Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[598] in the hottest weather, to leave it and go to the cooler spot a few rods off, that appeared so much like heaven, in comparison with the hell in which they were compelled to suffer. That barren spot, not to exceed five acres in extent, was surrounded by earth-works about three feet in height, with a ditch on both sides. Along the outer ditch guards were stationed about forty feet apart, and kept watch night and day. The prisoners were without shelter. At first there were a few ragged Sibley tents, but these soon disappeared. Notwithstanding this, an established station for prisoners, was in a country of forests, with lumber plentiful, not a movement was made, from the beginning, to erect barracks, or to make any humane provision for the comfort of those confined there. Quickly would the hundreds of mechanics sent there have constructed comfortable shelter for all, from the scorching sun and biting frost, but they were not allowed to have the raw material for the purpose.

At one time there were no less than eleven thousand captives on that. bleak space of five acres--“so crowded, according to the estimated area given them,” says the Report, “there could not have been but the space of two, feet by seven given them, and, at the most, three feet by nine, per man..... Stripped of blankets and overcoats, hatless often, shoeless often, in ragged coats and rotting shirts, they were obliged to take the weather as it came..... The winter came — and one of the hardest winters

1863-64.

ever experienced in the South--but still no shelter was provided. The mercury was down to zero, at Memphis, which is further south than Richmond. The snow lay deep on the ground around Richmond. The ice formed in the James, and flowed in masses upon the rapids, on either side of the island. Water, left in buckets on the island, froze two or three inches deep in a single night. The men resorted to every expedient to keep from perishing. They lay in the ditch, as the most protected place, heaped upon one another, and lying close together, as one of them expressed it, ‘like hogs in winter,’ taking turns as to who should have the outside of the row. In the morning, the row of the previous night was marked by the motionless forms of those who were sleeping on in their last sleep — frozen to death!”

And while thus exposed to the frost, the prisoners were starving, and the. only defender of exposed men from the severity of the cold, namely, whole — some and abundant food, was denied them. “The cold froze them,” says the Report, “because they were hungry,--the hunger consumed them because they were cold. These two vultures fed upon their vitals, and no one in the Southern Confederacy had the mercy or the pity to drive them away.” And while hundreds of women were administering comforts to the sick and wounded insurgents in Northern prisons and hospitals, not one woman was ever seen upon Belle Isle while the Union captives were there. Many methods. of cruelty to aggravate the sufferings of the prisoners on Belle Isle were resorted to. Unnecessary restrictions; brutal treatment of slight and oftentimes unconscious offenders,; deprivation of the use of the running water, for bathing, in the summer, and scores of other operations calculated to crush the life out of the poor men. The sick were tardily taken to hospitals, there neglected and prematurely returned;¹ and every precaution seems to have