William Christine
I was captured Sept, 24, 1864, at Athens, Ala. Was taken to Cahaba, Ala., where we remained six months. Our fare consisted of corn and cob chopped together, and once in a while some poor beef that you could smell before it reached the inside of the prison fence. Sometimes we had salt, but a very small quan- tity. Our beds were the ground with nothing over or under us; until along about February, our government sent us some clothing, but the rebels helped themselves first. We had chances of buying sweet potatoes which we paid at the rate of $4.00 per bushel, and sweet cake made of sorghurm molasses at $2.00 per cake, size 4x6 inches, and as black as the ace of spades. White bread a dollar a loaf, the size of a five cent loaf of northern bread. We received $9.00 of Confederate money from the officers who were released on parole. The money was divided up among the boys of the 102nd, and some of us sold our buttons, for which we received prices from 25 to 50 cents each. Chuck-a-luck games were carried on and money won from the rebs was loaned out $2.00 for $1.00 in greenbacks when we returned home. Stealing was carried on to a great extent. You could not lay a pan or anything down and turn around but someone had it. Efforts to escape were indulged in to some extent. At one time a tunnel was in operation, and one more night would have seen daylight, but spies reported the case and that stopped the tunneling. At another time a party of about 100 captured all the inside guards and would have escaped, but they were all alarmed. Some wanted to go and others not to risk it. So that fell through. The hardest time we had while in prison, was the last three days and nights, when the river overflowed and covered our prison. Not less than a foot of water all over the prison. We carried in cord wood and placed two sticks on the ground and two across, until it was high enough out of the water, so four of us could sit on it with our backs to one another, and our legs banging in the water. That way we sat for the three days and nights. We left prison on the 6th of March, and took boat to the mouth of the Tombigbee river, and from there to Gainesville, where we took cars for Meridian, Miss., and from there to Vicksburg, where we went into camp under the old flag, but still under an officer of the Confederacy, under an agreement with our people. After Lincoln was killed the rebs were run over the river, and Gen. Dana placed us on the steamer Sultana, and sent us to Memphis, and on leaving there on the morning of April 27, 1865, our boat was blown up by a torpedo placed in the coal at the coalery north of Memphis, and out of 2,300 men, about 700 were saved. [Although many victims of the disaster believed that the Sultana was destroyed in an act of sabotage, historians agree that these claims are false.] I will say they were the happiest set of men I saw. All their talk was home, but in less time than telling it, they were sent to eternity. Our regiment had 105 men on board, and 73 were lost, and out of our Co. H, 14 men were on board, and three were saved. We could not have lost so many in battle in the same time. I was lying on the hurricane deck with several others of our regiment, when the boat blew up. I got down in the cook house, and got a barrel with one head out. I threw it out and jumped, but got into a crowd and felt sure I would be pulled under, so I got back on the boat, and stripped off and jump again, when the wheel house fell out and took me under, but I dove and got out and I got a plank and with a young fellow belonging to a Tennessee regiment, who had a plank also, we hitched together and floated down stream toward Memphis. Although we did not know then where we were, after going down about three miles, another man got on. He proved to be Elias Hines, of the 18th Mich. The first that got on became so bad that he did not know anything, and finally fell off when we got into a whirligig, which carried us around pretty fast. After that we floated down the river until we reached Memphis, nine miles from the wreck. We were taken up by some of the city firemen, going out in boats to gather these men up. We were taken to the hospital for clothing and kept there, the doctor claiming we would more than likely be sick, and made us stay in three days. We took the boat Belle St. Louis for Cairo, and from there to Mattoon, 111., and were taken in by the citizens and fed and treated more like white folks than since leaving home in 1862. We left there for Indianapolis and from there to Columbus, where, after tea or fifteen days were mustered out by order from the War Department. I was married when I enlisted, and after returning home, I went into the lumber yard at Wooster until 1866, and then in the McDonald shops. In 1869 my wife died, leaving me two boys larger than I am, and fine boys they are. I married again and moved to Columbus, O., and am engaged in the Ry. Mail service for the Panhandle road. Am doing finely, as well as hard times can allow.
(Wooster, OH.: G.S. Schmutz, 1907), 249-251.