Lights and shadows in Confederate prisons : $b a personal experience, 1864-5Sprague, Homer B. (Homer Baxter)
History
Lights and shadows in Confederate prisons : $b a personal experience, 1864-5
Sprague, Homer B. (Homer Baxter)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Prisoners and prisons
Rev. Charles K. Hall of Danville, a Methodist Episcopal clergyman, came
to us a little later. His first sermon was an eloquent discourse on
Charity. He practiced what he preached; for he never came empty-handed.
On his first visit he brought armfuls of tobacco, each plug wrapped in a
pious tract. He asked us to fall in line, for he had something for each.
When he came to me in the distribution, I declined it, saying "I never
use tobacco in any form." "Oh take it," said he; "you read the tract,
and give the tobacco to your neighbor." On subsequent Sundays he brought
eggs and other delicacies for the sick. We admired him as a preacher,
and regarded him with affection as a man. Secession and slavery aside,
for he believed in the rightfulness of both, as we learned on arguing
with him, it would be hard to find a more lovable character than Charles
K. Hall. And the South was full of such, who would have been glad, if
permitted and opportunity offered, to be good Samaritans, neighbors to
him who had fallen among foes; pure, gentle, kindly spirits, to whom it
will be said in the last great day, "I was an hungred and ye gave me
meat; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto
me."
From the lack of sufficient and proper food, clothing, and exercise, the
health of all suffered. Much of the time it was impossible to keep warm.
The most prevalent diseases, I think, were rheumatism and scurvy. I
suffered from both. Anti-scorbutics were scarce. The pain from
rheumatism was slight during the day; but at evening it began in the
joints of the fingers and became more severe as night advanced,
ascending from the hands to the wrists, arms, and shoulders. It was
worst at midnight and through the small hours, then gradually diminished
till daylight. The prison physician did his best to help us with
liniment, but in those winter nights the treatment was ineffective.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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