Point Lookout

Point Lookout

From Hooper's Weekly, July 22, 1871.

Originally titled, Mysterious Happenings

at a Union Prison Camp, by Randolph Clarke.

It has been said that the history of war is written by the victors. I would not engage in debate on the matter, but pray that Providence forgives this mortal sinner for his part in the atrocities committed in our Great Civil Unrest. When our troops marched through Georgia, northern papers shrieked of the horrors at the Andersonville prison camp. Yet, had those same newspapermen traveled a scant three-hour train ride out of Washington, they would have found almost equal depravity on their doorstep at the U.S. Prison camp on Point Lookout.

Indeed, had General Lee liberated those barren acres of windswept sand, James Barnes would likely have joined Henry Wirz, dancing at the end of a rope.

I was 19 in 1863, when I joined the fight to preserve the Union and was assigned to the 93rd US Maryland Regiment, Colored; a regiment containing a mix of free-born Negros, like myself, and freed slaves. It is not the purpose of this missive to recount my honorable and decorated service. Rather, I shall tell of a strange string of occurrences which happened while we were assigned to guard duty on that desolate wasteland where the Potomac joins the Chesapeake. The Bible teaches man not to pass judgment on his fellow, yet what motivation could there be besides tyrannical vengeance when Federal authorities placed the freed Negro slave as a guard over the captured white soldiers who fought to preserve the system that held him in chattel. I, Randolph Clarke, a Negro, born free and raised free, have no love for slavery and all its appointments, yet most of these foot soldiers who were our charges were not the slave owner. These were simple farmers, tradesmen, and workers, who, though wrong in their convictions, had fought gallantly, with honor and valor. Having been captured on the field of battle by their enemy, they deserved dignity and respect, rather than horrors and abuse. I will not deny there were a few slaveholders in our stockade, and one in particular I shall address shortly, but they were the exception.

We guards had kingly power over the prisoners, and many of my fellows took out their rage for years of servitude. Our white commanders quietly paid a bounty of 10 to 15 dollars for every southern prisoner we justifiably shot in the performance of our duties, so many of my brothers-in-arms became as skilled in justification as their white masters had once been. Prisoners were beaten, or executed, for minor offenses. Woe unto he who even approached the ten-foot dead line inside the walls of the prison.

The prisoner's tents housed double the occupants than for which they were intended. Drinking water was foul. Food was sparse and supplemented with the rodents that ran rampant. Prisoners were allowed to fish in the Chesapeake, which abutted the stockade, but firewood was scarce too and many a catch was eaten raw. Flooding was a constant problem. Malaria, cholera, smallpox, and typhoid stalked our prison. Of every ten Confederates who entered, one or two would go to their maker in the mass graves outside the prison walls.

On the other hand, we were housed comfortably in dry barracks, fed cooked meals, and dined indoors—a pleasant break from the drudgery of war. When on duty, guards always traveled about the prison in pairs, so I was attached to an illiterate, taciturn former slave from Louisiana named Gabriel Hay. I fought the temptation to view him as an ignorant swamp nigger, and instead, took him under my wing.

Like many soldiers, Gabriel was fascinated by tales of the shipwrecks on the treacherous shoals just off the point, and of the doomed sailors who some say still stalked the shore on dark nights. Even the lighthouse, scarcely thirty years old, was already said to be haunted. Being of a more scientific bent, I disregarded these stories, until one warm, tropical night, shortly after our arrival, a sergeant pulled Gabriel and me aside from the prison parapets.

"Someone is down on the shoreline south of the stockade. Go investigate.

Approaching the beach, we saw a lantern bobbing up and down. When we drew near, it moved south along the shore. After a half-mile, we reached the tip of the point, where it disappeared up the steps and into the front door of the lighthouse. We questioned the keeper, but he had seen no lanterns, and claimed he had been in bed. We left him in peace but with suspicions, as southern sympathies were rife in this area of our divided state. Little did I suspect the truth of what we had encountered. With the death that occurred in the past, and the death occurring daily around us, the line between this world and the next was thin — it would only take the slightest ripple to upset that balance.

In late August 1864, prisoners from the second Weldon Railroad skirmish near Petersburg arrived. Hopelessness was writ large on their faces, taking in the sorry state of their new home. Unexpectedly, Gabriel stepped forward to one of them. I anticipated abuse for some minor infraction but instead the two shared a manly embrace and spoke warmly for a few moments before the man continued into the stockade.

"You know him?" I asked Gabriel when he returned. "Yes, Monsieur Doucet. My master's foreman.

"You are friends?" I asked, but Gabriel said nothing further. Gabriel saw that Doucet got treatment for his wounds and provided him with food. I thought he did so out of kindness. I was to learn otherwise. Perhaps a week later, I awoke in the middle of the night. Lying there in the darkness, watching a patch of moonlight make its way across the far floor of the barracks, I realized I couldn't hear any breathing or other noise from the bunk below. I peered down. Gabriel's bed was empty. Most likely he had stepped out to the latrine, but when he didn't return, I went in search of my wayward comrade.

Under the waxing quarter moon, I crept towards the latrine, but it was deserted. Off in the woods, I spotted the illumination from a partially shuttered lantern on the edge of the swamp; a figure huddled next to it. A twig cracked under my foot, so I ducked into the bushes.

Gabriel was crouched on his haunches with an assortment of objects laid out on an army blanket, including two small bags of powder, a couple of pieces of bone, and some other objects I couldn't quite place in the half-light of the shuttered lantern. Gabriel was from Louisiana. This was voodoo.

A chill went up my spine. It occurred to me that with all the death around us, we oughtn't stir up the spiritual waters. I soon pushed that thought out of my head as pure silliness. Let the ignoramus have his fun if it helps him through the hell of war.

Gabriel disappeared into the darkness of the swamp. For a long moment there was no sound, then a struggle. He emerged holding a snake by its neck, the long slithering body wrapped around his muscular arm. He slit its throat and streamed blood across the contents of the blanket. Finally, he combined all the artifacts on the blanket into one pile and filled a small sac.

"That shall do," he whispered, stowing the blanket in a hollow tree, and creeping back to the barracks.

The next day was inspection, when we went through each tent searching for contraband. As usual, we were to review the "Avenue" where Doucet's crowded tent lay. Inspection was among the most abhorrent parts of our duty. I found it demeaning to search prisoners' belongings; I hated entering the vermin-infested tents, and I felt horrid for the plights of the men who lived within. In Doucet's tent, Gabriel left a small strip of salt pork under the covers of the man's bunk. He had done similar things before; I gave it little thought. The next morning, word came that Doucet was found dead. Gabriel was stoic. He received permission to bury the body in the woods rather than in the camp's mass trench for Confederate dead. I helped him dig a four-foot hole in the sandy soil. As we lowered Doucet's plain wooden coffin into the earth, I offered to say a few words, but Gabriel declined. But he was a good man, wasn't he?" I asked.

Gabriel gazed into the woods and shook his head. "He was an evil man. I buried him with a mouthful of Minie balls. Let him use lead to bribe the ferryman." With that, he picked up his shovel and began throwing dirt on the coffin. We finished in silence as the sun set. Sitting outside the barracks, as darkness closed around us, I said a prayer for the soul of Doucet and all his comrades. As I finished and looked up to the forest, something slipped darkly between the tree trunks. I blinked and it was gone.

I am a God-fearing Christian who holds the commandments dear, but when I tell this story, I question the truth of my witness. It was shortly after midnight when a call to fall in rang out, followed by gunfire. We tumbled dazedly into the night, expecting to see Confederate gunboats off the shore, or partisan raiders, or maybe even General Lee himself. Instead, the men on guard were shooting over our heads into the night.

From the direction of the Confederate mass grave flew shadows like black sheets. One raced past me and picked a soldier off the ramparts. Others descended into the stockade, carrying hapless screaming prisoners off into the sky. As one swept down straight at me, I unleashed a volley from my rifle with little effect. Dropping to the ground, I smelled the thing's foul reek as it passed overhead, claws raking my back. All around was pandemonium of screams, running feet, and gunfire. Sheltering under a wagon, I spotted Gabriel with a lantern running towards Doucet's grave in the woods. I bolted after him, an eye to the sky for attackers. When I caught up, he was standing by the grave we had dug just a few hours previously. The grave had been exhumed, the coffin lay beside, open and empty. Gabriel was hunched over the empty casket.

"What have you done?" I asked.

"Something has gone wrong.

"You're d-----d right something has gone wrong!" I cursed at him. "What in the name of the Lord were you trying to do?" Gabriel shook his head. "I was trapping Doucet, turning him into a ghost."

"See what your heathen ministrations have done! How do we put a stop to this, now?

"I do not know, maybe we should burn the pit."

I had no idea if it would work, but it was better than standing about waiting to be snatched up like a mouse before an owl.

"Follow me," I murmured and bolted back through the woods.

Twice, we hit the ground as we felt those things shrieking down towards us, emitting a miasma that made you wretch as it flew by. We raced to the corral where the kerosene was stored, now unguarded in the chaos. Filling two oilskin sacks, we dragged them to the mass grave, leaking the brown oil behind us.

Dearest Lord, what manner of creature hangs upside-down in the trees, clutching the bodies of human victims, eating them piece-by-piece? The sounds of sucking, tearing flesh, and cracking bones filled the clearing where the pit lay. High screeches echoed among the loblollies. Pieces of the unholy feast dribbled down on us, but the sated monsters paid us no heed as we approached the trench of confederate corpses. We wasted no time in pouring kerosene on the bodies, and I ignited the pyre. Immediately, creatures in the trees burst into flames and fell from their perches. Gabriel and I had to run through the forest, dodging falling fireballs. Back at the camp, the burning corpses of these beasts lay on the ground everywhere. Along the wall of the stockade near the shore, a burning man lurched towards the water. Calling him to get on the ground so I might smother the flames, I threw my coat over him. But he cast it off and I saw his charred face. It was Doucet.

I stood in shock as he slipped beneath the waters of the Chesapeake. The next day was spent burying our dead, filling the burned trench, and digging a new pit a few yards away. Soldier and prisoner alike were traumatized, and silence descended upon us like a blanket. What does one say about an abomination such as what we had witnessed? We remained on high alert, though there was no further sign of the creatures. The second day after the attack, though being a Wednesday, our commanders felt that recent events warranted treating the day like a Sunday, with morning worship, and the afternoon off for recuperation. The chaplain delivered one of his most exceptional sermons, praying for us to show strength in our trials, recognizing that God gives us terrible challenges to test our faith, as he did Job, and that like Job, we must persevere and believe that the Lord is with us always.

I left worship feeling recharged, though some of my fellow soldiers left invoking Jonah rather than Job, with sidelong glances at Gabriel. I spent the afternoon relaxing and writing letters home to my parents and sweetheart. I didn't tell them of the things from the pit. For a week, the only events out of the ordinary were two disappearances in the Chesapeake. The first was a prisoner fishing behind the camp, as many were allowed. It was approaching dusk, and he had been ordered to return inside the stockade. The guard claimed he had seen the prisoner making his way to the gate. The soldier looked away for a moment, and when he turned back, the man was gone. We searched the entire area, but no sign of him ever turned up. Then a soldier disappeared.

Edgecomb Matthews and Jupiter Ramsey, both escaped slaves, were making final rounds before getting off duty in the small hours of the morning. They had walked along the south wall outside the stockade to the shore, and were turning around. Jupiter was in front, Edgecomb a few feet behind. Jupiter said he heard someone or something come out of the water. Spinning around, there was a black shape on the beach. He thought it was his comrade, but then it dropped and slithered back into the water. Edgecomb was nowhere to be found.

A full searching party was mounted, and we combed the beach and the surrounding swamps until dawn with little luck. As one would imagine, Edgecomb's disappearance spread like wildfire the next day. There was no containing it. Nerves that had calmed since the attack frayed afresh. To make things worse, the following afternoon, a steady drenching rain set in, along with a fresh breeze from the east. We were nearing a full moon so the tides were high. With the rain and onshore winds, by nightfall the stockade was flooding.

Normally, the prisoners would take pains to protect their few personal possessions. After Edgecomb's disappearance, they sought only to avoid the rising waters encompassing camp. Each row of tents was abandoned as the Chesapeake rose. Dry ground vanished and the poor blighted souls squeezed together on what remained, coming dangerously close to the dead line.

I called down "It's only water. Please move away from the line. "

"Nay, sir," one called back. "Would rather face your Minie ball than whatever it is that's roiling them waters. And then I saw it, or rather I saw them. There was something moving about under the surface of the rising water—something dark and indistinct. The image that came to mind was an underwater version of what we had seen in the air just few nights before, but those had come from the pit where we had buried the dead. Where were these from? Then I remembered the lights on the beach, the legends of shipwrecked souls beneath the waters of Point Lookout. I remembered Doucet slipping under the waves. Finally, the waters had reached the very edge of the knot of panic- stricken men who could not move further inland without crossing the dead line. I called to my comrades to fire into the water, but only few followed my lead, and they had little impact.

With a scream, one of the prisoners disappeared under the agitated water—then another. A wave of black rolled up and engulfed the entire front row of men, dragging them away. The wave receded, recoiled, as if to strike again. Terror of that watery blackness overcame the fear of bullets. The prisoners broke and ran past the dead line to the stockade wall. Our commanding officer, experiencing a rare moment of grace, called for the guards to hold their fire. The soaked, terrified prisoners huddled against the inland wall, shivering in fear under the pelting rain.

The commanding officer pointed at Gabriel, myself, and two other soldiers, ordering us to accompany him into the stockade to assess whatever it was that was attacking the prisoners. I have faced Confederate bullets on the field of battle, I have walked bravely across the darkest killing fields, yet that fear could not match my terror as I approached the front of the stockade. The gates were opened just enough to allow us to slip inside, then they were bolted behind. My lantern cast light across the terrified faces of the men, and the water beyond. The roiling that had accompanied the beasts' assault calmed and now only the pattering rain broke the surface. The monsters had taken their dinner. Then something stirred—the shape of a man lifted itself on all fours from the knee-deep water, dripping reeds and slime. He crouched there for a moment, heaving black water and bile. Then he rose to a man's height and turned. In the lantern-light, I saw a blackened, rotting-face peeling away from a charred skull—Doucet.

Gabriel bolted to the gate, pulling at the door and screaming to be let out. Doucet seized his shoulder, whipping him around so they stood face to face, inches apart. Doucet's mouth opened, his jaw dropping to his chest like it had been unhinged, and a mouthful of Minie balls fell to the sand. Doucet spoke, his ruined gaping maw contorting his voice like a rusted gate.

"The ferryman wouldn't accept lead. He asked for a blood sacrifice instead. "

He wrapped a vice-like grip around Gabriel's neck, and gestured at the gates of the stockade. They flew open, and he dragged Gabriel out into the night. I reached for my comrade to pry him out of the creature's grasp. Doucet whirled and pointed a finger at me.

"This ain't your fight, boy. Stand down.

They marched to Doucet's grave in the woods where the coffin still sat open. Doucet climbed inside the pine box, pulled Gabriel in next to him, then slid the lid over the top. The coffin slipped into the grave and descended. I stepped up to the hole and held my lantern high, but the coffin and its occupants had disappeared—the grave sat empty. I thought I heard a distant scream, then just crickets and the hoot of an owl.

To this day, many years later, I continue to offer my prayers to a loving God for the souls of Gabriel, Doucet, and all the others who lived and died in that terrible place. I do not know if readers will accept this account of events, which have been omitted from the history books. Many believe such things as this do not exist, that they cannot happen. That was how I once felt, until those dark weeks at Point Lookout.