[259]
Hon. A. M. Keiley's narrative.
In 1866 Hon. A. M. Keiley, (then of Petersburg, but for some years past the scholarly and popular Mayor of Richmond), published a volume on his prison life at Point Lookout and Elmira, which we would be glad to see read by all who really wish to know the truth concerning those prisons. We make the following extracts concerning Point Lookout:The routine of prison-life at Point Lookout was as follows: Between dawn and sunrise a “reveille” horn summoned us into line by companies, ten of which constituted each division — of which I have before spoken — and here the roll was called. This performance was hurried over with much as haste as is ascribed to certain marital ceremonies in a poem that it would be obviously improper to make a more particular allusion to; and those whose love of a nap predominates over fear of the Yankees, usually tumble in for another snooze. About eight o'clock the breakfasting began. This operation consisted in the forming of the companies again into line, and introducing them under lead of their sergeants into the mess-rooms, where a slice of bread and a piece of pork or beef — lean in the former and fat in the latter being contraband of war — were placed at intervals of about twenty inches apart. The meat was usually about four or five ounces in weight. These we seized upon, no one being allowed to touch a piece, however, until the whole company entered, and each man was in position opposite his ration (universally pronounced raytion, among our enemies, as it is almost as generally called with the “a” short among ourselves, symbolical, you observe, of the shortness of provant in Dixie). This over, a detail of four or five men from each company — made at morning roll-call — formed themselves into squads for the cleansing of the camp; an operation which the Yankees everywhere attend to with more diligence than ourselves. The men then busied themselves with the numberless occupations which the fertility of American genius suggests, of which I will have something to say hereafter, until dinner-time, when they were again carried to the mess-houses, where another slice of bread, and rather oven, half-pint of watery slop, by courtesy called “soup,” greeted the eyes of such ostrich-stomached animals as could find comfort in that substitute for nourishment. About sunset, at the winding of another horn, the roll was again called, to be sure that no one had “flanked out,” and, about an hour after, came “taps;” after which all were required to remain in their quarters and keep silent. The Sanitary Commission, a benevolent association of exempts in aid of the Hospital Department of the Yankee army, published in July, 1865, a “Narrative of Sufferings of United States Officers and Soldiers, Prisoners of War,” in which a parallel is drawn between
