Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 8.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[89] by talking that the Committee refrained from further examination. As they were moving away from his bed, he spoke up and said: “I am better now than when I came here. I have some strength now. I hope I shall get better, for I want to see my old father and mother once more.” ]

James Sweeney, sworn and examined: by Mr. Gooch:

Question. Where did you reside when you enlisted?

Answer. Haverhill, Massachusetts.

Question. To what company and regiment do you belong?

Answer. Company E, Seventeenth Massachusetts.

Question. When were you taken prisoner?

Answer. First of February.

Question. Where?

Answer. Six miles from Newbern, North-Carolina.

Question. Where were you then carried?

Answer. To Richmond.

Question. How were you treated after you were taken prisoner?

Answer. We had no breakfast that day. We started out early in the morning — the One Hundred and Thirty-second New-York was with us — without any thing to eat. We had nothing to eat all that day, and they made us sleep out all that night without any thing to eat. It rained that night; then they marched us the next day thirty miles, to Kingston, without any thing to eat, except it was, about twelve o'clock, one of the regular captains, who had some crackers in his haversack, gave us about one each, and some of the boys managed to get an ear of corn from the wagons, but the rest of them were pushed back by the guns of the guard; then we were kept in the streets of Kingston until about nine o'clock, when we had a little pork and three barrels of crackers for about two hundred of us. I got three or four crackers. Then they put us in freight cars that they had carried hogs in, all filthy and dirty, and we were nearly frozen by the time we got to Goldsborough; and near Weldon they camped us in a field all day long, like a spectacle for the people to look at, and when we got to Richmond they put us in a common for a while, and then we were taken to prison. About eleven o'clock that day they brought us some corn-bread. They gave me about three quarters of a small loaf, and a dipper of hard black beans with worms in them. We were kept there all night. If we went near the window, bullets were fired at us. Two or three hundred men lay on the floor. I was kept between three and four weeks on Belle Isle.

Question. How was it for food there?

Answer. That night they gave us a piece of corn-bread about an inch thick, two or three inches long. Some nights we would have a couple of spoonfuls, may be, of raw rice or raw beans; other nights they would not give us that. A squad of one hundred men of us would have about twenty sticks of wood, and in order to cut that up we would have to pay a man for the use of an axe by giving him a piece of the stick for splitting up the rest. We lay right on the ground in the snow. Twenty of us together would lay with our feet so close to the fire that the soles of our boots would be all drawn, and we would get up in the morning all shivering, and I could not eat what little food I did get.

Question. What is the cause of your sickness?

Answer. Just the food we got there, and this exposure. Eating this corn-bread continually gave me the diarrhoea. We would get thirsty, and drink that river-water. We had little bits of beef sometimes; generally it was tough, more like a piece of india-rubber you would rub pencil-marks out with. What little food we did get was so bad we could not eat it. At first, for five or six days, we could eat it pretty well, but afterward I could not eat it.

Question. Have you been brought to your present condition by your treatment there?

Answer. Yes, sir; by the want of proper food, and exposure to the cold?

John C. Burcham, sworn and examined: by Mr. Julian.

Question. Where did you enlist, and in what regiment?

Answer. I enlisted in Indianapolis, in the Seventy-fifth Indiana regiment, Colonel Robinson.

Question. When were you taken prisoner, and where?

Answer. I was taken prisoner at Chickamauga, on the twentieth of September.

Question. Where were you carried then?

Answer. The next day they took us to Atlanta, and then on to Richmond.

Question. What prison were you put in?

Answer. I was on Belle Isle five or six days and nights, and then they put me in a prison over in town.

Question. How did they treat you there?

Answer. Rough, rough, rough.

Question. What did they give you to eat?

Answer. A small bit of bread and a little piece of meat; black beans full of worms. Sometimes meat pretty good; sometimes the meat was so rotten that you could smell it as soon as you got it in the house. We were used rough, I can tell you.

Question. Did they leave you your property?

Answer. They took every thing we had before ever we got to Richmond; my hat, blankets, knife. We did not do very well until we got some blankets from our Government; afterward we did better. Before that we slept right on the floor, with nothing over us except a little old blanket one of us had.

Question. What was their manner toward you?

Answer. I call it pretty rough. If a man did not walk just right up to the mark, they were down on him, and not a man of us dared to put his head out of the window, for he would be