Fifteen Months in Dixie; Or, My Personal Experience in Rebel PrisonsDay, W. W. (William Worthy)
History
Fifteen Months in Dixie; Or, My Personal Experience in Rebel Prisons
Day, W. W. (William Worthy)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Prisoners and prisons
He then organized a Court Martial, consisting of thirteen sergeants,
selected from among the latest arrivals, in order to guard against bias.
The trial was conducted as fairly as was possible, considering their
ignorance of law. Technicalities counted for naught, facts, well
attested, influenced that court.
The trial resulted in finding six men guilty of murder; and the sentence
was hanging.
The names of the six condemned men were, John Sarsfield, William
Collins, alias “Mosby,” Charles Curtis, Patrick Delaney, A. Muir and
Terrence Sullivan.
These men were heavily ironed, and closely guarded, while the remaining
one hundred and nineteen were returned to the prison, and compelled to
run a gauntlet of men armed with clubs and fists, who belabored them
unmercifully, as they were passed through one by one.
The sentence of the court martial was executed on these six men on the
11th of July. A gallows was erected in the street leading from the south
gate, and the culprits marched in under a Confederate guard, to a hollow
square which surrounded the scaffold, and was formed by Key’s brave
Regulators, where they were turned over to Limber Jim.
These desperadoes were terribly surprised when they found they were to
be hung. They imagined the court martial was a farce, intended to scare
them. Imagine their disappointment when they were marched to the
gallows, and turned over to the cool, but resolute and firm Key, and the
fiery Limber Jim, whose brother had been murdered by one of the number.
They found that it was no farce but real genuine tragedy, in which they
were to act an important part.
When they realized this, they began to beg for mercy, but they had shown
no mercy, and now they were to receive no mercy. They then called upon
the priest, who attended them, to speak in their behalf; but the
prisoners would have none of it, but called out “hang them.”
When they found there was no mercy in that crowd of men whom they had
maltreated and robbed, and whose comrades and friends they had murdered,
they resigned themselves to their fate; all but Curtis who broke from
the guard of Regulators and ran through the crowd, over tents, and
across Dead-run into the swamp where he was recaptured and taken back.
They were then placed upon the platform, their arms pinioned, meal sacks
were tied over their heads, the ropes adjusted around their necks, and,
at a signal given by Key, the trap was sprung and they were launched
into eternity, all but Mosby, who being a heavy man broke his rope. He
begged for his life, but it was of no avail. Limber Jim caught him
around the waist and passed him up to another man; again the noose was
adjusted and he, too, received his reward for evil doing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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