That there was scarcity of medicines, and all of those delicacies known to the cultivated or luxurious taste, there can be no doubt. Neither the country, nor the desires of the people, produced or favored their production; but let us thank Heaven there is proof that there were some among the medical officers in whom the virtues of the heart were not entirely reversed, who did protest against the needless deficiencies and the system of treatment.
The sufferings here were less poignant than in the pen; for nature always comes to the relief of dying mortals, and tempers the pangs of dissolution.
Food was demanded, but it was wanting. Shelter and the pure air of heaven were prayed for by gasping men; even these, too, were wanting. Yet close by rose the gigantic pines, of the growth of centuries, standing in all the grandeur of the primeval forests, and offering to the disordered vision and senses of the dying wretches grateful shades, cool bowers, or the images of home, and the forms of the well-loved, as the faint and sinking traveller beholds them in the far-off mirage of the desert.
XV.
The dense pine forests on either side still attest the luxuriant growth, which was regarded at the time of its selection as the finest timbered land of all Georgia. These immense pines are even yet so near as to cast their lengthened shadows, at morning and evening, over the accursed area where so many noble men perished for want of shelter from the heat of the noonday sun, the chilling dews of evening, and the frequent rain. The shade temperature of this place sometimes rose to the height of 105°, even 110° Fahrenheit. The sun temperature within the stockade must have risen to 120° and upwards, for the height of the walls prevented the free circulation of the air. The heat of this region during the days of summer is unusually great.
View of Officers’ Stockade, with rebel camps and hospitals in the distance.—Page 21.
Its elevation above the tide level is only about three hundred feet; and the hot blasts from the burning surface of the Gulf of Mexico, which is only about one hundred and fifty miles distant, sweep up over it northward, without being deviated or modified by ranges of mountains. The intervening country is unbroken, from distance to distance, by the undulation of the soil, and resembles more the level of a wide, green sea than the usual configurations of the solid earth. It bears the reputation of being unhealthy, and it is not strange; for there are certain isolated local climates which are absolutely pestilential, as we observe in the detached mountain groups and table lands of India and Southern Europe. Its isothermal line passes through Tunis and Algiers, and the hyetal charts show it to be one of the most humid regions in America.
Fifty-five inches of rain fall here annually, whilst Maine, with her constant fogs, receives but forty-two and England but thirty-two.
Was it possible for human life to endure these extremes of heat, rendered still more positive by exposure to the damp and chilly dews of the nights of southern latitude? It is a well-known fact, that neither men nor animals can labor or expose themselves with impunity to the rays of the noonday sun of tropical climes. Man, of all terrestrial animals, is the least supplied with natural protectives.