John G. B. Adams, Reminiscences of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment

[121] signal our gun-boats, and be saved. Thus far everything had worked well. The guards in our car had not a cartridge left in their boxes, as we had taken them all out and had been able to take some of the caps off their muskets. We were as determined a body of men as ever lived, and it would have been liberty or death with most of us. Some in our car had been over the road and knew where we were expected to begin work. We waited for the signal, but it was not shown, and we began to get uneasy as it was evident that we had passed the point. Some jumped from the cars, but we were so near Charleston they were recaptured and arrived in the city as soon as we did. Some one had blundered or we were betrayed. We never found out who was responsible, but always thought we were betrayed by a regular army officer, who was exchanged soon after we arrived in Charleston. I do not think he entered the jail with us.

Disheartened, hungry and tired we arrived in Charleston. We did not know why we had been sent there but in every heart was a hope that it might be an exchange. They marched us through the city down into the burned district. As we halted on one of the streets a woman on the sidewalk said to me, “I don't think they will put you way down under the fire.” This was the first intimation I had received of what they intended to do with us, but it soon became known that we were to be placed under the fire of our batteries on Morris Island. The noble qualities of the southern chivalry were being shown to us every day, yet this was the most cowardly act of all,--to place unarmed men under the fire of their own guns.

We continued the march to the jail and were turned into the yard. I was more wealthy than when we left Macon.