In the southern portion of the prison, bordering the swamp, there was domiciled the worst specimens of humanity I ever knew. An acquaintance with them would almost convince any thinking man that there was something in Darwin’s theory of the developement of species. If that theory is tenable, then I should argue these men had been developed from hyenas, and not very far, or well developed either. They wore the outward semblance of men, but retained the cowardly, blood-thirsty, sneaking, thievish nature of the hyena. These were the Andersonville “Raiders;” and a worse set of men never lived,—in America, at least.

These men were from the slums of New York City and Brooklyn. I never knew what their record as soldiers was, but as prisoners they were the terror of all decent men. They congregated together, were organized into semi-military organization, had their officers from captains down, and in squads made their raids upon the peaceable prisoners, who were possessed of anything which excited their cupidity.

The Plymouth Pilgrims furnished a rich harvest for these miscreants, who spotted them, marking their sleeping places, and in the dead hour of the night robbed them of whatever they possessed; or if any of the Pilgrims ventured into their haunts by day, they were knocked down and robbed by daylight.

While the raiders were constantly at war with others, they were not always at peace among themselves. Their favorite weapon with others was a stick; but they settled their difficulties of a domestic character with their fists.

Sometimes one of the small fry among these Raiders, would venture out on his own hook, and pilfer any little article he could find in a sick man’s tent. One day a member of my mess caught one of these fellows stealing a tin cup from a sick man; he immediately gave chase and caught him, then we held a drumhead court martial and sentenced him to have his head shaved.

Now I do not suppose there was a razor among the thirty-three thousand men that were in Andersonville at the time; notwithstanding this drawback, the sentence of the court was carried out with a pocket knife. It made the fellow scowl some, but the executioner managed to saw his hair off after a fashion.

Another of these Raiders got his just punishment while trying to rob a half-breed Indian, a member of the Massachusetts Heavy Artillery. The raider attempted to steal the Indian’s boots from under his head, when the descendant of King Phillip plunged a knife into the hoodlum, killing him dead on the spot.

A number of murders had been committed by these Raiders, and robberies innumerable, when matters were brought to a focus one day in the early part of July, by Lieutenant Davis, then in command of the Prison vice Wirz who was sick, declaring that no more rations would be issued until these men were given up.

He had no need to threaten us;—we were willing to give them up;—we had no earthly use for them. Give them up? yes; and pay boot, to get rid of them. But it required a man of nerve to lead in the arrest of these desperadoes. It was no child’s play, as there were between four and five hundred of them, and to arrest the leaders meant “business.” That man was found in the person of Sergeant Leroy L. Key, of the 16th Illinois Cavalry, who was ably seconded by a tall, lithe, young fellow known as “Limber Jim,” a member of the 67th Illinois.

To the efforts of these two men, the prisoners at Andersonville were indebted, more than any other men, for the comparative peace and security of the prison after the 11th of July.

Key was the head, and furnished the brains, of the organization known, at first, as the “Regulators,” afterward as the “Prison Police.” Limber Jim was second in command, and first in a fight.

These two men organized a force of men in the southwest corner of the stockade, from the best material which could be found. It needed strong brave men for the work in hand; for these Raiders were strong, athletic men, and desperate characters, and the Regulators must need face the lion in his den.

On the 3d of July Key at the head of the Regulators, armed with clubs, made a charge on the Raiders, who had been expecting the attack and were prepared. I was standing on the north side of the swamp, and was in good position to see the fight.

Key, followed by Limber Jim, led the charge; for a few minutes the spectators could tell nothing of how the Regulators were faring. The air was filled with clubs, which were descending on men’s heads, shoulders and arms. The fighting mass surged, and swayed, and finally the Raiders broke and ran; and then the spectators set up such a shout as must have cheered Key and his brave men.

That day and the next, the Regulators arrested one hundred and twenty-five of the worst characters among the Raiders. Davis gave Key the use of the small stockade at the north gate, as a prison in which to hold them for trial.

He then organized a Court Martial, consisting of thirteen sergeants, selected from among the latest arrivals, in order to guard against bias. The trial was conducted as fairly as was possible, considering their ignorance of law. Technicalities counted for naught, facts, well attested, influenced that court.

The trial resulted in finding six men guilty of murder; and the sentence was hanging.

The names of the six condemned men were, John Sarsfield, William Collins, alias “Mosby,” Charles Curtis, Patrick Delaney, A. Muir and Terrence Sullivan.

These men were heavily ironed, and closely guarded, while the remaining one hundred and nineteen were returned to the prison, and compelled to run a gauntlet of men armed with clubs and fists, who belabored them unmercifully, as they were passed through one by one.

The sentence of the court martial was executed on these six men on the 11th of July. A gallows was erected in the street leading from the south gate, and the culprits marched in under a Confederate guard, to a hollow square which surrounded the scaffold, and was formed by Key’s brave Regulators, where they were turned over to Limber Jim.

These desperadoes were terribly surprised when they found they were to be hung. They imagined the court martial was a farce, intended to scare them. Imagine their disappointment when they were marched to the gallows, and turned over to the cool, but resolute and firm Key, and the fiery Limber Jim, whose brother had been murdered by one of the number. They found that it was no farce but real genuine tragedy, in which they were to act an important part.

When they realized this, they began to beg for mercy, but they had shown no mercy, and now they were to receive no mercy. They then called upon the priest, who attended them, to speak in their behalf; but the prisoners would have none of it, but called out “hang them.”

When they found there was no mercy in that crowd of men whom they had maltreated and robbed, and whose comrades and friends they had murdered, they resigned themselves to their fate; all but Curtis who broke from the guard of Regulators and ran through the crowd, over tents, and across Dead-run into the swamp where he was recaptured and taken back.

They were then placed upon the platform, their arms pinioned, meal sacks were tied over their heads, the ropes adjusted around their necks, and, at a signal given by Key, the trap was sprung and they were launched into eternity, all but Mosby, who being a heavy man broke his rope. He begged for his life, but it was of no avail. Limber Jim caught him around the waist and passed him up to another man; again the noose was adjusted and he, too, received his reward for evil doing.

The execution of these men was witnessed by all the prisoners who were able to get out of their tents, and it is needless to add, was approved by them, all except the Raiders. Besides the prisoners, all the rebels who were on duty outside, found a position where they could witness the scene. The Confederate officers, apprehensive of a stampede of the prisoners, took the precaution to keep their men under arms, and the guns in the forts were loaded, the fuses inserted in the vents and No. 4 stood with lanyard in hand ready to suppress an outbreak.

The hanging of these men had a very salutary effect upon the other evil doers in the prison.

Heretofore we had had no organization; we were a mob of thirty-three thousand men, without law, and without officers. Each mess had its own laws and each man punished those who had offended him; that is, if he could. But now this band of thugs was broken up and their leaders hanged. The Regulators were turned into a police force, with the gallant Limber Jim as chief, and henceforth order prevailed among the prisoners at Andersonville.

The reader will readily see, from reading what I have written in this chapter, that our sufferings did not all proceed from the rebels.

Almost twenty-five years have elapsed since those scenes were enacted, the hot passion engendered by the cruelties of prison life, have measurably cooled, and as I am writing this story, I am determined to “hew to the line let the chips fall where they will,” and with a full understanding of what I say, I affirm that many of the prisoners suffered more cruelly, at the hands of their comrades, than they did from the rebels themselves.

There was among the Pilgrims, a fiend by the name of McClellan, a member of the 12th New York cavalry, who kicked, and abused, and maltreated the poor weak prisoners who got in his way in a manner which deserved the punishment meted out to the six Raiders. He had charge of delivering the rations inside of the prison, and if some poor starved boy, looking for a crumb got in his way he would lift him clear off from the ground with the toe of his huge boot.

One day while the bread wagon was unloading, I saw a boy not more than eighteen years old who had become so weak from starvation, and so crippled by scurvy that he could not walk, but crawled around on his hands and knees, trying to pick up some crumbs which had fallen from the bread; he happened to get in McClellan’s way, when that brute drew back his foot and gave the poor fellow a kick which sent him several feet, and with a monstrous oath, told him to keep out of his way. This was only one instance among thousands of his brutality, yet with all his meanness I never heard him charged with dishonesty.

The rebels had a way of punishing negroes, which was most exquisite torture. From my quarters in the prison I witnessed the punishment of a negro by this method one day. He was stripped naked and then laid on the ground face downward, his limbs extended to their full length, then his hands and feet were tied to stakes. A burly fellow then took a paddle board full of holes, and applied it to that part of the human anatomy in which our mothers used to appear to be so much interested, when they affectionately drew us across their knee, and pulled off their slipper.

The executioner was an artist in his way, and he applied that paddle with a will born of a determination to excel, and the way that poor darkey howled and yelled was enough to soften a heart of stone.

This mode of punishment was adopted by the prison police afterward, in cases of petty larceny, and I do not think the patient ever needed a second dose of that medicine, for there was a blister left to represent every separate hole in the paddle, and the patient was obliged for several days, like the Dutchman’s hen, to sit standing.

I would recommend this treatment to the medical fraternity, as a substitute for cupping; as the cupping and scarifying are combined in one operation, and I think there is no patent on it.

The battle of Atlanta was fought on the 22d day of July, and we received the news of the victory in a few days afterward from prisoners who were captured on that day. Our hopes began to revive from this time. We thought we could begin to see the “beginning of the end.” Besides this we had a hope that Sherman would send a Corps of Cavalry down to rescue us. The rebels seem to have some such thoughts running through their minds, as the following copy of an order, issued by General Winder, testifies.

The officers on duty and in charge of the Battery of Florida Artillery at the time will, upon receiving notice that the enemy has approached within seven miles of this post, open upon the stockade with grape shot, without reference to the situation beyond the line of defense.

This order was issued at the time Gen. Stoneman with his cavalry was trying to capture Macon. Winder, in his cowardice, supposed he might attempt to rescue the prisoners at Andersonville.

This order, when interpreted, means that when the officers in the forts which guarded the prison, should hear that any of the Federal troops were approaching within seven miles of the prison, they were to open on us with grape shot. A simple rumor by some scared native would have precipitated that catastrophe.

Just think of it, twenty-four cannons loaded with grape shot opened on sick defenseless men, not for any offense they had committed, but because Winder would rather see us slaughtered than rescued.

Further, the order says, “without reference to the situation beyond these lines of defense.” This simply means that they were to pay no attention to the attacking party, but to slaughter us.

If the records of the Infernal Regions could be procured, I do not believe a more hellish order could be found on file.

We heard of Stoneman’s raid and hoped, and yet feared, that he would come. We knew that the foregoing order had been issued, and yet we hoped the artillerymen would not find time to carry it out.

We would have liked, O so much, to have got hold of Winder and Wirz, and that Georgia Militia, there would have been no need of a stockade to hold them.

O, how weary we became of waiting. It seemed to us that home, and friends, and the comforts, and necessities of life, were getting further, and further away, instead of nearer, that we could not stand this waiting, and sickness, and misery, and living death much longer.

The more we thought of these things, the more discouraged we became, and I believe these sad discouraging thoughts helped to prostrate many a poor fellow, and unfit him to resist the effects of his situation and surroundings, and hastened, if it was not the immediate cause of death.

Chaplain McCabe, who was a prisoner in Libby Prison, has a lecture entitled “The bright side of Prison life.” If there was a bright side to Andersonville, I want some particular funny fellow, who was confined there for five or six months, to come around and tell me where it was, for I never found it, until I found the OUTside of it.

We heard of the fall of Atlanta, which occurred on the 2d of September, and had we known the song then, we would have sang those cheering words written and composed by Lieutenant S. H. M. Byers, while confined in a rebel prison at Columbia, South Carolina.