Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[597] Over three thousand boxes, sent to the captives in Libby Prison, and on Belle Isle in the James River, near, were stored close by the former building, where the writer saw a large portion of them, immediately after the evacuation of Richmond.

In the few indications here given of the condition of the Union captives in Libby Prison, we have a glimpse, only, of the horrors of the “starving time,” in the history of such captives, in all parts of the country under the rule of the Conspirators. The finishing touch in the ghastly picture of the iniquity of those Conspirators, is given in the fact, that they prepared to blow up Libby Prison, with its starving inmates, with gunpowder, rather than allow them to regain their liberty. To the testimony concerning that premeditated act, already given in this work,¹ may be added that of Turner, the commandant of the prison, who said, in answer to the question of a captive officer, “Was the prison mined?” “Yes, and I would have blown you all to Hades before I would have suffered you to be rescued.” !A remark of Bishop Johns was corroborative as well as curious, in reply to the question, “Whether it was a Christian mode of-warfare to blow up defenseless prisoners?” The Bishop replied, “I suppose the authorities are satisfied on that point, though I do not mean to justify it.” ²

The sufferings of the captives on Belle Isle, during the “starving time” were much greater than of those in Libby Prison, for the latter were under shelter.

The Richmond “bridge of Sighs.”

Belle Isle was a small island of a few acres, in the James River, in front of Richmond,³ near the Tredegar Iron Works. A part of it was a grassy bluff, covered with trees, and a part was a low sandy barren, a few feet above the surface of the river, which there flows swiftly. There was a bridge across the James, over which the captives passed on their way to Belle Isle, which became truly a “Bridge of Sighs.” ⁴ Over the Richmond entrance to it might have been appropriately placed, the inscription which Dante saw over the gate of Hell--“He who enters here, leaves hope behind.”

For the captives, the cool green grass that carpeted the hill on Belle Isle, and the shade of the trees that adorned it, had no blessings, for the prisoners were confined to the low and treeless sand-barren, and were never allowed,