One source of great discomfort, yea, torture, was body lice, “grey-backs,” in army parlance. They swarmed upon us, they penetrated into all the seams of our clothing. They went on exploring expeditions on all parts of our bodies, they sapped the juices from our flesh, they made our days, days of woe, and our nights, nights of bitterness and cursing. We could not get hot water, our unfailing remedy in the army. Our only resource was “skirmishing.” This means stripping our clothes and hunting them out:—and crushing them.
On warm days it was a common sight to see half of the men in the room with their shirts off, skirmishing.
One day, a number of Reb. citizens came in to see the “Yanks.” Among them was a large finely built young man. He was dressed in the height of fashion and evidently belonged to the F. F. V.’s. We were skirmishing when they came in, and young F. F. V. strutted through the room, with his head up, like a Texas steer in a Nebraska corn field. His nose and lips suggested scorn and disgust. Thinks I, “my fine lad I’ll fix you.” Just as he passed me I threw a large “Grey-back” on his coat; many of the prisoners saw the act, and contributed their mite to the general fund, and by the time young F. F. V. had made the circuit of the room, he was well stocked with Grey-backs. It is needless to add he never visited us again.
Scurvy and diarrhea were doing their deadly work even at Danville. These diseases were due, largely, to causes over which the rebels had control.
Dr. Joseph Jones, a bitter rebel, professor of Medical Chemistry, at the Medical College in Augusta, was sent by the Surgeon General of the Confederate army, to investigate and report upon the cause of the extreme mortality in Andersonville. He attributed scurvy to a lack of vegetable diet and acids. Diarrhea and dysentery, he said, were caused by the filthy conditions by which we were surrounded, polluted water, and the fact that the meal from which our bread was made was not separated from the husk.
There have been many stories told with relation to this meal; let me make some things plain, and then there will not be the apparent contradiction, that there is at present in the public mind.
The difference in opinion arises from the different interpretations of the word “husk.”
A true northern man understands husk to mean;—the outer covering of the ear of corn; while a southerner, or Middle States, man calls it a “shuck.”
The husk referred to by Dr. Jones, would be called by a northerner, the “hull,” or bran. His meaning was that it was unsifted.
The fetid waters of the canal, the unsifted corn meal made into half baked bread, and a lack of vegetables and acids, together with the rigid prison rules, which resulted in filth, and stench, beyond description, were the prime causes of the great mortality at Danville. During the five months in which I was confined at Danville, more than 500 of 4,200 prisoners died, or about one in eight.