Martyria Part 8

It is the common saying in the Southern States, where the use of wheaten bread is comparatively rare, that a bushel of corn contains more nutriment than a bushel of wheat. Yet the southern wheat is superior to the northern varieties, and is richer in the azotized, glutinous principles so essential to the formation of blood and muscle. Vermicelli and macaroni can be made only from the best southern wheat.

Of the varieties of Indian corn in America, the yellow flinty corn is reckoned the sweetest and most nutritive; the white corn of the South makes the fairest, but considerably the weakest flour. We do not find special fault with the coa.r.s.ely ground meal, provided the cob is not included, for Mayer has pointed out, in discarding the commercial bran we throw away fourteen times as much phosphoric acid as there is in superfine flour. In this bran are contained most of the layers of gluten, in which are lodged the phosphates and the companion nitrogenous compounds--the sources of living tissues. The nutritious Graham bread is an example; also the pumpernickel of Westphalia, the black bread of Russia, the coa.r.s.e oatmeal of Scotland, contain all the gluten, all the phosphates and nitrogenous compounds, as well as the starch of the grains. Such was the bread that Celsus considered as equal to flesh in its capacity of nouris.h.i.+ng.

XVII.

Fresh meat was rarely furnished to the prison, according to the reports and statements of witnesses, and we should doubt that it was furnished at all, if it were not for the number of sections of the horns of cattle which are strewn about the enclosure, and which the prisoners had used for drinking dishes; still, many of these horns may have been taken from the cattle killed for the guards.

That the issue of fresh beef would have been beneficial to the men, there is no doubt; in fact, the experiment at Jamaica, which continued twenty years, proves it; for the troops who were fed with a larger allowance of fresh meat suffered far less from dysentery than any of the troops of the West India islands. There is always great difficulty in preserving the good qualities of fresh meat in hot climes, and, on the other hand, the use of salt meat in the same regions is apt to engender s...o...b..tic disorders. Whenever putrefactive fermentation begins with any kind of meat, or any recently living nitrogenized substance, catalytic action takes place, ammonia is evolved, and the product is no longer pleasant to the taste or nutritious to the system. Food, when even exposed to vitiated air, becomes deteriorated in quality, just as good flour is rendered worthless by mixture with the damaged fungoid grain. Butchers' meat on the average affords but thirty-five per cent. of real nutritive matter, at least such was the opinion presented to the French Minister of the Interior by Vauquelin and Percy. Accepting this determination, we may form some idea of the relative value of the scanty allowance of the doubtful beef furnished to the prisoners, if it was furnished at all.

That bacon was furnished, there is no doubt; neither has the quant.i.ty been underrated by the sufferers themselves, as we shall presently see. And there is no reason why the quality should not have been most excellent, unless it had been selected for the purposes of cruelty. There is evidence that it was sometimes of very bad quality; but that it was generally and systematically selected to disgust the prisoners, we are unwilling to believe, although we have evidence that rotten bacon was furnished by contractors, and the fact boasted of by them. The influence and effect of this decomposed food may be surmised by the following remark of Donovan: "Flesh contains the elements of some of the most deadly poisons that are found even in the vegetable kingdom; a slight change in their mode of combination, or of the ratio of their quant.i.ties, may convert nutriment into a source of death."

XVIII.

There is another very important item to be considered in the dietary of this prison, and that is the quality and quant.i.ty of the water furnished for potable purposes. "Water," says Milne Edwards, "is an aliment, as well as sugar and fibrine; for it is indispensable for the nutrition of the body, and, by whatever means it arrives in the economy, its _role_ is always the same."

The water consumed in the prison was obtained from the brook, and from the few wells or springs within the stockade. The volume of water in the brook was quite sufficient to furnish all the drinking water desired, if it had been introduced into the stockade by means of sluices. As it was, the course of the stream was left to nature, and no effort made to prevent its defilement by the camps situated farther up, or by the bake-house located close by. All the camps on the declivities about Andersonville were drained into this stream. Some few wells were sunk in the prison which yielded scanty supplies, and there were also a few springs undefiled; but the quality of water everywhere was surface water, tinged and tainted with the impurities of the soil and the infections of the collected filth. The thirst, which was excessive among the prisoners, could only be slaked by drinking the impure waters. Yet a very little care on the part of the rebel authorities would have increased the comfort of the prisoners in this respect, and prevented the loss of life to a very considerable degree.

"The preservation of potable water," writes Felix Jacquot, "is certainly one of the capital points of hygiene."

"I am sometimes disposed to think," states Dr. Letheby, the health officer of London, "that impure water is before impure air as one of the most powerful causes of disease." In cold climates slight impurities in the drinking water are not of vital importance; but in the tropics, and the adjacent regions, the least decayed vegetable or animal matter renders it injurious and unpalatable, and often is the determining cause of disease, especially enteric, to a fearful degree.

XIX.

During the months of June, July, August, and September, 1864, there was an aggregate number of prisoners of about twenty-eight thousand for each month. To supply this vast number of men with bread would have been ordinarily no easy task, requiring, as it would have done, twenty-eight thousand rations of bread daily, or eight hundred and forty thousand rations monthly. We have shown that the bakery could not have furnished more than ninety-six hundred rations of corn bread, of the United States weight of twenty ounces, or ninety-six hundred rations daily, or two hundred and eighty-eight thousand rations monthly, and probably furnished but five thousand rations daily, or one hundred and fifty thousand rations monthly. If this deficiency of a half a million of rations existed, how can it be explained?

Was munition bread brought from a distance to supply the deficiency? When and whence, we will ask?

During the period embracing the months of July, August, and September, 1864, the rebel commissary furnished, according to his statements, two hundred and twenty-three thousand bushels of corn meal, and thirty-seven hundred bushels of flour for the prison.

There was, during this time (ninety-two days), a monthly aggregate of twenty-nine thousand prisoners, who required twenty-nine thousand rations of corn meal daily; or, multiplied by ninety-two days, two million six hundred and sixty-eight thousand rations for the period of three months; or, allowing the same weight as the rebel ration, we have 2,668,000 1-1/3 = 3,567,333 pounds of corn meal, or seventy-one thousand one hundred and forty-six bushels, allowing fifty pounds to the bushel. If we now estimate the rebel garrison to have been four thousand in the aggregate, we will have for the requirements, 4000 92 1-1/2 = 552,000 pounds of meal, or ten thousand one hundred and ninety bushels, which gives, as total for the prison and garrison, eighty-one thousand two hundred and eighty-six bushels of corn meal.

Yet the commissary states that he sent two hundred and twenty-three thousand bushels, or almost three times as much as the quant.i.ty required.

This is a strange statement to make, as we shall endeavor to show.

The rebel ration allowed by their law gave thirty-seven and a half pounds of corn meal, three pounds of rice, or five pounds of peas, ten pounds of bacon, salt, &c., monthly, of twenty-eight days, or about twenty ounces of meal daily, and about six ounces of bacon. We have, as an aggregate number of men for the above period (prisoners and guards), 29,000 + 4000 92 = 3,036,000 men, requiring, according to law, three million seven hundred and ninety-five thousand pounds of corn meal. Now the commissary states that he furnished 226,700 bushels of corn meal and flour; or, multiplied by 50 pounds = 11,335,000 pounds, thus giving to each man more than three and one-fifth pounds of meal and flour; or, allowing the usual per cent.

of water, more than four pounds of bread. That these men had sixty-eight ounces of corn bread apiece, or that they could have eaten it if they had been furnished that quant.i.ty, is not for a moment to be considered. This a.n.a.lysis betrays the falsity of the commissary's statement, and invalidates the remainder of his accounts.

It cannot be said that this meal was to be stored for future use, for it is well known that corn meal will not keep in this climate but for a few days without fermentation taking place. There is, again, another serious item to be considered in connection with this statement. Why should this overplus, of more than seven millions of pounds of meal, be sent to this prison, when the army of Virginia was calling loudly for grain? The statement and the figures indicate simply a foolish desire to cover up deficiencies, and that too in a very hasty manner.

XX.

The same commissary states that he sent, during the same period of time, three hundred and thirty-nine thousand pounds of bacon, or five million four hundred and twenty-four thousand ounces. This will give thirty-six hundred and eighty-four pounds of bacon each day of the ninety-two days; and, after allowing six ounces per man to the rebel garrison, we shall have remaining but two thousand pounds to be divided among the twenty-nine thousand prisoners, or about one and one seventh ounces of bacon to each man. Thus the account of the commissary, if true, proves that the statement of the prisoners, that they received but two to four ounces of bacon daily, was correct.

If the full amount of bacon had been allowed, there would have been required, at the rate of six ounces per man, ten thousand eight hundred and seventy-five pounds daily, whereas there was in reality but two thousand pounds, leaving a deficiency of more than eight thousand pounds daily. If fresh beef had been allowed at the same rate as the bacon, there would have been required ten thousand eight hundred and seventy-five pounds daily, or a herd of thirty of the native cattle, allowing three hundred and sixty pounds net weight to each carca.s.s. If the full ration of one pound of fresh beef had been furnished, there would have been required more than one hundred and twenty of the same cla.s.s of cattle daily.

XXI.

That the dietary of the prisoners was far from being adequate to their wants there is no doubt, and it only remains to be determined whether this deficiency arose from design, from ignorance, or from real scarcity of food.

We have very serious doubts as to the truth of the statements that there was a scarcity of food in this vicinity during the time of the occupation of the prison.

At the time of its selection the region was considered to be the richest in cereals of all the Southern States.

In times previous it had proved to be fertile, and during the progress of the war the slave labor was undisturbed by the Federal troops. It is shown by their own statistics that in 1860 the four counties near the prison, and along the line of railroad, produced nearly fourteen hundred thousand bushels of corn, thirty-three thousand bushels of wheat, three hundred thousand bushels of potatoes, and more than one hundred thousand bushels of beans and peas, besides forty-eight thousand bales of cotton. It is highly probable that these quant.i.ties were doubled, if not trebled and quadrupled during the succeeding years of the war, when the planting of cotton was forbidden by rebel ukase, and all energy and labor were turned to the production of food. There were in these four counties alone more than twenty thousand slaves.

In the south of Georgia, in the wire-gra.s.s region, were great numbers of cattle roaming at will, and the numbers in the everglades of Florida were so vast, that two old steamboat captains offered to furnish the rebel government, at this very period, with half a million pounds of salt beef, along the railroads in Florida. Governor Watts wrote from Alabama in April, 1864, that there were ten million pounds of bacon accessible in that State. In September of the same year, Mr. Hudson, of the adjoining State of Alabama, offered to deliver to the rebel government half a million pounds of bacon in exchange for the same quant.i.ty of cotton.

The rebel war clerk, in his diary at Richmond, wrote, March 17, 1864, "It appears that there is abundance of grain and meat in the country;" and again, July 3, 1864, he notes down, "Our crop of wheat is abundant, and the harvest is over."

According to the census of 1860, there were in Florida more than six hundred thousand cattle and swine, and more than five millions in Georgia and Alabama. These two States produced during the same year more than sixty million bushels of corn and thirteen million bushels of potatoes.

(Vide Appendix.)

XXII.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

As to the arrangement for the distribution of the food, there was but little attention paid to system. The prisoners were ordered to arrange themselves into squads of two hundred and ninety men, and these squads were then subdivided into three messes. None of these messes appear to have been properly supplied with utensils to receive and distribute their food. Every prisoner was obliged to take care of himself, and all around the area of the stockade may be seen at the present day remains of bent pieces of tinned iron, the rudely-fas.h.i.+oned little tub, and sections of the horns of cattle which the poor prisoners had worked up with their knives, and utilized for their necessities. Civilized men would never have resorted to these primitive, rough, and slovenly means, if they had been supplied with the ordinary utensils. At certain hours carts, laden with the corn bread and bacon, were driven into the enclosure, and the rations were distributed right and left. When soup was made, it was brought in pails, and the prisoners received it in their horn cups, wooden tubs, or as best they could. No drink was allowed but the water from the brook, whose ripples were like the river Lethe, for they contained the elements of oblivion and death.

XXIII.

It is evident to the writer that the quant.i.ty of food furnished to the prisoners was far from being adequate to support animal life, and from this deficiency alone he can explain to his satisfaction the enormous loss of life. The admirable experiments of Boussingault and the French academicians show how the increase of weight in the feeding of animals is in direct proportion to the amount of plastic const.i.tuents in the daily supply of food, and how positive is the law which regulates the animal economy. Again, we can form some idea of the positive effects of the horrible condition of the prison, and of the extremes of heat and moisture upon the feeble digestion and a.s.similation, by the experiments of Claude Bernard, who shows how these functions may be disturbed by external influences, and how agony even causes the disappearance of sugar in the hepatic organ, and how fear disturbs the glucogenic process. There is connected with inanition a singular tendency to decomposition and putridity, alike in the blood and viscera. The system left unnourished rapidly wastes, and its vitality soon lessens to a degree beyond recovery.

This degree depends upon the forces in reserve, which belongs especially to youth; middle age is less liable to impressions, but when once affected, has less support from the system. The rapidity with which the dead decomposed immediately after death, astonished the observing surgeon.

The prevailing diarrhoea and s...o...b..tic condition were the results of the want of food and the combined influences of the bad air and water, and not the primary causes of the feebleness and death.

The effect of the want of food first appears in loss of color--wasting away of the form, diminution of strength, vertigo, relaxation of the system of the viscera as well as of the muscles, diarrhoea appears, and rapidly closes the struggle of the natural forces for life.

A few days, or a few weeks, according to the initial condition, is sufficient to test the tenacity of the powers of life. Death always takes place whenever the diminution of the total weight of the body reaches certain limits, which is from 40/100 to 50/100 of the usual weight. We observe this law to be quite positive and regular with the lower animals, with whom the effect of starvation has been well studied, and the limit of loss, compatible with life, found to be 40/100 for mammals and 50/100 for birds.

BOOK FIFTH.

"Les Hopitaux. C'est ici que l'humanite en pleurs accuse les forfaits de l'ambition."

I.

The Hospital is the recognized type of mercy, in its broadest range of benevolence, tenderness, and compa.s.sion, all over the countries of the earth, wherever the n.o.ble sentiments of nature have force. It is one of the emblems of the great religion of civilization. It is coeval with Christ, for it appeared among the inst.i.tutions of men in definite shape only after the establishment of Christianity; and to its true exalting effects upon the dispositions of men, the Christian religion owes in great measure its rapid progress among the barbarous and pagan nations of the earth.