Secrets of the Late Rebellion, Now Revealed for the First TimeFreese, Jacob R.
History
Secrets of the Late Rebellion, Now Revealed for the First Time
Freese, Jacob R.
United States -- Politics and government -- 1861-1865
_Fourth_.--Andersonville, Georgia. This was an enclosure of about
twenty-five acres, surrounded by a high stockade, and by earthworks
mounted with cannon. One end of the enclosure was a swamp, through which
crept a sluggish, muddy stream, and this was the only water to which
the prisoners had access. To add to the filthiness and consequent
unhealthfulness of this water, a Confederate camp was located upon it,
above the point where the stream entered the stockade. The few buildings
within the enclosure were scarcely enough for hospital purposes, and
here, as at Salisbury, the prisoners had to burrow in the earth for
shelter. Even in the coldest of weather thousands had no blankets, nor
scarcely clothing enough to cover their nakedness. Their ordinary ration
here, as at the other places named, was a loaf made from one pint of
corn-meal each day, and when, as occasionally they did, receive anything
beyond this, it was regarded as a rare treat. The shooting of men on the
"dead-line" was almost of daily occurrence.
Indeed, many of the prisoners became so crazed from suffering that they
sought death in this way. General Winder was commander of the camp, and
under him was the Captain Wirz who was tried, convicted, and hung at
Washington near the close of the war. Thousands at the South, as well
as at the North, believed then, and believe still, that General Winder,
instead of his subordinate officer, should have stood beneath the
hangman's noose. Undoubtedly he could have corrected these terrible
wrongs had he tried. That he did not try is proof positive that he did
not care. The world at large always gives to commanders the chief credit
of all done by their subordinates, and, on the same principle, holds
them responsible for all that their subordinates fail to do or do
wrongfully. Had General Winder desired his prisoners to have had better
treatment, neither Captain Wirz, nor any other of his subordinates,
would have treated them as they did. How much they suffered none will
ever know. The horrible things related in the foregoing pages, and the
thousands of other terrible things related by others who have written
the history of the Rebellion, are but as drops to the ocean, as sands to
the sea-shore, to all that occurred during the war. Dark deeds seek to
hide themselves always, and while the "secrets" of this volume, and a
few-others, have oozed out since the war, others doubtless quite as
bad have never yet, and probably never will, see the light of day. And
possibly it is best so. There are some deeds that so harrow up one's
feelings that, if related, they would, as said by Hamlet's ghost:
"Freeze the young blood;
Make the two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres;
The knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine."
Or, after hearing them, make us to cry out with Hamlet (slightly
varied)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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