Martyria Part 5

The prison at Dartmoor, in England (which was a paradise in comparison with Andersonville), where our prisoners were held in captivity by the English during the last war, furnished two hundred to three hundred square feet to every prisoner in the barracks, besides allowing s.p.a.cious yards, where the prisoners were permitted to exercise daily. There were there seven large two-story stone buildings, each one hundred and eighty feet in length. Five thousand prisoners enclosed within twenty acres of land at Dartmoor, thirty thousand in twelve acres, or thirty-five thousand in twenty-two acres, at Andersonville.

VIII.

The timbers composing the stockade were of entire trunks of pines, ma.s.sive and solid, and measuring from one to three feet in diameter. They were sunk into the earth for about five or six feet, and held in position at the top by long, slender pines, nailed on the outer side by large iron spikes. There were but two gates for this vast prison, and but two corresponding apertures in the outer palisade. These gates were constructed of ma.s.sive timbers, and protected by a strong porch, occupying a base of about thirty feet square. These were always strongly guarded, to prevent the sudden rush of ma.s.ses of men. At intervals of about one hundred feet, were erected detached and covered platforms, upon the outer side of the palisades, which, overlooking the summit of the wall, and the enclosure beyond, served as sentry boxes. The sentries, perched buzzard-like on the wall, could observe, from their high positions, at all times, the actions, the motions of the uncovered prisoners, and with their rifles shoot down the offending prisoner, whether he stood talking with his comrades, in the centre of the s.p.a.ce, or whether he approached the sacred precincts of the dead line.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Sometimes they threw down their unconsumed fragments of bread to the hungry men. Sometimes they were hurled with curses; rarely were they thrown from feelings of compa.s.sion. Yet there were some kind-hearted men here, in the degrading position of the sentry box, who viewed the scene with affright, and who wept bitterly over the awful torture and sacrifice of life.

The author, travelling on foot among the mountains and forests of Northern Georgia, after peace was declared, found these evidences of humane feeling among the letters preserved in the humble cabins of the poor whites. That unoffending men were shot down without warning, there is no doubt whatever; that men, weary of torture, staggered to the dead line, and calmly, joyfully received the fatal shot, there is positive evidence.

IX.

The trees were all removed from the enclosure, and with the specific intent of cruelty, as was openly stated by the brutal builders. They should have no shade, it was said, and no shade had the wretched men but what was cast by the few ragged and rotten blankets and shelter tents that the prison examiners pa.s.sed by as utterly worthless in their examination and search for articles of value, whether watches, bank notes, hats, shirts, and even shoes. There were men who, robbed at the outer gates, entered the prison almost naked. This system of robbery was open and audacious, and it is said that the only prisoners who escaped spoliation were those who were taken from Sherman when Atlanta fell, and when consternation prevailed at the prison in consequence. It is positively stated that it was sanctioned by Wirz and Winder. At all events, two men, by the names of Hume and Duncan, robbed the prisoners systematically, and appropriated the packages sent to the prisoners, from the United States, to such an extent that few if any articles ever reached the poor men to whom the boxes of food and clothing were sent.

These blankets and rags were vainly stretched over sticks, to form the semblance of a habitation, wherever the earth gave firm foothold, even along the borders of the pestilential marsh. Those who were dest.i.tute of even these shreds of cloth, dug with their hands holes in the earth, after the example of wild beasts, or with the slimy water from the brook they built up, with handfuls of mud, little cabins over hollows scooped out from below the surface of the ground, and as rude as the clumps of earth, which that lowest degree of the human form--the Digger Indian--inhabits.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

These may be seen at the present day, looking like the lodges of the beaver, or the mounds of the marmots of the prairies, and half concealed by those wild, useless, and noxious weeds which linger in, and cling to the footsteps of man, as he wanders in his migrations over the uncultivated lands of the globe.

Sometimes the heavy rains washed away the roofs of mud, inundating the occupants beneath. Some of the poor wretches had not the strength to lift up the inc.u.mbent ma.s.s of earth, and perished miserably in their dens.

There are now in these demolished excavations the bones of some of our fellow-citizens, unknown and unhonored. The cry of distress was so constant that few heeded the smothered moan. The stumps of the fallen trees were grubbed up by the knives and fingers of the prisoners for firewood to warm themselves with, or to cook their scanty food; even the roots were followed down deep into the earth, for the purpose of obtaining the means of warmth which were almost entirely denied them by the prison keepers.

X.

There is no excuse for this wanton exposure to the vicissitudes of the climate, for the forests adjoining were immense in their extent, and thousands of the suffering men offered, begged to go and obtain material to build sheds or huts to protect them from the inclemency of the weather.

Neither parole was allowed for this purpose, nor real attempts made to obtain the building tools. To show the force of the argument that the rebels had not sufficient aid, and that it would have been dangerous to have paroled any of these prisoners, there is the fact that there were several large steam saw-mills in the vicinity, and they could have easily afforded, in few weeks, all the lumber required for the purpose of shelter.

Was it recklessness, was it perversity, or was it malice aforethought, that withheld from the prisoners the means of shelter? The few sheds that were erected were not commenced until late in the term of its occupation, too late to render much service. They were merely roofs of boards, placed upon posts, at the distance of seven feet from the ground.

There were neither sides nor part.i.tions to these sheds, and they were not required during the hot months.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIEW OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE DEAD WERE INTERRED.

The bodies were laid in rows of one hundred to three hundred, and after the earth was thrown over them a stake was thrust down to mark the place of burial. This view is taken from a rebel photograph.--Page 57.]

Pity was not a virtue that was recognized here: the n.o.ble impulses of the heart were reversed, and the natural instincts perverted.

The dead bodies of the thousands who perished within the stockade, without medical attendance, were dragged forth, without care, and thrown promiscuously into the common field-carts, which, with their carelessly heaped-up burdens, proceeded to the trenches, where the dead heroes were laid in long lines, side by side, two or three hundred in a trench, and then a stick was thrust into the ground, at the head of each man, to indicate the place of burial. For the care observed in the burial of the dead after the carts arrived at the cemetery, and the preserving of the records of the victims, and the place, we are indebted to our own men, who were paroled especially for the purpose.

The only solicitude observed by the rebels during or after interment of their victims, was shown by the civil engineer or surveyor of the town. He thought that so much animal matter should not go entirely to waste, and so commenced to plant grape vines over the mounds of the decomposing dead.

To show the utter want of decency which ruled all things connected with the prison, it is stated by positive eye-witnesses that the same carts that transported the dead, went forth (without being cleansed of their reeking and disgusting filth), to the shambles and the depots for the meat and corn for the living prisoners.

XI.

An eminent statistician has stated that mortality is in direct ratio to the density of population, and that superficial area is as essential to health as cubic s.p.a.ce. To the writer's mind, the overcrowding of the men, and their exposure to the variations of heat and cold, the influence of moisture, and the foul emanations of the infected soil, were sufficient to cause great destruction of human life; and when combined with the deficient dietary, the imagination can hardly conceive of a better field for disease and death than the condition of this swarming pen. All the elements and combinations of physical destructiveness were here in full play. "Losses by battle," says Sir Charles Napier, "sink to nothing, compared with those inflicted by improperly constructed barracks, and the jamming of soldiers--no other word is sufficiently expressive."

"Diseases," states the French Inspector Baudens, "slay more men than steel or powder, and it is often easy to prevent them by a few simple hygienic precautions."

In all campaigns where the care of the soldier is left to the military man,--who is educated for destruction, and has not been taught in the economy of life,--we see in the mortuary and non-efficient lists a disgraceful and culpable array of thoughtless routine, vulgar prejudices, and systems. In our Military Academies the elements and the means of destruction are taught, but not a law unfolded that relates to the principles of health, strength, and life. To alleviate the burden of the military list by sanitary measures is an idea unheard of, or at least unnoticed. "For these works," writes Chadwick, in his papers on "Economy,"

"a special training is needed for our military engineers, whose present peculiar training is only for old works for war, and for those imperfectly,--works for the maintenance of the health of an army being necessary means to the maintenance of its military strength.

"The one-sided character of the common training of our military engineers was displayed in the Crimea, in the proved need of a sanitary commission to give instruction for the selection and the practical drainage of proper sites for healthy encampments, for the choice collection and the proper distribution of wholesome water, for the construction of wholesome huts, and the proper shelter and treatment of horses as well as men."

XII.

In this enclosure, during a period of twelve months, from five thousand to thirty-six thousand human beings ate, slept, and drank, whilst the piles of filth were constantly acc.u.mulating, and the germs of infection silently at work. There was no regularity in the arrangement of the interior. Men collected in groups in the day time, and they lay in rows, like swine, at night.

The stream, which with little ingenuity could have been turned to a blessing for the prison, was allowed to be obstructed by the heaps of grime; and enlarging its area, it a.s.sisted in forming the extensive quagmires, which were several acres in extent. So little care was observed for the comfort or the health of the prisoners, that all the washings of the bakery, all the filth of the out-houses of the workmen, were allowed to pa.s.s down and mingle with the current of the stream only thirty feet above the point of entrance into the stockade. The traveller can observe to-day that this malicious act of refined cruelty, or fatal error in hygiene, was really perpetrated.

Besides this, the drains of the camp and the town above emptied themselves into this stream which supplied the prison with water.

XIII.

The bakery was located on the west side of the stockade, about equidistant from either line of palisade. It was of rough boards, and but one story in height. Its interior disclosed two rooms, one of which communicated with the two ovens, which were built of common brick. These two ovens--fourteen feet in length by seven feet in width, and with one kneading-trough fifteen feet long, and less than three feet in width--supplied the prisoners with all the bread they obtained; and so far the writer has not learned that there was any other source of supply.

These same ovens, kept red hot, and worked night and day, to the fullest capacity, by the commissary bakers of the United States service, could not have produced but eight thousand rations of white bread, and but nine thousand six hundred rations of corn bread. This is the extreme limit; and regarded by the workmen, who have made the calculations, as almost an impossibility. The ordinary capacity of this establishment was probably about four or five thousand rations of corn bread. This quant.i.ty, divided daily among thirty thousand men, would give but a small morsel to each one; and this gives the appearance of truth to the statement, that from two to six ounces of corn bread were furnished as rations to the prisoners.

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Ask a survivor of this prison treatment, if perchance you can find one, how he preserved his life, and he will tell you, "By eating the rations of the dying." Ten thousand men were sick or dying in this enclosure at one time.

After the carts, with their scanty burdens of food, had pa.s.sed into the prison, and distributed their contents, ten or fifteen thousand of the haggard and starving men might be seen collected together in the central portion of the prison trading with each other. Some of the poor wretches would be offering a handful of peas for a knot of wood no larger than the human fist, in order that they might cook their allowance; others offering, in barter, their remnants of clothing--a cap, or a shoe, or anything they possessed--for a morsel of food.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _PLAN OF PRISON BAKERY_ ANDERSONVILLE Ga.]

The little knots of wood above mentioned had a standard value of fifty cents; yet there were immense forests all around, and within sight on every side.

XIV.

There appears to have been but one kitchen for this vast a.s.semblage, and that strangely situated--far in rear of the outer palisade, away from water-course or spring. The soil to-day does not present traces of a much-travelled road from its doorway to the main gate, distant about one third of a mile by the route taken. Consider the enormous weight of provisions which should have pa.s.sed over this road when the prison contained more than twenty thousand men. This kitchen was a plain one-story shed, built of rough boards, one hundred feet in length, and less than fifty feet in width. It contained in the interior two medium-sized ranges, and four boilers of fifty gallons' capacity each. The capacity indicated does not by far equal the cooking apparatus which is required and furnished to the Lincoln and Harewood Hospitals, of Washington, for twelve hundred men.

It is the opinion of the writer, who is familiar with the amount of cooking apparatus required by large hospitals and camps, that this kitchen, with its implements, could not, in the course of twenty-four hours, by constant relays of industrious workmen, have furnished cooked rations to more than five thousand men. There may have been other arrangements for cooking in the open air; but there are no longer any traces of such operations, nor has the writer any evidence that such was the case.

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XV.

Upon the banks of the same stream, and near the railroad station, was erected the stockade which was intended for the confinement of the officers; but it was abandoned, after few weeks' occupation, partly from motives of prudence and in fear of revolt in keeping officers near so great a number of the rank and file of the army, and partly from the unfortunate selection of the locality. The officers were removed to Macon, and were confined there in the cotton sheds during a long period. This pen, known as the officers' stockade, was built of pine-tree palisades, fifteen feet high, and measured one hundred and ninety-five feet in length by one hundred and eight feet in width, and was provided with a shed in the interior forty-five feet long by twenty-seven feet wide, and also with a walk, suspended on the outside of the palisade, for the use of the sentries. The location and the provisions of this stockade were worse and more dangerous than even the main prison.