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[72] water was of course abundant, though soap was lacking, and at first rations were sufficient to preserve the strength of the prisoners. During the summer of 1863 conditions were endurable, but as larger numbers were sent thither, food became scarcer, and as the weather grew colder, much suffering ensued. On November 18, 1863, according to the report of the Confederate inspector, there were sixty-three hundred in confinement, though the encampment had been intended for about three thousand, and tents for only that number had been provided. An effort to provide more was made, but tents to shelter all the prisoners were never furnished. Many prisoners lay on the damp ground without protection of any sort and there was much suffering during the winter. Little seems to have been done to better conditions except to hurry along the completion of the stockade at Andersonville, and on March 6, 1864, the medical inspector reported that one-fourth the prisoners were sick. As captives were sent further south there were fewer complaints for a time, but in September, 1864, conditions were evidently as bad as ever. The efforts of the officers in charge show how strained were the resources of the Confederacy. Only seventy-five tents could be found in Richmond, and lumber could not be had at all. The last class of prisons, open stockades without shelter, was found only in the South. It included Camp Sumter at Anderson, and Camp Lawton at Millen, Georgia; Camp Ford, near Tyler, and Camp Groce near Hempstead, Texas, and the stockades at Savannah, Charleston, Florence, and Columbia. Though there were several buildings within the fence at Salisbury, they could accommodate only a small proportion of the prisoners confined there, so that this prison belongs, in part at least, to this class also. As early as 1862, the Confederate Commissary Department broke down under the strain of feeding both the Army of Northern Virginia and a considerable number of prisoners in Virginia. The exchange of prisoners following the agreement
Review of Reviews. New York. 1912.
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