To transport these bulky materials to the armies of Lee, Hood and Johnson required every locomotive and freight car that could be mustered on Southern railroads. Hence the northward-bound trains were heavily laden. Those going southward were empty, and were available to carry away the thousands of Union prisoners. At several points in the South Atlantic and Gulf States, stockade prisons were set up, notably that in Southwestern Georgia, named after an adjacent hamlet, “Andersonville.”
This celebrated place of confinement for Federal prisoners below the rank of commissioned officer was located about sixty-two miles from Macon. It consisted of a stockade made of pine logs twenty-five feet long, set upright in a trench five feet deep, inclosing some sixteen acres, afterwards enlarged to twenty-six acres.
This inclosure was oblong in form, with its longest dimension in a general north and south direction, and had two gates in its western side, near the north and south ends respectively. It was commanded by several stands of artillery, comprising sixteen guns, located at a distance on rising ground. From four directions the guns could sweep the prison interior with grapeshot or shells.
A line of poles was planted along the lengthwise center of the pen. We were informed that if the men gathered in unusual crowds between the range of the poles and the north and south gates, the cannon would open upon us.
A report was circulated among us to the effect that General Sherman had started an expedition to release us; and we were informed that if his troops approached within seven miles of the stockade the prisoners would be mowed down by grapeshot. The fact is that one of his generals proposed a sortie that never was made. “About July 20, 1864, General Stoneman was authorized at his own desire to march (with cavalry) on Macon and Andersonville in an effort to rescue the National prisoners of war in the military prisons there.”
Outside and against the stockade platforms for guards were placed two or three rods apart, and were so constructed that the sentinel climbed a ladder and stood waist high above the top of the wall and under a board roof, which sheltered him from the sun and rain.
Each of the guards faced the vast mass of prisoners and was ordered to closely watch the dead line before and below him half way to his comrade on his right and left.
The “dead line” formed a complete circuit parallel to the inside of the stockade and about twenty feet therefrom. It consisted of a narrow strip of board nailed to a row of stakes, which were about four feet high. “Shoot any prisoner who touches the “dead line” was the standing order to the guards. Several companies from Georgia regiments were detailed for the duty, and their muskets were loaded with “buck and ball” (i. e., a large bullet and two buckshot). The day guard at the stockade consisted of one hundred and eighty-six men; the day reserve of eighty-six men. The night reserve consisted of one hundred and ten men; the outlay pickets of thirty-eight men.
A sick prisoner inadvertently placing his hand on the dead line for support, or one who was “moon blind” running against it, or anyone touching it with suicidal intent, would be instantly shot at, the scattering balls usually striking others than the one aimed at.
The intervening space between the wall and the dead line was overgrown with weeds, and was occasionally tested by workmen with long drills to ascertain the existence of tunnels. In attempting to escape by this means the prisoners endeavored to emerge at night some distance from the stockade and take to the woods. To frustrate such attempts, which would inevitably be discovered at roll-call the following morning, man-tracking hounds were led by mounted men on a wide circuit around the prison, with the well-nigh universal result that the trail was struck and the fugitive taken.