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Samuel P. Orth - "The Boss and the Machine"

Arthur B. Reeve - "The Ear in the Wall"

Anonymous - "The Only True Mother Goose Melodies"

Franklin Delano Roosevelt - "The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt"

Andersonville, Volume 4

J >> John McElroy >> Andersonville, Volume 4




Coming down after awhile, I walked to the now open gate, and looped
through it over the barren fields to the dense woods a mile away, and a
wild desire to run off took possession of me. It seemed as if I could
not resist it. The woods appeared full of enticing shapes, beckoning me
to come to them, and the winds whispered in my ears:

"Run! Run! Run!"

But the words of my parole were still fresh in my mind, and I stilled my
frenzy to escape by turning back into the Stockade and looking away from
the tempting view.

Once five new prisoners, the first we had seen in a long time, were
brought in from Sherman's army. They were plump, well-conditioned,
well-dressed, healthy, devil-may-care young fellows, whose confidence in
themselves and in Sherman was simply limitless, and their contempt for
all Rebels and especially those who terrorized over us, enormous.

"Come up here to headquarters," said one of the Rebel officers to them as
they stood talking to us; "and we'll parole you."

"O go to h--- with your parole," said the spokesman of the crowd, with
nonchalant contempt; "we don't want none of your paroles. Old Billy'll
parole us before Saturday."

To us they said:

"Now, you boys want to cheer right up; keep a stiff upper lip. This
thing's workin' all right. Their old Confederacy's goin' to pieces like
a house afire. Sherman's promenadin' through it just as it suits him,
and he's liable to pay a visit at any hour. We're expectin' him all the
time, because it was generally understood all through the Army that we
were to take the prison pen here in on our way."

I mentioned my distrust of the concentration of Rebels at Cheraw, and
their faces took on a look of supreme disdain.

"Now, don't let that worry you a minute," said the confident spokesman.
"All the Rebels between here and Lee's Army can't prevent Sherman from
going just where he pleases. Why, we've quit fightin' 'em except with
the Bummers advance. We haven't had to go into regular line of battle
against them for I don't know how long. Sherman would like anything
better than to have 'em make a stand somewhere so that he could get a
good fair whack at 'em."

No one can imagine the effect of all this upon us. It was better than a
carload of medicines and a train load of provisions would have been.
From the depths of despondency we sprang at once to tip-toe on the
mountain-tops of expectation. We did little day and night but listen for
the sound of Sherman's guns and discuss what we would do when he came.
We planned schemes of terrible vengeance on Barrett and Iverson, but
these worthies had mysteriously disappeared--whither no one knew. There
was hardly an hour of any night passed without some one of us fancying
that he heard the welcome sound of distant firing. As everybody knows,
by listening intently at night, one can hear just exactly what he is
intent upon hearing, and so was with us. In the middle of the night boys
listening awake with strained ears, would say:

"Now, if ever I heard musketry firing in my life, that's a heavy skirmish
line at work, and sharply too, and not more than three miles away,
neither."

Then another would say:

"I don't want to ever get out of here if that don't sound just as the
skirmishing at Chancellorsville did the first day to us. We were lying
down about four miles off, when it began pattering just as that is doing
now."

And so on.

One night about nine or ten, there came two short, sharp peals of
thunder, that sounded precisely like the reports of rifled field pieces.
We sprang up in a frenzy of excitement, and shouted as if our throats
would split. But the next peal went off in the usual rumble, and our
excitement had to subside.




CHAPTER LXXVII.

FRUITLESS WAITING FOR SHERMAN--WE LEAVE FLORENCE--INTELLIGENCE OF THE
FALL OF WILMINGTON COMMUNICATED TO US BY A SLAVE--THE TURPENTINE REGION
OF NORTH CAROLINA--WE COME UPON A REBEL LINE OF BATTLE--YANKEES AT BOTH
ENDS OF THE ROAD.

Things had gone on in the way described in the previous chapter until
past the middle of February. For more than a week every waking hour was
spent in anxious expectancy of Sherman--listening for the far-off rattle
of his guns--straining our ears to catch the sullen boom of his
artillery--scanning the distant woods to see the Rebels falling back in
hopeless confusion before the pursuit of his dashing advance. Though we
became as impatient as those ancient sentinels who for ten long years
stood upon the Grecian hills to catch the first glimpse of the flames of
burning Troy, Sherman came not. We afterwards learned that two
expeditions were sent down towards us from Cheraw, but they met with
unexpected resistance, and were turned back.

It was now plain to us that the Confederacy was tottering to its fall,
and we were only troubled by occasional misgivings that we might in some
way be caught and crushed under the toppling ruins. It did not seem
possible that with the cruel tenacity with which the Rebels had clung to
us they would be willing to let us go free at last, but would be tempted
in the rage of their final defeat to commit some unparalleled atrocity
upon us.

One day all of us who were able to walk were made to fall in and march
over to the railroad, where we were loaded into boxcars. The sick
--except those who were manifestly dying--were loaded into wagons and
hauled over. The dying were left to their fate, without any companions
or nurses.

The train started off in a northeasterly direction, and as we went
through Florence the skies were crimson with great fires, burning in all
directions. We were told these were cotton and military stores being
destroyed in anticipation of a visit from, a part of Sherman's forces.

When morning came we were still running in the same direction that we
started. In the confusion of loading us upon the cars the previous
evening, I had been allowed to approach too near a Rebel officer's stock
of rations, and the result was his being the loser and myself the gainer
of a canteen filled with fairly good molasses. Andrews and I had some
corn bread, and we, breakfasted sumptuously upon it and the molasses,
which was certainly none-the-less sweet from having been stolen.

Our meal over, we began reconnoitering, as much for employment as
anything else. We were in the front end of a box car. With a saw made
on the back of a case-knife we cut a hole through the boards big enough
to permit us to pass out, and perhaps escape. We found that we were on
the foremost box car of the train--the next vehicle to us being a
passenger coach, in which were the Rebel officers. On the rear platform
of this car was seated one of their servants--a trusty old slave, well
dressed, for a negro, and as respectful as his class usually was. Said I
to him:

"Well, uncle, where are they taking us?"

He replied:

"Well, sah, I couldn't rightly say."

"But you could guess, if you tried, couldn't you?"

"Yes sah."

He gave a quick look around to see if the door behind him was so securely
shut that he could not be overheard by the Rebels inside the car, his
dull, stolid face lighted up as a negro's always does in the excitement
of doing something cunning, and he said in a loud whisper:

"Dey's a-gwine to take you to Wilmington--ef dey kin get you dar!"

"Can get us there!" said I in astonishment. "Is there anything to
prevent them taking us there?"

The dark face filled with inexpressible meaning. I asked:

"It isn't possible that there are any Yankees down there to interfere,
is it?"

The great eyes flamed up with intelligence to tell me that I guessed
aright; again he glanced nervously around to assure himself that no one
was eavesdropping, and then he said in a whisper, just loud enough to be
heard above the noise of the moving train:

"De Yankees took Wilmington yesterday mawning."

The news startled me, but it was true, our troops having driven out the
Rebel troops, and entered Wilmington, on the preceding day--the 22d of
February, 1865, as I learned afterwards. How this negro came to know
more of what was going on than his masters puzzled me much. That he did
know more was beyond question, since if the Rebels in whose charge we
were had known of Wilmington's fall, they would not have gone to the
trouble of loading us upon the cars and hauling us one, hundred miles in
the direction of a City which had come into the hands of our men.

It has been asserted by many writers that the negros had some occult
means of diffusing important news among the mass of their people,
probably by relays of swift runners who traveled at night, going
twenty-five or thirty miles and back before morning. Very astonishing
stories are told of things communicated in this way across the length or
breadth of the Confederacy. It is said that our officers in the
blockading fleet in the Gulf heard from the negros in advance of the
publication in the Rebel papers of the issuance of the Proclamation of
Emancipation, and of several of our most important Victories. The
incident given above prepares me to believe all that has been told of
the perfection to which the negros had brought their "grapevine
telegraph," as it was jocularly termed.

The Rebels believed something of it, too. In spite of their rigorous
patrol, an institution dating long before the war, and the severe
punishments visited upon negros found off their master's premises without
a pass, none of them entertained a doubt that the young negro men were in
the habit of making long, mysterious journeys at night, which had other
motives than love-making or chicken-stealing. Occasionally a young man
would get caught fifty or seventy-five miles from his "quarters," while
on some errand of his own, the nature of which no punishment could make
him divulge. His master would be satisfied that he did not intend
running away, because he was likely going in the wrong direction, but
beyond this nothing could be ascertained. It was a common belief among
overseers, when they saw an active, healthy young "buck" sleepy and
languid about his work, that he had spent the night on one of these
excursions.

The country we were running through--if such straining, toilsome progress
as our engine was making could be called running--was a rich turpentine
district. We passed by forests where all the trees were marked with long
scores through the bark, and extended up to a hight of twenty feet or
more. Into these, the turpentine and rosin, running down, were caught,
and conveyed by negros to stills near by, where it was prepared for
market. The stills were as rude as the mills we had seen in Eastern
Tennessee and Kentucky, and were as liable to fiery destruction as a
powder-house. Every few miles a wide space of ground, burned clean of
trees and underbrush, and yet marked by a portion of the stones which had
formed the furnace, showed where a turpentine still, managed by careless
and ignorant blacks, had been licked up by the breath of flame. They
never seemed to re-build on these spots--whether from superstition or
other reasons, I know not.

Occasionally we came to great piles of barrels of turpentine, rosin and
tar, some of which had laid there since the blockade had cut off
communication with the outer world. Many of the barrels of rosin had
burst, and their contents melted in the heat of the sun, had run over the
ground like streams of lava, covering it to a depth of many inches.
At the enormous price rosin, tar and turpentine were commanding in the
markets of the world, each of these piles represented a superb fortune.
Any one of them, if lying upon the docks of New York, would have yielded
enough to make every one of us upon the train comfortable for life.
But a few months after the blockade was raised, and they sank to
one-thirtieth of their present value.

These terebinthine stores were the property of the plantation lords of
the lowlands of North Carolina, who correspond to the pinchbeck barons of
the rice districts of South Carolina. As there, the whites and negros we
saw were of the lowest, most squalid type of humanity. The people of the
middle and upland districts of North Carolina are a much superior race to
the same class in South Carolina. They are mostly of Scotch-Irish
descent, with a strong infusion of English-Quaker blood, and resemble
much the best of the Virginians. They make an effort to diffuse
education, and have many of the virtues of a simple, non-progressive,
tolerably industrious middle class. It was here that the strong Union
sentiment of North Carolina numbered most of its adherents. The people
of the lowlands were as different as if belonging to another race. The
enormous mass of ignorance--the three hundred and fifty thousand men and
women who could not read or write--were mostly black and white serfs of
the great landholders, whose plantations lie within one hundred miles of
the Atlantic coast.

As we approached the coast the country became swampier, and our old
acquaintances, the cypress, with their malformed "knees," became more and
more numerous.

About the middle of the afternoon our train suddenly stopped. Looking
out to ascertain the cause, we were electrified to see a Rebel line of
battle stretched across the track, about a half mile ahead of the engine,
and with its rear toward us. It was as real a line as was ever seen on
any field. The double ranks of "Butternuts," with arms gleaming in the
afternoon sun, stretched away out through the open pine woods, farther
than we could see. Close behind the motionless line stood the company
officers, leaning on their drawn swords. Behind these still, were the
regimental officers on their horses. On a slight rise of the ground, a
group of horsemen, to whom other horsemen momentarily dashed up to or
sped away from, showed the station of the General in command. On another
knoll, at a little distance, were several-field pieces, standing "in
battery," the cannoneers at the guns, the postillions dismounted and
holding their horses by the bits, the caisson men standing in readiness
to serve out ammunition. Our men were evidently close at hand in strong
force, and the engagement was likely to open at any instant.

For a minute we were speechless with astonishment. Then came a surge of
excitement. What should we do? What could we do? Obviously nothing.
Eleven hundred, sick, enfeebled prisoners could not even overpower their
guards, let alone make such a diversion in the rear of a line-of-battle
as would assist our folks to gain a victory. But while we debated the
engine whistled sharply--a frightened shriek it sounded to us--and began
pushing our train rapidly backward over the rough and wretched track.
Back, back we went, as fast as rosin and pine knots could force the
engine to move us. The cars swayed continually back and forth,
momentarily threatening to fly the crazy roadway, and roll over the
embankment or into one of the adjacent swamps. We would have hailed such
a catastrophe, as it would have probably killed more of the guards than
of us, and the confusion would have given many of the survivors
opportunity to escape. But no such accident happened, and towards
midnight we reached the bridge across the Great Pedee River, where our
train was stopped by a squad of Rebel cavalrymen, who brought the
intelligence that as Kilpatrick was expected into Florence every hour, it
would not do to take us there.

We were ordered off the cars, and laid down on the banks of the Great
Pedee, our guards and the cavalry forming a line around us, and taking
precautions to defend the bridge against Kilpatrick, should he find out
our whereabouts and come after us.

"Well, Mc," said Andrews, as we adjusted our old overcoat and blanket on
the ground for a bed; "I guess we needn't care whether school keeps or
not. Our fellows have evidently got both ends of the road, and are
coming towards us from each way. There's no road--not even a wagon road
--for the Johnnies to run us off on, and I guess all we've got to do is
to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Bad as these hounds
are, I don't believe they will shoot us down rather than let our folks
retake us. At least they won't since old Winder's dead. If he was
alive, he'd order our throats cut--one by one--with the guards' pocket
knives, rather than give us up. I'm only afraid we'll be allowed to
starve before our folks reach us."

I concurred in this view.




CHAPTER LXXVIII.

RETURN TO FLORENCE AND A SHORT SOJOURN THERE--OFF TOWARDS WILMINGTON
AGAIN--CRUISING A REBEL OFFICER'S LUNCH--SIGNS OF APPROACHING OUR LINES
--TERROR OF OUR RASCALLY GUARDS--ENTRANCE INTO GOD'S COUNTRY AT LAST.

But Kilpatrick, like Sherman, came not. Perhaps he knew that all the
prisoners had been removed from the Stockade; perhaps he had other
business of more importance on hand; probably his movement was only a
feint. At all events it was definitely known the next day that he had
withdrawn so far as to render it wholly unlikely that he intended
attacking Florence, so we were brought back and returned to our old
quarters. For a week or more we loitered about the now nearly-abandoned
prison; skulked and crawled around the dismal mud-tents like the ghostly
denizens of some Potter's Field, who, for some reason had been allowed to
return to earth, and for awhile creep painfully around the little
hillocks beneath which they had been entombed.

A few score, whose vital powers were strained to the last degree of
tension, gave up the ghost, and sank to dreamless rest. It mattered now
little to these when Sherman came, or when Kilpatrick's guidons should
flutter through the forest of sighing pines, heralds of life, happiness,
and home--

After life's fitful fever they slept well
Treason had done its worst. Nor steel nor poison:
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Could touch them farther.

One day another order came for us to be loaded on the cars, and over to
the railroad we went again in the same fashion as before. The
comparatively few of us who were still able to walk at all well, loaded
ourselves down with the bundles and blankets of our less fortunate
companions, who hobbled and limped--many even crawling on their hands and
knees--over the hard, frozen ground, by our sides.

Those not able to crawl even, were taken in wagons, for the orders were
imperative not to leave a living prisoner behind.

At the railroad we found two trains awaiting us. On the front of each
engine were two rude white flags, made by fastening the halves of meal
sacks to short sticks. The sight of these gave us some hope, but our
belief that Rebels were constitutional liars and deceivers was so firm
and fixed, that we persuaded ourselves that the flags meant nothing more
than some wilful delusion for us.

Again we started off in the direction of Wilmington, and traversed the
same country described in the previous chapter. Again Andrews and I
found ourselves in the next box car to the passenger coach containing the
Rebel officers. Again we cut a hole through the end, with our saw, and
again found a darky servant sitting on the rear platform. Andrews went
out and sat down alongside of him, and found that he was seated upon a
large gunny-bag sack containing the cooked rations of the Rebel officers.

The intelligence that there was something there worth taking Andrews
communicated to me by an expressive signal, of which soldiers campaigning
together as long as he and I had, always have an extensive and well
understood code.

I took a seat in the hole we had made in the end of the car, in reach of
Andrews. Andrews called the attention of the negro to some feature of
the country near by, and asked him a question in regard to it. As he
looked in the direction indicated, Andrews slipped his hand into the
mouth of the bag, and pulled out a small sack of wheat biscuits, which he
passed to me and I concealed. The darky turned and told Andrews all
about the matter in regard to which the interrogation had been made.
Andrews became so much interested in what was being told him, that he sat
up closer and closer to the darky, who in turn moved farther away from
the sack.

Next we ran through a turpentine plantation, and as the darky was
pointing out where the still, the master's place, the "quarters," etc.,
were, Andrews managed to fish out of that bag and pass to me three
roasted chickens. Then a great swamp called for description, and before
we were through with it, I had about a peck of boiled sweet potatos.

Andrews emptied the bag as the darky was showing him a great peanut
plantation, taking from it a small frying-pan, a canteen of molasses,
and a half-gallon tin bucket, which had been used to make coffee in.
We divided up our wealth of eatables with the rest of the boys in the
car, not forgetting to keep enough to give ourselves a magnificent meal.

As we ran along we searched carefully for the place where we had seen the
line-of-battle, expecting that it would now be marked with signs of a
terrible conflict, but we could see nothing. We could not even fix the
locality where the line stood.

As it became apparent that we were going directly toward Wilmington,
as fast as our engines could pull us, the excitement rose. We had many
misgivings as to whether our folks still retained possession of
Wilmington, and whether, if they did, the Rebels could not stop at a
point outside of our lines, and transfer us to some other road.

For hours we had seen nobody in the country through which we were
passing. What few houses were visible were apparently deserted, and
there were no Towns or stations anywhere. We were very anxious to see
some one, in hopes of getting a hint of what the state of affairs was in
the direction we were going. At length we saw a young man--apparently a
scout--on horseback, but his clothes were equally divided between the
blue and the butternut, as to give no clue to which side he belonged.

An hour later we saw two infantrymen, who were evidently out foraging.
They had sacks of something on their backs, and wore blue clothes. This
was a very hopeful sign of a near approach to our lines, but bitter
experience in the past warned us against being too sanguine.

About 4 o'clock P. M., the trains stopped and whistled long and loud.
Looking out I could see--perhaps half-a-mile away--a line of rifle pits
running at right angles with the track. Guards, whose guns flashed as
they turned, were pacing up and down, but they were too far away for me
to distinguish their uniforms.

The suspense became fearful.

But I received much encouragement from the singular conduct of our
guards. First I noticed a Captain, who had been especially mean to us
while at Florence.

He was walking on the ground by the train. His face was pale, his teeth
set, and his eyes shone with excitement. He called out in a strange,
forced voice to his men and boys on the roof of the cars:

"Here, you fellers git down off'en thar and form a line."

The fellows did so, in a slow, constrained, frightened ways and huddled
together, in the most unsoldierly manner.

The whole thing reminded me of a scene I once saw in our line, where a
weak-kneed Captain was ordered to take a party of rather chicken-hearted
recruits out on the skirmish-line.

We immediately divined what was the matter. The lines in front of us
were really those of our people, and the idiots of guards, not knowing of
their entire safety when protected by a flag of truce, were scared half
out of their small wits at approaching so near to armed Yankees.

We showered taunts and jeers upon them. An Irishman in my car yelled
out:

"Och, ye dirty spalpeens; it's not shootin' prisoners ye are now; it's
cumin' where the Yankee b'ys hev the gun; and the minnit ye say thim yer
white livers show themselves in yer pale faces. Bad luck to the
blatherin' bastards that yez are, and to the mothers that bore ye."

At length our train moved up so near to the line that I could see it was
the grand, old loyal blue that clothed the forms of the men who were
pacing up and down.

And certainly the world does not hold as superb looking men as these
appeared to me. Finely formed, stalwart, full-fed and well clothed, they
formed the most delightful contrast with the scrawny, shambling,
villain-visaged little clay-eaters and white trash who had looked down
upon us from the sentry boxes for many long months.

I sprang out of the cars and began washing my face and hands in the ditch
at the side of the road. The Rebel Captain, noticing me, said, in the
old, hateful, brutal, imperious tone:

"Git back in dat cah, dah."

An hour before I would have scrambled back as quickly as possible,
knowing that an instant's hesitation would be followed by a bullet.
Now, I looked him in the face, and said as irritatingly as possible:

"O, you go to ----, you Rebel. I'm going into Uncle Sam's lines with as
little Rebel filth on me as possible."