While we were marching through Georgia.
So we made a thoroughfare for Freedom and her train,
Sixty miles in latitude three hundred to the main;
Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain,
While we were marching through Georgia.”
During the Summer, and up to the last of October, the condition of our clothing had been more a matter of indecency than of actual sufferings. But when the fall rains set in and the cold winds began to blow, then we felt the need of good clothing. About this time a very limited supply of clothing was issued to the more destitute. This was some of the clothing which the United States Government furnished for the benefit of the prisoners, but which was of more benefit to the rebels than to us. It is very clear that our Government was a victim of misplaced confidence in sending supplies of food and clothing through the rebel lines for our benefit. These supplies were mostly used by the rebels for their own benefit, and our Government aided the rebellion by that much.
My clothing was old when I was taken prisoner, having been worn through the Chickamauga campaign, and while I was in the hospital at Danville some one had, without my consent, traded me worse clothing, so that by this time I was a spectacle for men perhaps, but hardly for angels and women. Shirt, I had none, my coat was out at the elbows and was minus buttons, my pants were worn to shreds, fore and aft, and looked like bifurcated dish rags. My drawers had been burned at Andersonville with their rich burden of lice, while my shoes looked like the breaking up of a hard winter, and yet I was too much of a dude to get clothes from Barrett. How the cold winds did play hide and seek through my rags; how my skeleton frame did shiver, and my scurvy loosened teeth rattle and clatter, as “gust followed gust more furiously” through the tattered remains of what was once a splendid uniform. Evidently something had got to be done or I should, like a ship in a storm, be scudding around with bare poles. My first remedy was patching. With all my varied and useful accomplishments, I had become quite expert with a needle, (a small sized darning needle) and I felt perfectly competent to fix up my unmentionables, provided I could find patches and thread. I was in the condition of the Irishman who wanted to “borry tobaccy and a pipe, I have a match of me own, sorr,” but those to whom I applied for patches and thread, were like an Irishman of my company by the name of Mike Callahan. I went to him one day as he sat smoking his “dhudeen.” Said I, “Mike, can you give me a chew of tobacco?” “I cannot sorr,” puff-puff “I don’t use it myself.” “Well have you got any smoking tobacco?” said I. “I have sorr,” puff—puff—puff—“joost phat will do meself,” was his reply. After looking around for a time, I found an old oil cloth knapsack which I cut up into appropriate patches. Ole Gilbert had a piece of home-made cotton cloth, this we raveled and used for thread with which to patch my pants. This shift answered to keep out the wind, but when I sat down, Oh my! it seemed like sitting on an iceberg and holding the North Pole in my lap.
After the prisoners had all arrived at Florence, I changed my quarters to those of five comrades of my own company, Gilbert, Berk, Gaffney, Webster and Best. We had very fair quarters and were provided with two blankets for the six. One day as we were talking over the subject of exchange, we all came to the conclusion that we were in for it during the war, and I was instructed to write to the Wisconsin Sanitary Commission for clothing and other supplies. The letter was duly received and was published in the Milwaukee Sentinel. The following is a copy of the letter:
“Florence, S. C., Oct. 8th, 1864.
Secretary of Wis. State Sanitary Commission.