Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-04-05

PIX PICTURE OF THE RIGHT REV. COL.
MOODY, 74rH OHIO REGIMENT.
In due time we arrived al Camp Chase.
The camp is situated on an open plateau Of
ground which is very level, and IN the
winter is often covered with water. 1t is
laid off into streets. with three cabins on
each side and cabin designed for the
company officers, few PAGES in front of
the head Of the street.
These cabins are frame buildings, and are
twenty by fifteen feet, with door fronting
on the street and window on each side.
Three hunks or shelves, one abovethe other,
Gil the back end Of the room, which would
accommodate twelve persons comfortably,
bat eighteen were often required to sleep
in them.
When the door leading through those high
walls was opened we involuntarily thought
of Millions description of the awful grating
of Pandemonium's door. We now began to
realize the awful significance Of that word
prisoner. We found all the cabins filled
BY those who had preceded us, and an open
tent was our only chance for shelter. It
had rained and showed alternately for
many days, and the mud and snow were
from two to six inches deep. Tents were
soon procured and erected upon the liquid
bed Of mud and snow, and we were COM
PEELED 10 sleep in them many nights, every
one Of which either rained or showed. This
was a dark hour of my prison experience,
and pray that another as black shadow
may never fall across my pathway in life.
Ia this miserable condition, with health
failing fast and hope almost fed, how
longed for home Snd its endearments. All
my thoughts were centered on one quiet
spot on the banks of the murmuring Har-
petb, where, "far from town and toll re-
mote" lives a loving wife and cherub
children.
How natural for the heart of man, who,
far out in the cold, pitiless world, incaree-
rated within high walls and doomed to feel
the weight Of the oppressors ire, TO turn to
the familiar faces of home, and draw con-
ISOLATION from the joys of the party the
memoirs of the long ago. The future was
"rayless and starless." The past was rich
with the pleasures of domestic love and
alchemist memory, with its magic touch,
turned each bright recollection into gold.
Happy is the man when life has been such
that in after years, when the future il With
out hope, ne can make memory his minis. |
ter, and love over again the Joys Of other ]
days. Memory is truly a ministering an
gel, if the records Of our life are pure and |
virtuous. But IL not, then it becomes to |
us the angel of destruction, and adds the |
horrors of remorse to the gloom of the |
present.
/ would be an unfaithful chronicler of |
the incidents Of prison life were l to fail |
TO sketch picture Of the Rev. Col. Gran |
vile Moody, commandant at Camp Chase. |
The Rev. Colonel is a man Of huge physi- |
cal proportions, and when in full uniform |
has commanding military appearance.
His admiration for his epaulets and the |
dazzling insignia Of Office are only equaIled |
by his love of self No man ever felt |
more the responsibility of his position.
Atlas, when holding up the universe with
his own strong arm, was never so deeply inn /
pressed with the Importance of his position |
as was the Reverend Colonial of hiscommand /
at Camp Chase. The Colonel is a man of |
original military genius. He has pro-
found contempt for the antiquated teach
ings of Scott, and it was his delight to
ignore the teachings of Hardee. He /
carved out his own maneuvres, and had
them executed to his own taste. He IS
fair type of the Methodist ministers in the
North. His excessive charity led him to
believe that the black sleek negro was SUI.
periOr 10 the Caucasian, still he
thought that the white man, by an age
of penance and deep humiliation might
attain unto the excellence of African per-
fiction. He was q rare compound Of bigot-
nv, arrogance and fanaticism, with slight
dash of the military interpreted. To say
he was a coward would be ungenerous, for
it Is said he was in that desperate charge
on the ramparts Of Washington city on the /
memorable Dist Of July. The Colonel's |
zeal in crushing ont the rebellion partook
Of his religions enthusiasm. Had he lived |
in the eleventh century, he would have
been a crusader and would have held high |
festival over slain infdels even at the tomb
of the Savior. Had he lived in the time of |
Robespierre he would have aspired 10 the
Office of chief executioner. The rack,
guillotine and inquisition would hare been
his three invincible arguments in defense
of his dogmss. He never condescended |
to those modes of augmentation founded
on justice, reason and humanity Despite
all this he was one of the vicegerents of
God, though unlike Goldsmiths village
preacher, he neither "allured to brighter
worlds nor sled the way e-
AS a preacher he would like to startle
his readers with the terrors of the law, but
those miner graces of Christianity, such as
charity, love and forgiveness, would find
no place in his discourses. The Regerand
Colonel was deeply afflicted with disease
known in this latitude as negrophGbia.
The ''irrepressible negro" is the Alpha and
Omega of all his thoughts. If he had
lived in the days of our Saviour he would
have suggested the propriety Of making the
negro the elect people instead of the Jews.
Upon the whole such a combination Of
intolerance, bigotry, self-importance and
fanaticism was never before found in any
age or country as in the person of the
valiant knight of the sword and the bible.
With this, we eousign him to the tortures Of
his own outraged conscience, feeling conf
dent no emergency win ever induce him to
60 near enough the front" TO smell "yil-
famous saltpetre."
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