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
But superior numbers, coupled with equal bravery and ability, are bound
to win in the end and on the 15th of June 1864 Grant’s army was before
Petersburg with a determination to pound the Rebels into submission.
If the battle of Atlanta caused fear and trembling among the rebs at
Andersonville, the fall of that city caused a perfect panic among them.
On the 3d of September a train load of one thousand men was shipped away
from the prison, and each day after that saw the exodus of a like
number, until all who were able to walk to the station had been shipped
to more secure points. Some were sent to Millen and Savannah, Ga., and
some to Charleston, and Columbia, South Carolina.
During the latter part of August long sheds with an upper and lower
floor, and open at the sides, had been built in the northern portion of
the stockade. The carpenters who performed the labor of building these
sheds or barracks, as they were called, were of our own numbers. They
received as compensation for their labor an extra ration of food, and
they thought themselves lucky to get a chance to work for their board,
as indeed, they were.
On the 5th Ole Gilbert, Rouse, and myself left our quarters near the
swamp, and moved into the sheds. We gave up our well with regret, as it
had proved to be a great blessing to us, but September had come, and
soon the storms of the autumnal equinox would be upon us, and our little
tent, made of a ragged blanket and pine boughs, would but poorly shelter
us from the storm.
We took up our quarters on the upper floor, with no straw for bedding,
nothing between our skeleton like bodies and the floor but a piece of
ragged blanket. We suffered terribly for the lack of bedding, our
protruding hip bones could not possibly reconcile themselves to the hard
floor and we were rolling about continually trying to find some part of
our anatomy that would fit a pine board, but we never found it. But we
did find a little purer air than we found down by the excrement burdened
swamp, the foul gases arising from decomposing human excrements
fermenting in a hot sun were not quite so strong and nauseous and
besides we had a little more room. Day by day the thinning process went
on, there being two strong powers at work to accomplish the task, death
and the trains of cars.
I have never been quite satisfied with the tables of mortality published
with reference to Andersonville. Dr. Jones in his report, gives the
number who died between Feb. 24th and September 21st, 1864, as nine
thousand four hundred and seventy-nine. McElroy gives twelve thousand
nine hundred and twelve as the whole number that died during the time
Andersonville was used as a prison.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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