1864.] CAPTURED THROUGH AN OBSTINATE MULE. 407

They traveled one hundred and twenty miles, but, in the mountains of East Tennessee, were recaptured and brought back.

Nothing daunted, Reed repeated the attempt again and again. Finally, he jumped from a train of cars in the city of Charleston, found a negro who secreted him, and by night conveyed him in a skiff to our forces at Battery Wagner. Reed returned to his command in Thomas's Army, and was subsequently killed in one of the battles before Nashville. Entering the service as a private, and fairly winning promotion, he was an excellent type of the thinking bayonets, of the young men who freely gave their lives "for our dear country's sake."

Early in the summer, our mess was agreeably enlarged by the arrival of Mr. William E. Davis, Correspondent of The Cincinnati Gazette and Clerk of the Ohio Senate. Davis owed his capture to the stupidity of a mule. Riding leisurely along a road within the lines of General Sherman's army, more than a mile from the front, he was compelled to pass through a little gap left between two corps, which had not quite connected. He was suddenly confronted by a double-barreled shot-gun, presented by a Rebel standing behind a tree, who commanded him to halt. Not easily intimidated, Davis attempted to turn his mule and ride for a life and liberty. With the true instinct of his race, the animal resisted the rein, seeming to require a ten-acre lot and three days for turning around-wherefore the rider fell into the hands of the Philistines.

Books whiled away many weary hours. As Edmond Dantes, in the Count of Monte Christo, came out from his twelve years of imprisonment "a very well-read man," we ought to have acquired limitless lore; but reading at last palled upon our tastes, and we would none of it.

408

CONCEALING MONEY WHEN SEARCHED.

[1864.

Our Salisbury friends supplied us liberally with money. The editors of the migratory Memphis Appeal frequently offered to me any amount which I might desire, and made many attempts to secure my exchange.

The prison authorities sometimes searched us; but friendly guards, or officers of Union proclivities, would always give us timely notice, enabling us to secrete our money. One (nominally) Rebel lieutenant, after we were drawn up in line and the searching had begun, would sometimes receive bank-notes from us, and hand them back when we were returned to our own quarters.

Once, as we were being examined, I had forty dollars, in United States currency, concealed in my hat. That was an article of dress which had never been examined. But now, looking down the line, I saw the guard suddenly commence taking off the prisoners' hats, carefully scrutinizing them. Removing the money from mine, I handed it to Lieutenant Holman, of Vermont; but, turning around, I observed that two Rebel officers immediately behind us had witnessed the movement. Holman promptly passed the notes to "Junius," who stood near, reading a ponderous volume, and who placed them between the leaves of his book. Holman was at once taken from the line and searched rigorously from head to foot, but the Rebels were unable to find the coveted "greenbacks."

The prison officers, under rigid orders from the Richmond authorities, would sometimes retain money received by mail. Two hundred dollars in Confederate notes were thus withheld from me for more than a year. Determined that the Rebel officials should not enjoy much peace of mind, I addressed them letter after letter, reciting their various subterfuges. At last, upon my demanding that they should either give me the

1864.]

ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE FRUSTRATED.

409

money, or refuse positively over their own signatures, the amount was forthcoming. Thousands of dollars belonging to prisoners were confiscated upon frivolous pretexts, or no pretext whatever.

Persistent ill-fortune still followed all our attempts

to escape. Once we perfected an arrangement with a friendly guard, by which, at midnight, he was to pass us over the fence upon his beat. Before our quarters were locked for the night, "Junius" and myself hid under the hospital, where, through the faithful sentinel, escape would be certain. But just then, we chanced to be nearly without money, and Davis waited for a Union attaché of the prison to bring him four hundred dollars from a friend outside. The messenger, for the first and last time in eleven months, becoming intoxicated that afternoon, arrived with the money five minutes too late. Davis was unable to join us; we determined not to leave him, expecting to repeat the attempt on the following night; but the next day the guard was conscribed and sent to Lee's army.

These constant failures subjected us to many jests from our fellow-prisoners. Once, in a dog-day freak, "Junius" had every hair shaved from his head, leaving his pallid face diversified only by a great German mustache. He replied to all badinage that he was not the correspondent for whom his interlocutors mistook him, but the venerable and famous Chinaman "No-Go."

The Yankee deserters, having no friends to protect them, were treated with great harshness. During a single day six were tied up to a post and received, in the aggregate, one hundred and twenty-seven lashes with the cato'nine-tails upon their bare backs, as punishment for digging a tunnel. Many of them were "bounty-jumpers" and desperadoes.

They robbed each newly-arriving

410 YANKEE DESERTERS WHIPPED AND HANGED. [1864.

deserter of all his money, beating him unmercifully if he resisted. After being thus whipped, at their own. request their status was changed, and they were sent as prisoners of war to Andersonville, Georgia. There the Union prisoners, detecting them in several robberies and murders, organized a court-martial, tried them, and hung six of them upon trees within the garrison, with ropes furnished by the Rebel commandant.

For seven months no letters, even from our own families, were permitted to reach us. This added much to our weariness. I never knew the pathos of Sterne's simple story until I heard "Junius" read it one sad Summer night in our prison quarters. For weeks afterward rung in my ears the cry of the poor starling: "I can't get out! I can't get out!"

EARLY in October, the condition of the Salisbury garrison suddenly changed. Nearly ten thousand prisoners of war, half naked and without shelter, were crowded into its narrow limits, which could not reasonably accommodate more than six hundred. It was converted into a scene of suffering and death which no pen can adequately describe. For every hour, day and night, we were surrounded by horrors which burned into our memories like a hot iron.

We had never before been in a prison containing our private soldiers. In spite of many assurances to the contrary, we had been skeptical as to the barbarities which they were said to suffer at Belle Isle and Andersonville. We could not believe that men bearing the American name would be guilty of such atrocities. Now, looking calmly upon our last two months in Salisbury, it seems hardly possible to exaggerate the incredible cruelty of the Rebel authorities.

When captured, the prisoners were robbed of the greater part of their clothing. When they reached Salisbury, all were thinly clad, thousands were barefooted, not one in twenty had an overcoat or blanket, and many hundreds were without coats or blouses.