CHAPTER IX
In Prison at Louisville, Where I Was Honored With Handcuffs.
Referring to Bowling Green prison, where Major Ousley had left us: Four hours after Ousley’s escape, our friends in the prison boosted Clark and me up into the attic, when we found out to our dismay that the weather had cleared and the moon had risen sufficiently high to light up the front of our building, disclosing the hole in the gable. The general’s headquarters being diagonally across the street with a guard’s beat immediately in front, I whispered to Clark, “We had better wait until the corporal comes with his relief guard in front of the headquarters and watch their actions.” Waiting about thirty minutes, a corporal with a relief appeared on the beat and the three stood for some time talking and looking up at our prison wall, which satisfied us that they had made the discovery of the hole and were only waiting for some of us to crawl out on the roof, when they would have shot us. We, therefore, decided it would be folly to attempt our escape that night, which proved a wise decision.
The next morning at roll call the discovery was made that Major Ousley was missing, which caused the greatest excitement; and immediately scouting parties of eight or ten men dashed up to the headquarters across the street for orders, and started out in a lope. All that day these parties called for orders and came back and reported at headquarters. Major Motley came up and saw the manner of Ousley’s escape, and asked the prisoners who made those holes and assisted Ousley. None of us vouchsafed any information. He then sent for the most desperate prisoners, some that were not Confederates, as heretofore stated, and told them that their cases were bad, but if they would tell who assisted Ousley in making his escape, and tried to make their escape with him, he would do all he could to let them off as easy as possible. This we learned through two most excellent citizens, who were in the prison with us, and who were also taken out and offered their liberty if they would disclose Ousley’s accomplices. One of these was a Colonel Lewis, living near Franklin; the other a Doctor Vertriece, a neighbor of Colonel Lewis. These men were imprisoned because of our raid on the railroad, which the reader will remember occurred between Franklin and Woodburn. It was the custom of the Federal commander, whenever Morgan, or any other troops, made a raid on the railroad, to arrest the most prominent citizens in the neighborhood.
After several days of questioning these prisoners, Major Motley came up; my friend Clark was asleep on a mattress the lieutenant of the guard had favored me with, on account of my being wounded. He was lying with his face to the wall. I was sitting on the window sill, looking out into the street when Major Motley walked up to where Clark was asleep and gave him a kick in the back, thereby waking him. Clark raised up and asked, “What do you want, Ras’?” when Motley produced a pair of handcuffs he had held behind him and put them on him. Turning around to me, he said, “I will have a pair here for you in a few minutes,” but as it turned out fortunately there was not another pair of handcuffs in Bowling Green, and he had to send to Louisville after them. After he left the prison Doctor Vertriece suggested to me that I write a letter to Colonel Hawkins, who was then in command of the post, telling him that I was a wounded Confederate soldier, and that Major Motley had threatened to put handcuffs on me. I stated in this letter that our command had captured thousands of their men and had always treated them humanely and kindly, notably the Ninth Michigan and Third Minnesota, who, after we had paroled them and when parting with us, said, “If any of you Texas Rangers are captured, call for the Ninth Michigan and Third Minnesota, and we will see that you are well treated.” In winding up my letter to Colonel Hawkins, I called on him as a gentleman and a soldier not to permit such an outrage perpetrated as that of placing irons on a wounded prisoner. This letter Doctor Vertriece succeeded in smuggling around Major Motley, bribing a guard to take it directly to Colonel Hawkins without Motley’s knowledge, and we soon had an answer returned in the same manner from Colonel Hawkins, expressing his regret at our condition, praising Major Motley as a very kind-hearted and good man, and stating that he was satisfied he would do all in his power to alleviate our condition and suffering, and trusting that we would be able to bear up with our condition.
When I read the letter I threw it on the floor, and told Doctor Vertriece he was mistaken in his man; that Colonel Hawkins was no better than the rest of them. He picked up the letter, read it and told me that I was doing a great injustice to Colonel Hawkins, that I was simply misconstruing his position, that he could not have said anything more to me, a prisoner belonging to the army of his enemy, and could certainly not censure Major Motley, an officer of his own army, for his treatment of us, and furthermore suggested that if I would just wait he was satisfied that the handcuffs would not be put on me.
The next day Major Motley again visited our prison, walked up to Lieutenant Clark and took off his handcuffs, hardly able to look into his face. Turning around, he walked up and down the cell a few times in study, and finally stopped in front of me, saying, “Graber, I want you and Clark to understand that I have no personal feeling in this matter; you are prisoners, have been placed in my charge and keeping; you have tried to make your escape with Major Ousley, and, I am going to keep you here, if I have to chain you to this floor.”
I frequently told Major Motley that if they were holding me for court martial, to bring my charges and specifications, to which he replied that I needn’t be in a hurry, I would receive them sooner than I wanted to, perhaps, and, when finally brought, the charge was being a Guerilla; specifications, my own statement admitting to General Judah that we had been engaged in raiding their lines of communications and destroying them ever since we had been in the army. I concluded they need not resort to any trial, as I was prepared to admit the specifications. In this charge they gave my name, company and regiment, C. S. A. (so-called), which was virtually an admission that I was not a Guerilla, but by an order, No. 38, of General Burnside, all recruiting officers captured within his department should be treated as spies, and all raiding parties, not under a general officer, as Guerillas. Finally one day Major Motley came in about ten o’clock in the morning and ordered me to prepare to leave on the eleven o’clock train for Louisville. I asked him, “What for? Are you sending me up there for safe keeping, or to be treated as a prisoner of war?” He said, “Never mind about that; you will learn soon enough.” When I reached Louisville I was taken to the general prison and there treated as a prisoner of war.
I found the Louisville prison a most excellent one; two barracks running parallel, with bunks on each side and a brick-paved yard in the center, with a splendid waterworks. At one end were the offices occupied by clerks and an officer who kept the roll; at the other end was the kitchen, connected on one side with a barrack, and on the other side having a passageway of about three feet, leading into the backyard in the rear of the kitchen, where they had the sinks, and this backyard was kept in a very filthy condition. We had three rations a day, with coffee in the mornings, the rations consisting of a chunk of light bread and a piece of pickled pork, already cut in proper size for each man, in tubs, on each side of the door. On the inside of the kitchen stood a tub, presided over by negro wenches who would shove these rations to us as we passed through, single file, into the backyard.
A negro official, called “Captain Black” by the prisoners, frequently stood on the outside of the door as the prisoners passed in to draw their rations. When some poor, emaciated prisoner, reduced by confinement, barely able to drag his feet, came along, he would curse, tell him to “Hike out, you d—m Rebel,” and sometimes push them along. This made me fear this negro to the extent that I always avoided him and always moved quickly in his presence, determined never to give him an opportunity to insult me.
One day I was lying on my bunk, the second from the floor, about five feet high, which was the end of the bunks next to the door. I was feeling bad and having considerable fever, and was still suffering from my wounds, so I decided not to go out and get my dinner rations. All that were able had gone out, a few sick remaining in the barracks at different places. A little negro boy came to the door and looking up at me, asked if I was sick and didn’t I want a cup of coffee. I told him yes, to bring me a cup and I would pay him for it. He brought me a small tin cup full of fine coffee, for which I gave him a twenty-five-cent bill.
While lying sipping my coffee, resting on my right elbow, “Captain Black” stepped into the door, and, on discovering me said, “What are you doing here, sir?” I said I was sick and didn’t want my rations. He raised up on his toes and said, “Sick?” “Yes, I am sick, too,” and he started to order me out when I lost all control of myself and, from my bunk, fell right over on him, grabbing at his pistol. I got my hand on it, but he jerked away before I could clinch it, but he thought I had it, saying, “Foh Gawd, Massa; don’t, Massa!” then broke for the gate. Some of the prisoners witnessed the trouble and told the others when they came in from drawing their rations, which created considerable excitement and considerable sympathy for me, for it was believed that I would be placed in irons and in a dungeon.
In about half an hour after the prisoners returned from drawing their rations, one of them rushed up to me and suggested that I hide. He said, “That negro, with a big sergeant, is in the yard hunting you.” I told him that I would not hide, but would go and meet them, walking out into the yard. The negro pointed me out to the sergeant, when he walked up to me and told me to hold up my hands. I asked him, “What for?” He said, “To put these things on you,” producing a pair of handcuffs, which he had held behind him. I asked who ordered it done? He stated, Colonel Orcutt. I asked, “Who is Colonel Orcutt?” He said, “Commander of this prison.” I told him, “All right; put them on; they are Yankee bracelets, and I consider it an honor to wear them.”
After wearing these irons two or three days and nights, an officer in fatigue uniform, whom I took to be Colonel Orcutt, stepped up to me and told me to hold up my hands. I asked him what for? He said, “To take those things off.” I told him he needn’t be in a hurry, I had got used to them and considered it an honor to wear them. By this time he had unlocked them and taken them off. When I turned my back on him and mingled with the crowd, some of the prisoners told me that he started to strike me with them, which I hardly believe.
“Captain Black” very soon came to me and apologized, saying that he was very sorry for what he had done, and that he would never mistreat a prisoner again, that “Dese soldiers had put him up to it.” I told him I would give him five dollars if he would steal those handcuffs for me. He said that he would be glad to do that, and would not charge me anything, and he soon reported that they had not been replaced in the office, where they used to hang, and that he couldn’t find out where they were kept.