From Sergeant Wilson F. Smith, chief clerk at Colonel Smith's headquarters, a paroled prisoner, member of Co. F., 6th Pa. Cav., the company of Captain Furness, son or brother of my Shakespearian friend, Dr. Horace Howard Furness, and from Mr. Strickland, undertaker, who furnished the coffins and buried the dead of the Danville prisons, both of whom I talked with when I was on parole in February, '65, I obtained statistics mutually corroborative of the number of deaths in the Danville prisons. In November there were 130; in December, 140; from January 1st to January 24th, 105. The negro soldiers suffered most. There were sixty-four of them living in prison when we reached Danville, October 20, '64. Fifty-seven of them were dead on the 12th of February, '65, when I saw and talked with the seven survivors in Prison No. Six. From one of the officers (I think it was Captain Stuart) paroled like myself in February to distribute supplies of clothing sent by the United States through the lines, and who performed that duty in Salisbury, and from soldiers of my own regiment there imprisoned, I learned that in the hundred days ending February 1st, out of eight or ten thousand prisoners, more than thirty a day, more than three thousand in all, had died! Of Colonel Hartshorne's splendid "Bucktail Regiment," the 190th Pa., formerly commanded by my Yale classmate Colonel O'Neil who fell at Antietam, there were 330 at Salisbury, October 19th, the day we left; 116 of them were dead before February 1st, one company losing 22 out of 33 men.
Why this fearful mortality? Men do not die by scores, hundreds, thousands, without some extraordinary cause. It was partly for want of clothing. They were thinly clad when captured.
Pursuant to agreement entered into early in December, 1864, between the Federal and Confederate authorities, supplies of clothing for Union prisoners in Richmond, Danville, and Salisbury, were sent through the lines. They did not reach Danville till February. Colonel Carle, 191st Pa. and myself, with another officer (I think he was Colonel Gilbert G. Prey, 104th N. Y.) were paroled to distribute coats (or blouses), trousers, and shoes, among the enlisted men in their three prisons. Then for the first time Union officers saw the interior of those jails. By permission of Colonel Smith, Mr. Ficklin accompanied us on one of these visits, and I saw him give fifty dollars in Confederate money to one of our suffering soldiers. My part in the distribution was to sign as witness opposite the name of each one receiving. Those rolls should be in the archives at Washington.
On the 12th of February we issued shoes and clothing in the jail known as Prison No. Six. It contained that day 308 of our men. There were the seven surviving colored soldiers, and the one wearing our prison commander's coat. We requested them all to form line, and each as his name was called to come forward and receive what he most needed. Some of them were so feeble that they had to be assisted in coming down from the upper floor, almost carried in the arms of stronger comrades. Many were unable to remain standing long, and sank helpless on the floor. Nearly all were half-clad, or wearing only the thinnest of garments. Some were white with vermin. Several were so far gone that they had forgotten their company or regiment. Every one seemed emaciated. Many kept asking me why our government did not exchange prisoners; for they were told every day the truth that the Confederate government desired it. There was a stove, but no fuel. The big rooms were not heated. The cold was severe. About a third of them had apparently given up all hope of keeping their limbs and bodies warm; but they kept their heads, necks, shoulders, and chests, carefully wrapped. The dismal coughing at times drowned all other sounds, and made it difficult to proceed with our work of distribution. There were two little fires of chips and splinters on bricks, one of them near the middle, the other near the far end. In contact with these were tin or earthen cups containing what passed for food or drink. There was no outlet for smoke. It blackened the hands and faces of those nearest, and irritated the lungs of all.
This prison was the worst. It was colder than the others. But all were uncomfortably cold. All were filled with smoke and lice. From each there went every day to the hospital a wagon-load of half-starved and broken-hearted soldiers who would never return. I visited the hospital to deliver to two of the patients letters which Colonel Smith had handed to me for them. They were both dead. I looked down the long list. The word "Died," with the date, was opposite most of the names. As I left the hospital I involuntarily glanced up at the lintel, half expecting to see inscribed there as over the gate to Dante's Hell,
ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE!
At the rate our enlisted men were dying at Danville and Salisbury during the winter of 1864-65, all would have passed away in a few months, certainly in less than a year; AND THEY KNEW IT.
Is it any wonder that some of them, believing our government had abandoned them to starvation rather than again risk its popularity by resorting to conscription for the enrollment of recruits and by possibly stirring up draft riots such as had cost more than a thousand lives in the city of New York in July, 1863, accepted at last the terms which the Confederates constantly held out to them, took the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy, and enlisted in the rebel army? I was credibly informed that more than forty did it in Prison No. Four at Danville, and more than eleven hundred at Salisbury. Confederate recruiting officers and sergeants were busy in those prisons, offering them the choice between death and life. No doubt multitudes so enlisted under the Confederate flag with full determination to desert to our lines at the first convenient opportunity. Such was the case with private J. J. Lloyd, Co. A, of my battalion, who rejoined us in North Carolina. The great majority chose to die.
The last communication that I received from enlisted men of my battalion, fellow prisoners with me at Salisbury, whom I had exhorted not to accept the offers of the Confederates, but to be true to their country and their flag, read thus: "Colonel, don't be discouraged. Our boys all say they'll starve to death in prison sooner than take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy." And true to this resolve did indeed starve or freeze to death Sergeant Welch, Sergeant Twichell, Privates Vogel, Plaum, Barnes, Geise, Andrews, Bishop, Weldon, who had stood by me in many a battle, and who died at last for the cause they loved.