CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Burial Detail
“Do what?” Said Commandant Adams. “You dirty turncoat, I heard you and this good-for-nothing Johnny Reb plotting behind my back. You both thought I was gone, huh? Well, I came in the rear door and heard every word this gray back said. He’s a dirty liar; we’ve done a good job running this Point Lookout Prison, if anything, we’ll probably get a medal. Let me correct myself, I’ll get one, Sergeant Belue as punishment for consorting with the enemy I am demoting you to Private and sending you to a fighting infantry outfit forthwith. Some outfit that is in the hot of it, you rebel sympathizer.”
Blue tried to protest, “But Colonel I... I...”
Enough of you Private Belue, as for you...you...rabble rouser, no you Rebel rouser,” the Commandant said pointing a finger at Robert, “you’re going on that precious burial detail you love so much. From now until the War ends you can say good-bye to your Confederate friends personally.
Private Belue you report to the Provost Marshall, I’ll deal with you later, and you,” pointing again at Robert, “go find yourself a bed amongst your friends, if you still have any friends left.”
Leaving the Commandant’s office Robert’s moral is the lowest since coming to Point Lookout. He had it made, a good place to work, a clean bed at night and chow to eat, as much as he wanted, and he has lost it all for what? Then reality hit him; he didn’t lose anything – trying to save his friends was worth it. If he could have just been able to get his plan to work, he could possibly have saved dozens of prisoners. No, he said to himself that was worth the risk.
Back at his old tent his ‘friends’ would have nothing to do with him. In fact, they threw him out. One tent after another he tried to find a place to sleep, no one would accept him. He had become a leper, one of the outcasts. If only they knew how hard he had tried to help them, if only. He finally remembered his old hardtack stand where he had once sold candy. Old Jim Harper who had taken it over and used to give him a dollar or two had gotten sick and died. Since then the ‘store’ had been closed. He could, at least use it as a place to lay his head.
All he carried, with him from his bed in the Commandant’s place, was his blanket. That first night he cowered in among his hardtack boxes and tried to sleep the best he could. His sleep wasn’t very comfortable, nor was it very long. Before daybreak, the ‘new’ Commander of the Burial Detail came by and kicked the side of his box, “Up and at’em we got buryin’ to do!”
Out in the prison cemetery Robert is first on the shovel digging the grave for someone he doesn’t even know, but he is ashamed. As they place the body in the grave, he knows his fellow gravediggers could care less about the person they are burying. He knows because at one time he had become that hard-hearted. So he turns and speaks to the men shoveling dirt on the lifeless body in the grave. “I know you think of me as the enemy, but I am not. I was assigned a job of selecting men for the burial detail, and I did it to the best of my ability. You may not have liked what I did, but it was a necessary job.
“Today we are burying one of your friends, if not one of yours, then someone loved him and he will be missed at home. Possibly he had a loving wife and small children that will never know where his body is buried.” Looking skyward, Robert said, “I pray his soul be taken into your arms oh Lord and may he finally be at rest with stomach full and body warm.”
The burial detail is touched and impressed. “Scarburg,” one of them said, “I did not realize the strain you were under, you were always one of us. I’m sorry.”
Robert replies quietly, “I always tried to do the best for you all, but sometimes it seemed as if I was on the Yankee’s side; I was not.”
“Tonight, come down to our tent. You know we are the Burial Squad, and you will be welcome. We don’t last long among the living but as long as we do you will be counted as one of us.” The man offering the olive branch was Jack Thomason. Robert recognized him but never knew his name.
The nights are cold and wet, and Robert is glad for the offer to sleep in a shelter inside. The Death Squad or not, warmth is warmth wherever he can get it.
Day after day Robert falls out each morning and does his job on the burial detail. Each day, the men are getting weaker and weaker since the Camp Commander has issued half rations. Full rations are only about eight hundred calories per day. Now that meager amount has been reduced to approximately four hundred calories per day. Grown men cannot exist on eight hundred calories much less four hundred. It is just a matter of time before starvation takes it toll and the members of the Burial Squad become the ones being buried instead of the ones doing the burying.
It is late autumn, winter is in the air, the wind from the Chesapeake Bay is beginning to get colder and colder. It is apparent the end of the War is near. Each day prisoners are being transported from Point Lookout to other locations, just where no one knows. The inmates are being exchanged for Union prisoners, at least that is what they hope is happening.
Each day at morning formation a Sergeant yells out the name of the prisoners to be exchanged, each day Robert listens intently, but does not hear his name called. How much longer can he survive? He resolves to take it one day at a time.