CHAPTER XXXI. JACK’S EXPERIENCES AS A PRISONER--REBEL SOLDIERS OPINIONS.
|To judge by the number of times I had to get off and walk,” continuedJack, “it was up-hill pretty nearly all the way to Fayetteville. Awounded major of the rebel army was put in the ambulance alongside ofColonel Herron, and when we got to Fayetteville I had to give up myplace to a rebel captain who had been shot in the arm. Of course Icouldn’t complain at this, and thought myself lucky to have been allowedto ride so far as I did ride. I had to walk the rest of the way, andthough I was young and strong, it was impossible for me to keep up withthe ambulance when they had a good road. But as most of the road wasbad and a good deal blocked by wagons, I managed to be along with theambulance every night and two or three times generally during the day.It was lucky for me that the ambulance horses were pretty well tired outwith overwork and poor feed, and at one time the driver was afraid hewould n’t be able to get them through to Van Buren, where we had beenordered to go.
“There were six men on horseback who rode along with the ambulance, tomake sure that we did n’t get away. Our captors were evidently mindfulof the old motto, ‘Fast bind, fast find,’ and they had us not only onour parole, but under guard. When it was found that I had to walk I wasput with half-a-dozen other prisoners in charge of two of the mountedmen. They were rather surly at first, but after a while we got on goodterms with them by helping them to pick up forage for their horses, ofwhich they were in great need. There was n’t much to be picked up, asthe country had been pretty thoroughly cleaned out by the army in itsadvance to attack us, and in the previous retreat when we first cameinto the state.
“The road over the Boston mountains is a rough one, and the wagons couldn’t get along there any faster than men on foot; they had to go slow toavoid breaking axles and smashing wheels, and all along the road therewere dozens of wagons that had broken down and been abandoned. Soonafter we left Fayetteville the news came that the army had been defeatedand was falling back, but this was treated as a rumor at first, and ourrebel guards laughed at it as absurd. A few hours later some mountedmen came along carrying dispatches to Fort Smith, and then we heardpositively that our side had won and the rebels were really fallingback.
“I wanted to raise a cheer, but thought it would not be wise to doso, as our guards might make it harder for us if we made any sort ofa demonstration. I passed the word among the rest, and we agreed topretend that it could n’t be so, as our army was so much smaller thantheirs and we had used up nearly all our ammunition at the time wewere captured. We consoled ourselves with the reflection that we shouldprobably be exchanged before long, as we ought to have prisoners enoughin our hands to make an even trade.
“We camped as soon as night came on, and I had no trouble in findingthe colonel’s ambulance and giving him all the help and comfort thatI could. His wounded leg pained him a good deal, and the rebel surgeonsaid it would be better if it could be bathed in cold water.
“I went at work at once and bathed the swollen part so that it visiblywent down, and the pain was much less. I was at it for a full hour, andthen the colonel made me lie down and sleep, as he would n’t hear ofmy being up all night. I slept as sound as a log, but was up beforedaylight to give the leg another bath before we started. My friend,the rebel captain, came around while I was at work and said I seemed sohandy that he reckoned they would keep me as a hospital attendant, andnot send me back in exchange if they made any. I told him I did n’t wantto go back until the colonel did, and I was perfectly willing to be ahospital attendant as long as I could be with him.
“All along the road there was great curiosity to look at the Yankeeprisoners and see what they were like. By the way some of the peoplestared at us, they must have expected to see some horrid monsters, andwere really surprised to find that we were human beings. Some of themabused us, and others looked on in silence, as they might have looked atan elephant or a five-legged calf. At one house, where we stopped toget a drink of water, a woman came out and lashed her tongue in a fit ofrage at the ‘Yankee cut-throats,’ as she called us. She hoped we wouldall be hanged as soon as we got to Fort Smith, and if she had her way weshould be strung up then and there.
“Poor creature! I did not blame her so much, as she had been told themost awful stories of what the Yankees did wherever they got possessionof the country. All the atrocities ever committed by savages wereattributed to us, together with some that no savages ever thoughtof. One of our guards told us that he had heard of our putting fiftyprisoners in a log-house, having bound them hand and foot, and piledthem up as though they had been so many sticks of wood. Then we piledshavings and straw on them till the house was filled with it, and afterthis was done we set the straw on fire. The house and all the prisonerswere consumed, as a matter of course. In another case we tied prisonersto trees and used them as targets for our infantry soldiers to practiceupon when learning how to handle fire-arms.
“Of course the leaders knew better than this, but the stories wereintended for the ignorant masses of the people, to excite them to rushto the defense of the imperiled South and save their homes from thedesecration and destruction that they said would be certain if theYankees once obtained possession of the country. But in one way theywere ‘hoist by their own petard,’ to use an old phrase, as the fear ofwhat might happen to them in case of capture caused many of the rebelsoldiers at Pea Ridge to run away rather than face the terrible Yankees.From what the soldiers said, I’m certain that this is what causedseveral regiments to break and run after they had fired only a fewrounds from their shotguns and squirrel-rifles.
“If this were a place for moralizing, I would say that lying never pays,whether by wholesale or retail. The rebel leaders in Arkansas found itout before the end of the second year of the war.
“We got to Van Buren, on the north bank of the Arkansas river, threedays after leaving Bentonville, and were pretty well used up by thetime they brought us to a halt. The colonel was sent to the militaryhospital, which was in some wooden barracks just outside the town, andI was allowed to go with him as his personal attendant, on the sameconditions as before. I ought to say that on the closing day of thejourney I got my old place on the seat by the driver for the last fiveor six hours, the wounded captain having stopped in a house where hehad friends who would take care of him until his arm was well enough toallow him to return to his regiment.
“There was plenty of room in the hospital when we got there, but thewounded came in fast, and within two days it was crowded full. I mademyself as useful as I could, and soon got into the good graces of thesurgeons, by helping them to dress wounds and do anything else that camein my way. I was about the hospital during the day, and could come andgo as I liked, only I was under parole not to go outside the buildingand the one adjoining it. At night I slept in a sort of a guard-room atone end of the building, but there was n’t much of a guard there, and Imight have run away without any trouble if it had not been for my parolenot to do so. It is just possible, however, that I was watched in a wayI was not aware of, and my old friend may have ‘looked out for me,’ ashe promised to do.
“The army followed closely after us, and there was no doubt ofthe defeat and retreat of the rebels. The soldiers were very muchdisappointed and disheartened, and if they could have got away withoutrendering themselves liable to be shot for desertion, I’m sure that halfof them would have gone within two days after they got back to camp. Asit was, there was a great deal of straggling, and I heard an officer saythey had lost not less than five thousand men in one way and another bythe campaign to Pea Ridge and back again.
“By the fourteenth the whole army, such of it as held together, had comein and was encamped around Van Buren. Some of the regiments were ferriedover the river to Fort Smith, but the most of the troops remained on thenorth bank. I did n’t have much chance to see them, as I was kept inthe limits of the hospital, but so far as I could observe they were aforlorn-looking lot.
“Only a few regiments wore the gray u
niforms of the Confederacy, thegreater number of the men being clad in the ordinary home-spun clothof the country familiarly known as ‘butternut.’ During the Pea Ridgecampaign they had been very poorly fed--some of them going for thirty orforty hours during the retreat without a morsel of food other than a fewgrains of corn; raw turnips and carrots had been considered a luxury,and the men who secured them were envied. Raw cabbages were eagerlydevoured, but unfortunately the country was not stocked with theseproducts of the soil, or the troops might have been better fed.”