THE EXECUTION OF SPENCER KELLOGG.

1863.] 385 United States, but belonged to the western navy at the time of his capture. He bore himself with great coolness and self-possession, assuring the Rebels that he was glad to die for his country. On the scaffold he did not manifest the slightest tremor. While the rope was being adjusted, he accidentally knocked off the hat of a bystander, to whom he turned and said, with great suavity: "I beg your pardon, sir.”

The loyalty of the southern Unionists was intense. One Tennessean, whose hair was white with age, was taken before Major Carrington, the Provost-Marshal, who said to him:

"You are so old that I have concluded to send you home, if you will take the oath."

"Sir,” replied the prisoner, "if you knew me personally, I should think you meant to insult me. I have lived seventy years, and, God helping me, I will not now do an act to embitter the short remnant of my life, and one which I should regret through eternity. I have four boys in the Union army; they all went there by my advice. Were I young enough to carry a musket I would be with them to-day fighting against the Rebellion."

The sturdy old Loyalist at last died in prison.

There were many kindred cases. Nearly all the men of this class confined with us were from mountain

regions of the South. Many were ragged, all were poor. They very seldom heard from their families. They were compelled to live solely upon the prison rations, often a perpetual compromise with starvation. Some had been in confinement for two or three years, and their homes desolated and burned. Unlike the North, they knew what war meant.

Yet the lamp of their loyalty burned with inextinguishable brightness. They never denounced the Gov

386

STEADFASTNESS OF SOUTHERN UNIONISTS.

[1863.

ernment, which sometimes neglected them to a criminal degree. They never desponded, through the gloomiest days, when imbecility in the Cabinet and timidity in the field threatened to ruin the Union Cause. They seldom yielded an iota of principle to their keepers. Hungry, cold, and naked-waiting, waiting, waiting, through the slow months and years-often sick, often dying, they continued true as steel. History has few such records of steadfast devotion. Greet it reverently with uncovered head, as the Holy of Holies in our temple of Patriotism!

WE consumed many of the long hours in conversing, reading, and whist-playing. Night after night we strolled wearily up and down our narrow room, ignorant of the outer world, save through glimpses, caught from the barred windows, of the clear blue sky and the pitying stars.

Still, endeavoring to make the best of it, we were often mirthful and boisterous. Two correspondents of The Herald, Mr. S. T. Bulkley and Mr. L. A. Hendrick, were partners in our captivity. Hendrick's irrepressible waggery never slept. One evening a Virginia ruralist, whose intellect was not of the brightest, was brought in for some violation of Confederate law. After pouring his sorrows into the sympathetic ear of the correspondent, he suddenly asked:

"What are you here for?"

"I am the victim," replied Hendrick, "of gross and flagrant injustice. I am the inventor of a new piece of artillery known as the Hendrick gun. Its range far exceeds every other cannon in the world. A week ago I was testing it from the Richmond defenses, where it is mounted. One of its shots accidentally struck and sunk a blockade runner just entering the port of Wilmington. It was not my fault. I didn't aim at the steamer. I was just trying the gun for the benefit of the country. But

388

PROCEEDINGS OF A MOCK COURT.

[1863.

these confounded Richmond authorities insisted upon it that I should pay for the vessel. I told them I would see them first, and they shut me up in Castle Thunder; but I never will pay in the world."

"You are quite right. I would not, if I were you,” replied the innocent Virginian. "It is the greatest outrage I ever heard of."

A fellow-prisoner had been elected commissary of our room, to divide and distribute the rations. One evening a court was organized to try him for "malfeasance in office." The indictment charged that he issued soup only when he ought to issue meat-stealing the beef and selling it for his personal benefit. One correspondent appeared as prosecuting attorney, another as counsel for the defense, and a third as presiding judge.

An extract from a Richmond journal being objected to as testimony, it was decided that any thing published by any newspaper must necessarily be true, and was competent evidence in that court. A great deal of remarkable law was cited in Greek, Latin, German, and French. Counsel were fined for contempt of court, jurors placed under arrest for going to sleep. When the spectators became boisterous, the sheriff was ordered to clear the court-room, and, during certain testimony, the judge requested that the ladies withdraw.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and, after being harangued in touching terms upon the enormity of his offense, the culprit was sentenced to eat a quart of his own soup at a single meal. It was an hilarious affair for that loathsome place, which swarmed with vermin, and where the silence was broken nightly by the clanking and rattling of the chains of convicts.

Many prison inmates exhibited daring and ingenuity in attempting to escape. Castle Thunder was vigilantly

1863.]

ESCAPE BY KILLING A GUARD.

389

and securely guarded, with a score of sentinels inside, and a cordon of sentinels without.

In the condemned cell adjoining our room was a Rebel officer named Booth, with three comrades, under sentence of death on charge of murder. All were heavily ironed. Nightly, as the time appointed for their execution approached, they surprised us by dancing, rattling their chains, and singing. At one o'clock on the morning of October 22d, we were awakened by shouts and musket-shots. The whole Castle was alarmed, and the guard turned out.

With a saw made from a case-knife, Booth had cut a hole through the floor of his cell, his comrades the while singing and dancing to drown the noise. They were compelled to be very cautious, as a sentinel. paced within six feet of them, under instructions to watch them closely. Filing off their irons, they descended cautiously through the aperture into a store-room, where they found four muskets. In the darkness they removed the lock from the door, and each taking a gun, crept into another room opening to the street; struck down the sentinel, and felled a second with the butt of a musket, knocking him ten or twelve feet. At the outer door, a guard, who had taken the alarm, presented Before he could fire, Booth shot him fatally

his gun.
through the head.

The three late prisoners ran up the street, several ineffectual shots being fired after them by the guards, who dared not leave their posts. At the long bridge across the James River they knocked down another sentinel, who attempted to stop them. Traveling by night through the woods, they soon reached the Union lines.

A considerable number of prisoners smeared their faces with croton-oil to produce eruptions. The surgeon,