Several thousand new prisoners had arrived since the first of the month, and it was rumored that the raider element might thus be heavily reinforced; there were the usual complement of ex–Bowery Boys, ex–Atlantic Guards, ex–Dead Rabbits in all drafts of Northerners who’d served with the Army of the Potomac and had been captured during the campaign against Richmond. Leroy Key was taking no chances with gangs: when it grew light enough to see, in the Monday dawn, he mustered Regulators and sent each detail to its task.
Early came the scream of ungreased wheels. A wagon rocked slowly through the South Gate rather than the North which was the more common portal of ingress. With an eye to drama and emphasis, the southern hill had been selected for a gallows site. The wagon contained beams, posts, planks, together with a keg of tools and a huge coil of precious rope. Volunteer carpenters set to work promptly inside a hollow square of Regulators whose clubs were ready to discourage any attempt at interference. Willie Collins’s castle and the conical tent, which had served as unofficial headquarters for the raider chiefs, were but a few rods distant (beneath the latter shelter one could see disordered heaps of dirt where prisoners had dug, looking for buried treasure—some said that they had dug successfully, some said that they found skeletons of anonymous murdered men—as soon as the ringleaders were bound and hauled away on July third). The frame was of simple construction but would serve to hang six giants, or so its designers believed. They’d drawn a rude sketch the day before, and MacBean relayed the plan to Wirz so that proper materials might be secured. Two posts were set into the ground and a heavy beam secured across their tops. Within this structure, at about the height of a man’s head, two wide planks met in the middle—their outer ends resting on cleats nailed against the side posts, their inner ends supported by braces pierced with holes in which ropes were tied.
Get the idee, Archibald?
Not quite.
See, they’ll put them fellers on top of the planks, make them stand there. See them ropes coming down from the top brace? Each of them ropes will be noosed around a feller’s neck. That’s what them sailors are doing now—making nooses. Then, when they get the condemned all noosed up and ready to go, and when the boss gives the word, some folks will jerk on them other ropes down beneath—
And the braces will be ripped out, and the two planks fall, and them sons of bitches will join the Heavenly Choir!
What choir did you say?
Oh, they’ll be in hell alongside Judas Priest and Captain Kidd and my own father-in-law!
Holy Abraham, pray for them.
St. John the Baptist, pray for them.
St. Joseph, pray for them.
All ye holy Patriarchs and Prophets, pray for them.
Sun rose hotter, people said that this would be the hottest day yet suffered. The great glaring mass of sun seemed concentrated as in a locomotive’s head-lamp, burning against the fresh gallows on the South Hill. The mosaic on the northern slope began to shape and tighten long before carpenters completed their task; boys selected vantage points and sat to watch, but soon they were forced to stand as other vagrants came crowding, there was not space in which to sit. They stood wearily, stared, jostled. For pity sakes quit sticking me with your elbow. Who, me? I ain’t sticking you—blame arm’s too weak to stick anybody, Charley. Yes, and know what your legs look like? So I do: two darning needles with pumpkin seeds stuck on the bottom of them. O laughter, it is food and tonic; the brave have it, the brave drink of it and give it back to those in need. . . . A singing-school teacher from Danbury lay motionless in a shebang beyond Main Street or Broadway or whatever you wished to call the distant sluice; his heart pushed lazily inside his ribs, shuddered, bubbled for a moment, went on beating reluctantly again; the songster from Danbury did not know that anyone was about to be hanged, he did not have an illusion to stimulate or hurt him, he knew nothing, felt nothing. A Delaware oysterman lay motionless near the east deadline, he lay in no shebang but exposed fully to the sun, he had no shebang, not a friend to carry him to thin shelter, soon he would need no shebang, his back was a water blister, his bony arms were blisters; under raw ribs the heart twitched gamely, fluttered—why, in that very moment it stopped, it ceased while we stood observant! A thousand men lay or huddled in a thousand far-flung places and did not care about a hanging; did not care who was hanged or why; but more than twenty thousand others plastered slope and ridge with their staring, their press.
Carpenters built a rough stair at the south end of the gallows; there were several cleats nailed across runners; they built their ladder stoutly, the condemned were heavy men.
St. Peter, pray for them.
St. Paul, pray for them.
St. Andrew, pray for them.
St. John, pray for them.
All ye holy Apostles and Evangelists, pray for them.
Where ground tilted upward beyond the southwest corner of the stockade, where guns of the star fort threatened the stockade’s interior, citizens and slaves of the county stood waiting. Women white and brown held their children up, they told their children to watch. Long before sunrise carts had been a-rumble on the road from Americus, mules stalked piny ways from the high region to the west, old men trudged out of damp lonely settlements along the Flint River. To begin with, a cordon of Reserves had lined with their bayonets, ordered to keep the populace in check, to hold them back from space directly in front of the cannon. There was room, it was pointed out, for all to see.
Just stand over there past the end of them rifle pits. You can see tolerable well.
Few people will assemble to watch a man living, most will congregate to watch him die.
The region immediately under the muzzles was higher, the view broader there, you could grasp a wider panorama of the interior. Bit by bit, moment after moment, the throng of ragged farmers, blacks and children came edging. Reserves were not trained to this task, their officers had ascended to sentry stations; they began to disperse and mingle with the very crowd they’d been set to restrain.
On the hill to the immediate north, across the Sweetwater branch, there was an area below the guards’ camps where more than a glimpse of the fascinating interior might be obtained across the stockade’s dip through the ravine. Here also humanity clustered—hangers-on of the Reserves, homeless servants who’d wandered from raided plantations in Alabama and northwest Georgia, who’d starved their way along the railroad line and here were impressed to serve as wood-choppers or grave-diggers. They massed, wondering, giggling.
They going put Yankees on that thing.
Yes, boy, sometime you hang a man—he fall down—old rope just pull he head square off—smick, smack—clean off he body.
Yi!
Ma, what’s they a-doing yonder?
Them Yankees are going to kill each other.
Why, Ma?
Cause Yankees is bad.
How they going to kill each other, Ma?
Now you just shut your trap, and watch.
All ye holy Disciples of our Lord, pray for them.
All ye holy Innocents, pray for them.
St. Stephen, pray for them.
St. Lawrence, pray for them.
All ye holy Martyrs, pray for them.
Six assistant hangmen had been selected by lot from the ranks of Regulators and stood close together, watched with round eyes by prisoners nearest them; they were ready for their task with meal sacks and cords, the two youngest sought to minimize the strain of the hour by clowning. They tussled, wrestling, they did not fall to the ground, it was a sham battle, each was trying to force his meal sack over the other boy’s head. Key said testily, Come along, come along, you’ll get plenty of action in a few minutes; and they permitted the rebuke to turn them more sedate, as if deliberately they had sought rebuke.
An audible murmur drifted from outside the stockade, it spread in a quiet but distinguishable wave, born i
n throats and on the lips of the hundreds who grouped in two galleries on God’s side of the fence, not on the Devil’s; and it fell across the jagged parapet and rolled slowly through and over observant thousands within the pen.
Must be coming. Must be fetching them now.
Can’t fetch them too soon to suit me.
That God damn bruiser of a Curtis like to killed me when he took my watch.
Well, he did kill one of our Twenty-second Connecticut boys.
You see him do it?
Don’t you wherrit yourself: he done it.
The South Gate squawked open and crunched against posts set to receive its weight, the parade came in. Death On A Pale Horse rode ahead, and close behind the mare walked Father Peter Whelan wearing his soiled violet stole. The six condemned giants swaggered together, moving between double files of Rebel guards; Willie Collins’s laugh echoed booming, he was laughing at something Delaney had said. There were no wan Floral Tebbses and Irby Flinchers bearing arms alongside the raiders; ranks of the Reserves had been combed to select a handful of veterans available for this chore. The guards had been ordered to shoot at the first sign of a break. These shaggy gray- and blue-clad men walked ready to fire, their hands lay across the locks of their guns.
Sure, you bandogs, and it’s men like us you think you can fright with your twaddle of hanging?
Let’s jump the bastards, Paddy!
Wait till we’re rid of these guards.
St. Sylvester, pray for them.
St. Gregory, pray for them.
St. Augustine, pray for them.
All ye holy Bishops and Confessors, pray for them.
Swarms of black-faced Yankees split and fell away from the cautious advance of Wirz’s mare, they did not wish to be stepped upon. Wirz traveled toward the gallows as directly as terrain and assortment of huts would allow; he bent past the mare’s neck, watching for wells or dangerous pits, he had no desire to be thrown. Father Whelan followed Wirz on foot. He had washed his old jacket and it was still wet from the washing, so he came in his patched shirt. A smelly breeze lifted from somewhere to sway the ragged hems of his stole; prisoners looked with interest at the pretty color, the pretty violet. Nowhere else within the stockade was there violet. There were so few bright colors to be seen except often the color of blood. Father Whelan carried his umbrella beneath his arm, he did not have it spread, fractured bones of the umbrella thrust out and dangled. The Ritual was clasped in the priest’s withered hand, his Crucifix was detected by glaring sun.
Wirz turned, motioned, jabbered an almost unintelligible order. Three or four Reserves moved forward hastily to open a wider path with their bayonets, and around the gallows area the hollow square of Regulators broke in obedience to Leroy Key’s command. Make way, hurry up, so’s we’ll get them inside. The procession came to a halt. Wirz nudged his mare to one side, the square tightened once more in additional security. Seneca MacBean was horrified to see that the raiders walked unbound; this was a most stupid oversight on the part of Confederate authorities. He muttered softly about it, and with Dreyfoos, Corrigan and Limber Jim he stepped closer. Ready with your clubs, boys, minute those guards go out.
Prisoners!
Wirz’s voice cut the fetid air, and as usual a few people on the outskirts began to mock his accent.
To you now I return these men, good as I got them. You say you try them yourself, you find them guilty. Nothing do I have to do with this—it is you, you prisoners.
The porcelain face of Henry Wirz was more drawn and gleaming than ever; he kept pausing in his speech, hunting for proper words. Those closest could see his pointed pink tongue coming out to moisten his lips under the ravelled beard.
Now to you I commit these men. Of everything with them I am washing my hands! Do to them what you wish, for it is you—you prisoners—who find them guilty.
He hesitated for another second, scowling, perspiring.
May Gott have mercy on them und you prisoners.
His wiry nervous voice went high. Guards, About—Face!
Lines swung into position with the click and thud of shoes and weapons.
Forward—March!
They went toward the gate. The square of Regulators squeezed closer, smaller, no longer a square, it was become a twisted circle under force of compression from the outside.
St. Benedict, pray for them.
St. Francis, pray for them.
St. Camillus, pray for them.
St. John of God, pray for them.
All ye holy Monks and Hermits, pray for them.
The manner of Wirz as much as the speech he uttered had its quick effect upon the six condemned. They looked at one another, they looked into hard faces of the Westerners who approached them cautiously but grimly. Had this been a threat, a kind of malignant jest? They’d sneered at the sentence when it was pronounced, boasted mutually of what they would do to the first person who put a hand on them, what they would do to the last person. They’d marched for long in the chain-mail of their established wickedness, bragged of their established wickedness; most of them had known little besides wickedness; they ate of it, drank of it, embraced and made love to a quaking rotting harlot called Wickedness. For what reason did there exist weaker mortals except to serve as foils, targets, scullions, spies?
Were they come to an End? They had never come to an End before. Their seizure and the comedy of court and trial were but a trivial interlude. Organ grinders had brought a Jocko or two to Andersonville in order to entertain them. Soon the monkey tricks would be finished, and somehow— In some way— By swindle, bribery— Through blow or cutting or strangulation the roughs would win back to the peerage they’d enjoyed, grown fat in, continued bloody-handed in.
Sarsfield gazed in disbelief at the gallows. His soldier’s eye took in the crude but solid construction, his criminal’s eye saw the nooses and rolled away from them and then came back to congeal.
He brayed, You don’t really mean to hang us up there?
That seems to be about the size of it.
They might roar now, at least all except Rickson were howling; yet they’d had their fun before. They had taken joy in tormenting Father Whelan. From the moment word reached him that the six were condemned to death, the priest burned with ardor. Never was such challenge offered him before! To Peter Whelan, the Devil was an entity as real as himself, real as Wirz or the last boy he’d shrived. The Devil had maintained strict possession of these six souls, obviously, through their lifetime. What a triumph for the Church could Whelan loose those tight slimy tentacles, cause them to unwrap, extract the bruised suffering souls and wash them to purity! Examination disclosed that all except the close-mouthed Rickson had, in dim forgotten childhood, partaken of some semblance of Catholicism, or admitted to a Catholic inheritance however remote. Sincerely the priest hoped to bring them to admission of guilt. This admission might be achieved properly only if the men recited transgressions in detail and came eventually to repent. Because of their mutual imprisonment in the stocks, the privacy of a Confessional might not be observed; but Peter Whelan would do his best. . . . None of the six could believe that they were to die, and this ceremony became a sport.
Collins, man, you must go to confession. Our Lord is beseeching you to go.
Faith, I’ll be going.
I want you to make a good confession.
Sure, and Willie rolled puffy blood-traced eyes at Delaney and Munn in stocks beyond him.
When did you make your last worthy confession, Collins?
Twas in my mother’s belly.
The others guffawed.
Sins you shall confess in a good confession are the sins you have committed since your last worthy confession; but I’m praying, me son, that you will make a general confession.
What the hell might a general confession be?
Tis every sin of you
r entire past life you must confess, or at least the sins you may remember most clearly.
And why must I be doing this?
You are about to die, me son. They tell me that you’ve been found guilty— Oh, how I hate the word! Of murder. And you shall be executed, you shall be put to death for murder. I am but a humble servant of the Church; still I’m striving to engender contrition in your poor soul. I’m striving to loosen the grip of the Devil; he’s had his claws upon you for so long, that he has.
What should I be after telling you, priest?
Call me Father, me son.
What should I be after telling you, Father? and Willie Collins winked so enormously that you could very nearly hear the snap of his eyelid.
Recite your past sins, and try to feel as much real sorrow as you’re capable of feeling.
Well— There was a priest in New York—
And was he the one who heard your last confession?
Shit, never! He was the one I killed!
May God have mercy on your soul—
Sure, I cracked his throat with this very hand! And after he lay dreaming, I tied him to the top of his altar. And then— I set fire to the church! What a pretty blaze it made!
Delaney twisted his head in the adjoining stocks. Willie, lad. Was that before or after you were raping of the nun?
St. Mary Magdalen, pray for them.
St. Lucy, pray for them.
All ye holy Virgins and Widows, pray for them.
All ye holy Saints of God, make intercession for them.
Confronted actually with a machine erected for the express purpose of wrenching their lives away, they felt that they had been tricked. Their unanimous reaction was a rage the more blinding because of its complete futility. How now, how now? They stood without a tie of restraint upon them—now they should lift their hands, they must grasp and tear—let feet and elbows go flailing into the rank of blank-visaged men pressing close.
But— But—
The joskin called Key stood beyond their reach, he stood— Nickey snatch the lot of us! He stood with a revolver in his hand! And that black Indian of a Limber Jim stood with a bowie knife exposed. A bullet could reach or a steel blade slice before a man might crack more than a head or two; and here formed a hundred or two hundred of the damnable police with hate freezing their faces.
Andersonville Page 50
