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e that of the thirteen thousand buried in that old field, there will be one who will at last arise justified through Christ. And suppose that the judgment shall be as Jesus described it. If so, of all the ministers in Georgia, accessible to Andersonville, only one could hear this sentence, I was sick and in prison and ye visited me, and that one is a Catholic. Protestant churches may warn us of the danger of the Papal power, but till some of us learn this lesson of visiting the prisons, the hospitals, the plague-stricken and the outcast, we will never lead the masses away from Catholicism. During August we had several thunder showers. But there is one that in Andersonville history will always stand alone as eminently the storm. About the last of the month (I had no way to keep dates and can't remember them exactly), it came up suddenly, about midday, accompanied by vivid lightning and loud thunder, and a rain-fall such as is called the bursting of a water-spout. With t
an three posts as usual; but the next was called: P-o-ost numbah f-o-a-h, nine o'clock, and Atlanta's gone to-! For one instant the camp was still. In the next, Did you hear that? Then they cheered. Men got up all over the camp to discuss the news. The midnight call went round long before the camp got quiet again. What if we were hungry, ragged, filthy, and vermin-eaten?-we could be glad. Atlanta was gone! Early in September the rebs began to move prisoners away from Andersonville. They told us that they were taking us to Charleston to exchange us. But they had told us so many lies of that kind that most of the prisoners did not believe them. They took out two or three train-loads per week. Four or five train-loads had already gone, when one day Jess M---- (a kinsman of mine) came to me and said that his ninety was ordered to be ready to go out that afternoon; and that I could go out with him, on a dead man's name, if I wanted to. I did not believe the
Chapter 8: plans of escape. Taken back to the pen. plans of escape. Tunnels. bloodhounds. poor drummer boy. our plan Rebels and Yanks worked together till the wounded were all out of the wreck, which was probably about midnight. We did not get all the dead out till daylight next morning. A construction train came down next morning, unloaded its gang of men, took up the wounded, and returned to Andersonville. It returned about noon, and after getting the debris out of the way, and getting all the cars that could be run on the track, they took us back to the pen. One of the smashed cars was covered with a tin roof, of which I secured a piece about 20x24 inches, and after getting into prison, I made me a nice pan, by turning up about four inches all around. It proved to be a very valuable piece of property after we began to draw our rations. When the train came back after taking the wounded, they brought the bloodhounds and took a circuit around the wr
ile of rags. a new trouble. almost starved. starve or Steal. hopes Growing brighter. a familiar sound. caught by bloodhounds. rather die than go back to Andersonville We crossed Flint River, turned the boat loose, for fear of being tracked from it by hounds, struggled up the bank, and toiled through a dense thicket. The to all rush into my heart-my heart into my throat. I shuddered, and turned sick. I had heard that sound before. It was often borne to our ears as we lay in Andersonville; especially on the day after the tunnel was opened. I looked at Tom. He had not changed his position, but his great black eyes were glaring at me with a wiise much better than we. To us it was terrible. All our risk, our toil, our suffering, had come to nothing. When we learned that we would be sent back to Andersonville, Tom begged the guard to shoot him, and end his misery at once. I felt very much as Tom did. Neither of us thought that we could live through the winter in
hem we denied, some we could defend, and some we couldn't. They said we could never whip them in the world. We said the United States would govern the country or make a wilderness of it, and we didn't care which. We spoke bitterly of Andersonville, and told them-and we thought so then-that we could not live through the coming winter if they sent us back there, and we hoped our Government would retaliate. That if we could be sure that for every man who languished in Andersonville one wAndersonville one would freeze in Camp Douglass, we would go and bravely die and rot there. We were not a bit excited. Only earnest and warm. Maybe it was the sanguin juice. One standard subject for hard feeling in those days was the enlistment of the negro into the army. It was seldom that we ever got into a discussion with the rebels that they did not refer to that. One of the soldiers present said: Yo Gove'ment thinks you-alls no bettah than niggahs, foh it puts niggahs in yo ahmy, --and he looked at
e man. He crossed the room to the other desk, and again began his statement. The clerk spoke in a haughty, disdainful manner- Where did you get these men? Capt.----caught them near-- . Where did they come from? They say, from Andersonville. Too many men get out of Andersonville, as though the guard could help it. He then turned and looked at us with as much contempt in his glance as a hotel clerk would give to a Congressman, and asked: How did you get out? We cliAndersonville, as though the guard could help it. He then turned and looked at us with as much contempt in his glance as a hotel clerk would give to a Congressman, and asked: How did you get out? We climbed out on a grape-vine. He wrote a little note and handed it to the guard. Take these men to jail, and give that to the jailer. So we went to jail in the city of Columbus, Georgia. We were criminals! Our crime was believing in the Government of the United States, and being willing to defend its flag.
ad established a new prison, called by them, Camp Lawton, but known to us as the Millen prison. This prison was built on the same general plan as the one at Andersonville, but it was much better every way. It was a stockade pen, enclosing about twenty-five acres. Wall, sentry-boxes, and dead-line as at Andersonville. The waAndersonville. The water was clear and comparatively pure, as there was no camp on the creek above the pen. The trees along this creek were left for shade, making probably three acres of timber. The creek went murmuring through this forest shade, following its own winding channel for about half the distance across the pen. From the middle of the pen on. A good bridge was built across the creek at the head of this straight part. The prisoners all stayed on the west side of the stream, and used the grove and the east side as a kind of public park or promenade. What would we not have given for such an addition to Andersonville, during those horrible hot days in August?
Chapter 15: the Presidential election. False Promises of exchange. searching for acquaintances. Presidential election. the result Any one can see by my description of Camp Lawton, that it was a better place than Andersonville. Still it lacked a good deal of being a fit place in which to spend the winter. When Tom and I entered, about the first of November, 1864, there were about ten thousand men there. They were all corralled on the west side of the creek, and were without shelter, except such miserable apologies as we saw in Andersonville. Nearly all the men in the prison were from that horrid pen-taken out on promise of exchange, only to keep them docile and tractable till they could get them to a safer place. It is mean to raise hopes and dash them down, and the effect was plainly seen here in the large number in which hope was dead, and who were anxious to be dead literally, as the only way to escape from woes that had become unbearable. Tom
Chapter 16: Enlistments. Attempt to Entice prisoners to make Shoes for the rebel army. the temptation. Enlistments. running the gauntlet. another change. When we were in Andersonville there were many attempts to find mechanics and artisans among the prisoners. Calls were made for shoemakers, machinists, blacksmiths, etc. The rebel authorities offered to furnish food and clothing and pay good wages to any one who would go out on parole and work in their shops. It was a gremericans were among them. They were generally foreigners who did not fully understand the war and it's issues. It was also intimated that if any one would enlist in their army, he would receive rations and pay as a soldier, but while in Andersonville I saw no strong effort to induce any one to enlist. But in Camp Lawton, soon after the Presidential election, rebel recruiting officers came into the pen and openly and boldly tried to hire men to join the rebel army. They offered any on
Chapter 18: sent back to Andersonville. Flanking. exchange. a dash for liberty. moved again. a square meal. back to Andersonville In the pine wAndersonville In the pine woods, about a mile from Blackshear, we were corralled on about five acres of ground. There was no wall or fence to enclose us. A dead-line was staked off, and oum slightly by flanking. The trick of flanking a ration was not possible at Andersonville or Millen, where we were carefully counted into and out of the pen. But heror three trains of cars backed in. We were soon aboard. Now, where? To Andersonville! On Christmas Day. The day of peace and good-will; when all the earth blacker by the contrast of pleasant recollections, we were brought back to Andersonville. About two o'clock P. M. we were counted through the double gate. Old died, some were left sick at Thomasville,--about seven thousand returned to Andersonville. A few sick ones had remained there all the time, but not many — perhaps