After the prisoners had all arrived at Florence, I changed my quarters to those of five comrades of my own company, Gilbert, Berk, Gaffney, Webster and Best. We had very fair quarters and were provided with two blankets for the six. One day as we were talking over the subject of exchange, we all came to the conclusion that we were in for it during the war, and I was instructed to write to the Wisconsin Sanitary Commission for clothing and other supplies. The letter was duly received and was published in the Milwaukee Sentinel. The following is a copy of the letter:
Secretary of Wis. State Sanitary Commission.
Sir:—There are six members of the 10th Wis. Infantry here together, who were captured at the battle of Chickamauga. We are destitute of clothing, and as defenders of our country, we apply to you for aid, hoping you will be prompt in relieving, in a measure, our necessities. Please send us a box containing blankets, underclothing, shirts and socks in particular, and we stand very much in need of shoes; but I don’t know as they are in your line of business.
“We would also like stationery, combs, knives, forks, spoons, tin cups, plates and a small sized camp kettle, as our rations are issued to us raw; also thread and needles. We all have the scurvy more or less and I think dried fruit would help us very much by the acid it contains,—you cannot send us medicine as that is contraband. We would like some tobacco and reading matter. If there is anything more that you can send, it will be very acceptable.
“We should not apply to you were we not compelled, and did we not know that you are the destitute soldiers’ friend. You will please receive this in the same spirit in which it is sent, and answer accordingly, and you will have the satisfaction of feeling that you have done something to relieve the wants of those who went out at the commencement of the war, to vindicate the rights of our country.
Direct to Wm. W. Day and Joseph Eaton, prisoners of war, Florence, S. C., via. Flag of Truce, Hilton Head.
P. S. I forgot to mention soap—a very essential article.”
At the same time I wrote to my wife in Wisconsin and to my brother in New York, for a box but instructed them that if there was any prospect of an immediate exchange, they were not to send them. I believe some of the other boys sent home for boxes also. We knew that the chances were very much against our ever seeing the boxes if sent, as we knew that many boxes sent to Andersonville were kept and their contents used by the rebel guards, yet I hoped that out of the three I might possibly get one. When the letters sent to my wife and brother reached their destination, they commenced the preparation of boxes, but before they were complete news of exchange reached them and the boxes were not sent. But during the spring of 1865, after I had settled in Minnesota, and after the capture of Richmond, I received a letter from the General in command of our forces, at that place, informing me that there was a box there directed to me and asking for instructions as to its disposal. I replied to him that it was a box sent to me by the Wisconsin Sanitary Commission, and was intended for me as a soldier, that I was now a civilian, and had no claim on it, and directed him to turn it over to the hospital.