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68 Chapter 9 Prison When the army arrested civilians in Columbia County early on the morning of August 31, they were first gathered in the Christian Church in Benton, where Lieutenant Colonel Stewart and Captain McCann interrogated them before deciding who would be released and who would be retained as prisoners . By mid-morning, McCann’s company began herding forty-five men south along the road toward Bloomsburg, sixteen miles distant. At Bloomsburg, the prisoners were confined in the stationhouse of the Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Railroad until the evening train arrived. Soldiers supervised the prisoners as they were transferred to the train, which steamed southwest along the bank of the North Branch of the Susquehanna to Sunbury, then south along the main river to Harrisburg. Here, in the state capital, the men were transferred to another train, which headed east to Philadelphia, where they arrived sometime after eight o’clock on the morning of September 1.1 Upon arrival in Philadelphia, the prisoners were taken off the train and moved to the district provost marshal’s barracks, located at Fifth and Buttonwood . A noon meal consisting of tin cups of soup accompanied by bread and meat was served to the men. It was the first real food they had been given since being arrested. That afternoon, the prisoners were marched to the Arch Street wharf on the Delaware River, where they boarded the steamer Ray Bold, by which time rumors had swirled through the ranks that they would be incarcerated in Fort Mifflin. While aboard the steamer, the captain in charge of the guards distributed peaches and newspapers to the prisoners.2 The Ray Bold arrived at Fort Mifflin sometime around three that afternoon. The fort dated from 1772, when British troops began construction of a bastion to protect Philadelphia from a naval assault. When the Revolution broke out in 1775, the fort fell into American hands. A British attack captured the position in November 1777.After the war, the bastion was redesigned by architect Pierre L’Enfant, the same man who laid out the nation’s new capital city of Washington . Named after Pennsylvania governor Thomas Mifflin, the new brick fort Prison 69 was enlarged to repel any attack up the Delaware toward Philadelphia. By 1864, the fort had been turned into a military prison.3 The prisoners left the boat and were marched into Fort Mifflin, where it was found that one of the forty-five men had been arrested by accident, and thus Silas McHenry was released without comment. After spending an hour in the sun in front of the commandant’s quarters, the remaining men were placed in Bombproof Number Three. William Appleman described the scene: Going through a long dark arched passage or gangway of about 80 feet in length from the iron-grated doors (say 6½ feet high in the centre and five or six feet wide) we passed through a heavy double planked and riveted door into the Bomb-proof. This bomb-proof is partly below the level of the river is arched overhead and has thick walls of stone and brick. By stepping it I and others made its width to be 19 feet and its length 54 feet. This was the space allotted to the prisoners, 44 in number. One of the original prisoners had been discharged when we arrived at the Fort on the ground that he had been arrested by mistake. Air and light were imperfectly admitted on one side and at one end of the bomb-proof through openings in the wall, perhaps a dozen in number. The main ones may have been 4 inches wide by a foot in height on the outside, widening towards the interior. The floor was of hard earth or gravel and firm. On the sides scantling were laid on the ground length-wise of the room and across these boards were placed. Again at the ends of the boards next the wall, short pieces of scantling or blocks were placed at intervals end-wise to the walls, across which boards were laid, forming a narrow platform next the walls a few inches high. This constituted a substitute for pillows, the lower and wider platform of boards answering the purpose of a bed. A single soldier blanket was furnished to each man, but no bedding or straw. The room was very damp and at wet times the water came through the arch overhead from the earth upon it, dropping down in the part...

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