“There are deeds, crimes that may be forgiven, but this is not among them.”
Walt Whitman speaking of Andersonville Prison.
Andersonville Prison
(Camp Sumter)
Southwest Georgia
April, 1865
A Confederate soldier holding a Springfield rifle lounged against the railing of his guard tower. Moonlight and torches brightened the area. He stared down into the prison grounds below.
Inside the prison, a mass of miserable humanity groaned and moaned. Shouts for mercy reached the guard’s ears. The smell, even from this high up in the tower, still made his stomach roil in disgust. He was told he would get used to it over time. He hadn’t yet.
He surveyed the area, not expecting this night to be different than any other. Until this war he had never imagined a prison as large as twenty-six acres, and the vastness still stunned him every time he looked at it. More than that, the place crawled with disease, death, and inhumanity.
“There but for the Grace of God go I,” he thought. Had he been captured in the north, he would be down there, trying to survive in a sea of despair.
His guard tower was only one of many atop the encircling sixteen-foot-high stockade wall. Yet the additional stockade behind the soldier reminded him that he, too, was enclosed in the prison. Sometimes the thought suffocated him.
He directed his attention to the star-filled sky. It was the only thing that reminded him he was not trapped, damned for all eternity in the hellhole below.
Inside the main prison, a ragged, filthy Union soldier prisoner slipped between two tents and ran up the hill toward the stockade fence, hoping like hell the guards in the towers didn’t see him. He tensed all his muscles even as he moved, certain he would feel the agony of being shot any moment. Near the dirt bank before the fence that served as a deadline where many prisoners had felt the sting of a bullet, he plunged into a tunnel wide enough to fit his emaciated form. Dirt fell from the ceiling and peppered him, but he pushed forward, crawling into the entrance. He hesitated and tasted new fear.
The Confederate guard’s attention snagged on movement below. He leaned forward and saw something in the dirt bank before the deadline. A man’s legs wiggled as he attempted to push into a tunnel. Anger filled the guard. These men knew if they tried to escape, they’d be shot on sight, no questions asked.
He lifted his rifle and prepared to shoot.
The prisoner started to shimmy backwards out of the tunnel. A second later the prisoner was sucked into the hole headfirst and disappeared.
The guard frowned. “What the—”
The guard climbed down the tower ladder and ran along the stockade and through a gate to where the prisoner should emerge. He skidded to a stop at the hole and glanced into it. No one. Empty.
Bam! Shots rang out from other guard towers. The guard froze. Prisoners must’ve rushed the tunnel or the deadline, or both, he thought. He suddenly felt exposed.
A rustle came from the bushes and trees beyond. The guard charged through dense bushes toward the sounds. He stopped and pointed his rifle into the woods. He turned in a circle as all around him night sounds went dead. Then…rustling. Whispering. Branches crackled underfoot.
He scanned the trees and bushes. He turned slowly, slowly, in a full circle, eyes and ears alert. His eyes widened as he saw the thing coming toward him. He gasped, unable to make another sound. The rifle dropped at his feet.
No time.