Fifteen Months in Dixie; Or, My Personal Experience in Rebel PrisonsDay, W. W. (William Worthy)
History
Fifteen Months in Dixie; Or, My Personal Experience in Rebel Prisons
Day, W. W. (William Worthy)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Prisoners and prisons
One day, a number of Reb. citizens came in to see the “Yanks.” Among
them was a large finely built young man. He was dressed in the height of
fashion and evidently belonged to the F. F. V.’s. We were skirmishing
when they came in, and young F. F. V. strutted through the room, with
his head up, like a Texas steer in a Nebraska corn field. His nose and
lips suggested scorn and disgust. Thinks I, “my fine lad I’ll fix you.”
Just as he passed me I threw a large “Grey-back” on his coat; many of
the prisoners saw the act, and contributed their mite to the general
fund, and by the time young F. F. V. had made the circuit of the room,
he was well stocked with Grey-backs. It is needless to add he never
visited us again.
Scurvy and diarrhea were doing their deadly work even at Danville. These
diseases were due, largely, to causes over which the rebels had control.
Dr. Joseph Jones, a bitter rebel, professor of Medical Chemistry, at the
Medical College in Augusta, was sent by the Surgeon General of the
Confederate army, to investigate and report upon the cause of the
extreme mortality in Andersonville. He attributed scurvy to a lack of
vegetable diet and acids. Diarrhea and dysentery, he said, were caused
by the filthy conditions by which we were surrounded, polluted water,
and the fact that the meal from which our bread was made was not
separated from the husk.
There have been many stories told with relation to this meal; let me
make some things plain, and then there will not be the apparent
contradiction, that there is at present in the public mind.
The difference in opinion arises from the different interpretations of
the word “husk.”
A true northern man understands husk to mean;—the outer covering of the
ear of corn; while a southerner, or Middle States, man calls it a
“shuck.”
The husk referred to by Dr. Jones, would be called by a northerner, the
“hull,” or bran. His meaning was that it was unsifted.
The fetid waters of the canal, the unsifted corn meal made into half
baked bread, and a lack of vegetables and acids, together with the rigid
prison rules, which resulted in filth, and stench, beyond description,
were the prime causes of the great mortality at Danville. During the
five months in which I was confined at Danville, more than 500 of 4,200
prisoners died, or about one in eight.
Our clothing too, was getting old, many of the men had no shoes, others
were almost naked. Our government sent supplies of food and clothing to
us, but they were subjected to such a heavy toll that none of the food,
and but little of the clothing ever reached us, and what little was
distributed to our men was soon traded to the guards for bread, or rice,
or salt. I never received a mouthful of food, or a stitch of clothing
which came through the lines.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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