[
430]
Walter M. Mitchell, Tenth N. Y. Infantry, says in his evidence that there were some fifty colored soldiers in
Andersonville in May, 1864.
He continues, regarding them,—
‘Some were able-bodied, some were wounded.
One I know to have had his leg amputated.
I saw the rebel guards come in one day, and at the point of the bayonet force all the colored soldiers they could find outside the stockade.
They told us they were going to force them to work upon the breastworks, which the colored soldiers refused to do until compelled to do it at the point of the bayonet.’
It has been estimated that 44,882 Federal prisoners were confined in
Andersonville during the thirteen months of the occupancy of the prison.
Their jailer boasted that he was killing more Union soldiers there than
Lee was in
Virginia.
The deaths numbered 12,462.
Of the eleven Fifty-fourth men presumed to have been there confined, three are known to have died in the place, four have no final record, the remainder were released.
At the
battle of Honey Hill,
S. C., Nov. 30, 1864, there were no missing men, but the below-named man was captured.
Harris,
Hill.
Private, Co. G, captured and wounded; released 25th April, 1865; and discharged 30th Sept. 1865, at
Boston, Mass.
Harris' statement, in a pension application, is that he was taken to Charleston Jail, and after several months to
Andersonville, thence to
Montgomery, Ala., and finally to
Annapolis, Md.
The list of men known to have been captured is closed with the following, of whose capture or release nothing further is known than the record gives:—
Crossler,
Chauncey.
Private, Co. F; captured at
Camden, S. C., 18th April, 1865; escaped and returned 2d July, 1865.
In conclusion, the following tribute to the class of troops of which our regiment was composed is extracted from the report of the Congressional committee:—
‘These troops entered the service and bore arms for the Union with the knowledge that the cold-blooded and infamous order of Jefferson Davis consigned them to death or slavery when captured, and that for ’
