CHAPTER XIX

TO FORT PULASKI—ROTTEN CORNMEAL AND PICKLED RATIONS—A PLOT LAID

On the 17th of October the prisoners were notified to be ready to move at daylight next morning. In one of the tents the next morning, in order to see how to get ready, one of the prisoners struck a light, when the negro guard fired into the tent, wounding two of the occupants badly, one through the knee and the other in the shoulder. On the 18th we were marched to the wharf and put aboard two old hulks and towed out to sea. We had been forty-two days in this stockade and were glad enough to get away. But alas! we did not know what was in store for us later on. Three days' rations, so-called, had been issued—fifteen crackers and about five or six ounces of bacon. After being at sea three days and two nights, one hulk-load of 300 were landed at Fort Pulaski, on Tybee Island, Ga., at the mouth of the Savannah River, and the other 300 were landed at Hilton Head, a short distance up the coast.

Fort Pulaski was built of brick, with very thick walls, surrounded by a wide moat, was very damp, and when the east winds blew, very cold and disagreeable, there being no window-lights in the embrasures to the casements in which the prisoners were confined—only iron bars. Here the prisoners were guarded by the 127th N. Y. Regiment, commanded by Col. W. W. Brown, who treated the prisoners kindly.

In this regiment there were a great many youths in their teens. I remarked on this in a conversation with a Yankee sergeant, who stated that these boys were put into the army by their fathers for the sake of the large bounties paid, which, in many cases, amounted to $2,000 and over, and that these fathers were using the money to buy homes and lands for themselves.

Just like a Yankee—he would sell his own flesh and blood for money!

The Confederate soldiers were patriots, fighting for their country, while a large majority of the Yankee army were hirelings, fighting for money. Yet these hirelings are lauded as patriots by the North and pensioned by the United States Government!

For a time the rations were better here than on Morris Island. All the men and officers of this regiment had seen service in the field and had a fellow-feeling for a soldier, although he was a "Rebel" prisoner. Whenever we were guarded by Yankees who had never seen service in the field, they were as mean as snakes. The guards at Fort Delaware were of the latter kind—they shot several prisoners without cause. One instance I remember was that of Colonel —— Jones, of Virginia, who was sick and very feeble, scarcely able to walk. He had gone to the sink and had started back when a guard ordered him to move faster, which he could not do, and was shot through the body, dying the next day. The miscreant boasted that, "This makes two Rebels my gun has killed."

ROTTEN CORNMEAL AND PICKLED RATIONS

While at Fort Pulaski, Gen. J. G. Foster, the Yankee general commanding the department, and a cruel, unfeeling wretch he must have been, issued an order to put the prisoners on ten ounces of cornmeal and half pint of onion pickles per day.

This cornmeal was shipped from the North, was completely spoiled and utterly unfit for food, being mouldy, in hard lumps, and full of worms, big and little, some of them an inch long. The brands on the barrels showed that this cornmeal was ground at Brandywine in the year 1861. This was done, it was said, in retaliation for the Confederates feeding the Yankee prisoners on cornbread and sour sorghum. We would have been very glad to have gotten cornbread and sorghum, such as the Yankee prisoners had. They did not even give us salt, absolutely nothing but this ten ounces of rotten, wormy cornmeal and pickles, and would not allow those who had money to buy anything to eat from the sutler's. Some say that Edward M. Stanton, the Yankee Secretary of War, the arch-fiend of South-haters, was responsible for this cruel treatment. It savored of many of Stanton's acts during and after the war. In consequence of this inhuman order, there was a great deal of sickness and many deaths among the prisoners. "Starved to death," said the Yankee surgeon who attended the sick, "medicine will do them no good." Scurvy, a loathsome disease, prevailed to an alarming extent; the gums would become black and putrid, the legs full of sores, drawn and distorted. Many a poor fellow, in attempting to make his way to the sinks, would fall fainting to the ground. I remember, in one day, assisting three of these unfortunates to rise from the ground and back to their bunks. To substantiate what I have here recorded as facts, I give the following from the "War of the Rebellion, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series II, Vol. VIII, page 163":

* * * * *

"HEADQUARTERS, DISTRICT OF SAVANNAH, SAVANNAH, GA., _February 1, 1865_.

"Assistant Adjutant General, Headquarters, Department of the South:

"My medical director yesterday inspected the condition of the Rebel prisoners confined at Fort Pulaski, and represents that they are in a condition of great suffering and exhaustion for the want of sufficient food and clothing; also that they have the scurvy to a considerable extent. He recommends as a necessary measure, that they be at once put on full prison rations ("full prison rations," God save the mark!), and also that they be allowed to receive necessary articles of clothing from their friends. I would respectfully endorse the surgeon's recommendation and ask authority to take such steps as may be necessary to relieve actual sickness and suffering.

(Signed) "C. GROVER, Brevet Major-General, Commanding."

* * * * *

Now, here it is from their own records, showing how wantonly and cruelly the Yankees treated these prisoners.

During these frightful days I made a ring out of a gutta-percha button, which was traded to a Yankee soldier, on the sly, for a good chunk of middling meat, which was a Godsend. I escaped the scurvy, but my messmate, Captain Horton, had it pretty badly, although I shared the meat with him. The prisoners killed and ate all the cats they could catch. I ate a small piece of a cat myself, and would have eaten more if I could have gotten it. One of the Yankee officers had a fat little dog that followed him into the casemates when making his tours of inspection; the hungry prisoners longed to get this dog, but he kept close to his master's heels, as if cognizant of the fact that he was on dangerous ground. With half a chance he would have been caught, killed, skinned, and devoured in short order. Some one may have nabbed this dog; I don't know.

These starvation days lasted about two months. During this time a Yankee major, out of compassion for the starving prisoners, went out with a boat and net one day, caught and gave to the prisoners a number of fresh fish, which were greatly enjoyed. This kindness was duly appreciated. But those higher in authority forbade its repetition, and we got no more fish.

While at Fort Pulaski the "Lee Chess Club" got out a paper, in pen and ink, foolscap size; I was one of the scribes and preserved a copy. A few years ago I sent this copy to the Confederate Museum at Richmond, Va., where it is now preserved in a glass case in the Virginia Room, in the White House of the Confederacy.

A PLOT LAID

While here, six officers laid a plan to capture the ship when we were removed from the place, it being often rumored we were to be taken away. These six officers each selected ten others to act with them. No one else knew anything of the plot. I do not remember the names of the leaders. Captain Horton and myself were among the number selected.

About the 1st of March, rumors were rife that we were to be moved, and the plot was perfected as far as possible. The plan was to overpower the guard when at sea, take charge of the ship and run it to Nassau, or some other neutral port, in the West Indies. While here, some of the prisoners escaped from the hospital. Only one, however, made good and got safely away. Those recaptured were put in irons, cast into a foul dungeon, and cruelly treated.