Andersonville (27 page)

With sycophants trailing Wirz returned to the North Gate. One fellow begged to go out to cut wood, another had written a letter which he wished mailed, another insisted that he was an officer—by rights a captain like Henry Wirz—and should no longer be confined here. Henry accepted the letter (which he neglected to mail for the petitioner, and which got mixed in with some old newspapers later on, and so was thrown out, and the prisoner’s wife never heard from him again; never did she know that he died in Andersonville on June twenty-third, 1864, and was taken to the deadhouse without his name tied to his rags; so he became one of the Unknowns; but his wife and sons always thought that he had died gloriously if anonymously in the battle of Olustee). Henry said that there would be no wood-cutting at this time—later on, perhaps, and under heavy guard; he told the pretending officer to be off, to try no funny monkey business with him. He went to his new office, a rough plank shanty on the slope opposite the roadway below the large southwest fort. There, with considerable labor and recourse to the dictionary taken from his saddle bag, Wirz inscribed an advertisement to be tacked on the inside of the North Gate. He desired two prisoners, bilingual as to German and English preferably, with experience in the routine of military offices. Such men must give their paroles and could dwell outside the stockade. They would receive double rations; other emoluments were hinted at but not specifically promised. . . . Promptly there were five applicants for this seeming sinecure, and Wirz had them fetched outside later on. He interviewed them with increasing disappointment and finally made himself select his two. Neither of them did he consider to be of even average intelligence. (One was named Charles, the other Viggo—he was truly a Dane but he spoke German with a Schleswig accent. Charles was sickly, fated to die of a phagedenic ulcer within a few weeks. Viggo stole things to sell to the guards; Wirz caught him stealing soft soap, and had him turned back into the stockade.) They were but the forerunners of a host who would serve Wirz in his office or at and around his quarters, and some would serve efficiently. How many there would be Wirz himself could not guess, any more than he could have guessed how many prisoners would be confined there eventually.

That same day a guarded herd of Negroes found themselves sinking posts inside the stockade. Wirz’s instructions to the youth in command were to drive small posts into the ground firmly so that some three or four feet of their length remained exposed; upon these posts would be nailed scantling strips to mark the deadline. Twenty feet inside the stockade, said Wirz, but the lieutenant was no surveyor and had not a good eye for measurements. At some points the deadline was established not more than sixteen feet from the fence, at others perhaps twenty-two. A howl arose from scores of unfortunates thus dispossessed. They had labored like insects to achieve their shelter; now treasured stakes were pulled out, pine lattice tossed aside; the men were told to take their blankets and coats and move. Furthermore the habitable area within the pen stood reduced by perhaps three acres. Indignation meetings were held, fists were waved, a few stones were thrown at guards.

Just let that Dutch son of a bitch show his face in here!

Deadline, hell. A Wisconsin man stepped angrily past the new posts and jeered up at the parapet, spreading his arms as he hallooed. Promptly several of the nearer guards began to aim their guns at him, and friends dragged the foolhardy man to safety. There was some doubt about whether Wirz meant business, whether the guards would really shoot. This doubt was dispelled quickly the next morning. Ironically the first victim was a German; the prisoners called him Sigel in derogatory reference to his crescent badge of the ill-fated Eleventh Corps. Exposure and illness had sent Sigel into the nodding ranks of the lunatics. Men called him the Old Clothes Man because he went jerking about in a kind of St. Vitus’ dance, searching for stray rags or socks in the mud. Sigel observed a checkered scrap of cloth dropped probably by one of the blacks who had driven posts into place. Scantlings had been nailed already at this point, but a scantling meant nothing to the deranged wanderer, and he went pawing under the little barricade, white crescent corps badge and all. He was killed almost instantly by a handful of buckshot smashing through his chest. Prisoners screamed their hatred of the young guard who had fired, they drove him from his perch with mud and billets before he could reload. Another guard took his place. Later Wirz himself crept aloft to survey the situation . . . missiles flew again, obscenities smoked, the hatred was given freely and accepted just as willingly. The construction detail ran out of scantling before they had marked the entire deadline, and there would be dangerous gaps for a long time to come; wiser people tied cords at night, with tufts of rag to wave in warning, but always these cords were being stolen by other people.

The squadding over which began on the day of the death of Crazy Sigel was attended by a protracted insurrection. Henry Wirz was a fanatical believer in the Oriental philosophy of Go Thyself. If he depended on some other person’s count, how could he establish the correctness of it? Imagine Wry-necked Smith charged with this task! Wirz was certain that half the private soldiers available to his purposes could not count to twenty without a mistake; he detected signs of unruliness among sergeants and the handful of commissioned officers subordinate to his command. Lieutenant-Colonel Persons himself had introduced the familiar system of Thousands and Hundreds. Through a smoked-up tent fly Wirz heard Alexander Persons denounce the projected Detachments and Nineties as purest fertilizer.
Ach,
was ever a prison superintendent so put upon, was ever a prison superintendent less coöperated with? So must he parade the prisoners and count them himself.

It took him hours to achieve the count, manifold order book in hand. By the time he had completed checking the Seventh Thousand, prisoners of the first detachments were out of formation and wandering all over the place. Bad children—they should be punished (what did he do to Cora when she was naughty? Send her to bed without her supper! So should he do with these!)—he was the man for the job, God damn.

Today for your badness no rations will come!

The howl which answered this announcement made Claffey slaves rise in alarm from their planting of a distant field, it brought men running out of Uncle Arch Yeoman’s store.

This incident was unfortunate, but if it served to teach the prisoners to stay in line when they were ordered to, it should have served its purpose. One could not line up Thousands and tell them off into fresh Detachments unless orders were obeyed. In a melancholy drizzle next morning bayonets were fixed, the gate was swung, guards marched in with Wirz trotting in their midst as if he also were a prisoner.

Maybe you Yankees stay until dismissed, this day? he asked witheringly. . . . Once more he proceeded with his labored count, once more the sickly tired resentful beggarmen said, Oh, cowshit, and skulked from the ranks. Here was Henry Wirz, counting the new Detachment Twenty-three; and beyond him those vagabonds in the as-yet-uncounted Detachment Twenty-six were strolling down to the marsh because they claimed they had to do their business. Never could two hundred and seventy men need to do their business at once! Did they take him for a fool? They would learn the temper of the officer with whom they trifled!

Famished throngs swayed opposite the North Gate all that afternoon, watching with such hope that even sentries stared down to pity them. But no patched harness jingled, no wheels squeaked, no rabbit mules flicked their ears, no cornmeal was transported to its parceling out. Now forty-eight hours had passed since a bite of food had been issued. Only the acknowledged raiders had anything saved up for a rainy day, and even these joined in the din and grumble. Fierce youths who still had the litheness of willow and the verve of cats about them— They gathered in trembling groups, talk flew wildly.

Come along, old top, I’m with you: better off dead than starved!

If we get enough poles to batter with, we can bust out that little wicket door.

Certain—some of us are going to get shot, but the bulk will get through.

Harvey, I’ll be right alongside you!

Let’s every fellow grab a club and—

The gravel of these verbal torpedoes spread stinging; yet there was no leader, no supreme chemist to mix the desperation and hunger and rage, no one to shake the mixture and let it spurt. Far into hours of darkness the boys huddled and snarled; yet it was only a pathetic snarling, only a huddle.

Once more in early morning the Rebel fife squeaked its message of Roll Call. Once more came bayonets and the skinny bearded man, now so universally loathed, scooting in the shadow of their security. This day the prisoners’ swollen feet seemed fastened to the ground with a mucilage of despair. They did not go ranging afield after they were first counted, they remained in ranks. Scores of them collapsed or sat down through sheer weakness; but they stayed, they did not drift, they were in the counted Thousands when the superintendent came back to make his final conversion into Detachments.

He rewarded them with their day’s ration, but only that day’s ration. (This he debated in his mind, after he was once back in the shed: might he not give them the meal for the two other days?
Nein:
too much all at once, it would make them sick, the incidence of mortality might rise abruptly. One day’s rations: enough. They had earned this by good behavior. But their bad behavior of the two previous days had earned them exactly nothing save empty bellies. Like naughty children they must be brought to time,
ja.
)
The toy mules came straining, the mess sergeants drew their meal, it was divided.

...He was but doing his duty, they must be aware of that. Since the squadding over was now complete, Henry Wirz had no thought that he needed longer a retinue of guards. The next morning he ventured into the stockade alone. Within minutes he came dodging out again, his unfired revolver shaking in his left hand, his calico waist dripping with mud and offal, his neck dirtied, his arms dirtied, his shoulder bruised where a rock had struck.

Gott,
they were devils! But if he had emptied his weapon into the bodies of some, then the others would surely have torn him to pieces, no matter how many dropped to the guards’ volley. He thought of a snake pit, thought of a lions’ den. Prisoners seethed through his aching head all that day; he could not eat dinner, no longer did he have appetite; he wished he could drink but liquor made him sick;
ja,
even food made him sick, even the idea of food, for he was a dyspeptic. Prisoners jabbered and seethed in his dreams that night, he cried out hoarsely, he awakened the neighbors. Henry Wirz wished for his wife, for his family. He felt alone and misunderstood.

 XVIII 

T
wo older but not so hefty boys showed Willie Collins how to make a bully out of a dead rat and handfuls of shot. This was in 1843 when Willie was nine years old. A common play for boys in the Fourth Ward (and in regions equally depraved in other portions of the United States) was to attach a dead rat to a stout cord and whirl the rat over your head, or round and round beside you as you ran and shrieked. Live rats abounded, a dead rat was to be avoided only because of its putridity . . . you whirled the plummet, smaller children got out of the way, girl children ran screaming. You could have battles with other boys, biffing them with your rat until its tail broke off; then you had to tie the cord around the neck, and it did not swing so well; eventually the rat would be mashed apart, flogged out of all usefulness; then you had to get another dead rat, but there were plenty of those to be had.

The boys who taught a better trick to Willie were Danny Crogan and Gabriel Seek; one was white, the other colored but with red hair. Danny was dead at fourteen, his head splintered in a street fight. At sixteen red-headed Gabe was shot by a coachman who said that Gabe had raped his young daughter, and maybe Gabe had; but previously he bragged to friends that the girl gave herself to him, and she sneaked out to him a dinner bucket filled with delicious fried smelts almost every day.

Get you your rat, said Danny. Slit him open and take out the guts. . . . Get a fresh rat what ain’t swoll up yet, said Gabe. Nail him to a board, scrape the skin so’s it won’t have much smell, so twill be good and soft. . . . Go you down to that tannery, end of Cherry Street; steal you a handful of the tan stuff and rub it on. . . . First thing you know, you got you a well-tanned rat. . . . It’s then you sew him up. . . . First you got to put in them shot, said Gabriel Seek. . . . Och, sure: and it’s tight you must stitch it, with the hide doubled, or the shot will leak. . . . Buckshot—that best. . . . Och, yes, said Danny Crogan. Go you down to Cowley the gunsmith, and he’s got buckshot in the third keg from the door; and wait you till he’s back at his bench with some crusher who’s brought a pistol to him, and it’s then you can snatch your buckshot and get away before he fibs you. . . . Stuff that rat full and sew him tight, said Gabe Seek, rolling his eyes.

Willie Collins listened, Willie Collins learned. Within a few days he had his rat ready, tanned at least well enough to suit him. But use stout cordage, he had been told. Rawhide is best; and tie it to the neck, for the tail would snap, it’s that heavy.

Willie went out into the gloaming—it was autumn, and trees drifted their dry spicy leaves when you got where there were trees. Willie had been instructed to look for a hockey. There were many hockeys staggering in narrow passages close to the Gotham Court tenement where he dwelt; but these drunken men were half naked, and none of them might have so much as a hogg, a single ten-cent piece, in his rags. Willie traveled farther afield, swinging the heavy rat-pouch from time to time, to pretend that he was an innocent lad, playing innocently with a dead rat and that was the truth. He idled his way toward the East River. Nearby there survived a short row of prim mansions, their iron gates locked against incursions, holding red brick shoulders stiff against the loose hordes now spilling across Franklin Square where once George Washington had dwelt, where once John Hancock had walked.

A man moved toward Willie through the wan purple light. Most certainly he was a hockey; he was an elderly man, but he tottered as if he had swallowed an entire decanter of brandy before weaving on his homeward path. How was Willie Collins to know that Mr. Hans Van Auken, a long retired watchmaker, had suffered a stroke of paralysis the previous winter and could now walk only with difficulty? And would it have made any difference at all whether he was a hockey, fuddled with drink, or only an ancient with twitching limbs? Mr. Hans Van Auken leaned on his silver-headed cane, he wore a brushed beaver hat, his pantaloons were strapped neatly beneath his slippers. Had he seen danger approaching, he would have blown upon the shrill-noted whistle he carried on a ribbon around his neck, to alert policemen or servants or private watchmen, to send a thief scooting. But he saw no danger; he saw only a lad wheeling a dead rat round his head— Oh, poor lad from a poor home, and that was all he had to play with. Mr. Van Auken thought to give the lad a penny, and began to fumble in the lower left pocket of his waistcoat. A minute later he was dead. He died, he drained away unconsciously there on the cobbled sidewalk without a cry, without a whine, with the front of his fragile egg-shell skull crushed in, with several of his pockets turned out, and the treasured ebony walking stick gone from his dying grasp.

Two streets away Willie Collins thought suddenly about the walking stick. Were he seen carrying it, someone might know— He penetrated an alley, felt about until he found a narrow cranny between two jammed-up buildings. He put the silver head of the cane into this cranny and snapped it off. With the lump in his pocket, and still swinging his rat, he ran home to Gotham Court to see how well he had profited. He had profited to the extent of one gold watch, a few silver coins and coppers—and one gold eagle in the lot; and a beaded doeskin purse of Indian manufacture which Mr. Van Auken had carried as a precious souvenir sent by his son who traded with the Winnebagoes. This purse was found to contain twenty-eight American dollars, an English sovereign, and a promissory note for two hundred dollars drawn to Mr. Van Auken’s favor and signed by a man named Cameron. (Since Willie could not read, this information escaped him and he put the note into the chamber pot.) Purse and money he put into his pocket along with the cane-head, and he was gloating over the watch by candlelight when rudely interrupted by Big Biddy.

Big Biddy was a gangling mulatto woman, deeply in love with Willie Collins’s father when she was drunk—which was most of the time—and resenting him (because he was an Irishman, and white) when she was sober. Which was now.

A yack. Where you get that yack, Willie?

And wouldn’t you like to know?

Give me that yack.

In a pig’s ass I will.

She fell upon him, they fought, at nine years he might have been taken for twelve or older. Big Biddy had her hands full. (He had concealed his rat in a favorite hideaway, which was beneath a loose board under the pallet whereon Willie’s father and Big Biddy slept commonly together or singly; otherwise Willie might have used the rat on her. They might look for purloined goods under the mound of rags which was Willie’s, they had not wits enough to look under their own. . . . When their noisy ardor was spent, and when they were roaring with sleep, it was an easy matter to work the loose board out from beneath their couch.) At length, amid mutual buffetings and squawkings, Big Biddy was able to draw a fresh-filled gin bottle from the pocket of her red cloak, and she gave Willie such a bang on the head—but never breaking the bottle—that he went squealing down the stairs. The watch had fallen upon the bricks they used for a brazier in cold weather; when opened it proved to have the crystal broken and it would not run. But it was a gold-cased watch with the initials H.I.V.A. engraved elaborately. When Aloysius Collins came gasping in (you could hear his breathing as he approached, the grating wheeze of it, you could hear it from the bottom of the stairway) Big Biddy displayed her loot.

You black bludget, you. Where did you hoist it?

Kiddie had it, Al. She had drunk half the gin and was warming to him.

He’s but a babe.

God damn, man, he had it.

Likely twas in the street he found it, muttered the gigantic decrepit Aloysius.

Yah, she sneered, disapproving of Willie because he had hurt her breast during the struggle. I bet you, man, he hoist it from some shop.

He’s but a babe, ladybird, but a babe.

The next morning the elder Collins sold Mr. Van Auken’s watch to a popshop proprietor for five dollars: he should have received much more, but he was stupid and quivering, and it seemed that wild animals were roosting above his bed when he awakened; he stood in need of liquor. During the day policemen came searching the stores of all the Uncles in the area, for the murder of Hans Van Auken had caused a great hue and cry . . . one of the dead man’s sons was a rich merchant, another was a city official. They discovered the watch, Collins was pointed out as the man who’d sold it to the pawnshop proprietor, police came thundering into Gotham Court. But twenty men, including the proprietor of the Diving Bell (and the proprietor was well acquainted with the dead man’s politician son) swore that Aloysius Collins had slept on a bench in the corner of the Diving Bell from five p.m. until long after the body of Hans Van Auken was discovered. Thus Collins’s insistence that he had found the watch, broken in the street on his way home, could not be refuted. His wailing word was accepted as gospel in the end.

Al Collins could never have done it, anyway, declared the proprietor of the Diving Bell. He’s a mighty man, but drink has took the pepper from him.

No one even thought of nine-year-old Willie. They said, Be off with you, when he came slinking around, when the police had his father in tow. They said, Away with you, you spalpeen. This is a sorry business.

Later, when the freed Aloysius was sufficiently sane, he beat half the life out of his son with a chair-leg.

Willie endured, although he screamed loud enough to awaken all of Gotham Court. He did not awaken all of Gotham Court; they were accustomed to screams. Willie had the money tucked safely away, and the head of the silver walking stick was hidden against a future emergency (he used it eventually to make a slung-shot which he lost in a fight) and he would savor sugarplums, oysters, fried cod, hot corn and any other dainty he chose—forever and a day, it seemed then. He was thunderstruck and delighted to learn that he had killed a man. He walked with puffed chest, he snarled at smaller children, he stood around with other colts in front of public houses on Water Street, watching men and prostitutes moving in and out, watching with glee the fights which always developed. Sometimes there would be several fights in the course of an hour, sometimes men were left for dead, sometimes they were dead.

It’s myself who’s kilt a man already, he told Gabriel Seek and Danny Crogan when he felt expansive.

You’re not elderly enough to have hair in your crotch!

But I did. With my leaded rat, as you showed me.

And who did you give the nope to, kiddie?

Twas an old hockey.

Who you think you fool, Willie? . . . Ah, you’re not elderly enough to—

And where are you after thinking I got all the brass I got?

Hoisting purses off of owls! cried Danny in great pride at his own humor. Willie grappled with him and they rolled in the street, gouging and biting, until some passing sailors thoughtfully kicked them apart and into flight.

At sixteen Willie Collins, grown already to some thirteen stone, drifted into river piracy with the Daybreak Boys, operating under the banner of Nick Saul and Billie Howlett. He was not yet nineteen, in 1853, when he stood in the Tombs yard and with interest watched Saul and Howlett drop from their scaffold. He did not wonder how it would feel to be hanged, he did not wonder about anything. A smarter slyer youth might plan the forays; he, Willie Collins, would carry them out. At least that portion of the work which fell to him commonly—the strong arm, the club on the skull, the kick in the groin, the arm around the neck until breathing stopped.

Wait till it’s two o’clock, Willie.

Yes. Two.

Then get to Tanner’s wharf; it should take you ten minutes. The watchman keeps a fire in an iron drum, to keep him warm. I think he’ll be setting by the fire; if he’s making his rounds he’ll come back to it. Get him by the neck—take care he gives no yell, take care he has no chance to yell—and kick the fire into the river, drum and all. Then there’ll be no glim.

That I’ll do.

Mind, there must be no yelling.

He’ll never yell, cove, that he’ll not do.

...That he did not do.

It was said that a fellow named Slobbery Jim would take over command of the Daybreak Boys after Billie and Nick were hanged at the Tombs. But Willie Collins was not a favorite of Slobbery Jim. To begin with, the new captain was afraid of Willie, and still regarded him as even more stupid than he really was.