WAR REMINISCENCES BY COLONEL FRANK PLACE

 

Captain Frank Place, Company C, 157th Regiment, New York Volunteers.

Cortland Evening Standard, Saturday, October 24, 1903.

WAR REMINISCENCES.

By Colonel Place of the 157th Regiment, N. Y. Vols.

EIGHT MONTHS IN LIBBY PRISON.

Captured at Gettysburg While Trying to Recover the Regimental Color—Marched off to Richmond—"Secure Your Valuables"—Scraps With Old Gray Backs—Welcome for New Greenbacks—Killing Time—General Dow's Lecture on "Temperance"—The Tunnel Route to Liberty—"Man Here 'Tain't Here"—Back Again to the Regiment.

   A few days ago Captain William Saxton in his reminiscences of the One Hundred Fifty-seventh regiment, which are being published in these columns, referred to the capture of Colonel, then Captain Frank Place, of Company C, during the second day of the battle of Gettysburg. A Standard man called upon Col. Place who now resides in this city and asked him for some further details in regard to his capture and for some incidents of his experiences in Libby prison. The colonel spoke of them in a most interesting way, and we today interrupt the continuity of Captain Saxton's letter to give the interview with Col. Place. The Saxton letters will be resumed next week.

To Recover the Flag.

   Col. Place said he remembered the second day of July 1863, very well. The One Hundred Fifty-seventh had been ordered into the woods on Culp's hill to hold a position. They had not supposed the enemy were in possession of any part of that wooded tract, but they were fired upon and a number were killed. It was already growing dark and they thought the fire came from their own men who mistook them for Confederates. As the firing continued, supposedly from comrades, they retreated out of the woods. Upon reaching the open they discovered that their flag was gone and their color bearer likewise. Supposing that the latter had been killed or wounded near at hand in the woods Captain Place volunteered to go back and look for the colors if two men would go with him. Privates Marcus Livingston of Company C and Francis M. Gault of Company G volunteered to go.

   Together the three men started back into the dusky woods. Captain Place's attention was drawn to the groans of a wounded soldier who wanted to be helped off the field. The soldier was told that help would come soon. It was their thought to find the flag and then take the man along with them as they went back. But they never went back.

Challenged and Captured.

   Down toward Spangler's spring near the foot of the hill they suddenly came upon two men standing by a big rock. One of them challenged:

   "Who goes there?"

   "Friend," replied Captain Place.

   "What Regiment?"

   "One Hundred Fifty-seventh, New York."

   "Surrender," shouted the man by the rock, raising his musket. Captain Place said the man was so near that he could have almost touched him with the muzzle of the leveled rifle and there was no chance for escape, so he delivered up his sword and his two companions did their muskets.

   More Confederates suddenly appeared out of the gloom and the three prisoners were taken back through the woods, over the Confederate breastworks to Rock creek. There they saw General J. E. B. Stuart, commonly called "Jeb" Stuart. Their march was continued to the rear till they came to an open field where with some thirty other prisoners they lay down on the ground and slept till morning.

Disagreeable Awakening.

   They were awakened at day break by the booming of cannon and the dropping of Union shells in their immediate vicinity. The Confederate guards were as glad to get out of the range as they were and they moved still further to the rear. On the way they met a whole army corps that had not been previously engaged, going in at the double quick. All that forenoon of the third day of the battle they were in sight of Gettysburg. At noon in a change of position they passed the county almshouse and could see troops and batteries getting ready for action. At about 2 o'clock they reached Willoughby Run and were put in with from two to three thousand prisoners already collected.

   The whole afternoon was spent in this location and there they were all offered paroles. A very few accepted but the great majority declined and preferred to take their chances in Libby prison. Before night it began to rain and this continued all night.

   Before daybreak the southward march was begun, and all that Fourth of July rain fell in perfect torrents. On July 9 they crossed the Potomac river at Williamsburg on a rope ferry. The officers and enlisted men had now been separated though all were marching in the same column.

"Secure Your Valuables."

   On July 18, sixteen days after the march was begun, they reached Richmond and Libby prison. As they were drawn up on a curbstone before the prison a search was begun of all the men before they were admitted to the prison.

   Above and a little back from the windows could be seen the faces of other prisoners, chiefly General Milroy's men captured in May at Winchester. Down from one of the windows dropped a note, "Secure your valuables." The word was passed along. Captain Place secured his, and his whole pile consisted of one solitary $2 bill, but the searchers didn't find it.

A Limited Wardrobe.

   None of the prisoners were burdened with baggage, taken as they were in the midst of an active campaign. Captain Place's whole wardrobe consisted of shirt, trousers, coat, hat and shoes—nothing more.

   He was admitted to the prison July 18, 1863, and remained there till March 21, 1864, when he was sent to City Point with about 2,000 other prisoners, under the parole preliminary to exchange. From City Point he was transported to the parole camp at Annapolis, Md., and given a leave of absence during which time he came home to Cortland county. The formal exchange took place in May, and then he went South to join the regiment on June 20, at Picoolata, Fla., which town then consisted of a dock on the St. John's river forty-five miles above Jacksonville.

   During his imprisonment he had been promoted, being made a major in November, 1863, and actually mustering in in that rank on June 24, 1864.

Libby Prison.

   Libby prison, as is well known, was originally a warehouse and over the doors was the sign "Libby & Sons, Grocers and Ship Chandlers." This gave it the name. The building consisted of three stories and a basement. Captain Place was placed upon the top floor. Here there were three rooms, each about 100 by 200 feet in size. In one room most of the cooking for that floor was done. At one time they had six cooking stoves there, and the Confederates furnished green white pine for fuel, which resulted chiefly in smoke. At one time over one thousand Union officers were confined there, the enlisted men all being sent elsewhere.

   The food was plain and the rations short. A single day's ration consisted of a half pound of meat, a half loaf of bread, a gill of rice, a pinch of salt and a little vinegar.

Confederate Money.

   Anything that was to be found in the markets of Richmond, however, was at the disposal of the prisoners if they had the money to buy it. They must first get their United States money changed into Confederate script and then a negro would go and get whatever he was commissioned to secure. When Captain Place entered the prison in July, 1863, $1 of United States was worth $4 of Confederate money. When he left the next March it took $30 Confederate to equal $1 in greenbacks.

   Books were the cheapest article in the Richmond market. Captain Place paid $2.50 Confederate, for an Anthon's Virgil. A teacup of butter was worth $3 Confederate, and cigars were genuine "two-fers," two for $1.

Old Gray Backs.

   The prison was mopped out twice each week by negroes, and each man was furnished with a blanket, but floors and walls and blankets were full of lice, the genuine old gray backs. Twice each day each man found it necessary to strip and turn his garments all wrong side out and follow every seam clear through to kill every louse concealed there.

   There was a tank two or three feet wide by eight or ten feet long on each floor filled with running water from the James river, and this was used for drinking purposes and for the matter of personal cleanliness.

Killing Time.

   How to pass the time was a query. Some would read and study, but others didn't care for such things, and amusements had to be resorted to. Among the prisoners were some very bright men, notably A. D. Richardson, a correspondent for the New York Tribune, Chaplain L. N. Beaudry, an uncle of G. F. Beaudry of this city [Cortland], Chaplain C. C. McCabe, now Bishop McCabe, Major Henry of Kentucky and General Neal Dow of Maine.

   Major Henry gave a lecture on Mesmerism. A mock trial lasted two days. John Teed of Reading, Pa., was charged with disturbing the peace of the Commonwealth of Libby in that he indulged in public baths in prohibited hours. Captain Willits of Michigan was the judge. There was no end of fun over the evidence produced. The defendant was convicted and was sentenced to be deported from the Commonwealth of Libby by the first boat, but unfortunately for the defendant sentence had to be suspended.

   A paper was prepared called the Libby Chronicle. It was edited by Chaplain Beaudry and has since been published. A burlesque upon this paper called the Libby Ironical was also prepared, but never published.

   Chaplain Beaudry taught classes in phonography and French, and others also taught other branches.

Cheese Full of Greenbacks.

   All could write letters if they chose, but all letters sent out were read by prison officials before mailing and the answers were likewise read before being delivered. At the first, too, prisoners were permitted to receive boxes or packages from home. Captain Place received two packages and a third one came after he had been sent North for exchange and this he never got, of course. He needed more clothes and sent home for a uniform of the Tenth New York cavalry which he had worn during his first term of enlistment, and it came all right. His father filled the box with crackers and beans and his sister put in a cheese. She wrote him to be sure to look out for the cheese. Something in the expression caught his eye, though it looked simple, and he did look out for it and found a place where it had been bored and plugged and on removing the plug of butter he found a big roll of greenbacks which proved very serviceable.

   All these boxes of course were examined by the Confederates before delivering, but the cheese got by. Not so, however, the pail of butter of Captain John C. Johnson, a Lisle boy who belonged to a Pennsylvania regiment. He had a pail of butter filled with greenbacks and when he got the butter it had been dug out and the money extracted. He said some things when he came upstairs with his package.

Switched on to "Temperance."

   General Neal Dow of Maine was a prisoner there part of the time. For several months he was sent to a prison father south, but was returned to Libby. He called the boys together one day for a talk. Some of them were feeling rather hard at the government for not getting them exchanged or for not rescuing them. Confederate listeners were not desired at this address and as the boys circled around him some got up on the braces and girders near the rafters. The stairway came straight up into the room, with a door at the foot of the stairs and none at the top. One of the men in the rafters was so stationed that he could see the door at the foot of the stairs the moment it was opened. General Dow was telling the boys that the Confederacy was a hollow shell; that it could not last long for he had been sent far south into the enemy's country and had seen it. Just then the door at the foot of the stairs opened and a Confederate sergeant came up. He had known from the stillness above that something was doing and he had come up to see what it was. The moment his head appeared the man in the rafters lost his handkerchief and it fell in front of the speaker. Without a moment's hesitation or pause General Dow launched into an eloquent talk on temperance and when the sergeant reached that floor he was greeted with an impassioned denunciation of the evils of liquor. He hung around the outskirts of the crowd for ten minutes and listened to the report of what they were doing down in Maine to put down the liquor traffic. He inquired what was doing, and one man replied, "Oh, General Dow is talking temperance to us. You know we need that so much here." The sergeant became convinced that there was nothing very serious in the wind and went down stairs again to make a personal test of the matter and see if whiskey was as bad as it was pictured.

The Tunnel Escape.

   Captain Place was there when the 110 men escaped through the tunnel one night and departed. He had a chance to be one of the party, but had not been very well for some weeks past, having had an attack of malarial fever and he did not dare to take chances in the swamps in getting away.

   The tunnel, which was weeks in the digging, extended from the basement of the prison across under the street and came up in an open shed that faced the prison on the opposite aide of the street and which was packed full of boxes for the prisoners sent from Northern friends and not yet delivered. When Captain Place came away he says there were from 80 to 100 tons of these boxes still undelivered, for the Confederates were getting very suspicious of the boxes and examined them very carefully before delivering.

Behind Sentinels' Backs.

   From a window in the prison Captain Place could see man after man come out of the darkness of the shed after emerging from the tunnel mouth and walk for a little distance down the street under the glare of a gas lamp and then disappear around a corner. There were four sentinels pacing on short beats in the street in front of the prison. Instead of coming together anywhere at the end of a beat all faced in one direction and paced to the end of their beat and the beginning of the next man's beat, and then all faced about and paced to the other end of the beat. The prisoners watched the sentinels and came out into the light in every case when the sentinels had their faces turned and were marching in the other direction. And yet it seemed incredible to the anxious watchers in the prison windows that 110 men could get out and not one be seen. They were convinced that the guards did see and thought that the men they saw were their own comrades raiding the home boxes of the prisoners that were stored under that shed, and they wouldn't give them away or interfere with them.

"Man Here Tain't Here."

   But in the morning there was excitement. A Confederate named Ross was acting as clerk at the prison and came up twice each day to call the roll. His way of doing this was to have the men fall in by fours and count them. As fast as he counted along the files would break up without waiting for the other end of the line to be reached and the count completed. This morning Ross counted as usual till be came to the end and discovered a shortage. He couldn't understand it. Astonishment was written all over his face. "Fall in again," he shouted, "man here 'tain't here." That became a byword afterward in the prison, "Man here 'tain't here." He counted them four times over and without a word rushed down stairs. In a few minutes back he came again with Dick Turner, the civilian in charge of the prison. They counted them over several times and then hurriedly departed. And then there was a rushing about outside. Horses were quickly saddled, dogs were brought out and pursuing parties went out in every direction. And then for the next two or three days the boys came back again one or two at a time as they were recaptured, till about half of the 110 bad been returned to Libby. And after that everything was done on a much more strict plan about the prison.

   Colonel Place says that his health was good all the time he was in prison, except for the little attack of malaria, and that he was quite as well when he got out as when he went in. But he was glad enough to see the old flag again at City Point and to get back among his friends and he has never known months to be much longer than those eight months when he was a citizen in the Commonwealth O' Libby.

 

   The publishers of The Standard are frequently made aware by verbal comments and by letters received that the survivors of the One Hundred and Fifty-seventh regiment are following Captain Saxton's reminiscences with deep interest. Many are preserving them in scrapbooks, as this is doubtless the only history of this regiment that will ever be written and the only form in which it will ever appear. If these letters call to the minds of any of the comrades other incidents of those days which Captain Saxton has overlooked or has not known about we shall be very glad to publish them in connection with these letters if they are of sufficient interest and let them all be preserved together that the record be as complete as possible.