-arms ! 
 
 I would not wonder if our bewildered little Com- 
 mandant reall}^ suspected that he might discover 
 among our poor empty boxes, and our dilapidated 
 wardrobes, at the very least a battery of Parrot guns, 
 a train of ammunition wagons, a derrick or two, 
 muskets and pistols, picks, spades, shovels, saws, 
 hammers, and who knows what not 1 
 
 When we returned to our quarters, we found all 
 our little files and tools, used for bone cutting (and 
 some of the bone-work too) — gone ! All villainous- 
 looking pocket-knives — gone I Whatever had an 
 edge, or a tooth, or a point — gone ! Whatever 
 
192 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 looked as tLongh it might be useful in lifting out 
 the bottom of a fireplace, or digging a hole — gone ! 
 
 Really, — when our distracted little Commandant 
 now comes into our rooms, he keeps his knees well 
 together, — it is necessary to be very cautious, — some 
 of us might slip out between his legs ! 
 
 Our boxes from home, or rather a portion of their 
 contents, are being again delivered to us. We are 
 no longer permitted to be present when thej^ are 
 opened. Captain Monroe, who has now charge of 
 the delivery of boxes to us, has, I dare say, made this 
 new arrangement, in order to spare our feelings in 
 cases of confiscation. The boxes are now opened in 
 a warehouse on the opposite side of the street, and 
 such proportion of their contents as is deemed con- 
 sistent with Captain Monroe's ideas of honesty and 
 fair dealing between enemies, is doled out to us in 
 blankets which we carry down to the street-door 
 for that purpose. Yesterday one officer received as 
 his share of his own box, two Northern newspapers 
 and a Bologna sausage ; another one was rendered 
 happy and comfortable b}^ being given, out of the con- 
 tents of a barrel, a package of salt and three tin can- 
 dlesticks ! 
 
 During the recent three months of starvation, we 
 
CONFEDERATE CURRENCY AND PRICES. 193 
 
 conld see our boxes piled up in the warehouses near 
 the prison, whilst we had hard work to keep soul and 
 body together upon prison rations ; and every night 
 we could hear these boxes being broken open and 
 pillaged. All this was in retaliation, we heard, for 
 the alleged stoppage of boxes sent from here to Rebel 
 prisoners at the North. But why refuse to give us 
 even the coffee and sugar sent us by our families, when 
 coffee and sugar are regular rations given to Rebel 
 prisoners in the Northern prisons ? 
 
 Why confiscate, wholesale, the boxes sent by Sani- 
 tary and other charitable Societies at the North ? 
 
 Oh, what a lucky hitch for the Rebels in the box 
 question ! 
 
 Some days ago we sent money, through the War- 
 den, to purchase some under clothing in Richmond. 
 Upon receiving the articles sent for, we were not a 
 little surprised to discover stamped on them in blue 
 letters :" Sanitary Commission. Philadelphia." Upon 
 reproaching Mr. Dick Turner for this rather unfair 
 proceeding of selling us articles which it was intended 
 should be distributed to us gratuitously, he replied 
 with such charming impudence that we could not get 
 
 angry with him, " Why, gentlemen — ^they are a d d 
 
 sight better goods than you could buy any where in 
 Richmond, for the same money !" 
 
194 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 When it became known, a few days ago, that Gene- 
 ral Kilpatrick had crossed the Rappahannock and was 
 on his way to Richmond, with the probable design of 
 liberating tlie Union prisoners confined here, the ex- 
 citement was tremendous. We had suspected that 
 something unusual was occurring from the fact that 
 we could not obtain the daily papers, and from the 
 hurried movement of troops over the bridges across 
 the James river, and through the streets, within sight 
 of the prison. All the city troops and home guards 
 were sent to the front. Indeed, among the killed and 
 wounded in the engagement at Green's Farm, were 
 some of the very soldiers who had stood guard, a few 
 days before, around our prison. 
 
 The stairs leading from the first to the second floor 
 were now unaccountably taken down every evening at 
 sunset, by means of a rope and pulleys, and a senti- 
 nel, musket in hand, stood under the opening, with a 
 lighted candle near him, ready to prevent any move- 
 ment on our part in that direction. An order was 
 read to us from Major Turner to the effect that any 
 prisoner approaching the windows, would do so at the 
 jDcril of his life ; the sentries having received strict 
 orders to shoot any one who should touch the prison 
 bars. It was rumored among us that some of the 
 prisoners had written an anonymous communication 
 
GENERAL KILPATRTCK'S RAID. 195 
 
 to Major Turner, informing him that unless he became 
 more lenient in his treatment of us they would " cut 
 his throat," and, as it was quite natural that the 
 young commandant should object to this unpleasant 
 jDrocess, it was surmised that all these j)recautions 
 were taken with a view to its prevention. 
 
 But when we learned, through some of the negroes 
 who swept the prison, that General Kilpatrick, with a 
 brigade of cavalry, was within a few miles of Rich- 
 mond, the true cause of these startling preventive 
 measures was at once apparent to us. It was no 
 doubt feared that we would make an effort to break 
 out, overpower the guards, and endeavor to reach the 
 Federal forces. 
 
 On the night of the 3d, we could distinctly hear the 
 cannonading which was going on near the Chicka- 
 hominy. This would have been exciting enough 
 nnder any circumstances, but our anxiety was not a 
 little heightened by the well-authenticated informa- 
 tion that the cellars of the prison had been mined, 
 and that it was the desperate determination of Major 
 Turner to blow us up sooner than allow us to be 
 liberated by Kilpatrick's raiders. Many were at first 
 skeptical with regard to this barbarous gunpowder- 
 plot, but so positive was the evidence in support of 
 its truth, that the conviction of its reality soon be- 
 
196 LIBBY LIFE, 
 
 came general. If any skeptics remained, their doubts 
 must have been removed by the statements published 
 in the Richmond papers, to the effect that measures 
 "not necessary to mention at present," had been 
 taken by Major Turner to thwart the proposed libera- 
 tion of the oflicers in the Libb}^, by General Kilpat- 
 rick, in case of his capturing the capital. Indeed, 
 some of the prison ofllcials, after the retreat of the 
 raiders, made no secret of it. 
 
 With that sort of philosophical nonchalance so sure 
 to be acquired during a long captivit}^, we laughed at 
 Major Turner's gunpowder plot, and many jokes were 
 enjoyed at the expense of this modern Guy Fawkes. 
 To be sure, with General Kilpatrick'thundering away 
 at the fortifications of Richmond, and with the 
 rumored two hundred pounds of gunpowder under 
 our feet, our feelings on the night referred to, were 
 not of the most enviable character. Some of the 
 more nervous, felt quite ill at ease, and some one, as 
 I sat up in my blankets listening to the cannonading, 
 whispered tremblingly in my ear, that he had it from 
 the very best authorit}^ that a soldier was sent down 
 to where the kegs of powder were buried, regularly 
 every half hour during the night, with a lighted candle, 
 to see that the fuse was all right ! 
 
THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 107 
 
 On the 4tli, the body of that gallant soldier, Colo- 
 nel Dahlgren, was brought into the city. 
 
 To-day the rumor is that General Kilpatrick has 
 retired. The rebels are of course jubilant over the 
 escape of their capital from the danger which threat- 
 ened it. The newspapers are very bitter in their 
 denunciations against the raiders. They say that 
 Colonel Dahlgren's body should have been gibbetted 
 upon the very spot where it was found, — that the 
 prisoners taken from General Kilpatrick's command 
 ought to be immediately hung, — and that if the Con- 
 federate capital had been captured, it would have 
 been the signal for the raising of the black flag in 
 every State of the Confederacy. 
 
 Peace reigns once more in the prison. The excite- 
 ment consequent upon General Kilpatrick's raid has 
 died out among us. 
 
 There are now rumors, instead, of our being re- 
 leased in what the Rebel authorities would call a 
 legitimate way ; by which I suppose them to mean 
 that we are to get out of the prison through the door 
 instead of through the roof. 
 
 The shooting at prisoners at the windows still con- 
 tinues. The sentinels seem to consider it very fine 
 sport, especially those of their number who, never 
 having been at the front, are now afforded an oppor- 
 
198 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 tunity of displaying their boasted chivalry — with the 
 most perfect safety to themselves. We can see these 
 gallant fellows, with their cocked muskets in their 
 hands, stealthily walking their beats, and glancing 
 wistfully up at our windows in the hope of " getting 
 a shot," as if they were only festive sportsmen, and 
 we bat so many squirrels. 
 
 No^ and then the report of a gun proves that 
 these vigilant sportsmen are not idle. But a few 
 hours ago, one of them was guilty of the most cow- 
 ardly and cold-blooded attempt at assassination 
 which can be conceived of Lieut. Hammond, a 
 cavalry officer, one of our number, was standing in 
 one of the boarded enclosures used as a sink, when 
 he was fired at from the pavement below by a dast- 
 ardly coward in the shape of a Rebel sentinel. The 
 ball grazed Lieut. Hammond's cheek, cut a j^iece 
 out of his ear, and pierced the rim of his hat. There 
 had been no violation of orders on the prisoner's 
 part — there was no window there — he was not even 
 looking out. The scoundrel who fired at him had 
 been overheard by some of the prisoners to say that 
 he was ''bound to shoot one of those d — d Yankees" 
 before he left his beat. 
 
 We learned afterwards that the sentinel had been 
 put under arrest. 
 
CONCLUSION. 199 
 
 There is great joy in the prison. We have just 
 heard that forty-eight of our number are to be sent 
 to City Point to-morrow on our way to the North. 
 Those whose confidence in the ability of Major- Gen- 
 eral Butler to effect an exchange had remained 
 unshaken, have not been disappointed. JVJio ai^e to 
 go ? This is the question on the lips of every one. 
 
 There are moments in our lives the recollection of 
 which possesses all the unsubstantial qualities of 
 a dream. 
 
 The first daj^s of liberation after a protracted cap- 
 tivity are veiled in the misty atmosphere of unre- 
 ality. 
 
 I hear around me the convivial jingling of glasses, 
 the unnatural laughter of familiar prison voices ; 
 before me on a spotless table-cloth are an odorous 
 sirloin steak, and a glittering decanter of sherry. 
 
 Am I to awake presently, and find myself in my 
 blankets on the cold, hard floor of the Libby, with a 
 bayonet over my head and a voice shouting in harsh 
 Confederate accents : '' Get up, here, for roll-call !" 
 
 Am I really at '' Murphy's" — in Annapolis — under 
 the shadow of the glorious old flag ? 
 
200 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 Even so — it must be true. There is no wild phan- 
 tasy about this redolent steak — this wine is palpable 
 and warming — th,ere is the unmistakable ring of 
 liberty about the mirthful voices around me. 
 
 The happy voyage down the James river to City 
 Point — the first glimpse for so many long, weary 
 months, of the dear old flag flying from the truce 
 boat — the loud cheers for it — the comfortable cabin, 
 made more delightful for us by the courteous em- 
 pressement of Major Mulford, and the cordial sym- 
 pathy of good Miss Dix— the hearty rounds of cheers 
 from the blockading squadron — Old Point Comfort 
 and Point Lookout — our glorious trip up Chesapeake 
 Bay — our stepping once more upon loyal soil — a 
 delicious bath — clean, new clothing — the sense of 
 regained freedom — an appetizing dinner at genial- 
 hearted Murphy's — all these, pass like the vapory 
 shadows of a vision through my brain, which whirls 
 and reels with delight (it is not the wine) as I begin 
 at last to be convinced that I am not dreaming, but 
 that I am once more substantially and jDositively — 
 PREEI 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 (20i; 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Some twenty deaths occurred, of officers confined 
 in the Libby, from July, 1863, to March of the present 
 year. Among them that of the lamented Major 
 Robert Morris, of the 6th Pennsylvania Cavahy, 
 (Rush's Lancers,) who had been a sufferer from 
 scurvy, produced by the quality of the rations upon 
 which he was compelled to subsist in the prison. 
 
 Since this narrative was completed. Captain (now 
 Major) H. W. Sawyer, 1st New Jersey Cavalry, and 
 Captain Flinn. sentenced to be hung in retaliation 
 for the execution of Rebel officers in the West, and 
 long held as hostages in the Libby Prisen, have been 
 liberated. 
 
 BELLE ISLE. 
 
 Benjamin Swearer, Color-Sergeant of the 9th 
 Maryland, was among those paroled on the Tth of 
 March, and came North with us on the truce-boat 
 *' City of New York." No sooner had he been trans- 
 ferred to the Union steamer than he unwrapped from 
 
 (203) 
 
204 • LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 around his body an American flag, which, with three 
 hearty cheers, was hung up in the cabin. This was 
 the regimental flag of the 9th Maryland. On the 
 18th of last October, the Rebel Imboden attacked 
 Colonel Simpson's regiment, then doing duty at 
 Charlestown, Ya., and among the captured was Ser- 
 geant Swearer. This brave man had torn one of the 
 flags from the lance and had concealed it around his 
 body ; the other flag he refused to surrender, although 
 threatened with instant death by his captors, and tore 
 it into shreds before their eyes. During more than 
 four months he had been a prisoner on Belle Isle, and 
 had succeeded in concealing this flag, although fre- 
 quent searches were kiade for it by the Rebel officials, 
 who had reason to suspect that Swearer had brought 
 it with him. ' Upon our arrival at Annapolis the 
 cherished flag was attached to a lance, and the gal- 
 lant Color- Sergeant stepped once again upon loyal 
 soil under the 'shadow of that banner he had sworn 
 never to forsake, and which, defended and shielded 
 on the battle-field and in the prison, he now bore 
 proudly back, unpolluted by Rebel hands, to his 
 comrades. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 205 
 
 LiBBY Prison, Richmond, Va., > 
 December 29, 1863. ) 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Cavada having drawn nu- 
 merous sketches illustrative of our life in this prison, 
 and having collected many interesting notes in con- 
 nection with the same, we, the undersigned,, respect- 
 fully request him to have them published, in book 
 form, as soon as jDOSsible after his liberation. 
 
 Brigadier-General Neal Dow, 
 Colonel Chaa. W. Tilden, . 
 
 " Louis de Cesnola, . 
 Lieutenant Tbos. Morley, . 
 Captain E. Charlier, . 
 
 " E. W. Atwood, 
 Lieutenant Butler Coles, 
 
 " D. P. Rennie, . 
 
 W. E. H. Fentress, 
 Captain Wm. C.Wilson, 
 Lieutenant Wm. Nice, 
 M.' C. Wadsworth, 
 Lieutenant J. Arthur Richardson. 
 " Mason Gray, 
 " George A. Chandler, 
 Captain Charles Hasty, 
 •"Captain E. Szabad, 
 Lieutenant Geo. C. Houston, 
 Major Samuel Mclrvin, 
 Captain Fred'k Barton, 
 
 " Francis Irch, . 
 Lieutenant Henry Alert, 
 Captain Jas. W. Vanderhoff, 
 Lieutenant Hugo Chandler, 
 Captain Wm. Spring, . 
 
 United States Volunteers. 
 16th Maine Volunteers. 
 4th New York Cavalry. 
 12th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 16th Maine Volunteers. 
 
 United States Navy. 
 
 General French's Staff. 
 Ist New York Cavalry. 
 45th New York Volunteers. 
 
206 
 
 LTBBY LIFE. 
 
 Lieutenant T. Leydliecker, . 
 
 " Edward Kunekel, 
 Captain Jno. Heil. 
 
 " Henry Deitz, . 
 Lieutenant Henry Bath, 
 
 *' Louis Lindemeyer, 
 
 *' George Scliule, . 
 
 " Adam Hanf, 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Adolf Haack 
 Lieutenant Otto Gerson, 
 Adjutant C. L. Alstaedt, 
 Captain Otto Mussehl, 
 
 W. Domnchke, 
 Major S. Roovacs, 
 Adjutant Albert Walber, 
 Lieutenant George M. Brush, 
 
 " S. S. Stearns, . 
 
 " Victor Mylius, . 
 Major Alex. Von Mitzel, 
 Captain Oscar Templeton, . 
 " James A. Carman, 
 Lieutenant Eugene Hepp, . 
 Lieutenant J. F. Newbrandt, 
 
 '' Geo. L. Garrett, . 
 
 " Jno. Q. Carpenter, 
 Captain H. W. Sawyer, 
 Lieutenant James U. Childs, 
 Adjutant O. Owen Jones, . 
 Lieutenant Thomas Huggins, 
 
 " C. J. Davis, 
 Major H. A. White, . 
 Lieutenant Jno. D. Simpson, 
 
 " TeatBiekham, . 
 
 " M. M. Moore, . 
 
 " Morton Tower, . 
 
 " Joseph Chatburn, 
 
 " H. B. Seeley, 
 
 " Jno. McGovern, 
 
 45th New York Volunteers. 
 
 68th 
 45th 
 54th 
 68th 
 
 26th Wisconsin Volunteers. 
 4th Maine Volunteers. 
 
 4th Missouri Cavalry. 
 
 1st New Jersey Cavalry. 
 16th Maine Volunteers. 
 2d New York Cavalry. 
 2d New York Volunteers. 
 1st Massachusetts Cavalry. \ 
 13th Pennsylvania Cavalry. 
 10th Indiana Volunteers. 
 19th United States Infantiy. 
 6th Michigan Cavalry. 
 13th Massachusetts Volunteers. 
 150th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 86th New York Volunteers. 
 73d Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 20^ 
 
 A. D. Renshaw, . • 
 James McCaulley 
 Lieutenant Harry E. Rulon, 
 
 " Edward P. Brooks, 
 Captain Geo. G. Davis, 
 " M. R. Baldwin. 
 Lieutenant A. W. Sprague, 
 
 '' H. A. Curtice, . 
 Captain P. H. Hart, . 
 Lieutenant D. J. Connolly, . 
 
 " C. H. Drake, 
 Captain E. C. Alexander, . 
 Lieutenant J. Harl'd Richardson 
 
 " W. H. H. Wilcox, 
 Lieutenant Nathan A. Robbins, 
 
 " E. L. Palmer, . 
 
 Major Wm. D. Morton, 
 Adjutant George H. Gamble, 
 Lieutenant Joseph H. Potts, 
 
 " George R. Barce, 
 
 *' Wm" Nelson, 
 
 *' G. Veltfort, 
 Adjutant Jno. Sullivan, 
 Lieutenant H. A. Hubbard 
 
 " A. W. Locklin, 
 
 " H. E. INIosher, 
 Captain C. C- Comer, . 
 Lieutenant E. Chas. Parker 
 
 «' D. E. Sears, 
 
 " Jno. Ryan, 
 Captain Edmund H. Mass 
 Lieutenant Hyde Crocker, 
 Captain Wm. K Boltz, 
 Lieutenant T. Paulding, 
 
 " Freeman C. Gay 
 
 « T. J. Crosley, 
 
 " Fuller Dingley 
 Captain J. M. Dushaue, 
 
 . United States Navy. 
 
 . 114th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 . 16th Wisconsin Volunteers. 
 
 . 4th Maine Volunteers. 
 
 . 2d Wisconsin Volunteers. 
 
 . 24th Michigan Volunteers. 
 
 . 157th New York Volunteers. 
 
 . 19th Indiana Volunteers. 
 
 . 63d New York Volunteers. 
 
 . 142d Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 . 1st Delaware Volunteers. 
 
 , 19th Indiana Volunteers. 
 
 . 10th New York Volunteers. 
 
 . 4th Maine Volunteers. 
 
 . 57th New York Volunteers. 
 
 . 14th New York Cavalry. 
 
 . 8fch Illinois Cavalry. 
 
 . 75th Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 . 5th Michigan Cavalry. 
 
 . United States Infantry. 
 
 . 54th New York Volunteers. 
 
 . 7th Rhode Island Volunteers. 
 
 . 12th New York Cavalry. 
 
 . 94th New York Volunteers. 
 
 . 12th New York Cavalry. 
 
 . 94th New York Volunteers. 
 
 . 69th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 . 88th " " 
 
 . 1st New Jersey Cavalry. 
 
 . 6th United States Cavalry. 
 . 11th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 . 57th 
 . 7th Rhode Island Volunteers. 
 
 15 
 
208 
 
 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 Major Frank Place, 
 Lieutenant Thos. J. Dean, . 
 Captain Emile Frey, . 
 Lieutenant Hugo Gerliardt, 
 Lieutenant Chas. Fritze, 
 Wm. Kruger, 
 
 Lieutenant Fred'lc Schweinforth, 
 Captain Robert H. Day, 
 " "Wm. B. Avery, 
 Lieutenant Thos. Meyers, . 
 
 '' S. R Colladay, . 
 
 " Welcome Fenner, 
 Captain Alfred Heffley, 
 Wm. H. Fogg, . 
 Adjutant Jno A. Garcis. 
 Lieutenant Henry Apple, 
 
 " Leopold Meyer, 
 
 " Gustave Hellenberg, 
 Captain David Schortz, 
 Lieutenant W. W. Paxton, 
 Major Jno. E. Clark, . 
 Lieutenant Henry H Hinds. 
 
 " H. V. Kniglit, 
 Captain S. A Urquhart, 
 Lieutenant S. H. Ballard, 
 Captain C. C Widdis, . 
 Lieutenant D. W. Hakes, 
 Major Chas. Farnsworth, 
 Major W. N. Denny, . 
 Lieutenant Eugene H. FaleSj 
 
 " J. Bedwell, 
 
 " Morgan Kupp, 
 Colonel W. H. Powell, 
 Lieutenant Henry S. Piatt, 
 Captain Charles E Rowan, 
 " Matt Boyd, . 
 " Wm. M. Kendall, 
 Lieutenant H. H. Tillotson, 
 
 157th New York Volunteers. 
 5th Michigan Cavalry. 
 83d Illinois Volunteers. 
 24th " " 
 
 24th Illinois Volunteers. 
 2d Missouri Volunteers. 
 
 5Gth Pennsylvania Vohmteers. 
 132d New York Volunteers. 
 107 Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry. 
 2d Rhode Island Cavalry. 
 142d Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 United States Navy. 
 1st Maryland Cavalry. 
 
 1st Rhode Island Volunteers. 
 12th Pennsylvania Cavalry. 
 140th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 57th " " 
 
 20th Michigan Volunteers. 
 
 5th Michigan Cavalry. 
 150th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 18th Connecticut Volunteers. 
 1st Connecticut Cavalry. 
 
 167th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 209 
 
 Captain David Getman, 
 
 " Eberhart, 
 Lieutenant E. J. Spaulding, 
 Colonel A. H. Tippen, . 
 L. S Stone, 
 Lieutenant Will. Blanchard, 
 
 " Andrew StoU, , 
 John Halderman, 
 Lieutenant Jeff Weakley, 
 
 " K. J. Connolly. 
 Captain Wra. Wallick, 
 Lieutenant James Adams, 
 
 " James C.Woodrow, 
 
 " Jno. Bradford, 
 Captain Wm. R. Wright, 
 Lieutenant S. S. Holbrook, 
 Captain James M. Imbrie, 
 " Wm. F. Martins, 
 Lieutenant H. Reece Whiting, 
 Captain Chas. B' ron, . 
 Lieutenant John Ritchie, 
 Captain J. H. Whelan, 
 Wm. H. A. Forsyth, . 
 Lieutenant J. W. Mundy, 
 
 " B. F. Heuington. 
 Colonel F. Bartleson, 
 Lieutenant H. P. Freeman, 
 
 " J. H. Gageby, 
 Colonel W. P. Kindrick, 
 Lieutenant Rich'd H. Pond, 
 Captain W. C. Rossman, . 
 Lieutenant Samuel T. C Mervin. 
 
 " Judson S. Paul, 
 
 " John Sweadner, 
 Colonel Wm B. McCreery, . 
 Lieutenant H. S. Bevington, 
 Captain David Hay, . 
 " Geo H. Starr, 
 
 58th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 2d United States Cavalry. 
 6th " " 
 
 12th U. S. Infantry. 
 
210 
 
 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 Lieutenant Chas. H Livingston, 
 " Frank A. Hubbell, 
 " Mendes C. Bryant, 
 " Stephen D. Carpente] 
 " Jobn "W. McComas, 
 " Wm J. Morris, . 
 
 Captain Geo. C Gordon, 
 " J. W. Chamberlain, 
 
 Lieutenant "Wm. L. Watson, 
 " N. L. Wood, Jr., 
 " L. N. Duchesney, 
 " Wm. A Dailey, . 
 " James H. Kellogg, 
 " Wm. Bierbower, 
 
 Captain Nath. Rollins, 
 " Thos. Reed, . 
 
 Mr. George Reed, 
 
 Captain G. M. White, . 
 
 Lieutenant H. C. Smith, 
 
 Captain John Bird, 
 
 Lieutenant S. P. Gamble, . 
 
 " Wallace F. Randolph 
 
 Major E. M. Pope, 
 
 Lieutenant G. S. Goal, 
 
 Captain M. Gallagher, . 
 " John Kennedy, 
 ** Kin. S. Dygert, 
 
 Lieutenant Samuel G. Boone, 
 " George W. Grant, 
 
 Lieut. -Colonel Ivan N. Walker, 
 
 Lieutenant James F. Pool, . 
 " James Kane, 
 " Geo. W. Chandler, 
 " Joseph P. Rockwell, 
 " J. A. Delano, . 
 " Wm. Oakley Butler, 
 
 Colonel William G. Ely, . 
 
 Lieutenant J. Paul Jones, . 
 
 87th Pensylvania Volunteers 
 
 57th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 5th United States Artillery. 
 
 73d Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 88th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 18th Connecticut Volunteers. 
 55th 0!iio Volunteers. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 211 
 
 Lieutenant Lewis R. Titus, . 
 " Jolin Davidson, . 
 " H. B. Kelly, 
 " Rufua, F. Tliorne, 
 
 Captain John W. Lewis, 
 " S. D. Conover, 
 
 Lieutenant George Maw, 
 
 " J. N.Whitney, . 
 
 Captain B. G. Caster, . 
 
 Lieutenant James Hersch, . 
 
 Charles W. Earle, 
 
 Lieutenant J. S. Powers, . 
 
 T. W. Boyce, 
 
 Captain John Teed, 
 
 Lieutenant W. B. Clark, 
 
 " Thompson Lennig 
 
 Thomas Brown, . 
 
 Captain A. J. Makepiece, . 
 
 Lieutenant L. P. Williams, . 
 " George H. Morisey, 
 
 Lieut. -Colonel R. S. Northcott, 
 " Jno. W. Kennedy 
 
 " Chas. W. Drake, 
 
 " M. V.B.Morrison 
 
 Riley Johnson, . 
 
 Edward Potter, . 
 
 Captain Daniel F. Kelly, 
 " John Kelly, . 
 
 Lieutenant Samuel Irvin, 
 " John W. Austin, 
 " Michael Hoffman, 
 
 " Adam Dixon, 
 
 Captain Henry C. Davis, 
 
 Lieutenant Thomas H. McKee 
 
 J B. Sampson, 
 
 A. W. Loomis, 
 
 E. B. Bascom, 
 
 Cyrus P. Heffley, . 
 
 6th Kentucky Cavalry. 
 4th Kentucky Cavalry. 
 86th Ohio. 
 
 116th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry. 
 United States Navy. 
 
 73d Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
212 
 
 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 S. H. M. Byers, . 
 Lieutenant Byron Davis, 
 Lieutenant A. Wilson Norris, 
 Sidney Meade, 
 Lieutenant William W. Calkins 
 
 " C. W. Catlett, . 
 Captain William M. Murry, 
 
 " Weston Rouand, 
 Lieutenant Cbaiies P. Potts, 
 
 " William Heffner, 
 Captain Leonard B. Blinn, . 
 William L. Brown, 
 Captain James T. Morgan, . 
 Lieutenant William H. Crawford 
 
 " H. F. Meyer, . 
 
 " D. O. Kelly, 
 William A. Worl, 
 'Major N. S. Marshall, . 
 Captain J. C. Rollins, . 
 
 " E. J. Mathewson, . 
 Lieutenant H. H. Mosely, . 
 Adjutant William S. Marshall, 
 Lieutenant Henry F. Cowles, . 
 Adjutant Guy Bryan, . 
 Captain William L. Gray, . 
 Lieutenant John H. Stevens, 
 Thomas C. Wentworth, 
 Captain L. C. Bisbee, . 
 
 " F. M. Shoemaker, . 
 Charles G. Peterson, . 
 Lieutenant David Whiston, . 
 
 " Samuel E. Cary, 
 Lieutenant George Halpin, . 
 
 " Horace Gamble, 
 Lieut. -Colonel Jere. Williams, 
 Captain J. E. Woodward, . 
 Lieutenant Israel N. Kibbee, 
 Adam H. Lindsay, 
 
 72d Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 107th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 1st Virginia Cavalry. 
 
 151st Pennsj^vania Volunteers. 
 
 100th Ohio Volunteers. 
 5th Indiana Volunteers. 
 5th Iowa Volunteers. 
 8th Tennessee Cavalry. 
 18th Connecticut Vohmteers. 
 25th Ohio Volunteers. 
 51st Indiana Volunteers. 
 18th Connecticut Volunteers. 
 8th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 151st Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 5th Maine. 
 
 100th Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 13th Massachusetts Volunteers. 
 
 llGth Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 7od Indiana Volunteers. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 213 
 
 Captain James A. Penfield, 
 
 " S. B. Ryder, . 
 
 " William D. Lucas, . 
 Francis McKeag, . 
 M. V. B. Tiffany, . 
 Captain E. A. Sbeppard, 
 
 " J. G. Weld, . 
 
 " J.B.Fay, . . 
 
 " Edward Porter, 
 Lieutenant C. G. Stevens, . 
 Captain J. Riley Stone, 
 Lieutenant Theo. Kendall, . 
 John W. Right, . 
 Lieutenant J. O. Rockwell, 
 Samuel H. Erving, 
 James H. Cain, . 
 Lieutenant Frank Moran, . 
 " James Heslet, . 
 Samuel H. Treasonthick, . 
 Captain J. D. Phelps, . 
 
 " Adolph Kulin, 
 John L. Brown, . 
 Lieutenant Lewis Thompson, 
 Major W. B. Neeper, . 
 Lieutenant G. A. Potter, 
 Captain Jno. A. Arthur, 
 
 " Jno. Craig, 
 Lieutenant Edwd. E. Andrews, 
 Captain J. P. Cummins, 
 Lieutenant R. Gates, . 
 
 " Jerry Mooney, . 
 J. W. Steele, 
 
 Lieutenant William G. Purnell, 
 Captain R. O. Ives, 
 ^ieut. -Colonel C. H. Morton, 
 Major J. R. Muhleman, 
 Lieutenant Ed. Knoble, 
 
 *^ David Garbit, . 
 
 5th New York Cavalry. 
 
 154th New York Volunteers. 
 
 5th United States Cavalry. 
 57th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 1st Virginia Volunteers. 
 
 9th Maryland Volunteers. 
 18th United States Infantry. 
 107th Pennsylvania Volunteers 
 
 5th Maryland Volunteers. 
 10th Massachusetts Volunteers. 
 
214 
 
 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 Major Alex. Phillips, . 
 Captain William A. Collins, 
 Lieutenant John W. Worth, 
 Major J. P. Collins, 
 Captain T. Clark, 
 Lieutenant George Harris, . 
 
 " Lester D. Phelps, 
 
 " Otho P. Fairfield, 
 
 Captain William A. Robinson, 
 " William L. Hubbell, 
 " Milton Russell, 
 Lieutenant William A. Adair 
 
 " J. D. Hig-gins, . 
 Captain John Birch, . 
 
 " Jno. A. Scammahorn, 
 Lieutenant Martin Flick 
 
 " W. Wilson, 
 
 " M. Fellows, 
 Isaac Johnson, . 
 Captain C. H. Riggs, . 
 Lieutenant Harry Wilson, . 
 
 " Fred. J. Brownell, 
 
 " William H. Harvey, 
 Captain Jno. F. Randolph, . 
 Lieut. -Col. Gustav Von Helmrich 
 Captain Newton C. Pace, . 
 Major E. N. Bates, 
 Lieut.-Colonel A. F. Rodgers. 
 
 *' Ezra D. Carpenter 
 
 Adjutant Charles N. Winner, 
 Lieutenant Charles M. Gross, 
 Major Josiah Hall, 
 Captain E. Dillingham, 
 
 " William N. Beeman, 
 Lieutenant Lewis C. Mead, . 
 Captain William H. Bender, 
 Lieutenant Jacob S. Devine, 
 
 " J. Riley Weaver, 
 
 77th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 5th Maryland Volunteers. 
 29th Indiana Volunteers. 
 79th Illinois Volunteers. 
 
 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry. 
 
 17th Connecticut Volunteers. 
 
 149th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 United States Navy. 
 133d Ohio Volunteers. 
 18th Pennsylvania Cavalry. 
 
 4th Missouri Cavalry. 
 
 1st Ohio Volunteers. 
 110th Ohio Volunteers. 
 1st Vermont Cavalry. 
 
 22d Michigan Volunteers. 
 133d Ohio Volunteers. 
 71st Pennsylvania Volunteeri 
 18th Pennsylvania Cavalry. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 215 
 
 Adjutant A. S. Mathews, 
 Captain A. W. Kceler, 
 '* E. ]\L Driscoll, 
 Lieutenant John C. Roney, 
 
 " George W. Fish. 
 Lieutenant F. B. Stevenson, 
 
 " James H. Murdock, . 
 
 " E. E. Sharp, 
 
 " C. L. L-win, 
 
 " Charles Trownsell, . 
 
 " David S. Bartram, . 
 
 " A. K. Dunkle, . 
 
 " Geo. L. Snyder, . 
 
 Captain James A. Coffin, . 
 
 ", H. C. McQuiddy, . 
 
 Lieutenant A. A. Taylor, . 
 
 " Frank A. M. Kreps, . 
 
 " Geo. L. Sellers, . 
 Lieut. -Colonel J. P. Spofford, 
 Captain John McMahon, . 
 " Solomon G. Hamlin, 
 Edward L. Haines, 
 Captain John G. Whiteside, 
 Lieutenant Edwin Tuthill, . 
 
 " Thomas W. Johnston, 
 
 " James J. Higginson, . 
 Captain H. G. White, . 
 Lieutenant J. H. Russell. . 
 
 " William T. Wheeler, . 
 
 " Isaac Ludlow, . 
 P. H. White, .... 
 Lieutenant J. T. Magiunis, . 
 Adjutant R. C. Knaggs, 
 
 V. R. Davis, 
 
 R. W. Anderson, .... 
 Captain John B. McRoberts, 
 Robert H. Montgomery, 
 Captain John E. Page, 
 
 22d Michigan Volunteers. 
 
 3d Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 3d Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 51st Indiana Volunteers. 
 7Sth Illinois Volunteers. 
 8th Ohio Volunteers. 
 ISth Connecticut Volunteers. 
 114th Pennsylvania Volunteers 
 104th New York Volunteers. 
 157th New York Volunteers. 
 '/Sd Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 122d Ohio Volunteers. 
 77th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 9th Indiana Volunteers. 
 97th New York Volunteers. 
 94th New York Volunteers. 
 134th New York Volunteers. 
 United States Navy. 
 94th New York Volunteers. 
 104th New York Volunteers. 
 10th New York Cavalry. 
 
 94th New York Volunteers. 
 12th Massachusetts Volunteers. 
 
 3d United States Artillery. 
 
 18th Connecticut Volunteers. 
 
216 
 
 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 Lieutenant J. L. Powers, . 
 Lieut.-Colonel S. M. Archer, 
 
 " H. M. Anderson, . 
 
 Captain S. O. Pool, . 
 
 " J. R. Day, 
 
 « V. K. Hart, . 
 Lieutenant William Nelson, 
 Captain W. W. Hunt, . 
 
 " W. W. Scearce, . 
 Lieut.-Colonel D. A. McHollancl, 
 
 " John Egen, . 
 
 Major G. M. Van Buren, 
 Lieutenant Thos. S. Armstrong, . 
 Captain Sidney B. King, 
 Lieutenant Harry Temple, . 
 Captain Edward. P. Boas, . 
 Lieutenant Charles D. Henry, 
 Captain John Cutter, . 
 Captain J. A. Rufleld, . 
 
 " James F. Jennings, 
 
 " Adam R. Eglin, . 
 
 " Geo. W. Greene, . 
 Lieutenant Jos. Wilshire, . 
 " J. Gilbert Blue, . 
 Captain Geo. L. Schell, 
 
 " James Gait, . 
 
 " Benj. F. Campbell, 
 
 Lieutenant John A. Francis, 
 
 " C. W. Pavey, . 
 
 Captain Edward A. Tobes, . 
 
 " George R. Lodge, . 
 Lieutenant Alfred Gude, 
 Captain Willington Willits, 
 
 " William H. Smyth, 
 
 Lieutenant John T. Mackey, 
 
 " John C. Norcross, 
 
 " Jerry Keniston, . 
 
 " Samuel Koach, . 
 
 157th New York Volunteers. 
 17th Iowa Volunteers. 
 
 154th New York Volunteers. 
 3d Maine Volunteers. 
 19th United States Infantry. 
 13th United States Infantry. 
 100th Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 51st Indiana Volunteers. 
 69th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 6th New York Cavalry. 
 132d Ohio Volunteers. 
 12th Pennsylvania Cavalry. 
 2d New York Cavalry. 
 20th Illinois Volunteers. 
 4th Ohio Volunteers. 
 34th Ohio Volunteers. 
 5th New York Cavalry. 
 45th Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 19th Indiana Volunteers. 
 
 3d Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 88th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 36th Illinois Volunteers. 
 18th Connecticut Volunteers. 
 80th Illinois Volunteers. 
 
 53d Illinois Volunteers. 
 
 51st Indiana Volunteers. 
 
 7th Michigan Cavalry. 
 
 16th United States Infantry. 
 (( a a ii 
 
 2d Massachusetts Cavalry. 
 100th Illinois Infantry. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 21t 
 
 Lieutenant F. A. Lakin, 
 Captain W. F. Pickerill, . 
 Lieut. -Colonel A. P. Henry, 
 Major W. N. Owens, . 
 Captain D. L. Wright, . 
 " Horace Noble, 
 Lieutenant Alexander H. "White 
 
 " C.L. Anderson, . 
 
 " E. McBaron Timoney 
 
 " M. Morris, . 
 Lieutenant Stiles H. Boughton, 
 
 " James McKinley, 
 
 " M. Cohen, . 
 
 " R. Curtis, . 
 
 " Ara C. Spofford, 
 
 " John V. Patterson, 
 
 " Edgar J. Higby, 
 Adjutant John W. Thomas, 
 Lieutenant Martin V. Dickey, 
 Captain D. W. Olcott, . 
 Lieutenant A. J. Teeter, 
 
 " W. B. Cook, 
 
 Captain George A. Crocker, 
 
 " Frank R. Josselyn, 
 
 " Jacob Remie, . 
 
 " Samuel E. Cary, . 
 
 Adjutant James Gilmore, . 
 
 Lieutenant Joseph Kerrin, . 
 
 " B. H. Herkness, 
 
 " F. Harry Stewart, 
 
 " L. S. Smith, 
 
 " John King, 
 
 " Frank T. Bennett, 
 
 Captain W. H. Douglass, . 
 
 '-' John Cari'ol, . 
 
 " Fred. Nemmert, 
 
 " A. H. Wonder, 
 
 Lieutenant Thomas G. Good, 
 
 18th Indiana Volunteers. 
 5th Iowa Infantry. 
 
 15th United States Infantry. 
 93d Illinois Infantry. 
 
 4th Kentucky Cavalry. 
 21st Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 33d Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 2d Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 2d Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 
 
 134th New York Volunteers. 
 
 2d Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 
 
 140th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 6th New York Cavalry. 
 
 11th Massachusetts Volunteers. 
 
 79th New York Volunteers. 
 6th United States Cavalry. 
 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry. 
 5th Maryland Volunteers. 
 14th New York Cavalay. 
 15th Illinois Cavalry. 
 18th United States Infantry. 
 
 51st Indiana Volunteers. 
 Ist Maryland Cavalry. 
 
218 
 
 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 Lieutenant Thomas B. Dewees, , 
 
 '' H. Moulton, 
 
 " Thomas A. Worthen, 
 Captain G. C. Urwiler, 
 Lieutenant A. K. Wolback, 
 Captain Henry Hescock, 
 John S. Planning, 
 Lieutenant David R. Lock, 
 Captain W. F. Conrad, 
 Lieutenant D. C. Dillon, 
 
 " John S. Mahoney, . 
 Lieut. -Colonel Monroe Nichols, . 
 Lieutenant George Rings, 
 Major A. McMahan, . 
 Lieutenant M. V.B. Callahan, 
 Captain D. D. Smith, . 
 Lieutenant E. J. Davis, 
 
 " Joseph Smith, 
 
 " Emory W. Pelton, 
 
 " W. A. Merry, 
 
 " C. Poller Stroman. 
 Captain Bryant Grafton, 
 Lieutenant T. Fowler, . 
 Adjutant L. W. Sutherland, 
 Lieutenant A. G. Griffin, 
 Captain J. E. Wilkins, 
 Robert T. Fisher, . 
 Colonel W. T. Wilson, 
 Lieutenant B. F. Blair, 
 Captain J. C. Hagenbush, 
 Lieutenant R. O. Knowles, 
 
 " C. E. Harrison, 
 
 " J. R. Men, . 
 
 " Z. R. Prather, 
 G. W. Moore, 
 Lieutenant W. L. Ritilly, 
 Captain J. W. Easier, . 
 Lieutenant M. C. Causten, 
 
 2d United States Cavalry. 
 
 1st " 
 
 118th Illinois Volunteers. 
 
 67th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 8d Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 1st Missouri Artillery. 
 
 8th Kentucky Cavalry. 
 25th Iowa Volunteers. 
 7th Iowa Volunteers. 
 21st Ohio Volunteers. 
 18th Connecticut Volunteers. 
 100th Ohio Volunteers. 
 21st Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 1st Alabama Cavalry. 
 
 44th Illinois Volunteers. 
 
 67th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 2d Maryland Volunteers. "" 
 
 106th New York Volunteers. 
 
 87th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 64th Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 67th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 126th Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 112th Illinois Volunteers. 
 
 123d Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 67th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 116th Ohio Volunteers. 
 89th Ohio Volunteers. 
 51st Ohio Volunteers. 
 116th Illinois Volunteers. 
 
 51st Ohio Volunteers. 
 42d Illinois Volunteers. 
 19th United States Infantry. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 219 
 
 Lieut. -Colonel H. B. Hunter, 
 Major T. B. Kogers, . 
 Lieutenant George H. Morrisey, 
 Captain P. H. Hart, 
 Lieutenant D. C. Dillon, 
 Captain G. M. White, . ' . 
 Lieutenant G. W. Hale, 
 
 " Hanson P. Jordan, 
 *' George F. Robinson, 
 " W. J. M. Conuelee, 
 " Andrew Stoll, . 
 *' P. Hagan, . 
 
 " G. B. Coleman, . 
 
 " M. H. Smith, . 
 Captain D. H. Mull, . 
 Lieutenant A.. N. Thomas, . 
 Captain W. M. Cockrum, . 
 Lieutenant F. B. Colver, 
 " Isaa^ Hull, . 
 " DeFontaine, 
 " V F. L. Schyler, . 
 " S. Leith, . 
 " A. W. Locklin, . 
 " H. H. Hinds, . 
 Captain John F. Porter, Jr., 
 *' John A. Ptussell, . 
 " John C. Shroed, . 
 Lieutenant James Carothers, 
 Ensign Simon H. Strunk, . 
 Lieutenant W. H. McDill, . 
 " A. G. Scranton, . 
 Lieut. -Colonel R. Von Schrader, 
 Irenus McGowan, 
 Lieutenant Thomas W. Boyce, 
 " R. J. Harmer, . 
 «' Louis R. Fortescue, 
 " J. L. Leslie, 
 Captain O. H. Rosenbaum, . 
 
 133 Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 140th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 12th Iowa Volunteers. 
 
 19th Indiana Volunteers. 
 
 7th Iowa Volunteers. 
 
 1st Virginia Volunteers. 
 
 101st Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 9th Indiana Volunteers. 
 
 80th Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 4tli Iowa Volunteers. 
 
 7th United States Cavalry. 
 
 7th Maryland Volunteers. 
 
 6th United Stales Vol. Cavalry. 
 
 123d Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 42d Indiana Volunteers. 
 123d Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 73d Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 123d Ohio Volunteers. 
 132d New York Volunteers. 
 94th New York Volunteers. 
 57th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 14th N. Y. Cavalry. 
 93d Illinois Volunteers. 
 
 78th Ohio Volunteers. 
 United States Navy. 
 
 18th Pennsylvania Cavalry. 
 123d Ohio Volunteers. 
 
220 
 
 LIBBY LIFE. 
 
 Lieutenant William Willis, . 
 Captain William A. Swayze, 
 Lieutenant O. P. Barnes, . 
 
 " A. M. Stark, . . 
 Adjutant S. B. Piper, . 
 Captain H. P. Wands, . 
 
 " J. Marclie McComas, 
 Lieutenant Lewis Drake, 
 Captain J. DeWitt Whiting, 
 Lieutenant W. A. Curry, 
 Captain John C. Johnson, . 
 Lieutenant Gideon T. Hand, 
 
 '' Charles F. Barclay, 
 Adjutant Melville K. Small, 
 Lieutenant A. T. Lamson, . 
 Adjutant N. McEvoy, . 
 Lieutenant H. C. Potter, 
 Captain H. C. White, . 
 Lieutenant Francis Murphy, 
 Captain Milton Ewing, 
 Lieutenant Henry C. Taylor, 
 Captain George W. Warner, 
 Colonel Heber LeFavour, . 
 Lieutenant Henry T. Anschutz, 
 Lieut.-Col. James H. Wing, 
 Major B. B. McDonald, 
 Lieutenant John Sterling, . 
 Captain A. G. Hamilton, 
 
 " McCaslin Moore, . 
 Lieutenant Eli Foster, • 
 Lieut.-Colonel David Miles, 
 Captain A. J. Bigelow, 
 
 " John F. Gallagher, 
 Lieutenant Thos. G. Cochran, 
 Captain Thomas Handy, 
 Lieutenant E. C. Gordon, . 
 
 " Alfred S. Cooper, 
 
 " G. D. Bisbee, . 
 
 51st Indiana Volunteers. 
 3d Ohio Volunteers. 
 3d Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 
 Q. M. 110th Ohio Volunteer Inf. 
 3d Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 
 22d Michigan Volunteers. 
 9th Missouri Volunteers. 
 22d Michigan Volunteers. 
 3d Ohio Volunteers. 
 3d Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 
 149th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 51st Indiana Volunteers. 
 149th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 6th Maryland Cavalry. 
 104th New Tork Volunteers. 
 3d Illinois Cavalry. 
 18th Pennsylvania Cavalry. 
 94th New York Volunteers. 
 97th New York Volunteers. 
 21st Wisconsin Volunteers. 
 21st Wisconsin Volunteers. 
 18th Connecticut Volunteers. 
 22d Michigan Volunteers. 
 12th Virginia Volunteers. 
 3d Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 
 101st Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 
 30th Indiana Volunteers. 
 12th Kentucky Cavalry. 
 29th Indiana Volunteers. 
 oOth Indiana Volunteers. 
 79th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 79th Illinois Volunteers. 
 2d Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 
 77th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 79th Illinois Volunteers. 
 
 9th Indiana Volunteers. 
 16th Maine Volunteers. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 221 
 
 Lie^^tenant Abraham Allee, . 
 
 E. G Dayton, 
 
 Lieutenant D. M. V. Stuart, 
 
 " H. S. Murdock, . 
 
 " G. W. Moore, . 
 
 " H. H. Fillotson, 
 
 " C. M. Prutsman, 
 Captain Samuel McKee, 
 Lieutenant Jos. F. Carter, . 
 
 •' James Weatlierbee, 
 
 " Eobert Huey, 
 
 " A. B. Alger, 
 Major T. B. Rogers, 
 Lieutenant George W. Bulton, 
 
 " William H. Locke, 
 Lieutenant M. B. Helms, 
 
 " E. J. Gorgas, . 
 
 " Ira Tyler, . 
 Captain F. Irsch, . 
 
 " L. T. Borchiss, 
 " G. A. Manning, 
 " J. W. Whelan, 
 Major J. C. Edmonds, . 
 " H. B. Keeper, . 
 Captain F. B. Doteu, . 
 
 ICth Illinois Cavalry. 
 United States Navy. 
 10th Missouri Infantry. 
 73d Indiana Volimteers. 
 
 73d Indiana Volunteers. 
 
 7th Wisconsin Volunteers. 
 
 14th Kentucky Cavalry. 
 
 9th jNIaryland Volunteers. 
 
 51st Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 2d E. Tennessee Volunteers. 
 
 22d Ohio Volunteers. 
 
 140th Pennsylvania Volunteers 
 
 22d Michigan Volunteers. 
 
 1st Virginia Volunteers. 
 Co. A. 90th Regt. Penn. Vols. 
 7th Maryland Volunteers. 
 45th New York Volunteers. 
 67th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 2d Massachusetts Cavalry. 
 A. A. G. 
 
 32d Massachusetts Volunteers. 
 57th Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 14th Connecticut Volunteers. 
 
 / 
 
 /' 
 
 / 
 
The hole in the Flo 
 
 EXPERIENCES OF A PRISONER OF WAR in RICHMOND, ¥a., 1863-64. 
 By Lieut-Col. F. F. Cavada, U. S. V. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: KING & BAIRD, No. 607 SANSOM STREET. 
 1864. 
 
\ 
 
J^.^^^f^i5*^5«5t^5^*^-?f^*^y-^ 
 
 Five for a Dollar " 
 
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