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SKETCHES OF PRISON LIFE.Babcock, Sclater, andIlieskell were probably the most per verse,obstinate, ''I nd incorrigible Rebels in all the old I apitol Prison. VVliat would have T een intolerable punishment to wea-1 er minds or more unstable souls was a luxury to those hardened reprobates, i ,veu Lafayette, the great friend of 1 uman liberty, did not enjoy his dungeon life during the long tive years of joarceration at Almatz more than our • lespcrate partizans enjoyed the old ‘.'apitol dungeon during their brief imprisonment. These brave and resolute fellows weie 110 sooner separated from their comrades and environ . d by the dark, damp walls of the gloomy dungeon, than they lmrnedi-•. tely cast about for some method of .•scape. The body of a partizau may ).e confined by chains and prison --walls, but his brave soul cannot be cribbed, cabined, or confined, by all •the chains of slavery yet forged by ihe genius of tyranny. Weaker souls yield a ready obedience to the dictates of diabolical despotism;but such spirits as Babcock, Sclater, and young Ilieskeil, cannot he tamed by brute force or arbitrary power. No sooner •were the ponderous doors closed upon them than they began, iti activity and earnest, to cut tbeir way out by burrowing under the fioor of their cell.Ne-r/er did men work with more energy. Surrounded by loul a\r and damp, dark wails, they tunnelled under the earth a great distance until their progress was obstructed by the solid masonry and frame work of the outer wall of the dungeon. During the ’1 welve hours of their close confinement within the dungeon walls, they had worked with great activity. They were greatly disappointed when relieved” from their intended punishment and returned to the more comfortable precincts of the common prison. In justice to old Clark, the Pluto of this modern Hades, he was kind to the prisoners, in his own peculiar modes of kindness. He favored them m their prison rules and discipline, and furnished every facility at his command to keep . themselves, their clothing, and tkcnr rooms in cleanly and decent order. Among tho various agencies and instrumentalities of regimen and police, one man was appointed—or, to use the army vernacular, “detailed”-for the special though onerous function of “bug hunting,”as it was called in the prison. Eachman assigned to this unfashionable though necessary duty had to ascend to his bunk and pursue his calling as best he could. But if he failed, or was declared a delinquent in this purifying process, nothing could be more certain than that the “cobbing” apparatus would surely await his returu. ....Cobbing always took place after j oil call. One of the most original and interesting organizations of the prison was known as the “OwlClub.”'. .his club consisted of forty members. Each member was selected because of his supposed merits. There were several rooms in the prison, besides the “oath-takers”’room,and the“Owl Chub’’was formed of the best material of the several rooms. The habits of this club, as its name implies, were not unlike those of the nocturnal bird that bequeathed a name to this lively organization. The several members of the Owl Olub'would sleep occasionally in their bunks by day and sit up before the fire all night. Their every hour was occupied in laying plans and devising ways and means of escape from the strong walls and vigilant guards of the prison. The ever watchful members of the “owl” fraternity had over-heard certain conversations between the officers of the prison and messengers of the government; they had been able to ascertain ihe probable removal of the prisoners from the old Capitol to Fort W arreu, in Boston Harbor; their vigilance had discovered tho: intention of the authorities, and this wide-awake club had laid its plans accordingly. Many of the owls were well informed as to the topography of the country through which they would pass ou their way 10 Boston. Their well-digested scheme •was to escape from the train when near the Relay House,between Washington and Baltimore, The plan was for the Owl Club to get into the rear ear of the train, and when tlie train approached the Jlelay House,at a given signal to seize and disarm the guard, cut loose the rear car from the train by removing the coupling pin, make prisoners of the guard, cross the Potomac on the ice, and return to Mos-bv’s command. —2There were spies and traitors in those days. And it came to pass that some of the “oatli-takers” had been eaves-droppiiig and discovered the plans of the “Owl Oiub.” And it came to pass that when the time was ripe lor the prisoners to be removed to Fort Warren, the guard came 111 to the prison, armed with a huge supply of improved handcuffs in addition to their other accoutrcmenls.The irons •were' strong and so was the guard. The guard was more numerous than the prisoners, and carried a pair of handcuffs for each rebel. This new feature of well-considered safety extinguished alike the hopes and plans of the Owl organization. “The best laid plans of men and mice aft gaog aglee;” thus was “the winter of our discontent” made anything but glorious summer by this untoward event. It was a sorry sight to see seventy-five daring and dauntless men, heavily ironed and guarded by nearly one hundred guards, maic'aed through the streets of Washington en route to the city of Boston—to them, the most detested spot 011 the earth, under the earth, or above the earth.The Guerrilla prisoners enjoyed a highly cultivated contempt and well considered detestation for everything in or about the hated “Hub” of the universe. There was at that time as much congeniality of feeling between the Boston and Mosby’s men, as was supposed to exist between St. Paul and the devil, and for that reason alone, they believed the malignity of the Federal authorities sent them . there. Nothwithstanding their hopeless chance for escape when placed upon the train, several ol the most desperate prisoners managed to slip tbeir handcuffs and prepare for certain death or a speedy deliverance. The few that had removed their irons gathered in jone corner of the car and held themselves in readiness to receive the signal for a general conflict with the guard. As ‘ only a few of them had shaken off their fetters, the signal was never given. Passing through the city of New York, fromthe foot ofUourtlandtstreet to 4th avenue the guard was frequently taunted for their seeming cowardice by all maimer of people from stage drivers to pedestrians; they were frequently insulted for using so strong a force to guard a small number of prisoners so heavily manacled with chains and irons. At Fourth avenue the prisoners, with their strong guard and large throng of street-followcrs, encountered old Horace Greeley. Many of them recognized him by the well known historic white hat. The kind-hearted a-postle of negro liberty stood on the curb-stone and gazed at the throng of manacled prisoners. When the old man recognized Capt. Babcock in the unhappy group, the Captain raised his claukling chains and iron bracelet'!, and shaking them significantly in the old man’s face, said: “Good morning, Horace, how is this for a prisoner of war?” The old man raovod not a step and said not a word, but gazed earnestly through his good old emancipation spectacles, that saw the handcuff; slough off from the duskylimbs of the docile African slave,The prisoners were embarked at the New Haven Railroad Depot and conveyed direct to the Hub of the universe. Arriving in Boston at night, they were confined in a warehouse until the next morning. They had been well prepared to expect a hospitable reception in thisgreat centre of Puritan civilization, and they were not at all disappointed in their anticipations. In passing through the streets they were insulted on every side, and assailed with extreme barbarity and brutality by the cowardly denizens of this ancient town. In their transit through the market-place at Fanouil llall.- the butchers and their ragged, blood-stained apprentices headed a large mob of ti e basest and most brutal looking inhabitants even of Boston, and tried out, not as their progenitors did of old, crucify him!” but in savage tones and shrill, croaking voices they shouted, “drown the d—d Guerrilla Rebels! kill urn' hang um! cut their d—d livers and lights out, d—n um ” And many other unmelodious expressions that displayed with great clearness the average obliquity of Boston morals.Fort Wdrrenjis a much worse place, and very decidedly more uncomfortable forRebel prisoners,than the oldCa-pitol.Had the ingenuity ol all the devils that contract for the combustible materials of hell conspired in their llen-dish malignity, they could not have succeeded better in administering the penalties of the damned than did the authorities of Fort Warren prison in punishing the mind and body of Guerrilla prisoners. A creature, shaped like any other rough burlesque of deformed humanity, known as Lieutenant Wood ward, had sole charge of this modem hell, He wns the officer ill charge. Woodward was an ex-shoemaker of Boston, and no douot owed his promotion- to his extreme brutality and cruelty to prisoners. He was a low-born, bad dog, and, like all other dastardly cowards, cruel and oppressive. This unclean and heartless brute increased by every means in his power the pains, penalties, and punishments of prison life. Under the false pretence that Northern prisoners were maltreated in Southern prisons, the fiendish cobbler Woodward, with uncontrolled and arbitrary power, starved many brave and gallant men to death. Prisoners of war were confined in close, damp casemates of the fort-so wet and foul that every material exposed to its poisonous atmosphere would mould or rot in a few hours. When permitted to breathe a less deadly air, the prisoners were allowed to gather in a circumscribed area of thirty by one hundred feet of ground, and stagger about for exercise as best they could. A dead line was drawn close around this limited space, and no prisoner dared to pass, by accident or otherwise, beyond the fatal limits of the drcarl circle. Any man that passed beyond the line, even if he was delirious from starvation or disease, was shot down like a dog by some heartless cobbler acting under instructions and fulfilling the functions of a sentinel.Bread was exceedingly scarce in Fort Warren prison. Sometimes, under the strict ruling of what was culled by the brutal authority nf the collier Lieutenant in charge “retaliative measures.” there was no bread at all, and the prisoners were not permitted to buy salt from the sutlor. The food of suffering prisoners of war consisted of a small loaf of musty bread for each day’s allowance ; a small piece of salt beef was allowed each man for dinner, with a small tin cup of the dirty water the poor beef had been boiled in. But no coffee or tea was given under any circumstances. On Wednesdays and Sundays they were allowed a tincup of boiled beans in addition to the usual extravagant bill of fare. These rigid rules of slow but certain murder by starvatiou, filth, aud foul air were sirictlycnforced during the long weary months until the fall of Richmond and the surrender of the army of Northern Virginia. The men were so hungry they ate all the rats tney could catch. Compared with prison fare a fat rat was considered a great luxury. Af-tes these events, such prisoners as were fortunate enough to have money or friends that could extend them credit were kindly permitted to purchase food from the sutler at the most extravagant prices that a soulless extortion could possibly demand.Under the harsh, cruel, and devilish treatment of starvation and enforced filth, several of our most gallant men perished ill the foul dungeon of Fort Warren. Young Glasscock, a near relative of Capt. Glasscock, one of Mosby’s most dashing and knightly .officers, was starved to death by the willful and premeditated malice of the prison authorities. Unlike old Clarke at the Capitol prison in Washington, the dastardly ex-shoemaker in charge at Fort Warren labored to augment the filthy and disgusting hardships of prison life, and succeeded by the most loathsome methods of deliberate murder in killing several of Mosby’s bravest and most gallant men.After the capture and fall of Richmond, several distinguished prisoners were sent to Fort Warren. Reagan of Texas, aud late of the Confederate Cabinet, with vice-President Stevens and many other high Southern officers, were received within the foul embrace and putrid atmosphere of Fort Warren. About this time the brutal and savage cruelty to prisoners was considerably relaxed. As an important feature of the late civil war, the future historian should not ignore such startling facts as transpired within the sickening walls of Northern prisons.The world lias been surfeited with coarse slanders of the prolific Northern press, as that huge,engine ol perversion and.misrepresentation teemed with extravagant and stupendous falsehood, about Southern barbarity to Northern prisoners. It is now pro-per time for the clear and unbiased lens ol truthful history to bo turned upon the “true inwardness” of Yankee Doodleilam in its tender mercies to the Southern prisoners. In justice to both sections, be it said in truth, that neither was as human to its prisoners as its Christian pretentions would persuade the outside barbarians to believe. Now that the hot blood and ulcerated conscience of both parties have been cooled and soothed to a reasonable extent by time, what candid man dares risk his reputation by the doubt that Northern prisoners were treated with more humanity in Southern prisons than Southern prisoners were in Northern dungeons? The plea of retaliation on the‘ part of the rulers of Northern dungeons is the veriest consummation of human hypocrisy:During the earlier period of the war there was no complaint of Southern cruelty to Northern prisoners. But wheu the lair Southern lands were encircled with fire and famine; when the countless legions of foreigners and Yankees swept over the Southern States, as did the locusts and vermin over Egypt; when the bravo Confederate soldier stood naked and starved on picket—when his entire costume consisted of a cartridge-box and musket; when he could not even procure raw corn and bean soup to quench the raging lircs of hunger ; when his own commissary had stolen his scanty rations and his quarter-master had purloined his scanty raiment-then the South was called 011 to feast the Northern prisoners on dainty viands not accessible even to the President and Cabinet of the Confederate Government. The Southern soldier was starving id the rifle pits ; the government had levied upon the last bushel of graiu and pound of meat that the public enemy had not destroyed, stolen, or appropriated to his own use; and within the giant embrace of famine—the torch of the military incendiary casting its lurid glare over our hopeless and starviog people—we were called upon to furnish luxurious fare to our prisoners when we could obtain only the husks of corn for our gallant defenders. Gan the decent portion of the world forget the fact that the Southern Government urged upon the Federal authorities the necessity of exchanging prisoners because bur government could not provide for them proper food and medicine; and although a most unwarrantable military confession and an inexcusable political blunder 011 the part of the Confederacy, the cruel despots and heartless tyrants of the North refused to save the lives of their own soldiers from the dreadful death that awaited them through unavoidable want and privation. When the unfeeling and heartless tyrants had waged a relentless war against men, women and children of the South; when they had sent out hundreds of thousands of hirelings from the pauper, crowded shores of Europe, torch in hand,to burn the dwellings, barns and provisions of all our people, and had performed their task of death and desolation so well, how coukl that people, with the hypocrisy of the»Pnari see, the foiehead of 'brass, and the heart of the devil, expect the absurdity they asked, that their prisoners should revel in luxury while their captors starved to death? The incalculable meanness that prompted them to commit the foulest murders, by the slow torture of starvation, upon the defenceless brave men that fell into their hands—with a false plea and in the name of retaliation—is the saient point where history should turn upon devils in human shape. The South coukl not supply healthy and sufficient food to its own soldiers in the field,yet with unparalelled generosity divided its beari-meal bread and its -Nassau bacon with its unhappy prisoners while the rich North, with its ports open to all the markets of the world, starved prisoners tb death by thousands, under the infa-rnbus and lying pretext of “retaliation” for imagminary wrongs indicted upon prisoners, whose lives their pretended friends refused to save by that system of exchange that would have cost them absolutely nothing.Let the world roll on through all the ages of time and iuto the endless cycles of eternity, and it will not carry on'its broad surface a baser record of cowardly or cruel crimes than those perpetrated upon the defenceless prisoners of war by t ose coarse, lowborn, and savage monsters—the dastard keepers of military dungeons of the North. “All killing by poison or lying in wait is murder 111 the first degree.” Thus speaks one of the most conspicuous maxims of the law. All sucli killing impiios malice and premeditation. How much more cruel and cowardly is the malice and pre-me litation that kills by the slow torture of starvation and enforced filth ! Legions of brave men, that offered their lives in defence of their country —prompted alone by the purest setise of honor and patriotism—were murdered by the slow torture of the poisoned air of the dungeon, the pangs of hunger from within and crawling ver-mine from without,—all in the name oi-justiee, humanity,law!The Northern press, with its six thousand tongues, has issued falsehood and slander in defence of iier pious military murderers sufficient to sink a continent if ilea could be weighed in the balance of unbiased history.(To BE CON'IUNUED.)If functional Torpor of the Liver exists, the elements of the Bile will remain in the blood, vitiating that fluid and inducing many Skin Diseases. Dr. Bull’s Baltimore Pil's are'a most reliable Liver Regulator. Sold everywhere Price 25 cents.BARBER SHOPS. JgARBKRING, BARBBRiNG.JOHN H. CLARK,Practical Barber and Hair Dresser No.1813 Main St., Richmond......................Virginia.JOHN H. CLARK.
Newspaper Details
Manchester Virginia Courier
Manchester, Virginia, US
Sat, Aug 02, 1879
Page 4
Full Page
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Kim W.
USA 22 Jan 2024
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Manchester Virginia Courier
