We rest, with no incident worthy of note save the artillery
firing by Union forces on the other side of the river at the
retiring rebel cavalry, till about midnight. We are then
aroused, and again go plodding along, kept well in line by our
flanking guards. It is barely dawn as we pass through Lees-
burg, but we are too sleepy and careless to note what is really
a most lovely village. It is apparent that our captors have no
time to spare, for they hasten along throughout the entire day,
making no more halts than seem absolutely necessary. We
bear a little to the southward, and finally enter Ashby's Gap
of the Blue Ridge. The region is mountainous and wild, show-
ing very little for the many years that man has occupied it.
The outlook to the eye is grand,, and repeatedly the observation
is heard, "What a glorious sight this would be were I not a
prisoner." As a soldier, it did not take me long to learn that
he marches easiest who is nearest the head of the column. Ac-
cordingly, as the days returned, Charley R and I were found
in place with only a file of Pennsylvanian lieutenants ahead of
us, we yielding the place out of courtesy, for we were early
enough for the first, but the easiest place, to our blistered feet,
was hard. Again our march was protracted long into the
night. So sleepy were we that we could sleep even when
walking, and many a hapless wight in a walking dream and
thus, perhaps, falling out of line, was by the guard speedily
"hurried back to despair" and wakefulness. It was for the
guards themselves a trying time, but their sleepiness never
reached the point of allowing us to escape. Early and his
forces had gone throngli the mountains at Snickers Gap, thus
keeping themselves between us and our army.
The hours of our night march wore on till about 3 A. M.,
when we stood on the banks of the Shenandoah, a name famil-
iar to me from my earliest boyhood, when I had learned the
speech of the Indian chief bearing this name, but I had never
dreamed of such an introduction as I was about to have. There
was neither bridge nor ferry, and to our tired bodies the water
PRISONERS OF WAR. 323
had an almost winter chilliness as we waded in. It was deep,
too, we having to hold our hands well up to keep them out
of the water. Drenched and dripping, we trudged along into
the small village of Millwood. Some of us were allowed to lie
down by the side of a church, on whose corner I read in the
semi-darkness. "Methodist Episcopal Church South." I may,
I hope, be pardoned for having even then a feeling of pride
that the division in 1844 of this great church, in which I had
been reared, was one of the prime causes in awakening people
to the enormity of slavery. However, though the church was
hot enough on this mooted subject, I found the north side of
the edifice extremely cool on that morning, and I was in no
ways loth to move when at sunrise we "fell in" and marched
over to a grove a few rods away. I was too tired and sleepy to
eat, and all I wanted was a chance to lie down. I remember
well putting my head in the shade and stretching my body
out so that the friendly rays of the sun might dry my soaked
garments. How long I slept I don't know; but when I awokf',
the sun, in his climbing the sky, had not only dried my clothes,
but he had well-nigh baked my face, upon which he was shin-
ing with nothing to intervene. We spent Sunday, the 17th,
here, and went through the usual routine of drying dough.
Here I traded with a rebel lieutenant for food a pair
of heavy woolen gloves taken by me from a vagrant knapsack
on the 9th. I had kept them for just such a purpose; but I
had no idea he would use them in torrid July weather. Imagine
my a.stonishment at seeing him wearing them in the hottest
part of the next day as we were going through Winchester, and
actually putting on airs on account of his gloved hands.
Monday we were off again, and I have since learned really
going out of our way several miles to pass through the city
of Winchester, thus contributing, I suppose, one to the eighty-
seven occupations which that devoted city had during the
years of the war. It was ten miles away, and we were marched
this distance that we might assist our guards in exciting ad-
miration among the denizens of the town. It was simply an
illustration of a characteristic as old as man himself.
What Roman triumph was complete without its crowd of
captives? The savage Indian led his prisoners home that he
might see the exultations of the squaws and thereby increase
the story of his prowess; and we, too, had to grace, not a
324 NINTH NEW YORE HEAVY ARTILLERY.
Roman, but a Winchester holiday. For the first time in my life
I heard insulting expressions hurled at us from female lips.
Revolting to me, to the scions of chivalry escorting us the
words seemed sweet indeed. It was here that my rebel Adonis
sported his woolen gloves. Passing through the city to the west
side, we went into camp, and soon had a little compensation
for the rude terms launched at us during the afternoon. The
oflQcers of our guard undertook to billet themselves on a family
living near, at any rate within hearing. They were warmly
received. In fact, nothing but hot water was lacking to make
the reception scalding. The women, we learned, were Union-
ists, and they didn't propose to wait on rebels, and they didn't.
The interview was music to us.
The next morning we left this city of many tribulations, and
going out on Braddock street, took the famous turnpike south-
ward. It is the same road that subsequent events were to
elevate into enduring fame, as —
"A good, broad highway leading down."
To us it seemed the perfection of road-making, so level and
straight that we were prone to say that we could see in the
morning where we were to camp at night. Under other cir-
cumstances a prospect of a trip up the ninety-two miles lead-
ing to Staunton would have been delightful. The valley of
Virginia was famous the world over for beauty of scenery
and fertility of soil. On every hand were indications of thrift.
Large and expensive buildings and well-tilled fields afforded
pleasing contrasts to the slatternly state of affairs in the east-
ern part of the state. Immense stacks of wheat attested the
significance of the often-heard expression, "the granary of
Virginia." As rapidly as possible the farmers were threshing
the grain, farmers we were told now, but soldiers when the
work was done. This was the section over which Sheridan
was to sweep and to leave it so desolate that were a crow to
fly over it, "he would have to carry his rations with him."
For four years the enemy had swept in and out, at such oppor-
tune moments as would permit him to put in his crops, and
later to harvest them. The ways of the rough-riding "Little
Phil" were not to the liking of the people, and to this day
they have no good word for him. In spite, however, of the
brightness of the scene, the cloud of slavery hung over it, and
PRISONERS OF WAR. 326
men who claimed to be fighting for liberty were still oppress-
ing the bondsmen. I shall never forget my astouishment at
seeing at cue of our bivouacs a fiue-looking old gentleman,
without a suspicion of the black race in his appearance, hesi-
tate at coming into our camp. He appeared to be very much
afraid of the guards. I accosted him in some way, implying
my thought that he was one of the old planters living near.
"No,"' said he, "I am a slave." If never before, I then was
more than glad that I was one of many thousands whose mis-
sion it was to make him and others like him free.
Of the many natural wonders and beauties of the valley
we had little time or disposition to comment, though we could
not help noticing the excellent springs that this mountainous
and limestone region afforded. One in particular I recall, per-
hajjs near Mount Jackson, that poured from the side of a bill
with volume sutBcient to turn the overshot wheel of a grist-mill
located hard by. Doubtless it was simply the reappearance
of a lost river, a phenomenon not uncommon in such sections.
Our usual camping-place was near one of these ever-flowing
springs, so that one essential to health, viz., good water, was
not lacking. The villages, of which there were many, I remem-
ber thinking no addition to the beauties of the country. Watts'
hymn seemed applicable here, for while every prospect pleased,
man and his village works alone were vile. They were com-
posed of tumble-down houses, not made so by the vicissitudes
of war, but wearing a down-at-the-heel look which seemed
natural, another of the legitimate results of slavery's curse.
At Strasburg we bade good-by to the railroad grading, whose
railless and bridgeless track had constantly reminded us of the
devastations of war. One village, however, held a bright place
in our memories, for in passing through Woodstock, we saw
two girls, apparently in their teens, sitting on the steps in front
of the house, and actually having small Union flags pinned
upon their breasts. We were not slow in discovering this
patriotic display nor in making our appreciation known. To
the credit of the guards be it said that, though seemingly much
chagrined at this proceeding, they did not disturb the girls
in their sympathy, nor us in our sentiments. This place must
have a sort of political contrariness, for it is now the home of a
Virginian Republican senator, viz.. H. H. Riddleberger. Near-
ly twenty-four years afterward, passing through the same re-
326 NINTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
gion, I found that peace has won for the valley great victories.
Those who saw these villages then would not recognize them
now. Progress has taken them in hand and thrift is evident
everywhere.
Our guards I have thought a little above the average Con-
federate soldier, and in our bivouacs it was no uncommon
thing for us to hold with them very animated discussions,
always amicable, except when the negio was debated. On
one occasion, words had run pretty high, when the gray-jacket
thought to clinch an argument by the threadbare question:
"How would you like to have your sister or mother marry a
nigger?" There was no delay in bluecoat's rejoinder, "Well
enough, if they wanted to, and how can I tell but what your
mother did." There were a bayonet thrust, a sudden retreat,
and no more argument that day. One youngish guard quite
made me homesick by saying in my hearing one Sunday. "Oh,
dear! If I was only at home down in Alabama; wouldn't I
take a ride to-day!" This and other remarks showed me how
similar in tastes we were and how absurd a war between
brothers was. Personally I had very little to complain of.
Once, however, as we filed into a field where we were to camp
I laid hold of a piece of rail to burn in subsequent cooking op-
erations. "Drop that rail!" shouted a guard. I affected not
to hear, or to think that I was not the "Yank" referred to, and
BO clung to the coveted bit of timber. When, however, the
second command came, coupled with a threat to shoot and the
clicking of a cocking hammer, I dropped the stick. Just why
he was so very particular at that time T don't know, for there
was little hesitation on the part of friend or foe to burn the
farmers' fences. In fact, the rage of one ^'irginian planter on this
expedition is vividly recalled. He came upon us and isoundly
berated the rebels for burning his rails, which he had only
just put in place after a previous destruction by Union forces.
Thus it was, as a Confederate sympathizer has since told me,
"The Confederates robbed us because they thought we ought
to be willing to part with everything for the good of the cause,
while the Union forces took all they could get as spoils of
war."
There could not be 600 and more men thus gathered together
and no peculiar characters appear among them. Of our party
perhaps the most conspicuous were two men of the "Ninth,"
PRISONERS OF WAR. 32T
known as "Old G. and T." Both must have lied roundly as to
their ages when they were enlisted, for they certainly looked
to be nearly sixty years old. They stuck by each other, mak-
ing common cause against us younger men, but frequently
quarreling with each other. On one occasion our purveyor had
dealt out to us a quantity of beef's lights or lungs for food.
Now be it known that however hungry I may have been, I
never liked that kind of meat, but these two old soldiers
would eat all they could get, and would even fight over the
division of the share that fell to them. So loud ran the dis-
cussion that we gradually fell to listening, and were not a
little pleased at hearing G. say, "T., you old d — 1, you! if it
wasn't for exposing you, I'd tell this whole camp how you used
to steal turkeys;" and this shouted at the top of his voice. They
never heard the last of it till prison rigors closed the ears of
both in silent death.
Eight miles north of Staunton we made our first camp at
what was called the Willow Spout, a beautiful spring gushing
out constantly from the side of a hill, and I have recently
learned that it is flowing now as then, and still bearing the
same name. Here a starlit night shut down upon us. cold as
Virginian nights always were. M. J. and I made our beds as
usual, with one rubber blanket under and another over us.
The sleep that tired youth secures so easily, speedily came
and sealed our eyelids. How late it was that I awoke and found
the rain falling pitilessly I have no,means of knowing, but the
whole camp seemed aroused, and dripping men were walking
about in all sorts of disconsolate moods. Some had secured
a quantity of wood and had started a great flre, giving comfort
to one part of their bodies at a time. Save my face I was as
dry as ever. Drawing my head in like a turtle I flattered my-
self that I should sleep till morning and be not a whit worse
for the rain. Alas! About this time my companion began
to nestle about and thereby to derange the covering. I be-
sought him to keep still, but he exclaimed, "I am in a hollow,
and a stream of water is running under me. Can't you move
along?'' To do this would simply put me in a similar predic-
ament, and so I declined. Misery loves company; keep still he
wouldn't, and he continued to pull and haul till in sheer des
peration I sprang up, taking the covers with me, and in a very
short time was as wet as the rest, which means that I was
328 NINTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
as wet as I could be. I then crowded with others about the
fire, imagining that in our discomfort we were not unlike the
pictures that I had seen of Napoleon at the burning of Moscow,
our unhappy groups about the fire suggesting that cheerless
scene. Why, some of our men slopped around that night till
they passed the weary and saturated guard and so escaped,
while one or two fellows became the butt of ridicule among
their associates, for, wandering outside, they tried to come
into camp again, but were hailed by the vigilant guard, who
let them in only after hearing their piteous plea, "We're prison-
ers." Was there ever before such honesty?
The morning brought sunshine and in its drying rays we
forgot the misery of the night. It was here that I found the
first Confederate who did not use tobacco. Just outside the
line he stood and proffered the weed for whatever the prisoners
had to barter, and however poor we were it seemed as though
there never was a time when somebody could not find some-
thing to trade off for this narcotic consolation. I expressed
my astonishment at his not using tobacco, and he admitted
that there was reason for my wonder. He said he always drew
his rations of the article and then made the most possible from
them by trading and selling. I didn't particularly care to flatter
him, but I remember thinking him the best-looking "Confed."
whom I had seen.
After a while we march out and are off for our last tramp be-
fore going aboard the cars. Of Staunton we get very little notion
save the name. The train, such as it is, is soon in readiness
for us and we are loaded into stock cars. So, in spite of our-
selves, in one respect, at least, we go counter to Longfellow's
advice, for we are —
"Like dumb, driven cattle."
However, after our 200 miles' walk, we were not fastidious as
to modes of conveyance, and the most of us gave ourselves to
sleep at once. During the trip we pass under the Blue Ridge
by means of a tunnel nearly a mile in length. Just as our car
emerges an axle breaks, and a long delay follows, improved
by many in picking blackberries, whose vines, of the running
variety, cover the ground about the track. Cups, and pails
even, are brought into use, and our last dish of fruit for the
season is had. Of course we have only a general notion of our
direction, knowing that our trend is southward.
PRISONERS OF WAR. 329
Late in the afternoon we pass a peculiar, wide-reaching build-
ing, which from its pictures I recognize as the University of
Virginia, and I know that we must be in Cliarlottesrille. Afar
on a hill-top we can make out the home of Thomas Jefferson,
known in history as Monticello. I think how little the great
Virginian recks of the turmoils into which his country has
fallen. Within sight of Jefferson's "Pet," the universitj', and
almost under the shadow of his home. I sleep the sleep of the
just, lying upon a chip-pile hard by the railroad track. In the
morning we resume our journey again by rail, and soon are go-
ing towards the south. This day's ride ends with our arrival
at Lynchburg. The James river, wide and shallow, goes tum-
bling along over its rocky bottom, quite different from the
deep and muddy stream with whose lower waters we are fa-
miliar. We debark and march up seemingly endless hills. We
go a long way to the outskirts of the city, and finally find rest
in a large tobacco warehouse, owned then, I have learned, by
Mr. Charles Massie, a man who lost everything in the war.
It was and is on the corner of Twelfth and Polk streets. Along
the way I note the omnipresence of the tobacco trade. In some
places is seems to be the chief industry, while man and boy ap-
parently are doing their best to make way with as much as
possible of the weed. For the first time in my life I see small
boys, scarcely out of pinafores, smoking with all the composure
of old stagers.
In this building we remain two nights and one day. Here
I received the only blow ever given me by a foe, and in this way:
In the night I arose and started for the door. "Go back," says
the guard, and he follows the command by a smart rap over
my head with his bayonet. I had not noticed a line of men in
waiting, behind which I should have placed myself, only a
small number being allowed out at a time. Hastily retreating,
I muttered imprecations that were not at all pleasing to his rebel
highness, and he suggested shooting unless I subsided. I think
my remarks were in some way to the effect that nothing would
give me greater pleasure than to encounter him in some retired
spot where the chances were more nearly equal. However,
my feelings, more than my head, were injured, and they event-
ually recovered their accustomed serenity.
On the second morning we were again loaded upon the cars,
and are once more nearing our final destination. Now a road
330 NINTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
reaches down directly south from Lynchburg, but then we had
to take an almost easterly course, going through a country
which in less than a year was to be in everybody's mouth as
the scene of the collapse of the Rebellion, Lee's surrender and
the climax of Grant's career. We may have stopped at Appo-
mattox, but I do not remember it. We certainly halted at
Farmville, but so slow is our course in our rattle-box cars, and
over a road that has long been a stranger to repairs, that it is
fully night before we reach Burksville. Whether our destina-
tion was Richmond or the extreme South, we had no means of
knowing, but when the train, after much switching, changes
its direction, we know that we are to be strangers to Belle Isle
and Libby, and so resign ourselves to prospects of Salisbury
and Andersonville.
But we are to be happily disappointed. With the first streak-
ings of day, on July 29th, '64, we stop at a village which we
are told is Danville, and we learn that it is the largest place
in Pittsylvania county, Virginia. Later we are marched
through the streets of what might be even to us, were we not
prisoners, a beautiful place. The flowers looked fresh and
blooming as we filed along. They were the last that I was to
see that season, the very last that many of my friends ever
saw. Feeling much as I have thought the caged animals in a
caravan procession feel as they return the curious glances of
idling throngs, we wended our way through the town, objects
of much interest to the natives, who rushed from breakfast-
getting or eating to look at the first arrival of the live "Yanks"
who had come so many hundred strong to make Danville their
involuntary home. Along the principal streets we go, till we
file to the right and come upon an open square or plaza having
large brick warehouses on three sides. Into the first of these,
called No. 1, lying between the square and the Dan river, we
are led or driven. As I await my turn to enter I have time to
note the river, the cook-house near, and the building itself, three
stories high with an attic, into which as many men are crowded
as it can possibly hold. We realize that we have escaped some-
thing in not going to the stockades, but what misery might be
yet within those walls, the future had not revealed. In single
file we pass in, carefully numbered, and are forced along, filling
the upper places first, till the old warehouse seems crowded
to suffocation. Only the enlisted men enter here. The officers
PRISONERS OF WAR. 331
are consigned to another building. The last man passes in.
The door is shut, locked and barred. Men with guns guard
the places of egress even then, and, as never before, we realize
that we are in Prison.
IN A REBEL PRISON; OR, EXPERIENCES IN DANVILLE, VA.
"When I was in prison!" How many people I have seen
shrink away from me on my uttering this expression; but the
appendix "rebel i)risou" invariably draws from them the words,
"What! were you in a rebel prison? In what prison, and how
long? How did they use you?"
From intense aversion, the expression has changed to one
of the utmost interest, and there are indications of awakening
sympathy when I reply, "Yes, in Danville, Va. Between seven
and eight months, and as well as they could; but their best
was bad enough." The men, captured at Monocacy, Md., by foot
and rail, have finally reached the most considerable place in
southern Virginia, and on the morn of July 29th, 1864, the
heavy prison door opens and shuts upon our party. I have
always rated the total number entering the building at about
600. Of these prisoners, 106 were members of my regiment.
On the 19th of the following February, when we parted from
our i)risnn house, I was one of forty-five "Ninth" men who joy-
fully set their faces northward. It does not follow that the
difference in numbers represented deaths in Danville, for there
had been two exchanges of sick; but more than one-quarter
of our "boys" were left in Virginian graves. Just twenty-
seven out of our 106 succumbed to prison hardships, and in
dying found their release. Of those sent northward in August
and October, many were stopped at Richmond, and in "Libby,"
or on Belle Isle, found the fate escaped in Danville. Others,
reaching the Federal lines, barely had strength to greet their
friends, and then they, too, ceased from earth. It is a very
moderate estimate to claim that fully one-half our number fell
victims, in less than a year, to the results of our imprisonment.
Then, too, any prisoner who had passed beyond the period of
boyhood never fully recovered from his months of hunger,
cold and anxiety. When, at the end of the following April,
I rejoined my regiment and a comrade undertook to tell mo
how much I had escaped through my capture, I quite silenced
332 NINTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
him by asking if any company had lost more than half its
men during my absence; if the Valley campaign, hard though
it was, had resulted in the death of one-quarter of the mem-
bers of the regiment. In the National cemetery at Winchester,
thirty-eight comrades from the Ninth are sleeping; but they are
the dead from Opequon and Cedar Creek, with those who died
from disease during the fall. I make this comparison solely
to show the extreme mortality among men in a condition of