In each prison was confined 700 men. Each building was three stories high with a garret, making four floors in each prison. Thus we had 175 men on each floor. The prisons were, as near as I can guess, 30×60 feet so that we had an average of ten and one-third square feet to each man or a little more than a square yard apiece.
Our rations at first consisted of a half pound of bread, made from wheat shorts and about a quarter of a pound of pork or beef. The quality was fair.
I had for a “chum,” or “pard,” from the time I arrived at Atlanta until I came to Danville, an orderly Sergeant, of an Indiana Regiment, by the name of Billings. He was a graduate of an Eastern College and at the time he enlisted left the position of Principal of an Academy in Indiana. He was one of nature’s noblemen, intelligent, brave, true-hearted and generous to a fault. I was very much attached to him as he was a genial companion far above the common herd. But after I had been in Danville about a week, I learned that there were a number of the comrades of my company in Prison No. 1. So I applied for, and obtained, permission to move over to No. 1. I parted with Billings with regret. I have never seen him since and know nothing of his fate, but I imagine he fell a victim to the hardships and cruelties of those prisons.
I found, when I arrived in No. 1, not only members of my own company but a number of men from Company B of my regiment. We were quartered in the south-east corner on the second floor. Nearly opposite where I was located comrade Dexter Lane, then a member of an Ohio regiment, now a citizen of Merton, Steele county, Minnesota, had his quarters. We were strangers at that time but since then have talked over that prison life until we have located each other’s position, and feel that we are old acquaintances.
I think I did not feel so lonesome after I joined my comrades of the 10th Wis. There is something peculiar about the feelings of old soldiers towards each other. Two years before these men were nothing to me. I had never seen them until I joined the regiment at Milwaukee. But what a change those two years had wrought. We had camped together on the tented field and lain side by side in the bivouac. We had touched elbows on those long, weary marches through Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, had stood shoulder to shoulder in many hard fought battles, and now we are companions in Southern prisons. They were not as kind-hearted, nor as intelligent as Billings but there was the feeling of comradeship which no persons on earth understand as do old soldiers.