Lt. A. O. Abbott of the First New York Dragoons
was among numerous Union prisoners held at Columbia, South Carolina, during the
fall of 1864. Abbott whiled away part of the time be keeping a detailed diary.
According to it, an October sunrise revealed “two strangers going through the
camp.”
The prisoners decided that they must be killed at
once, so they found an axe “and the deed was done.” The bodies of the victims
were shoved into an abandoned well just before guards began searching. As
Abbott described the eventful morning, Confederates eventually brought to light
the missing dogs, dead bloodhounds that were two of a pack around camp every
morning to discover if any “Yankees had made fresh tracks for liberty during
the night”.
