July
11, 1864
(When he sat down to write his own account, Sneden used his diary fragments
as an aid to memory, but he could not resist adding colorful embellishments
gleaned from memoirs published after the war by other POWs. Most of the
direct quotations he cites in the long entry under July 11 have been appropriated
from those other accounts. He also incorrectly identifies the priest as
Father Hamilton when in fact it was Father Whelan.)
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Fine
day but very hot, about 110% in a cool place! About 8 a.m. a Rebel
guard came in the stockade armed only with revolvers and stood near
the dead line at the south gate. Wirz was with them and other officers.
A mule team came in soon after drawing a wagon load of timbers,
five or six carpenters unloaded it and in an hour or so they constructed
a rough gallows to hang the Raiders on. . . .
As the time approached for the execution
the excitement both inside and outside the stockade was intense.
Many of the prisoners would not even look at the hanging and lay
in their tents. Others formed long lines along Broadway five or
six deep, but did not cross the swamp. All those from the new stockade
crossed over, and with the thousands on the south side gathered
in a dense crowd around the scaffold. Sergeant Key had formed his
Regulators around the scaffold in a hollow square facing outwards,
each man of them had their clubs drawn to repel any attempt made
by the Raiders to prevent the execution. Up at the fort and battery
on the hill the Rebel 1st Florida artillerymen stood to their pieces,
with lighted fuses. The whole Rebel guard were turned out fully
armed. They occupied the rifle trenches and batteries and other
earthworks which encompassed us. All the artillery in the three
forts were trained on the stockade to fire on us at the command
and all were shotted of course.
All along the slopes of the hill around
Wirz's headquarters, were farmers with their wives and children
even, who had come from the country around in waggons, buggies,
and all kinds of carts to see the execution. Many of these spectators
were strung along the slope of the hill back of the rifle trenches
with the eight gun battery behind them. All the sentry boxes on
the south side of the stockade were occupied by four or five Rebel
soldiers and officers who were all fully armed. I went over to the
swamp and got within forty feet of the scaffold.
About 2 p.m. all was in readiness
and 30,000 prisoners lined the slopes on the north side of the stockade
among the ragged tents and shanties looking intently across the
swamp with the glaring hot sun in their faces. Quietness and order
was everywhere.
A line of Regulators were posted twenty
feet apart all along the margin of the swamp on the north side with
clubs, and none were allowed to cross the swamp to the south side
after 2 p.m., as fully 6,000 were now there packed in a close throng
all around the gallows. About 2:15 p.m. One half of the big south
gate was opened and Wirz came riding in on his white horse. Behind
him walked Father Hamilton, the old gray haired priest, who used
to visit the sick and dying men in the stockade on Sunday.
He was reading the service for the
dying from a missal. Then came the six condemned men. William Collins,
alias Mosby, John Sarsfield, Patrick Delaney, Terrence Sullivan,
Charles Curtis, and the sailor Andy Muir. Each had their arms bound
with small rope fastened behind and around the elbow. They slowly
walked in single file between a double row of Rebel guard, all fully
armed. Key, having formed his Regulators in a hollow square around
the scaffold, took his position inside it, with the six men who
were to act as hangmen. As soon as the culprits had come inside
the square, the two barrels were then fixed under the drop plank,
and the pull rope stretched on the ground while three stout men
stood ready to jerk the barrels from underneath it when the time
came. Wirtz now said "Prisoners I return to yo dese men so goot
as I got dem. You have tried dem and found dem guilty. I haf had
noting to do wit it. I vash mine hands of everyting connected wid
it. Do wid tem as you like, and may Got haf mercy on you and on
dem, Garts, about face, forwarts march!" With this the guards marched
out at shoulder arms. Wirz followed on horseback.
For a moment the condemned men looked dazed. They seemed to realize
for the first time that the "Regulators" were in terrible earnest.
They had thought all along that the trial and all the talk was a
"bluff" to frighten them or that they would be rescued by their
comrades. One of them exclaimed, "My God! men you don't really mean
to hang us up there?" "That's about the size of it, You and the
rest of the d____d gang have now to swing," said Key.
At this they all burst out in protestations,
pleadings, and imprecations, until one of them said "All stop now,
and let the priest talk for us." At this Father Hamilton closed
the book which he had constantly read aloud since entering the gate.
And turned to the crowd, began an earnest plea for mercy. As soon
as the crowd caught the first few words, and realized their import,
they began to shout, "No, No, No." "Hang the murderers." "Hang them,"
"Never let them go," etc., etc. Then [Collins] a low set heavily
built man when he saw the hopelessness of any appeal for mercy,
exclaimed, "By God, I say die this way first."
(He had managed to loosen the rope which bound
his elbow.) Lowering his head he made a dash through the line of
the "Regulators" on the east side of the square with such powerful
force as to take several of them clean off their feet, in a trice,
tents were upset, men in the crowd throw down and trampled on, and
a panic lasted for a full minute. Curtis dashed through the crowd
and ran with all his might towards the sinks on the swamps. Delaney,
a great brawny Irishman started to follow, but "Limber Jim" strode
in front of him, and with a big upraised Bowie knife said: "You
dare to move another step, and I'll open you from one end to the
other." Delaney stopped, being yet bound, and this checked the others
until the Regulators got them inside the square again which now
was reformed. In the meantime the guards on the stockade scrambled
down from their boxes in a great hurry. While Wirz, seeing the panic
and the immense crowd surging to and fro, thought the dreaded outbreak
of all the prisoners in the stockade would now take place, rushed
from his log house headquarters to the battery near it, shrieking
"Fire! Fire! Fire!" The artillerymen were held in check by the captain
of the battery who saw that the rush was away from and not toward
the stockade. So he did not fire.
The crowd of citizens, farmers, men,
women, and children who had pushed up directly on the slope below
the eight gun battery outside on the hill to get a good view of
the scaffold, hearing the order of Wirz to "fire," and knowing themselves
to be directly in range, were panic stricken, and ran screaming
and tumbling over each other towards the western slope, where their
horses and wagons were, to get out of danger.
During all this confusion two of the
Regulators were in hot pursuit of Collins, who had run down to the
swamp, plunged in, and forced his way to the north side, although
he sank into the filthy ooze up to his hips. Here he was met by
the line of Regulators placed there previously by Big Pete. He was
knocked down by their clubs, and carried bodily by four strong men
across to the south side again by the causeway at the west end where
the brook came through the stockade, and brought once more into
the square formed around the gallows. On the way over he begged
piteously for his life, cursed and swore, kicked, and struggled
with all his strength, but it was of no use. He was covered from
head to foot with the filth of the swamp, [and] so were his captors.
During the rush and panic, the crowd in front of me surged suddenly
back. I, with many others were forced violently in among the ragged
sunk tents on the side hill which were instantly wrecked.
I fell into a sunk tent on top of
a sick man, I suppose, for he was lying down in there. I scrambled
out just in time, for a big Irishman made a blow at me with a long
wooden shovel. As it was made of sappy pine, it might have been
as heavy as one made of iron. "Git out of here d__n you" was all
I heard. I regained a place about twenty feet from the scaffold
in a few minutes though much excited.
I got there just as Collins
was being carried over the causeway from the north side. Collins
was allowed to sit down on the ground a few minutes to rest as he
seemed in an exhausted condition. The sentry boxes on top of the
stockade were reoccupied by several of the guards in each. The ladder
had been put up, and the culprits were ordered by Key to "get up
on the plank."
Collins went up last, being helped
up by two Regulators who were the hangmen. The priest had during
this time continued to read the service for the dying, to which
Delaney gave little attention. Delaney seemed to think that Collins
was suffering more from fright than anything else, and advised him
to "stand up like a man and die game," and he kept calling out to
his friends, making dispositions of different articles of his stolen
property, telling one to "take his watch to his mother in New York,"
and other articles he distributed among his fellow Raiders in the
stockade. The priest admonished him to turn his attention from things
of this earth to those of heaven. The whole six then began to talk,
saying their farewells, and sending messages to their friends. During
this short time the six hangmen were placing the prisoners in position
directly under the six nooses on the beam overhead. Sergeant Key
took out his watch and said "Two minutes more to talk." Well good-bye
byes said Delaney. "If oive hurted any of yez I hope yez'll foregive
me. Shpake up now!"--But no one seemed to be in a forgiving mood
and a dead silence followed, which in fact prevailed among all the
35,000 lookers on in the stockade. "Time is up," said Key, and he
raised his right hand as signal.
The two men who were to pull the barrels
supports from under the planks on which the prisoners stood took
hold of the rope. The hangmen then pulled a small meal sack over
each of the culprits' heads. Their arms were securely tied back
of the elbows previously, then [the hangmen] tightened the nooses,
and sprang to the ground, the priest all the time praying aloud.
Key dropped his hand. The men at the rope snatched the barrel supports
from under the planks, which fell, and the culprits dropped suddenly
the length of their ropes. Five struggled violently for a minute,
drawing their knees up to their bodies. Collins, alias Mosby broke
his rope and fell to the ground in a heap. He was a large heavy
man weighing nearly 200 lbs. The meal sack was at once removed from
his face. The rope was cut off his neck: he was hurt only by shock,
in a few minutes he recovered consciousness, and gasped out "Where
am I? Am I in eternity?" Limber Jim, whose brother he was said to
have killed said, We'll soon show you where you are d___ you." and
began to fix up the scaffold. Collins was now aware that he would
be shown no mercy and began begging piteously for his life, but
without avail. The scaffold was soon adjusted and he was carried
up and out on the fatal plank.
A new rope noosed around his neck,
and the barrels kicked from under him. He struggled violently but
in ten minutes all the bodies were swaying at the end [of] their
ropes. They fell about seven feet. After hanging about twenty minutes,
they were examined and found to be dead. The ropes were cut, and
the meal bags taken from their heads. They laid on the ground until
sunset while hundreds of the prisoners filed past, two abreast to
see them between two rows of Regulators. Their faces were much distorted,
one only had his neck broken. All the remainder died by slow strangulation.
The immense crowds of prisoners dispersed slowly to their shelters
all glad that the terrible example had been made of the murderers,
while the remaining Raiders yet in the stockade were cowed at once,
and thieving, robbery, and murder stopped for a time. After sundown
the bodies of those hung were carted out by the ration wagon to
the graveyard, and they were all buried close together, near the
center of the place, no mark or stake was allowed to be put over
them. The gallows was left standing a day or two, for a holy terror
to all thieves and Raiders yet among us, over whom a strict watch
will be kept.
Down by the north and south gates
are daily brought dead men, mostly entirely naked, who lay piled
on top of each other, all swollen up, dirt stained and as black
as Negroes from exposure to sun and rain, while millions of flies
hover over the ghastly corpses! These are waiting for the ration
wagon to carry to the grave yard! At night, the scene is solemn
enough for the most hardened sinner. The ragged skeleton forms clustered
around a small fire singing hymns or a comrade prays. The pile of
naked corpses in the firelight, etc. The solemn looks of haggard
men. A perfect stillness of all noises in the vicinity gives an
impression never to be effaced from one's memory. All around were
sick or dying men lying in their ragged shelters, or without any
shelter; propped up by their comrades to hear and listen to the
singing, some crying, others cursing in delirium, others joining
in singing the old familiar hymns of long ago when they were then
in their happy homes far away, little thinking that they would be
in such a hell upon earth as this place! Sometimes four or five
groups were having prayers and singing at one time among us.
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