Capturing a Locomotive: A History of Secret Service in the Late War.Pittenger, William
History
Capturing a Locomotive: A History of Secret Service in the Late War.
Pittenger, William
Chattanooga Railroad Expedition, 1862; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Campaigns
No intelligence of this spy reached Atlanta while we remained there.
Wells told me that there was no doubt he had gotten entirely away.
While in this place, I had the opportunity of learning that there were
many lovers of the old Union in Atlanta. These visited us, and, although
always in the presence of the guards, managed to express their kindness
in very tangible ways. They told us much of their hopes, and of the
strength they numbered. A certain Dr. Scott was very liberal in his
contributions to our wants. I had afterwards the pleasure of repaying
his kindness, when he had been forced to flee for his life, and arrived
destitute in the North. The money we thus obtained, together with some
small presents Captain Wells bestowed, when pleased with the writing I
did for him, gave us the means of living almost luxuriously. One dainty
I remember with especial delight. Sweet potatoes were very abundant and
cheap, and we were allowed to buy as many as our means permitted, and
roast them in the ashes of the wood fire which always glowed on our
hearth. The great mealy potatoes, raked out and dusted off and eaten
hot, constituted a feast good enough for a king! I have never since
found any sweet potatoes equal to those we devoured by the bushel in the
old Atlanta barracks. This abundant living made some amends for the six
months of famine that preceded it, and gave strength, which was still to
be sorely tested before the day of deliverance. The memory of those
beautiful autumnal days, when we could look from our unbarred windows
upon the sky and the street, when we could gather around the fire and
under the gas-jet in the evening, when hunger no longer pinched, and
when health, which I had long missed, came back, when some consideration
was shown for us even by our guards, and when visitors often whispered
words or gave signs of sympathy for our cause as well as for ourselves,
is not altogether unpleasant. True, we were still prisoners, and our
fate as uncertain as ever; but it was easy to persuade ourselves that
these more pleasant surroundings were the promise of still greater good.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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