Captured at Petersburg on 1 October 1864, my
great-grandfather, Daniel A. Troutman, 48th North Carolina
Regiment, faced imprisonment at Point Lookout prison camp for Confederates located
at the extreme tip of St. Mary’s County, Maryland. The camp housed over 20,000
prisoners on 23 acres during its nearly two years of operation. Of that number,
3,389 died, about 17%. “The deaths came from bad management,
lack of adequate supplies such as clothing, blankets, wood and food, failure to
establish sanitary conditions, and brutality and senseless killing by the
guards.”[1]
The winter of 1864-1865 was intensely cold at Point Lookout.[2] In
November, the new provost marshal, Major A. G. Brady requested “4,000 shirts, 3,000
pants, 2,500 pairs of shoes and 1,500 blankets. (At this time there were 13,811
Confederate prisoners plus 201 civilian prisoners).” When the supplies arrived,
Brady protested that his request was filled with surplus “regulation U. S. blue
pants” which he thought would make it easier for prisoners to escape, so he
refused them. As a result, some of the prisoners apparently had to go without
pants or wore rags. Prisoners also suffered from insufficient wood to keep a
fire going, as firewood was rationed to three pieces of wood to a tent, every
other day. Some days they had no fire.[3]
Journals, memoirs, and letters written by several prisoners
offer a glimpse of Daniel’s life at Point Lookout. He arrived aboard a steamer[4] on October
5,[5] a “cloudy
and pleasant day,” amongst a “batch of prisoners . . . from the Army of
Northern Virginia.”[6] He
was assigned to a tent with 12 to 16 tent mates.[7] When
they slept, “they arranged themselves in a circle like spokes in a wagon with
their feet toward the center.”[8] On
cold nights they “spooned” to keep warm. Without mattresses, they slept on cold,
damp ground.[9] The tents, arranged
in two rows closely spaced side-to side and back-to-back, “fronted
onto a wide avenue.”[10]
Every morning, the men endured roll call and searches of themselves and their
tents.[11] Sometimes
the guards confiscated blankets and stole personal belongings.[12]
To relieve boredom, the prisoners formed drama and musical
groups and staged plays and concerts.[13] Books
and sometimes newspapers were available, and prisoners eagerly read the latter
for news of the war.[14] They
could also attend worship services and Sunday school.[15] Some
of the prisoners with particular skills, such as mechanics or artisans,
developed small business enterprises and sold or bartered their wares. One
fellow even started a distillery “and made whiskey from potato rinds or
whatever refuse he could pick up. . . .”[16] Some
resorted to “chicanery and trickery” to get what they wanted. “Every
conceivable trick was resorted to in order to make buckle and tongue meet. It
was ‘root, pig, or die,’ and what was the then general term with the prisoners
was ‘a possum eyed time.’”[17]
The food was good, one journalist wrote, but the men were
always hungry. Breakfast consisted of bread or biscuits, butter or molasses,
and tea or coffee, sometimes hard tack or potato pies.[18] For
dinner, the menu included soup or a small piece of meat, with vinegar poured
over it to prevent scurvy.[19]
Occasionally, they enjoyed shipments of fresh vegetables and fruit.[20] Sometimes, they supplemented their diets by fishing.[21]
One practice at the camp that irked Rebel prisoners was
that U.S. Colored Troops were assigned to guard them. Some of these guards seem
to have abused their position. One prisoner notes in December 1864 (spelling and
punctuation are his), “We have white gard now for patrols in camp of knights the
Neagros got so mean that the General would not allow them in Side of the Prison
they got so when they would catch any of the men out Side of thir tents after
taps they would make them double quick or jump on their backs and ride them and
sometimes they would make them get down on this knees and pray to God that they
might have their freadom and that his Soul might be sent to hell”[22]
The prisoners were allowed time on the beach to bathe, and
sometimes they seized opportunities to work outside of camp in various
jobs, such as helping unload a boat or chopping wood or whitewashing a
building.[23] A
few prisoners attempted to escape during their time on the beach by hiding
under a barrel and floating along the shore until out of sight of guards, then
“taking to the woods.” These attempts were infrequent and often unsuccessful.
“The punishment for trying to escape was cruel. Those who were caught at it
were strung up to a pole by the thumbs, with the tips of their toes just
touching the ground. Sometimes the men would faint, and had to be cut down.”[24]
Daniel A. Troutman endured prison life until he signed the
oath of allegiance and was paroled on 14 May 1865.
Note: John I. Omenhausser, a prisoner at Point Lookout from
June 1864 – June 1865, drew numerous detailed sketches of life at Point
Lookout, events he experienced during the same time Daniel Troutman was there.
I would like to post a few of them that illustrate some of the scenes described
above, but they are copyrighted. You can view Omenhausser’s humorous and
sometimes grim sketches, with captions, at this web site: University of Maryland,
Digital Collections.
[1] “Point
Lookout Prison,” National Park Service,
Civil War Series
(http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/civil_war_series/5/sec6.htm#3
:
accessed 9 September 2014).
[2] Edwin
W. Beitzell, “Life in the Prison Camp,” chap. 4 in Point Lookout Prison Camp for Confederates (Leonardtown, Maryland:
St. Mary’s County Historical Society, 1972), 23.
[3] Ibid.
[4]
Luther Hopkins, “Prison Life at Point Lookout,” in “Diary
and Other Accounts of Prison Life, chap. 6, in Point Lookout Prison Camp for Confederates, by Edwin W. Beitzell,
(Leonardtown, Maryland: St. Mary’s County Historical Society, 1972), 87.
[5] Daniel A. Troutman, Muster Rolls of Co. C, 48th North Carolina Infantry, 1861-1865, digital image Fold3 (http://www.fold3.com/image/271/49858308/ : accessed 10 September 2014);
NARA
M270, roll 0472.
[6] Charles
Warren Hutt, “The Diary of Charles Warren Hutt of Westmoreland County, Virginia
(Kept While a Prisoner of War At Point Lookout, Maryland – 1864),” in “Diary
and Other Accounts of Prison Life, chap. 6, in Point Lookout Prison Camp for Confederates, by Edwin W. Beitzell,
(Leonardtown, Maryland: St. Mary’s County Historical Society, 1972), 82.
[7]
Hopkins, “Prison Life,” 88. Also, C. W. Jones. “In Prison at Point Lookout,” in
“Diary and Other Accounts of Prison Life, chap. 6, in Point Lookout Prison Camp for Confederates, by Edwin W. Beitzell,
(Leonardtown, Maryland: St. Mary’s County Historical Society, 1972), 91.
[8]
Hopkins, “Prison Life,” 88.
[9]
Jones, “In Prison,” 92. Also, Beitzell, “Life in the Prison Camp,” 22.
[10]
Hopkins, “Prison Life,” 88.
[11]
Hopkins, “Prison Life,” 88.
[12]
Beitzell, “Life in the Prison Camp,” 22.
[13]
Bartlett Yancey Malone, “The Diary of Bartlett Yancey Malone,” in “Diary and
Other Accounts of Prison Life, chap. 6, in Point
Lookout Prison Camp for Confederates, by Edwin W. Beitzell, (Leonardtown,
Maryland: St. Mary’s County Historical Society, 1972), 62. Also, Hutt, “The
Diary of C. W. Hutt,” 86.
[14]
Hutt, “The Diary of C. W. Hutt,” 86.
[15]
Malone, “The Diary of B. Y. Malone,” 61.
[16]
Hopkins, “Prison Life,” 89.
[17]
Jones, “In Prison,” 90.
[18]
Hutt, “The Diary of C. W. Hutt,” 86.
[19]
Hopkins, “Prison Life,” 88.
[20]
Hutt, “The Diary of C. W. Hutt,” 82.
[21] John
I. Omenhausser, “Scene on the Bay,” sketch in “True Sketches and Sayings of
Rebel Characters in the Point Lookout Prison Maryland,” in Point Lookout Prison Camp for Confederates, by Edwin W. Beitzell,
(Leonardtown, Maryland: St. Mary’s County Historical Society, 1972). The sketch
pages are not numbered; “Scene on the Bay” falls between pages 76 and 77.
[22]
Malone, “The Diary of B. Y. Malone,” 62.
[23]
Jones, “In Prison,” 91.
[24]
Hopkins, “Prison Life,” 88.
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