Andersonville, Volume 1

City that was then the object of the hopes and fears of thirty-five millions of people-a City assailing which seventy-five thousand brave men had already laid down their liv

iffering widely from anything ever seen before; some anomaly of nature displayed in its site, itself guarded by imposing and impregnable fortifications, with powerful forts a

of breastworks of bare yellow sand, but the scrubby pines in front were not cut away, and there were no signs that there had ever been any immediate expectation of use for the works. A redoubt or two-without guns-could be made out, and this

lways had a very warm side for these simple rustics of the mountains and valleys. I knew much of their unwavering fidelity to the Union, of the firm steadfastness with which they endured persecution for their country's sake, and made sacrifices even unto death; and, as in those days

whistle, the usual seemingly purposeless and vacillating, almost dizzying, running backward and forward on a netwo

I was marched off with the Tennesseeans through the City to t

men wore some sort of a uniform. Though numbers of these were in active service, yet the wearing of a military garb did not necessarily imply this. Nearly every able-bodied man in Richmond wa

at hand. There were many curled darlings displaying their fine forms in the nattiest of uniforms, whose gloss had never suffered from so much as a heavy dew, let alone a rainy day on the march. The Confederate gray could be made into a very dressy garb. With the sleeves lavishly embroidered with gold lace, and the collar decorated with stars indicating the wearer's rank-silver for the field

ted Grecian temple style. It stands in the center of the City. Upon the grounds is Crawford's fam

the northern end. This was the first time I had seen the latter, which had been recently adopted, and I examined it with some interest. The design was exceedingly plain. Simply a white banner, with a red field in the corner where the

elt that I was in Richmond for other purposes than to study architecture, statuary and heraldry, and besides

ome too common in Richmond to create any interest. Occasionally passers by woul

rginians, Kentuckians, Marylanders and Missourians found fighting against them. Such of our men as deserted to them were also lodged there, as the Rebels, very properly, did not place a high estimate upon this c

away from them. It was lined on both sides by plain brick warehouses and tobacco factories, four an

ities. It was confidently asserted that among the commoner occurrences within its confines was the stationing of a doomed prisoner against a certain bit of blood-stained, bullet-chipped wall, and relieving the Confederacy of all farther fear of him by the rifles of a firing party. How well this dark reputation was deserved, no one but those inside the inner circle of the Davis Government can say. It is safe to believe that more tragedies

tning, and here I bade adie

at a warehouse larger than any of

LIBBY

DLERS AND

nder the sign was a broad entrance way, large enough to admit a dray or a small wagon. On one side of this

ecorded in the books. Presently a clerk addressed as "Majah Tunnah," the man who was superintending these operations, and I scanned him w

ced out by a readiness to use brute force. His face, clean-shaved, except a "Bowery-b'hoy" goatee, was white, fat, and selfishly sensual. Small, pig-like eyes, set cl

r's hair, feel under their arms and elsewhere where he thought a stray five dollar greenback might be concealed. But with all his greedy care he was no match for Yankee cunning. The prisoners told me afterward that, suspecting

trip off everything, and stand shivering in the sharp cold, while he took up one filthy rag after another, felt over each carefully, an

greenbacks, sixty dollars in Confederate graybacks-and displayed it as Turner came up with, "There's all I have, sir." Turner pocketed it without a word, and did not search me. In after months, when I was nearly famis

es. One of the whey-faced clerks said with the supercilious a

d been a stray cur wandering

e for in the way of revenge was that the delicate creature might som

rner below. Here I found about four hundred men, mostly belonging to the Army of the Potomac, who crowde

e prospects

new comer: put with bated breath by men to whom exchange meant all that they asked of this world, and possibly of the next; meant life, home,

ouragingly as did the tens of

ar anything a

think about than the exchange of prisoners. The question only became a livi

my first da