Fifteen Months in Dixie; Or, My Personal Experience in Rebel Prisons

by William W. Day

Let me try to give the reader a description of what I saw that day. When I first reached the battlefield my attention was attracted to a number of horsemen dressed in Federal uniforms. These were evidently rebel cavalrymen who had dressed themselves in the uniforms of our dead soldiers. In every part of the field was evidence of the terrible havoc of war. Bursted cannons, broken gun carriages, muskets, bayonets, accoutrements, sabres, swords, canteens, knapsacks, haversacks, sponges, rammers, buckets, broken wagons, dead horses and dead men were mixed and intermingled in a heterogeneous mass.

Fatigue parties of rebel soldiers and negroes were gleaning the fruits of the battlefield.

In one place I saw cords of muskets and rifles piled up in great ricks like cord-wood. The harvest was a rich one for the Confederacy.

In one place I saw more than twenty artillery horses, lying as they had fallen, to the rear of the position of a Rebel battery, showing the fierce and determined resistance of the Union soldiers.

At another place, near where my regiment breakfasted on the morning of the 19th, a Union battery had taken position, it was on the Chattanooga road and to the rear was heavy timber. Here the trees were literally cut down by cannon shots from a Rebel battery. Some of the trees were eighteen or twenty inches in diameter. Havoc, destruction, ruin and death reigned supreme. In some places, where some fierce charge had been made, the ground was covered with the dead. Federal and Confederate lay side by side just as they had fallen in their last struggle. But why dwell on these scenes? They were but a companion piece to just such scenes on a hundred other battlefields of the civil war.

We remained at the Chickamauga hospital for three weeks. Then all who could ride in wagons were carried to Ringgold, where we took the cars for Atlanta. Many of the wounded had died and we had buried them there on the banks of the “River of Death.” I presume they have found sepulture at last in the National Cemetery, at Chattanooga, along with the heroes of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. Peace to their ashes. They gave all that men can give, their lives, for their country, and we gave them the best gifts of comrades, honor and a soldier’s grave.

At Ringgold some ladies came into the cars and distributed food to our party. It was a kindly but unexpected act, and we appreciated it the more as we were nearly starved. We traveled all night and arrived at Atlanta about 11 o’clock A. M. the next day. We were removed to the “Pen” and here I was introduced to the “Bull Pens” of the South.

The Prison Pen here was small, being used only as a stopping place for prisoners en route for Richmond. The enclosure was made of boards and was twelve feet in height. On two sides were barracks which would shelter probably five hundred men. In the center was a well of good water. The guards were on the platforms inside and nearly as high as the fence.

The next day after our arrival the Commandant of the Prison put me in charge of twenty-one wounded officers. These officers elected me nurse, commissary general, cook and chambermaid of the company.

Our rations were of fair quality but of very limited quantity. A fund was raised and entrusted to me with instructions to purchase everything in the line of eatables that I could get.