From the National Tribune, 4/30/1903
Libby and
Belle Isle.
EDITOR NATIONAL TRIBUNE: I can
fully corroborate the statements of Capt. Beecham and Comrade J. W. Rodgers,
123d Ohio, regarding the horrors of Libby and Belle Isle. I was one of the party
with Comrade Rodgers who smashed the locked door of Libby Prison and liberated
the prisoners who were in imminent danger of losing their lives in burning
Richmond. The scenes were harrowing in the extreme. The helpless inmates of the
prison were apparently forsaken - all hope gone. Serving in the 3d W. Va., I was
captured, April 8, 1864. My experience was similar to that of others - marched
through rain and mud, with little to eat and broken rest at night. It is the
same old story of suffering and indignities endured. In Libby we were stripped
in the presence of old Gen. Winder. While the other boys were undergoing the
stripping process, I backed against the office door and surreptitiously
abstracted the key and slipped it into my pocket. Of course, the key was useless
to me. I simply wanted to annoy old Winder and his myrmidons. When they raised
the trap door of the second floor preparatory to ushering us into the presence
of those prisoners who “had gone before,” we were greeted with the cry, “Fresh
fish!” The stench coming from that hole was sickening and overpowering. When we
entered it was dark, the solid windows being nailed down. The place was so
crowded that I could scarcely find room to lie down.
When transferred to Belle Isle I
came in contact with the “wicked old Doctor,” At “sick call,” the unsympathetic
Esculapian gruffly asked, “What’s the matter with you?” I told him that I had
fever. “Nothing of the kind,” said he; “there’s nothing whatever the matter with
you.” Of course, I knew I was sick, if that adamantine “practitioner” didn’t.
One Summer day a smooth-faced
boy, so sick that he ought to have been in the hospital, sat with me all day
long by the stockade, without a mouthful to eat, the fierce rays of a hot sun
beating upon us the while. About sundown a gentlemanly officer approached us and
said: “You sick boys must go to the hospital. The boat is waiting. Come along.”
The mere presence of that gentlemanly fellow had an exhilarating effect upon our
depressed spirits. He was an infinitely better physician than the “wicked
Doctor.” When we were near the other shore, several shots were fired, apparently
at us, from an old mill. Letting the boat drift toward the shore, the officer
turned and fired a few shots at the window whence he supposed the hostile shots
had come. When we landed some young girls met us and with inquiring eyes viewed
our “ragged regimentals.”
I witnessed the “bread riot” in
Richmond. A red-headed woman marched in front of the crowd, crying “Bread or
blood!” That woman and her followers were aware that in a great warehouse on
Ferry street, within sight of Libby Prison, were stored immense quantities of
provisions, while the poorer citizens and the soldiers were in a state of
semi-starvation. When the city was being evacuated and pandemonium reigned
supreme, the whisky stored in the warehouse was emptied on the street, filling a
cellar and flooding the sewer. - WM. H. SHRIVER, CO. C, 3d W. Va., and Co. F,
6th W. Va. Cav., Randall, W. Va.
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