Chapter 12

"There, don't try again. Rest awhile. Take some of this,--it will give you strength"; and I emptied my brandy-flask into her mouth. "Our General" had filled it the morning we set out from his camp; but two days' acquaintance with the Judge, who declared "_such_ brandy contraband of war," had reduced its contents to a low ebb. Still, there was enough to do that poor girl a world of good. She shortly revived, and sitting up, her head against the sentinel's shoulder, told us her story. She was a white woman, and served as nursery-maid in a family that lived hard by. All of its male members being away with the array, she had been sent out at that late hour to procure medicine for a sick child, and, waylaid by a gang of black fiends, had been gagged and outraged in the very heart of Richmond! And this is Southern civilization under Jefferson I.!

At the end of a long hour, I returned to the hotel. The sentry was pacing to and fro before it, and, seating myself on the door-step, I drew him into conversation.

"Do such things often happen in Richmond?" I asked him.

"Often! Ye's strange yere, I reckon," he replied.

"No,--I've been here forty times, but not lately. Things must be in a bad way here, now."

"Wai, they is! Thar' 's nary night but thair' 's lots o' sech doin's. Ye see, thar' ha'n't more 'n a corporal's-guard o' white men in the hull place, so the nigs they hes the'r own way, and ye'd better b'lieve they raise the Devil, and break things, ginerally."

"I've seen no other able-bodied soldier about town; how is it that you are here?"

"I ha'n't able-bodied," he replied, holding up the stump of his left arm, from which the sleeve was dangling. "I lost thet more 'n a y'ar ago. I b'long ter the calvary,--Fust Alabama,--and bein' as I carn't manage a nag now, they 's detailed me fur provost-duty."

"First Alabama? I know Captains Webb and Finnan of that regiment."

"Ye does? What! old man Webb, as lives down on Coosa?"

"Yes, at Gadsden, in Cherokee County. Streight burnt his house, and both of his mills', on his big raid, and the old man has lost both of his sons in the war. It has wellnigh done him up."

"I reckon. Stands ter natur' it sh'u'd. The Yankees is all-fired fiends. The old man use' ter hate 'em loike----. I reckon he hates 'em wuss 'n ever now."

"No, he don't. His troubles seem to have softened him. When he told me of them, he cried like a child. He reckoned the Lord had brought them on him because he'd fought against the Union."

"Wal, I doan't know. This war's a bad business, anyhow. When d'ye see old Webb last?"

"About a year ago,--down in Tennessee, nigh to Tullahoma."

"Was he 'long o' the rigiment?"

That was a home question, for I had met Captain Webb while he was a prisoner, in the Court-House at Murfreesboro'. However, I promptly replied,--

"No,--he'd just left it."

"Wal, I doan't blame him. Pears loike, ef sech things sh'u'd come onter me, I'd let the war and the kentry go ter the Devil tergether."

My acquaintance with Captain Webb naturally won me the confidence of the soldier; and for nearly an hour, almost unquestioned, he poured into my ear information that would have been of incalculable value to our generals. Two days later I would have given my right hand for liberty to whisper to General Grant some things that he said; but honor and honesty forbade it.

A neighboring clock struck four when I rose to go. As I did so, I said to the sentinel,--

"I saw no other sentry in the streets; why are you guarding this hotel?"

"Wal, ye knows old Brown's a-raisin' Cain down thar' in Georgy. Two o' his men bes come up yere ter see Jeff, and things ha'n't quite satisfactory, so we's orders ter keep 'em tighter 'n a bull's-eye in fly-time."

So, not content with placing a guard in our very bedchamber, the oily-tongued despot over the way had fastened a padlock over the key-hole of our outside-door! What _would_ happen, if he should hear that I had picked the padlock, and prowled about Richmond for an hour after midnight! The very thought gave my throat a preliminary choke, and my neck an uneasy sensation. It was high time I sought the embrace of that hard mattress in the fourth story. But my fears were groundless. When I crept noiselessly to bed, Javins was sleeping as soundly and snoring as sweetly as if his sins were all forgiven.

When I awoke in the morning, breakfast was already laid on the centre-table, and an army of newsboys were shouting under our windows, "'Ere's the 'En'quirer' and _the_ 'Dis'patch.' Great news from the front. Gin'ral Grant mortally killed,--shot with a cannon." Rising, and beginning my toilet, I said to Javins, in a tone of deep concern,--

"When did that happen?"

"Why, o' Saturday. I hearn of it afore we left the lines. 'Twas all over town yesterday," he replied, with infinite composure.

"And you didn't tell us! That was unkind of you, Javins,--very unkind. How _could_ you do it?"

"It's ag'in' orders to talk news with you;--besides, I thought you knowed it."

"How should we know it?"

"Why, your boat was only just ahead of his'n, comin' up the river. He got shot runnin' that battery. Hit in the arm, and died when they amputated him."

"Amputated him! Did they cut off his head to save his arm?"

Whether he saw a quiet twinkle in my eye, or knew that the news was false, I know not. Whichever it was, he replied,--

"I reckon. Then you don't b'lieve it?"

"Why should I doubt it? Don't your papers always tell the truth?"

"No, they never do; lyin' 's their trade."

"Then you suppose they're whistling now to keep up their courage? But let us see what they say. Oblige me with some of your currency."

He kindly gave me three dollars for one, and ringing the bell, I soon had the five dingy half-sheets which every morning, "Sundays excepted," hold up this busy world, "its fluctuations and its vast concerns," to the wondering view of beleaguered Richmond.

"Dey's fifty cents apiece, Massa," said the darky, handing me the papers, and looking wistfully on the poor specimen of lithography which remained after the purchase; "what shill I do wid dis?"

"Oh! keep it. I'd give you more, but that's all the lawful money I have about me."

He hesitated, as if unwilling to take my last half-dollar; but self soon got the better of him. He pocketed the shin-plaster, and said nothing; but "Poor gentleman! I's sorry for _you_! Libin' at do Spotswood, and no money about you!" was legible all over his face.

We opened the papers, and, sure enough, General Grant _was_ dead, and laid out in dingy sheets, with a big gun firing great volleys over him! The cannon which that morning thundered Glory! Hallelujah! through the columns of the "Whig" and the "Examiner" no doubt brought him to life again. No such jubilation, I believe, disgraced our Northern journals when Stonewall Jackson fell.

Breakfast over, the Colonel and I packed our portmanteaus, and sat down to the intellectual repast. It was a feast, and we enjoyed it. I always have enjoyed the Richmond editorials. If I were a poet, I should study them for epithets. Exhausting the dictionary, their authors ransack heaven, earth, and the other place, and into one expression throw such a concentration of scorn, hate, fury, or exultation as is absolutely stunning to a man of ordinary nerves. Talk of their being bridled! They never had a bit in their mouths. Before the war they ran wild, and now they ride rough-shod over decorum, decency, and Davis himself. But the dictator endures it like a philosopher. "He lets it pass," said Judge Ould to me, "like the idle wind, which it is."

At last, ten o'clock--the hour when we were to set out from Dixie--struck from a neighboring steeple, and I laid down the paper, and listened for the tread of the Judge on the stairs. I had heard it often, and it had always been welcome, for he is a most agreeable companion, but I had not _listened_ for it till then. Then I waited for it as "they that watch for the morning," for he was to deliver us from the "den of lions,"--from "the hold of every foul and unclean thing." Ten, twenty, thirty minutes I waited, but he did not come! Why was he late, that prompt man, who was always "on time,"--who put us through the streets of Richmond the night before on a trot, lest we should be a second late at our appointment? Did he mean to bake us brown with the mid-day sun? or had the mules overslept themselves, or moved their quarters still farther out of town? Well, I didn't know, and it was useless to speculate, so I took up the paper, and went to reading again. But the stinging editorials had lost their sting, and the pointed paragraphs, though sharper than a meat-axe, fell on me as harmless as if I had been encased in a suit of mail.

At length eleven o'clock sounded, and I took out my watch to count the minutes. One, two, three,--how slow they went! Four, five,--ten,--fifteen,--twenty! What was the matter with the watch? Even at this day I could affirm on oath that it took five hours for that hour-hand to get round to twelve. But at last it got there, and then--each second seeming a minute, each minute an hour--it crept slowly on to one; but still no Judge appeared! Why did he not come? The reason was obvious. The mules were "quartered six miles out of town," because he had to see Mr. Davis before letting us go. And Davis had heard of my nocturnal rambling, and concluded we had come as spies. Or he had, from my cross-questioning the night before, detected _my_ main object in coming to Dixie. Either way _my_ doom was sealed. If we were taken as spies, it was hanging. If held on other grounds, it was imprisonment; and ten days of Castle Thunder, in my then state of health, would have ended my mortal career.

I had looked at this alternative before setting out. But then I saw it afar off; now I stood face to face with it, and--I thought of home,--of the brave boy who had said to me, "Father, I think you ought to go. If I was only a man, _I_'d go. If you never come back, _I_'ll take care of the children."

These thoughts passing in my mind, I rose and paced the room for a few moments,--then, turning to Javins, said,--

"Will you oblige me by stepping into the hall? My friend and I would have a few words together."

As he passed out, I said to the Colonel,--

"Ould is more than three hours late! What does it mean?"

All this while he had sat, his spectacles on his nose, and his chair canted against the window-sill, absorbed in the newspapers. Occasionally he would look up to comment on something he was reading; but not a movement of his face, nor a glance of his eye, had betrayed that he was conscious of Ould's delay, or of my extreme restlessness. When I said this, he took off his spectacles, and, quietly rubbing the glasses with his handkerchief, replied,--

"It looks badly, but--_I_ ask no odds of them. We may have to show we are men. We have tried to serve the country. That is enough. Let them hang us, if they like."

"Colonel," I exclaimed, with a strong inclination to hug him, "you are a trump! the bravest man I ever knew!"

"I trust in God,--that is all," was his reply.

This was all he said,--but his words convey no idea of the sublime courage which shone in his eye and lighted up his every feature. I felt rebuked, and turned away to hide my emotion. As I did so, my attention was arrested by a singular spectacle in a neighboring street. Coming down the hill, hand in hand with a colored woman, were two little boys of about eight or nine years, one white, the other black. As they neared the opposite corner, the white lad drew back and struck the black boy a heavy blow with his foot. The ebony juvenile doubled up his fist, and, planting it behind the other's ear, felled him to the sidewalk. But the white lad was on his feet again in an instant, and showering on the black a perfect storm of kicks and blows. The latter parried the assault coolly, and, watching his opportunity, planted another blow behind the white boy's ear, which sent him reeling to the ground again. Meanwhile the colored nurse stood by, enjoying the scene, and a score or more of negroes of all ages and sizes gathered around, urging the young ebony on with cheers and other expressions of encouragement. I watched the combat till the white lad had gone down a third time, when a rap came at the door, and Judge Ould entered.

"Good evening," he said.

"Good evening," we replied.

"Well, Gentlemen, if you are ready, we'll walk round to the Libby," he added, with a hardness of tone I had not observed in his voice before.

My worst fears were realized! We were prisoners! A cold tremor passed over me, and my tongue refused its office. A drooping plant turns to the sun; so, being just then a drooping plant, I turned to the Colonel. He stood, drawn up to his full height, looking at Ould. Not a feature of his fine face moved, but his large gray eye was beaming with a sort of triumph. I have met brave men,--men who have faced death a hundred times without quailing; but I never met a man who had the moral grandeur of that man. His look inspired me, for I turned to Ould, and, with a coolness that amazed myself, said,--

"Very well. We are ready. But here is an instructive spectacle"; and I pointed to the conflict going on in the street. "That is what you are coming to. Fight us another year, and that scene will be enacted, by larger children, all over the South."

"To prevent that is why we are fighting you at all," he replied, dryly.

We shook Javins by the hand, and took up our portmanteaus to go. Then our hotel-bill occurred to me, and I said to Ould,--

"You cautioned us against offering greenbacks. We have nothing else. Will you give us some Confederate money in exchange?"

"Certainly. But what do you want of money?" he asked, resuming the free and easy manner he had shown in our previous intercourse.

"To pay our hotel-bill."

"You have no bill here. It will be settled by the Confederacy."

"We can't allow that. We are not here as the guests of your Government."

"Yes, you are, and you can't help yourselves," he rejoined, laughing pleasantly. "If you offer the landlord greenbacks, he'll have you jugged, certain,--for it's against the law."

"That's nothing to us. We are jugged already."

"So you are!" and he laughed again, rather boisterously.

His manner half convinced me that he had been playing on our sensibilities; but I said nothing, and we followed him down the stairs.

At the outer door stood Jack and the ambulance! Their presence assured us a safe exit from Dixie, and my feelings found expression somewhat as follows:--

"How are you, Jack? You're the best-looking darky I ever saw."

"I's bery well, Massa, bery well. Hope you's well," replied Jack, grinning until he made himself uglier than Nature intended. "I's glad you tinks I's good-lookin'."

"Good-looking! You're better-looking than any man, black or white, I ever met."

"You've odd notions of beauty," said the Judge, smiling. "That accounts for your being an Abolitionist."

"No, it don't." And I added, in a tone too low for Jack to hear, "It only implies, that, until I saw that darky, I doubted our getting out of Dixie."

The Judge gave a low whistle.

"So you smelt a rat?"

"Yes, a very big one. Tell us, why were you so long behind time?"

"I'll tell you when the war is over. Now I'll take you to Libby and the hospitals, if you'd like to go."

We said we would, and, ordering Jack to follow with the ambulance, the Judge led us down the principal thoroughfare. A few shops were open, a few negro women were passing in and out among them, and a few wounded soldiers were limping along the sidewalks; but scarcely an able-bodied man was to be seen anywhere. A poor soldier, who had lost both legs and a hand, was seated at a street-corner, asking alms of the colored women as they passed. Pointing to him, the Judge said,--

"There is one of our arguments against reunion. If you will walk two squares, I'll show you a thousand."

"All asking alms of black women? That is another indication of what you are coming to."

He made no reply. After a while, scanning our faces as if he would detect our hidden thoughts, he said, in an abrupt, pointed way,--

"Grant was to have attacked us yesterday. Why didn't he do it?"

"How should we know?"

"You came from Foster's only the day before. That's where the attack was to have been made."

"Why wasn't it made?"

"_I_ don't know. Some think it was because you came in, and were _expected out_ that way."

"Oh! That accounts for your being so late! You think we are spies, sent in to survey, and report on the route?"

"No, I do not. I think you are honest men, and I've _said so_."

And I have no doubt it was because he "said so" that we got out of Richmond.

By this time we had reached a dingy brick building, from one corner of which protruded a small sign, bearing, in black letters on a white ground, the words,--

LIBBY AND SON,

_SHIP-CHANDLERS AND GROCERS._

It was three stories high, and, I was told, eighty feet in width and a hundred and ten in depth. In front, the first story was on a level with the street, allowing space for a tier of dungeons under the sidewalk; but in the rear the land sloped away till the basement-floor rose above-ground. Its unpainted walls were scorched to a rusty brown, and its sunken doors and low windows, filled here and there with a dusky pane, were cobwebbed and weather-stained, giving the whole building a most uninviting and desolate appearance. A flaxen-haired boy, in ragged "butternuts" and a Union cap, and an old man, in gray regimentals, with a bent body and a limping gait, were pacing to and fro before it, with muskets on their shoulders; but no other soldiers were in sight.

"If Ben Butler knew that Richmond was defended by only such men, how long would it be before he took it?" I said, turning to the Judge.

"Several years. When these men give out, our women will fall in. Let Butler try it!"

Opening a door at the right, he led us into a large, high-studded apartment, with a bare floor, and greasy brown walls hung round with battle-scenes and cheap lithographs of the Rebel leaders. Several officers in "Secession gray" were lounging about this room, and one of them, a short, slightly-built, youthful-looking man, rose as we entered, and, in a half-pompous, half-obsequious way, said to Judge Ould,--

"Ah! Colonel Ould, I am very glad to see you."

The Judge returned the greeting with a stateliness that was in striking contrast with his usual frank and cordial manner, and then introduced the officer to us as "Major Turner, Keeper of the Libby." I had heard of him, and it was with some reluctance that I took his proffered hand. However, I did take it, and at the same time inquired,--

"Are you related to Dr. Turner, of Fayetteville?"

"No, Sir. I am of the old Virginia family." (I never met a negro-whipper nor a negro-trader who did not belong to that family.) "Are you a North-Carolinian?"

"No, Sir"--

Before I could add another word, the Judge said,--

"No, Major; these gentlemen hail from Georgia. They are strangers here, and I'd thank you to show them over the prison."

"Certainly, Colonel, most certainly. I'll do it with great pleasure."

And the little man bustled about, put on his cap, gave a few orders to his subordinates, and then led us, through another outside-door, into the prison. He was a few rods in advance with Colonel Jaquess, when Judge Ould said to me,--

"Your prisoners have belied Turner. You see he's not the hyena they've represented."

"I'm not so sure of that," I replied. "These cringing, mild-mannered men are the worst sort of tyrants, when they have the power."

"But you don't think _him_ a tyrant?"

"I do. He's a coward and a bully, or I can't read English. It is written all over his face."

The Judge laughed boisterously, and called out to Turner,--

"I say, Major, our friend here is painting your portrait."

"I hope he is making a handsome man of me," said Turner, in a sycophantic way.

"No, he isn't. He's drawing you to the life,--as if he'd known you for half a century."

We had entered a room about forty feet wide and a hundred feet deep, with bare brick walls, a rough plank floor, and narrow, dingy windows, to whose sash only a few broken panes were clinging. A row of tin wash-basins, and a wooden trough which served as a bathing-tub, were at one end of it, and half a dozen cheap stools and hard-bottomed chairs were littered about the floor, but it had no other furniture. And this room, with five others of similar size and appointments, and two basements floored with earth and filled with _débris_, compose the famous Libby Prison, in which, for months together, thousands of the best and bravest men that ever went to battle have been allowed to rot and to starve.

At the date of our visit, not more than a hundred prisoners were in the Libby, its contents having recently been emptied into a worse sink in Georgia; but almost constantly since the war began, twelve and sometimes thirteen hundred of our officers have been hived within those half-dozen desolate rooms and filthy cellars, with a space of only ten feet by two allotted to each for all the purposes of living!

Overrun with vermin, perishing with cold, breathing a stifled, tainted atmosphere, no space allowed them for rest by day, and lying down at night "wormed and dovetailed together like fish in a basket,"--their daily rations only two ounces of stale beef and a small lump of hard corn-bread, and their lives the forfeit, if they caught but one streak of God's blue sky through those filthy windows,--they have endured there all the horrors of the middle-passage. My soul sickened as I looked on the scene of their wretchedness. If the liberty we are fighting for were not worth even so terrible a price,--if it were not cheaply purchased even with the blood and agony of the many brave and true souls who have gone into that foul den only to die, or to come out the shadows of men,--living ghosts, condemned to walk the night and to fade away before the breaking of the great day that is coming,--who would not cry out for peace, for peace on any terms?

And while these thoughts were in my mind, the cringing, foul-mouthed, brutal, contemptible ruffian who had caused all this misery stood within two paces of me! I could have reached out my hand, and, with half an effort, have crushed him, and--I did not do it! Some invisible Power held my arm, for murder was in my heart.

"This is where that Yankee devil Streight, that raised hell so among you down in Georgia, got out," said Turner, pausing before a jut in the wall of the room. "A flue was here, you see, but we've bricked it up. They took up the hearth, let themselves down into the basement, and then dug through the wall, and eighty feet underground into the yard of a deserted building over the way. If you'd like to see the place, step down with me."

"We would, Major. We'd be right glad ter," I replied, adopting, at a hint from the Judge, the Georgia dialect.

We descended a rough plank stairway, and entered the basement. It was a damp, mouldy, dismal place, and even then--in hot July weather--as cold as an ice-house. What must it have been in midwinter!

The keeper led us along the wall to where Streight and his party had broken out, and then said,--

"It's three feet thick, but they went through it, and all the way under the street, with only a few case-knives and a dust-pan."

"Wal, they _war_ smart. But, keeper, whar' wus yer eyes all o' thet time? Down our way, ef a man couldn't see twenty Yankees a-wuckin' so fur six weeks, by daylight, in a clar place like this yere, we'd reckon he warn't fit ter 'tend a pen o' niggers."

The Judge whispered, "You're overdoing it. Hold in." Turner winced like a struck hound, but, smothering his wrath, smilingly replied,--