Chapter 5

At another time, working around the commissary, I filled my pockets with beans and potatoes. These were the only full messes I got while in prison. The largest detail was known as the Fort detail, building and sodding a fort on the Potomac side. About three hundred men were worked on it. They got about three square inches or five cents worth of plug tobacco and a little drink of whiskey per day. The other details only give one pound of salt pork and a pint of vinegar for ten days' work. Working ten days for a pound of pork was rather low wages, but most of us were glad to get such an opportunity to get out. If we could pick up as much as the staves of a flour barrel we could sell it for ten or fifteen cents inside of prison, and a little money went a long way. Mackerel sold at five cents per pound, and a pound and a half loaf of bread for ten cents. The cheapest tobacco sold at one dollar per pound, and the men suffered as much for tobacco as for bread. The most of the users of tobacco would swap a piece of bread for a chew of tobacco. Tobacco retailed mostly by the chew. Tobacco was the most common medium of exchange. All of the smaller gambling concerns used pieces of tobacco cut up in chews, the larger cuts passing for five or ten chews. Rev. Morgan, the Confederate agent, conducted a school, which I attended some. Several preachers came in and preached to us, and the Catholic priests visited us occasionally, besides our local preachers held open air exercises frequently. The death of President Lincoln probably delayed our release. After the Confederacy went down we were aliens without government or protection in our native land. The proposition to take the oath of allegiance with full rights of citizenship under the old flag of our fathers seemed as good as we could expect, and we were soon anxious to do so and return home. About the 6th of June they began to discharge us. On the 11th of June the following was posted on the bulletin board: "All men whose homes are in Virginia and North Carolina who wish to return via Richmond, whose names begin with D and E, will be discharged upon taking the oath of allegiance to the United States on to-morrow--12th June." So, before sunrise, I was on the front line of the penitents and on my knees awaiting for the blessing of being transformed from a rebel of the deepest dye into the marvelous light and liberty of a free, full-fledged, loyal American citizen--with all the privileges of a free "Nigger." As one of the colored soldiers had told me a few days before. He said, "De'l turn you out some dese days--den you'll be just as free as we is--and we is just as free as the birds." The stars and stripes were stretched under the overhead ceiling of the school house; thirty-two of us stood under the flag that I had fired a thousand shots at, and, without mental reservation, took the oath and subscribed to the same in the records. I was marked, Occupation, Planter (that sounded bigger than farmer); age, 19; eyes, blue; hair, auburn; complexion, fair; height, 6 feet 3-3/4 inches. I weighed 170 pounds when I went there, and got away with 145 pounds. We missed that day's ration and they gave us six hardtacks and a half pound of cod fish, which I eat at once. We (three hundred of us) arrived at Richmond after dark on the 13th of June. It was raining and we all held together and were instructed to report to the Provost office at capitol. As we marched the streets the ladies would remark, "Oh! look, there is our men; I am so glad to see them. Poor fellows, they are just out of prison." The officer of the guard at the capitol informed us that no provision had been made for us, and advised us to go to the New Market for shelter and to report back at 9 a. m. Here we were furnished transportation--"free cars." This we took to the commissary and got rations. When we got to Richmond I had not eaten anything for more than thirty hours. A store keeper that night gave me two loaves of bread and some small fishes, dried herring, which was divided with my comrades, Virgil Elliott and Felix Dobbins. When Richmond was evacuated the people were destitute and most of them on the verge of starvation. So now the United States Government had nearly all of them to feed, white and black. When we went to get our rations two men drew together. I told my comrade to get our meat and I would get our bread. Avery, a consequential mulatto gentleman, waited on me, and when he weighed up my crackers, I said, "Meat for two men, please," and he throwed it up quick and pushed it to me. So I got a double ration of meat.

We crossed the James River on a pontoon bridge over to Manchester--all the bridges having been burned. Here we found many new freight cars marked U. S. M. R. R. We took up quarters in them to wait until 8 a. m. next day. That night a big rain broke down the road and we had to lay over another day. So I told Felix that I guessed more prisoners came in last night; let us go over and draw rations with them again, and he said all right. And we went over and drew another supply. I had now drawn eighteen pounds of salt pork to do me home. We sold the last draw to an Irish woman who kept a little shop, and we indulged in a quart of molasses. The people of Richmond were as clever and sympathetic with us as during the war. One storekeeper invited us to come in and help ourselves on sweet crackers (ginger snaps). The good lady that cooked our meat in Manchester sent with it a plate of nice, hot biscuits. We left Richmond June 16th, but our train could not cross the Appomattox River. The high water had careened the new trestle bridge. We walked over and on to another station, and a train from Burkville came after us. We stayed at Burkville until dark, and when we were ordered to board some box-cars, I found the door full, and they said not another could get in. I fought my way in and found those in the door all there were in it. So I hunted up my comrades, Elliott and Dobbins, and brought them in, as a thunder storm was coming up. These men who tried to keep us out were hospital rats. They were clean and did not want to mix with us lousy, dirty prisoners. After we got in they let no others in, while many had to ride on top in an all-night rain storm. Thousands of Federal troops occupied Greensboro and Charlotte. They were all quite friendly and congratulated us on the close of the war. I said, "Well, you've freed the Negroes; now what are you going to do with them." They said, "Oh d----n the Niggers. I say kill 'em; they have been the cause of all this trouble." We had to walk home from Charlotte, sixty miles, and got home June 20th, very thankful that I was so fortunate to come back sound and well, while so many of my comrades had fallen by the wayside or were broken and maimed for life.

THE INVASION OF HOME LAND AFTER LEE'S SURRENDER.

Our section was never visited by an hostile army until some regiments of General Stoneman's cavalry passed from Rutherfordton to Lincolnton and back. They marauded the country in quest of horses and provisions. They scattered away from the main road and two came to my father's home. One held the horses and the other came in the house and said he wanted to search the house for arms, and soon went through bureaus, chests, etc. My mother's big, red chest had a double till in it with $10,000 of Confederate bonds and money in the lower till. The chest was full of bed clothes, and he felt under them, but did not find the Confederate money. Finding no valuables, the only thing he took from the house was the flint out of an old squirrel rifle.

A FAITHFUL NEGRO SERVANT.

All our good Negroes were true and faithful in helping to hide horses and other valuable property, but some mean Negroes would tell them where things were hidden, etc. My aunt, Mrs. Cabaniss, lived on the public road, and as Stoneman's men passed down they took a good mare out of the plow and carried it away. She only had two horses--the other was a blind mare. A week later they returned, going back towards Rutherfordton, followed by a drove of Negroes on foot. As they were passing Mrs. Cabaniss' a Negro saw her blind mare in the lot, bridled and rode it away. Her faithful old colored servant, Edmond, saw the Negro riding the blind mare away, ran after them, appealing to the officers that they had taken the last horse and we will all perish. The officer told him to get his mare. He then procured a heavy stick and ran up beside the Negro and knocked him off, the troopers laughing and cheering him. He rode the blind mare back, and saved one horse to plow. Edmond remained faithful and stayed with his old miss as long as she lived, and he retained the confidence and good will of all the white people as long as he lived.

While Stoneman's troopers were raiding our section some of them called on Richard Smith, of Rutherford County, a good farmer and a good liver. He had a lot of nice bacon hams, and, expecting the raiders, he buried his hams in the house yard, fixed it up like a fresh grave and put up a headboard, marked Daniel. The troopers came, ransacked the premises and inquired about that grave in the yard. Smith told them that a faithful old servant had died a few days before, and his last request was to be buried in the yard, and, loving him so well, had complied. This explanation seemed to satisfy them, and they were about to leave, when one became skeptical and said, "Hold on boys, I think I would like to see Daniel before we go;" and, procuring a shovel, set in to raise him. Soon the dirt was cleaned off the box, then a plank was raised. He remarked, "Daniel looks natural; seems like I've seen him before somewhere. Well, boys, I guess we will take Daniel with us. Come out of here, Daniel, your country needs your services," and so they lifted him out.

WOULD NOT LET THEM TAKE ALL THE MEAT THE MAN HAD.

Amos Harrell, a good liver of the same county, tells how he saved his bacon. He hid it all out but three pieces. When the troopers came and raided his smoke-house an officer, looking in, ordered them out, saying, "You shall not take all the man's meat; leave him one piece." He locked the door and put the key in his pocket and carried it away.

CONFEDERATE TROOPERS COMMIT OUTRAGES, PLUNDER AND MURDER.

Joseph Biggerstaff, of Rutherford County, a farmer and country merchant, was visited by six Confederate troopers, who claimed to be Wheeler's men, on their way home. They demanded his money and, searching his house, found about $600 in specie. Four of them in the house put the money on a table to count it, while two men held the horses. Biggerstaff said he would die before they should take his money, but they paid no attention to him, when he attacked them with an axe, killing two and had the third one down when the fourth one at the table shot and killed him. There was present a man by the name of Waters, a neighbor, who had stood by and took no part. One of the robbers then upbraided Waters as a coward who ought to be killed, shot and killed Waters. Gathering up all the money, they left the four dead men where they had fallen, and rode away. This was the climax of the four years' bloody drama for our section. This last tragedy occurred near where a number of Tories were executed at Biggerstaff's old field, who had been taken at the battle of King's Mountain during the Revolutionary War. (See "Draper's History of King's Mountain and its Heroes.")

A HEARTY CONSCRIPT.

John Buncombe Crowder entered the army in 1863 as a 38-year-old conscript, and as a good family man had proved successful; but it was hardly expected that a man of his age should enter enthusiastically into the strenuous life of a soldier in times of great stress. However, John was inclined to hold up his end and made a faithful record. But the long, cold winter of 1865 in the trenches in front of Petersburg tired out his patience and he got powerful hungry. He stood six feet three inches and his fighting weight was 205 pounds. When we surrendered together, on the 25th of March, 1865, in front of Petersburg, Buncombe thought it good policy to make friends with his captors, in the hope of getting more and better rations; so he said, "Yes, I've quit fighting you. I've been wanting to quit for some time, and I shore am glad you've got me, for I am nearly starved to death." Loss Bridges, the little man with the hot-gun, said, "He's lying to you, and at the same time showing a chunk of cornbread." The Yankees said, "All right, Johnnie, you've got where there's plenty now, and you shall have plenty to eat." B.: "Now I believe that I just know you'll treat me right." Y.: "Ah, Johnnie, bet your life we will." B.: "I've always thought you were clever fellows, and now I know it. I never did want to fight you nohow." Y.: "Bully for you, Johnnie; you shall be taken good care of." The men on the firing line who captured him would have done what they said; but prisoners are soon turned over to the bomb-proof brigade--coffee coolers and grafters--the kind of men who would get rich keeping the county poor-house. John Buncombe made a hard effort to get to the flesh pots and coffee cans of Yankeedom, but failed. He went up to Washington with the deserter volunteers, and was sent back to Point Lookout to starve with the rest of us. After he had been in a few days we asked him how he liked the fare, and he replied, "Very well; I don't have anything to do, and it don't take much to do me." A few days more and he got so hungry he could hold his peace no longer and began to abuse the Yankees as the greatest liars and the meanest people in all the world, and he just wished he had held on to his gun and killed a few more of them anyhow. He had offered to go North and work for something to eat, and they would not let him, and were just holding to starve him to death for pure meanness. He said when he was at home it took a good-sized hen to make him a meal, and now we get nothing scarcely but bread, and he could eat four days' rations--two loaves or three pounds at one meal. So he raged and lectured as a champion eater until two men who had a little money got up a fifty-cent bet on him. He was to eat two loaves, or three pounds of bread, in thirty minutes. A crowd gathered and much interest was manifested in the contest, and the eating began. In the excitement he took too much water. In ten minutes the first loaf disappeared and three canteens, or nine pints of water, with it. Then he said he did not have quite enough, but did not feel like he could eat all of the other loaf, so they need not cut it; that his stomach had shrunk up until he could not eat as much as he thought he could. After that he could no longer command a hearing, as his record as a champion eater was all he had to stand on. He is now--1907--living happily with his third wife and has plenty to eat, but says his appetite is not quite as good as it used to be.

SCENES AT APPOMATTOX--STRAGGLERS IN THE UNION ARMY.

Dr. Thomas L. Carson, my mother's youngest brother, who was in the Thirty-fourth North Carolina Regiment, Scale's Brigade, tells the following:

"We had stacked our muskets in surrender in the open beside the road, awaiting our paroles, when a large column of Federal troops passed us in steady, quiet tramp, followed by the rear guard bringing up about 2,000 stragglers. These stragglers wore a conglomeration of every trashy type to be found in the Yankee army. Foreigners of every tongue, mixed with every American type--old gray-headed men, beardless boys, big, greasy Negroes, etc., etc., all with battered and tattered clothing, some bareheaded and barefooted, and many without coats; some only had one pant leg on--all under a strong guard of peart-proud soldiers marching beside them with fixed bayonets. As they came along one big, stout fellow exclaimed, "Oh, yes, Johnnies; we've got you at last." A proud, peart-looking guard said, "Shut your mouth, you cowardly devil, or I'll pop my bayonet in you. You want to crow over these men. If many of our men had been like you, General Lee might now have had his headquarters in Boston instead of this surrender."

Dr. Carson says, as they started home, a young officer from Ohio walked along with him for half a mile and, talking of the situation, said: "It looks very hard to start you men home without rations, but we are on short allowance ourselves, on account of your General Hampton, who cut down and destroyed eleven miles of our supply train a few days ago, or we would have had plenty to feed you on."

Once upon a time when the mulatto, Fred. Douglass, was orating, two Irishmen passing by stopped and listened a few minutes, then started on. One remarked, "He spaiks right well for a Nagur." The other, "Oh, he's no Nagur; he is only a half Nagur." "Oh, well then, if a half Nagur can talk that way, then I guess a whole Nagur could beat the prophit Jeremiah."

Once upon a time when North Carolina's last Afro-American Congressman--George White--was State Solicitor, a young Negro was on trial for some misdemeanor, and a white man was called upon to prove the defendant's character.

Solicitor: "Do you know this man?" Witness: "Yes, sir." "How long have you known him?" "Oh, ever since he was a small boy." "Well, sir; what is his character?" "His character is good; good as any Niggers." "Maybe you don't think a Negro has any character." "Oh, I didn't say that." "Now, sir; I ask you a direct question: Do you believe a Negro has got a character?" "Oh, yes; he has a Nigger's character."

The Solicitor gritted his teeth and told the witness he could retire.

A PATRIOTIC DARKEY.

While working outside on a detail at Point Lookout, a young colored soldier, filled with patriotic enthusiasm, called on us and remarked: "Hadn't been for us colored troops I don't spec dese here Yankees ever would whipped you-uns." "Did the colored troops fight much?" "Well, not 'zactly fitin'; but we do de gard duty so all de white soldiers could fight you, and den it seems like dey had all they could do."

AN AGGRIEVED UNION SOLDIER SEEKS SYMPATHY FROM HIS SOUTHERN PEOPLE.

About the same time and place a young mulatto called on us and began to berate his comrades. He said, "Dese old, black Pennsylvania Niggers ain't got no sense nohow. Dey jest as mean as dey can be." I said, "Ain't you a Pennsylvanian?" "No, sir; I'se a Southerner, I is. I is a Virginian and I'se no kin to dem old, black Pennsylvania Niggers; but I'se some kin to you Southerners." We told him we were sorry he had got into such bad company. He said, "Yes, Southern folks heap the best."

A Southern railroad conductor said, "My Afro-American friend, you are in the wrong car; you must get in with your own color." "Well, Cap'n, if you say so, reckon I'll have to move; but what you goin' to do when we all gits to heaven?" "Well, if I am conductor, you will move. Get along now."

A man traveling to West Virginia, where they have free cars, said as soon as they got out of Virginia, at the first stop, it was amusing to see the darkies vacate their cars and come piling into the white's coaches, thus showing how aggressive they are for social equality.

FIELD OFFICERS OF FIFTY-SIXTH REGIMENT NORTH CAROLINA TROOPS.

The field officers were all young, fine-looking men. Col. Paul F. Faison was tall, dark eyes, of the finest type of soldier, and we understood a West Point cadet. Lieut.-Col. Luke was about thirty years old, stout, medium size, sanguine temperament. Maj. John W. Graham, the son of an illustrious father, who served his State as Governor and United States Senator, William A. Graham. Major Graham, promoted from Captain of Company D, was quite young, stout and hardy, always at his post except when disabled by wounds--full of youth and enthusiasm, he always proved himself the bravest of the brave. He is a prominent lawyer in his native town, Hillsboro. He has served as Secretary of State and as State Senator, and is one of the most prominent members of that body at session 1907. Maj. H. F. Schenck, who preceded Maj. Graham by one year's service, resigned on account of failure of health, and was assigned to service in the commissary department. Major Schenck is an affable gentleman of the highest type of citizen, a most useful and successful business man of his county, Cleveland. He is the promoter and manager of several cotton mills and a branch railroad. His chief partner is a Mr. Reynolds, of Philadelphia, Pa. Colonel Faison served in the Interior Department of the United States as Indian Agent under President Cleveland's last administration. He died while in that service in Oklahoma Territory. Capt. Losson Harrell, M.D., of Company I, from Rutherford County, was Senior Captain and commanded the Fifty-sixth Regiment a part of the time during the siege of Petersburg. He has been for several years a member of the State Board of Health. Both Harrell and Schenck have also served as State legislators, and both are fine types of physical manhood.

All the captains were fine looking men, but we mention especially Captain Mills, of Company G, Henderson County, and Captain Alexander, Company K, Mecklenburg County--young, tall, and bravest of the brave. During the last week in May, 1864, in the breastworks at Bermuda Hundreds, on the morning that we took Gen. B. F. Butler's picket line and our dead and wounded were brought back, Capt. Alexander was standing in the midst of our company talking to our Captain Grigg, one of our young men, Thomas Nowlin, a gallant soldier and a cousin of mine, was seized with an epileptic fit, when Captain Alexander was the first to his assistance, and, kneeling over him, did everything he could for him. If he had been one of his own men or even a brother he could not have shown more sympathetic interest. This greatly impressed me as to the real character of the man, and verified the adage, "the bravest are the tenderest." I was greatly hurt a few weeks later when this noble young officer fell in battle. I think about the 20th of August, on the Weldon railroad. He was of the sanguine temperament of the Scotch-Irish type.

Our Captain, B. F. Grigg, had a wife and baby that he thought more of than of the Confederacy after hope of success was on the wane. He held out faithful to the end, but was so glad when the cruel war was over that he turned Republican and was for many years postmaster at Lincolnton and a successful merchant. He went in early--joined First Regiment of six months' volunteers--and was in first battle at Bethel, Va.; but he got enough by and by, and wanted to quit.

Brigadier-General Matt. W. Ransom, our Brigade Commander, is too well known to the people of this country to require an extended introduction by me, he having served twenty-four years in the United States Senate and four years as Minister to Mexico. All who have known him recognize in him the highest type of the old-time Southern Christian gentleman. As an officer he held the deserved love and highest respect of all his men. He was scholarly, gentle, sympathetic, and a most pleasant and entertaining orator. He would go anywhere in the State to address his old soldiers, always giving them the most patriotic advice. He was an enthusiastic optimist on the great resources and possibilities of our great united country. The last time he addressed the Confederate Veterans of Shelby, N. C., about two years before he died, money was raised and tendered him to pay his expenses, when he said, "No! no! I can not take the boys' money; I don't need it, and if I did I could not take it."