About 10 a. m., the
train having come back, we got on for Lynchburg. I had a flat car next to the engine,
exposed to the sun, smoke and cinders. The passage was very disagreeable. The
only place of account on the way is Amherst Court House. Arriving at Lynchburg,
3 p. m., we marched through the town exposed to the wondering gaze of all
classes. A motley crowd gathered at every corner, blacks and whites
indiscriminately mixed, some the dirtiest objects generally found in the
filthiest portions of cities. Had I seen So many black and white heads together
in New York or New England my conservative inclinations would have upbraided my
abolishion sentiments about amalgamation, about reducing white folks to the
level of the niggers. The town is dirty, dilapidated; streets cluttered with
business, it being a depot for military supplies and a rendezvous for troops,
situated on the right bank of the James River and on the Kanawah Canal and the
Virginia and Tennessee Railroad; population about 13,000. They marched us a
mile out of the city, and stopped in a deep hollow by a fine stream. On one
side is a high, rocky hill. Here are all prisoners recently captured, except
officers, who are locked up in the city. Our guards are mostly citizens, boys
and old men, equipped by themselves or with such guns as the provost could pick
up. Most of them are impressed and drilled by invalid soldiers. I observed one
man about fifty, very corpulent, good naturedly inclined, dressed in common
citizen's coat and pants, white vest, white stove pipe hat, with a weed, armed
with a shotgun, pacing his beat. He said he would like to converse but dare
not. From the brow of the hill several cannon command the camp. I saw several
citizens imprisoned in the city on parole who sympathized with the North. One
guard inquired as we came out from the city, what we did with deserters from
their army. He said they were told they were hanged by our authorities. He is a
sergeant, had contemplated deserting; had a brother who deserted last winter. I
gave him all information I could and intimated that a few of us would like to
strike for the Blue Ridge that night. He said it would be death to attempt
escape. We soon became convinced that it was quite impossible. I here learn of
some I knew, being killed and wounded; that our division was badly cut up, and
the loss of Generals Wadsworth, Rice and Robinson. Nothing to eat. No rations
seen today. I spread my coat on the ground at night and lay down to sleep.
The Nation's in a sorry fix,
Tremendous family jar!
'Cause freedom and slavery couldn't mix,
The Johnnies went to war,
And when we meet them in their tricks,
Whine, "What you'ns fight we'uns for?"
We fight you for your cause is bad;
Your leaders honest blood have shed;
In South have human rights forbade
And wrongly have your hearts misled.
You challenge us to fight this war;
Our rights in Southland are effaced.
That's what "we'uns fight you'ns for,"
Or stand before the world disgraced.
The average Johnnie does not know
The baleful nature of his cause.
He's heard Davis, Toombs and Yancey blow,
And joined in brainless, wild hurrahs
To 'lect Buchanan, and so and so,
Pledged to enforce all slavery laws,
Slaveholders asking "Mo', give mo',"
Demands that never brooked a pause.
We've often warned them to go slow,
To curb their cursed maws.
Then they rebellious teeth would show
And gnash their wrathful jaws,
And swear they'd from the Union go
Or dictate all its laws;
For government, from long ago,
They've grasped with greedy paws;
Persistently have lobbied so
For some new pro-slavery clause.
They fell down in their Kansas muss—
They forced a savage fight—
Then started up this bigger fuss,
And we're in it up to sight.
I know not when the fuss 'll end;
It has been hard and hot;
But to the finish we'll contend,
And they'll lose every slave they've got.
The power they so long did wield,
We'll break forevermore,
And bleach its bones upon the field
And Freedom's cause restore.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 42-4