The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-02-14
THEY WGREIN PRISON
Thrilling Experiences Of Some
Congressman
CAPTURED DURING THE WAR
How Speaker Crisp Lay for Forty Days Under
the Shells of the Confeder-
ate Guns.
DURING THE WAR

ate Guns.
WASHINGTON, Feb. TO- 1S92.-TSpecial
correspondence of THE SUNDAY HERALD. l.
Congressman IN prison!
Yes and the best members of Congress,
too. A bakers dozen have spent weary
months in prisons watched by guards
ready to shoot them at their slightest at
tempt to escape. Some for such attempts
have gone about their prison pens with
loads of iron tied to their ankles and others
have been followed by blood-hounds and
recaptured. These statesmen who now
feed on the fat Of Washington, then grew
thin on prison fare, and their bones stuck
out as they grabbed for their rations in all
the different military prisons of the north
and the south during the LAST war. They
were all brave soldiers and they are all to-
day patriotic American citizens. Not one
OF them bears any ill-win towards the sec
ton Of the United States where he spent
those gloomy prison days, and both Union
and confederates among them find excuses
for the poor food and bad treatment which
they then received.
like a romance Take that of the speaker.
The Honorable Charles Frederick Crisp
was plain Charlie Crisp in 1851. He was a
beardless boy of sixteen when he entered
the confederate army, but they made him
a lieutenant and he led company K of the
Tenth Virginia infantry. He had served
three years when he was wounded and cap
tured and carried to Fort Delaware, and
for three months he lay there with thou
sands of other confederate prisoners hay
ing no comforts but no
GREAT PRIvATIoNs
Then an order was issued that in retalia-
rion for the acts of the confederates, six
hundred officers among the prisoners of this
fort should be sent south and placed under
the fire of the confederate guns at Morris
Island near Charleston. This order was
not known to the prisoners. and when the
future speaker was selected with the
others and told TO get ready to 60 south
ward, he supposed he was going TO be ex-
changed ana his heart was glad. The six
hundred were packed away between the
decks of the little steamer Crescent.
Bunks had been knocked up for them and
these ran in tiers the whole length of the
vessel. Each bunk held from three to four
persons and down there under the decks 1t
was terribly hot The trip was taken dur
ing the worst of the dog days. 1t lasted
for more than two weeks and during the
latter part Of the voyage, water became
scarce and the salt water was condensed
and given to the prisoners boiling hot
They would often put it into bottles and
hang these by strings out into the ocean to
cool. At last the ship arrived a: Morris
Island and the speaker and his fellow Of
ficers found themselves put in stockade
on the sands. This stockade was square
al ODD kNNr,F =
way between the confederate batteries
Gregg and Wagner, and in front Of the
FEDERAL batteries, and SO located so as to be
in the direct
RANGE OF THE CONFEDERATE GUNS.
These guns were motars and they threw
greaI shells which went shrieklng over the
prison pen and now and then exploded in
the air and fragments fell into the stockade
10 the horror of the prisoners. Strange to
Say, however no one was hurt
Representative Cobb, of Alabama was in
TINS prison at the same time with Speaker
Crisp. He had been taken prisoner at the
battle of Gettysburg, had spent ak months
IL the prison on Johnsons Island, had been
carried from there to Fort Delaware AND
now with these other officers he was in the
stockake under the confederate fire. He
ana the Speaker had practically the same
experiences and they remained together
ware. Their guards on Morris Island were
negroes land these,' said Mr.. Cobb, ''were
the BLACKLIST negroes you ever saw. These
were exposed as much to the fire as we
were and one of them had his leg knocked
of by g she'll"
what sort of accommodations had you?"
/ asked.
''Not very good" was the reply 1.-THE
camp was laid of in streets and we had
little A-tents and there were four men in a
tent. A negro sergeant had charge of each
row of tents and it was his duty to call
three times a day and to issue rations.
Around the tents and inside the stockade
there was rope tied to posts which we
knew was the dead-line and the man who
passed this rope or even touched it knew
he would be shot,
''What were your rations!"
"They were not very fattening," was the
reply. They consisted of hard tack and
mush or rice. In the morning we got from
three to
FIVE PIECES OF HARD TACK
and piece of meat about an inch wide and
two inches long AT noon each Of US got
about half q pint of pea-soup which was
brought around in barrel and lsdled out
and for supper we had little mush or rice
which was also served from barrel. AT
first the feeding was not SO bad but later
on when the principle of retaliation was
carried out, they cut US down to a pint OF
meal and half pint of pickle per day.
This was terrible and it was done in retail
alton, SO they claim, for the treatment o.
the prisoners at Andersonville. Many of
the prisoners then got the scurvy and we
all became emaciated. We were under fire
at Morris Island for more than forty days,
and were then carried to Fort Pulaski and
at the close of the war taken back to Fort
Delaware and released.1