ROTTEN CORNMEAL AND PICKLED RATIONS
While at Fort Pulaski, Gen. J. G. Foster, the Yankee general commanding the department, and a cruel, unfeeling wretch he must have been, issued an order to put the prisoners on ten ounces of cornmeal and half pint of onion pickles per day.
This cornmeal was shipped from the North, was completely spoiled and utterly unfit for food, being mouldy, in hard lumps, and full of worms, big and little, some of them an inch long. The brands on the barrels showed that this cornmeal was ground at Brandywine in the year 1861. This was done, it was said, in retaliation for the Confederates feeding the Yankee prisoners on cornbread and sour sorghum. We would have been very glad to have gotten cornbread and sorghum, such as the Yankee prisoners had. They did not even give us salt, absolutely nothing but this ten ounces of rotten, wormy cornmeal and pickles, and would not allow those who had money to buy anything to eat from the sutler's. Some say that Edward M. Stanton, the Yankee Secretary of War, the arch-fiend of South-haters, was responsible for this cruel treatment. It savored of many of Stanton's acts during and after the war. In consequence of this inhuman order, there was a great deal of sickness and many deaths among the prisoners. "Starved to death," said the Yankee surgeon who attended the sick, "medicine will do them no good." Scurvy, a loathsome disease, prevailed to an alarming extent; the gums would become black and putrid, the legs full of sores, drawn and distorted. Many a poor fellow, in attempting to make his way to the sinks, would fall fainting to the ground. I remember, in one day, assisting three of these unfortunates to rise from the ground and back to their bunks. To substantiate what I have here recorded as facts, I give the following from the "War of the Rebellion, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series II, Vol. VIII, page 163":
"Headquarters, District of Savannah,
Savannah, Ga.,
February 1, 1865.
"Assistant Adjutant General,
Headquarters, Department of the South:
"My medical director yesterday inspected the condition of the Rebel prisoners confined at Fort Pulaski, and represents that they are in a condition of great suffering and exhaustion for the want of sufficient food and clothing; also that they have the scurvy to a considerable extent. He recommends as a necessary measure, that they be at once put on full prison rations ("full prison rations," God save the mark!), and also that they be allowed to receive necessary articles of clothing from their friends. I would respectfully endorse the surgeon's recommendation and ask authority to take such steps as may be necessary to relieve actual sickness and suffering.
(Signed) "C. Grover,
Brevet Major-General,
Commanding."
Now, here it is from their own records, showing how wantonly and cruelly the Yankees treated these prisoners.
During these frightful days I made a ring out of a gutta-percha button, which was traded to a Yankee soldier, on the sly, for a good chunk of middling meat, which was a Godsend. I escaped the scurvy, but my messmate, Captain Horton, had it pretty badly, although I shared the meat with him. The prisoners killed and ate all the cats they could catch. I ate a small piece of a cat myself, and would have eaten more if I could have gotten it. One of the Yankee officers had a fat little dog that followed him into the casemates when making his tours of inspection; the hungry prisoners longed to get this dog, but he kept close to his master's heels, as if cognizant of the fact that he was on dangerous ground. With half a chance he would have been caught, killed, skinned, and devoured in short order. Some one may have nabbed this dog; I don't know.
These starvation days lasted about two months. During this time a Yankee major, out of compassion for the starving prisoners, went out with a boat and net one day, caught and gave to the prisoners a number of fresh fish, which were greatly enjoyed. This kindness was duly appreciated. But those higher in authority forbade its repetition, and we got no more fish.
While at Fort Pulaski the "Lee Chess Club" got out a paper, in pen and ink, foolscap size; I was one of the scribes and preserved a copy. A few years ago I sent this copy to the Confederate Museum at Richmond, Va., where it is now preserved in a glass case in the Virginia Room, in the White House of the Confederacy.