The prisoner of war, and how treated : Containing a history of Colonel Steight's expedition to the rear of Bragg's army, in the spring of 1863, and a correct account of the treatment and condition of the Union prisoners of war ... and history of Andersonville prison pen

Front matter

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Preface

The preparation of this work was first contemplated, and partly executed, while I was confined in the rebel prisons of the South ; and with the intention of publishing it immediately after my release or escape from captivity. But the sudden collapse of the military power of the people arrayed in armed rebellion against the Government, following soon thereafter, at first determined me to forego the publication of a work, which I conceived might possibly tend to keep alive the embers of discord between us and our Southern foes, and as far as in me lie, consign to oblivion the memory of their wicked deeds, and forget the sufferings and wrongs of myself and fellow captives.

Subsequent events, however, have shown that our late enemies are not possessed of the same spirit of kindly feeling and friendship that we have extended to them. Moreover, that the leaders among them have, under the dissembling guise of repentance, sought the pardon and confidence of the nation — which, by force of arms, in four years of bloody war, they failed to dismember— that they might, with the wily arts of the politician, accomplish its destruction.

Believing that subserviency to the demands of those lately leadiug the armed hosts arrayed against us, by

4 PREFACE.

the slave Oligarchy, and the wholesale and indiscriminate pardon extended them by our Chief Magistrate, will, at no distant day, render fruitless the glorious work accomplished by our noble armies, and vain the gallant deeds and heroic sufferings of the brave men of whom they were composed, I send forth to the public this volume ; which, without pretensions to literary merit, breathes the dying moans and starving wails of twenty thousand Union soldiers, whose shroudless and uncoffined bodies moulder beneath the sod, adjacent to the rebel prisons in which they were tortured to death, trusting that whatever influence it may exercise will aid in bringing the guilty leaders of treason to just punishment, for their enormous crimes against humanity.

"Without any aspirations whatever, to literary notoriety, I have endeavored to give a plain, unvarnished narrative of facts and incidents of prison life, as they occurred, under my own observation, during twenty-two months in various rebel prisons. I have added, also, the statements of several other Union prisoners, who stand ready to vouch for the same with their affidavits.

In this recital of the terrible woe of our soldiers who were prisoners. of war, I do not wish it to be understood that I charge the mass of the Southern people with complicity in the inhuman treatment they received. Jeff. Davis, Robert E. Lee, and other rebels high in authority, and the monsters whom they placed in immediate command of the prisoners, are alone responsible, and on their heads let just and condign punishment fall.

A. C. R.

Chapter I. Colonel Steeight's Expedition

Introductory Remarks — Organization of Streight's Expedition — Departure from Nashville — Palmyra, Tennessee — Experience with Mules — Foraging Parties — Tuscumbia — Eastport — Disastrous Affair — Loyal Citizens — Battle of Day's Gap — Rebel Barbarities— Battle of Crooked Creek — Capture of Doctor King — Ambushing the Enemy Page 9-29.

Chapter II

streight's expedition continued.

Burning Black Creek Bridge — A Rebel Heroine — Battle of Blunt'3 Farm — Death of Colonel Hathaway — Prospects of Success — Lose the Route — Captain Russell's Party — Surrender to General Forrest Page 30-42.

Chapter III. Imprisonment

Rome, Georgia — Arrival at Libby Prison — Description of The Libby — Union Ladies Insulted — Fourth of July in Libby — Stars and Stripes in Prison — Their Capture Page 43-50.

Chapter IV. Life In Prison

Increasing Barbarities — Colonel Streight's Letter to the Rebel Secretary of War — Perfidy of Union Officers — Lieutenant Colonel b CONTENTS.

Sanderson's Communications to the Rebel Commissary — Indignation of the Prisoners — Starved to Death — Escape of a Dead Yankee Page 51-60.

Chapter V. Belle Isle

Prisoners Compelled to Eat Dog Flesh — The Chickamauga Prisoners— Rebel Hospitals — The Richmond Examiner — It Counsels Murder — Treatment of Rebel Prisoners in the North.

Chapter VI. Winter In Libby

Terrible Suffering — Inside View of Libby — Prisoners Cooking Their Rations — Amusements — Prisoners' Letters — Fresh Fish — Exchange— Night in Libby Page 70-80.

Chapter VII. Escape Of Anderson And Skelton

Preparation for the Escape — Discovered by the Guard — Second Attempt— Final Exit from Richmond — Friendliness of the Slaves — Union Soldiers — Liberty and the Old Flag — The Council of Five — First Escape of Colonel Streight — His Letter to General Meredith — General Morgan's Visit to Libby - - Page 81-97.

Chapter VIII. The Libby Tunnel

The Negroes in Libby — One Hundred and Nine Officers Escape — Colonel Streight Gets Fast in the Tunnel — Names of the Principal Officers who Escaped — Colonel Streight Secreted by a Loyal Woman Several Days in Richmond — Detectives Searching for Him — Perilous Adventures of the Escaped Prisoners — Safe Arrival in the Union Lines Page 97-118.

CHAPTER IX. KILPATRICK's EXPEDITION

Attempt to Release the Prisoners — Death of Colonel Dahlgren —

CONTENTS. i

Horrible Mutilation of His Body — Plot to Blow Up the Prison Removal from Libby — Macon — Captain Tabb — A Union Officer Murdered ., Page 119-132.

CHAPTER X. GENERAL STONEMAN's RAID

Stoneman'a Cavalry Approach Macon — The Fight and Repulse — Capture of Stoneman and His Command — Removal from Macon

— Charleston — Its Desolation — The Work-House — Jail — Bombardment of the City — Removal to Columbia — Camp Sorghum.

CHAPTER XL

ESCAPE OF CAPTAIN RUSSELL.

First Attempt — Liberty or Death — Accidental Meeting with a Friend

— Long Fasting and Extreme Fatigue — He Makes a Foray on a Flock of Sheep — Recaptured — Lexington Jail — Second Attempt

— Receive Aid from the Negroes — Narrow Escape from Drowning— Raw Corn His Only Subsistence — Arrival Inside of Sherman's Lines — Secretary Stanton ----- Page 145-170.

Chapter XII. Prison Life At Columbia

Removal from Camp Sorghum — Asylum Prison — Chandler's String Band — Sherman's March to the Sea — Fall of Savannah and the Encouragement it Gave the Prisoners — Preparations for Escape

— Removal from Columbia Page 171-177.

Chapter XIII

escape of the author.

Out of the Jaws of Death — Recapture of Lieutenant Pool — Ash- Cake for General Sherman — Captain Aigan Left Exhausted on the Road — The Slave 'Math' — Union Family Near Columbia, South Carolina — Their Kindness to Escaped Prisoners.

8 CONTENTS.

Chapter XIV. The Old Flag And Liberty

Math Proposes to Steal His Master's Mules — Devastation by Sherman's Army, of South Carolina — Concealment at the House of Mr. Carman — The Two Misses Carman — Change of Base — Luckless Adventure of Captain Aigan — Safe with the Union Army — Lieutenant Colonel Morrow and Captain Rosser — The Ninety-Second Ohio Volunteers — Sherman's Bummers — Bummer's Report — Arrival at Fayette ville, North Carolina.

CHAPTER XV. ANDEKSONVILLE prisoners

Horrible Sights in the Streets of Charleston — Our Returned Prisoners at Wilmington — Report of Doctor J. C. Dalton — General Winder and Captain Wertz — Statement of an Andersonville Prisoner Page 207-216.

Chapter XVI

andersonville continued.

Eight Months in the Pen — Statement of H. M. Roach — Three Days

Without Food of Any Kind — Trading Dead Men for Wood —

Letter from Miss Clara Barton — Two Hundred and Sixty-seven

Prisoners Wantonly Murdered — Letter from a Georgia Planter.