I have been so often urged by old army comrades, as well as other friends, to publish the facts contained in the following pages in a convenient shape for preservation, that I have concluded to comply with their wishes, and now present them in this form. Many of the less important details have been omitted, as well with a view of preventing the story from becoming tiresome as of getting it within the limits of space it was intended it should occupy. While the experience was attended with trials and suffering, I wish to assure the reader that it was nothing more than was endured by hundreds of other boys who saw service in the War of the Great Rebellion. I would not go through it again for all the world, and yet I would not like to lose the satisfaction I enjoy in the knowledge of my success in overcoming so many seemingly insurmountable difficulties. It is a plain narration of facts, and is written without any effort to overdraw or embellish. I hand it over to the friends and comrades who have been urging me to publish it, in the hope that it will help to fill up an idle moment.
B. F. Hasson.
War Memories
"Flank out Frank, and go with us to-morrow."
We were squatted on the sandy ground—vermin-ladened sand—inside the prison stockade on Belle Island, discussing the probable destination of the prisoners then being daily removed from that place. Joseph Morton and Peter Deems of my own regiment and myself were of the party and the above remark was made by Morton and addressed to me. It was early in the month of March, 1864, and just after that famous raid to the vicinity of Richmond by Gen. Kilpatrick and Col. Ulrich Dahlgren. The daring troopers had even penetrated the defences of the city and thoroughly alarmed the Rebel authorities. Immediately steps were taken to remove the prisoners from Richmond to Andersonville, Ga., and other remote points in the South out of the reach of rescue by Federal raiders.