Miss Barton says:—
"The little caves are scooped out and arched in the form of ovens, floored, ceiled, and strengthened, so far as the owners had means, with sticks and pieces of board, and some of them are provided with fireplaces and chimneys. It would seem that there were cases, during the long rains, where the house would become the grave of its owner by falling upon him in the night.... During thirteen long months they knew neither shelter nor protection from the changeable skies above, nor the pitiless, unfeeling earth beneath....
"Think of thirty thousand men penned by close stockade upon twenty-six acres of ground, from which every tree and shrub had been uprooted for fuel to cook their scanty food, huddled like cattle, without shelter or blanket, half clad and hungry, with the dewy night setting in after a day of autumn rain. The hilltop would not hold them all, the valley was filled by the swollen brook. Seventeen feet from the stockade ran the fatal dead-line, beyond which no man might step and live. What did they do? I need not ask where did they go, for on the face of the whole earth there was no place but this for them. But where did they place themselves? How did they live? Ay! how did they die?"
Twelve thousand nine hundred and ninety graves are numbered on the neighboring hillside,—the starved and murdered of thirteen months,—one thousand per month, thirty-three per day! Murdered by Jeff Davis, Robert E. Lee, James Seddon, and John C. Breckenridge! Murdered under official sanction, in accordance with premeditated design. Davis, Lee, Seddon, and Breckenridge may not have issued orders to starve the prisoners; but if cognizant of any inhumanity, it was in the power of Davis to stop it, and of Lee, as commander-in-chief of the army, as also of Sedden, and after him Breckenridge, secretaries of war. A word from either of these officials would have secured humane treatment.
General Lee is beloved by the Southern people for his amiability, his gentleness and generosity, as well as his unselfish devotion to the cause of Secession. But the historian will doubtless keep in mind that to be amiable is to be worthy of esteem and confidence. Those who have espoused the cause of the Union cannot discover much amiability in one who remained in the service of the government as the confidant of the commander-in-chief of the army of the United States till hostilities were commenced, and then, three days after his resignation, accepted the command of the Rebel forces in Virginia. Fort Sumter was fired upon April 12, 1861. General Lee resigned his commission in the service of the United States on the 19th, and on the 22d took command of Rebel troops at Richmond. The State had not then seceded. The ordinance of Secession was passed by the convention on the 17th of the same month, to be submitted to popular vote for ratification on the third Tuesday of May. Without waiting for the action of the people of his State, General Lee issued his military orders and waged war against the United States.
The future historian will not overlook the fact that General Lee, if not issuing direct orders for the starvation of Union prisoners, made no remonstrance against the barbarities of Andersonville, or of the course taken to debauch the patriotism of the Union soldiers. It was promised that whoever would acknowledge allegiance to the Confederacy, or consent to make shoes or harness or clothing for the Rebels, should have the privilege of going out from the stockade, and finding comfortable quarters and plenty of food and clothing. Thus tempted, some faltered, while others died rather than be released on such terms, preferring, in their love for the flag, to be thrown like logs into the dead-cart, and tumbled into the shallow trenches on the hillside!
Among the prisoners was a lad who pined for his far-off Northern home. Often his boyish heart went out lovingly to his father and mother and fair-haired sister. How could he die in that prison! How close his eyes on all the bright years of the future! How lie down in death in that loathsome place, when, by taking the oath of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy, he could obtain freedom? His comrades were dying. Every day the dead-cart came and bore them away by scores and hundreds. What a sight their stony eyes, sunken cheeks, and swaying limbs! Around him was a crowd of living skeletons.
"Take the oath and you shall live," said the tempter. What a trial! Life was sweet. All that a man hath will he give for his life. How blessed if he could but hear once more the voice of his mother, or grasp again a father's hand! What wonder that hunger, despair, and death, and the example of some of his comrades, made him weakly hesitate?
Too feeble to walk or to stand, he crawled away from the dying and the dead, over the ground reeking with filth. He had almost reached the gate beyond which were life and liberty. A comrade, stronger and older, suspected his purpose. Through the long, weary months this brave soldier had solaced his heart by taking at times from his bosom a little flag,—the stars and stripes,—adoring it as the most sacred of all earthly things. He held it before the boy. It was the flag he loved. He had sworn to support it,—never to forsake it. He had stood beneath it in the fierce conflict, quailing not when the death-storm was thickest. Tears dimmed his eyes as he beheld it once more. Tremblingly he grasped it with his skeleton fingers, kissed it, laid it on his heart, and cried, "God help me! I can't turn my back upon it. O comrade, I am dying; but I want you, if ever you get out of this horrible place, to tell my mother that I stood by the old flag to the last!"
And then, with the flag he loved lying on his heart, he closed his eyes, and his soul passed on to receive that reward which awaits those to whom duty is greater than life.