It did seem nice to get into a house which contained a fire-place and a crane where the kettles hung. One of the men swung the crane out and hung a kettle of beans over the fire. You bet I looked on with interest. One of my comrades noticing me watching the cook said, "You had better be careful how you eat or you will kill yourself." That night I lay as near the fireplace as possible. The bubble of the bean pot was music in my ear. I kept quiet until I thought my comrades were asleep, then raising myself in a sitting posture, swung the crane back and took the pot of beans off. With much difficulty I succeeded in finding a spoon; I then sat as close to the kettle as possible, with one leg on each side of it, and went in for dear life. "Hold on, there," said one of my comrades, "do you want to kill yourself? I have been watching you all this time." For a truth I thought I was badly used.

The next day the men concluded to leave me to take care of the cabin, being too weak to be of much service.

The provisions were locked up in a big box, and the men went to work. I swept out the cabin and walked out to see what could be seen. Walking along I saw an old colored woman and her little boy, hanging out clothes. He was very dirty and ragged. He sat on the bank of the creek throwing crumbs from a good-sized piece of corn bread to the fish. I went up to him and snatched the bread from his hands. He jumped up and ran to his mother crying, "That man has got my bread." "Never mind, honey; that man must be hungry."

The following day three more men were brought out to bury the dead. Our cook as usual hung up the kettle of beans to cook for breakfast.

Some time in the night one of the new hands got up and helped himself to beans, and before twelve o'clock the next day he was a dead man. You may be sure I was more careful after that how I ate.

The next day the men took me out to help bury the dead. Upon arriving at the place of burial I was yet so weak that I was of no service. So they set me to bringing water for the men to drink. The way the graves were dug was to dig a ditch six feet wide, about one hundred yards long, and three feet deep. They then laid them as close as possible, without box, coffin, or clothes, for the men inside stripped the dead as fast as they died. Most of the prisoners were destitute of clothes, but it looked hard to see from three to five hundred buried in one day without clothes on.

The prisoners of Andersonville were dying at a terrible rate, especially those who had been longest in rebel hands. The rebels had deliberately planned the murder of the Union prisoners by the slow process of starvation and disease. It was at first slow but sure, and then it was sure and rapid. I have counted three hundred and sixty lifeless skeletons of our boys that had died in one day. You might walk around the prison any hour in the day and see men closing their eyes in death. Diarrhoea and scurvy appeared to be the most fatal diseases.

None can know the horrors of scurvy except those who have had it. Sometimes the cords of the victim would be contracted and the limbs drawn up so that the patient could neither walk, stand, nor lie still. Sometimes it would be confined to the bones, and not make any appearance on the outside. At other times it would be confined to the mouth, and the gums would separate from the teeth and the teeth would drop out. I have seen hundreds of cases of this disease in Andersonville. I have seen many of our prisoners suffering with this disease, actually starving to death, because they could not eat the coarse corn meal furnished by the rebels for the Yankee prisoners.

In the month of June it rained continually for twenty-one days, and it is not strange diseases multiplied and assumed every horrible form; there were thirty-five thousand prisoners during all the rainy time, without shelter, lying out in the storm, day and night.

As I was going to the well for water, the third or fourth day of my stay outside, I met Wirz and two confederate officers. Wirz said, "What are you doing here?" I told him I was carrying water for the men who were digging graves. "Well," said he, "If you don't get inside of that gate, double quick, I will have a grave dug for you, and prepare you to fill it." You may be sure I went in, and was a prisoner inside again.

About this time Mrs. Wirz took a great liking to one of our little drummer boys. She took him out and dressed him in a nice fitting suit of gray. The boy was only eleven years old, and very handsome. The little fellow put on his suit of gray, and Mrs. Wirz said, "How do you like your clothes?" "I do not like them at all," replied the boy. "Why, what is the matter?" "I do not like the color." Mrs. Wirz liked him all the better for the bold spirit he manifested. She then made him a suit of blue, and also a nice red cap, and thenceforth he went by the name of Red Cap.

Red Cap would come in every day or two and tell us what was going on outside. He told us Mrs. Wirz quarreled with Wirz every day because he did not try to prepare some kind of a shelter for the prisoners. She wished him to let a few of us out at a time to cut timber to make our own shelter with. No, he would not do that. Finally Mrs. Wirz told him if he didn't do something for the relief of the prisoners, she would poison him; "For," said she, "I cannot sleep nights; my dreams are one continued nightmare, and I will stand it no longer." Mrs. Wirz was a true southerner, of the kind called creole; but for all that she had a great deal of humanity about her. She continued her threats and pleadings, but they were of no avail. She finally did give him a dose of poison. He had been threatened so much that when he did get it he knew what was the matter, and took something to counteract it. After that "Old Wirz" let us out oftener for wood.

Dr. John C. Bates, who was a kind-hearted and humane rebel surgeon, testified as follows:

"When I went there, there were twenty-five hundred sick in the hospital. I judge twenty-five thousand prisoners were crowded together in the stockade. Some had made holes and burrows in the earth. Those under the sheds in the hospital were doing comparatively well. I saw but little shelter excepting what the prisoners' ingenuity had devised. I found them suffering with scurvy, dropsy, diarrhoea, gangrene, pneumonia, and other diseases. When prisoners died they were laid in wagons head foremost to be carried off. Effluvia from the hospital was very offensive. If by accident my hands were affected, I would not go into the hospital without putting a plaster over the affected part. If persons whose systems were reduced by inanition should purchance stump a toe or scratch a hand, the next report to me was gangrene, so potent was the hospital gangrene. The prisoners were more thickly confined in the stockade than ants and bees. Dogs were kept for hunting the prisoners who escaped.

Fifty per cent of those who died might have been saved. I feel safe in saying seventy-five per cent might have been saved, if the patients had been properly cared for. The effect of the treatment of prisoners was morally as well as physically injurious. Each lived but for himself, which I suppose was entirely superinduced by their starving condition. Seeing the condition of some of them, I remarked to my student, "I cannot resurrect them." I found persons lying dead among the living. Thinking they merely slept, I went to wake them up but found they were taking their everlasting sleep. This was in the hospital, and I judge it was worse in the stockade. There being no deadhouse I erected a tent for that purpose. But I soon found that a blanket or quilt had been cut off from the canvas, and as the material readily served for repairs, the deadhouse had to be abandoned. The daily ration was much less in September, October, November and December than it was from the first of January till the twenty-sixth of March, 1865. The men had never had ten ounces of food every twenty-four hours. The scurvy was next to rottenness. Some of the patients could not eat on account of the scurvy; their teeth were loose; they frequently asked me to give them something to eat which would not cause pain. While Doctor Stevenson was medical director he did not manifest any interest in the relief of their necessities; the rations were less than ten ounces in twenty-four hours; some men did actually starve to death on it. There was plenty of wood in the neighborhood, which might have been cut to answer all demands for shelter and fuel."

This concluded the testimony of Dr. Bates, and considering that he lives in Georgia it need not be said that he testified reluctantly to the truth.

Charles W. Reynolds, of Company B, Ninth Illinois Cavalry, writes his experience: "We reached Andersonville about 2 o'clock P. M. on the first day of April, 1864. We got off the cars in a timbered country with a dry sandy soil. About three quarters of a mile off we could see a large enclosure composed of timber set on end in the ground, with sentry boxes set along the top, and that was the Andersonville prison pen. The old Dutchman, as he was called, Captain Wirz, riding a white horse, came along and escorted us to the prison gate. Here he left us with the guards and himself went inside to learn what part of the prison to assign us to. While we were waiting outside of the prison gates a lot of Yankee prisoners came from the woods with arms full of fagots that they had been gathering for fuel. At first we thought they were a lot of negroes; but as they came nearer we saw that they were Yankee prisoners. They were as black as negroes, and such downcast, hopeless, haggard and woe-begone looking human beings I never saw before. They said they were glad to see us, but would to God it was under better circumstances.

"After a while the prison gates were opened for us to pass through. As we entered a sight of horror met our eyes that almost froze our blood and made our hearts stop beating. Before us were skeleton forms that once had been stalwart men, covered with rags and filth and vermin, with hollow cheeks and glowing eyes. Some of the men in the heat and intensity of their feelings exclaimed, 'Is this hell?' Well might Wirz, the old fiend who presided over that rebel slaughtering pen, have written over its gates, 'Let him that enters here leave all hope behind.' It may be that some of the readers of this little book think there is a good deal of exaggeration, but I want to say right here that it is impossible to write or tell the horrors of Andersonville prison so that anybody can understand or realize them."

It was getting along toward fall and the rebels told us there was going to be an exchange. Oh, how my heart did jump. Could it be possible that I was to get back to see my kind old mother, and my wife and little ones who had mourned for me as dead? If I could only write the feelings that overcame me I know you would feel happy for me. It, however, turned out to be false. We also heard that General Sherman was getting close to us and the rebels began to move us out of the way.

The greatest portion was taken to Charleston, North Carolina. There were seven thousand of us left. In a few days they marched the rest of us out and shipped us to Savannah. We arrived there the next day, the hardest looking set of men you ever set eyes on. They marched us from the cars to a new stockade they had prepared for us. As we marched through the city the citizens gathered on each side of the street to see the Yankee prisoners pass. As we marched along some of the citizens said they felt sorry for us, others said we were treated too well. They finally got us to the gate and we were marched in. We were then in hearing of our own guns. This stockade consisted of about ten acres. But after all the citizens gave us more to eat than they did around Andersonville, for they sent in beef and other things that we never got at any other prison. We did not stay long at Savannah. They took us from there to Thomasville, one hundred miles south of Savannah. On our way from Savannah two of our men made their escape. The guards were stationed on top of the cars and the prisoners were inside. Two of our men made a desperate jump for liberty. We were going at the rate of twenty miles an hour when they made the jump. When they struck the ground they tumbled end over end. The guards blazed away at them. I could see the dirt flying all around them where the bullets struck, and we were gone, and so were they, and I found out since that they got through to our lines all right.

When we arrived at Thomasville our guards marched us back in the woods about three miles. They did not have any stockade at this point, so in order to keep us from making our escape they had a ditch dug all around us. Four more of our men made a break for liberty at this place; three of them got away, the fourth was shot and died in two days afterwards. We stayed at Thomasville two weeks and then our guards marched across the country to a small town called Blacksheon. As we were marching through the country the colored people came out on the road to see the Yankees go by. We were in a deplorable condition, the larger part of the prisoners were almost destitute of clothes, and as we were forced to march along in the cold biting wind, there were a good many of the prisoners died on the road. Most of the men were without shoes. Their feet looked more like big pieces of bloody meat than like human feet. They could easily be tracked by their poor, bleeding feet.

As I said before the colored people gathered on each side of the road to see the Yankees by. Seeing an old lady standing close by the road I spoke to her and said: "Aunty, what do you think of us, anyway?" "Well, mas'er, I'se very sorry for you." Well, to state the fact, the tears forced themselves to my eyes in spite of all I could do to hear one sympathizing word, even if it was from an old colored woman.

When we first started from Thomasville one of the guards came up to me and said, 'Yank, I want you to carry this knap-sack. I told him I was not able to carry myself. "It don't make no difference to me whether you can carry yourself or not; but you will carry this knap-sack as far as you go, or I will blow your brains out." So I was forced to carry his knap-sack, which weighed about forty pounds.

Some of the time I thought I would fall, but I managed to keep along until the first day noon, when we made a halt, and the rebel gave me a small piece of meat. "Now," said the Johnnie, "I have given you a good ration, and I hope you will carry my knap-sack without grumbling." We started on, but had not gone over five miles when I gave out. I could not go any farther; so down I went my full length on the road. "Get up, you d——d Yank, or I'll run you through with this bayonet."

If he had done so it could not have made any difference with me, for I had fainted. A confederate officer made him take the knap-sack, and he put it on another prisoner. I staggered to my feet and went on and on. Oh, would this thing never end! But finally we did get through to Blackshire, more dead than alive. That was the terminus of the railroad that went through Andersonville. I was glad to get where I could rest. To lie down and stretch out at full length was more delightful than I can describe. Ah, would this thing never end, or was I doomed to die in rebel hands? I want to say right here that there were seventeen thousand, eight hundred and ninety-six deaths of Union prisoners at Andersonville.

We went into camp about half a mile from the town. The next morning they marched us through town. The colored folks came from all sides to see the prisoners and their guards go by, all dressed in their holiday clothes, for this was the day before New Year's. One old colored woman had a piece of sugar-cane. She was some distance ahead, standing close to the road, watching us go by. Many of the guards made a grab for the piece of cane, but she avoided them every time. Just as I got opposite her she darted forward and handed me the cane. The rebel guard raised his gun and brought it down over the poor old woman's head, and she fell in the road like one dead. The last I saw of her, her colored friends were carrying her off. However, I heard the next morning that the woman had died during the night, of the blow she received from the rebel guard. You may be sure I was pleased to get the sugar-cane, and it was a great thing. The cane was very refreshing and nourishing, and I felt very grateful to the poor old colored woman who lost her life trying to give me something to eat.

They marched us up to the cars. We were put in box-cars. Just as the guards had got us loaded a handsome lady came riding on horseback and began talking very earnestly to one of the confederate officers. Our guards told us she was pleading with the officer to make us a New Year's present. She finally got the officer's consent, and two large wagons drove up to the cars, and each prisoner got a good half pound of pork, and it was good pork, too. Oh, how thankful we did feel to that good lady for making us that nice present. It is a singular fact, that always during our despondent times there is sure to break through the black clouds a ray of bright sunshine.

We lay in box cars all night, and next morning went through to Andersonville. We arrived there about ten o'clock the same day. On New Year's day, 1865, we were ordered out of the cars. It was a very unpleasant day. The wind was blowing cold from the north, and we huddled up close to keep warm. The rebels were all around us and had fires. We were not in the pen, but just outside.

One of our little drummer boys stepped up to the fire to warm, when old Wirz came along and ordered him back. The boy started back, but seeing Wirz going away went back to the fire again. Wirz turned, and seeing the boy, drew his revolver and shot him dead. The little fellow fell in the fire. I could not hear what the rebel guards said to Wirz, for the wind was blowing the other way, but this I do know, he took their arms away and put them in irons. They then counted us off and opened the gates, and we marched in. We were prisoners in Andersonville once more. Well, I must say my hope of getting out was very small; for even if I had been permitted my liberty I could not have walked five miles. There were only about seven thousand of us, altogether; so you see we had plenty of room; in fact it looked almost deserted. I had been used to seeing it crowded. We had no shelter of any kind, so four of us clubbed together and dug a hole seven feet deep, and then widened it out at the bottom so as to accommodate four of us. It was all open at the top, but it kept the cold winds from us.

It finally came my turn to go for wood. There were six of us picked out to go. One of the six was a very sickly man, and could hardly walk, without carrying a load. He could not be persuaded to let some stronger man take his place, so out we went, sick man and all. We went about half a mile from the pen, and every man went to work picking up his wood. Finally, we started for the stockade; but the sick man could not keep up; he had more wood than he could carry. We went as slow as our guards would let us, in order to give him a chance. Just then Wirz came riding along on his old white horse, and seeing the sick man some twenty yards behind, said, "Close up there, close up there, you d——d Yankee." The sick man tried to hurry up, but stubbed his toe and down he went, wood and all. Wirz sprang from his horse and ran up to the poor sick soldier and kicked him in the stomach with the heel of his big riding boot, and left him a dead man. "That is the way I serve you d——d Yanks when you don't do as I tell you." The rest of us went back to the prison pen, sick at heart.

How was it our government left us there to die? We knew the rebels were anxious for an exchange, and we could not understand why our government would not make the exchange. I know this much about it, if our government had made the exchange the rebels would have had about forty thousand able-bodied men to put in the field, while on the other hand our government would have had that many to put in the hospital. The rebel sergeant came in every day and said, "All you men that will come out and join our army, we will give you good clothes and rations." There were a few that went out, but they went out simply to make their escape. As far as I was concerned, I would have died before I would have put on their gray uniform.

We had no snow, but had cold and heavy rains. One night, just as the guard called out "Twelve o'clock and all is well," our hole in the ground caved in, and we had a terrible time struggling to get out; but we finally got out, and there we sat on the ground, that cold rain beating down on our poor naked bodies. When it did come daylight, we could hardly stand on our feet. One of my poor comrades died before noon, and another in the afternoon, from the effects of that cold storm; so there were only two of us left.

In about a week from the time our place caved in we were taken out to get wood again. As our little squad marched out, about fifty yards from the stockade I saw a good sized log lying there. It was about eight feet long and two feet in diameter. I saw that the rebel guard was a kind looking old man, and asked him if he would be so kind as to help me get the log inside of the stockade. "Now," said he, "If youans won't try to run away, I will help you." I gave him the desired promise, and he laid down his gun and helped me to roll the log in. That was the second time I had received a kind act from one of the rebel guards. The other time was when the rebel Captain gave us three quilts. I got a couple of railroad spikes from one of my comrades, and split the log all up in small strips, and then we fixed our cave up with a good roof, and I must say it was really comfortable.