Spake As a Dragon

by Larry Hunt

CHAPTER TWENTY

  Point Lookout

  “All right you Johnny Rebs, get outta them wagons youse home,” the Yankee guard says pounding on the side of the wagon with the butt of his rifle. The harrowing ride from Washington to Point Lookout is finally over.

  Robert and Ben slide from the bed of the wagon to the ground. What they see amazes them. They scan over the entire expanse of the Point Lookout prisoner of war camp.

  The place is located on the extreme tip of St. Mary’s County, Maryland, on a spit of land where Chesapeake Bay converges with the Potomac River. It is a sandy piece of ground with plenty of marshy land. Due to its very location, the Point swelters in the summer months, and a brisk wind from the Atlantic causes freezing cold in the winter.

  Point Lookout proper covers a little over six hundred acres; however, the Confederate prison itself encompasses only a forty-acre plot of ground. A ten-foot board fence encloses it. All around the top of the wall is a walkway, which the armed sentinels constantly patrol. From the top of the fence, the guards can see what is going on, both inside and out. The waters of the Chesapeake Bay, to which the prisoners have no access, bound the back of the prison compound on the north. Although it is salt water, they could bathe, and wash their clothes, but its use is forbidden. The inmates refer to Point Lookout as the ‘pen’.

  After being shoved through the entrance gate, Robert and Ben are herded into a small building just within the prison’s front entrance. A hand-painted sign over the door reads, ‘Incoming.’ The standard operational practice, once they get inside, is to have all newly arriving prisoners searched, and all valuables and money confiscated. Valuables are, supposedly, stored for safekeeping and money if they have any is credited to their account in the form of an entry in a passbook that the prisoner gets to keep. These credits can be exchanged at the Sutler’s store to purchase a short list of available items. The drawback to the former practice: most if not all captured Rebels do not have money. In the vast majority of cases, the Confederates have not been paid since joining the Confederate army. Once searched and accounted for the prisoners are released to fend for themselves within the walls of this hellhole called the ‘pen, Point Lookout prison.

  Their search completed, Robert and Ben, walk outside the Incoming Office and find they are standing on the debris-strewn main street within the ‘pen’. This thoroughfare’s name is Pennsylvania Avenue, also known to the inmates as ‘Robbers Row.’ Walking down the filth-littered street, they notice a small wooden shack, apparently made from the discarded wooden cases used to ship the life-sustaining crackers, known as hardtack. Over this door is a hand-painted sign proclaiming, ‘Chains, rings, made here at shortest notice’. Inside are two men, obviously Rebels, making watch fobs and other small items of intrinsic value, using horsehair. They make finger rings from buttons. The workmen are as skilled as any Yankee journeymen in the North, in spite of the primitive nature of the tools they use to accomplish their tasks.

  The prison area is a confused mass of tents and hardtack box constructed shelters. Men, the majority of who are emaciated, limp and struggle to and fro the best they can. Some are getting around on makeshift crutches; others are being helped along with the aid of a buddy. The sounds, they hear, are a medley of noise, not unlike sounds heard on a busy city street; however, they have never witnessed a street with the sides littered with skinny, skeleton-like, anorexic men. A number of this rabble of ragged men lie motionlessly; they have simply died where they have fallen.

  Up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, they see a number of small frame building, a couple they notice house the main Sutler’s store and a postal office. Side streets empty on to this main drag. Both sides of these streets are also lined with the tents and box structures of the prisoners.

  As Robert and Ben progress through the streets they are amused at some of the names above the prisoner’s quarters: “Virginia Hall”, “Louisiana Country”, “The Rebel Retreat” or “Rebel Den”. They soon discover there are three Rebel Camps at this Point Lookout location. The one they are presently in. The one next-door quarters the Rebel officer’s or ‘Officer’s Country’ as the inmates refer to it, and the third is north of the prison compound; this facility houses the “galvanized” Rebels. Galvanized Rebels is the name other prisoners call Rebels who have switched sides and taken the ‘Oath of Allegiance’ to the United States.

  Also along Pennsylvania Avenue they find homemade booths of every description. Some sell tobacco, others peddle fruit; still others are plying small selections of vegetables. All available for a price Robert and Ben find out. “Real” money cannot be used to purchase anything – the ‘pen’ has its own currency. One Confederate dollar is worth one piece of hardtack and one plug of tobacco. All money transactions must go through the Commissary Officer, who makes the appropriate entries in the prisoner’s passbook. The booths, or their merchandise is of little concern to Robert and Ben; between the two of them they do not have two half-dimes to rub together. Their pay in the Confederate Army was to be eleven dollars a month, but neither of them has seen a penny of their pay since their enlistment more than a year ago.

  Quarters, quarters! They must find somewhere to live.

  White Army tents used as living quarters by the prisoners are lined up and down the side streets. All are occupied with their allotment of twelve persons, plus extra bodies are crowded in most all of them; however, the camp was designed to hold approximately ten thousand prisoners, currently it is crammed to overflowing with over fifteen thousand unfortunate souls. Of course the Yanks say the Rebs have no souls, so this place must be filled with Rebel malcontents of ever description.

  As the night descends, darkness finds Robert and Ben huddled up in an empty spot next to one of the Sutler tents. The ground is hard and still damp from the recent rains. Maybe tomorrow they will discern the lay of the land – right now they are ‘newbies’, they need someone to show them the ropes. After arriving at Point Lookout, no one has told them very much – after being searched they were merely thrown into the mass of humanity within the prison walls without instructions of any kind.

  After a miserable night, a slight glimmer of light can be seen tinting the eastern sky; morning at last is finally arriving. Robert and Ben think the misery of the previous night ranks among one of the worst they have ever endured since entering the war. They both are weak from lack of food and water. Their joints and muscles are stiff, but both are still alive. At least they can be thankful for that. It is morning, but no one has explained anything about the camp. What are they to do?

  Robert notices a large group of prisoners hurrying toward one of the wooden buildings. Robert and Ben join the crowd and follow along.

  The men, accompanied by Robert and Ben, enter a plain, shack-like building. Once inside Robert can see it is a large room used for eating. There are five long tables down the center. He guesses the mess hall can feed around five hundred at a time. The table furniture is extremely primitive, sitting on top are an assortment of tin cups and tin plates. These eating utensils look as if they have been in a war – and lost. Breakfast is about as bad – a cup of paltry coffee, with the addition of one spoonful of molasses, stirred in.

  Squeezing onto a bench at one of the tables, Robert and Ben sit sipping their coffee. After the second taste, Robert isn’t sure it is coffee. A number of bowls, of what appears to be mush and a few large wooden spoons with which to dip the ‘gruel’, sit on the tables. There are neither forks nor spoons with which to eat. Robert and Ben dip out a spoonful of the gooey mess and place it on their tin plates and try, as best they can, to eat it with their dirty hands. A prisoner next to Robert informs them if they have a need, and they do, of a spoon they must fashion one themselves using a piece of wood from one of the hardtack boxes. “Make sure you keep it with you at all times, or other lowlifes in here will up and steal it,” he warns.

  While sitting at the table eating and drinking their breakfast the best they can, Robert casually mentions the meager
offering they are having. He said back in the old 48th Alabama, even on their worse day their fare was better than this.

  From across the table one prisoner, looking across the top of his cup, replies, “Gents, be thankful, some morning we don’t even git the mo-lasses or the mush.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Robert, “I’m beginning to realize y’all have had it bad here, I was just thinking out loud. Forgive me for being so insensible.”

  “Excuse me for asking, but did I hear one of you say y’all was with the 48th Alabama?”

  Robert introduces himself and Ben. He explains he is the one from Hood’s Division, 48th Alabama and Ben was with McLaw’s Division, 10th Georgia.

  “Where’d they git y’all”

  Robert tells of their capture at the Battle of Gettysburg. He explains about being stabbed with a Yankee bayonet and shows the wound where the mini-ball bounced off his head, Yank or Reb, he didn’t know. His head has mostly healed, and the hole in his chest is almost well too, but it is still quite sore.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “My name is Luther Street, Private Luther Walker Street, I was with the 21st Alabama at Pittsburg Landing. Them Yankees caught me down there in ’62. At first they sent me to Camp Douglas up around Chicago way. Then in a few months I was shipped out to this dung hole. Tell me, what news you hear about my old 21st?”

  “Sorry,” Robert replies, “I heard tell the 21st consolidated with the 25th Alabama after the Battle of Pittsburg’s Landing or Shiloh as the Yanks now call it. I also heard your outfit was down to just a skeleton force before it merged with the 25th. Not many of the original bunch left I’m afraid. What wasn’t killed got captured.”

  “Ah, it don’t matter no how, I weren’t with them fer long anyways. I jined up in January of ‘62 and Shiloh was fit in early April. I didn’t know many of the men, only my company commander Captain Lawson Street. The Captain wuz a distant cousin of mine, and we is both from Decatur, Alabama. He’s up in Officer’s Country rite now. Where’s you from?”

  “I’m not sure,” Robert answers, “loss of memory from the head injury. I guess Alabama, but that was a long time ago, in another life.

  “Tell us Luther how can a man make some money in here? We are dead broke, and if we can’t buy extra food from the Sutler, I’m afraid we won’t make it. A man just can’t live on this mush and weak coffee. It’s bothersome, just last night we talked to a fellow recently captured, he said a while back he was in Richmond and corn was selling for fifty dollars a bushel; flour was four hundred dollars a barrel; pork was five dollars a pound; beef three dollars a pound; potatoes forty-five dollars a bushel. At these prices how are we ever going to afford to buy anything here, even if we ever get our Confederate pay?”

  “Yeah... yer right! You have to have money, or you will die in here, but don’t you worry about them figures you hear’d about, thems in ‘federate money. Here you get paid in Yankee money. That beef in here is around twenty-five cents a pound, and a bushel of them taters wouldn’t be more’n a dollar or so. You can git a pound of sugar fer fifteen cents and a pound of cheese will only set you back one Federal dime. Yankee money ain’t gone no-account like our ‘federate money.

  “Darn! I didn’t realize the South’s money is so worthless. I guess our eleven dollars a month won’t amount to much, even if we ever see any of it.”

  “Fer shore, it’s jest about no-good, but in the meantime, tomorrow at sunup you two be at the front gate. Every mornin’ they pick from two to three hundred workers to go out and work on fortifications, unload the stuff at the dock, thangs like that. Sergeant Scarburg I know you are still ailing from yer injuries, so stand back once you git on the job – let them others do most of the work. You each will make half a dime a day – once you have enough, you can trade the cash money for hardtack and tobaccy. With hardtack and tobaccy, you can buy most anything in this place. Speakin’ of the front gate, did you notice that big ditch, about ten feet out from the wall on the inside?”

  “Yeah, what’s that for?”

  “That’s the ‘deadline.’ Them blacks have been pullin’ guard duty, and they shoot anybody inside that line towards the fence. Fellers, I mean anybody, sometimes they’ll shoot one of us jest ‘cause we gets close to that ditch. You’uns keep yer distance, yer hear?”

  “Thanks, Luther, loud and clear, but tomorrow morning, how do we go about getting chosen?”

  “Don’t worry about that, one prisoner is in charge of makin’ the selection. He’s from the 21st too – I can fix it with him.”

  “Why? Why would you do this for us?”

  “Us Alabama boys got to stick together – oh well, Georgia is close enuf to count I suppose, ‘member, don’t you be late, be there before sunup.”