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- Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
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Seitenzahl: 77
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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ESCAPE FROM THE CONFEDERACY
B.F. Hasson
PAPHOS PUBLISHERS
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This book is a work of nonfiction and is intended to be factually accurate.
All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.
Copyright © 2015 by B.F. Hasson
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY.
War Memories
APPENDIX
ADDENDA.
Escape from the Confederacy
By B.F. Hasson
“Across the years, full rounded to many score,
Since advancing peace, with her olive wand,
Returns the sunshine to our desolate land,
Come thronging back memories of the war.
Again the drum’s beat and the cannon’s roar,
And patriot fires by every breeze are fanned,
And pulses quicken with a purpose grand,
As manhood’s forces swell to larger store.
Again the camp, the field, the march, the strife,
The joy of victory, the bitter pain
Of wounds or sore defeat; the anguish rife,
And tears that fall for the unnumbered slain,
And homes, where darkened is the light of life,
All these the echoing bugle brings again.“
INTRODUCTORY.
I HAVE BEEN SO OFTEN urged by old army comrades, as well as other friends, to publish the facts contained in the following pages in a convenient shape for preservation, that I have concluded to comply with their wishes, and now present them in this form. Many of the less important details have been omitted, as well with a view of preventing the story from becoming tiresome as of getting it within the limits of space it was intended it should occupy. While the experience was attended with trials and suffering, I wish to assure the reader that it was nothing more than was endured by hundreds of other boys who saw service in the War of the Great Rebellion. I would not go through it again for all the world, and yet I would not like to lose the satisfaction I enjoy in the knowledge of my success in overcoming so many seemingly insurmountable difficulties. It is a plain narration of facts, and is written without any effort to overdraw or embellish. I hand it over to the friends and comrades who have been urging me to publish it, in the hope that it will help to fill up an idle moment.
B. F. Hasson.
WAR MEMORIES
“Flank out Frank, and go with us to-morrow.”
We were squatted on the sandy ground—vermin-ladened sand—inside the prison stockade on Belle Island, discussing the probable destination of the prisoners then being daily removed from that place. Joseph Morton and Peter Deems of my own regiment and myself were of the party and the above remark was made by Morton and addressed to me. It was early in the month of March, 1864, and just after that famous raid to the vicinity of Richmond by Gen. Kilpatrick and Col. Ulrich Dahlgren. The daring troopers had even penetrated the defences of the city and thoroughly alarmed the Rebel authorities. Immediately steps were taken to remove the prisoners from Richmond to Andersonville, Ga., and other remote points in the South out of the reach of rescue by Federal raiders.
The prisoners on the Island were divided off into hundreds. The first hundred was composed of those first put into the stockade; and then, as new or fresh prisoners arrived the second and other hundreds were added. One member of each hundred was chosen to see to the welfare of the men in securing rations, etc. The hundreds were subdivided into messes of twenty-five each, and a man was selected from among them whose duty it was to cut up the loaves of corn-bread into twenty-five equal sized pieces, and see that they were impartially issued to the men. This was done by placing a man with his back to the pieces of bread, and the sergeant pointing to one piece at a time and asking, “Whose is this?” The answer would be, “That goes to No. 1,” and so on through the list of twenty-five. The men were called by number instead of name. This was made necessary by reason of frequent changes on account of deaths.
This rather full explanation is given here because it answers questions often asked me. This stockade, or inclosure, within which prisoners were confined, comprised several acres on the lower end of the Island, around which piles were driven, close together, leaving perhaps four to six feet projecting above ground. A little below the top of these logs or piles a platform was erected, and on this platform the guards marched and countermarched. It is not my intention to enter into a description of the condition of the prison camps. Their histories have been written and all are doubtless more or less familiar with them.
At this time there were about 9500 (ninety-five hundreds) in the stockade. Up to and including the sixteenth hundred had already been taken away. Morton and Deems were in the eighteenth hundred, and I was in the twenty-second hundred. It was expected that the next day more would be taken, and fearful that my squad would not be reached I was asked by Morton to “flank out” and go along. It was a violation of the rules to go from one squad to another, but on account of the many deaths occurring every night it could be managed in an emergency like this.
Having been on the Island for six months I was glad to make a change of residence. A change of any kind was desirable even if it was not an improvement. To walk around the stockade another day, over the same well-beaten path, looking into the same pale, haggard faces, listening to the groans of the dying and witnessing the miserable condition of the living, was no longer tolerable, so that, “rather than suffer the ills we had we were willing to flee to others we knew not of.”
I did flank out that night and the next morning quietly slipped into the eighteenth hundred with Morton and Deems, and marched with them out of the inclosure and over the bridge to the city of Richmond. We were put into the building called “The Pemberton” and remained there until the following morning, when we crowded into freight cars, forty to sixty in a car, and started southward.
While crossing the bridge on our way from the Island to the city I was marching by the side of a prisoner whom I had not met before. He was yet in apparently vigorous condition—evidently not having been a prisoner very long. He asked me in a suppressed tone if I intended to try to escape in case we were taken further south. I replied that I did, and we there and then entered into a contract to go together. He was enthusiastic about the matter and gave me his hand as a pledge of his sincerity.
Studying means of escape, and efforts to rid themselves of the tormenting vermin, were the chief occupations of prisoners of war while awake. In their fitful and uneasy slumbers they were dreaming that they were at home sitting at the most abundantly supplied tables and enjoying all the comforts which the word home implies.
Long continued exposure and lack of food had engendered diseases and reduced the poor creatures to the most pitiable condition. Of course some were worse off than others, but all looked miserable enough.
After passing through Petersburg we were satisfied that a longer term of imprisonment awaited us, for, had it been the purpose to exchange us, we should have stopped at Petersburg and from there been taken to City Point. When the fact was made known there were loud murmurings. The bronzed and starved faces were pictures of the most abject wretchedness and despair. Reaching Gaston, North Carolina, we were transferred to another train, taking the Gaston and Raleigh road from that point.
Morton was very sick when we started from Richmond, and the jolting received in the cars had tended to increase his trouble. I endeavored to keep as close to him as possible on the way, so as to render him all the assistance I could. When changing cars at Gaston he was quite feeble, and required assistance to get from one train to the other.
“Do you intend to escape, Lieutenant?” was whispered in my ear as we were getting off the train. On looking around I found Peter Deems at my elbow.
“To-night,” I as quietly replied.
