1863.]

EXCITING DISCUSSION IN PRISON.

377

hundred prisoners, as they heard the impressive closing stanza :

"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free!"

Despite reading, conversing, and cutting out fingerrings, napkin-rings, breast-pins, and crosses, from the beef-bones extracted from our rations, in which some prisoners were exceedingly skillful, the hours were very heavy. A debating-club was formed, and much time was spent in discussing animal magnetism and other topics. Occasionally we had mock courts, which developed a good deal of originality and wit.

Late in July, a mania for study began to prevail. Classes were formed in Greek, Latin, German, French, Spanish, Algebra, Geometry, and Rhetoric. We sent out to the Richmond stores for text-books, and all found instructors, as the motley company of officers embraced natives of every civilized country.

July 30th was a memorable day. The prisoners had become greatly excited on the momentous question of small messes versus large messes. There were only three cooking-stoves for the accommodation of three hundred and seventy-five officers. A majority thought it more convenient to divide into messes of twenty, while others, favoring small messes of from four to eight each, determined to retain those organizations. The prisoners now occupied five rooms, communicating with each other.

A public meeting was called in our apartment, with Colonel Streight in the chair. A fiery discussion ensued. The large-mess party insisted that the majority must rule, and the minority submit to be formed into messes of twenty. The small-mess party replied:

378

STEALING MONEY FROM THE CAPTIVES.

[1863.

"We will not be coerced. We are one-third of all the prisoners. We insist upon our right to one-third of the kitchen, one-third of the fuel, and one of the three cooking-stoves. It is nobody's business but our own whether we have messes of two or one hundred."

I was never present at any debate, parliamentary, political, or religious, which developed more earnestness and bitterness. The meeting passed a resolution, insisting upon large messes; the small-mess party refused to vote upon it, and declared that they would never, never submit ! The question was finally decided by permitting all to do exactly as they pleased.

Prisoners kept in the underground cells heard revolting stories. They were informed by the guards that the bodies of the dead, usually left in an adjoining room for a day or two before burial, were frequently eaten by rats.

From want of vegetables and variety of diet, scurvy became common. With many others, I suffered somewhat from it. On the 13th of August, Major Morris, of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry, died suddenly from a malignant form of this disease. His fellowprisoners desired to have his body embalmed. The Rebel authorities had one hundred dollars in United States currency, belonging to the major, but they refused to apply it to this purpose. Four hundred dollars in Confederate curreney was therefore subscribed by the prisoners. Several brother-officers of the deceased were permitted to follow the remains to the cemetery.

Thirty or forty Northern citizens were confined in a room under us. They were thrust in with Yankee deserters of the worst character, and treated with the greatest barbarity. Their rations were very short; they were allowed to purchase nothing. We cut a hole through the floor, and every evening dropped down

1863.] HORRIBLE TREATMENT OF NORTHERN CITIZENS. 379

crackers and bread, contributed from the various messes. When they saw the food coming, they would crowd beneath the aperture, with upturned faces and eager eyes, springing to clutch every crumb, sometimes ready to fight over the smallest morsels, and looking more like ravenous animals than human beings. Some of them, accustomed to luxury at home, ate water-melon rinds and devoured morsels which they extracted from the spittoons and from other places still more revolting.

Several schemes of escape were ingenious and original. Impudence was the trump card. Four or five officers took French leave, by procuring Confederate uniforms, which enabled them to pass the guards. Captain John F. Porter, of New York, obtaining a citizen's suit, walked out of the prison in broad daylight, passing all the sentinels, who supposed him to be a clergyman or some other pacific resident of Richmond. A lady in the city secreted him. By the negroes, he sent a message to his late comrades, asking for money, which they immediately transmitted. Obtaining a pilot, he made his way through the swamps to the Union lines, in season to claim, on the appointed day, the hand of a young lady who awaited him at home. He was an enterprising bridegroom.

During the long evenings, when we were faint, bilious, and weak from our thin diet, some of my comrades, with morbid eloquence, would dwell upon all luxuries that tempt the epicurean palate,—debating, in detail, what dishes they would order, were they at the best hotels of New York or Philadelphia. These tantalizing discussions were so annoying that they invariably drove me from the group, sometimes exciting a desire to strike those who would drag forward the unpleasant subject, and keep me reminded of the hunger which I was striving to forget.

380 EXTRAVAGANT RUMORS AMONG THE PRISONERS. [1863.

The exchange was altogether suspended, and new prisoners were constantly arriving, until Libby contained several hundred officers.

Extravagant rumors of all sorts were constantly afloat among the captives; hardly a day passing without some sensation story. They were not usually pure invention; but in prison, as elsewhere during exciting periods, the air seemed to generate wild reports, which, in passing from mouth to mouth, grew to wonderful proportions.

On the evening of September 2d, all the northern citizens were transferred from Libby to Castle Thunder. The open air caused a strange sensation of faintness. We grew weak and dizzy in walking the three hundred yards between the prisons.

That night we were thrust into an unventilated, filthy, subterranean room, nearly as loathsome as the Vicksburg jail. But we smoked our pipes serenely, remembering that "Fortune is turning, and inconstant, and variations, and mutabilities," and wondering what that capricious lady would next decree. At intervals, our sleep upon the dirty floor was disturbed by the playful gambols of the rats over our hands and faces.

The next morning we were drawn up in line, and our names registered by an old warden named Cooper, who, in spectacles and faded silk hat, looked like one of Dickens's beadles. His query whether we possessed moneys, was uniformly answered in the negative. When he asked if we had knives or concealed weapons, all gave the same response, except one waggish prisoner, who averred that he had a ten-inch columbiad in his vest pocket.

The Commandant of Castle Thunder was Captain George W. Alexander, an ex-Marylander, who had par