David W. Stafford

“ Then to see the rebel guards without any earthly excuse shoot men clear across the prison merely for pastime to let the southern ladies see how good and correct they shoot, killing poor praying men. These are sad pictures, but they are nevertheless true. And to think of men catching a small dog belonging to Wirz while he with Jeff Davis were inspecting the prison, and skinning and eating it, and to punish them would make them go three days without rations. I have seen men fight for a chance to carry out dead men to get a little fresh air. ”

“ I am not able to describe here what I experienced and my tongue seems too short to tell it, but, dear reader, just imagine yourself in my stead, surrounded by rebels on every side, and in a strange country, and clad with an old woolen shirt nearly in tatters and your drawers with one leg gone to the knee, and you can form some idea of what I had to put up with in this cold storm, and a mere walking skeleton at that. I had an average weekly fare of corn hoecake and bacon, and that not averaging once a week. ”

“ Between this ladder, close to the straw cot, lay my comrade, and just as soon as the rebel commenced to ask the negro what was the matter, and the darkey standing in the middle of the hut with mouth wide open, Henry arose to his feet and spoke to the rebel, bidding him good evening. It took the rebel so much by surprise it seemed as though poor Henry could have snatched one of his weapons from his scabbard and shot him with one of his own guns, but it seemed that the Lord had another way for us to get out of this dilemma. ”

“ It is the incident of our camping on the battle field of Bull Run, on our retreat from Mine Run, near the Rapidan River. Near this run the rebels had very strong fortifications thrown up. Now on the battle field of Bull Run our dead had just been covered—a great many by the enemy—on top of the ground, and so shallow that the bones of thousands of the dead, skulls and all others, lay on top of the ground. Oh, how sad it did seem to wake in the morning to find the country strewn with human bones for miles around, and it is one thing that I can’t forget very soon. ”

“ We all had a good lunch of corn bread and bacon and were ready to start again that night. We had to keep along the range of mountains, for we did not dare to follow the line of railroad for a while, for fear of the enemy. At this time we were about one hundred and twenty miles from Knoxville, Tennessee.
84 After starting again on our journey there was a woman pilot sent by Lieutenant Housley to help us along these mountain ranges, and, oh, such rugged, rocky cliffs that we had to climb, and such tired and aching limbs that we had during such nights of toiling up those mountains! ”

“ Now think of poor suffering humanity living on less than one pint of field peas for a day’s rations for nearly thirteen months! Such was the suffering of many in this prison, and how often I have thought how little one man’s experience was, considering the vast suffering in this place. ”

“ I had my mind made up to get his gun out of his left hand as he seemed to be trailing it along and to brain him and get away and leave his carcass on the Chestnut Ridge to feed the fowls, or to be found by some other home guards. Now, as I was contemplating this and still pleading for him to let me go, having already attempted to reach his gun, I spoke of my poor old mother, who was waiting at her sad fireside, after losing one of her boys in the Battle of the Wilderness, and whose bones were lying in the Alexandria cemetery, and who died before he was sixteen years old. ”

“ Now we lay here in this quagmire marsh until night set in and then we started again, never intending to travel after night unless compelled to do so. The way that we intended to travel lay in a northwesterly direction, and oh, such suspense and fear as a man will have in traveling in the cold part of the year in the enemy’s country, surrounded on every side by a gaping mob and howling hounds, and many a time while we were traveling near any road have we come upon a large company of rebels, almost on us before we would know it. ”

“ We would conceal ourselves until everybody had gone and then we would take possession and have everything to ourselves, and have everything to eat that we could think of. Being starved as we had been seemed to weaken our minds. Well, dear reader, if you could have seen the plight we were in and some of the nests of leaves that we gathered up for many a night to cuddle up in to snatch a few hours’ rest and to inspect the tattered drawers and shirt that covered our starved skeletons, your sympathy would have been aroused. ”

“ So they had me take off my old drawers and shirt and placed on me some old twilled pants and a shirt, and I was set to work building a fire to clean and scald the old clothes that I had taken off. I say clothes—nothing but a part of a pair of drawers and a shirt that had seen more than six months’ service. Then talk of pleasure in a soldier’s life!
When I had just fairly got the water and the fire agoing there came up the main road, just a few rods away, the sound of many horsemen and the clatter of hoofs and a motion from the house for me to flee in the direction of the mountains. ”

“ It would be almost impossible for a stranger to find this cave. After passing into this cave it was very beautiful, for far up through the crevices of the rocks came the light of the sun. This cave was over one hundred feet in length, and it seemed to be of different widths, varying from thirty to forty feet. On either side were rude couches where our poor boys caught their short naps, and in the middle, on the rock bottom, there was a warm fire, which was perfectly concealed from observation below, and the smoke went a long ways up among the mountain’s high cliffs. ”

“ I had began to get quite jealous of my dear friend Henry, for I had been stopping to enquire the way and he had not stopped, running the chances of being shot at, and I began to find fault, as every jealous person will, with my very best friend and comrade that I believe I ever met in this wide world. ”

“ As I was saying, I had stopped at an old plantation to look around. Soon I saw a man about half a mile away toward the mountains, gathering corn from the field, with an old gray horse. I made myself known to him, for by this time I was getting very weak, not having had anything to eat since Henry and I had been separated at the negro shanty. If I remember right, there had been at least a week, if not better, since I had tasted food. When I got to the old man I gave him to understand that I was a fugitive and was on my way to Ash county, West Virginia. ”

“ The Irishman wanted apple jack, and it seemed that to get a hold of this apple brandy was the most he desired. So he and the Frenchman went to the road, and, calling to the darkies, told them what their desire was, and from the chuckling of the darkies we came to the conclusion from what we heard that it would not be long before they would get something that they were not looking for, for at the time of the break at the Florence prison the country was aroused and armed, and they told the negroes that the Yankee man was so powerful that he would eat up a black man. ”

“ The pleading on the part of his wife and daughter was pitiful and heart-rending, but in spite of their tears and pleadings we started in the direction of the mountain. We securely tied the old man’s hands behind him with a rope, and then tied another some ten feet long to that,81 and they had the Andersonville prisoner, as they chose to call me, lead the old man. He swore a good deal and was very surly about being led, but he had to go just the same. When we came to a piece of woods the scouts came to a halt and run the old man under a large low-limbed tree. ”

“ After this we went to a large plantation and here we found the folks had left with the rebel army, leaving the plantation in charge of an old darkey and his wench. These two old colored people the boys compelled to bake biscuit and hoecake for nearly three hours. We found a large bee hive full of honey in the loft of the smoke house, and nearly one hundred weight of butter, and here around the old planter’s table we sat and ate until we all felt very much satisfied. Then we all retired for the night, lying down in whatever beds we could find to occupy. ”

“ These women had husbands in our army at Knoxville, Tennessee, and I think these Union women would have died before they would have revealed my whereabouts. Soon these men came to the barn, looked all through it, and it seemed as though they would dig in the corner where I was and find me, but they went away without finding me, and again tried to find out for certain from these women whether they had seen me, for they had tracked me through the timber to the clearing, but when they came to the clearing the snow was gone. ”

“ After the death of my brother I had no desire to stay longer near Washington or Alexandria, but I wanted to go to the front and get into the battles for my country, and if need be die for it. I did indeed feel sad at heart at this time. Soon there came an order for the men who were able to bear arms to turn out, for part of Longstreet’s corps had come to Washington while Gen. Grant was at Richmond, to see if the rebels could not take Washington. While our army was trying to take Richmond the enemy came up on the Baltimore Pike and got almost into Washington. ”

“ When we were taken prisoners we were captured by Colonel Masfies’ guerrillas, and it was known that these men did not spare many prisoners’ lives. Now, as I was saying, we were lying in the hot southern sun, wondering why they did not take us inside. Captain Wirz came along and with much cursing told us that we would get in there soon enough. We soon found out that in this he was telling the truth, if he never had before, for I say he was a very bad man. It was well known that he was the cause of thousands starving to death at Andersonville through his orders. ”

“ I now realize that this life is closing very rapidly.
While we were confined in this prison our fare was about twelve ounces of corn bread for a day’s ration and about four ounces of bacon. We were kept here about three weeks and then sent to Andersonville prison. Now when we arrived here we were soon visited by Captain Wirz, the commander of this prison. We were left in the hot Georgia sun for some time before we were taken inside. This Captain Wirz was a very cruel man, for he would take the life of a helpless prisoner upon the slightest provocation. ”

“ At last I had gotten to where it was not so steep, yet it was still quite a distance from the top of the Blue Ridge mountains. After I had traveled some distance further I finally found it to be quite difficult to make much headway on a strange mountain, and that after night, and if, dear reader, you have ever been on any mountain you will find it more or less uneven and hard to climb, even in the daytime. ”

“ Here there was a son about thirty years old, seated in a chair, who was a sad sight, for he appeared to be perfectly helpless and he would repeat just like some parrot the same words, “Yes, we are rebels here,” and how simple he seemed to act. Now the old man told the old lady to give me some hoecake if there was any and he at this time showed his true colors, for he told me that there was a company being raised and I had better wait and eat some hoecake until he would return, and I would get a good suit of rebel gray, worth thirty or forty dollars a suit, and fifty dollars bounty. ”

“ Soon the wife of Lieutenant Housley’s father-in-law slipped by those two rebels and went over a mile and a half to the cave where the Union boys were staying, and very soon there came dashing down from the mountain cave the brave Lieutenant Housley and the husband of this brave and heroic woman. She had to climb over one hundred and fifty feet, where the edges of rocks were not more than three feet in width, and on a very dark night at that. ”

“ The train moved very slowly over all of this new road, and while passing along through this country the rebels would stop the train once in a while, to our great relief, and open the car doors to let the people see the Yankees, who were quite a sight for those Southern people. They would stand and gaze at us with great curiosity, and I have no doubt it was a great sight for them, for there were men in all conceivable shapes, without a rag to cover their backs. ”

“ John, the kind old Quaker told us, was engaged in piloting Union men, as well as rebels, through our lines. The first night, not getting started as early as we ought, we only got about eight or ten miles on our way when we stopped and concealed ourselves. We had been living rather sumptuously and sleeping nights instead of laying still by day and traveling by night. We laid by this night. Henry and I lay concealed the best part of the next day, planning what we intended to do when we arrived home. We talked of either going to his parents’ place or to my folks’ home. ”