At Florence a prison was erected something similar to the stockade at Andersonville, but smaller in dimensions. It was situated in a perfect wilderness, with swampy woodland all around it. The inclosure was not by any means cleared of fallen trees and brush when we were marched into it. This was much to our advantage, as winter was coming on. We arrived there about the latter part of October. The shelter we put up,--and all were enabled to have shelter here,--though in general more substantial than at Andersonville, in many instances I could not deem very healthy. To be explicit, I refer especially to dwelling wholly under ground. Camp reports of death statistics tended to confirm this opinion. As for myself, I had good shelter all of the time, and, during the latter part of our sojourn at Florence prison, I was an occupant of one of the best houses (shanties) in it. The rations drawn at this prison were among the shortest ever issued by the rebels to Yankee prisoners. It was certain starvation to any that depended entirely upon their rations. I did not, and for that reason I am alive to relate this history. It would be too tedious now for me to undertake to relate how I succeeded in doing otherwise; let it suffice, that every faculty of my mind was concentrated upon the subject of getting more to eat than was issued to me, and that I got it by the exercise of my faculties to the utmost,--and my muscles, too. On first arriving at Florence, I got some sweet potatoes, and these eradicated the scurvy from my body, and gave me a new lease on life; and after that my sole business was to get enough to eat, for I knew the preservation of my life depended upon it. At Andersonville, by activity and the virtue of one or two potatoes, and a taste or so of something else, perhaps, I had managed to keep the scurvy down sufficiently--and that is all--for me to get away from that place with my life; and then it seemed God's providence, more than anything else, for I had so very little to assist me. But, having gotten away from there and reached Charleston, and improved a little there, and arriving at Florence, I was placed under such influences that I regained sounder footing once more. I then went to work with a determination of trying to live as long as the rebels held me in their bonds. I knew I must get more to eat than they gave me, or die. I was an old prisoner, and very thin, and much shattered and broken, and needed all the food I could get there. A pint of meal was not enough for a man to subsist upon, as was plainly demonstrated by our men dying off with prodigious rapidity. Winter was coming on, and more food was needed instead of less. The prison authorities were cruel and persecuting. Once for three days not a mouthful of rations was issued. At the end of that period a heavy increase in the per centum of dead was carried out;--though I heard poor fellows who had stood it out saying, afterwards, that they