Part 6

That bacon was furnished, there is no doubt; neither has the quantity been underrated by the sufferers themselves, as we shall presently see. And there is no reason why the quality should not have been most excellent, unless it had been selected for the purposes of cruelty. There is evidence that it was sometimes of very bad quality; but that it was generally and systematically selected to disgust the prisoners, we are unwilling to believe, although we have evidence that rotten bacon was furnished by contractors, and the fact boasted of by them. The influence and effect of this decomposed food may be surmised by the following remark of Donovan: "Flesh contains the elements of some of the most deadly poisons that are found even in the vegetable kingdom; a slight change in their mode of combination, or of the ratio of their quantities, may convert nutriment into a source of death."

XVIII.

There is another very important item to be considered in the dietary of this prison, and that is the quality and quantity of the water furnished for potable purposes. "Water," says Milne Edwards, "is an aliment, as well as sugar and fibrine; for it is indispensable for the nutrition of the body, and, by whatever means it arrives in the economy, its _rôle_ is always the same."

The water consumed in the prison was obtained from the brook, and from the few wells or springs within the stockade. The volume of water in the brook was quite sufficient to furnish all the drinking water desired, if it had been introduced into the stockade by means of sluices. As it was, the course of the stream was left to nature, and no effort made to prevent its defilement by the camps situated farther up, or by the bake-house located close by. All the camps on the declivities about Andersonville were drained into this stream. Some few wells were sunk in the prison which yielded scanty supplies, and there were also a few springs undefiled; but the quality of water everywhere was surface water, tinged and tainted with the impurities of the soil and the infections of the collected filth. The thirst, which was excessive among the prisoners, could only be slaked by drinking the impure waters. Yet a very little care on the part of the rebel authorities would have increased the comfort of the prisoners in this respect, and prevented the loss of life to a very considerable degree.

"The preservation of potable water," writes Felix Jacquot, "is certainly one of the capital points of hygiene."

"I am sometimes disposed to think," states Dr. Letheby, the health officer of London, "that impure water is before impure air as one of the most powerful causes of disease." In cold climates slight impurities in the drinking water are not of vital importance; but in the tropics, and the adjacent regions, the least decayed vegetable or animal matter renders it injurious and unpalatable, and often is the determining cause of disease, especially enteric, to a fearful degree.

XIX.

During the months of June, July, August, and September, 1864, there was an aggregate number of prisoners of about twenty-eight thousand for each month. To supply this vast number of men with bread would have been ordinarily no easy task, requiring, as it would have done, twenty-eight thousand rations of bread daily, or eight hundred and forty thousand rations monthly. We have shown that the bakery could not have furnished more than ninety-six hundred rations of corn bread, of the United States weight of twenty ounces, or ninety-six hundred rations daily, or two hundred and eighty-eight thousand rations monthly, and probably furnished but five thousand rations daily, or one hundred and fifty thousand rations monthly. If this deficiency of a half a million of rations existed, how can it be explained?

Was munition bread brought from a distance to supply the deficiency? When and whence, we will ask?

During the period embracing the months of July, August, and September, 1864, the rebel commissary furnished, according to his statements, two hundred and twenty-three thousand bushels of corn meal, and thirty-seven hundred bushels of flour for the prison.

There was, during this time (ninety-two days), a monthly aggregate of twenty-nine thousand prisoners, who required twenty-nine thousand rations of corn meal daily; or, multiplied by ninety-two days, two million six hundred and sixty-eight thousand rations for the period of three months; or, allowing the same weight as the rebel ration, we have 2,668,000 × 1-1/3 = 3,567,333 pounds of corn meal, or seventy-one thousand one hundred and forty-six bushels, allowing fifty pounds to the bushel. If we now estimate the rebel garrison to have been four thousand in the aggregate, we will have for the requirements, 4000 × 92 × 1-1/2 = 552,000 pounds of meal, or ten thousand one hundred and ninety bushels, which gives, as total for the prison and garrison, eighty-one thousand two hundred and eighty-six bushels of corn meal.

Yet the commissary states that he sent two hundred and twenty-three thousand bushels, or almost three times as much as the quantity required. This is a strange statement to make, as we shall endeavor to show.

The rebel ration allowed by their law gave thirty-seven and a half pounds of corn meal, three pounds of rice, or five pounds of peas, ten pounds of bacon, salt, &c., monthly, of twenty-eight days, or about twenty ounces of meal daily, and about six ounces of bacon. We have, as an aggregate number of men for the above period (prisoners and guards), 29,000 + 4000 × 92 = 3,036,000 men, requiring, according to law, three million seven hundred and ninety-five thousand pounds of corn meal. Now the commissary states that he furnished 226,700 bushels of corn meal and flour; or, multiplied by 50 pounds = 11,335,000 pounds, thus giving to each man more than three and one-fifth pounds of meal and flour; or, allowing the usual per cent. of water, more than four pounds of bread. That these men had sixty-eight ounces of corn bread apiece, or that they could have eaten it if they had been furnished that quantity, is not for a moment to be considered. This analysis betrays the falsity of the commissary's statement, and invalidates the remainder of his accounts.

It cannot be said that this meal was to be stored for future use, for it is well known that corn meal will not keep in this climate but for a few days without fermentation taking place. There is, again, another serious item to be considered in connection with this statement. Why should this overplus, of more than seven millions of pounds of meal, be sent to this prison, when the army of Virginia was calling loudly for grain? The statement and the figures indicate simply a foolish desire to cover up deficiencies, and that too in a very hasty manner.

XX.

The same commissary states that he sent, during the same period of time, three hundred and thirty-nine thousand pounds of bacon, or five million four hundred and twenty-four thousand ounces. This will give thirty-six hundred and eighty-four pounds of bacon each day of the ninety-two days; and, after allowing six ounces per man to the rebel garrison, we shall have remaining but two thousand pounds to be divided among the twenty-nine thousand prisoners, or about one and one seventh ounces of bacon to each man. Thus the account of the commissary, if true, proves that the statement of the prisoners, that they received but two to four ounces of bacon daily, was correct.

If the full amount of bacon had been allowed, there would have been required, at the rate of six ounces per man, ten thousand eight hundred and seventy-five pounds daily, whereas there was in reality but two thousand pounds, leaving a deficiency of more than eight thousand pounds daily. If fresh beef had been allowed at the same rate as the bacon, there would have been required ten thousand eight hundred and seventy-five pounds daily, or a herd of thirty of the native cattle, allowing three hundred and sixty pounds net weight to each carcass. If the full ration of one pound of fresh beef had been furnished, there would have been required more than one hundred and twenty of the same class of cattle daily.

XXI.

That the dietary of the prisoners was far from being adequate to their wants there is no doubt, and it only remains to be determined whether this deficiency arose from design, from ignorance, or from real scarcity of food.

We have very serious doubts as to the truth of the statements that there was a scarcity of food in this vicinity during the time of the occupation of the prison.

At the time of its selection the region was considered to be the richest in cereals of all the Southern States.

In times previous it had proved to be fertile, and during the progress of the war the slave labor was undisturbed by the Federal troops. It is shown by their own statistics that in 1860 the four counties near the prison, and along the line of railroad, produced nearly fourteen hundred thousand bushels of corn, thirty-three thousand bushels of wheat, three hundred thousand bushels of potatoes, and more than one hundred thousand bushels of beans and peas, besides forty-eight thousand bales of cotton. It is highly probable that these quantities were doubled, if not trebled and quadrupled during the succeeding years of the war, when the planting of cotton was forbidden by rebel ukase, and all energy and labor were turned to the production of food. There were in these four counties alone more than twenty thousand slaves.

In the south of Georgia, in the wire-grass region, were great numbers of cattle roaming at will, and the numbers in the everglades of Florida were so vast, that two old steamboat captains offered to furnish the rebel government, at this very period, with half a million pounds of salt beef, along the railroads in Florida. Governor Watts wrote from Alabama in April, 1864, that there were ten million pounds of bacon accessible in that State. In September of the same year, Mr. Hudson, of the adjoining State of Alabama, offered to deliver to the rebel government half a million pounds of bacon in exchange for the same quantity of cotton.

The rebel war clerk, in his diary at Richmond, wrote, March 17, 1864, "It appears that there is abundance of grain and meat in the country;" and again, July 3, 1864, he notes down, "Our crop of wheat is abundant, and the harvest is over."

According to the census of 1860, there were in Florida more than six hundred thousand cattle and swine, and more than five millions in Georgia and Alabama. These two States produced during the same year more than sixty million bushels of corn and thirteen million bushels of potatoes. (Vide Appendix.)

XXII.

As to the arrangement for the distribution of the food, there was but little attention paid to system. The prisoners were ordered to arrange themselves into squads of two hundred and ninety men, and these squads were then subdivided into three messes. None of these messes appear to have been properly supplied with utensils to receive and distribute their food. Every prisoner was obliged to take care of himself, and all around the area of the stockade may be seen at the present day remains of bent pieces of tinned iron, the rudely-fashioned little tub, and sections of the horns of cattle which the poor prisoners had worked up with their knives, and utilized for their necessities. Civilized men would never have resorted to these primitive, rough, and slovenly means, if they had been supplied with the ordinary utensils. At certain hours carts, laden with the corn bread and bacon, were driven into the enclosure, and the rations were distributed right and left. When soup was made, it was brought in pails, and the prisoners received it in their horn cups, wooden tubs, or as best they could. No drink was allowed but the water from the brook, whose ripples were like the river Lethe, for they contained the elements of oblivion and death.

XXIII.

It is evident to the writer that the quantity of food furnished to the prisoners was far from being adequate to support animal life, and from this deficiency alone he can explain to his satisfaction the enormous loss of life. The admirable experiments of Boussingault and the French academicians show how the increase of weight in the feeding of animals is in direct proportion to the amount of plastic constituents in the daily supply of food, and how positive is the law which regulates the animal economy. Again, we can form some idea of the positive effects of the horrible condition of the prison, and of the extremes of heat and moisture upon the feeble digestion and assimilation, by the experiments of Claude Bernard, who shows how these functions may be disturbed by external influences, and how agony even causes the disappearance of sugar in the hepatic organ, and how fear disturbs the glucogenic process. There is connected with inanition a singular tendency to decomposition and putridity, alike in the blood and viscera. The system left unnourished rapidly wastes, and its vitality soon lessens to a degree beyond recovery. This degree depends upon the forces in reserve, which belongs especially to youth; middle age is less liable to impressions, but when once affected, has less support from the system. The rapidity with which the dead decomposed immediately after death, astonished the observing surgeon.

The prevailing diarrhoea and scorbutic condition were the results of the want of food and the combined influences of the bad air and water, and not the primary causes of the feebleness and death.

The effect of the want of food first appears in loss of color--wasting away of the form, diminution of strength, vertigo, relaxation of the system of the viscera as well as of the muscles, diarrhoea appears, and rapidly closes the struggle of the natural forces for life.

A few days, or a few weeks, according to the initial condition, is sufficient to test the tenacity of the powers of life. Death always takes place whenever the diminution of the total weight of the body reaches certain limits, which is from 40/100 to 50/100 of the usual weight. We observe this law to be quite positive and regular with the lower animals, with whom the effect of starvation has been well studied, and the limit of loss, compatible with life, found to be 40/100 for mammals and 50/100 for birds.

BOOK FIFTH.

"Les Hôpitaux. C'est ici que l'humanité en pleurs accuse les forfaits de l'ambition."

I.

The Hospital is the recognized type of mercy, in its broadest range of benevolence, tenderness, and compassion, all over the countries of the earth, wherever the noble sentiments of nature have force. It is one of the emblems of the great religion of civilization. It is coeval with Christ, for it appeared among the institutions of men in definite shape only after the establishment of Christianity; and to its true exalting effects upon the dispositions of men, the Christian religion owes in great measure its rapid progress among the barbarous and pagan nations of the earth.

In earlier times public charity was rare or impulsive among the civil communities. It was only the suffering and disabled defenders of the general service who were cared for at the expense of the state, as at the Prytaneum among the Athenians, or the numerous asylums which munificent Rome erected to the brave men who carved out with their strong arms and their blades of steel the colossal forms of her glory and grandeur. The magnificent ruins of Italica, which sheltered the disabled veterans and heroes of Africanus, look down at the present day over the vast and fertile plains of the Guadalquivir, to reproach later and higher civilizations with neglect and ingratitude.

II.

But it is to the beneficent and sublime influences of Christianity that are to be attributed the noble institutions of the present day, where the suffering and infirm receive the attentions of science and the consolations of humanity.

Never among civilized nations are they profaned for the purposes of cruelty, never defiled by murder under the mask of philanthropy.

Enlightened communities vie with each other in self-sacrifice in the great and heroic labor of devotion to suffering mortality. It is the distinguishing degree of difference in their excellence, their refinement, their religion.

It is the last thought and reflection of the dying man, who, in dividing his worldly material with charity and benevolence, hopes to be kindly remembered on earth. It is the first dawning idea of childhood, with its infant hands filled with roses and garlands of flowers to relieve the pains of human suffering, or adorn the pale features of the departed.

To delight in human misery is the last degree of earthly degradation and perversity. The mockery of the agony of death belongs only to the fiends of hell and their baser imitators.

III.

Not until some time after the occupation of the prison did the care and condition of the sick attract the attention and excite the solicitude of the prison-keepers. Then a space was selected to the eastward, and almost adjoining the stockade, and here were pitched the decayed and dilapidated tents which were to form the hospital.

The exact size of the space is not known, the boundaries having disappeared since the evacuation; but the tents were arranged, it is said, with some degree of regularity, and the collection was surrounded by a fence, which served only to obstruct the circulation of free air, which was of vital importance; and besides, the fence was of no service whatever as protection against the escape of the inmates, as they were before admission generally far too feeble to make even an effort.

The actual amount of accommodation furnished is not known. By some it is stated that there were nothing whatever but a few rotten tent flies; by others, and among them one of the surgeons, it is narrated that there were tents to cover one thousand men, and three large kettles to provide for their cooking, and nothing more. Yet the records show that there were nearly four thousand men at one time in this hospital. This distribution of the means for the protection and sustenance of life is too terrible to be believed. Let us overlook it, for there is sufficient for execration elsewhere, without turning to the more revolting violation and desecration of one of the sanctuaries of civilization.

Beneath these tent covers there was neither straw, nor mattresses, nor bunks: there was simply the bare earth, with no protection but what was afforded by the rotten canvas, the scanty clothing, the ragged blanket, which the hapless sufferer might possess. Many of the unfortunate men who perished here had neither shelter nor clothing. The rapacity of the captors had taken the remnants of the rags left by the fury of battle. For this want of shelter, and couches to protect and rest the weary limbs, there is no excuse, and there can be none; for in the adjoining forests there were immense quantities of timber accessible, and easy of conversion into manufacture, and the extremities of the boughs of the long-leaved or Southern pine afforded the means of making comfortable and healthy beds.

There were then within the stockade many thousands of men accustomed to the use of the axe, the adze, the saw, and the plane, who would have in few days fashioned implements of steel out of the useless scraps of railway iron lying at the depot, and transformed the forest into vast, even magnificent buildings, replete with the comforts, the conveniences of advanced art. There were artisans here, of education and ingenuity, who could have formed out of the very dust of the place edifices as beautiful and wonderful to the imagination and understanding as the reality was repulsive and strange.

IV.

The guards furnished themselves with comfortable huts, arranged with the common conveniences, and their bunks were suspended above the contact of the treacherous ground. Their invalids were well cared for also in the large hospital which was erected expressly for the garrison, and which consisted of two large two-story wooden buildings, admirably arranged, with the conveniences proper to the service. The kitchen, the dispensary, the ventilation, and the general arrangement, showed that scientific care and forethought had been observed there.

The hospital system of the rebels was quite complete, and most of their hospitals throughout the country were well constructed and equipped; and some of them were models of neatness, comfort, and scientific arrangement.

The garrison hospital at Andersonville offers a terrible contrast to the open space, the wretched agglomeration, which the rebel authorities called a hospital for the prisoners.

It is true that the commanding officers were compelled, from some unknown pressure,--whether the sense of shame, or dictate from Richmond,--to order and commence the erection, at a late date, of a new hospital stockade. This was to consist of a high palisade, about one thousand feet in length, with twenty-two open sheds erected in the interior; but it was never finished, nor occupied, and it remains to-day as it was left by the rude, black artisans, one of the evidences of either remorse or reluctant obedience to the lingering sense of natural compassion of its senseless and heartless rulers.

V.

In the organization of a hospital the most important parts are the system of nursing and the supply and cooking of food; when these are observed, much exposure to the elements can be endured.

Pestilences are retarded, and sometimes completely checked, in their destructive career when opposed by generous alimentation and sympathetic care; and the vital powers,--the _vis medicatrix naturæ_,--rally their mighty strength for renewed effort. We have for instance the great and marked change in the healthy condition and the mortality of the British army before Sebastopol in the spring of 1856, when England poured out lavishly her treasures, and sent men of scientific ability to correct the well-nigh fatal errors of hygiene which were committed by her military men.

We have also another instance in the check of a devastating pestilence at New Orleans, as observed and mentioned by Dr. Cartwright. "As soon as a generous public diffused the comforts of life among the seventy thousand destitute emigrant population of New Orleans, last summer, the pestilence, which was sweeping into eternity three hundred a day, immediately began to disappear, before frost or any other change in the weather, its artificial fabric being broken down by the beneficent hand of the American people."

VI.

Here there appears to have been neither system, nor order, nor humanity. The chances of recovery were far less than the certainty of death. In reality, it was almost certain death; for only twenty-four out of the hundred who entered ever returned to the prison again. Those patients who possessed sufficient strength helped themselves to what was at hand, and what was afforded by the meagre dietary; those who had not, folded their arms and died.

Medical men went through the formality of prescribing for the dying men, but with formulæ whose ingredients were unknown to them.

Some of these surgeons gloated over the distresses of their fellow-men, and delighted in the awful destruction of life which was branding with eternal infamy the manhood of their nation.

Others turned and wept, for humanity was not extinct. Those tears have in part blotted out and redeemed the fearful inscriptions in that record of the events of life which form the history of the human race.

It is not known that woman ever visited these precincts from feelings of compassion, and offered to console the last moments of the dying. We do know that they gazed upon the scene from a distance, but with what emotion history wisely makes no note.