Thus we were turned into the Prison Pen of Andersonville, like a herd of swine, with the chance to “root hog or die.” No shelter was furnished us; no cooking utensils provided; no wood, nothing but a strip of barren yellow sand, under a hot sun.
The situation did not look inviting. Our dream was not realized. We had fresh air it is true, for the air had not become contaminated then. We had room for exercise, for 5,000 men do not look very much crowded on twelve acres, it takes 33,000 men to cover that amount of space in good shape according to the views of Winder and Wirz; but somehow it did not seem homelike. There was a wonderful paucity of the conveniencies, the necessities, to say nothing of the luxuries of life.
About 4,000 men had been sent here during the months of February and March, from Libby and Belle Isle, and 1,000 from Danville, about two weeks before us. First come, first served, was the rule here. The first settlers who “squatted” in Andersonville found plenty of wood and brush and with these had, with true Yankee ingenuity and industry, constructed very fair houses, or hovels rather. But they had used up all the building material, had not left a brush large enough for a riding whip, they had left us nothing but sand and a miserable poor article of that.
But the gods were propitious, and the next day we had the privilege of going out under guard, and picking up material for a house. Rouse and myself brought in material enough to fix us up in good shape. We secured a number of green poles about an inch thick, some of these we bent like the hoops of a wagon cover, sticking the ends in the ground. Then we fastened other poles transversely on them fastening them with strips of bark. We used a U. S. blanket for a roof or cover. The sides we thatched with branches of the long leaved pitch pine. In a few hours we had a very fair shelter.
I think the settlers in western Minnesota and Dakota must be indebted to Andersonville prisoners for the idea of “dugouts.” When we arrived here, we found many of the unfortunate prisoners from Belle Isle who had no “pup tent” or blanket to spare, had provided themselves warm quarters by burrowing into the ground. They had dug holes about the size of the head of a barrel at the surface of the ground and gradually enlarged as they dug down, until they were something the shape of the inside of a large bell. These dugouts were four or five feet deep and usually had two occupants. These gophers were hard looking specimens of humanity. They had built fires in their holes, out of pitch pine; over this they had done their cooking, and over this they had crooned during the cold storms of March; they had had some bacon, but no soap, and the mixture of lamp black from the pine, and grease from the bacon, had disfigured them beyond the recognition of their own mothers. Their hair was long and unkempt, and filled with lamp black until it was so stiff that it stuck out like “quills of the fretful porcupine.” Their clothes were in rags, yes in tatters. They were shoeless, hatless, and usually coatless. They looked more like the terrible fancies of Gustave Dore than like human beings. And yet these poor boys were originally fair-haired, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, loyal, brave sons of fathers and mothers who were in easy circumstances, and in many cases wealthy; who would have shed their hearts’ last drop of blood, for that poor boy, if it would have been of any avail. Or they were husbands to fair women, and fathers to sweet blue-eyed children, who were waiting for husband and papa, to come home.
Alas! those fathers and mothers, those wives and children are waiting yet, yea and shall wait until the sea, and the graves at Andersonville, give up their dead.
CHAPTER VII.
WINDER AND WIRZ.
“Lady Anne. Foul devil, for God’s sake hence, and trouble us not;
For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,