REMINISCENCES OF A. B. CHANDLER, SR.
On October 1, 1858, having completed my course at the
old-field school, my father sent me to Hanover Academy then
owned by Lewis M. Coleman. Here I spent two sessions and a
half, leaving in 1861 for the army. Mr. Coleman managed the
school until 1859, when he was elected professor of Latin in
the University of Virginia. He was afterwards colonel of artillery
in the C. S. A., and was killed in battle. Mr. Hilary P. Jones
succeeded Mr. Coleman as owner and principal of the Academy,
and so continued until 1861, when the school was disbanded for
the war. Mr. Jones also became Colonel of Artillery and survived
the war. At this school were gathered about eighty young
men from Virginia and all over the South. We had students
from Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas. These were all
splendid young men, the flower of Southern culture. In the
spring of 1861 the war broke up the school. Grant's army came
through Bowling Green and Caroline in May, 1864. My grandmother
was still living at Woodlawn, and also my father and
mother. The Northern soldier laid waste everything that he
could reach. They filled my grandmother's residence, stole everything
they could carry off, and what they could not carry away
they destroyed. My father was sick and died while his bed-chamber
was full of these soldiers. After they had appropriated
everything on the place that could be eaten, my grandmother
asked them what she was to live on, and they told her to "eat
grass," and this she had almost to do. On April 2, 1865, I was
taken prisoner at Hatcher's run, south of Petersburg, and spent
ten weeks a prisoner at Point Lookout, Maryland, and released
from there in June. Our rations there were a small piece of raw
cod fish, a half a loaf of bread and a small tin cup full of bean
water slightly seasoned with meat. This was a day's ration.
The water was sweet and very scarce. The prisoners suffered
greatly for want of water. The pumps in the prison enclosure
would give out about 10:00 A. M. and then there was no more
water that day. I have seen prisoners jammed around these
pumps for a hundred yards fighting to get to them for water. I
was more fortunate than the soldiers generally because I met an
old friend named Vinson, a fellow student from Louisiana, at
Hanover Academy. The prisoner camp was laid out in streets,
and the prisoners were divided into companies and a corporal
put in charge of each company. This corporal was a Confederate
soldier, and his duty was, at dinner time, to collect and march
his company to the dining room to get their bean water, and for
this service he was given a paddle which entitled him to get his
water at the commissary pump. Vinson, being a friend of mine,
invited me to come to his tent whenever I wanted water, and I
availed myself of this privilege and thus never suffered for water.
The prison consisted of many acres enclosed by a high plank fence
with a parapet on which negro soldiers walked guarding the
prisoners, and if you happened to step beyond the dead line you
were shot down.
