CLOSE QUARTERS.

“Hamlet. I have of late lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises; and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you,—this brave o’er hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.”

The great influx of prisoners during the month of May and early part of June, from the armies of Sherman and Meade, increased our numbers to more than thirty thousand prisoners. These were crowded upon the small space of twelve acres, or more than two thousand five hundred men to the acre. This would allow thirty-one square feet to each man, or a piece of ground five feet by six feet, on which to build his tent and perform all the acts and offices of life. Indeed we were crowded in so thickly that it was impossible for the prison officials to find room for us to “fall in” for roll call, for more than three weeks.

In the latter part of June, however, an addition of nine acres was built, which gave us more room, but did not remove the filth and excrements which had accrued in the older part of the prison. The building on of an addition to the prison was a God-send in two ways, it gave more room, and the old north line of stockade was cut down for fuel. The new part was finished one afternoon and a gap made in the old stockade through which the prisoners passed to their new quarters. After dark a raid was made on the old part, and before morning every timber was down, and men who had been compelled to eat their food, at best half cooked, were now supplied with wood.

The old part of the prison had become so foul, as a result of the sickness and crowded state of the prisoners, that it surpassed all powers of description or of imagination. The whole swamp bordering upon Dead-run, was covered to a depth of several inches with human excrements, and this was so filled with maggots that it seemed a living moving mass of putrifying filth. The stench was loathsome and sickening to a degree that surpasses description. With the crowded state of the prison, the filthy surroundings, and the terrible atmosphere which covered the prison like a cloud, it is no wonder that men sickened and died by the thousands every month.

These terrible surroundings made the prisoners depressed and gloomy in spirits, and made them more susceptible to the attacks of disease.

The bodies of those who died were carried to the south gate, with their name, company, and regiment written on a slip of paper and pinned to their breast. Here they were laid in the Dead-house, outside of the Stockade. From the Dead-house they were carted in wagons to the Cemetery, and buried in trenches four feet in depth. They were thrown into the wagons, like dead dogs, covered with filth and lice. After the wagons had hauled away all the dead bodies, they were loaded with food for the prisoners in the Stockade. This was done without any attempt at, or pretense of cleaning in any way. I shall leave the reader to imagine how palatable that food was after such treatment.

The monotony of prison life was sometimes relieved by finding among the prisoners an old acquaintance of boyhood days. Many of the western men were born and educated in the East, and it was no uncommon thing for them to find an old chum among the eastern soldiers.

One day as I was cooking my rations some one slapped me on the shoulder and exclaimed, “Hello Bill!” Looking up I saw standing before me, an old schoolmate from Jamestown, New York, by the name of Joe Hall. It was a sad re-union; we had both been in prison more than nine months, he on Belle Isle, and I in Danville. We had both been vaccinated and had great scorbutic ulcers in our arms, but he, poor fellow, had gangrene which soon ate away his life. A few weeks afterwards he went out to the prison hospital, where he died in a few days, and now a marble slab in the Cemetery at Andersonville with this inscription.

marks the last resting place of one of my boyhood friends. Poor Joe.

A few days after Joe’s visit to me, he introduced me to another Jamestown boy, a member of the 49th New York Infantry, by the name of Orlando Hoover, or “Tip” as he was called. He had re-inlisted during the winter previous and had been home on a veterans furlough, where he had visited some of my old friends. He told me how some of the old gray haired men had declared they would enlist for the purpose of releasing the prisoners, that there was great indignation expressed by many loyal northern men, because our government did not take some measures to release us from our long confinement.

“Tip” had good health in Andersonville, as he did not stay there more than two months, but when we arrived at Florence I went to his detachment to see him, and his “pard” told me that he had jumped from the cars, and that the guards had shot him, while on their way up from Charleston. A little more than two months afterward, I carried the news to his widowed mother, and sisters.

One of my comrades, Nelson Herrick, of Company B, 10th Wisconsin, had scratched his leg slightly with his finger nail, this had grown into a scorbutic ulcer, at last gangrene supervened upon it, and one of the best men in the 10th Wisconsin was carried to the cemetery.

All the terrible surroundings made me sad and gloomy, but did not take from me my determination to live. I knew that if I lost hope, I would lose life, and I was determined that I would not die on rebel soil—not if pure grit would prevent it. But one day in August I ate a small piece of raw onion which gave me a very severe attack of cholera morbus, which lasted me two days. I began to think that it was all up with me, but thanks to the kindness of my “pards”, Rouse and Ole, I pulled through and from that day began to get better of dysentery and scurvy with which I was afflicted. I was so diseased with scurvy, that my nether limbs were so contracted that I was obliged to walk on my tiptoes, with the aid of a long cane held in both hands. My limbs were swollen and of a purple color. My gums were swollen and purple and my teeth loose and taken altogether I looked like a man who had got his ticket to the cemetery. None of my comrades believed I could live, so they told me afterward, but I never had a doubt of my final restoration to home and friends, except in those two days in which I suffered with cholera morbus.

Of the comrades of my regiment with whom I had been associated in prison, Nelson Herrick, Joseph Parrott, Ramey Yoht, and Wallace Darrow of company B, had died from the effects of diarrhea and scurvy, and Corporal John Doughty of my company had died from the effects of a gunshot wound, received from a guard at Danville, while looking out of a window.

Of those names I remember at this date, who were in Andersonville, Joe Eaton of Company A, stood the prison life very well, he being one of the few who kept up his courage and observed, as well as possible, the laws of health.

John Burk of my company, seemed to wear well in this terrible place, on account of a strong constitution and his unflinching grit, which was of a quality like a Quinebaug whetstone. Corporal J. E. Webster, and E. T. Best, Sergeant Ole Gilbert, G. W. Rouse, and myself of my company, and Sergeant Roselle Hull of Company B, were alike afflicted with dysentery and scurvy, and each had a large scorbutic ulcer on his arm. Friend Cowles of Company B. had also succumbed to the terrible treatment of the rebels, and had been laid to rest.

To add to our suffering we were exposed to the terrible heat of that semi-tropical climate. There was not a tree left on the ground, not a bush, nothing for shade, but our little tents and huts. The sun at noon was almost vertical, and he poured down his rays with relentless fury on our unprotected heads. The flies swarmed about and on us by day and the mosquitoes tormented us by night. There was no rest, no comfort, no enjoyment, and only a tiny ray of hope for us.

Amid all this terrible misery and suffering, there were a few who kept their faith in God, and did not curse the authors of their misery. Conspicuous among these was a band of Union Tennesseans who were quartered near me. They held their prayer meetings regularly, and occasionally one of their number would deliver an exhortation. The faith of those men was of the abiding kind. They were modern Pauls and Silases praying for their jailors. I too had a faith, but not of the same quality as theirs. My faith was in a climate where overcoats would not be needed, and that our tormentors would eventually find it.

We had no intercourse with the guards, and could get no newspapers, hence all the news we got was from the “tenderfeet” when they arrived. But the news we did get after Sherman and Grant began the advance, was of a cheering kind, and we had strong hopes of the ultimate success of the Union cause. I cannot imagine what the result, so far as we were concerned, would have been, had Sherman and Grant failed in their great undertakings. Without any hope to cheer us, we must have all been sacrificed in the arms of the Moloch of despair.

One day in August a squad of Union Tennessee Cavalry was brought in. We tried in vain to find out what Sherman was doing, and how large an army he had. They only knew that they had been captured while on picket duty, and that Sherman had a “powathful lahge ahmy.”

Your ordinary Southerner of those days, had a profound and an abiding ignorance of numbers. They were to him what pork is to a Jew, an unclean thing. He had no use for them, and would at a venture accept ten thousand dollars, as a greater sum than a million, for the reason that it took more words to express the former, than the latter sum.

In the winter of 1862, while Mitchell’s Division was camped at Bacon Creek, Ky., we had a picket post on a plantation owned by a man named Buckner, a cousin of the rebel General S. B. Buckner, he was, or professed to be, a Union man. He went down to Green River on one occasion to visit Buell’s army. On his return I asked him how many soldiers General Buell had? “I can’t just say,” he replied, “but theys a powahful lot of em.” “Yes but how many thousand?” said I. “Well I wont be right suah, but theys a heap moah than a right smart chance of em,” was as near an approach to numbers as I could induce him to express.

Geography is on the same catalogue with Arithmetic. While marching from Shepardsville to Elizabethtown, in 1861 we camped for the night on Muldraugh’s Hill, near the spot where President Lincoln was born. After we had “broke ranks” I went with others to a farm house not far away to procure water. A middle aged man met us, and after granting us permission to get water from his well, he asked me, “what regiment is that?” I told him it was the 10th Wisconsin. “Westconstant, Westconstant, let me see is Westconstant in Michigan?” inquired he.

After the battle of Chickamauga, while we were at McLaw’s Division Hospital, our Surgeon took charge of a rebel soldier lad not more than sixteen years of age, who in addition to a severe wound, was suffering from an attack of fever. One morning the surgeon went to him and asked, “how are you this morning my boy?” “Well I feel a heap bettah, but I’m powahful weak yet, doctah,” was his reply.

Notwithstanding these people know nothing of numbers, or of Geography, or of Orthography and not much of any ology, or ism, yet they are good riders, good marksmen, good card players, good whiskey drinkers, and barring the troubles which grew out of the “late unpleasantness” and “moonshining” they are in the main kind-hearted people to the whites.

These remarks apply to the poorer class of whites in the time of the war. I understand there has been much improvement since that time, in some respects, there was certainly room for it.

But the trusty unfailing friend of the Union soldier, the caterer and guide of the escaped prisoner, the one on whom he could depend under any, and all circumstances was the negro. The poor black man knew that “Massy Lincum’s sogers” were solving a problem for them which had remained unsolved for more than two hundred years. They knew that the success of the Union arms meant the freedom of the slaves, and they always worshipped a Federal soldier. Any prisoner who escaped from rebel prisons, and succeeded in reaching the Union lines, owes his success to the negroes for without their friendly aid in the way of furnishing food, and pointing out the way, and in most instances acting as guide, they could never have succeeded. He was never so poor but that he would furnish food for a fugitive prisoner and the night was never so dark but that he would guide him on his way, usually turning him over to a friend who would run him to the next station on the “underground railroad.”

The negro was, on his part, the innocent cause of much trouble, for speculate and explain as much as you will, he was the cause of the war. On his account the exchange of prisoners was suspended and he was, at once, the cause of nearly all our trouble, and our only friend. I said our only friend, I mean in a general sense, for there was a class of men, though small in numbers, who never forgot the men of their own faith. There was never a prison so dark and filthy but that a Catholic priest would enter it, and there was never a dying prisoner so lousy and besmeared, but that he would administer the consolations of the church to him in the hour of his extremity.

In fact Catholic priests were the only ministers, I ever heard of, who entered the prison at Andersonville to give the consolations of their religion to dying men. I do not wish to be understood as finding fault because this was so, for Rebel ministers would not and Union ministers could not, enter that prison. And, indeed, we did not want the ministrations of those Rebel preachers. What little experience we had had with them had convinced us that they would take advantage of their position to insult us on account of our loyalty to our flag. Not so with the Catholic priest. He knew nothing of race, color, or politics when dying men were considered. In his zeal for his church Rebel and Union were alike to him, and in any place where a Catholic was to be found, there a Catholic priest would find his way, and offer the sacraments of his church to the dying. I can honor them for their zeal and courage, although I cannot accept the dogmas of their church.

Dr. Jones, in his report, speaks of the inhuman treatment of the nurses to the sick. This may have been true of the nurses in the hospital. They were detailed from among the prisoners in the stockade, not on account of any fitness for the duty, but because of favor. They cared nothing for the sick. They were after the extra rations which were allowed to men who were working outside the stockade, and for the clothing which fell into their hands in one way and another.

Inside of the stockade there were no nurses for the sick, except such voluntary care as one comrade bestowed upon another. In cases where men of the same company or regiment were associated together the sick man so far as I observed, was cared for as well as the circumstances would admit of. But what could these men do for each other? There was no medicine to be had for love or money. The surgeons prescribed sumac berries for scurvy, and black-berry root for diarrhea and dysentery. Little luxuries, such as fruits, jellies, and farinaceous compounds were unknown in that place. A comrade could only cook the corn meal, and bring a dish of water, and assist his friend to stool and when he died pin a little slip of paper on his breast with his name, company and regiment written on it, and assist in carrying him to the Dead-house, and then hope that some one would do as well by him.

Ye who growl, and snarl, and find fault with everything and everybody, when you do not feel well, will do well to stop and think how those poor men suffered and then thank God, and your friends, that your condition is so much better than theirs was.