Rock Island Prison – Photo from the Kentucky Historical Society
From the JCCFS Archives – Interview conducted by Fred O. Scroggs in 1926.
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Talk With Wm. Waldroup. Civil War Vet: 11/23/26
*Served under Gen. Polk and Capt. Irish Bill Moore. Was with army fighting around Chattanooga. Got cut off from army and came home with others to Brasstown. Yankees came in and captured him together with several others. Took them to Rock Island Prison in Illinois, where he remained eighteen months, or until the close of the war.
“How did they get you to prison? On the train?
“No! Drove us! We marched all the way. My heels was skinned all over where they rode the horses against us a-trying to rush us on.”
“Where was Rock Island Prison?”
“Right across the river from the prison was Davenport, Iowa, a dirty looking, smoky town.
“How long did you stay in prison?”
“Eighteen months, and come out as pore as a black snake. We had a awful hard time. I worked all day for a small piece of tobacco lots of times. I believe I would a starved but I made rings and shell birds to sell. My mother sent me some files and I filed out birds out of mussel shells. One day the Colonel come in. Everybody wanted to sell him something. I followed him to the gate and asked him to buy some shell birds to take home and show what a rebel could do. He looked at them and paid me two dollars for two of them.”
“On our way to the prison we camped one night at Tillico Plains. That was the night John Mitchell Davidson was killed, and I want you to know I kept quiet. Thought my time might come next. Twelve men shot him. I seen it.”
“Did they have a trial?”
“They had some kind of trial. It was a sham thing. They was going to kill coot Ray too. He was a gorilla. He suspicioned something and come to me, and asked me to walk to the guard line with him. When we got there he broke to run, busted the river open and got away.”
“We had a awful time in the prison. They eat every dog they could get hold of. I seen’em eat rats. I never eat any, though. They would set at a rat hole for hours with a gig ready to kill them when they came out. And when they would kill one, they stewed him right then. If I got too hungry I would trade one of my shell birds to a prisoner for a nickel and get me a loaf of bread. There was four hundred had bone scurvey at one time. And they died by the hundreds.”
“One day I had grubbed up stumps all day and they failed to give me my tobacco. I decided I wouldn’t work any more if they didn’t give me my tobacco. So the next day, when they ordered us out, I wouldn’t come. They shot at me and I run into the wash room and jumped into a vat of water and was there throwing water up over my head. Just fighting the water. They run in and asked where I went and a man told them I went through a back door. Then I went and crawled in my bunk. I just wouldn’t work without they give me my tobacco.”
“We dug us a tunnel under the fence one night with a old ash pan. They was 8 of us going to leave next day after they went to work, but the others got too fast and all went out at break of day, and got caught.”
“Why didn’t you go with them?”
“They got too fast. I heard shooting at day-light and knowed they had played the dickens. They cought one on the island, and the other six swum the river and went to a farm. They asked the farmer if he would hide them. He said “Yes.” He told them to go in the smoke house, and then he locked the door and reported it to Rock Island. Then they come and got’em and crapt their coat tails off and pot balls and chains on ’em.”
“The way they had of punishing us, they would tie a fellow’s thumbs up to something just as high as he could reach and let him stand for two hours. I’d ruther a bin shot any time. I’ve seen ’em faint an’ fall down an’ jist hang there.”
“You know, we all got weak. They never give us nothing to eat but great, big, old soup bones with a little water with them, and salt meat. That’s why they took bone scurvey and died. We got so weak we couldn’t hardly walk, and we was as ill as old sore tailed cats.”
“Did you have any fights in the prison?”
“Lots of ’em.”
“What was the penalty for fighting?”
“Nothing, they didn’t care much.”
“How did you get out of the prison?”
“They wouldn’t let us out ’till we took the oath. I wouldn’t take it for a long time, but I seen they wouldn’t never let us out and I was going to starve to death. So I took it, and they give me a ticket to Knoxville, Tenn. I come on the train then to Sweetwater, Tenn. and walked home. They said it was dangerous to come through but I did.”
“I suppose you were very weak?”
“Weak! Lord-a-Mighty! I saw men so weak they reeled with their blankets as they walked. All the fresh meat they had was a dog occasionally and some of them big wharf rats. Why, they was eighteen hundred died while I was there, -four hundred with bone scurvey. They fed us on pursley, too. You know what pursley is,–the stuff we give our hogs some times. Looked like redworms when it was cooked. Lots of them took the oath long time before I did, to git out. Twenty eight hundred joined the navy to git out.”
Fred O. 11/23/26
WM (Bill ) Waldroup
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Tipper
Interesting interview.. Hard to imagine that it took place in this country.. Now We are neighbors. God help us to never let that happen again..
In Allan Cunningham’s play Sir Marmaduke I found this “She crapped a lock o’ yellow gowden hair, An knotted it roun’ his brow.”
Your reference as well as this one seem to indicate that “crap” was the Scots word for the English “crop” meaning to cut off. So now we need to find out why cutting off their coat tails was noteworthy punishment unless they had no pants.
I daresay this day’s post is the most interesting and thought provoking I have read in the several years I have been a visitor here.
PS: I also discovered that the name Waldroup is a Scots name and is a variant of Wardrobe meaning keeper of the robes. If Mr. Waldroup was born about 1840 then his family might have been in this country for only around a century and were still speaking the Scottish language.
Thanks for the history lesson!
Ed-I wondered about that word too – I looked in the online Etymology Dictionary and found this: The name Crapper is a northern form of Cropper (attested from 1221), an occupational surname, obviously, but the exact reference is unclear.Crap (v.) as a variant of crop (v.) was noted early 19c, as a peculiarity of speech in Scotland and the U.S. Southwest (Arkansas, etc.).
Draw out yere sword, thou vile Southron!
Red wat wi blude o my kin!
That sword it crapped the bonniest flower
Eer lifted its head to the sun!
[Allan Cunningham (1784-1842), The Young Maxwell]
Had those starving prisoners known what we know today about prusley/purslane/pigweed they might have fought over it instead of the dog and rat meat. It is high in vitamin C and could have prevented the “bone scurvey” they suffered.
It is now called a superfood and is served in gourmet resturants. I would still prefer to feed it to the pigs then eat them.
I kept up with the language of the old soldier until I got to “crapt their coat tails off.” I stopped reading and studied the phrase for a while before deciding to come back to it. After finishing the article I went back and reread and rereread that part and I still have no idea what that means. Can someone enlighten me before my last little brain cell explodes?
One thing that struck me was that Mr. Waldroup risked his life over a “small piece of tobacco.” People still do that you know! “Bill” had to be in his 80’s if the interview was conducted in 1926. He must have been a tough old buzzard to have survived the war, the prison and the tobacco!
Wow- this gentleman had to be in his eighties when he was interviewed. He certainly survived such horrors, then lived long to tell about it!
Tipper,
I have actually seen those carved shell birds a time or two through the years…I always thought they were the work (souvenirs)that was imported to and sold in Florida, during the fifties.
Now then, if I ever see another one, I will think of Wm. Waldroup!
Such a sad story!
Thanks Tipper,