Roe, Alfred S.; The Twenty-Fourth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers.
1907. pp. 388-395
RICHMOND.
Lee had not surrendered when the
Twenty-fourth was ordered to Richmond to have a part in preserving order in the
late rebel capital. On April 8th came the command transferring the
regiment to its new scene of service. Of the trip itself, one of the regiment
wrote: “We had a pleasant ride up the river, taking note of the rebel works on
both sides: the much-talked-of and useless Dutch Gap Canal, Butler’s failure,
and the rebel rams, blown up, their old hulks looking as though they had seen
better days. All nature was taking on a robe of beautiful green, and we could
see plainly what, in the ‘64 campaign, we had tried so hard to possess. We
landed at Rockets, near which the troops were having a review in light marching
order, so we just filed by in heavy marching order and, as usual, we made the
best appearance.” The embers of the conflagration started by the departing
rebels were scarcely cooled when the Massachusetts men came in, and, from their
first camp, near the former headquarters of the Confederate War Department,
essayed the part of peace preservers in Richmond, a duty to be performed through
many a month of the immediate future. A permanent stopping-place was soon found
on the corner of Franklin and Nineteenth Streets, in Wright’s Tobacco Factory,
where is now manufactured “The Pride of Virginia,” a favorite among users of
the weed. After two months tarrying here, a move was made to Howard Grove
Hospital, where in what had been rebel soldiers’ barracks, the remainder of
the Richmond stay was spent.
Among the duties of this Richmond
tour was the looking after Libby Prison and Castle Thunder, both of them filled
with ex-rebels detained for a variety of reasons, and the city jail with its
complement of malefactors of all colors and creeds. Its situation was just back
of what had been the residence of Jefferson Davis, in other words, the White
House of the Confederacy, in later years a museum of Rebellion relics. In the
jail-yard was the old whipping-post, a reminder of other times and other rule,
now a curiosity for the northern soldier. The destitution of the people was a
source of wonder and regret to the tender-hearted Federal, and, as far as he
could, he was more than ready to relieve it. Aside from dividing rations,
however, he was powerless, but it would not have been in accordance with nature
if he had not done some piloting of the suffering citizens to Uncle Sam’s
commissary stores. The situation is most happily set forth in the words of one
to the manor born, who was there when the distress was on:
In all this
tune of horror I don’t think, anything was much harder than making up our
minds to draw rations from the Yankees. We said we would not do it-we could not
do it! But as hunger gained upon us and starvation stared us in the face, Mrs.
Sampson rose up in her might: “I’ll take anything I can get out of the
Yankees!” she exclaimed.” They haven’t had any delicacy of feeling in
taking everything we’ve got. I’m going for rations.”
And go they did, though the
results were not quite so appetizing as they had expected, since the piece de
resistance in each case was likely to be a dried codfish, which, however
orthodox to the New Englander, was not much of a luxury to one of the Old
Dominion, but with the accompanying bit of bacon and some potatoes, life was
maintained after a fashion, though it is related that the ancient and fish-like
smell that accompanied the “ration” compelled the recipients, in most cases,
to hang the food outside the window. Perhaps the coffee thus obtained was most
appreciated. It was no infrequent sight, that of well-dressed women, evidently
of the best families of the city, applying for aid. At one time, the soldier
inquired of replied that he did not know in what way he could be of service,
impressed by the evident gentility of the woman. When he mentioned work, with
his northern sentiments on that subject, he was told that she knew very little
about work, and that her servants had all been scattered by the war. “Do you
know who that lady is?” asked a citizen of the guard. “No, I do not, but she
is a lady, whoever she may be,” was the reply. “Well, she represents one of
the oldest and most wealthy families in Virginia. Her father once possessed
hundreds of slaves, but the folks are in terrible straits now.”
However, native intelligence and
energy soon began to tell and it was not long before order was evolved from all
of war’s carnage and confusion. The rebels, or those lately in rebellion,
began to discover that the Yankees were not so had as they had been painted;
some of the gentler sex even gave their hearts into the keeping of soldiers from
the North, and some of the latter made Richmond or other southern cities places
of permanent abode. Long years after it was all over, a southern writer says
this of those troublous days: “Our grandchildren can’t understand how such
nice people as the Yankees and ourselves ever could have fought each other.
‘It doesn’t seem reasonable,’ says Nellie the third, who is engaged to a
gentleman from Boston, where we sent her to cultivate her musical talents, but
where she applied herself to other matters. ‘It doesn’t seem reasonable,
grandmamma, when you could just as easily have settled it all comfortably
without any fighting. How glad I am I wasn’t living then! How thankful I am
that Old Glory floats alike over North and South now.’ ‘And so am I, my
darling, so am I’”
Across the river from Bermuda
Hundred resided a family of the Carters, for generations one of the proudest and
best in the South. This particular branch had remained faithful to the Union,
though the most of the name had affiliated with the Rebellion; indeed the wife
of Robert E. Lee was a relative, and to her a message had been intrusted with
Major Ordway, with the understanding that lie should deliver it in person. This
in due time he undertook to do, but lie found the entrance to the presence of
the chieftain’s companion, a great granddaughter of Washington’s wife, was
not so easily effected. To enter the vestibule and to be met by a colored
servitor who inquired his business, was one thing, but to meet Mrs. Lee was
quite another. Notwithstanding his repeated statement that he was to deliver his
message personally, he received only the same reply, “Tell the gentleman that
Mrs. Lee is not at home,” and the valiant and fastidious Major was obliged to
retire discomfited, his message unimparted, at least not in person, and his
failure was a source of some merriment to his brother officers. Later when he
had led to the altar a daughter of Richmond, and became a resident of that noted
city, it is probable that his entrance into the elite of the capital’s society
was more easily effected.
Among all the prisoners committed
to the care of the Union soldiers in Richmond, the most famous was Dick Turner,
the man who had made himself so hateful to the unfortunate northern men confined
in Libby Prison. That he was a tyrant every one agreed, and he was given a taste
of his own provisions, in that he was at first incarcerated in one of the
dungeons beneath the very structure over which he had formerly held so hard and
high a hand. When the troops from the armies further south began to pour through
the capital, there were many men appearing whom he had tyrannized over, in some
cases had maltreated. All wanted to see him; some were civil and courteous to
him, others were quite the reverse. One especially, an officer who had suffered
terribly at the hands of the former keeper, was determined to shoot him. It
required a deal of effort and wisdom to prevent the death of the rebel by his
half-crazed foe, on account of his deeds in other days. But prudence and the
protection accorded prisoners among civilized people prevailed and Turner’s
life was spared. Not so very long after the guarding of the ex-keeper became a
part of the regiment’s duties, a Union officer called at the prison and on
learning where the Confederate was confined remarked, “I wonder that he
doesn’t find out that one of the bars at his window is of wood.” It appears
that the officer himself had once been imprisoned in that very place, and that
in his plans for escape had substituted wood for iron in the bars at the window,
but departing in another manner, before he had used this avenue of escape, the
false bar had remained. Acting on knowledge thus imparted, the cell of Turner
was visited at once, but too late, for the prisoner had learned of the
deception, taken advantage of it and had departed. However, his liberty was of
short duration, since he was speedily retaken and this time was placed in Castle
Thunder, where, for the sake of surety, he was heavily ironed. Strong chains
connected his wrists, and his feet were united in a similar manner, while an
iron rod reached from his feet to his hands, and to make his escape still more
improbable, the entire assemblage of links, rods and gyves was securely chained
to the ceiling, his manacles reminding one of those with which Pizarro bound the
Inca of Peru. The Government, evidently intent on leaving the least number of
scars possible, did not punish Davis and, as for the keepers of southern
prisons, the hanging of Wirtz apparently sufficed, and Turner eventually went
forth unscathed. “He was not a particularly bad fellow as far as looks,
language and manners were concerned,” was the general comment of the men who
saw him frequently. His rations when thus kept in the very building over which
he had lorded so long were simply hard tack and water, a not over-appetizing
layout, but one that gave his former captives, now his visitors, a great deal of
pleasure as they asked him how he liked it himself.
The marching through Richmond of
Sherman’s army and that of the Potomac was a source of much pleasure to all
beholders, and possibly there was some pride mingled with the sight as the men
of the trip from Atlanta to the Sea strode through the Confederate capital, in
sight of the edifice in which had been evolved the plans and plots which kept up
the strife during four long years.
One who was there thus describes
the passage of the Second and Fifth Army Corps:
Yesterday (May
6th) Richmond saw what she never saw before, viz.: the passage of
about 40,000 troops of the Union Army on their way to Washington. They commenced
to come over from Manchester on the pontoon bridge, about 6 a.m., and were till
4.30 crossing. On their march they passed by Libby Prison and Castle Thunder, on
which we had placed large signs so that the soldiers might know what they were
passing. Their remarks as they passed and gazed were more forcible than polite.
Thence they passed onto Main Street, where the Third Division of the
Twenty-fourth Corps was formed in line to receive them. They thus stretched
along two miles or more. Some of the reviewing soldiers recognized old friends
in the Massachusetts regiments as they swung along the route. By this time, the
Twenty-fourth had resumed some of its Readville dignity and style and was
wearing dress coats with scales oil the shoulders, appearing very little like
the men of Drewry’s Bluff and the Petersburg trenches. Some of the men on
guard were in full regalia and even wore white gloves, an amount of “put-on”
quite too much for the rough-and-ready fellows just in from the field, and they,
thinking the starched soldiers were regulars, stigmatized them as “band box”
regiments and slurred them to their hearts’ content, little realizing that in
the preceding season they were all alike. The passage of the wagon train was
even more interesting than that of the army. If northern people all turn out to
see a circus, I don’t know what they would do for this.
Then, too, when later in the
month of May, the Sixth Corps came along from its tour of guard-duty in southern
Virginia, there was another chance to compare notes with soldiers who had warred
with the Army of the Potomac, in the Shenandoah Valley, and, in the battle of
Sailors’ Creek, had won the last great victory against the Confederacy. Those
were pleasant days for the Twenty-fourth, and to the younger members of the
regiment they were almost delightful. Says one of the survivors: “One of the
proudest moments of my life was when, as Corporal, I was in charge of a squad of
colored soldiers, going with them across the pontoon bridge over to Manchester.
I had noticed that, with their old-time subserviency, they were giving way to
every ex-reb they met, so I just told them not to give a single inch when they
met any more of the secesh. This was what they had been anxious to hear, and the
way they stood up and the way they walked through the next party of their old
enemies was a sight to see. I felt as if I had accomplished something in
teaching these men that they had rights, and that the uniform they had on wasp
entitled to respect no matter who wore it.”
It would be idle to assert that
all the men enjoyed the sanssouci life in Richmond. While it was pleasant for
some of the officers and for many of the younger members, to the man who had
enlisted for putting down the Rebellion and whose family and business required
him at home, the stay was irksome in the extreme. It was during these days that
many men, as will be seen by reference to the Roster, took French leave. They
had in many cases been admirable soldiers, some of them even were reenlisted
veterans, but the call of home was too strong and they heeded the prompting.
Government recognized the provocation, and some years later ordered that all men
thus taking leave of the service, after the surrender, and on making due
application, should have their names removed from the list of deserters and
should be entitled to all the privileges of those who stayed through. Very many,
however, paid the debt to nature due before this ruling was had, and some
excellent names still rest under a shadow. Nor did the days pass by without some
remonstrance from the sober-minded men who were doing ditty for fifty cents a
day, and who were worth dollars at any one of a score of employments in the
North. In July a petition was carried in to headquarters representing that the
men were tired of soldiering and desired to have measures taken to secure the
muster-out of the regiment. The signers went up in a body and the hospital
steward carried in the paper.
