750 NortH CaroLina Troops, 1861-’65.

that while the danger to society and the government is clearly,
apparent, existing circumstances render a fair and full trial
utterly impossible even though the public interest may de-
mand it at once.

Such was the case in numerous instances in the Southern
Confederacy. Furthermore, arrest and imprisonment in
such cases, when they are not attended by the infliction of
any punishment beyond what is involved in the restraint of
the confinement, are not to be viewed necessarily as a violent
deprivation of enjoyment and freedom, but as a prudential
deprivation of the opportunity to commit contemplated in-
jury and destruction.

There are cases of reasonable suspicion against an indi-
vidual when it is impossible to find evidence to justify his
imprisonment under the civil law. It would certainly be a
suicidal policy for a commander in such eases to wait till his
plans are frustrated, his command betrayed and irretrievable
losses sustained by some overt act of the supposed traitor or
spy before ordering his arrest. ;

A ease of this character occurred in General Whiting’s Bri-
gade in the latter part of 1861. While posted on the right
wing of Johnston’s army, one of his regiments encamped
near a farm house, where, among others, lived a young man
whose countenance betokened a base, designing spirit. I
watched him loitering with an air of ill concealed thought-
fulness about the regiments and suspected from his conduct
that he was giving information to the enemy. The suspicion
was entertained by the officers, too, but no clue to his guilt
could be obtained. On the morning that the long roll beat
for the regiment to leave he was seen galloping on the road
to the river in great haste—in all probability communicated
the movement of the whole force to the enemy and was not
arrested till his return.

But while it may sometimes be proper, from the peculiar
circumstances, to arrest and confine suspected parties, it can-
not be right to postpone the examination of such cases a day
longer than is unavoidable. Prompt investigation should
decide whether the arrest is “founded upon some necessity,”
or can be “justified as a proper precaution against an appar-

SALISBURY PRISON. 751

ent danger.” It is believed that the Confederate authorities
are censurable for delay in such examination touching the
arrest and custody of the civilian prisoners at Salisbury.
One case is remembered, as reported by the commissioner
when he came to Salisbury, of a citizen from Western Vir-
ginia, who had been in prison for fourteen months, and when
his case was examined there was not the shadow of reason for
his imprisonment. Mr. Seddon, speaking of the result of the
examination in the Southwestern Department, states that ‘a
large number had been discharged.” Not recollecting posi-
tively, my impression is that a considerable number of those
ecnfined at Salisbury were promptly released when the facts
of their arrest were brought to light.

After the departure of Colonel Godwin for the field, who,
like Colonel Gibbs, made the prison guard the nucleus for a
fine regiment (the Fifty-seventh North Carolina Troops)
Captain McCoy held the office of commandant for some time.
He was also Quartermaster of the post for a considerable
period, and finally held a position on the staff of his rela-
tive, General Winder.

THE PRISONS BETTER DAYS.

Up to the latter part of 1864, the prison presented few of
those horrors which afterwards rendered it so shocking and
deplorable. The citizens of Salisbury will long remember
how often they have heard the loud songs of the prisoners in
those first years, when in the first still hours of the summer
night they beguiled the heavy moments in singing those
familiar hymns which bring to all hearts the sad, sweet mem-
ries of other days and absent friends. Those songs told of
sad home thoughts, and there were many, doubtless, who
heard them with a kinder sympathy than the singers dreamed.

Coming from the prison they fell on the heart like “a
thought of heaven in a field of graves.” They called up
sacred musings of that Better Land, where peace is never
broken and freedom has no foe or fear.

About this period we have the testimony of an escaped
prisoner—a newspaper correspondent—that the rations were
tolerable both in quality and quantity. The prisoners had