Part 4

Sometimes the heavy rains washed away the roofs of mud, inundating the occupants beneath. Some of the poor wretches had not the strength to lift up the incumbent mass of earth, and perished miserably in their dens. There are now in these demolished excavations the bones of some of our fellow-citizens, unknown and unhonored. The cry of distress was so constant that few heeded the smothered moan. The stumps of the fallen trees were grubbed up by the knives and fingers of the prisoners for firewood to warm themselves with, or to cook their scanty food; even the roots were followed down deep into the earth, for the purpose of obtaining the means of warmth which were almost entirely denied them by the prison keepers.

X.

There is no excuse for this wanton exposure to the vicissitudes of the climate, for the forests adjoining were immense in their extent, and thousands of the suffering men offered, begged to go and obtain material to build sheds or huts to protect them from the inclemency of the weather. Neither parole was allowed for this purpose, nor real attempts made to obtain the building tools. To show the force of the argument that the rebels had not sufficient aid, and that it would have been dangerous to have paroled any of these prisoners, there is the fact that there were several large steam saw-mills in the vicinity, and they could have easily afforded, in few weeks, all the lumber required for the purpose of shelter.

Was it recklessness, was it perversity, or was it malice aforethought, that withheld from the prisoners the means of shelter? The few sheds that were erected were not commenced until late in the term of its occupation, too late to render much service. They were merely roofs of boards, placed upon posts, at the distance of seven feet from the ground. There were neither sides nor partitions to these sheds, and they were not required during the hot months.

Pity was not a virtue that was recognized here: the noble impulses of the heart were reversed, and the natural instincts perverted.

The dead bodies of the thousands who perished within the stockade, without medical attendance, were dragged forth, without care, and thrown promiscuously into the common field-carts, which, with their carelessly heaped-up burdens, proceeded to the trenches, where the dead heroes were laid in long lines, side by side, two or three hundred in a trench, and then a stick was thrust into the ground, at the head of each man, to indicate the place of burial. For the care observed in the burial of the dead after the carts arrived at the cemetery, and the preserving of the records of the victims, and the place, we are indebted to our own men, who were paroled especially for the purpose.

The only solicitude observed by the rebels during or after interment of their victims, was shown by the civil engineer or surveyor of the town. He thought that so much animal matter should not go entirely to waste, and so commenced to plant grape vines over the mounds of the decomposing dead.

To show the utter want of decency which ruled all things connected with the prison, it is stated by positive eye-witnesses that the same carts that transported the dead, went forth (without being cleansed of their reeking and disgusting filth), to the shambles and the depots for the meat and corn for the living prisoners.

XI.

An eminent statistician has stated that mortality is in direct ratio to the density of population, and that superficial area is as essential to health as cubic space. To the writer's mind, the overcrowding of the men, and their exposure to the variations of heat and cold, the influence of moisture, and the foul emanations of the infected soil, were sufficient to cause great destruction of human life; and when combined with the deficient dietary, the imagination can hardly conceive of a better field for disease and death than the condition of this swarming pen. All the elements and combinations of physical destructiveness were here in full play. "Losses by battle," says Sir Charles Napier, "sink to nothing, compared with those inflicted by improperly constructed barracks, and the jamming of soldiers--no other word is sufficiently expressive." "Diseases," states the French Inspector Baudens, "slay more men than steel or powder, and it is often easy to prevent them by a few simple hygienic precautions."

In all campaigns where the care of the soldier is left to the military man,--who is educated for destruction, and has not been taught in the economy of life,--we see in the mortuary and non-efficient lists a disgraceful and culpable array of thoughtless routine, vulgar prejudices, and systems. In our Military Academies the elements and the means of destruction are taught, but not a law unfolded that relates to the principles of health, strength, and life. To alleviate the burden of the military list by sanitary measures is an idea unheard of, or at least unnoticed. "For these works," writes Chadwick, in his papers on "Economy," "a special training is needed for our military engineers, whose present peculiar training is only for old works for war, and for those imperfectly,--works for the maintenance of the health of an army being necessary means to the maintenance of its military strength.

"The one-sided character of the common training of our military engineers was displayed in the Crimea, in the proved need of a sanitary commission to give instruction for the selection and the practical drainage of proper sites for healthy encampments, for the choice collection and the proper distribution of wholesome water, for the construction of wholesome huts, and the proper shelter and treatment of horses as well as men."

XII.

In this enclosure, during a period of twelve months, from five thousand to thirty-six thousand human beings ate, slept, and drank, whilst the piles of filth were constantly accumulating, and the germs of infection silently at work. There was no regularity in the arrangement of the interior. Men collected in groups in the day time, and they lay in rows, like swine, at night.

The stream, which with little ingenuity could have been turned to a blessing for the prison, was allowed to be obstructed by the heaps of grime; and enlarging its area, it assisted in forming the extensive quagmires, which were several acres in extent. So little care was observed for the comfort or the health of the prisoners, that all the washings of the bakery, all the filth of the out-houses of the workmen, were allowed to pass down and mingle with the current of the stream only thirty feet above the point of entrance into the stockade. The traveller can observe to-day that this malicious act of refined cruelty, or fatal error in hygiene, was really perpetrated.

Besides this, the drains of the camp and the town above emptied themselves into this stream which supplied the prison with water.

XIII.

The bakery was located on the west side of the stockade, about equidistant from either line of palisade. It was of rough boards, and but one story in height. Its interior disclosed two rooms, one of which communicated with the two ovens, which were built of common brick. These two ovens--fourteen feet in length by seven feet in width, and with one kneading-trough fifteen feet long, and less than three feet in width--supplied the prisoners with all the bread they obtained; and so far the writer has not learned that there was any other source of supply.

These same ovens, kept red hot, and worked night and day, to the fullest capacity, by the commissary bakers of the United States service, could not have produced but eight thousand rations of white bread, and but nine thousand six hundred rations of corn bread. This is the extreme limit; and regarded by the workmen, who have made the calculations, as almost an impossibility. The ordinary capacity of this establishment was probably about four or five thousand rations of corn bread. This quantity, divided daily among thirty thousand men, would give but a small morsel to each one; and this gives the appearance of truth to the statement, that from two to six ounces of corn bread were furnished as rations to the prisoners.

Ask a survivor of this prison treatment, if perchance you can find one, how he preserved his life, and he will tell you, "By eating the rations of the dying." Ten thousand men were sick or dying in this enclosure at one time.

After the carts, with their scanty burdens of food, had passed into the prison, and distributed their contents, ten or fifteen thousand of the haggard and starving men might be seen collected together in the central portion of the prison trading with each other. Some of the poor wretches would be offering a handful of peas for a knot of wood no larger than the human fist, in order that they might cook their allowance; others offering, in barter, their remnants of clothing--a cap, or a shoe, or anything they possessed--for a morsel of food.

The little knots of wood above mentioned had a standard value of fifty cents; yet there were immense forests all around, and within sight on every side.

XIV.

There appears to have been but one kitchen for this vast assemblage, and that strangely situated--far in rear of the outer palisade, away from water-course or spring. The soil to-day does not present traces of a much-travelled road from its doorway to the main gate, distant about one third of a mile by the route taken. Consider the enormous weight of provisions which should have passed over this road when the prison contained more than twenty thousand men. This kitchen was a plain one-story shed, built of rough boards, one hundred feet in length, and less than fifty feet in width. It contained in the interior two medium-sized ranges, and four boilers of fifty gallons' capacity each. The capacity indicated does not by far equal the cooking apparatus which is required and furnished to the Lincoln and Harewood Hospitals, of Washington, for twelve hundred men.

It is the opinion of the writer, who is familiar with the amount of cooking apparatus required by large hospitals and camps, that this kitchen, with its implements, could not, in the course of twenty-four hours, by constant relays of industrious workmen, have furnished cooked rations to more than five thousand men. There may have been other arrangements for cooking in the open air; but there are no longer any traces of such operations, nor has the writer any evidence that such was the case.

XV.

Upon the banks of the same stream, and near the railroad station, was erected the stockade which was intended for the confinement of the officers; but it was abandoned, after few weeks' occupation, partly from motives of prudence and in fear of revolt in keeping officers near so great a number of the rank and file of the army, and partly from the unfortunate selection of the locality. The officers were removed to Macon, and were confined there in the cotton sheds during a long period. This pen, known as the officers' stockade, was built of pine-tree palisades, fifteen feet high, and measured one hundred and ninety-five feet in length by one hundred and eight feet in width, and was provided with a shed in the interior forty-five feet long by twenty-seven feet wide, and also with a walk, suspended on the outside of the palisade, for the use of the sentries. The location and the provisions of this stockade were worse and more dangerous than even the main prison.

XVI.

On the pathway to the graveyard, not far from the prison, and in open sight, was built the hut where the bloodhounds were kept, always ready to track and pursue the fugitives, who were so fortunate as to escape by evading the vigilance of the guards, or by the slow and dangerous process of tunnelling beneath the palisades. The system of pursuit was so perfect, the dogs so numerous and well trained, that it was very rarely that any one escaped, and then it was only by the kind intervention of the black man.

There were but nine bloodhounds kept here, but there were more than fifty dogs, kept in relays, along the route of escape, extending from the town to the city of Macon, fifty miles distant. The names of these inhuman wretches, who kept and hunted with these hounds, are known to the writer, the places of their residence, the number of their animals, and the price they received for each hapless victim overpowered by their dogs. These packs of hounds were generally accompanied by dogs of fierce and determined courage, to seize and hold the object pursued until the hunters arrived. The ordinary bloodhound of these regions is cowardly from degeneration, and dare not face the look, nor disregard the voice of man, and until the catch-dogs arrive and dash in, and lead the way, they bay and show their teeth from safe distances; but the victim once disabled, they tear and rend the living limbs without reluctance. The bloodhound is said, when in a state of tranquillity, to be the most affectionate of all the canine race, but when once excited, he no longer recognizes the blood of his master from that of the stranger. That many men were pursued, and caught, and paid for by the rebel authorities, at the price of thirty dollars a head, there is abundant proof; that men were disabled, and torn wantonly by the hounds, and afterwards died of their wounds, the writer has positive proof. That Federal soldiers were overpowered and destroyed in the forests by the dogs, and their brutal owners, there is evidence.

It did not shock the civil communities of the South to hear of the use of the bloodhounds to pursue and maim men of their own race and nation, for in every locality, for a long period past, it had been the custom to rear and train dogs to catch the hapless slave who had incurred the rage of his master, and vainly sought to escape from his fury in the obscure recesses of the tangled forests.

Usage, by long repetition, had blunted the natural sympathies, so that hate readily excused the difference in class and color.

XVII.

The bloodhounds here used appear to have been of a degenerate breed, and to have lacked the great strength, the invincible determination, which the true race possesses. The bloodhounds introduced into Cuba, to exterminate the Indians, were ferocious and powerful animals. From these the present stock in Southern Georgia were probably descended, and during three centuries of change, have gradually lost their nobler qualities, but have preserved the form. The true bloodhound is taller than the fox-hound, and stronger in his make. His color is of a reddish brown, shaded here and there with darker tints. His muzzle and jaws wide and strong, and the frame firmly knit. His scenting power is extraordinary, and from time immemorial his services have been made use of in tracking wounded animals or fugitives from justice.

"Soon the sagacious brute, his curling tail Flourished in air, low bending, plies around His busy nose, the steaming vapor snuffs Inquisitive, nor leaves one turf untried, Till, conscious of the recent stains, his heart Beats quick; his snuffing nose, his active tail Attest his joy: then with deep, opening mouth, That makes the welkin tremble, he proclaims Th' audacious felon: foot by foot he marks His winding way, while all the listening crowd Applaud his reasonings, o'er the watery ford, Dry sandy heaths, and stony, barren hills; O'er beaten paths, with men and beasts disdained, Unerring he pursues, till at the cot Arrived, and seizing by his guilty throat The caitiff vile, redeems the captive prey."

BOOK FOURTH.

I.

Animals eat that they may live. Man eats, not only that he may live, but that he may gather strength, and fulfil his high destiny on earth.

When God gave form and animation to the dust of the earth, and man appeared, he did not intend that the sustenance of life should be left to chance or to careless selection. This intent of the Creator is revealed in the study of the organic world, where wonderful varieties and productions are offered to the appetite of man, in order that the "force of the universe may glow within his veins," and that the faculties of his mind may so expand that he may behold and comprehend the works and designs of his Maker.

Food, next to the purity of the air, determines the degree of the physical well-being; it gives the beauty of contour to the form; it builds up the marvellous structure of the brain; the ravishing smile of the features, the sublimity of thought, depend alike in great measure upon the benign influence of food.

It not only gives to nations their characteristics of strength and solidity, but it bestows upon society more of grace and refinement than philosophy is willing to allow.

II.

The question of alimentation with the civil laborer, exposed to healthy influences of properly distributed air and sunlight, and to the regular motions of a well-conducted life, is easy of solution to the inquiring mind.

But when it relates to the soldier, subjected to strange and unhealthy influences, the explanations involve much study, care, and research.

In the natural condition of man it is easy to determine how much food will support life and sustain physical exertion. The dietaries of the public institutions of different countries, the experiments of physiologists, and the records of history give the data with sufficient clearness. As to the amount of food required daily to repair the waste and wants of the human organism, much depends upon the degree of muscular exertion and nervous excitation, as well as the temperature of the season. In the alimentation of armies scientific principles must not be disregarded. Food must be considered as force; it must contain, not only material, but power. The strength of men, says Baron Liebig, is in direct ratio to the plastic matter in their food.

In determining the absolute quantities of nutrient substances required by the system, Lehman observes that there are three magnitudes especially to be considered.

The first is the quantity requisite to prevent the animal from sinking by starvation. The second is that which affords the right supply of nourishment for the perfect accomplishment of the functions, and the last is that which indicates the amount of nutrient matter which may, under the most favorable circumstances, be subjected to metamorphosis in the blood. No one of the four classes, the carbohydrates, the fats, the albuminous matters, and the salts, will answer the purpose alone, but all must be employed together, and this invariable proportion according to the local, and, therefore, variable waste of the system. These considerations indicate how complicated the problem is.

III.

Life is an action; the principle of life, whatever may be its nature, is eminently and visibly a principle of excitation, of impulsion, a motive power.

"It is taking a false idea of life," says Cuvier, "to consider it as a simple link which binds the elements of the living body together, since, on the contrary, it is a power which moves and sustains them unceasingly."

These elements do not for an instant preserve the same relation and connection; or, in other words, the living body does not for an instant keep the same state and composition. "This law," adds Flourens, "does not affect alone the muscles, viscera, and tissues, but there is a continual mutation of all the parts composing the bone." These views have been substantiated by the extended experiments of Chossat, of Von Bibra, and a host of experimentalists, showing how positive and decided are the changes in the material composition of the body, and especially the constitution of even the bone from the influence of food.

IV.

"It is from the blood that life derives the principles which maintain and repair it. The more vigorous, plastic, and rich in nutritive material, so much the more life increases and manifests itself, so much the quicker the reparatory processes restore a lesion to its natural condition.

"The blood owes its vivifying properties to the presence of oxygen, which it receives by the respiratory organs; but that nourishing fluid, to complete its physiological _rôle_, needs to receive combustible and organizable material."

These Protean principles of the healthy blood form one fifth of its weight.

Oxygen unites with the carbon of the food in the blood of animals; carbonic acid is formed and heat evolved. When the atmosphere is vitiated, the oxygenating processes are diminished in ratio to the vitiation.

The experiments of Seguin, Crawford, and De la Roche show that in a vitiated and highly heated atmosphere the blood is not thoroughly decarbonized, thereby deranging the nervous system, and affecting the animal functions as well as the mental faculties. The blood is subject to incessant variations. The more feeble the respiration the less rich it is. Man absorbs twenty to thirty quarts of oxygen every hour. The pure air is a real food, and is as necessary for the development and repair of the physical force as the more solid forms of matter. Nine ounces of carbon are consumed every day, and the phenomenon of the expired carbonic acid has its maxima and minima during the day, like the regular variations of the barometer or the tides of the ocean.

V.

The great nervous prostration and the lack of energy which were observed among the prisoners, were not due entirely to climate. The activity of the nervous mechanism depends greatly upon the supply and purity of the arterial blood. It is the same with the nerve fibres as with the nerve centres, but in less degree. We observe that the exaltation and depression of the nervous power are within the control of man by the administration of certain drugs, or respiration of appropriate gases. The accumulation of bile or urea in the blood diminishes the nerve energy. Many physiologists enumerate moral depressions among the principal causes of epidemics; and this opinion is not strange when we consider how completely the system is under control of the nervous influence, and how much the supply of oxygen and blood to the organs and tissues depend upon the nervous power; and how much, moreover, the integrity of the nervous system depends upon the purity of the blood.

In the process of starvation, during the struggle for life, the hidden forces in reserve--the superabundant muscle, fat, tissues, even the brain-substance--are gradually absorbed. The volume of blood may remain the same, but the vivifying particles which circulate in the vital stream are rapidly consumed by the wants of the wasting economy, and disappear. And when these hematic globules are lessened to a certain limit below the normal proportion death ensues. Vierodt has discovered that the limit of this singular law is 52 per 1000 for the dog, and about 60 per 1000 for some other species of the mammalia. The physiologists have shown how the vivifying principles acquire vigor through the blood discs, and how these, when absorbing pure oxygen through the pulmonary circulation, contribute to the development of muscular fibre and the nervous material. Mammals and birds, when deprived of food, die in ten to twenty days, losing from one third to one half of their weight.

VI.

In determining the nutritive value of aliments by the study of their chemical composition, we cannot adhere strictly to the results furnished by analysis. For, says Baron Liebig, we cannot reckon upon results in the human stomach with the same regularity as we would in the alembics of our laboratories.