"It _might_ frae monie a blunder free 'em, And foolish notion."
It might soften their hearts to the suffering they now see around them.
THE CHICKAMAUGA MEN.--PERSONAL EXPERIENCES AND SUFFERINGS.--TRADE.--MERCHANDISING AT ANDERSONVILLE.--THE PLYMOUTH MEN.--A GODSEND TO THE "OLD RESIDENTS."--"POPULAR PRICES."
The condition of the old prisoners at this time (say during the month of August, 1864, and about or near four months after our arrival), as far as mortality was concerned, was fully as appalling as that of the new. While the new prisoners seemed fairly dissolving before the resistless sweep of outward influences, as fatal inward difficulties carried the old ones off just as rapidly.
All in the prison drew the same rations; so none had enough to eat that depended upon their rations for their entire subsistence. So we all suffered, and suffered all we could bear, and bore suffering which, unless relieved, must end in certain death--and soon enough. We were all wasting away day by day. Though all suffered, the condition of some was worse than that of others; still, as the Confederates did not issue enough food for a man to subsist on, death in a limited time was certain to overtake all of us who depended entirely upon our rations.
God knows how badly we all felt, with the insufficiency of our food, the eternal tediousness of time, and the discouraging prospect of release.
But I must return to that class of prisoners of which I was a representative, the "Chickamauga men;" and before I give an account of the scurvy which broke out among us, I desire to relate briefly something of my own feelings and experiences.
All I wish to say in this connection is, how hunger--this gradual starvation--affected me. The scurvy broke out, I presume, in July, among our men. At this time, and for a long time past, and during the remainder of my imprisonment, I was thin, and although not very strong, stronger than most of my comrades,--for be it remembered, I was one of the _lucky_ few that lived, and not among the great majority, for they are in the South now in their graves,--I seemed to stand it better than most men, and was pointed at and remarked about accordingly; and once, when the scurvy was at its height, I got sick and was down for a day or so, my comrades exclaimed, "Ah, ha! ---- is coming down with the rest of us!" Yet my sufferings at this time were so severe, that, had we not departed from Andersonville within a few days, as we did, I would have remained there forever. Although I had, by an ever-watchful activity, both as to bodily exercise and the obtaining of one or two small Irish potatoes, kept the scurvy in abeyance, I was so permeated with it, that I could not touch a toe of my bare foot against the merest twig, without sending, as it were, an electric shock of the most excruciating pain through every bone in my body.