[59]
August 29.—A little down-hearted.
The sights seen in this place are enough to sicken any one.
August 30.—Reports in regard to exchange contradictory.
Rations good, but rather slim.
Require some figuring to make three meals a day.
August 31.—Yesterday, one month a prisoner.
Hope I will not have to stay more than another month.
Wish I could eat some home-made bread and butter.
I have bought a small kettle of three pints, in which we make soup.
September 2.—Sherman reported flanking Hood.
In hopes we may be recaptured some time this month.
September 6.—Hot days, cold nights.
Pity the men without any shelter, and there are thousands.
September 7.—Begin to move the men out, some say for exchange, and some; to enter another “ Bull Pen.”
September 9.—Still moving out the men.
September 11.–--The good work still going on.
September 12.
At this date, the journal is discontinued, although its writer did not leave
Andersonville till the 19th of September.
From this time till the 3d of October, the day of his arrival at
Savannah, he was on his passage to and from
Lovejoy, and wandering in the swamps, having escaped from his captors, though only to fall into the enemy's hands again in a few days.
From
Savannah he was transferred to
Millen, where, on the 30th of October, just three months after his first capture, he was released by God from the cruelties inflicted by man. The best account of the intervening epoch is to be found in the narratives of his fellow-soldiers.
Mr. White's account, quoted above, continues as follows:—
On the 19th of September, eleven hundred were taken from the stockade to be exchanged for Rebel prisoners in the hands of General Sherman.
Martin and I were among them; but when we arrived at the point of exchange, a place about twenty miles south of Atlanta, on account of some disagreement between the commissioners, only five hundred were exchanged; we were not of this number.
I never saw such a disappointed, disheartened body of men as the seven [six] hundred who were turned back.
Many
