Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons

SOME FEATURES OF THE MORTALITY--PERCENTAGE OF DEATHS TO THOSE LIVING --AN AVERAGE MEAN ONLY STANDS THE MISERY THREE MONTHS--DESCRIPTION OF THE PRISON AND THE CONDITION OF THE ME...

Naturally, we had a consuming hunger for news of what was being accomplished by our armies toward crushing the Rebellion. Now, more than ever, had we reason to ardently wish for...

SERGEANT LEROY L. KEY--HIS ADVENTURES SUBSEQUENT TO THE EXECUTIONS --HE GOES OUTSIDE AT ANDERSONVILLE ON PAROLE--LABORS IN THE COOK-HOUSE --ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE--IS RECAPTURED AND...

I have in other places dwelt upon the insufficiency and the nauseousness of the food. No words that I can use, no insistence upon this theme, can give the reader any idea of its...

GETTING USED TO FREEDOM--DELIGHTS OF A LAND WHERE THERE IS ENOUGH OF EVERYTHING--FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE OLD FLAG--WILMINGTON AND ITS HISTORY --LIEUTENANT CUSHING--FIRST ACQUAINTAN...

VISIT TO FORT FISHER, AND INSPECTION OF THAT STRONGHOLD--THE WAY IT WAS CAPTURED--OUT ON THE OCEAN SAILING--TERRIBLY SEASICK--RAPID RECOVERY --ARRIVAL AT ANNAPOLIS--WASHED, CLOT...

WHAT CAUSED THE FALL OF ATLANTA--A DISSERTATION UPON AN IMPORTANT PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM--THE BATTLE OF JONESBORO--WHY IT WAS FOUGHT --HOW SHERMAN DECEIVED HOOD--A DESPERATE BAYO...

I have endeavored to tell the foregoing story as calmly, as dispassionately, as free from vituperation and prejudice as possible. How well I have succeeded the reader must judge...

SAVANNAH PROVES TO BE A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER--ESCAPE FROM THE BRATS OF GUARDS--COMPARISON BETWEEN WIRZ AND DAVIS--A BRIEF INTERVAL OF GOOD RATIONS--WINDER, THE MAN WITH THE EVI...

ONE INSTANCE OF A SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE--THE ADVENTURES OF SERGEANT WALTER HARTSOUGH, OF COMPANY K, SIXTEENTH ILLINOIS CAVALRY--HE GETS AWAY FROM THE REBELS AT THOMASVILLE, AND AFTE...

The train started in a few minutes after the close of the conversation with the old Georgian, and we soon came to and crossed the Savannah River into South Carolina. The river w...

SURLY BRITON--THE STOLID COURAGE THAT MAKES THE ENGLISH FLAG A BANNER OF TRIUMPH--OUR COMPANY BUGLER, HIS CHARACTERISTICS AND HIS DEATH--URGENT DEMAND FOR MECHANICS--NONE WANT T...

At dawn we were gathered together, more meal issued to us, which we cooked in the same way, and then were started under heavy guard to march on foot over the mountains to Bristo...

THE PECULIAR TYPE OF INSANITY PREVALENT AT FLORENCE--BARRETT’S WANTONNESS OF CRUELTY--WE LEARN OF SHERMAN’S ADVANCE INTO SOUTH CAROLINA--THE REBELS BEGIN MOVING THE PRISONERS AW...

THE EXECUTION--BUILDING THE SCAFFOLD--DOUBTS OF THE CAMP-CAPTAIN WIRZ THINKS IT IS PROBABLY A RUSE TO FORCE THE STOCKADE--HIS PREPARATIONS AGAINST SUCH AN ATTEMPT--ENTRANCE OF T...

We again began to be exceedingly solicitous over the fate of Atlanta and Sherman’s Army: we had heard but little directly from that front for several weeks. Few prisoners had co...

After Watt’s death, I set earnestly about seeing what could be done in the way of escape. Frank Harney, of the First West Virginia Cavalry, a boy of about my own age and disposi...

“SICK CALL,” AND THE SCENES THAT ACCOMPANIED IT--MUSTERING THE LAME, HALT AND DISEASED AT THE SOUTH GATE--AN UNUSUALLY BAD CASE--GOING OUT TO THE HOSPITAL--ACCOMMODATION AND TRE...

The night had been the most intensely cold that the country had known for many years. Peach and other tender trees had been killed by the frosty rigor, and sentinels had been fr...

We were informed that the place we were at was Blackshear, and that it was the Court House, i. e., the County seat of Pierce County. Where they kept the Court House, or County s...

To fully appreciate the condition of affairs let it be remembered that we were a community of twenty-five thousand boys and young men--none too regardful of control at best--and...

Clothing had now become an object of real solicitude to us older prisoners. The veterans of our crowd--the surviving remnant of those captured at Gettysburg--had been prisoners...

It did not require a very acute comprehension to understand that the Stockade at which we were gazing was likely to be our abiding place for some indefinite period in the future.

DULL WINTER DAYS--TOO WEAK AND TOO STUPID To AMUSE OURSELVES--ATTEMPTS OF THE REBELS TO RECRUIT US INTO THEIR ARMY--THE CLASS OF MEN THEY OBTAINED --VENGEANCE ON “THE GALVANIZED...

The rations of wood grew smaller as the weather grew colder, until at last they settled down to a piece about the size of a kitchen rolling-pin per day for each man. This had to...

Few questions intimately connected with the actual operations of the Rebellion have been enveloped with such a mass of conflicting statement as the responsibility for the interr...

I have before mentioned as among the things that grew upon one with increasing acquaintance with the Rebels on their native heath, was astonishment at their lack of mechanical s...

Early on the tenth morning after our capture we were told that we were about to enter Richmond. Instantly all were keenly observant of every detail in the surroundings of a City...

One night, toward the last of November, there was a general alarm around the prison. A gun was fired from the Fort, the long-roll was beaten in the various camps of the guards,...

FRANK REVERSTOCK’S ATTEMPT AT ESCAPE--PASSING OFF AS REBEL BOY HE REACHES GRISWOLDVILLE BY RAIL, AND THEN STRIKES ACROSS THE COUNTRY FOR SHERMAN, BUT IS CAUGHT WITHIN TWENTY MIL...

As the Autumn of 1863 advanced towards Winter the difficulty of supplying the forces concentrated around Cumberland Gap--as well as the rest of Burnside’s army in East Tennessee...

The Winter days passed on, one by one, after the manner described in a former chapter,--the mornings in ill-nature hunger; the afternoons and evenings in tolerable comfort. The...

“Illinoy,” said tall, gaunt Jack North, of the One Hundred and Fourteenth Illinois, to me, one day, as we sat contemplating our naked, and sadly attenuated underpinning; “what d...

FRUITLESS WAITING FOR SHERMAN--WE LEAVE FLORENCE--INTELLIGENCE OF THE FALL OF WILMINGTON COMMUNICATED TO US BY A SLAVE--THE TURPENTINE REGION OF NORTH CAROLINA--WE COME UPON A R...

I may not have made it wholly clear to the reader why we did not have the active assistance of the whole prison in the struggle with the Raiders. There were many reasons for thi...

But Kilpatrick, like Sherman, came not. Perhaps he knew that all the prisoners had been removed from the Stockade; perhaps he had other business of more importance on hand; prob...

Andrews and I did not let the fate of the boy who was killed, nor my own narrow escape from losing the top of my head, deter us from farther efforts to secure possession of thos...

To our minds the world now contained but two grand divisions, as widely different from each other as happiness and misery. The first--that portion over which our flag floated wa...

Certainly, in no other great community, that ever existed upon the face of the globe was there so little daily ebb and flow as in this. Dull as an ordinary Town or City may be;...

The gradually lengthening Summer days were insufferably long and wearisome. Each was hotter, longer and more tedious than its predecessors. In my company was a none-too-bright f...

Of all those more or less concerned in the barbarities practiced upon our prisoners, but one--Captain Henry Wirz--was punished. The Turners, at Richmond; Lieutenant Boisseux, of...

On New Year’s Day we were startled by the information that our old-time enemy--General John H. Winder--was dead. It seemed that the Rebel Sutler of the Post had prepared in his...

We roused up promptly with the dawn to take a survey of our new abiding place. We found ourselves in an immense pen, about one thousand feet long by eight hundred wide, as a you...

As the train left the northern suburbs of Savannah we came upon a scene of busy activity, strongly contrasting with the somnolent lethargy that seemed to be the normal condition...

Our old antagonists--the Raiders--were present in strong force in Millen. Like ourselves, they had imagined the departure from Andersonville was for exchange, and their relation...

May and June made sad havoc in the already thin ranks of our battalion. Nearly a score died in my company--L--and the other companies suffered proportionately. Among the first t...

For weeks we rode up and down--hither and thither--along the length of the narrow, granite-walled Valley; between mountains so lofty that the sun labored slowly over them in the...

Winder had found in Barrett even a better tool for his cruel purposes than Wirz. The two resembled each other in many respects. Both were absolutely destitute of any talent for...

After Wirz’s threat of grape and canister upon the slightest provocation, we lived in daily apprehension of some pretext being found for opening the guns upon us for a general m...

I began acquainting myself with my new situation and surroundings. The building into which I had been conducted was an old tobacco factory, called the “Pemberton building,” poss...

But, to return to the rations--a topic which, with escape or exchange, were to be the absorbing ones for us for the next fifteen months. There was now issued to every two men a...

After the executions Key, knowing that he, and all those prominently connected with the hanging, would be in hourly danger of assassination if they remained inside, secured deta...

Before going any further in this narrative it may be well to state that the nomenclature employed is not used in any odious or disparaging sense. It is simply the adoption of th...

We awoke one morning, in the last part of April, to find about two thousand freshly arrived prisoners lying asleep in the main streets running from the gates. They were attired...

In May the long gathering storm of war burst with angry violence all along the line held by the contending armies. The campaign began which was to terminate eleven months later...

We subsequently learned that we owed this good luck to Wirz’s absence on sick leave--his place being supplied by Lieutenant Davis, a moderate brained Baltimorean, and one of tha...

All during July the prisoners came streaming in by hundreds and thousands from every portion of the long line of battle, stretching from the Eastern bank of the Mississippi to t...

One of the train-loads from Richmond was almost wholly made up of our old acquaintances--the N’Yaarkers. The number of these had swelled to four hundred or five hundred--all lea...

WHY WE WERE HURRIED OUT OF ANDERSONVILLE--THE FALL OF ATLANTA --OUR LONGING TO HEAR THE NEWS--ARRIVAL OF SOME FRESH FISH--HOW WE KNEW THEY WERE WESTERN BOYS--DIFFERENCE IN THE A...

As November wore away long-continued, chill, searching rains desolated our days and nights. The great, cold drops pelted down slowly, dismally, and incessantly. Each seemed to b...

The rations diminished perceptibly day by day. When we first entered we each received something over a quart of tolerably good meal, a sweet potato, a piece of meat about the si...

One day in November, some little time after the occurrences narrated in the last chapter, orders came in to make out rolls of all those who were born outside of the United State...

Let the reader understand that in any strictures I make I do not complain of the necessary hardships of war. I understood fully and accepted the conditions of a soldier’s career...

Christmas, with its swelling flood of happy memories,--memories now bitter because they marked the high tide whence our fortunes had receded to this despicable state--came, but...

The time moved with leaden feet. Do the best we could, there were very many tiresome hours for which no occupation whatever could be found. All that was necessary to be done dur...

April brought sunny skies and balmy weather. Existence became much more tolerable. With freedom it would have been enjoyable, even had we been no better fed, clothed and shelter...

With each long, hot Summer hour the lice, the maggot-flies and the N’Yaarkers increased in numbers and venomous activity. They were ever-present annoyances and troubles; no time...

Of course, Andrews and I “flanked” into this crowd. That was our usual way of doing. Holding that the chances were strongly in favor of every movement of prisoners being to our...

In the morning we took a survey of our new quarters, and found that we were in a Stockade resembling very much in construction and dimensions that at Andersonville. The principa...

A NEW LOT OF PRISONERS--THE BATTLE OF OOLUSTEE--MEN SACRIFICED TO A GENERAL’S INCOMPETENCY--A HOODLUM REINFORCEMENT--A QUEER CROWD --MISTREATMENT OF AN OFFICER OF A COLORED REGI...

As each lagging day closed, we confidently expected that the next would bring some news of the eagerly-desired exchange. We hopefully assured each other that the thing could not...

There were two regiments guarding us--the Twenty-Sixth Alabama and the Fifty-Fifth Georgia. Never were two regiments of the same army more different. The Alabamians were the sup...

As the next nine months of the existence of those of us who survived were spent in intimate connection with the soil of Georgia, and, as it exercised a potential influence upon...

The emptying of the prisons at Danville and Richmond into Andersonville went on slowly during the month of March. They came in by train loads of from five hundred to eight hundr...

The official designation of our prison was “Camp Sumpter,” but this was scarcely known outside of the Rebel documents, reports and orders. It was the same way with the prison fi...

We were put into the old squads to fill the places of those who had recently died, being assigned to these vacancies according to the initials of our surnames, the same rolls be...

Those who succeeded, one way or another, in passing the Stockade limits, found still more difficulties lying between them and freedom than would discourage ordinarily resolute m...

A low, square, plainly-hewn stone, set near the summit of the eastern approach to the formidable natural fortress of Cumberland Gap, indicates the boundaries of--the three great...

The night that followed was inexpressibly dreary: The high-wrought nervous tension, which had been protracted through the long hours that the fight lasted, was succeeded by a pr...

In February my chum--B. B. Andrews, now a physician in Astoria, Illinois --was brought into our building, greatly to my delight and astonishment, and from him I obtained the muc...

Charley Barbour was one of the truest-hearted and best-liked of my school-boy chums and friends. For several terms we sat together on the same uncompromisingly uncomfortable ben...

The stockade was not quite finished at the time of our arrival--a gap of several hundred feet appearing at the southwest corner. A gang of about two hundred negros were at work...

perfectly and evenly, because all the parts are put in motion, and kept so in such a manner as to promote the movement of the blood to every extremity. They do not strain one se...

the exertion of great strength does not favor circulation. It rather retards it, and disturbs its equilibrium by congesting the blood in quantities in the sets of muscles called...