Within the two lines of palisades, and on the western side, was erected the single bakery which was to furnish the munition bread for the prisoners. Upon the hill to the northward, at the distance of two hundred paces from the outer line, was strangely placed the building which was known as the kitchen. The reason why this cookery was placed so far from water, and the direct line of communication with the main gate, the projectors alone can tell. Consider the enormous weight of provisions and water which full rations to even ten thousand men would require daily. Consider, then, the distance from the railway depot, the circuitous route to the entrance of the prison, the mode, and inefficient transportation, and you will have an idea of the ignorance, the carelessness, the perversity or wilfulness, or call it what you will, which prevailed here in the prison system, if system it can be termed.
XIII.
To the south, on the high land which overlooked the prison and its appendages, was erected the two-story building which served as quarters and offices for the officers and clerks. Along the same elevated ridge were located the well-built huts of the guards, who were selected from the Confederate Reserves of Georgia, under the command of Howell Cobb, and numbered from three to five thousand men. Farther to the west, along the same airy and commanding ridge, and close to the track of the railway, appears the large two-story wooden buildings, which were built and arranged, carefully and comfortably, for the sick of the rebel guards.
PLAN OF PRISON GROUNDS
ANDERSONVILLE
Measured by Dr. Hamlin
Copy right secured
XIV.
To the south-east, and at the distance of a stone’s throw from the prison, were placed the few miserable and decayed tents which were to serve as hospitals, in mockery of science and humanity.
To-day the traces of this useless philanthropy have passed away, but the results are fearfully shown in the field to the northward, where thirteen thousand soldiers sleep in death,—the harvest of one short year! “Here,” said one of the surgeons to the inquirer, “death might be predicted with almost absolute certainty.”
Here came a medical officer of the highest rank in the Rebel army, and one of the most eminent savans of the South, to study the physiology and philosophy of starvation. The notes of that fearful clinic are preserved, and may some future day startle the scientific world with their clearness, their candor, their positive evidence of the cause of death. Thus the scalpel silences the argument, the reasoning of sophistry.