382 MORE ENDURABLE THAN LIBBY. [1863. ticipated with "the French Lady"* in the capture of the steamer St. Nicholas, near Point Lookout, and was afterward confined for some months at Fort McHenry. He formerly belonged to the United States Navy, in the capacity of assistant engineer. He made literary pretensions, writing thin plays for the Richmond theaters, and sorry Rebel war-ballads. Pompous and excessively vain, delighting in gauntlets, top-boots, huge revolvers, and a red sash, he was sometimes furiously angry, but, in the main, kind to captives. He caused us to be placed in the "Citizens' Room," which he called the prison parlor. Its walls were whitewashed, its four windows were iron-barred, its air tainted by exhalations from the adjoining "Condemned Cell," which was fearfully foul. It was lighted with gas, and had a single stove for cooking, a few bunks, and a clean floor. Castle Thunder contained about fifteen hundred inmates-northern citizens, southern Unionists, Yankee deserters, Confederate convicts, and eighty-two free negroes, captured with Federal officers, who employed them as servants in the field. The prison's reputation was worse than that of Libby; but, as usual, we found the devil not quite so black as he was painted. We missed sadly the society of the Union officers, but the Commandant and attachés, unlike the Turners, treated us courteously, never indulging in epithets and insults. In the Citizens' Room were two northerners, named * Captain Thomas, in the character of a French lady, took passage on the steamer at Baltimore, with several followers disguised as mechanics. Near Point Lookout they overpowered the crew and captured the vessel, converting her into a privateer. Afterward, while attempting to repeat the enterprise, they were made prisoners. 1863.] DETERMINED NOT TO DIE. 383 Lewis and Scully, sent to Richmond in the secret service of our Government, by General Scott, before the battle of Bull Run, and confined ever since. One of them was a Catholic, through the influence of whose priest both had thus far been preserved. But they held existence by a frail tenure, and I could not wonder that long anxiety had turned Lewis's hair gray, and given to both nervous, haggard faces. In all southern prisons I was forced to admire the fidelity with which the Roman Church looks after its members. Priests frequently visited all places of confinement to inquire for Catholics, and minister both to their spiritual and bodily needs. The chaplain at Castle Thunder was a Presbyterian. He scattered documents, and preached every Sunday in the yard or one of the large rooms. He would have given tracts on the sin of dancing to men without any legs. The Rev. William G. Scandlin and Dr. McDonald, of Boston-agents of the United States Sanitary Commission-were held with us. The doctor was dangerously ill from dysentery. The Commission had never discriminated between suffering Unionists and Confederates, extending to both the same bounty and tenderness; yet the Rebels kept these gentlemen, whom they had captured on the way to Harper's Ferry with sanitary supplies, for more than three months. "Junius" was very feeble; but during the weary months which followed, he manifested wonderful vitality. His indignation toward the enemy, and his earnest determination not to die in a Rebel prison, greatly helped his endurance. Like the Duchess of Marlboro', he refused either to be bled or to give up the ghost. A Virginia citizen was brought in on the charge of attempting to trade in "greenbacks,❞—a penitentiary 384 A NEGRO CRUELLY WHIPPED. [1863. offense under Confederate law. Before he had been in our room five minutes one of the sub-wardens entered, asking: "Is there anybody here who has 'greenbacks?' I am paying four dollars for one to-day." The negroes were used for scrubbing and carrying messages from the office of the prison to the different apartments. Invariably our friends, they surreptitiously conveyed notes to acquaintances in the other rooms, and often to Unionists outside. While we were at Libby, an intelligent mulatto prisoner from Philadelphia was whipped for some trivial offense. His piercing shrieks followed each application of the lash; one of my messmates, who counted them, stated that he received three hundred and twenty-seven blows. A month afterward I examined his back, and found it still gridironed with scars. At the Castle the negroes frequently received from five to twenty-five lashes. I saw boys not more than eight years old turned over a barrel and cowhided. One woman upward of sixty was whipped in the same manner. This negress was known as "Old Sally;" she earned a good deal of Confederate money by washing for prisoners, and spent nearly the whole of it in purchasing supplies for unfortunates who were without means. She had been confined in different prisons for nearly three years. The next oldest inmate was a Little Dorrit of a cur, born and raised in the Castle. Notwithstanding her life-long associations, she manifested the usual canine antipathy toward negroes and tatterdemalions. Soon after our arrival, Spencer Kellogg, of Philadelphia, one of our fellow-prisoners, was executed as a Yankee spy. He had been in the secret service of the THE EXECUTION OF SPENCER KELLOGG. 385 1863.] 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! |