The French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1896-1912, 1911-05-25

ndAC W
giving UP my arms.
sThe Yankee who captured me was
very kind. He said, Heres Johnny,
won't you have a drink Of whiskey?
/ declined it; but you may be sure /
would have accepted if he had said
bread.
"We were outnumbered, all had to
surrender, about 1890 of us.
| ONLY one of our men escaped. That
was General Hays He got on the
bridge Just beforeathe ropes were cut;
and he ran across while the bridge
was going down and while the Yam
KEGS were shooting at him. ! tell you
he made a quick passage of the river.
Colonel Ham Jones made a des-
! perate effort to escape. He pulled of
his uniform and jumped into the river
to swim across; but the water was too
cold and the river too wide for him
to make the passage, and he had to
come back. While he was in the river
some one got his uniform and Colonel
jones told. me a short time before he
died that he never did get that uniform
back.
"a soldier is often much amused
even in the thickest of a battle. / re-
member I laughed and laughed dur
ing this battle over a little incident,
One man in our line close to me had
| an enormous nose. 1t was the largest
nose 1 ever saw on any mans face.
We were all dolging shells. Presently
a piece of a shell glanced and struck
this man on his nose. He clasped his
hand to his face and shouted over and
over, oh, I'm killed; I'm killed. 1t
amused me exceedingly to think a
dead man could hollo so loud and &C
long. His nose swelled at once, and
was the most hideous nose magma
BILE. But I never saw the poor fellow
afterwards. Perhaps, the wound did
kill him.
THAT night the yankees put US
captives into a little camp. The next
morning we had to march ten miles
to a railroad train, because several
days before this we had torn UP the
track fifteen miles. When we reach
ed the railroad, they put US into box
cars, and crowded as many as possible
into each car. We had to stand like
cattle, with hardly room to turn
around. In this N We were car
lied to Washington.
1--WE arrived there before day Mon
day morning. / remeber it was clear
and frosty and the stars twinkled
brightly. That day we were marched
up street by the Capitol. And mind
YOU, that we had not had a bite to eat
since hard tack on the Friday
before. During the day at Washing
ton we received another hard tack and
a dried herring. / had always re-
garded dried behring's as At only TO-
dogs to eat; but this herring was the
hest morsel / had ever rolled on my
tongue.
There was an immense crowd out
that day to see the Johnny rebs.''
They seemed to be expecting to see
the whole Confederate army in captivi
ty. l remember that just as We were
1assing the capitol, an old woman
got to the edge of the crowd just as ]
rot within hearing. And / heard her
avclaim, Why, law; They are just like
Nv folks. I thought they were all
horny
"In a few days we were transport
N to Point Lookout for imprisonment
Point Lookout is a narrw strip of land
between the Chesapeake bay and the
SSAh0 IAfOAs 1hClS L llNOu III
;eventeen months. And a most mis-
a~able life it was. We lived in te1+e
'hout sixteen MEN to the tent. We
Had to sleep on the bare ground, and
rere not furnished with blankets.
eft my blanket way down in Vtrginio
here / had started to eat dinner. 7
vas taken to prison early in Novern
her, n had to do without a blanket
;ntil the middle of January. At that
time one of the men in our tent took
the oath of allegiance and was set
free. He left me his piece of a lousy
blanket. Before l got that piece of a
blanket. l thought I would freeze in
spite of all l could do. At night l
would wake, get up, and jump up and
down as fast as I could to warm my
elf. then lay down to take another
nap.
The lice in camp, drove us almost
crazy. I have seen two thousand men
lifting out in the sunshine with their
shirts off, cracking lice. We could
see the lice crawling on the tent floors
ike ants where they could be count
ed by the dozen.
The whole camp raj swept clean
though, every morning, and the re-
fuse dumped into the bay. The
ground was kept so clean that WI
could not get a chip, a stone, or q
7iece of paper for any purpose. ]
once gave a man five cents for a col
that | could use to scratch my bach
with every night, in my fight against
the lice.
"The rations at first were good
3rt the Yankees complained so about
'7ow the yankee prisoners were suf.
eering in the prisons in the South
that they began to take their revenge
On us. Then the rations became
w~retched. Often our portion was only
four worm-eaten crackers per day
Sometimes we had beans, and the
soup was literally peppered with lit
tie black bugs. We could get plenty
IF fish out of the bay, but we could
rarely eat them, for they lived on the
sewage from the camp.
There was a young man in prison
from South Carolina by the name OF