with the longer sides, runs or rather creeps | blankets, which a few had, but generally a stream through an artificial channel, vary- there was no attempt by day or night to proing from five to six feet in width, the water tect ourselves. about ankle deep, and near the middle of The rations consisted of eight ounces of the enclosure, spreading out into a swamp corn bread (the cob being ground with the of about six acres, filled with refuse wood, kernel), and generally sour, two ounces of stumps and debris of the camp. Before en- condemned pork, offensive in appearance tering this enclosure, the stream, or more and smell. Occasionally, about twice a properly sewer, passes through the camp of week, two tablespoonfuls of rice, and in place the guards, receiving from this source, and of the pork the same amount (two tableothers farther up, a large amount of the vilest spoonfuls) of molasses were given us about material, even the contents of the sink. The twice a month.* This ration was brought water is of a dark color, and an ordinary into camp about four o'clock, P. M., and glass would collect a thick sediment. This thrown from the wagons to the ground, the was our only drinking and cooking water. men being arranged in divisions of two hunIt was our custom to filter it as best we could, dred and seventy, subdivided into squads of through our remnants of haversacks, shirts nineties and thirties. It was the custom to and blouses. Wells had been dug, but the consume the whole ration at once, rather water either proved so productive of diarr- than save any for the next day. The distrihoa, or so limited in quantity that they were bution being often unequal some would lose of no general use. The cook-house was the rations altogether. We were allowed situated on the stream just outside the stock- no dish or cooking utensil of any kind. On ade, and its refuse of decaying offal was opening the camp in the winter, the first two thrown into the water, a greasy coating cov- thousand prisoners were allowed skillets, one ering much of the surface. To these was to fifty men, but these were soon taken added the daily large amount of base matter away. To the best of my knowledge, infrom the camp itself. There was a system formation and belief, our ration was in quality of policing, but the means was so limited, a starving one, it being either too foul to be and so large a number of the men was ren- touched or too raw to be digested. dered irresolute and depressed by imprison- The cook-house went into operation about ment, that the work was very imperfectly May 10th, prior to which we cooked our own done. One side of the swamp was naturally rations. It did not prove at all adequate to used as a sink, the men usually going out the work, (thirty thousand is a large town,) some distance into the water. Under the so that a large proportion were still obliged summer sun this place early became cor- to prepare their own food. In addition to ruption too vile for description, the men breeding disgusting life, so that the surface of the water moved as with a gentle breeze. The new-comers, on reaching this, would exclaim: “Is this hell?" yet they soon would become callous, and enter unmoved the horrible rottenness. The rebel authorities never removed any filth. There was seldom any visitation by the officers in charge. Two surgeons were at one time sent by President DAVIS to inspect the camp, but a walk through a small section gave them all the half were indecently exposed, and many information they desired, and we never saw were naked. 1 them again. The usual punishment was to place the The guards usually numbered about sixty-men in the stocks, outside, near the Captain's four-eight at each end, and twenty-four quarters. If a man was missing at roll-call, on a side. On the outside, within three the squad of ninety to which he belonged was hundred yards, were fortifications, on high deprived of the ration. The "dead-line " ground, overlooking and perfectly command- bullet, already referred to, spared no offending us, mounting twenty-four twelve-pound Napoleon Parrotts. We were never permitted to go outside, except at times, in small squads, to gather our firewood. During the building of the cook-house, a few, who were carpenters, were ordered out to assist. Our only shelter from the sun and rain and night dews was what we could make by stretching over us our coats or scraps of the utter inability of many to do this, through debility and sickness, we never had a supply of wood. I have often seen men with a little bag of meal in hand, gathered from several rations, starving to death for want of wood, and in desperation would mix the raw material with water and try to eat it. The clothing of the men was miserable in the extreme. Very few had shoes of any kind, not two thousand had coats and pants, and those were late comers. More than one * Our regular army ration is: lb. Pork or 14 lbs. Fresh Beef, 18 ozs. Hard Bread, or 20 ozs. Soft Bread or Flour, 1-10 lb. Coffee, 1-6 lb. Sugar, 1-10 lb. Rice, or 1-10 lb. Beans or Hominy. Vegetables Fresh or Molasses, Vinegar. Irregularly. er. One poor fellow, just from Sherman's men. At Belle Isle and Andersonville there army his name was Roberts-was trying were among us a gang of desperate men, to wash his face near the "dead-line" rail- ready to prey on their fellows. Not only ing, when he slipped on the clayey bottom, thefts and robberies, but even murders were and fell with his head just outside the fatal committed. Affairs became so serious at border. We shouted to him, but it was too Camp Sumter that an appeal was made to late-"another guard would have a fur- General Winder, who authorized an arrest lough," the men said. It was a common be- and trial by a criminal court. Eighty-six lief among our men, arising from statements were arrested, and six were hung, beside made by the guard, that General WINDER, others who were severely punished. These in command, issued an order that any one proceedings effected a marked change for of the guard who should shoot a Yankee out-the better. side of the "dead-line" should have a Some few weeks before being released, I month's furlough, but there probably was no was ordered to act as clerk in the hospital. truth in this. About two a day were thus shot, some being cases of suicide, brought on by mental depression or physical misery, the poor fellows throwing themselves, or madly rushing outside the "line." This consists simply of a few scattered trees and fly tents, and is in charge of Dr. White, an excellent and considerate man, with very limited means, but doing all in his power for his patients. He has twenty-five assistants, The mental condition of a large portion of besides those detailed to examine for admitthe men was melancholy, beginning in des- tance to the hospital. This examination was pondency and tending to a kind of stolid and made in a smail stockade attached to the idiotic indifference. Many spent much time main one, to the inside door of which the in arousing and encouraging their fellows, sick came or were brought by their comrades, but hundreds were lying about motionless, or the number to be removed being limited. stalking vacantly to and fro, quite beyond Lately, in consideration of the rapidly inany help which could be given them within creasing sickness, it was extended to one their prison walls. These cases were fre-hundred and fifty daily. That this was too quent among those who had been imprisoned small an allowance is shown by the fact that but a short time. There were those who the deaths within our stockade were from were captured at the first Bull Run, July thirty to forty a day. I have seen one hun1861, and had known Belle Isle from the dred and fifty bodies waiting passage to the first, yet had preserved their physical and "dead house," to be buried with those who mental health to a wonderful degree. Many died in hospital. The average of deaths were wise and resolute enough to keep through the earlier months was thirty a day : themselves occupied-some in cutting bone at the time I left, the average was over one and wood ornaments, making their knives hundred and thirty, and one day the record out of iron hoops — others in manufacturing showed one hundred and forty-six. ink from the rust from these same hoops, and with rude pens sketching or imitating bank notes, or any sample that would involve long and patient execution. The proportion of deaths from starvation, not including those consequent on the diseases originating in the character and limited quantity of food, such as diarrhea, dysentery Letters from home very seldom reached and scurvy, I cannot state; but to the best of us, and few had any means of writing. In my knowledge, information and belief, there the early summer, a large batch of letters- were scores every month. We could, at any five thousand we were told-arrived, hav-time, point out many for whom such a fate ing been accumulating somewhere for many was inevitable, as they lay or feebly walked, months. These were brought into camp by mere skeletons, whose emaciation exceeded an officer, under orders to collect ten cents the examples given in Leslie's Illustrated for on each of course most were returned, and June 18, 1864. For example: in some cases we heard no more of them. One of my the inner edges of the two bones of the arms, companions saw among them three from his between the elbow and the wrist, with the parents, but he was unable to pay the intermediate blood vessels, were plainly vischarge. According to the rules of transmis-ible when held toward the light. The rasion of letters over the lines, these letters tion, in quantity, was perhaps barely suffimust have already paid ten cents each to the cient to sustain life, and the cases of starvarebel government. tion were generally those whose stomachs could not retain what had become entirely indigestible. As far as we saw General Winder and Captain Wirtz, the former was kind and considerate in his manners, the latter harsh, though not without kindly feelings. It is a melancholy and mortifying fact, that some of our trials came from our own For a man to find, on waking, that his comrade by his side was dead, was an occur rence too common to be noted. I have seen death in almost all the forms of the hospital and battle-field, but the daily scenes in Camp Sumter exceeded in the extremity of misery all my previous experience. The work of burial is performed by our own men, under guard and orders, twentyfive bodies being placed in a single pit, without head-boards, and the sad duty performed with indecent haste. Sometimes our men were rewarded for this work with a few ticks of fire-wood, and I have known them o quarrel over a dead body for the job. Dr. White is able to give the patients a liet but little better than the prison rations a little flour porridge, arrow-root, whiskey and wild or hog tomatoes. In the way of medicine, I saw nothing but camphor, whiskey, and a decoction of some kind of barkwhite oak, I think. He often expressed his regret that he had not more medicines. The limitation of military orders, under which the surgeon in charge was placed, is shown by the following occurrence: A posed private, wounded in the thigh, was under treatment in the hospital, when it was discovered that he was a major of a colored regiment. The assistant-surgeon, under whose immediate charge he was, proceeded at once not only to remove him, but to kick him out, and he was returned to the stockade, to shift for himself as well as he could. Dr. White could not or did not attempt to restore him. sup Tunneling was at once attempted on a large scale, but on the afternoon preceding the night fixed on for escape, an officer rode in and announced to us that the plot was discovered, and from our huge pen we could see on the hill above us the regiments just arriving to strengthen the guard. We had been betrayed. It was our belief that spies were kept in the camp, which could very easily be done. The number in camp when I left, was nearly thirty-five thousand, and daily increas ing. The number in hospital was about five thousand. I was exchanged at Port Royal Ferry, August 16th. PRESCOTT TRACY, Eighty-second Regiment, N. Y. V. City and County of New York, ss. H. C. HIGGINSON and S. NOIROT, being duly sworn, say: That the above statement of Prescott Tracy, their fellow-prisoner, agrees with their own knowledge and expeH. C. HIGGINSON, rience. Co. K, Nineteenth Illinois Vois. SILVESTER NOIROT, Co. B, Fifth New Jersey Vols. The Memorial of the Union Prisoners confined at Andersonville, Ga., to the President of the United States. CONFEDERATE STATES PRISON, CHARLESTON, S. C., August, 1861. THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED thereby relieving thousands of our comrades from the horror now surrounding them. After entering on my duties at the hospital, I was occasionally favored with double rations and some wild tomatoes: A few of To our men succeeded, in spite of the closest examination of our cloths, in secreting some The condition of the enlisted men belonggreen-backs, and with those were able to ing to the Union armies, now prisoners to the buy useful articles at exorbitant prices: Confederate rebel forces, is such that it bea tea-cup of flour at one dollar; eggs, comes our duty, and the duty of every comthree to six dollars a dozen; salt, four missioned officer, to make known the facts in dollars a pound; molasses, thirty dollars a the case to the Government of the United gallon; nigger beans, a small, inferior article, States, and to use every honorable effort to (diet of the slaves and pigs, but highly relish-secure a general exchange of prisoners, ed by us,) fifty cents a pint. These figures, multiplied by ten, will give very nearly the price in Confederate currency. Though the country abounded in pine and oak, sticks were sold to us at various prices, according to size. Our men, especially the mechanics, were tempted with the offer of liberty and large wages to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy, but it was very rare that their patriotism, even under such a fiery trial, ever gave way. I carry this message from one of my companions to his mother: "My treat ment here is killing me, mother, but I die cheerfully for my country." Some attempts were made to escape, but wholly in vain, for, if the prison walls and guards were passed and the protecting woods reached, the bloodhounds were sure to find us out. For some time past there has been a concentration of prisoners from all parts of the rebel territory to the State of Georgia-the commissioned officers being confined at Macon, and the enlisted men at Andersonville. Recent movements of the Union armies under General Sherman have compelled the removal of prisoners to other points, and it is now understood that they will be removed to Savannah, Georgia, and Columbus and Charleston, South Carolina. But no change of this kind holds out any prospect of relief to our poor men. Indeed, as the localities selected are far more unhealthy, there must be an increase rather than a diminution of suffering. Colonel Hill, provost marshal general, Confederate States army, at Atlanta, |