(395) For a time there was much stealing in camp, incited no doubt largely by the dire necessities of the men; but after awhile we got police appointed to stop the stealing, which they did, and to attend to other matters. For instance the "Hundred Days Men" seemed to not endure the hardships here so well as the old soldiers. They would mope and set around and they died relatively much faster than the old soldiers. When the police would see one of those dispirited fellows they would fasten on his back a wooden contrivance that they called a "spread-eagle" to keep him from sitting down, and they would make him move about for his health.
(396) We were kept somewhat informed as to the progress of the war by the arrival from time to time of some of our men who had been recently made prisoners.
(397) There is no tragedy so dark but it has its relieving features. And one of the comic ways the prisoners had of beguiling the time was this: One of them would run his hand into his shirt bosom and say inquiringly to another: "Grey back or no grey back?" as if he were playing "Odd-or-even." The addressed would perhaps answer "No grey back," when the proposer of the guess would likely say, "You have missed it," pulling out one.
(398) After being kept here for some months, though I did not get so like a skeleton as some, my flesh became in so unhealthy a state from having the scurvy, that when I would press my finger on it, the print would remain for a long time as if my flesh were putty. I got to be one of the very sick.
(399) At the end of my imprisonment here of about four months, the sickest of the prisoners, or a part of them, were taken out to be exchanged. I came very nearly not getting out that time, for my name was close to the end of the list of names called. We were taken first to Millin, Ga., and we stayed here a few days, the sicker part of us on one side of the camp, and the others on the other side. The prisoners would while here sit around fires all night, and in the morning many of them would be found dead where they had sat.
(400) Once while here I went after some water. I was so weak that I had to use a cane. Coming back I fell and spilled the water. I was too weak to go for more, was discouraged, felt like giving up, and do not know what I should have done if an artillerymen of a Wheeling battery had not brought me the water. He and I parted promising to write to each others friends when we should get home. A part of us myself included, were taken to Savannah where we were exchanged, changing our clothes here.
(401) We were taken from here to Annapolis where we again changed clothing. Once more we were in God's country! At Annapolis we were restricted for a few days as to the amount of food we got. One day at my meal I did not want my meat and a comrade nearby eyed it eagerly. At last he inquired, "Are you going to eat that meat?" I told him that I was not when he snapped it up quickly.
(402) When I got to Annapolis one of the first men I saw was "Happy Jack." He was much changed by his hardships but I knew him by his black curly hair. His buoyant spirits had brought him through.
(403) I got home after the frosts of the fall of the year had come. I wrote according to promise to the Wheeling artilleryman's friends. His sister answered my letter that he was killed on board of a government steamer on his way home up the Mississippi by its explosion.
(404) Thus ends my story of prison life at Andersonville. No attempt is made to give anything like an adequate account of it—that could not be done—but rather I have tried mainly after 27 years have passed to recall some of the matters concerning it, that I do not remember to have read about in any account that I have seen.