We were awakened at
3 o'clock this morning to get ready to go, but remained until 4 p. m. During
the day a train arrived with officers who were captured with us and elsewhere.
Among the officers of my regiment were Major John W. Young, Captains Swan and
Clyde, Lieutenants Buchanan, Homer Call and Cahill, also Lieutenant Cheeseman
of General Rice's staff. Among the other officers were Brigadier Generals
Shaler and Seymour who belonged to the 6th corp and were taken in the battle of
May 6th with portions of their command in the Wilderness, when Longstreet's
corp overlapped the Union lines in the crisis of that engagement that
threatened decisive disaster to the Rebel army. General Shaler, speaking of the
battle of the 6th, says the practical result of Longstreet's arrival simply
prevented our victory and saved the Rebel army from decisive defeat, and will
simply prolong the fighting before Lee can be forcd back on Richmond.
Longstreet's arrival on the field was unanticipated and unprepared for so early
in the day. Had it not been for this desperate attack the Rebel army would have
found what Pickett got at Gettysburg and Lee's retreat to Richmond would have
been hastened. "The battles of May 5th and 6th," said Gen. Shaler,
"have put Lee on the defensive, but he is in shape to put up a hard fight.
All the fields fought over are ours; success is simply postponed. Both armies
are moving on Richmond, Lee because he has to, Grant because he wants to."
This made us happy.
Groups of ladies
come to look at us but are kept at a distance. At 4:30 p. m. the train moves
off and fourteen miles bring us into South Carolina.
IN SLAVEDOM.
If "Jove fixed it certain that whatever day
Makes man a slave takes half his worth away,"
'Tis no less certain that the galling cord
That binds the slave perverts his haughty lord.
Corroding links his better nature rive
From spiritual touch of his enslaving gyve.
'Tis plain as stars that in the heavens lie,
As plain as sun that burns through lofty sky,
That in a land where men their slaves do count,
That interest rises always paramount.
All else is smothered like flowers overrun
By poisonous weeds that thrive in rain and sun
While freest men are shackled to their grave;
And cannot rise where masters stern enslave.
Freest souls are but subaltern tools;
The truth is silenced wherever slavery rules.
Men's thoughts grow dormant, their passions turn to hate,
As waters in a silent pool stagnate;
Its merits, or demerits, none debate;
The mass may vote, but must not rule a State.
Public squares, feigned to adorn a town,
Where struts the driver like a Pagan clown,
Are where grave masters sell their slaves for cash;
The press and pulpit help them wield the lash.
The ruling spirit is a demon fraught
With hellish wrath, where men are sold and bought,
And raised like mules for service, and for gain,
For market like steers upon a Texas plain,
Or swine for bacon, that root in Southern wood;
So Sambo's bred sole for his master's good.
He must know but little, never much;
To teach him more no saint may touch;
His innate sense that he, too, is a man,
The breath of Freedom shall ne'er to action fan.
So it has grown a cancer on the heart
Of this Republic the master's sword would part—
Who knows no freedom but to enslave at will—
The North must yield or human blood shall spill!
They claimed for slavery, indeed, the foremost chance
In all the realm where Freedom's hosts advance;
But this denied, a raving spirit rash,
Now lifts the sword to supplant the lash,
And good men rush, enamored for a cause
Where wrong is foremost in their social laws!
And so I muse as on this way we wend
To be enslaved-in some damned prison penned!
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 51-3
