410 YANKEE DESERTERS WHIPPED AND HANGED.

[1864.

deserter of all his money, beating him unmercifully if he resisted. After being thus whipped, at their own request their status was changed, and they were sent as prisoners of war to Andersonville, Georgia. There the Union prisoners, detecting them in several robberies and murders, organized a court-martial, tried them, and hung six of them upon trees within the garrison, with ropes furnished by the Rebel commandant.

For seven months no letters, even from our own families, were permitted to reach us. This added much to our weariness. I never knew the pathos of Sterne's simple story until I heard "Junius" read it one sad Summer night in our prison quarters. For weeks afterward rung in my ears the cry of the poor starling: "I can't get out! I can't get out!"

EARLY in October, the condition of the Salisbury garrison suddenly changed. Nearly ten thousand prisoners of war, half naked and without shelter, were crowded. into its narrow limits, which could not reasonably accommodate more than six hundred. It was converted into a scene of suffering and death which no pen can adequately describe. For every hour, day and night, we were surrounded by horrors which burned into our memories like a hot iron.

We had never before been in a prison containing our private soldiers. In spite of many assurances to the contrary, we had been skeptical as to the barbarities which they were said to suffer at Belle Isle and Andersonville. We could not believe that men bearing the American name would be guilty of such atrocities. Now, looking calmly upon our last two months in Salisbury, it seems hardly possible to exaggerate the incredible cruelty of the Rebel authorities.

When captured, the prisoners were robbed of the greater part of their clothing. When they reached Salisbury, all were thinly clad, thousands were barefooted, not one in twenty had an overcoat or blanket, and many hundreds were without coats or blouses.

412

STARVING IN THE MIDST OF FOOD.

[1864.

For several weeks, they were furnished with no shelter whatever. Afterward, one Sibley tent and one A tent was issued to each hundred men. With the closest crowding, these contained about one-half of them. The rest burrowed in the earth, crept under buildings, or dragged out the nights in the open air upon the muddy, snowy, or frozen ground. In October, November, and December, snow fell several times. It was piteous beyond description to see the poor fellows, coatless, hatless, and shoeless, shivering about the yard.

They were organized into divisions of one thousand each, and subdivided into squads of one hundred. Almost daily one or more divisions was without food for twenty-four hours. Several times some of them received no rations for forty-eight hours. The few who had money, paid from five to twenty dollars, in Rebel currency, for a little loaf of bread. Some sold the coats from their backs and the shoes from their feet to purchase food.

When a subordinate asked the post-Commandant, Major John H. Gee, "Shall I give the prisoners full rations?" he replied: "No, G―d d-n them, give them quarter-rations!"

Yet, at this very time, one of our Salisbury friends, a trustworthy and Christian gentleman, assured us, in a stolen interview:

"It is within my personal knowledge that the great commissary warehouse, in this town, is filled to the roof with corn and pork. I know that the prison commissary finds it difficult to obtain storage for his supplies."

After our escape, we learned from personal observation that the region abounded in corn and pork. Salisbury was a general dépôt for army supplies.

That section of country is densely wooded. The cars

1864.]

FREEZING IN THE MIDST OF FUEL.

413

brought fuel to the door of our prison. If the Rebels were short of tents, they might easily have paroled two or three hundred prisoners, to go out and cut logs, with which, in a single week, barracks could have been constructed for every captive; but the Commandant would not consent. He did not even furnish half the needed fuel.

Cold and hunger began to tell fearfully upon the robust young men, fresh from the field, who crowded the prison. Sickness was very prevalent and very fatal. It invariably appeared in the form of pneumonia, catarrh, diarrhoea, or dysentery; but was directly traceable to freezing and starvation. Therefore the medicines were of little avail. The weakened men were powerless to resist disease, and they were carried to the dead-house in appalling numbers.

By appointment of the prison authorities, my two comrades and myself were placed in charge of all the hospitals, nine in number, inside the garrison. The scenes which constantly surrounded us were enough to shake the firmest nerves; but there was work to be done for the relief of our suffering companions. We could accomplish very little-hardly more than to give a cup of cold water, and see that the patients were treated with sympathy and kindness.

Mr. Davis was general superintendent, and brought to his arduous duties good judgment, untiring industry, and uniform kindness.

"Junius" was charged with supplying medicines to the "out-door patients." The hospitals, when crowded, would hold about six hundred; but there were always many more invalids unable to obtain admission. These wretched men waited wearily for death in their tents, in subterranean holes, under hospitals, or in the open

414

REBEL SURGEONS GENERALLY HUMANE.

[1864.

air. My comrade's tender sympathy softened the last hours of many a poor fellow who had long been a stranger to

"The falling music of a gracious word,

Or the stray sunshine of a smile."

I was appointed to supervise all the hospital books, keeping a record of each patient's name, disease, admission, and discharge or death. At my own solicitation, the Rebel surgeon-in-chief also authorized me to receive the clothing left by the dead, and re-issue it among the living. I endeavored to do this systematically, keeping lists of the needy, who indeed were ninetenths of all the prisoners. The deaths ranged from twenty to forty-eight daily, leaving many garments to be distributed. Day after day, in bitterly cold weather, pale, fragile boys, who should have been at home with their mothers and sisters, came to me with no clothing whatever, except a pair of worn cotton pantaloons and a thin cotton shirt.

Dr. Richard O. Currey, a refugee from Knoxville, was the surgeon in charge. Though a genuine Rebel, he was just and kind-hearted, doing his utmost to change the horrible condition of affairs. Again and again he sent written protests to Richmond, which brought several successive inspectors to examine the prison and hospitals, but no change of treatment.

We were reluctantly driven to the belief that the Richmond authorities deliberately adopted this plan to reduce the strength of our armies. The Medusa head of Slavery had turned their hearts to stone. At this time, they held nearly forty thousand prisoners. In our garrison the inmates were dying at the rate of thirteen per cent. a month upon the aggregate. About as many more were enlisting in the Rebel army. Thus our soldiers