CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Burial Detail
Robert thinks he is living in another world. Spring has come and gone, and he has one of the best jobs in the whole camp. He has plenty of food to eat, a warm, dry place to sleep and the work is easy. Of course, he must work with Commandant Colonel Adams, and he is a very hard man, to say the least.
After his demotion at Gettysburg from General to Colonel, he seems to take his bitterness out on everyone and everything. He has become a very cruel and unforgiving man. Any prisoner brought before him is dealt with in a harsh and sometimes brutal and sadistic manner.
He even had a pair of wooden stocks built in the middle of the prison yard. Prisoners guilty of minor offenses have their heads and hands thrust through the stocks and stand exposed to the elements sometimes for days. During periods of cold or rainy weather prisoners in the stocks already with bodies in poor physical condition will most times die an excruciated, painful death. Healthier ones sometimes go days before the Colonel will allow them a few morsels of food or a sip of water.
Robert tries his hardest not to fall out of the good graces of the Commandant and does everything within his power to please Sergeant Belue.
Blue can be just as ruthless, if not more so, than the Colonel at times.
Robert remembers one time when two prisoners argued over the ownership of a wooden hardtack box. The disagreement led to a round of fist-a-cuffs. Neither prisoner was in good enough shape to do the other any actual harm, but Sergeant Blue broke up the fight. Well, better it was called a wrestling match. “So you two want to see who is the better man, huh?” Having procured another hardtack box Blue had the prisoners fill both boxes with rocks. “Now hold these over your heads, the first to drop their box will be the loser, the other may have the cracker box.”
He summoned one of the black guards and instructed him to jab them with his bayonet each time one of the prisoners tried to lower his box. He stood the two men out by the stocks and began the contest. The black guard was all too eager to fulfill his orders. Once a box started to come down the guard would thrust his bayonet into the body of the offender, sometimes he would penetrate the skin as much as an inch or so. Blood was streaming down the legs of both men. It was beginning to puddle upon the ground, but Blue would not allow them to stop.
One of the men finally, exhausted, dropped his box and fell prostrate upon the ground. “Kill him,” Blue said to the guard. Without hesitation he immediately thrust his bayonet clean through the man lying on the ground. The remaining man dropped his box and fell to his knees thinking he had survived the grueling contest and won the box. Blue said to the black guard, “He will have no need of a cracker box either, kill him too.” The guard quickly did as ordered.
For a couple of months, all the talk around the prison is about the peace talks – peace at last. The summer is hot on that narrow spit of land between the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River. The mosquitoes, some days, are as thick as smoke. Most men are covered in so many bites it appears they have taken a case of the ‘pox. The Bay and the River increases the humidity to such a degree that any amount of fatigue duty results in the death of many of the men. As the summer drags on Robert thinks the Commandant is losing so many men, the Colonel might slack back on the work details when the days are so hot. Is Robert thinking the Commandant has a heart? If he has one, it is stone cold; in fact, death among the prisoners has gotten so bad Blue orders Robert the assignment of picking burial details for the dead.
Robert loathes this assignment. Picking people to dig graves in this hot, sweltering weather is just like giving them their own death sentence. Men within the camp hide when they see Robert walking among them.
Men from the burial detail have gotten so sickly Robert thinks something must be done immediately, so he approaches Sergeant Belue. Catching Blue by himself at the Commandant’s office Robert musters up enough courage to ask, “Sergeant, I know you are aware of it, but I am burying almost as many from the burial detail as I am the prison dead.”
“That’s good, the more we can get rid of the better.”
Robert drums up enough courage to be bold; however, it might be a foolish move on his part, “Sarge, may I talk frankly? The talk all over Point Lookout is the War is about over. I know you have noticed in the past few weeks the amount of prisoners arriving has almost stopped.”
“What’s yer point Bob?”
“Blue, you and I have somewhat become friends since I came to work for the Commandant, would you say that is true?”
“Sure, I suppose I can tolerate your Rebel arse, what is yer tryin’ to say?”
“The men, I have to pick for burial details, are so emaciated and starved they cannot be efficient workers. I would like to ask your permission to establish a select group of prisoners as a permanent burial detail. I would like you to give me permission to get Cookie to provide these men on burial detail extra rations so I can build up their strength and stamina.
“Second, and this is personal Blue, and I speak not as your enemy but as a friend. When this War ends, and it will eventually, officers and enlisted men who have misused or abused their positions of authority, now I’m not saying this would include you, but others will certainly be held accountable.
“After every war, the Congress has established committees to oversee the past conduct of the war, this will include maltreatment or abuse of prisoners. Those in charge can and have, in the past, gone to prison for their part. In some cases, it is not unheard of that hangings are warranted. To those that have been in charge and showed compassion, compassion might be shown in their cases, I’m just saying in case a person is charged.”
Blue sat with a blank stare on his face. He blinked a couple of times as though waking from a dream and says, “I see yer point Bob, tell Cookie to do it, that makes sense. I don’t want me one of them rope neckties.”