Prison Life in Andersonville Part 2

The sliced leaves, stem and roots were boiled in eight quarts of water until made as tender as heat could do it. Into the green colored liquid was stirred some flour thickening; the whole was salted and a minced red pepper was added for pungency, while a whole pepper floated on the surface as an advertis.e.m.e.nt.

For a soup dipper a piece of pail hoop was riveted to the side of a condensed milk can, the two rivets being cut from a copper cent with the chisel driven with the shoe hammer. For soup plates a canteen was melted apart and the two halves formed each a plate. On [2]Market Square, down by the swamp, four slender stakes were driven and thereon was placed a pine shake, which formed the soup counter. The soup kettle was covered with a piece of woolen s.h.i.+rt, which kept in the heat. Very early each morning we opened up for business and a line of s.h.i.+vering men in rags and nearly perished from exposure formed as the soup brigade. The price per plate was a five-cent s.h.i.+nplaster of U. S. fractional currency. The poor fellow who had no money must needs go without. As new prisoners ceased to arrive the money supply was soon gathered up and the prison sutler went away and trade was brought to an end.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A DREAM]

Our last plate of soup was sold to a Maine soldier who paid for it his last five cents. He was nearly naked and incessantly s.h.i.+vered from the cold. The writer found him the following morning, after a night of rain, to which he was exposed, with his knees drawn up to his chin in the instinctive effort to bring the surfaces of his body together for warmth.

With difficulty his frame was straightened out for burial.

The profit of this business for several weeks gave to our group of six one fairly good meal each day and made possible the survival of those of our number who finally emerged from this awful prison life.

CHAPTER IV.

A DEARTH OF WATER.

If the food supply of Andersonville was bad, the water supply was worse.

To understand the situation and to see how little was done to overcome the difficulties involved, and to make the most of the existing facilities for the relief of the suffering, one has to consider the formation of this prison encampment.

The surface of the interior consisted of two hillsides, sloping respectively north and south towards the center which was occupied by a swamp of nearly four acres. This was traversed by a sluggish creek which was some five feet wide and six inches deep, and made its way along the foot of the south slope. Up the stream were located the headquarters of Capt. Wirtz, the camps of the Confederate artillery and infantry and the cook-house for the prisoners. The drainage of these localities entered the creek which flowed into the prison through s.p.a.ces between the stockade timbers, and polluted the water which was the chief supply of the prison, and which, at midnight, in its clearest condition, was the color of amber.

The intervening s.p.a.ce at the foot of the north hill was a wide mora.s.s, and when overflowed by rains became a vast cesspool on which boundless swarms of flies settled down and laid their eggs; which were speedily hatched by the fervent heat of the nearly tropical sun, and became a horrible undulating ma.s.s. On a change of wind the odor could be detected miles away; indeed it was reported that the people of Macon pet.i.tioned General Howell Cobb, the military governor of Georgia, for a removal of the prison located sixty miles away, lest an awful pestilence sweep over their country!

The turkey buzzards, birds of ill omen, would come up against the wind, alight on the bare limbs of the tall pines overlooking the prison, and circle over the grizzled city as if waiting to descend for a carrion feast.

When we entered the prison on May 23rd, our detachment of two hundred and seventy men was scheduled fifty-five, indicating the presence of fourteen thousand eight hundred and fifty prisoners. The number steadily rose until a reported thirty-five thousand were present at one time. As the arrivals increased by hundreds and thousands, the daily mortality was counted by scores and hundreds, and many of the sick were without shelter from the heat of the pitiless sun.

As the killed and wounded are scattered over the fields of the sanguinary battle, so our dying sick lay around on every hand. In the early summer, Capt. Wirtz issued to the prisoners picks and shovels, with which to dig wells for increased water supply. From some of these wells the men started tunnels through which to escape. Discovering this, the commander withdrew the tools, and ordered the wells to be filled up. Permission to keep one of them open was purchased by a group of prisoners. It was sunk to a necessary depth, covered with a platform and trap door, and supplied about one thousand men.

Aside from this well, for the favored few, the only water supply was from about twelve feet of the length of the creek which reached between the dead-line and the bridge connecting the two divisions of the prison. A terrible water famine set in, with the result that many of the ailing ones became insane from thirst.

In these unsanitary surroundings there is a well authenticated case of a man who was severely afflicted with scurvy. As he lay in the place of filth and stench, without medical attention until gangrene of the lower limbs set in, he realized that to save his life he must lose his feet. No one of his comrades had the nerve to perform the necessary operation, so he obtained an old knife and disjointed his pedal extremities.

"In November, 1863, an order was issued for the establishment of a prison in Georgia, the granary of the eastern part of the Confederacy, and for this purpose a tract of land was selected near the town of Andersonville. A stockade 15 feet high, inclosing 16-1/2 acres, was built, and this, in June, 1864, was enlarged to 26-1/2 acres, but 3-1/4 acres near the center were too marshy to be used. A small stream ran through the inclosure, which, it was thought, would furnish water sufficient for drinking and for bathing. The trees within the stockade were cut down and no shelter was provided for the expected inmates, who began to arrive in February, 1864, before the rude prison was completed according to the design, and before an adequate supply of bacon for their use had been received. Prisoners continued to come until, on the 5th of May, there were about 12,000, which number went on increasing until in August it exceeded 32,000.

Their condition was one of extreme wretchedness. Those who came first erected rude shelters from the debris of the stockade; later arrivals burrowed in the ground or protected themselves with any blankets or pieces of cloth of which they had not been deprived according to the practice of robbing men who were taken prisoners which prevailed on both sides. Through an unfortunate location of the baking and cooking houses on the creek above the stockade the water became polluted before it reached the prisoners, so that to obtain pure water they must dig wells. =After a severe storm a spring broke out within the inclosure, and this became one of the main reliances for drinking water.= The sinks were constructed over the lower part of the stream, but the current was not swift enough to carry away the ordure, and when the stream was swollen by rain and overflowed, the foecal matter was deposited over a wide area, producing a horrible stench. This was the famous prison of Andersonville."--From Rhodes' History of the United States, Vol. V, pp. 483-515.

"The history of Andersonville prison pen has shocked the world with its tales of horror, of woe, and of death, before unheard of and unknown to civilization. No pen can describe, no artist can paint, no imagination comprehend their fearful and unutterable sufferings.

"Into the narrow confines of this prison were herded more than thirty-five thousand enlisted men, whose only fault was they 'wore the Union blue,' many of them the bravest and best, the most devoted and heroic of those grand armies that carried the flag of the Union to final victory. For long and weary months they suffered and died for that flag. Here they suffered =unsheltered= from the burning rays of a southern sun, or were drenched by the rain and deadly dews of the night. All this while they were in every stage of physical disease--hungered, emaciated, starving.

"Is it a wonder that during the month of August, 1864, one man died in every eleven minutes, night and day, or that, for six months, beginning April, 1864, one died every twenty-two and one-half minutes night and day? This should forever silence the a.s.sertion that men would be taken prisoners rather than risk their lives on the firing line. The lack of water was the cause of much disease and suffering.

Under the most favorable circ.u.mstances the water supply was insufficient for one-quarter of the number of men confined there. All the water obtainable was from a sluggish creek that ran through the grounds; and, in addition to this, there were thirty-six hundred men acting as guards camped on the bank of this stream before it reached the prison pen, and the water became so foul no words can describe it."--From "A Sketch of Andersonville," by Mrs. Lizabeth A. Turner, Chairman Andersonville Prison Board. Journal of the Twenty-fifth National Convention of the Woman's Relief Corps, page 169.

"More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of."

--Tennyson.

CHAPTER V.

A CRY TO HEAVEN.

The bitter cry which arose from the suffering camp was changed on the lips of a few to an appeal to heaven. Where else could men look in their dire extremity? One evening early in August the sound of the old long metre doxology was heard from the voices of a group of men gathered around the solitary pine stump in the enclosure, which was situated at the end of the north street of the prison where s.p.a.ce was left for the ration wagon to turn around. On this stump was seated an emaciated cavalry sergeant, Mr.

Shepard, of Columbus, Ohio, formerly an honored preacher of the gospel. In days past he had frequently been called upon to offer prayer over the remains of some deceased comrade, and now he led in the old and well-known hymn to call like-minded souls together.

Some twenty-five unkempt, starving men gathered around him and joined in the familiar strain. What memories of family wors.h.i.+p and old-time services in the meeting-house those words called up. Said Brother Shepard in substance: "I have today read in the book of Numbers of Moses striking the rock from which water gushed out for the ample supply of man and beast. I tell you G.o.d must strike a rock in Andersonville or we shall all die of thirst. And if there is no rock here, He can smite the ground and bring forth water to supply our desperate needs. Of this I am sure; let us ask Him to do this."

Pointing to an uncombed, unwashed, ragged comrade standing close by, he said, "Will the brother from Chicago pray?" He then successively called on other acquaintances, distinguis.h.i.+ng them by their different localities at home. All the prayers were poured out in the one desire for water.

For perhaps an hour the meeting continued and closed with the doxology.

The words of the leader were, "Boys, when you awake during the night offer to G.o.d a little prayer for water. Do the same many times tomorrow, and let us meet here in the evening to pray again for water."

If memory be not at fault, these individual and collective pet.i.tions were steadfastly offered from Monday evening to Thursday evening.

For a month previous we had noticed that a number of the stockade timbers near the north gate had been loosened by the percolating of the copious rain and that they were sagging considerably and had settled out of line.

We wondered why they had been allowed to remain so long in this unsafe condition. Was it a coincidence that after prayer began to be offered the quartermaster of the prison notified Capt. Wirtz that stockade timbers were out of line and should be set right? He was ordered to take a gang of slaves and make the necessary repairs. About fifteen stalwart negroes were marched through the main gate and turned into the twenty-foot s.p.a.ce between the dead-line and the wall. With pike poles the closely adjoining posts were heaved into position and the earth was closely tamped.

Then the workers faced about and commenced digging a trench up the hill nearly as wide as the s.p.a.ce between the dead-line and the stockade. A part of the gang swung their picks into the red clay which was shoveled against the timbers. Another set followed with heavy rammers and pounded the whole into a smooth, sloping surface which was tamped closely to the base of the wooden wall, making a perfect watershed, and thus preventing the further loosening of the earth at the base of the stockade. By Thursday evening the broad trench with rounded bottom was completed from the swamp up the dead line s.p.a.ce to the north gate.

THE WOMANS RELIEF CORPS

"Today beneath our Nation's flag, The old red, white and blue, A band of n.o.ble women work With a purpose just and true; To aid and succor those who fought To save our honored land, For home and freedom, G.o.d and right, Those earnest women stand."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PROVIDENCE SPRING AND WOMEN OF THE RELIEF CORPS]

CHAPTER VI.

UNSEALING OF THE SPRING.

On Friday morning an ominous stillness pervaded nature. By the middle of the forenoon a dense, dark cloud was noticed in the southwest quarter of the horizon, slowly creeping upward. It rose above the treetops majestic and awful in appearance. A troop of small, scurrying, angry-looking clouds seemed to form an advancing line to the vast ma.s.s of storm cloud. The onward movement quickened, and soon the front of the mountain of approaching cloud a.s.sumed a gray appearance, caused by the mighty downpour of water which more nearly than anything else seemed a continuous cloudburst.

Crashes of thunder broke over our heads and flashes of lightning swished around us as if the air was filled with short circuits. The awful moving wall came towards us rapidly and we understood what was happening.

As the mighty deluge swept through the clearing west of the prison, we bowed our heads in preparation of submersion in the advancing waterspout.

When it came upon us the sensation was as if a million buckets of water were being poured upon us at once. The air was so filled with the roaring, hissing flood that we could not look up, but bent forward to protect our faces, covering our nostrils with our hands to preserve a little breathing s.p.a.ce.