What a page of darkness for the future historian!
On the other hand, the Rebel prisoners in the North received invariably the same rations, in quality and quantity, given to the Union soldiers in the field, with ample clothing, fuel, and shelter. So unexceptional was their treatment, that since the war a Southern writer, desirous of removing the load of infamy resting upon the South, has advertised for statements of unkind treatment in Northern prisons![76]
Of the treatment of Union soldiers in the Southern prisons the United States Sanitary Commission says:—
"The prisoners were almost invariably robbed of everything valuable in their possession; sometimes on the field, at the instant of capture, sometimes by the prison authorities, in a quasi-official way, with the promise of return when exchanged or paroled, but which promise was never fulfilled. This robbery amounted often to a stripping of the person of even necessary clothing. Blankets and overcoats were almost always taken, and sometimes other articles; in which case damaged ones were returned in their stead. This preliminary over, the captives were taken to prison."
At the trial of Wirz, the commandant of Andersonville, Dr. John C. Bates, a surgeon of the Rebel service, testified as follows:—
"My attention was called to a patient in my ward who was only fifteen or sixteen years of age. I took much interest in him, owing to his youth. He would ask me to bring him a potato, bread, or biscuit, which I did. I put them in my pocket. He had scurvy and gangrene. I advised him not to cook the potato, but to eat it raw. He became more and more emaciated, his sores gangrened, and for want of food, and from lice, he died. I understood that it was against orders to take anything in to the prisoners, and hence I was shy in slipping food into my pockets. Others in the ward came to their death from the same causes. When I went there, there were two thousand or two thousand five hundred sick. I judge twenty or twenty-five thousand persons were crowded together. Some had made holes and burrows in the earth. Those under the sheds were doing comparatively well. I saw but little shelter, excepting what ingenuity had devised. I found them suffering with scurvy, dropsy, diarrhœa, gangrene, pneumonia, and other diseases. When prisoners died, they were laid in wagons, head foremost, to be carried off. I don't know how they were buried. The effluvia from the hospital was very offensive. If by accident my hand was abraded, I would not go into the hospital without putting a plaster over the affected part. If persons whose systems were reduced by inanition should by chance stump a toe or scratch the hand, the next report to me was gangrene, so potent was the regular hospital gangrene. The prisoners were more thickly confined in the stockade,—like ants and bees. Dogs were kept to hunt down the prisoners who escaped. Fifty per cent of those who died might have been saved had the patients been properly cared for. The effect of the treatment of the prisoners was, morally as well as physically, injurious. There was much stealing among them. All lived each for himself. I suppose this was superinduced by their starving condition. Seeing the dying condition of some of them, I remarked to my student, 'I can't resuscitate them; the weather is chilling; it is a matter of impossibility.' I found persons lying dead sometimes among the living. Thinking they merely slept, I went to wake them up and found they had taken their everlasting sleep. This was in the hospital. I judge it was about the same in the stockade. There being no dead-house, I erected a tent for the purpose, but I soon found that a blanket or quilt had been clipped off the canvas; and as the material could not be readily supplied, the dead-house was abandoned. I don't think any more dead-houses were erected. The daily ration was less in September, October, November, and December than it was from the 1st of January to the 20th of March. The men had not over twenty ounces of food in the twenty-four hours."
The prison at Andersonville was established in January, 1864, and was used a little more than a year. It was in the form of a quadrangle, 1,295 feet long, 865 feet wide. A small stream, rising from neighboring springs, flowed through the grounds. Within the enclosure, seventeen feet from the stockade, the dead-line was established, marked by small posts, to which a slight strip of board was nailed. Upon the inner stockade were fifty-two sentry-boxes, in which the guards stood with loaded muskets; while overlooking the enclosure were several forts, with field artillery in position, to pour grape and canister upon the perishing men at the first sign of insurrection.
Miss Clara Barton, the heroic and tender-hearted woman who, in the employ of government, visited this charnel-house to identify the graves of the victims, thus reports:—
"Under the most favorable circumstances and best possible management the supply of water would have been insufficient for half the number of persons who had to use it. The existing arrangements must have aggravated the evil to the utmost extent. The sole establishments for cooking and baking were placed on the bank of the stream immediately above and between the two inner lines of the pallisades. The grease and refuse from them were found adhering to the banks at the time of our visit. The guards, to the number of three thousand six hundred, were principally encamped on the upper part of the stream, and when the heavy rains washed down the hillsides covered with thirty thousand human beings, and the outlet below failed to discharge the flood which backed and filled the valley, the water must have become so foul and loathsome that every statement I have seen of its offensiveness must fall short of the reality; and yet within rifle-shot of the prison flowed a stream, fifteen feet wide and three feet deep, of pure, delicious water. Had the prison been placed so as to include a section of 'Sweet Water Creek,' the inmates might have drank and bathed to their hearts' content."[77]
The prisoners had no shelter from the fierce sun of summer, the pelting autumn rains, or the cold of winter, except a few tattered tents. Thousands were destitute of blankets. For refuge they dug burrows in the ground.