TREATMENT
OP PRISONERS AT TUSCALOOSA. Daily rations of corn bread, and one day
meat and beans and the next day meat and rice, with water to drink, were
the fare of the federal prisoners at Tuscaloosa. The water was takon
from a well in the centre of the yard, soventy feot deep, and about
thirty feet from the well is a sink twenty feet deep, and used by three
hundred prisoners. On the 15th of April one of the prisoners was shot
for looking out of the window. This was the third man shot for the same
thing.
The printed
rules signed by J. H. Winden, who was commander of the prison, said if
prisoners looked out of the windows that they were to be warned to
withdraw, and if they re fused they were to be shot. These rules were
not gen erally posted up, and this prisoner who was shot had just come
in. They snapped a cap at me once, and sev.
eral
times had guns pointed at me. Sergeaut Wirts, a Louisiana creole, had
charge of the prisoners, and was very abusive to them, calling them
damned Yankee and said if the Yaukees cane there he would burn all the
prisoners in the building. The soldier who shot the prisoner at the
window is camed James Geesley, and lives in Tuscaloosa county. There are
three hundred Confederate troops at Tuscaloosa. THR ESCAPE AND PURSUIT.
Samuel
A. Love, Gardner and two others escaped from Tuscaloosa by digging
through the wall of the jail, on the night of May 5. They travelled in
the woods from Tuesday night, eleven o'clock, until Thursday afterwards,
without seeing any one, when they found thoy were fifteen miles west
northwest from Tuscaloosa, and oight miles from New Loxington, the
nearest town. They were now out of provisions, and had only fifty cents
in money in the company. They had swapped for rebel clothes before they
left the prison, bought some corn bread, slept every night in the wouds.
Friday
received information that they wore pursued. The report got ahead of
them. They were told by a woman to look out for the Yankees and give the
alarm to the planters, who would hunt them with dogs and niggers. They
represented themselves as Virginians, recently discharged from the
twelve months' service, and said they were going to Jasper to re-enlist
to go to Corinth. They travelled by day in the woods and by night in the
roads, and encountered a picket on a bridge at a branch of the
Tombigbee river; went around and waded the stream eight miles abovo;
arrived North through the woods; bad a pocket compass with them; kept
away from towas: came to the Tennessee river ono mile above Decatur, in
Morgan county, at Cedar Plains; met with Mr.
•
(we suppress the naine for obvious reasons,) a staunch Union man, to
whom thoy made themselves known. From him they obtained valuable
information, and were put on the right road. Mr. - told them that among
the mountains there were a great many Union men. When thirteen miles
from Decatur, on creek, met a man by the name of Horn, who was blind in
his left eye.
He gave
them information, and referred them to Fisher, in Decatur, who would
give them citizens' clothes and pilot them through the Yankees to their
camp..
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