CHAPTER X.
CLOSE QUARTERS.
“Hamlet. I have of late lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises; and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you,—this brave o’er hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.”
Shakspere.
The great influx of prisoners during the month of May and early part of June, from the armies of Sherman and Meade, increased our numbers to more than thirty thousand prisoners. These were crowded upon the small space of twelve acres, or more than two thousand five hundred men to the acre. This would allow thirty-one square feet to each man, or a piece of ground five feet by six feet, on which to build his tent and perform all the acts and offices of life. Indeed we were crowded in so thickly that it was impossible for the prison officials to find room for us to “fall in” for roll call, for more than three weeks.
In the latter part of June, however, an addition of nine acres was built, which gave us more room, but did not remove the filth and excrements which had accrued in the older part of the prison. The building on of an addition to the prison was a God-send in two ways, it gave more room, and the old north line of stockade was cut down for fuel. The new part was finished one afternoon and a gap made in the old stockade through which the prisoners passed to their new quarters. After dark a raid was made on the old part, and before morning every timber was down, and men who had been compelled to eat their food, at best half cooked, were now supplied with wood.
The old part of the prison had become so foul, as a result of the sickness and crowded state of the prisoners, that it surpassed all powers of description or of imagination. The whole swamp bordering upon Dead-run, was covered to a depth of several inches with human excrements, and this was so filled with maggots that it seemed a living moving mass of putrifying filth. The stench was loathsome and sickening to a degree that surpasses description. With the crowded state of the prison, the filthy surroundings, and the terrible atmosphere which covered the prison like a cloud, it is no wonder that men sickened and died by the thousands every month.
These terrible surroundings made the prisoners depressed and gloomy in spirits, and made them more susceptible to the attacks of disease.
The bodies of those who died were carried to the south gate, with their name, company, and regiment written on a slip of paper and pinned to their breast. Here they were laid in the Dead-house, outside of the Stockade. From the Dead-house they were carted in wagons to the Cemetery, and buried in trenches four feet in depth. They were thrown into the wagons, like dead dogs, covered with filth and lice. After the wagons had hauled away all the dead bodies, they were loaded with food for the prisoners in the Stockade. This was done without any attempt at, or pretense of cleaning in any way. I shall leave the reader to imagine how palatable that food was after such treatment.
The monotony of prison life was sometimes relieved by finding among the prisoners an old acquaintance of boyhood days. Many of the western men were born and educated in the East, and it was no uncommon thing for them to find an old chum among the eastern soldiers.