Sumner U. Shearman

“ Of course, each man had to wash his own clothes.
Every now and then it came my turn to wash the floor, and clean up the room as best I could. Retiring at night, consisted in sweeping the floor. We went to bed, of course, upon the floor, wearing the clothes that we had worn during the day. I was fortunate enough to procure a log of wood out in the jail-yard, which I utilized as a pillow, folding up my coat and placing it on top of the wood to make my pillow more comfortable. ”

“ We were taken to an island in the river Appomattox, the officers at last being separated from the colored men. About eight o'clock Sunday evening eight hard crackers and a small piece of uncooked bacon were given to each of us. I had had no food except the apple that I spoke of, since the Friday night previous in camp; I went from Friday night to Sunday night without anything to eat. I ate part of the crackers and the bacon, thinking that I would make them go as far as possible, not knowing when I might receive any more. ”

“ The idea they had in view, I suppose, was to humiliate the officers. We passed one house, in the doorway of which stood a white woman, with a colored woman on either side of her, and as we passed I heard her say, "That is the way to treat the Yankees; mix them up with the niggers, they are so fond of them, mix them up." ”

“ The train of cars soon started on its way to Charleston, S. C. A large number of prisoners were gathered at various points, coming from Andersonville and Florence. We reached Charleston early the next morning, and were marched across the city to the wharves.
Charleston was completely abandoned by its inhabitants because of the siege on the part of our forces, and it was the most desolate looking place I have ever seen in all my life. The damages inflicted by shot and shell were to be seen on every hand. ”

“ He appointed a lieutenant as adjutant, who kept a roster and detailed two men every day in each of the rooms to do police duty. Their duty was to sweep the floor, and to scrub it when necessity required. No broom was supplied us. We therefore had to purchase one. The men in the room in which I was, clubbed together and bought a broom, of very inferior quality, for which we paid five dollars in Confederate money. There was a tub belonging to the room, very roughly made, in which we brought up water from the yard below whenever we found it necessary to wash the floor. ”

“ We were ordered to encamp in some woods in the rear of our line of rifle-pits, and not far from them.
Shots from the enemy were continually coming into our camp, being fired at the men in the breastworks in front. We had to erect a barricade in the camp to protect ourselves, behind which we lived. Men of course strayed more or less away from the [7] barricade, and every now and then some one would be wounded. Every three or four days it became our turn to take our places in the rifle-pits, where we had to stay forty-eight hours, and sometimes longer. ”

“ Whenever we were allowed outside, we could have made a rush, and thus gotten away from them. Some of us, of course, would probably have been killed or wounded, but a majority could have escaped from the [29] prison itself. The difficulty was to get to our own lines, the nearest place being the seacoast at Charleston, S. C. This long distance had to be traversed, travelling by night and hiding by day. The Confederates were accustomed to hunt prisoners with bloodhounds, so the chances of ultimate escape were very small. ”

“ On Monday morning they put us aboard box freight-cars. There were no seats in the cars, and we were packed in like so many cattle, and started on our journey to Danville, Virginia. Arriving there, we were imprisoned in a tobacco warehouse, where we remained [19] two or three days. This warehouse the Confederate government had improvised as a place in which to incarcerate prisoners of war, and a very large number of men were confined here. ”

“ The attempt to capture Cemetery Hill had proved a failure. Many of the men and officers tried to get back to our own line, but the enemy by that time had a raking fire over the space between their line and our own, and it was almost sure death for any person to undertake to cross it. ”

“ His troops had fallen into confusion in the way I have explained, and he was not there to remedy the situation. It seemed impossible for the officers to accomplish anything in the midst of the reigning confusion.
The Fourth Rhode Island, the few of us that were together at that time, followed the colonel and the [13] color bearer out beyond the enemy's works towards Cemetery Hill, but we encountered such a hurricane of shot and shell that it was impossible to face it, and we were driven back again into the shelter of the enemy's works, where we remained. ”

“ This showed to us, as we thought, that nearly all their available men were at the front. The guard was frequently changed; that is to say, the men who served for a few days would disappear and an entirely new set take their places. They wore no uniform, and we therefore concluded that they were rustics and others in the neighborhood, temporarily serving as guards over the prisoners.
One day while I was waiting for the officer to let us return into the prison, we having been allowed out in the yard, I was walking back and forth in the lower [28] hall. ”

“ The men instinctively sought shelter in the excavation made by the explosion, but when we arrived at that point we found the crater filled with troops of General Ledlie's division. There seemed to be complete chaos reigning there. The lieutenant-colonel of our regiment, who was in command, Colonel Buffum, tried to rally the men, as did officers of other regiments, and to push on to Cemetery Hill ”

“ I purchased new clothing, and then joyfully started for home. I had served nearly three years, and my regiment had been mustered out of service during the period of my imprisonment, its time having expired. Some of its members had re-enlisted, and were consolidated with the Seventh Rhode Island ”

“ Very few of those who did, escaped being killed or wounded. The space between was so covered with the dead and the wounded that it was possible for a person to go from one line to the other without stepping on the earth. I have learned since that an order was issued for the troops in the crater to return to our own lines, but I myself did not hear of such an order, neither did Lieutenant-Colonel Buffum. We remained in the crater. ”

“ The ration supplied us consisted of cornmeal, rice, and sorghum. The rations were issued to last ten days. They amounted to about a pint of meal a day, a tenth of a pint of rice, and a gill of sorghum. The cornmeal was sometimes good, sometimes it was wormy, sometimes it consisted of the corn and the cob ground up together. ”