John D. Billings, The history of the Tenth Massachusetts battery of light artillery in the war of the rebellion

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[460] branching out at right angles from a central avenue, thirty on a side; these streets were numbered, and on each were the quarters of a hundred prisoners, their covering a condemned tent, their bed the ground, sometimes wet, sometimes not, according to the weather. This camp was guarded by a strong line of sentries, and several pieces of cannon on a hill near at hand were trained upon the inclosure in case of a sudden outbreak. I strolled out to see the place on the first afternoon, and was suddenly accosted with, ‘Look out, dead line!’ from a prisoner who was better acquainted with the premises. I looked up and saw the silent sentry just beginning to bring his rifle to position. I disappointed him of his expected reward—a furlough—by stepping back. ‘Where's the dead line?’ I asked the prisoner. ‘Anywhere within three rods of the stockade,’ he said. ‘Sometimes nearer, sometimes not so near.’ And we soon found that ‘dead line’ was wherever the sentry chose. Some of these guards were friendly and would warn us, but the majority were quite the other way.

There was a daily count as there had been in Libby. For this purpose we were all marched out of the stockade while our quarters were being searched, and were counted as we passed in again. Some spent their time while outside in digging witch-grass roots out of the sand, getting as much as could be clasped in one hand. I could not imagine what they did with this at first, but found that they dried the roots and then used them to heat their pea broth; making for the purpose a circular wall of earth just large enough to set a tin can upon, leaving a draught hole and a place for the escape of the smoke, thus saving nearly every particle of heat. Once or twice a man tried to escape by burying himself