I needed no second invitation after that shot went over our heads, and I hurried to my quarters and laid low. I don’t think I am naturally more cowardly than the average of men, but that shot made me tired. I was sick and weak and had no courage, and knew Winder and Wirz so well that I had perfect faith that they would be only too glad of an excuse to carry out the threat.
But let us go back to the month of May. Soon after my arrival, there was marched into the prison about two thousand of the finest dressed soldiers I ever saw. Their uniforms were new and of a better quality than we had ever seen in the western army. They wore on their heads cocked hats, with brass and feather accompaniments. Their feet were shod with the best boots and shoes we had seen since antebellum days, their shirts were of the best “lady’s cloth” variety, and the chevrons on the sleeves of the non-commissioned officers coats, were showy enough for members of the Queen’s Guards.
Poor fellows, how I pitied them. The mingled look of surprise, horror, disgust, and sorrow that was depicted on their faces as they marched between crowds of prisoners who had been unwilling guests of the Confederacy for, from four to nine months, told but too plainly how our appearance affected them. As they passed along the mass of ragged, ghastly, dirt begrimed prisoners, I could hear the remark, “My God! have I got to come to this?” “I can’t live here a month,” “I had rather die, than to live in such a place as this,” and similar expressions. I say that I pitied them, for I knew that the sight of such specimens of humanity as we were, had completely unnerved them, that their blood had been chilled with horror at sight of us, and that they would never recover from the shock; and they never did.
Yes they had to come to this; many of them did not live a month, and not many of those two thousand fine looking men ever lived to see “God’s Country” again.
These were the “Plymouth Pilgrims.” They were a brigade, composed of the 85th New York, the 101st and 103d Pennsylvania, 16th Connecticut, 24th New York Battery, two companies of Massachusetts heavy artillery and a company of the 12th New York cavalry.
They were the garrison of a fort at Plymouth, North Carolina, which had been compelled to surrender, on account of the combined attack of land and naval forces, on the 20th day of May, 1864.
Some of the regiments composing this band of Pilgrims had “veteranized” and were soon going home on a veteran furlough when the attack was made, but they came to Andersonville instead.
Their service had been most entirely in garrisons, where they had always been well supplied with rations and clothing, and exempt from hard marches and exposures, and as a natural sequence, were not as well fitted to endure the hardships of prison life, as soldiers who had seen more active service.
They were turned into the prison without shelter, and they did not seem to think they could, in any way, provide one; without cooking utensils, and they thought they must eat their food raw. They began to die off in a few days after their arrival, they seemed never to have recovered from their first shock.
Comrade McElroy tells in “Andersonville,” a pathetic story of a Pennsylvanian who went crazy from the effects of confinement. He had a picture of his wife and children and he used to sit hour after hour looking at them, and sometimes imagined he was with them serving them at the home table. He would, in his imagination, pass food to wife and children, calling each by name, and urging them to eat more. He died in a month after his entrance.