Part 17

As I have said, I wandered about until 12 o’clock, and was then in a worn out condition. Not knowing where to turn or lay my head, I sat down under a tree to rest myself, and as I sat there, who should come along but a watchman. “Hello!” says he, “what are you doing here at this hour of the night?” I answered that I was one of the guards guarding the Yankees at the stockade, and that I had been down to Bryan street to see my sister. “All right,” said he, “You fellows have a hard time guarding them d—d Yankees. Why don’t you shoot more of ’em and get ’em out o’ the way?” I passed on until I came to a place with a high board fence. I crawled over and looked around and found a small shed divided by a board partition. In one end they kept a cow and in the other some fodder. I went in where the fodder was and threw myself down and went to sleep, intending to be up before day; but what was my surprise when it proved to be broad daylight before I awoke. I lay there thinking what to do, when I heard the gate of the fence open. I jumped up and looked through a crack in the boards and saw an old man enter with a pail in his hand. Presently he came where I was in the fodder to get some for the cow. As he opened the door he started back with fright, saying, “Who are you and what brings you here?” I saw by his face and voice that he was an Irishman, and I made up my mind to tell him the truth. * * * He told me to remain where I was and he would try and get me something to eat. He went away and presently returned with a tin pan full of sweet potatoes and bacon. * * * * He told me the only way to get away was by the Isle of Hope, ten miles from the city on the Skidaway shell road. There was a picket post of twelve men right on the road, but I started off, and when I reached the picket put on a bold face and told them I belonged to Maxwell’s battery, stationed at the Isle of Hope, and they let me pass. * * * I passed officers and soldiers on the road, but they never took any notice of me further than to return my kindly greeting. I finally reached the outpost on the road, about a mile from freedom. I had known, even before starting, that to pass that post I should have to have a pass signed by the commanding officer at Savannah; but there were swamps on both sides the road, and I thought I could swim in the marsh and flank the post. I took off my jacket and made the attempt, but had to return to the road. * * * * I saw there was no use trying to escape by the Isle of Hope. I could not pass the outpost, and besides, there was great danger that I should be hung as a spy. So I put back to Savannah that night. I had to wade the marsh to get by the post I first passed. I got safely back to my cowshed and laid there till woke up the next morning by my friend Gleason. When I told him where I had been he would hardly believe me. * * * * He brought me something to eat and went away, but returned at night with two other men. Their names were Wall and Skelley and they belonged to the 3d Georgia artillery. They said they were northern men, but were in Savannah when the war broke out and had to join the rebel army. I told them the history of my adventure by the Isle of Hope and they were astonished. They said the only way was by the river to Fort Pulaski, fourteen miles from Savannah. The question was, where to get a boat. They were known in Savannah and their movements would be watched. They said they knew where there was a boat, but it was a government boat. I said that made it better, and if they would show me where the boat was, I would do the headwork. So they showed me and left me the management. I went when everything was ready, and muffled the oars and oarlocks, with a sentinel within twenty feet of me. The boat lay in the river, near the gas-house and a government store-house, and the river was guarded by gunboats and the floating battery, and paved with torpedoes; but there is what is called “the back river,” which flows into the Savannah above Smith Island. The mouth of this stream was guarded by a picket crew, sent from the battery every night; so when we left we had to lay in a rice sluice, where we ran the boat in about an eighth of a mile, and raised the grass as the boat passed along to conceal our tracks. We heard them searching the next morning, after the boat had been missed, but the search was at last given up. About this time Skelley began talking about being recaptured, as the shore was picketed all the way. He said there would be nothing done with me, if I was recaptured but to put me back in the stockade, while he and Wall would be shot as deserters. He proposed returning to Savannah at once. * * * * He began to win the other fellow over and I saw the game was up with me. Skelley was the only one of us who was armed and he had a Colt’s revolver. * * * * I told him that his plan was the best and that I didn’t want to be the means of getting him into trouble. I gained his confidence, but the thought of returning to Savannah never entered my head. I watched my chance, and at a favorable opportunity, snatched his pistol. * * * I rose to my feet with the pistol at full cock, pointed it at his breast and told him that one move towards returning to Savannah would end his career by a bullet from his own revolver. He turned all colors, but said nothing. I kept my distance, and at four o’clock in the afternoon told them to get into the boat. I then sat down in the stern and told them to pull out, which they did with a vim. Just as we passed the mouth, we heard the click of oars on the picket boat; but they were too late, and all the danger we had to encounter was the pickets on the shore which we had to hug on account of torpedoes in the channel. I don’t know how we ever passed safely over the torpedoes and by the pickets, which latter were within forty yards of us all the way along until we reached Pulaski. All that saved us was that the pickets had fires lighted and were looking at them, and our oars and oarlocks being muffled, they did not hear or see us. It was very dark when we struck the mouth of the Savannah, and whereabouts Fort Pulaski lay we knew not; but we kept pulling until halted by a soldier of the 144th N. Y. Infantry, who was guarding the place at that time. We were ordered to pull in, which we did, and were taken up to the commanding officer and questioned. He said it was the most daring escape ever made, up to that time, considering the obstacles we had to encounter. We were kept in the guard house until my statement was confirmed by the war department, when I was released and sent to Washington, where I reported to the Adjutant-General who gave me a furlough and sent me to the hospital. I remained there until spring, when I rejoined my regiment and was mustered out at the close of the war. * * * * *

I remain,

Your true friend,

MICHAEL HOARE.

REBEL TESTIMONY.

We cannot do better than copy into this book a very complete description of Andersonville Prison, by Joseph Jones, Surgeon P. A. C. S., Professor of Medical Chemistry in the Medical College of Georgia, at Augusta, Ga., as given at the Wirtz trial at Washington, D. C., he being a witness for the prosecution:

“Hearing of the unusual mortality among the prisoners confined at Andersonville, in the month of August, 1864, during a visit to Richmond, I expressed to the Surgeon General, S. P. Moore, Confederate States of America, a desire to visit Camp Sumpter, with the design of instituting a series of inquiries upon the nature and causes of the prevailing diseases. Small-pox had appeared among the prisoners, and I believed that this would prove an admirable field for the study of its characteristic lesions. The condition of Peyer’s glands in this disease was considered as worthy a minute investigation. It was believed that a large portion of the men from the Northern portion of the United States, suddenly transported to a Southern climate, and confined upon a small portion of land, would furnish an excellent field for the investigation of the relations of typhus, typhoid, and malarial fevers.

The Surgeon General of the Confederate States of America furnished me with letters of introduction to the surgeon in charge of the Confederate States Military prison at Andersonville, Ga., and the following is my description of that place:

The Confederate Military Prison at Andersonville, Ga., consists of a strong stockade, twenty feet in height, enclosing twenty-seven acres. The stockade is formed of strong pine logs, firmly planted in the ground. The main stockade is surrounded by two other similar rows of pine logs, the middle stockade being sixteen feet high, and the outer one twelve feet. These are intended for offense and defense. If the inner stockade should at any time be forced by the prisoners, the second forms another line of defense; while in case of an attempt to deliver the prisoners by a force operating upon the exterior, the outer line forms an admirable protection to the Confederate troops, and a most formidable obstacle to cavalry or infantry. The four angles of the outer line are strengthened by earthworks upon commanding eminences, from which the cannon, in case of an outbreak among the prisoners, may sweep the entire enclosure; and it was designed to connect these works by a line of rifle pits running zig-zag around the outer stockade; those rifle pits have never been completed. The ground enclosed by the innermost stockade lies in the form of a parallelogram, the larger diameter running almost due north and south. This space includes the northern and southern opposing sides of two hills, between which a stream of water runs from west to east. The surface soil of these two hills is composed chiefly of sand with varying mixtures of clay and oxide of iron. The clay is sufficiently tenacious to give a considerable degree of consistency to the soil. The internal structure of the hills, as revealed by the deep wells, is similar to that already described. The alternate layers of clay and sand, as well as the oxide of iron, which forms in its various combinations a cement to the sand, allows of extensive tunneling. The prisoners not only constructed numerous dirt houses with balls of clay and sand, taken from the wells which they had excavated all over these hills, but they have also, in some cases, tunneled extensively from these wells. The lower portion of these hills, bordering on the stream, are wet and boggy from the constant oozing of water. The stockade was built originally to accommodate ten thousand prisoners, and included at first seventeen acres. Near the close of the month of June the area was enlarged by the addition of ten acres. The ground added was situated on the northern slope of the largest hill.

Within the circumscribed area of the stockade the Federal prisoners were compelled to perform all the functions of life, cooking, washing, the calls of nature, exercise, and sleeping. During the month of March the prison was less crowded than at any subsequent time, and then the average space of ground to each prisoner was only 98.7 feet or less than eleven square yards. The Federal prisoners were gathered from all parts of the Confederate States east of the Mississippi, and crowded into the confined space, until, in the month of June the average number of square feet of ground to each prisoner was only 32.3 or less than four square yards. These figures represent the stockade in a better light even than it really was; for a considerable breadth of land along the stream flowing from west to east between the hills was low and boggy, and was covered with the excrements of the men and thus rendered wholly uninhabitable, and in fact useless for every purpose except that of defaction. The pines and other small trees and shrubs, which originally were scattered sparsely over these hills were in a short time cut down by the prisoners for firewood, and no shade tree was left in the entire enclosure of the stockade. With their characteristic industry and ingenuity, the Federals constructed for themselves small huts and caves, and attempted to shield themselves from the rain and sun, and night damps and dew. But few tents were distributed to the prisoners, and those were in most cases torn and rotten. In the location and arrangement of these huts no order appears to have been followed; in fact, regular streets appear to be out of the question on so crowded an area; especially, too, as large bodies of prisoners were from time to time added suddenly and without any preparations. The irregular arrangement of the huts and imperfect shelters was very unfavorable for the maintenance of a proper system of police.

The police and internal economy of the prison was left almost entirely in the hands of the prisoners themselves; the duties of the Confederate soldiers acting as guards being limited to the occupation of the boxes or lookouts ranged around the stockade at regular intervals, and to the manning of the batteries at the angles of the prison. Even judicial matters pertaining to the prisoners themselves, as the detection and punishment of such crimes as theft and murder appear to have been in a great measure abandoned to the prisoners.

The large number of men confined within the stockade soon, under a defective system of police, and with imperfect arrangements, covered the surface of the low ground with excrements. The sinks over the lower portions of the stream were imperfect in their plan and structure, and the excrements were in large measure deposited so near the borders of the stream as not to be washed away, or else accumulated upon the low boggy ground. The volume of water was not sufficient to wash away the feces, and they accumulated in such quantities as to form a mass of liquid excrement. Heavy rains caused the water of the stream to rise and as the arrangements for the passage of the increased amount of water out of the stockade were insufficient, the liquid feces overflowed the low grounds and covered them several inches after the subsidence of the waters. The action of the sun upon this putrefying mass of excrements and fragments of bread and meat and bones excited most rapid fermentation and developed a horrible stench. Improvements were projected for the removal of the filth and for the prevention of its accumulation, but they were only partially and imperfectly carried out. As the forces of the prisoners were reduced by confinement, want of exercise, improper diet, and by scurvy, diarrhea, and dysentary, they were unable to evacuate their bowels within the stream or along its banks; and the excrements were deposited at the very doors of their tents. The vast majority appeared to lose all repulsion of filth, and both sick and well disregarded all the laws of hygiene and personal cleanliness. The accommodations for the sick were imperfect and insufficient. From the organization of the prison, February 24, 1864, to May 22, the sick were treated within the stockade. In the crowded condition of the stockade, and with the tents and huts clustered thickly around the hospital, it was impossible to secure proper ventilation or to maintain the necessary police. The Federal prisoners also made frequent forays upon the hospital stores and carried off the food and clothing of the sick. The hospital was, on the 22d of May, removed to its present site without the stockade, and five acres of ground covered with oaks and pines appropriated to the use of the sick.

The supply of medical officers has been insufficient from the foundation of the prison.

The nurses and attendants upon the sick have been most generally Federal prisoners, who in too many cases appear to have been devoid of moral principle, and who not only neglected their duties, but were also engaged in extensive robberies of the sick.

From want of proper police and hygienic regulations alone it is not wonderful that from February 24 to September 21, 1864, nine thousand four hundred and seventy-nine deaths, nearly one-third the entire number of prisoners have been recorded.

At the time of my visit to Andersonville a large number of Federal prisoners had been removed to Millen, Savannah, Charleston, and other parts of the Confederacy, in anticipation of an advance of General Sherman’s forces from Atlanta, with the design of liberating their captive bretheren; however, about fifteen thousand prisoners remained confined within the limits of the stockade and prison hospital.

In the stockade, with the exception of the damp lowlands bordering the small stream, the surface was covered with huts, and small ragged tents and parts of blankets and fragments of oil-cloth, coats, and blankets stretched upon sticks. The tents and huts were not arranged according to any order, and there was in most parts of the enclosure scarcely room for two men to walk abreast between the tents and huts.

If one might judge from the large pieces of corn bread scattered about in every direction on the ground the prisoners were either very lavishly supplied with this article of diet, or else this kind of food was not relished by them.

Each day the dead from the stockade were carried out by their fellow prisoners and deposited upon the ground under a bush arbor, just outside of the southwestern gate. From thence they were carried on carts to the burying ground, one-quarter of a mile northwest of the prison. The dead were buried without coffins, side by side, in trenches four feet deep.

The low grounds bordering the stream were covered with human excrements and filth of all kinds, which in many places seemed to be alive with working maggots. An indescribable sickening stench arose from these fermenting masses of human filth.

There were near five thousand seriously ill Federals in the stockade and the Confederate States Military Prison Hospital, and the deaths exceeded one hundred per day, and large numbers of the prisoners who were walking about, and who had not been entered upon the sick reports, were suffering incurable diarrhea, dysentery, and scurvy. The sick were attended almost entirely by their fellow prisoners, appointed as nurses, and as they received but little attention, they were compelled to exert themselves at all times to attend the calls of nature, and hence they retain the power of moving about to within a comparatively short period of the close of life. Owing to the slow progress of the diseases most prevalent, diarrhea and chronic dysentery, the corpses were as a general rule emaciated.

I visited two thousand sick within the stockade, laying under some long sheds which had been built at the northern portion for themselves. At this time only one medical officer was in attendance, whereas at least twenty medical officers should have been employed.

Scurvy, diarrhea, dysentary, and hospital gangrene were the prevailing diseases. I was surprised to find but few cases of malarial fever, and no well-marked cases either of typhus or typhoid fever. The absence of the different forms of malarial fever may be accounted for in the supposition that the artificial atmosphere of the stockade, crowded densely with human beings and loaded with animal exhalations, was unfavorable to the existence and action of the malarial poison. The absence of typhoid and typhus fevers amongst all the causes which are known to generate these diseases, appeared to be due to the fact that the great majority of these prisoners had been in captivity in Virginia, at Belle Isle, and in other parts of the Confederacy for months, and even as long as two years, and during this time they had been subjected to the same bad influences, and those who had not had these fevers before either had them during their confinement in Confederate prisons or else their systems, from long exposure, were proof against their action.