At StauntonThence to Waynesboro, Meacham's, and Richmond.

At Staunton we got a little more light on the value of Confederate paper. A chivalrous surgeon who accompanied the provost guard (Fontleroy, I think, was his name) politely invited Captain Dickerman of the 26th Massachusetts and myself to take breakfast with him in a restaurant. We needed no urging. The Provost Marshal gave consent. The saloon was kept by a negro named Jackson. His entire stock of provisions consisted of nine eggs, the toughest kind of neck beef, bread and salt, coffee very weak, butter very strong. As we sat waiting, the doctor remarked with a lordly air that under ordinary circumstances he would not deign to eat with Yankees. I answered good-naturedly: “I’m as much ashamed as you can be; and if you’ll never tell of it, I won’t!” The food, notwithstanding its toughness, rapidly disappeared. Near the last mouthful the doctor said: “You two will have to pay for this breakfast, for I’ve no money.” I had fifteen Confederate dollars remaining of twenty which I had received for a five-dollar greenback at Tom’s Brook, and I answered: “Give yourself no anxiety; I’ll foot the bill.” “Well, Jackson,” said I to the sable proprietor, “what’s the damage?” He replied, “I shan’t charge you-ones full price. Let’s see! Beef, seven; eggs, two nine; coffee, three twelve; bread and butter, three fifteen; three of you forty-five. I’ll call it only thirty-six dollars!” I paid my fifteen; Captain Dickerman pleaded poverty; and the dignified doctor, who had so cordially invited us to partake of his hospitality, promised the disappointed Jackson that he would pay the balance at some future day ("the futurest kind of a day,” was added in an undertone).

Rejoining the three or four hundred prisoners, we found, besides the Confederate guards, a great crowd of spectators swarming around us. One of them, a fine-looking young man, wearing the blue uniform of a United States captain, made his way through the group, and handed me a twenty-dollar Confederate bill! The following dialogue ensued:

“Here, Colonel, take that.”

“I thank you much. Who are you, so kind to a stranger and an enemy?”

“I’m one whom you Yanks would hang, if you could catch me.”

“Why so? Who are you?”

“I’m one of Morgan’s guerrillas; wouldn’t you hang me?”

“I think I should, if you had much of this stuff about you” (holding up the twenty-dollar bill); “I’ve just paid fifteen Confederate dollars for an imaginary breakfast.”

“Good for you, Colonel. Here, take another twenty. Now you’ve forty. That’ll pay for an imaginary dinner. Good-bye, Colonel! I have an engagement to meet some of your cavalry. Remember, Morgan’s guerrillas are not rascals, but gentlemen. Good-bye!” He vanished.

About noon those of us who appeared unable to march farther were put on top of freight cars, and carried about a dozen miles east to Waynesboro. Here the railway crosses a stream, which encircles a little island just north of the bridge. The majority had to walk. At dusk that Sunday evening all had come. They put us on the island carefully guarded on all sides. Never was I more thankful. I had had something good to eat at Staunton; had got rested riding on the roof of the car; and I had my overcoat. Davy Crockett preferred a heap of chestnut burs for a pillow; but I followed the patriarch’s example and chose a flat stone. People never allowed me to sing; but I dropped asleep repeating the stanza in Mrs. Adams’s exquisite hymn.

Though, like the wanderer,
The sun gone down,
Darkness be over me,
My rest a stone,
Yet in my dreams I’d be
Nearer, my God, to thee!

Towards midnight the cold became so keen that I rose and went to the side of a flickering fire. Here excessive misery was for a moment hardening the hearts it should have softened. Several prisoners were quarreling for a position nearest the embers, each angrily claiming that he had brought the fagots that were burning! Two or three hours later several of us attempted to slip past the sentries in the darkness, but were stopped before we reached the water.

At earliest streak of dawn we were marched away. About two miles brought us to the Blue Ridge where the railroad tunnel pierces its foundations. We toiled up and on in time to see the sun rise. An ocean of fog lay around us. Never shall we forget how royally the King of Day scaled the great wall that seemed to hem in on every side the wide valley, and how the sea of mist and cloud visibly fled before the inrolling flood of light, unveiling green and yellow fields, flocks and herds, dark woodlands, dwellings yet asleep in peace and plenty, here and there the silver thread of a winding stream with lakes that mirrored the sky, and yonder the long stretches of those titanic fortifications encompassing all. We were reminded of Shakespeare’s sunrise:

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.

At that instant a train of cars from Charlottesville came sliding along, and shot

Into the tunnel, like a lightning wedge
By great Thor hammers driven through the rock!

The scene startled us by its sublimity, and for a few minutes the hungry forgot their craving, the footsore their pain, the hopeless their despair.

That day’s march, though not so long was as severe as any; we were exhausted. Private Dolan, Co. K, 159th N. Y., was barefoot. His feet were blistered and bleeding. I begged the commander of the provost guard, Captain Haslett, to allow him to get into an ambulance. My request was not granted. But we soon afterwards passed a large mansion in front of which were several girls and women apparently making fun of the unwashed “Yank” and evidently enjoying the spectacle. We were halted just as Dolan came limping along supported on one side by a stronger comrade. They saw his miserable plight, his distress, his swollen feet, and they heard of the stern command to shoot any prisoner who fell out or lagged behind. Their faces changed. With tears one or two implored the Captain to let him ride in the ambulance. He yielded to their entreaties. Southern ladies almost always seemed handsome to us, but these in my memory have the fairest faces. I thought of Lady Clare in Marmion, and the words still recur:

O Woman! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!

Two miles before we reached our temporary destination, Meacham’s Station, my own strength utterly failed. I had borne up so long, partly to set an example of cheerful endurance, and partly from something like Mark Tapley’s pride at coming out strong and jolly under the most depressing circumstances. I lay beside the road, remarking to Captain Haslett, who immediately came riding to the spot, “Captain, here’s a fine chance to try your marksmanship; I can’t march any further; shan’t try to.” “Colonel,” he replied with something of pity in his tone and manner, “I’m sorry to see you so used up. I’m sorry to be obliged to march you prisoners so hard. I have to keep out of the way of your damned cavalry. You may get into the ambulance.” So into the ambulance I climbed with some difficulty, and immediately commenced my freemasonry on the driver. He responded to the signs. He proved to be an acquaintance of the Redwoods, a family in Mobile, one of whom had been a classmate of mine at Yale. He gave me some nice milk and some fine wheat bread. “As a Mason,” said he, “I’ll feed you; share the last crumb with you; but as a Confederate soldier I’ll fight you till the last drop of blood and the last ditch.” “I hardly know which to admire most, your spunk or your milk,” I replied. Thereupon he gave me another drink, and insisted on my imbibing a little of what he called “apple-jack.” I was a “teetotaler”; but thinking the occasion warranted, I “smiled” upon it, “strictly as a medicine!” “Apple-jack” seemed to me the same thing as “Jersey lightning.” He became quite friendly, but was horribly profane. “Look here,” said he, “you seem to be a sort of Christian; cuss me if you don’t! What in h l are you Yanks all comin’ down here for?” “You have a gift at swearing,” I said; “did you, among your other oaths, ever swear to support the Constitution of the United States?” “Well, yes.” “That’s what’s the matter with us,” I said, “we’re keeping our oaths and you are breaking yours.” “To h l with the Constitution of the United States! Our first duty is to our own State. We’ve a right to be an independent nation, and we will. I’m a guerrilla. If our armies are defeated, I’ll fight you on my own hook. I’ll fire on you from behind every tree and every rock. I’ll assassinate every invader. I want you to remember that I’m a guerrilla.” “I like your spirits,” I said. “They are worthy of a better cause.” “Take another swallow of ’em,” he replied, handing me the canteen. I toasted him: “Here’s hoping you gorillas will outlive the Southern Confederacy!” “A d d equivocal sentiment,” observed my fire-eating, fire-drinking Masonic brother; “but here we are at Meacham’s Station. Good-bye, Yank!”

After our nineteen miles’ march it was a most welcome relief to be placed on platform cars, though packed so closely that we could hardly stir. We objected that the cars had no tops. “All the better opportunity to study astronomy,” they replied. “The cars have no sides to keep off the wind.” “The scenery is magnificent,” they rejoined, “and they’ll answer for ‘observation cars’; you have an unobstructed view.” “But the nights are growing cold.” “You’ll keep warm by contact with each other.” Mad at this mockery, hungry, half-frozen, squeezed like fish in a basket, we took little note of scenery or stars; but it was a comfort to believe that our discomfort was caused by the rapid advance of Sheridan’s cavalry.

More dead than alive, though hardly dead enough to bury, having been jolted along all the afternoon and all night, we reached Richmond about sunrise, Tuesday, September 27th. Numbering now nearly four hundred we were escorted through the streets to the notorious Libby prison and halted in front. The Union officers inside thronged the windows to see us come. On every face was a sad, despondent, pitying look, the most discouraging sight I ever saw. No smiles there nor among us. Conspicuous among them was the sorrowful countenance of Lieut.-Col. Charles H. Hooper of the 24th Massachusetts Infantry, with his long handsome auburn beard. Some one inside whispered loud enough for several of our “Four Hundred” to hear, “Hide your greenbacks!” We passed the word down the column, “Hide your greenbacks!”

A few minutes revealed its significance. We were taken in a body in upon the lower floor. There Major Nat. Turner, prison inspector, cousin of the celebrated Dick Turner of unlovely reputation, made us a speech.

You will empty your pockets of all valuables. Such as are not contraband of war, you will be allowed to retain. You will deliver up all your Federal money. An equivalent amount in Confederate money will be given you in instalments from time to time, or the whole will be returned to you when you are exchanged. You will turn pockets inside out. If you attempt to conceal anything, it will be confiscated.

We were made to step forward singly, and were searched. Our coats and vests were taken off, also our boots and shoes; and a Confederate officer felt very carefully of all our clothing to make sure that nothing was hidden. I “remembered to forget” that I had two ten-dollar greenbacks compressed into a little wad in one corner of my watch fob; and that corner escaped inspection. Dick Turpin never was the richer for that money. They examined suspiciously a pocket edition of the New Testament in the original Greek; but I assured them it was not some diabolical Yankee cipher, and they allowed me to keep it. I made the most of my freemasonry, and they permitted me to retain my overcoat. One of our prisoners, it was whispered, had secretly stuffed $1300 in greenbacks into his canteen, but all canteens were taken from us as contraband of war, and nobody but “Uncle Sam” profited by the concealment.

Having “gone through” us, they incarcerated the officers in one room, the enlisted men in another.