I had set myself to
reading Maury's "Physical Geography of the Sea," after a long
deferring; but now that he has come out as a rank rebel against his country, I
cannot feel any interest in his theories, ingenious as they are said to be.
Like poor, wise, fallen Bacon, his ideas may prove something to the world,
"after some years have passed over," but one is not fond of being
taught by traitors.
SOURCE: Daniel
Dulany Addison, “Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary,” p. 91
Still the same old
weariness of study; "weariness of the flesh." Books are treasures,
but one may work among treasures even, digging and delving, till there is
little enjoyment in them. And the greater pain is, that, by becoming numb to
the beautiful and true, in any form, one does not feel its power entirely,
anywhere. So I felt this morning, which I stole from my books. I sat on a ledge
in a distant field, all around me beautiful with June, and no sight or sound of
human care in sight. I sat there like a prisoner, whose chains had dropped for
the moment, but the weight and pain of them lingered still. Yet I began to feel
what it is to be free, and how sweet and soothing nature always is, before I
rose to return. I think it would not take me long to get accustomed to freedom,
and to rejoice in it with exceeding joy.
SOURCE: Daniel
Dulany Addison, “Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary,” pp. 94-5
Left Richmond
yesterday about 6:30 o'clock a. m. Found a number of the Texas Brigade and a
few of my regiment on the cars and soon became acquainted with them. The trip
was monotonous, as usual, until we reached Gordonsville, where the crowd was so
great that twenty of us had to stand on the platform. General J. E. B. Stuart
was aboard and appeared to be very fond of ladies and flowers. He is of medium
size, well formed, fair complexion, blue eyes, whiskers and mustache of
sun-burnt reddish color, usually accompanying fair skin. I had quite a pleasant
time on the platform watching the attempts of the proscribed to get a seat in
the cars and their repulse by the provost guard. The cars were for the
accommodation of ladies and commissioned officers. I never knew soldiers of any
grade to be put in the same category with women before. I happened, however, to
meet Tom Lipscomb, my old college classmate, who is now a major, who managed to
get me in under his wing. We had a long talk about Columbia and old college
days. He informed me that Lamar Stark, my wife's brother, was a prisoner
confined in the old capitol in Washington city. We reached Mitchell's Station
at 4 o'clock p. m.; walked five miles, a hot walk, to camp on the Rapidan,
near Raccoon Ford. My regiment, the Fourth Texas, has a delightful camping
place in a grove of large chestnut trees, on a hillside. We have no tents and
the ground is hard and rocky, but we are all satisfied, and one day's
observation has led me to believe that no army on earth can whip these men.
They may be cut to pieces and killed, but routed and whipped, never! I called
on Colonel B. F. Carter this morning and had quite a pleasant interview. He is
a calm, determined man, and one of the finest officers in the division. To-day
was the regular time for inspection and review. One barefooted and ragged hero
came to Colonel Carter's Tent with the inquiry, "Colonel, do you want the
barefooted men to turn out today?" to which the Colonel replied
negatively, with a smile. I went out to the review which took place in an open
field about 600 yards from camp. There were some ladies on horseback on the
field. Their presence was cheering and grateful. They were all dressed in
black, as were more than two-thirds
of the women in the Confederacy. On returning to camp I called on Major Bass,
of the First Texas, and gave him $25.00, which I had received for him from
Lieutenant Ochiltree, at Shreveport, Louisiana, to be handed to Bass if I did
not need it.
I received two
haversacks to-day, miserably weak and slazy, made of thin cotton cloth. I have
only taken a change of underwear, towel, soap and Bible and Milton's Paradise
Lost. I have sent all the rest to Richmond with my carpet sack, to be left
at Mrs. Mary E. Fisher's, on Franklin street, half way between Sixth and
Seventh.
I wrote a letter to
mother and one to wife to-day and read the 104th Psalm. I opened to it by chance,
and it contained just what I felt.
SOURCE: John Camden
West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a
Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, pp. 52-4
. . . Looking
further into Darwin’s Origin of Species this evening. Though people who don’t
like its conclusions generally speak of it as profound and as a formidable
attack on received notions, I timidly incline to think it a shallow book,
though laboriously and honestly written.
Darwin cannot
understand why Omnipotent Power and Wisdom should have created so many thousand
various types of organic life, allied to each other by various complex
relations and differing in points of detail for which we can assign no reason.
He wants to shew that the original creative act was on the smallest scale and
produced only some one organism of the humblest rank but capable of development
into the fauna and flora of the earth, from moss to oak and from monad to man,
under his law of progress and natural selection. To him, as to the physicists
of the last one hundred years, the notion of a supernatural creative power is
repugnant and offen¬ sive. He wants to account for the wonderful, magnificent
harmonies and relations of the varied species of life that exist on earth by
reducing the original agency of supernatural power in their creation to a
minimum. This feeling sticks out at page 483, where he asks triumphantly. Do
people “really believe that . . . certain elemental atoms have been commanded
suddenly to flash into living tissues?” (That passage is the keynote of the
whole book.)
I must say I find it
just as easy to answer that question in the affirmative as to admit that
certain elemental atoms of lime, silex, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and so forth
are daily and hourly “commanded to flash into” organic wood fibre, cellulose,
parenchyma, and so on. The latter miracle is being performed on the largest
scale this minute wherever vegetation is in progress; the former seems to occur
only at long intervals. I can see no other distinction between them. One is
familiar to our senses, the other is proved by deduction. They are a priori
equally credible, or incredible, whichever Mr. Darwin pleases. The inorganic
world has its own internal harmonies and relations quite as distinct and
unmistakeable as the organic. But no law of progressive development can be
inferred from them. Mr. Darwin would not venture to maintain that iodine and
bromine are developments of chlorine or vice versa, that some one little dirty,
obscure or obsolete element was parent and progenitor of osmium, iridium,
ruthenium, and all the rest of the platinum group. Very possible that these
so-called elements may be hereafter decomposed and proved to be composite, but
we have no right to assume that they will be, and until analysis reduces the
inorganic world to a series of compounds of only two primal entities, it will
testify against Darwin’s theory.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins
and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong,
Vol. 3, pp. 13-4
What does cause depression of spirits? Heavy head and heavy heart, and no sufficient reason for either, that I know of. I am out of doors every day, and have nothing unusual to trouble me; yet every interval of thought is clouded; there is no rebound, no rejoicing as it is my nature to rejoice, and as all things teach me to do. We are strange phenomena to ourselves, when we will stop to gaze at ourselves; but that I do not believe in; there are pleasanter subjects, and self is a mere speck on the great horizon of life.
A new volume of poems by T. B. Aldrich, just read, impresses me especially with its daintiness and studied beauty. There are true flashes of poetry, but most carefully trimmed and subdued, so as to shine artistically. I believe the best poetry of our times is growing too artistic; the study is too visible. If freedom and naturalness are lost out of poetry, everything worth having is lost.
SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, “Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary,” pp. 84-5
Baker and I were out prospecting; caught one muskrat; set two traps. I sent a letter and $2 for some books at St. Paul.
SOURCE: Lewis C. Paxson, Diary of Lewis C. Paxson: Stockton, N.J., 1862-1865, p. 9
Christmas, 1860. Two
or three books I have read lately. Mrs. Jameson's "Legends of the
Madonna" is full of that fine appreciation of the deepest beauty, even in
the imperfect creations of art, where the creation had in it the breath of
spirit life, so peculiar to this gifted woman.
If I were going to
travel in Europe, I should want, next to a large historical knowledge, an
intimate acquaintance with the writings of Mrs. Jameson, to appreciate the
treasures of medieval art.
Whittier's
"Home Ballads," dear for friendship's sake, though not directly a
gift from him, as were some of the former volumes. I wonder if that is what
makes me like the songs in the "Panorama," some of them better than
anything in this new volume, although I know that this is more perfect as
poetry. I doubt if he will ever write anything that I shall like so well as the
"Summer by the Lakeside," in that volume: it is so full of my first
acquaintance with the mountains, and the ripening of my acquaintance with him,
my poet-friend. How many blessings that friendship has brought me! among them,
a glimpse into a true home, a realizing of such brotherly and sisterly love as
is seldom seen outside of books, and best of all, the friendship of dear
Lizzie, his sole home-flower, the meek lily blossom that cheers and beautifies
his life. Heaven spare them long to each other, and their friendship to me!
But the
"Ballads are full of beauty and of a strong and steady trust, which grows
more firmly into his character and poetry, as the years pass over him. "My
Psalm," with its reality, its earnest depth of feeling, makes other like
poems, Longfellow's "Psalm of Life," for instance, seem weak and
affected. I like, too, the keenness and kindness of the Whitefield poem, in
which he has preserved the memory of a Sabbath evening walk I took with him.
Dr. Croswell's poems
contain many possibilities of poetry, and some realities; but there always
seems to me a close air, as if the church windows were shut, in reading
anything written by a devout Episcopalian. Still, there was true Christianity
in the man, and it is also in the book.
SOURCE: Daniel
Dulany Addison, “Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary,” p. 79-81
I rested well last night but had the most hideous dreams all night; Mrs. Brownnigg came in early this morning and asked me into her room; I went and found the fire very comfortable; the doctor came to see me and seems to think I am all right now, but must be careful about my diet; says some good brandy is exactly what I need to recruit on; so I missed it by leaving mine at home. Major Holman called to see me this morning; says he will see my transportation fixed all right; offers relief from the loss of my pocketbook; the doctor does likewise; Mrs. Brownnigg offers me money also. I ate nice toast and drank genuine coffee for breakfast; had chicken soup for dinner; spent most of the day in reading one of Bulwer's novels, entitled, "A Strange Story"; have read fifty or sixty pages, but am not much interested yet. My intention now is to leave here so as to remain at Alexandria the shortest time possible. I learn to-day that Mr. A, my hotel landlord, is tired of soldiers, especially sick ones, and grumbles terribly when one gets out of money at his hotel. If this is true, he is not a true man. I would rather be under obligations to the devil.
Little Bettie Brownnigg is quite a nice girl. Hallie Bacon, several years younger, is in a fair way to be spoiled. There is a young lady, Miss Nora Gregg, staying with Mrs. Brownnigg; she seems to be a clever good girl and is finishing my sock, which wife expected Miss Nannie Norton, of Richmond, Va., to knit for me; she has knit thirty pairs of socks in the last two months; she has a most magnificent suit of soft brown hair.
SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, p. 19-20
Got up this morning feeling pretty well and concluded to
leave to-morrow; went up town and mailed a letter to my wife; saw Dr. Johnson
and got a certificate from him accounting for my delay, and a mixture of chalk
and laudanum to take on the road; had a long talk with the doctor and Rev. Mr.
Wilson about the Downs and Sparks, citizens of Waco; the doctor refused to
charge me anything. I borrowed seventy-five dollars from Major Holman and gave
him my note. Have been reading Bulwer's “Strange
Story" a good deal to-day. Mrs. Weir came in this evening and talked
very kindly to me; wants me to stay longer, but I must go; every man ought to
go. Witnessed a cock fight in the streets a few minutes ago and rather enjoyed
it; wonder how my chickens come on at home, and what my dear wife and dear
little Stark and Mary are doing now. Mrs. Bacon has just brought me a
pocketbook, and she and Mrs. Brownnigg and Mrs. Weir have offered me money.
Miss Gregg has brought me a toddy and I must drink it. Oh! these women!
"The world was sad, the garden
was a wild,
And man, the hermit, sighed till woman smiled."
SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, p. 22-3
Got up early this morning and read Bulwer's "Strange Story" until called to breakfast; after breakfast went to the cars and started to Shreveport; the track is laid for sixteen miles to Jonesville; we traveled over this at very good speed, jolting and swinging a good deal; at Jonesville we took a stage and dragged along for five miles very slowly, but after changing horses got on very well to Mrs. Eppe's, where we had the only nice meal I have found at any place on the road; reached Shreveport about 3:30 p. m.; stopped at the Veranda; went to the quartermaster and got transportation to Alexandria; went down to see the gunboat, Missouri, now being built. I do not understand technicalities well enough to describe her; she is about 120 feet long and the most solid, massive piece of work I ever saw, covered with railroad iron. I started out with Lieutenant Ochiltree to find a private boarding house; found one; don't know the name of the proprietress; charges two dollars per day; sent our baggage around; took a seat in front of quartermaster's office to look at the ladies passing, and other interesting sights; saw some really pretty ones and felt better for it; started home to supper and stopped to take a drink, saw a fight between a red-headed member of the Fourth Texas, from Navarro county, and a citizen of Shreveport; Fourth Texas was worsted and was carried off to the guard house; I went on to supper; after supper discovered a Baptist church on opposite side of the street lighted up; went over and found the minister and two men and four women holding prayer meeting; staid until the meeting closed and concluded that the Shreveport church was in a luke-warm condition; after church I stood in the street and heard a hopeful widow sing some very pretty songs; went back to my boarding house.
SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, p. 23-4
After the stage arrived on yesterday evening, I learned that it had come from only about fifty miles below and is not going to Alexandria any more, but is only going forty miles in that direction in order to bring up the stock, etc., on the line. The rumor is that the Federals are in possession of Alexandria; all the troops are retreating in this direction.
I have spent a very disagreeable day; it has been raining all day and kept me confined to the house; I am in a quandary; don't know what to do or where to go; am staying at a Frenchman's house at two dollars and a half per day; have no friend or acquaintance to consult and am utterly at a loss whether to go back to Shreveport or to make an effort to go forward; am afraid to try the latter plan for fear of getting out of money too far from home; think I shall start back to-morrow night.
Read Lycidas' "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" to-day, and a few chapters in "Old Mortality;" one of the longest and most disagreeable days I ever spent in my life; O, for peace and a quiet day with my dear wife and little darlings.
SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, p. 26-7
Have spent another long and weary day and suffered all that is incident to a position of suspense and uncertainty; cannot tell what may await me yet, but thus far in the last three days have spent the most disagreeable period of my life. Read "Old Mortality" awhile this morning; walked up town; saw a good many drunken officers and a great deal of drinking; saw a game of billiards on a table without pockets; sixty points instead of one hundred make a game; came to my boarding house and read "Old Mortality" and tried to take a nap, but was too nervous to sleep. The stage from Mansfield has just arrived; I trust it will take a regular trip back and start early; anything to get out of this dead, still state of uncertainty; I would rather go into battle to-morrow than to remain in this position; it gives me too much time to think of home; there is no happiness in this. My French landlady mended my suspenders and made me a cup of coffee this afternoon; she seems to be a kind-hearted creature. We have just had a shower of rain and there is a most beautiful rainbow in the east.
SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, p. 27-8
MY DEAR SIR, — . . . After a week of factious opposition, we have at last, this morning, passed a vote, by a large majority, to do the handsome thing to Kossuth. The South and the "Old Hunkers" have been in a tight place." How could they vote to honor one fugitive from slavery, and chain and send back another? If an Austrian "commissioner" should issue his warrant for Kossuth, and he should kill the marshal, would he, like the Christiana rioters, be guilty of treason?
You see my book* has been prosecuted, in the name of the publishers, for libel. If the greater the truth, the greater the libel, the book must plead guilty. Regards to you all.
* "Of Antislavery Documents and Speeches," which is to be republished with some additional matter.
SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 345
Scalding heat during
forenoon; heavy showers follow. Water is running through camp like a flood.
Prisoners reported missing, rations suspended; Rebels are making a stir on the
outside.
Finished
"Paradise Lost"; called on Harriman. He supplied us with Pollock's
"ourse of Time." We had read this, but it is now more acceptable. In
our view it is a work of more natural thought and imbibes less of the
unnatural. Milton has soulstirring passages, alive with truth, significant
expression and beautiful simplicity. Then he goes deeply into themes beyond
most conceptions; we don't wish to not, unless this is "Paradise
Lost." Confederacy when he said:
follow him, or
cannot, have Did he mean the Southern
"Devils with devils damned firm concord
hold."
Did he mean the North when he wrote:
"Men only disagree of creatures
rational,
Though under hope of heavenly grace"
how they should save the Union?
The following lines express a truth in human experience:
"God proclaiming peace,
Yet men live in hatred, enmity and strife
Among themselves, and levy cruel wars
Wasting the earth, each other to destroy,
As if man had not hellish foes enough
besides,
That day and night for his destruction
wait."
Milton seems to have
designed to impress the thought that man had hellish foes distinct from his
race, awaiting his destruction, which originated through rebellious war in
heaven. I think the causes of our troubles lie in our lack of knowledge and
misconception of our social relations, wicked ambition, foolish pride, and that
these lines better fit an earthly than a heavenly realm.
The usual monotony
except an unusual amount of firing by sentry. Prisoners arrive daily from both
our great armies. Men crowd near them to get news and hardtack; occasionally
old friends meet. About half the camp draw raw meal; we are of that half this
week; have the trouble of cooking it without salt or seasoning or wood, half
the time. We stir it in water, bake it on plates held over a splinter fire with
a stiff stick, or boil it into mush or dumplings, baking or boiling as long as
fuel lasts.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 70-1
With Ellie to the Artists’ “Reception” in Dodworth’s Rooms; a vast crowd. Discovered Mrs. D. C. Murray and Mrs. John Weeks, General Dix, Wenzler, Stone, Rossiter, Mrs. Field (commonly distinguished as “the murderess,” being mixed up a little with the Due de Praslin affair),1 the Rev. Mr. Frothingham, Lewis Rutherfurd, and others. Many bad pictures on the walls, and some few good ones. Eastman Johnson and Charles Dix are making progress. Wenzler has a lovely portrait of one of Dr. Potts’s daughters. Stone’s portrait of my two little men was there, and people praised it—to me.
Monday the second was kept for New Year’s Day. It was a fine specimen of crisp frosty weather, with a serene sky and a cutting wind from the northwest. I set forth at eleven o’clock in my own particular hack, en grand seigneur, and effected more than twenty calls, beginning with Mrs. Samuel Whitlock in 37th Street. My lowest south latitude was Dr. Berrian’s and the Lydigs’. There were no incidents. Bishop Potter’s drawing-room was perhaps the dullest place I visited. The Bishop is always kindly and cordial, but nature has given him no organ for the secretion of the small talk appropriate to a five minutes’ call. He feels the deficiency and is nervous and uncomfortable. Very nice at Mrs. George F. Jones’s, and at Mrs. William Schermerhorn’s. At Mrs. Peter A. Schermerhorn’s, in University Place, I discovered the mamma and Miss Ellen, both very gracious. At Mrs. William Astor’s, Miss Ward (the granddaughter of the house; Sam Ward’s daughter by his first wife) talked of her friend Miss Annie Leavenworth. . . . Mrs. Edgar was charming in her little bit of a house, the “Petit Trianon.” Poor Mrs. Douglas Cruger seems growing old, is less vivacious and less garrulous. At Mrs. Serena Fearing’s I was honored with a revelation of the baby that was produced last summer.
Pleasant visit to Mrs. Christine Griffin, nee Kean—where little Miss Mary was looking her loveliest. That little creature will make havoc in society a year or two hence, when she "comes out.” She is very beautiful and seems full of life and intelligence. Mrs. Isaac Wright in Waverley Place, with her brood of four noble children rampaging about her, was good to see. . . .
Home at six, tired after a pleasant day’s work. We had a comfortable session at dinner with Dr. Peters and Mrs. Georgey Peters, Miss Annie Leavenworth, Miss Josephine Strong, Walter Cutting, Richard Hunt, Murray Hoffman, George C. Anthon, Jem Ruggles, and Jack Ehninger. Dinner was successful.
_______________
* Henry M. Field, brother of Cyrus W. and David Dudley Field, had married (May, I85i) Laure Desportes, who was innocently involved in the famous Choiseul-Praslin murder case in France. Rachel Field has told the story in All This and Heaven Too (1938).
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 2-3
2 The Rev. George B. Cheever, author of God Against Slavery (1857); George William Curtis, now attacking slavery in his speeches and writings.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 3-4
Received twenty-four
boxes, saddles, bridles, halters, etc. Sent to Camp. Got a detail and put them
all in a house and locked them up. We took charge of the Clerk's Office to
sleep in, tied our horses in Court Yard and got our forage from the farmers
around. Secured boarding at Maj. Holden's, a clever gentleman and nice family;
has one grown daughter, Miss Emma, a nice young lady. Remained here Wednesday,
18th-Monday, 23rd. During this time had nothing to do but write letters, visit
MY GIRL THAT PAWS IVORY, and make acquaintances. Among them Miss Lou Hill I
prize highest. We had prayer meeting and church. I purchased four books and
left them with Miss Emma: Mormon's at Home, Pilgrim's Progress, Bayard Taylor's
Travels and Bible Union Dictionary.
SOURCE: Ephraim
Shelby Dodd, Diary of Ephraim Shelby Dodd: Member of Company D Terry's
Texas Rangers, p. 8
COLUMBUS, OHIO, November 10, 1869.
DEAR NORDHOFF: You are not the only "wretch" (I have adopted that good word from you) who harrows up the feelings of my wife by sending the Harper's picture of me. It has driven me into the photograph business and I am now jawing back in this way.
I want to send Walter "The President's Words" the book of Lincoln's wisdom, I named to you. How—by express or mail, and direction?
I have not seen Aunty Davis since your article on the Bible question. I fear she will think you have gone back on her hopes of you. I take the Bible side, largely because this war on the Good Book is in disguise a war on all free schools.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 70-1
Our Third and Fourth
Detachments are camped for the winter at Land's End, under the command of
Lieutenant John M. West, and supported by the Fourteenth Virginia Infantry,
Colonel Hodges commanding. The third gun is stationed immediately on the James
River where the Warwick empties into it, and the fourth gun one-and-a-half
miles up the Warwick River, supported by Company "K," Fourteenth
Virginia Infantry, Captain Claiborne, of Halifax county, Va., commanding. We
have comfortable log cabins, built by our own men, with glass windows, plank
floors, kitchen attached, etc., and our cuisine bears favorable comparison with
home fare. Time does not hang very heavily on my hands, for I am now drilling a
company of infantry from Halifax county, Captain Edward Young's, in artillery
tactics, previous to their making a change into that branch of the service.
Then we get up an occasional game of ball, or chess, or an old hare hunt, or
send reformed Bob to the York River after oysters, we preferring the flavor of
York River oysters to those of Warwick River.
Fortunately we have
managed to scrape up quite a goodly number of books, and being in close
communication with Richmond, we hear from our friends daily.
Soon the spring
campaign will open, and then farewell to the quiet pleasures of "Rebel
Hall," farewell to the old messmates, for many changes will take place
upon the reorganization of our army during the spring. No more winters during
the war will be spent as comfortably and carelessly as this[.] Soon it will be
a struggle for life, and God only knows how it will all end.
My health has but
little improved, but I had rather die in the army than live out.
SOURCE: William S.
White, A Diary of the War; or What I Saw of It, p. 110
Another night
cramped up on the cars; another night of painful nipping at napping amidst the
roar, the heat and jogging of the train. Everybody wanted to lie down, but
everybody was in the way; everybody wanted to straighten out, but no one could.
Once in a while one lifts his aching legs over heads and bodies, or stands up
to straighten them. Oh, the weary night, the sweat, the heated air of the car,
wherein were jammed 80 men till no more could get in, with the doors closed. It
is sickening to endure! Not a drop of water to cool thirst, not a moment of
ease for weary bodies; no rest for aching heads; not an overdose of patience
for one another. Morning came and we were still rolling on through the pine,
the barren waste, the plantation, with its mansion aloof, and slave huts; the
thatched roof shanty of poor white, and now and then halting at small stations
"to feed the hoss."
Villages of any
account are far apart. At all these places the negro is chief; Nig does the
work, eats the poorest victuals, is an all around man. At every depot, every
shed, wood pile and water tank, the darky "am de man." He engineers,
fires, he brakes. This animal runs the Confederacy. Everything is very unlike
our Northern routes, in wood, in field, in civilization. It appears to me like
"Reducing the white man to the level of the negro “—indeed it does, Jeff!”
These motley crowds, these black white faces, these white black faces, look
like amalgamation, you conservators of an oligarchial, doomed institution upon
which you seek to rear an oligarchy!
At 6 a. m. the
whistle blows at Macon, Ga., and we stop. The doors open and a few slide to the
ground to straighten out, to limber up and to try and get a drink; but few
succeeded in getting out, however. A citizen told me the population of Macon
was 20,500. It is located in a basin formed by sloping hills around it, near
the Ocmulgee River. At 7:30 a. m. we start southward towards Americus about 70
miles south. The country is more thickly inhabited, is a richer region. Fort
Valley is 30 miles south of Macon. Here were plenty of customers for anything
we had to sell. Men came out with corn bread to exchange for wallets and it
didn't take them long to "get shut on't"; both sexes, all colors, all
grades. We were not the first load of "hyenas" that had gone down, so
they did not come out to see the show, but wanted to know "Whar you'ns all
from" and to traffic. It began to be hinted that we were not going to
Americus, where the guard had told us our prisoners are; that it is a splendid
camp, greensward, beautiful shade trees, nice tents and a right smart river,
those that had "been thar a heep o' times with you'ns fellers." We
had hoped that such might be our lot; but now everyone was wonderfully
ignorant. When asked they would say, "can't tell you sar." At
Oglethorpe I asked a citizen how far it was to Americus.
"Oh, right
smart, I reckon; you'ns not going thar though."
"Where are we
going?" I asked another.
"Oh, just down
thar where all o' you'ns fellers goes."
"How far?"
"Right smart
bit, I reckon."
"Well, how many
miles?"
"Good bit, fo'
mile, reckon—you'ns got any rings?"
"What
place?"
"Andersonville,
they call it I reckon."
"How do they
fare?"
"Right good—don't
know; die mighty fast, I har."
A gentleman of
leisure said, "You bet they do.”
"It is a hard
place, is it?"
"You will see
all you want to see before long"
"Have shelter,
of course?"
"Guess
so-you'll see, pretty soon.”
Heaving a long sigh
we cursed their blasted Confederacy and black infamous cause, then took it
cool. In 30 minutes the train halted again. There was a newly built storehouse
consisting of pine slabs set up on end, and appearances of a hastlily constructed
military station. Preparations were made to disimbark. I looked out, saw but
one house in the place, country looked barren, uninviting. About half a mile
east was a large pen filled with men. At a glance I caught a view of thousands
of prisoners; ragged, rusty blankets put up in all conceivable modes to break
the blistering sun rays. It was a great mass of grim visages, a multitude of
untold miseries. It reminded me first of a lately seared fallow, then a foul
ulcer on the face of nature, then of a vast ant hill alive with thousands of
degraded insects. The degradation that pervades the lowest and meanest beings
in nature struck me as beneficent compared with the desperately barbarous
conditions imposed upon the inmates of those roofless walls. Not a shed or a
sheltering tree was in the place. Some whose senses were not benumbed,
exclaimed, "My God that is the place, see the prisoners; they will not put
us in there, there is no room! By this time men were getting off and straggling
along the sandy road to the prison. About half way we halted to form and an
officer on horseback met us heading a new guard. "Git into fo's
thar," was the order. We moved to the right near the south side of the
prison near Captain Wirz's headquarters, and formed into detachments of 270 in
charge of sergeants. We were suffering from thirst, heat, hunger, fatigue.
Presently the commandant of the prison with a lieutenant and sergeant came down
the line. I asked to go to the creek and fill some canteens, pleading our
suffering condition. In a passion, pistol in hand, the officer turned with a
ferocious oath, putting the pistol to my nose saying, “I'll shoot you if you
say dot again." Stepping back he yelled:
"If another man
ask for water I shoot him."
To the left a poor
fellow had squat in the ranks. This officer whom I found to be Captain Wirz,
rushed upon him with an oath, kicking him severely and yelled savagely,
"Standt up in ter ranks!"
The ground was
covered with small bushes. While waiting some worked industriously pulling and
packing in bundles to carry in for shelter. After two hours we started, but all
were forced by bayonets to drop the bushes. As the column was pouring through
the gate, a comrade said "Take a long breath North; it is the last free
air we shall breath soon." Oh, how many lingering looks and despondent
sighs were cast, as we were driven like brutes into a worse than brutish pen!
We entered the south
gate. A narrow street runs nearly through the prison from east to west, the
narrowest way. I had reached nearly midway when the column halted. Old
prisoners gathered frantically about, begging for hardtack, or something else.
The air was suffocating, the sights beheld are not to be described. The outside
view was appalling; contact a thousand times more horrible!
On my right, as we
entered, I saw men without a thread of clothing upon their dirty skeletons,
some panting under old rags, or blankets raised above them. One was trying to
raise himself; getting upon his hands and feet, his joints gave way; he pitched
like a lifeless thing in a heap, uttering the most wailful cry I ever heard.
Such things are frequent. The simile strikes me that they are like beings
scarce conscious of life, moved by a low instinct, wallowing in the filth and
garbage where they happen to be. On the left the scene was equally sickening.
The ground for several yards from the gate was wet with excrement, diarrhoea
being the disease wasting the bodies of men scarce able to move. Need I speak
of the odor? Then the wounds of eight months were visible and disgusting! We
dare not look around! At a halt we asked where are we to go? Why do they not
take us on?
"You can't get
no further; as much room here as anywhere,” said an Ohio man.
"For God's
sake," I said to the anxious gazers that thronged around asking to be
given something—"Give me just one hardtack," begged starved creatures—"stand
back and give us a chance! We have no hardtack."
Finding a spot eight
of us deposited our luggage and claimed it by right of [“]squatter
sovereignty." Eight of us are so fortunate as to have five woolen
blankets, our party consisting of Orderly Sergeant G. W. Mattison, Second
Sergeant O. W. Burton, W. Boodger, Stephen Axtel, Waldo Pinchen, H. B.
Griffith, Lloyd G, Thompson and myself. Here we took up our abode together. I
obtained three sticks split from pine, saved at the time the stockade was
opened, four and six feet long, upon which we erected three of the blankets in
the form of a tent. For these I paid 50c, each.
Nothing of the rules
and regulations of the prison were announced by the authorities, in consequence
of which, I learned after, many a man lost his life by being shot. Soon after
arriving I went to the stream to drink and wash. Being ignorant of the supposed
existence of a dead line, and, to escape the crowd, I stepped over where it was
supposed to be. Immediately I was caught by a man who drew me back shouting:
"Come out, they will shoot you!" Looking up I saw the sentries, one
on each side with their pieces fixed upon me. I then learned that the order was
to shoot any man, without a word, who steps beyond the line, or where it should
be. I was partly forced, by the crowding, into that vacancy, and partly tempted
by the clear water which was pouring through the stockade a few feet to the
west, the water in the stream appearing very filthy. With feelings of
thankfulness towards the strangers who frightened that rule into me, I shall
ever remember. I thought of the maxim in Seneca, "Let every man make the
best of his lot," and prepare for the worst. So I determined to do what I
could to inform new men of the danger at this point, for I soon learned that
nearly every day, since new prisoners had been coming in, men had been shot at
this place under the same circumstances.
After being settled
Thompson and I took a stroll to find, if possible, a better place, without
avail. Passing down the older settled and thickly crowded part where there are
small dirt huts which were early erected, I observed a man sitting under an old
tent with a book. This was unexpected. "Here is a book of poems," I
said to Thompson, halting.
"Yes, sir,
Milton's 'Paradise Lost," said he, handing it to me. He was an old
prisoner from Rosecrans army, having wintered at Danville, Va., a prisoner
since Chickamauga. He told us freely all he knew about our new world, appeared
a perfect gentleman, manifested very friendly feeling, urged us to accept his
book and call often. The mellow beam of a genial nature shone in his face.
Although we did not learn his name that day, we felt him to be a friend. I had
a paper, purchased at Augusta, having accounts of Johnston's run before
Sherman, how one of Johnston's men cried, "General, we are marching too
fast; we don't want to retreat, had rather fight." "We are not
retreating, boys, we are only falling back so Sherman won't get round our
flank," said Johnston, which I gave him.
The stockade is made
from pine trees cut, from the prison ground, into 25 feet lengthts, feet of
which is set into the ground, and the timbers are strongly pinned together.
Until last winter this was primeval forest, heavily timbered with pine. The
sentry boxes are six to eight rods apart near the top of the wall, each box
having a roof, the platform being reached by stairs. The ground is said to
contain 13 acres, including the lagoon of about two acres, which cannot be
occupied except a few islands
in the midst. A
small stream runs through from west to east. The water is nearly as black as
the mud of its mirey banks, and tastes of it, and nearly divides the camp
equally, both the north and south parts sloping towards it. There are some log
huts built by the first prisoners when the stockade was opened, from the waste
timber left on the ground. Now even the stumps have been dug up for wood. Two
large tall pines are left standing in the southeast corner; otherwise there is
not a green thing in sight. The dead line is a board laid and nailed on tops of
posts, four feet high, about six yards from the stockade. There are two gates
on the west side, north and south of the brook. Sinks are dug on the bank near
the swamp on the east side, but not sufficient to accommodate a tenth part of
the persons on the south side to which it alone is accessible; so the north
edge of the swamp, parallel with the stream, is used for the same purpose. Just
at dark two mule teams were driven with rations, to be delivered to sergeants
in charge of detachments for distribution to their men. We get two ounces of
bacon, a piece of corn bread 2x4 inches for one day. There are over 14,000 men
here, mostly old prisoners from Belle Isle, Libby and Danville prisons. The
bacon is so stale, that a light stroke from the finger knocks it to pieces,
leaving the rind in the hand.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 55-60
