My old “pard” Rouse, had died at Charleston, Ole Gilbert belonged to another detachment and did not come in the same train load with me, so I joined Joe Eaton, Wash. Hays and Roselle Hull, of my regiment, in constructing a shelter, or house, if you please. We first set crotches in the ground and laid a strong pole on them, then we leaned other poles on each side against this pole in the form of a letter A. This was the frame work of our house, which, as will be seen, consisted entirely of roof. On this frame work we placed brush, covering the brush with leaves, and the whole with a heavy layer of dirt. This was an exceedingly laborious job on account of the lack of suitable tools. Our poles were cut with a very dull hatchet and our digging done with tin plates. After we had constructed a shelter, our next work was to wall up the gables. This was done with clay made up into adobes. We could not build more than a foot in a day as we were obliged to wait for our walls to dry sufficiently to bear their own weight. We had taken great pains to make a warm rain proof hut, as we had arrived at the conclusion that we were destined to remain in prison until the close of the war.
Those prisoners who arrived later were not so fortunate in the matter of wood. The early settlers had taken possession of all of that commodity leaving others to look out for themselves. But the later arrivals made haste to secure poles for the purpose of erecting their tents and huts, that is, those who had blankets to spare for roofs; but many were compelled to dig diminutive caves in the banks which marked the boundary of the narrow valley through which ran the little stream of water.
Wood was procured from the immense pine forests in the vicinity. Details of our own numbers, chopped the wood, and others carried it on their shoulders a distance of half to three quarters of a mile, receiving as compensation an extra ration of food. In the matter of wood Iverson was more humane than was Winder, but in the matter of rations it was the same old story, just enough to keep soul and body together, provided a pint of corn meal, two spoonfuls of sorghum syrup and a half teaspoonful of salt daily would furnish sufficient adhesive power to accomplish that result.
There was rather better hospital accommodations here for the sick, than at Andersonville, but at the best it was miserably poor and insufficient. The worst cases had been left behind, but the stockade was soon full of men so sick as to be unable to care for themselves. The terrible treatment at Andersonville was telling on the men after they had changed to a more healthy location, and into less filthy surroundings.
Soon the fall rains set in and the cold winds, which penetrated to our very marrow through the rags with which we were but partly covered, warned us that winter was approaching. We tried hard to keep up our courage amidst all these discouraging circumstances, but it was a sickly, weakly sort of courage. Cheerful, we could not be, even the most religiously inclined were sad and despondent. I am convinced that cheerfulness depends and must depend on outward circumstances as well as on an inward state of mind. Why not? We were men not angels, material beings, not spirits; we were subject to the same appetites and passions to which we, and others are subject, under better circumstances. Starvation, privation, misery and torture had not purged from us the longings, the hungerings and thirstings after the necessaries, the conveniences, yes, the luxuries of life, but on the contrary, had increased them ten fold. How was this to terminate? Would our Government set aside the military policy of the Commander of the army, and take a more humane view of the question? Would the Confederates, already driven to extremes to furnish supplies for their own men, at length yield and give us up, to save expense? or, must we still remain to satisfy the insatiate greed of the Moloch of war? were questions we could and did ask ourselves and each other, but there was found no man so wise as to be able to answer them. Time, swift-footed and fleeting, to the fortunate, but laggard, and slow, to us, could alone solve these questions, and after hours of discussion, to Time we referred them.
CHAPTER XIV.
NAKED AND COLD AND HUNGRY.—SHERMAN.
“‘Sherman’s dashing Yankee boys will never reach the coast!’
So the saucy rebels said, and ’twas a handsome boast,
Had they not forgot alas! to reckon with the host,