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 as I was cooking my rations some one slapped me on the shoulder
and exclaimed, “Hello Bill!” Looking up I saw standing before me, an old
schoolmate from Jamestown, New York, by the name of Joe Hall. It was a
sad re-union; we had both been in prison more than nine months, he on
Belle Isle, and I in Danville. We had both been vaccinated and had great
scorbutic ulcers in our arms, but he, poor fellow, had gangrene which
soon ate away his life. A few weeks afterwards he went out to the prison
hospital, where he died in a few days, and now a marble slab in the
Cemetery at Andersonville with this inscription.
Joseph Hall, Company E. 9th N. Y. Cav.
marks the last resting place of one of my boyhood friends. Poor Joe.
A few days after Joe’s visit to me, he introduced me to another
Jamestown boy, a member of the 49th New York Infantry, by the name of
Orlando Hoover, or “Tip” as he was called. He had re-inlisted during the
winter previous and had been home on a veterans furlough, where he had
visited some of my old friends. He told me how some of the old gray
haired men had declared they would enlist for the purpose of releasing
the prisoners, that there was great indignation expressed by many loyal
northern men, because our government did not take some measures to
release us from our long confinement.
“Tip” had good health in Andersonville, as he did not stay there more
than two months, but when we arrived at Florence I went to his
detachment to see him, and his “pard” told me that he had jumped from
the cars, and that the guards had shot him, while on their way up from
Charleston. A little more than two months afterward, I carried the news
to his widowed mother, and sisters.
One of my comrades, Nelson Herrick, of Company B, 10th Wisconsin, had
scratched his leg slightly with his finger nail, this had grown into a
scorbutic ulcer, at last gangrene supervened upon it, and one of the
best men in the 10th Wisconsin was carried to the cemetery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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