It was in the summer of 1864, that communication was first obtained with the prisoners in Charleston, a communication afterwards extended to all the loathsome prison-pens of the South, where our men languished in filth, disease, and starvation.
At this time Dr. Marsh's duties kept him almost entirely at Folly Island, and there he received a letter from General Seymour who was confined, with other Union officers, in Charleston, a part of the time under fire, asking that if possible certain needful articles might be sent to him. This letter was immediately sent to Mrs. Marsh, who at once prepared a box containing more than twice the amount of articles asked for, and forwarded them to the confederate authorities at Charleston, for General Seymour. Almost contrary to all expectations, this box reached the General, and but a short time elapsed before its receipt was acknowledged. The General wrote touchingly of their privations, and while thanking Mrs. Marsh warmly for the articles already sent, represented the wants of some of the other gentlemen, his companions. Supplies were sent them, received and acknowledged, and thus a regular channel of communication was opened.
One noticeable fact attended this correspondence—namely, the extreme modesty of the demands made; no one ever asking for more than he needed at the time, as a pair of stockings, or a single shirt, and always expressing a fear lest others might need these favors more than himself.
When, soon after, by means of this entering wedge, the way to the prisons of Andersonville, Florence, and Salisbury, was opened, the same fact was observed. In the midst of all their dreadful suffering and misery, the prisoners there made no large demands. They asked for but little—the smallest possible amount, and were always fearful lest they might absorb the bounty to which others had a better claim.
After this communication was opened, Mrs. Marsh found a delightful task in preparing the boxes which in great numbers were constantly being sent forward to the prisons. It was a part of her duty, also, to inspect the letters which went and came between the prisons and the outside world.
The pathos of many of these was far beyond description. Touching appeals constantly came to her from distant Northern homes for some tidings of the sons, brothers, fathers of whose captivity they had heard, but whose further existence had been a blank. Where are they? and how are they? were constantly recurring questions, which alas! it was far too often her sad duty to answer in a way to destroy all hope.
And the letters of the prisoners, filled to the uttermost, not with complaints, but with the pervading sadness that could not for one moment be banished from their horrible lives! No words can describe them, they were simply heart-breaking! Just as the horror of the prison-pens is beyond the power of words to fitly tell, so are the griefs which grew out of them.
Mrs. Marsh continued busily employed in this work of mercy until it was suddenly suspended. Some formality had not been complied with, and the privilege of communication was discontinued; and all their friends disappointed and disheartened. This we can easily imagine, but not what the suspension was to the suffering prisoners who had for a short season enjoyed this one gleam of light from the outer world, and were now plunged into a rayless hopeless night. When the time of deliverance came, as we all know, many of them were past the power of rejoicing in it.
Dr. Marsh was for a long time detained at Folly and Morris Islands. The force at Beaufort was quite inadequate, and exceedingly onerous and absorbing duties fell to the share of Mrs. Marsh. Communication was difficult. Dr. Marsh at times could not reach his home. Vessels which had been running between New York and Port Royal and Hilton Head were detained at the North. The receipt and transmission of sanitary stores, and the immense correspondence growing out of it; the general oversight of the needs of the hospitals, and the monthly reports of the same all fell heavily upon one brain and one pair of hands.
It was at just such an emergency that the army of Sherman, the "Great March" to the sea nearly completed, arrived upon the scene. The sick and disabled arrived by hundreds, the hospitals were filled up directly, and even thronged; while so numerous were the cases of small-pox, which had appeared in the army, that a large separate hospital had to be provided for them.