This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[337]
to help them.
From his condition, it was evident that his captors had not used him any too well.
After remaining in Libby Prison for a week the officers, now numbering over a hundred, from recent captures, were taken across the river to Manchester, placed in cars and, after riding all day without food or water reached Lynchburg on the following morning.
They were compelled to remain jammed in the cars, until noon, having to endure the sight of quantities of bread, pies, fruit, etc. in the hands of hucksters outside.
The men were so hungry that they tore the rings from their fingers and gave of their most valuable possessions for loaves of bread.
At noon, rations of twenty small hard tack and a small slice of maggoty bacon were issued and the men were told that this was enough for four days,—during which time they were to march from Lynchburg to Danville, the Union cavalry having destroyed the railroad connection between the two places.
After marching for five miles, camp was made for the night and here the enlisted men of the Nineteenth and other regiments came up, but were not allowed to visit their officers.
The officers and enlisted men were kept in close proximity to each other on the march, which was through a pleasant country and in good weather.
The march was continuous until July 4, when Danville was reached, the prisoners being quartered there in an old warehouse.
At night they were marched to the depot and while waiting for the train, enjoyed themselves by singing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ in honor of the day.
On the following day, Macon, Ga., was reached and here the officers were compelled to again bid good bye to the men. The officers left the train, while the men were carried away to Andersonville.
The officers were confined in the prison at Macon and endured all the sufferings incident to life in a rebel stockade.
After remaining there until the last of July, they were taken to Charleston, S. C., and placed in the jail under fire of the Union batteries on Morris Island.
In August they were paroled and taken to the old United States Marine Hospital, remaining there until Yellow Fever broke out in October.
They were then taken to Columbia.
From there a number escaped, but the
Salem Press. Co., Salem, Ma., 1906.
Tufts University. provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.