State

PART II After the uar wait over, * lie so .survivors vowed fhal history uould nevor forgot flioir ordeal. By T. II. PEARCE Part I described how . in 1864. Federal ships and artillery laid siege to Charleston, S.C.. op¬ posed by Confederate guns at Forts Sumter, Moultrie, and Johnson. It further related how. supposedly in retaliation for the holding of Federal prisoners in Charleston. Union Jon es placed 600 Confederate prisoners of war on Morris Island in "The Pen" , a stockade built directly in front of Fort Wagner, fully exposed to the prisoners' own Confederate ar¬ tillery. Pearce compared the cruel tr< a I men l of prisoners in "The Pen" with the relatively pleasant confinement given Fed¬ eral prisoners in Charleston. The following October. Confederate prisoners were moved from The Pen to Fort Pulaski, in Geor¬ gia.— Ed. Winter At Fort Pulaski While thankful to be no longer under the constant shellfire, the survivors of Morris Island soon found Using condi¬ tions at Fort Pulaski were equally as bad. From Sergeant Major Busbee’s account. “Our quarters at Fort Pulaski were in the casemates of the fort. We slept in double wooden bunks of two stories, three men in the upper bunk and three in the lower. Our rations were very meagre, but we got four crackers per day instead of mush." Most all who have written the story of “The Immortal Six Hundred” have mentioned the hardships ol that winter at Fort Pulaski, how they ate cats, stolen from their guards; the fact that they were not allowed to mark the graves of their fellow officers who died, even though the prisoners had prepared wooden headboards; the cruelty of some guards as evidenced w hen a soldier named Douglas, of an Ohio Regiment, shot and killed Col¬ onel E. P. Jones, of Virginia, a wounded officer who was not walking fast enough to suit him. The survivors of Morris Island and Fort Pulaski were sent north in March, supposedly for exchange. Among those buried in unmarked graves at Fort Pulaski were North Carolinians Lt. С. C. I.anc. of Snow Hill, and I t. John M. Hut gin. of Marion. In 1897 Judge Henry Cook of Franklin. Tennessee, w rote a four part account of the 6(X). for Confederate Veteran Maga/ine. He gave an ex¬ cellent account of their trip back north. Judge Cook stated that three of the officers died on the trip and that upon reaching the mouth of the James River the ship anchored while medical offi¬ cers came aboard and examined the prisoners. From Cook’s account. "We did not know the object of their \isit at the time, hut soon learned that we were not to be exchanged, but sent to Fort Delaware, as the medical officers had reported that our condition w as so hor¬ rible that we ought not to be sent to Richmond." The war was rapidly coming to a conclusion, but it was too late for many of the Six Hundred. A considerable number were Пн» far gone from the The Immortal Six Hundred Four Confederate officers who survived imprisonment of Morris Island. Fort Pulaski, ond otKor places: (top left to right) Lt. Col. Toz-ell Hargrove, of Gronvillo County, -ho served in the N.C. 4dth Regiment; Col John L. Cant-ell. of Wilmington, -ho serves! in the 3rd ond 51st Regiments; Cop't John Co-on, of Wilmington, -ho commanded Co 0 of the 3rd Regiment, ond Cop't W H Kitchen, of Scotland Neck, -ho commended Со I o< th« 12th leg.ment THE STATE. AUOUST 1982 21