STANTON RATED IT MURDER HE WOULD NOT SANCTION AN UPRISING IN LIBBY.
ADDITIONAL LIGHT THROWN ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING KILPATRICK’S RAID - THE
LAST DAY IN THE PRISON.
Copyright, 1891, by the New York Times
It was my intention to end the
articles on Libby Prison with this, but when I come to think over my last weeks
in that building I find it impossible to do so without leaving unsaid much that
is necessary to complete the picture, the studies for which were indelibly
burned into my memory during those most trying days.
While I have not been so vain
as to imagine that these reminiscences have an actual historical value, I have
been comforted with the belief that they were substantially accurate, and that
they would served to convey a more vivid conception of life in Southern prisons
than some of the many other and more ambitious productions of my
fellow-prisoners. Last week I attempted to give a description of the excitement
and intense anxiety in Libby Prison at the time of the famous Kilpatrick raid,
which I believed, as did every man in the prison with whom I talked at the time,
was undertaken for the sole purpose of our release.
Since my last article there
has been sent to THE TIMES a letter written by Dr. T. S. Verdi of Washington, to
the Star of that city, in the summer of 1889, which is historically
valuable and which contains information on this subject as new and surprising to
me as it must prove to a majority of my surviving Libby associates. Dr. Verdi’s
character for professional ability, patriotism, and veracity is second to that
of no man in the city where he has so long lived, so that on the face of it his
account of that most thrilling episode of the war, the plan to release the Union
prisoners held in Richmond in the early months of 1864, must be accepted as
substantially correct. In a letter which has just reached me, Gen. Di Cesnola
corroborates Dr. Verdi, and referring to the account of this enterprise which I
gave last week, he says:
“The writer of the Libby
Prison articles will, perhaps, be surprised to find that the plan (for the
release of our prisoners) was somewhat different from the one he gives in THE
TIMES, and in which he says I was elected to lead the assault. The plan
submitted to the Secretary of War was kept so secret that only three or four
officers knew about it in Libby Prison. Had the plan been sanctioned by Stanton,
the officers in Libby would have been at the proper time acquainted with it and
with the part each of them had to play.”
Dr. Verdi, one of those
distinguished Italians who reflect honor alike on the land of their birth and
the country f their adoption, was before the war and has been since a warm
personal friend of Gen. Di Cesnola. Without doubt he speaks with a full
knowledge of the facts, and his story is so surprising that no apology is
necessary for giving a resume of his statements, for they contain one of the
most valuable chapters I have yet seen of the inside history of the late war.
Dr. Verdi says that in the
early part of 1864 a person to him unknown left a letter at his house signed by
L. P. Di Cesnola, Colonel of the Fourth New York Cavalry, who was then a
prisoner in Libby. On the face of it this letter requested that the doctor
should write to the Colonel’s wife for certain articles of clothing. The next
day another envelope was left at the house by an incognito; this contained “a
sheet of paper into which holes and slits were cut of different sizes and
lengths and at irregular intervals.” The sheet was of the exact size of the one
received the day before. After puzzling over the matter for some time, Dr. Verdi
laid the last sheet over the first, and read “a plan for the escape of 20,000
Union prisoners from the jails of Richmond!” Not only that, but a plan for the
taking of Richmond by the same prisoners, for the capture of President Davis,
his cabinet, and many other important persons who were to be held as hostages.
“That,” writes Dr. Verdi, “is what I read through those cuts, slits, and holes.
My brain whirled and my heart swelled in reading the plan of this daring
attempt. I read it over many a time, and each time more and more analytically,
and the more I studied it the more convinced I became that the execution of it
was possible.”
After consulting his friend
Montogmery Blair, then Postmaster General, Dr. Verdi called on Mr. Stanton. That
great but unamiable man grew angry and indignant when the letter was explained
to him. “I will take no part in such foolhardiness!” he exclaimed. “That’s
murder! Thousands of our prisoners will be slaughtered in the streets of
Richmond! Only a few weeks ago Col. Dahlgren lost his life in a foolish attempt
to surprise Richmond. It will be the same with this - nay a thousand times
worse.” The allusion to Dahlgren is clearly a mistake on the doctor’s part, for
a few weeks after the raid, on which that gallant but unfortunate soldier lost
his life, “Col. Cesnola,” as he was always called in prison, was exchanged. The
doctor’s letter must have been received before the Kilpatrick raid. But this
does not at all weaken the force nor lessen the importance of his statement.
After the close of the war Dr.
Verdi’s interest in this matter did not cease. It is safe to assume that he
learned much about the plan of escape from Gen. Di Cesnola, but here it is in
his own words:
“In March, 1864, about 20,000
Union prisoners were held in various places in the city of Richmond, 1,200 of
whom, all commissioned officers, occupied the building notoriously known as
Libby Prison, a small number occupied Castle Thunder, and about 17,000 an
intrenched camp at Belle Isle.
“Among the prisoners in the
‘Libby Prison’ was Col. L. P. Di Cesnola. His bold young officer conceived the
idea of a possible rise and escape of these 20,000 prisoners. His idea soon took
the shape of a project, which he communicated to four other brave and
intelligent officers, co-prisoners of his. They discussed the matter, and
finally resolved that each should prepare and submit a comprehensive plan for
the escape from the Libby, for the rescue of the other prisoners in other
localities in the city, &c. When these plans were prepared, read, and discussed
Cesnola’s was accepted as the most practical and comprehensive. This plan
provided for an organization among the prisoners that should represent the three
arms of service, viz., artillery, cavalry, infantry. These were to be divided in
detachments properly officered, each detachment to have a prescribed duty to
perform. One was to take possession of armories, one to seize steamers on the
James, one to cut telegraph lines, another railroads and bridges, another to
capture President Davis, others Cabinet officers and important personages. The
artillery detachment was to seize and man cannon, cavalry seize horses, and a
large force of infantry was to concentrate at the rendezvous of local militia
who guarded the city during the absence of Lee’s army, held at some distance
from Richmond by the iron grasp of Gen. Grant. Everything was thought of and
provided for, and, if assisted by a body of our cavalry, which Cesnola had
reason to expect, would make a dash into Richmond, would liberate the prisoners
therein inclosed, who constituted an army in itself.
“Magnificent! But how to get
out of the Libby Prison? In the first place, Cesnola, to obtain much information
that he needed, selected from the negroes who did the menial services of the
prison two of the most intelligent and willing; these proved invaluable, for
they kept him informed of the movements of troops, of localities where arms were
stored, of the residences of important persons, and of many other things
necessary for him to know. Fortunately, at that time, he was selected by the
Richmond authorities to distribute among our poor naked prisoners at Belle Isle
the clothing forwarded to them by the United States Sanitary Commission. These
daily excursions through the city enabled him to observe many things, learn the
topography of the whole place, and particularly of the most important
localities. For two months he thus walked daily the streets of Richmond,
observing and reflecting. Little did his guard know as they walked side by side
with the chatty, humorous Colonel what was brewing in his mind.
“During the distribution of
clothing he became acquainted with most of our prisoners, and many a hopeful
word did he whisper in their ears. The plan was thus fast maturing in his mind,
and many dispositions he had opportunities to take. He felt now sure that if
only 1,000 Union cavalry would make a dash into the city he could liberate all
the prisoners and take the rebel capital. Fr this purpose he wrote to Gen.
Kilpatrick, Col. Devin, Col. Custer, Col. Dahlgren, and Col. McIntosh, (all
cavalry,) and selected me to communicate with the War Department at Washington.
It needed but this auxiliary assistance for the successful execution of his
plan. Everything was ready, but he never heard a word from any of those officers
or from the War Department, though he learned afterward that they all received
his letters conveying the intelligence. There is hardly any doubt that the idea
of delivering the prisoners by a cavalry raid in Richmond, credited to
Kilpatrick by is biographer, was suggested to him by Cesnola’s letter, although
it would have been a great imprudence for Gen. Kilpatrick to make the attempt
without a preconcerted plan of action with the prisoners themselves.
“The plan for the escape of
the officer prisoners from the Libby was as clever as interesting. They
organized all sorts of amusement, among which were minstrel exhibitions, which
gave them a great latitude for applause and for noises of every kind. There was
a very serious object in these exhibitions of fun and frolic which the guard in
attendance was not acquainted with. They drew largely, they were so funny. The
personnel of the guard off duty found pleasure in attending them; everybody was
in good humor. But the sphinx was there watching and waiting to turn the
humorous into a tragic scene. Cesnola was the sphinx, who only wanted a word of
encouragement from Washington to give the word that was to bring about the
metamorphosis.
“But no word came, and
Cesnola, night after night, retired to his prison couch disappointed if not
disheartened. A word from him while the play and shouting were going on, and the
doors would have been closed, the Confederate guards mixed wit the audience
seized and gagged, their uniforms taken and put on the chosen braves, who, thus
disguised, were to descend and seize the remaining guards on duty down stairs
and at the gates.
“This first step successful,
it would have been easy to accomplish the rest. One thousand Union cavalry
dashing into Richmond at that moment and 20,000 desperate, well-organized men
liberated in less than an hour would have taken possession of Richmond. But,
alas! not a word came from outside and time was passing, and even ambition was
taking possession of some of the officers. Who should command was a question.
Gen. Neal Dow was the senior officer ad would have been entitled by the United
States military regulations to the command, but he was not competent for such a
work.
“Vanity and ambition
unfortunately reigned even within those walls of squaor and death. Col. Cesnola
was next in rank, and, moreover, he had conceived the plan; but he was a
foreigner, and that he should become the hero of this daring deed was repulsive
to national vanity. And so the matter was whispered, and even too loudly, for
one morning they found that new precautions had been taken and that the guarding
force was more than trebled. The secret was out. Who betrayed? One Union officer
was suspected, but Col. Cesnola as well as others in the secret would not
believe that person guilty of so much treason. But the fact remains that the
indifference to the appeal of Col. Cesnola to cavalry officers and, through me,
to the War Department at Washington delayed the matter until the Confederates
got hold of the secret that was to liberate our prisoners and lay the city of
Richmond at their mercy. Thus this daring conception and plan of Gen. Cesnola
aborted and Mr. Stanton was saved from the ignominy of refusing to assist our
prisoners in their attempt to escape and probably to capture the rebel capital.”
It is not my purpose to start
a discussion on this subject, but it is very evident that Col. Cesnola’s letter
was sent to Dr. Verdi in the latter part of January or the beginning of
February, 1864. My reasons for believing so are first, that the Sanitary
Commission goods received under flag of truce were exhausted in January; and
second, after the tunnel escape in early February the amateur minstrels were no
longer permitted to use the cookroom for a place of entertainment after dark.
Again, it would seem that the
War Department did act on Col Cesnola’s suggestion, else why were Kilpatrick and
Dahlgren dispatched in early March to make their raid? If the release of the
Union prisoners in Richmond was not the primary purpose of that raid, then it
should be ranked wit the foremost of the ill-advised and wretchedly-executed
projected of the war. But the prisoners captured from Kilpatrick’s command, the
Richmond papers, and the weak assault on the intrenchments of the Confederate
capital, go to prove the purpose of the expedition. We certainly had no doubt
about it in Libby. Being a line officer and twenty one years of age, I was not
taken into the councils of the gentlemen who were to lead, but I do know,
without doubt, that we were organized for ‘a break’ that night, when we lay
awake, listening to the roar of the guns, and that if our cavalry had entered
Richmond, they would have found the men in Libby not only ready but terribly
eager to carry out the programme outlined in Dr. Verdi’s communication, and
hinted at in my article last Sunday.
As to “national vanity’s”
making any officer jealous of Col. Cesnola because of his being a foreigner by
birth, I very much doubt. Gen. Neal Dow and Gen. Scammon, and I think, Col.
Powell of West Virginia, outranked the Colonel of the Fourth New York Cavalry;
and although these were brave and patriotic officers, the question of their rank
or birthplace was not considered by the men who, so far as I know, were
unanimous that the junior officer, Cesnola, should lead that night. So long as
we were prisoners the question of rank, which would have weight when we had
established our liberty, did not enter into the consideration of leadership,
though I will not affirm that it was ignored. Cesnola was young, popular, and
eager to help and cheer his associates; and then the men who had served with him
in the cavalry branch of the Army of the Potomac were loud in their praises of
his gallantry. His part in the plan of escape may have influenced the few men
who were in the secret. I am very sure that more than 1,200 men who knew nothing
about it accepted Cesnola’s leadership as a matter of course.
The officer, a staff officer
of high rank, by the way, who was suspected of betraying our secret to the
Confederates was very unpopular in prison. Soon after the war he went abroad and
remained there till he died. He seems to have been well aware that his loyalty
was doubted. I met him at the Langham Hotel in London some twenty years ago,
and, with tears in his eyes, he indignantly denied that he had ever violated his
oath as a soldier of the Union. He assured me that he knew all about the tunnel
weeks before our escape, and asked if he would not have revealed that if he had
been a traitor. I did not tell him that I doubted his knowledge of the tunnel
before its existence became generally known, for that secret was well guarded.
Yet I am willing, as I am sure others will be to give him the benefit of the
doubt. No man in his senses could be a party to an expose that resulted in the
ruining of the prison, and might have ended in blowing to death so many gallant
men who wore the same uniform as himself.
And now, to return to my
direct narrative. My experience in Southern war prisons convinced me that
poverty and hunger make men either cunning and desperate or helpless and
despondent. Through the prison bars to the south, I could see the south, I could
see the shores of the James and the banks of the canal growing greener every
day, and the trees, visible in that direction, filled out their skeleton limbs
and took on the emerald garments of Spring. One afternoon, a yellow butterfly
flew into the upper Chickamauga Room, and I recall the delight with which we
watched it as it fluttered about and finally vanished in the direction of the
river. One of our number, either more poetic or more superstitious than the
rest, pointed to he course the butterfly had taken, and said with a shake of his
head:
“Boys, we must take that as a
sign.”
“A sign of what?” asked one.
“A sign of the direction in
which we must all soon go.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that before many days
the campaign will open, and we’ll be sent South to make room for other poor
fellows who must inevitably be captured.”
The speaker was Capt. Maginnis
of Fort Wayne, Ind., who still limped from a wound received at Chickamauga. The
result showed he was right. Poor fellow, he was destined to go down, but never
to return, for he died in Charleston, S. C., that Summer, to which point 600
Union prisoners had been sent and placed under the fire of our own guns, then
shelling the city.
“If a man is too sick to move
will they carry him South, keep him in Richmond, or specially exchange him?”
This is what flashed through my mind when I realized the full force of what
Maginnis said. Then cunning and desperation came to my aid, and I resolved to
play on the Confederates what we called in active service ‘the old soldier
dodge.’ I would be sick.
It required no skill in acting
to carry out this resolution. My hair was long and unkempt, there was a dirty
fuzz on my long, ashy face, and the blue rags hung from my lean shoulders as if
they had been pegs. Then there was the never-ceasing burning of that awful
hunger, and the maddening memory of the meat and better fare I had received in
the hospital before, so it required no simulation to lie on the floor and to
tell the guard, who lifted the dirty blanket from my form wit his bayonet at
roll call next morning, that I could not rise.
“Rheumatiz?” he asked
sympathetically.
Up to that moment I had not
decided what particular form my malady should take, but had a vague notion that
I could successfully plead a feeling strongly expressed by one of my East
Tennessee friends as “kind of general gone-ness,” but the guard gave me a hint,
and I acted on it.
“Rheumatism of the worst
kind,” I replied.
“Well, that’s regular old h-l
when it gets a lock grip and a under holt on a feller. I had hit myself down
Fredericksburg way, more’n a year ago, n’ the tetch of a blanket nigh druv me
wild. But, I’ll report you,” and the guard went off and consulted with Black
George and Little Ross.
Soon after this a doctor - it
was not Satal, for whom I had a great liking - came and felt me over, and asked
me questions, and then sent me down to the hospital. As there was a guard kept
constantly in this room, since the tunnel, I thought it prudent to lie perfectly
still, and now and then to emphasize my sufferings with a groan.
Three days before the fighting
in the Wilderness began, a number of doctors and other uniformed officers came
into the hospital, and made examination of the invalids and took down the names
of some twenty, whom it was decided to send away under flag of truce as wrecks
who could not help the Yankees and whose retention would inconvenience the
Confederates.
“Yes,” said one of the doctors
in response to my eager question. “You will be sent North to-morrow.”
This glad news thrilled me so
that I cold not sleep that night. It was the last night in Libby for me, but not
the last, alas! that I was destined to spend as a prisoner of war.