part 2 chapter

25

i ’m scarcely able to tell the difference between night and day, submerged as i am in

a nightmare that regularly ambushes me now. every sound reminds me of the past. even the

creek, my beloved creek below the house, is driving me mad. it assaults my hearing as it spills

over its banks, flooded with rains from the fall hurricane off the distant virginia coast. clapping

my hands over my ears makes the torment no less. the creek in its passage is chillingly similar

to waves beating against pea patch island, where i was imprisoned for thirteen months.

after a six-day hike from spotsylvania, union soldiers prodded us into cavernous freight cars

waiting in washington. the cries of wounded men drowned out the thrum of spinning metal

wheels as we rolled first toward baltimore, and then to the union fort mchenry. there, blue-

uniformed officials stood behind wooden tables and piles of documents. with a sharp thwack of

a red rubber stamp, they changed our identities from soldier to prisoner.

a packet steamboat that stank of recently transported livestock was moored at the end of a

long dock jutting out from fort mchenry. our little group, along with hundreds of others, was

forced into the lower hold. the space was foul with manure. envy gnawed at me as our

confederate officers boarded in a separate line headed for upper decks where there was fresh air.

we were packed together upright, not able to even crouch, for a twelve-hour journey in an

airless enclosure with the rank scent of human illness everywhere. beards and jim blue, already

in ill health from lack of nourishment, were overwhelmed. tears involuntarily drained from

beards’ eyes.

“boys, step aside or you’ll be fouler than you already are,” he muttered weakly and swayed.

john bibb, jim blue, and i strained away, but there wasn’t an extra inch to spare. as those near

beards cringed, splatters of vomit added another indignity to our clay and bloodstained rags. by

now, i was largely indifferent to unpleasant body fluids—from my own chronic diarrhea to

liquids from others’ bodies. being transported in an animal packet steamer struck me as an

appropriate continuation of the foot soldier’s life. i prayed we weren’t headed to slaughter,

surely the previous passengers’ fate.

when the boat began to sway more heavily from side to side, we knew we’d left the river and

had entered the broad and turgid chesapeake bay. exhaustion, injuries, and jolting waves would

have toppled many by this time but for the pressure of bodies on all sides. men around me

fainted, and bibb was one of them. i supported his weight, his arm limply across my shoulder

and my hand on his belt. it was a small price for what i owed him. the ever-present moaning

and stench of seasickness made this leg of the journey interminable, until we finally entered the

mouth of the mile-wide delaware river. there we were herded off a gangplank to our future

home.

wobbly-legged, i stepped onto an island of barely reclaimed swamp. before us loomed a

high- walled brick and granite fortress, crowned by one hundred cannons. our company of

common prisoners, however, would never see the inside of that pentagonal structure. stretching

before it was an immense twelve-foot-high wooden pen, capped by a walkway on which blue-

uniformed men patrolled with weapons. this was where we were herded.

high on the wall, three officers stood, waiting for the hundreds of new prisoners to surge

through the gate and fill the square below. the commanding general, a man named schoepf,

nervously toyed with the medals on his blue jacket, revealing the white handkerchief stuffed in

his cuff. his pants were crisply pressed and without stains. he withdrew the handkerchief and

held it to his nose as he waited for the crowd to settle. then, with a thick european accent, he

introduced himself and his two deputies. “you’ll answer to different commanders now. i’m

charged, along with my two deputies, captain george w. ahl and sergeant abraham wolf,

with the execution of president lincoln’s orders. you will unwaveringly follow them. any

violation of prison regulations, and you will pay the price.” he paused and took stock of the

scraggly crowd. “but if you heed my warnings well, you’ll have no trouble here.” his shiny

boots thumped across the walkway to a ladder leading down to the separate officers’ pen, as he

left his underlings to oversee us. i felt an urge to better see what these men were made of.

“excuse me. coming through,” i muttered as i pushed through the crowd standing nearest the

wall.

maybe it was my height or bold movement, but i attracted ahl’s notice as i finally stood

beneath him. i was close enough to see that his shirt strained across his bulging stomach and

remnants of former meals marred his trousers. his army jacket was sloppily thrown across both

bulky shoulders, and he gripped the crooked handle of a cane in his right hand. i could also see

the glinting, soulless eyes that revealed the true man. when i looked up, those eyes locked on

mine and fiercely glowered. i glared back, refusing to look away. a current of fear rippled

through me from head to toe, and i shuddered.

separated into groups of one hundred, we filed through a crude door in one of the two very

long, flimsily constructed wooden barracks that stretched along the sides of the pen. inside were

tiered, six-foot wide shelves on which lay rows of thin wool blankets. the guards commanded

us to empty our pockets and what rucksacks men still carried onto the rough wooden boards.

they then confiscated everything we’d brought with us, including any extra clothes. beards

nudged my arm. “we better pray we’re home by winter. i bet a cold wind blows off the water

through these plank walls.” he gestured to the daylight streaming between the boards.

“it’s mid-may. we’ll be gone by then,” i said. we’d all heard that the system of prisoner

trades meant incarceration for only three months or so.

jim blue, beards, and i staked places side by side on the second berth. zeke skinner and the

rest of the augusta fellows were close by, and john bibb claimed a spot on the tier across the

aisle.

these sleeping shelves were also our living accommodations. it was impossible for more

than a few to stand in the narrow aisle between. on each side, fifty men slept with heads to the

outside wall and feet to the center, shelved as common logs without bedding or even straw. the

single federal-issue blanket was little protection from the splinters and would be none at all from

the weather. i quickly learned to place half on the shelf and to wrap the other half around my

body.

directly below the barrack floors and bisecting the pen were watery canals. twice a day as

the tide rose there should have been sufficient flow to lift the waste that would then spill through

sluice gates into the river. but nine thousand overcrowded inmates produced so much garbage

and filth that the canals were clogged. the tides had no power to dislodge the accumulation.

they thus became incubators for slime and animalculae. any open wound festered after canal

contact.

luckily, in the morning’s crowd of veteran prisoners i’d spotted frank armstrong, a member

of the 5th virginia infantry. company d had belonged to the 5th. several years older than i, the

stocky, curly- bearded fellow from brownsburg had taught sunday school classes at new

jerusalem church. my parents had spoken admiringly of this young man who took the bible so

seriously, and ma had suggested that i should emulate him. this, of course, meant i stayed far

away from him, but now i approached with hand outstretched. “frank, it’s good to see you alive

and with all your limbs. when did these yankee devils catch up with you?”

at first his expression was blank, but then he recognized me. “i’ll be darned. tom smiley,

isn’t it? praise be to the lord, although i can’t say it’s good to see you here.” his mouth set in a

grim line. “i’ve been in this place for a month, but it feels like years.” he looked around to see if

there was a guard nearby. “let me tell you, you have to figure this place out on your own.

otherwise, you’ll be gunned down. there’s no second chance.”

my stomach clenched. “how can i avoid that fate?” i asked.

“well, you need to know that the guards take curfew very seriously. don’t dare mess with the

barrack lantern after 8:00 p.m. lights out. if you do, they’ll shoot you on the spot. stay alert, take

your time and watch, and do everything the guards tell you as quickly as you can.”

he then added, “here’s another piece of advice. choose a second-tier bunk, not an upper or

lower one, whatever you do. the leaky roof soaks those on top, and the ‘floor men’ on the

bottom get the canal vapors and any fluids from both tiers above.” i felt some satisfaction that,

with the exception of tayloe, our group had chosen well. i would warn him to switch shelves.

“what about the commander and his sidekick ahl? ahl looks particularly dangerous.”

frank motioned me to move even farther from others and spoke softly. “schoepf’s not so

bad. but he’s very peculiar about health and cleanliness. very peculiar. fellows say he was

driven mad by the death of his infant daughter shortly before the war, before he came over from

austro-hungary. he blames ‘foul vapors,’ and there are surely plenty of those around here. it’s

why he’s so pale. he rarely comes outside.”

“that sounds like you don’t see much of him.”

“true. ahl is the one who keeps an eye on us, and between you and me, he’s the one really in

control. he watches us like a hawk watches mice. no one can get to schoepf unless they go

through him, not even other officers or the guards. he and his flunkies censor all mail, incoming

and outgoing.” all mistreatment, frank believed, originated from ahl. “i hear he gained power

over schoepf by ratting him out to washington as being too soft on us. now he threatens to do it

again if the commander shows any humanity. believe me, stay far away from ahl for your own

good.”

“what about sergeant wolf?”

“he’s not any better, but he’s not as much of a threat. he’s responsible for the officers’ pen.

he’s too fond of his whiskey, which makes him meaner, but also keeps him out of action.”

“it sounds like schoepf is the pawn of his two junior officers,” i said. frank nodded.

after the boys and i claimed our spots on the boards, we filed out into the vast pen. it teemed

with thousands of idle men standing in knots talking or squatting against the walls. a gray-

haired prisoner with a wheelbarrow struggled by, parting the crowd with his burden of corpses

piled like so much corded lumber. he wearily called, “make way, make way.”

i searched for frank and found him standing in the pen where i had left him. “what’s this?” i

asked, gesturing toward the grim scene.

“these poor souls are from the hospital. it’s in the pen over yonder by the wall. the place

overflows with men at all hours—plagued by loose bowels, measles, the pox, or whatever

wound gnaws at them since the battlefield. most of ’em will be dumped headfirst into trenches

dug by inmates across the river.” he explained that lime would break down their flesh, and then

there will be room for more of us to join them in days to come.

not long after, tayloe, who hadn’t followed my advice and was still berthed above me,

couldn’t muster out for morning drill. he murmured that he wasn’t well enough to rise. beards

hollered out in tayloe’s place during roll call and did so for the week that tayloe lay wasting of

what looked like typhus pneumonia. he turned a deaf ear to our pleas to visit the surgeon’s

window in the pen wall where, once a day, men waited in long queues for a consultation.

“that damn doctor dispenses nothing but bread pills and some mysterious powder boys

swear is flour,” he said. “a stay in the hospital will surely kill me.” he breathed in gasps but

continued. “i’ll take my chances right here with you fellows.” i gently patted his arm and tried

to smile for his sake.

as the days passed, we helplessly listened while he moaned feverishly on the boards above.

five of us sneaked bits of our cornbread and meat to share, but he pushed them away as his

fever mounted. there was nothing to do but pray he wouldn’t suffer for long. in the meantime,

he lay in a puddle of excrement and vomit. nights were the worst. he thrashed his arms about

and called out words in a ragged voice that none of us could understand. “tayloe, what is it?”

i’d ask, hoping to ease his discomfort. but if he responded, it was only to moan in the dark. we

took turns dipping a rag in tepid water and holding it to his forehead, but he remained clammy

and feverish. finally, on the sixth day in the late afternoon, zeke, who had been resting below,

noticed there was an unnatural silence from tayloe’s shelf.

“tayloe, tayloe, answer me,” he called out. when there was no sound, he pulled himself up

to tayloe’s level and held his hand beneath tayloe’s nostrils. no breath crossed his fingers. a

palm to tayloe’s chest told zeke what he dreaded. he ran into the yard where i was squatting in

the shade of the wall.

“i think tayloe is gone,” he choked out. “come see for yourself. i can’t feel a heartbeat.”

i leaped to my feet, crossed the barrack threshold, and stood next to the pale body curled on

the shelf. zeke was right. the whites of tayloe’s eyes were visible under half-closed lids and his

mouth gaped open. when i put my head to tayloe’s chest, there was nothing. pulling up the dry

flesh of his lid, his eye stared unblinking at a place far beyond my reach. i paused for a moment,

my hand on his shoulder, and looked long at what was left of my friend so that i might never

forget. during those days as barely more than children in staunton, neither of us could have

predicted his death this way.

this was different from sam’s dying. the blood drained from my face, and my knees were

weak. throbbing pain behind my eyes made my head feel huge. but deep feelings of loss had

been out of reach ever since we’d laid sam in the ground. zeke yelled to the other boys in our

company to come in from the yard. we stood in a wordless row before tayloe’s body, each of

us forming an inner farewell. beards and i finally eased his emaciated corpse down from the

boards, wrapped it in his blanket, and bade it farewell as the wheelbarrow man hauled it away. i

spent the afternoon slumped against the pen wall with my head in my hands until the dinner

signal was given.

three weeks had passed since our arrival, and the prison was due for a visit from the federal

health inspectors. schoepf was obsessed with demonstrating that he ran a clean operation. two

days before inspection, ahl appeared on the wall above the pen. “all men muster out of the

barracks!” he hollered.

we poured out of the doors and waited in the yard from the time the sun was highest and

hottest until it was mercifully lower in the sky. guards trooped in with mops and buckets

sloshing with lye soap, and then with buckets of whitewash and brushes. afterward, we were

marched to the river where, under the close watch of rifle-toting guards, we scrubbed off months

of grime and stink, as well as more than a few lice. it was a glorious time. i’ll never forget the

sensation of glistening hair and a scrubbed body.

on the tenth of june, after an early morning visit to the sinks, beards returned to the barracks

to rouse jim blue and me with a rumor he’d heard in the yard.

“hey you fellows, wake up. there’s going to be a big announcement before morning drill.

men are already out in the pen. do you think old abe or jeff davis, either one, has come to his

senses about our release? that prisoner trades are starting up?”

bibb propped himself up on his elbows, suddenly alert. “lord, could it be true?”

we sprang to our feet and lined up behind other stragglers for the usual eight o’clock drill.

after roll call, captain ahl and sergeant wolf appeared above on the wall. we maintained our

lines, each man savoring images of homecoming. with a smirk at our upturned faces, ahl then

recited loudly from an order clutched in his hand.

“i hereby inform all enlisted prisoners of fort delaware that as of today, anyone who risks

public health by committing a ‘nuisance’ in or about the barracks will be given three verbal

warnings to cease, and then will be shot or die by bayonet. this directive is straight from

commander schoepf and will henceforth be known as special order number 157.” the sun

gleamed white off the official paper as he read it. at the conclusion, his lips twisted as he

relished the effect of his announcement.

oh, how i suddenly hated this man. rage and resentment made my chest feel it might

explode. straight from commander schoepf. right? in my mind, ahl no longer just represented

evil stupidity. he became everything i despised about the past three years. now it had boiled

down to something smaller than the greed of confederate legislators and their cronies but was

no less threatening. this petty minded, cruel man had us completely under his thumb. the

helplessness of it made me lightheaded. to my mind, this newest injustice reeked of ahl, not

schoepf.

astonishment surged through the crowd. next to me, a fellow leaning on a wooden crutch

muttered under his breath, “that goddamned schoepf!” a wave of profanities swept through the

pen.

“do you all, every one of you, understand me?” ahl continued. “guards will be reminded of

special order number 157 every day before they stand duty. every single day. it is your

responsibility as prisoners never to forget it.” fellows spat more oaths under their breath, while

others stared hopelessly at the ground. zeke’s ire pulsated across his pinched face as he stared

upward at ahl. the man felt the heat of zeke’s hatred and glared back, taking his measure and

storing it away. ahl’s eyes then fell on me, standing next to zeke, and lingered. once again, i

stared him down.

we had recently suspected that schoepf was wary of men relieving themselves at the

doorways of the barracks because the guards’ warnings had grown increasing harsh. but now

there would be serious consequences for men with raw wounds, amputated limbs, and serious

illnesses who had trouble walking the narrow, board pathways across the muddy pen in the

black night. the boards ran about seven hundred feet before reaching the bridges leading to

privies or “sinks.” these were nothing more than planks with side-by-side round holes sawn in

them, set out over shallow water too low for the tide to wash away daily droppings. meals of

decayed meat, often covered with green flies, insured the spindly bridges and pathways were

constantly lined with men shifting from foot to foot. understandably, all of us preferred to

stumble half asleep to tend to our needs just beyond a barrack exit.

that very day, a man from our barrack committed a “nuisance” on the bank of the delaware

river. zeke and beards had newly befriended him in the pen and joined in with others pitching

a bar of soap back and forth in a slippery game of catch during the monthly bath. he was

nineteen-year-old wilbur sparks from madison, virginia. i think he’d joined the army only

recently, although he’d suffered some wounds in that time. a raw scar traveled across his nose

and forehead. while the others waited for beards to chase after the bobbing piece of soap,

wilbur stepped onto the sand, and turning his back, relieved himself. a guard screamed for him

to halt, but the boy, unable to stop the flow midstream, hollered over his shoulder that the guard

was “a yankee son of a bitch.” the bathing group burst apart, guessing the guard’s angry

response. the guard raised his rifle and took direct aim. the hapless fellow tumbled onto the

sand, his pants flapping open below the bloody exit wound in his belly. he died quickly. this

was a sobering demonstration of schoepf’s obsession, ahl’s application of it, and another

incident to feed zeke’s and my wrath.