To increase the difficulty of tunnel escape, slaves and teams were employed to build piles of pitch-pine along the cleared space beyond the outer stockade. At night, when these were lighted, a line of fires was made which illuminated a wide area. From these fires arose columns of dense smoke, which in the sultry air of a midsummer night hung like a pall over the silent city of disease and starvation. Yet the city was not wholly quiet, for undertones of thousands of voices that murmured during the day at night died away into the low moans of the sick and the expiring, or rose into the overtones of the outcry of distressful dreams. In the edge of the gloom beyond the fires, patrols paced to and fro until the dawn. Every evening the watch-call sounded, "Post number one, nine o'clock and all is well." This cry was repeated by each sentinel until it had traveled around the stockade back to the place of starting. "Nine and a half o'clock and all is well," was next spoken, and likewise repeated. Thus every half hour from dark to daylight the time was called off, and this grim challenge greeted our ears every night until the survivors bade the Confederacy good-bye. Not that our captors benevolently wished to increase the sense of the shortness of the time until our release, but to be assured that the guards were keeping awake. CHAPTER III. THE PRISON COMMISSARIAT. The least that can be said of the prison sustenance is that it was exceedingly slim. But while the _per diem_ rations dealt out to an Andersonville prisoner were too small for proper maintenance, and much of the time inferior in quality, yet the thirty-two thousand to thirty-five thousand men who had to be fed were as a rule promptly served. To secure this result effective organization was necessary. It was accomplished as follows: Groups of two hundred and seventy men were named detachments and duly numbered. Every detachment was divided into the first, second and third nineties, each of which was in charge of one of our own sergeants. The nineties, in turn, were divided into the first, second and third thirties, which also were in charge of a sergeant or corporal.