Andersonville Prison
(O. A. Buslett)

   No Union soldier, no Union supporter mentions Andersonville without connecting it to cruelty. The word hell is somewhat close but here there is also a difference. Hell suggests spiritual agony but with Andersonville there was also unmentionable physical suffering - hunger, disease, still-living rotting skeletons lying in swamp mud so full of decay that swine would itch to get their snouts in it.
    The rebel government had this prison built in Georgia's swamps because it would make it more difficult for Union troops to attack here than at other locations. Besides, it seems that this site was also chosen for other considerations. Far in Georgia's swamps and forests it was much easier to starve prisoners to death than at other places and the people of the North were not accustomed to the freezing nights and the scorching days. In these low-lying regions and such a climate the prisoners soon became dull. When their clothes were taken away and they received nothing more than a lttle corn meal once a day and nature would do the rest! That was the policy behind Andersonville.
    It has been confirmed by the Confederates themselves that there were many good places nearby where a stockade could have been built - other places on higher ground and with good water. But in this swamp was where the stockade was to stand and neither Davis nor his people have made any apology for permitting a death swamp to become a war prison.
    The dense pine forest was cut down and capped into 15 foot lengths. The timbers were then cut square. A 5 foot deep trench was dug around 17 acres of land and the timbers stood on end in it side by side as tightly as possible. On the outside, about 3 feet from the top, a series of crossbeams were fastened that bound the timbers together for a strong wall. The stockade had the shape of a long oval that was pinched in the middle. It lay with its ends to north and south and had two gates on the west side. On the inside, 20 feet from the wall, 3 foot high poles were rammed down and on these were nailed a series of boards. This was the 'deadline'. Any prisoner who put his hand on it or in some manner came too near, was dead in an instant, for outside the top of the wall there were 44 rebel soldiers in sentry posts and they were instructed to shoot any Yankee who touched or crossed the deadline. Around the stockade at a suitable distance there were earthworks. These were high enough that artillery could shoot shells or shrapnel in. On a height of land about 300 feet from the south gate a large log building was erected. This was the rebel officers' headquarters and here waved the flag hated by the prisoners. Near the flag pole stood 2 cannons to warn the rebel troops if the Yankees should revolt and try to break out. At several places between that building and the south gate there were various torture instruments, stocks, thumbscrews, spiked collars, chains attached to balls and flagstones, etc. There were posts where the prisoner had to stand on tiptoe while his hands were tied to a beam and his head pushed forward under it at the same time as the small of his back was also pushed forward by another rod. There was a post where the prisoner sat on the ground with his hands and feet up and in this position tied to a frame in front. There was a pole on which the prisoner lay on his back, bound hand and foot and the head fixed to a projecting end that was pulled out until all the limbs were painfully stretched. These torture instruments were obviously brought from a slave owner's plantation where they had been used to punish slaves since the prison guards worked them with great skill and knowledge. A half mile from the stockade there was a sandy field where the dead prisoners were dumped in ditches without clothes or coffins and with just a little soil for cover. This burial site can truly be called a pauper's field Between the potter's field and the stockade there was a building that housed 30-40 bloodhounds. No escapee, slave or Yankee could elude these dogs. A little creek, 4 feet wide and 5 inches deep, ran through the prison from west to east. It came from various sources near where the rebels and a large number of slaves had their camp and all the filth flowed from there and the kitchen and hospital which lay just outside the stockade. The water was thick, sticky and stinking and the creek and the whole bog inside the walls were completely filled with disgusting worms and creeping things. But this was the only water the prisoners could get. Outside and around the stockade there were mounds with pine torches that were lit on dark and foggy nights to light up the surroundings. At one time there were over 35,000 prisoners between these walls. That is 35,000 on 12 acres of land (a part of the land, about 5 acres, was so wet that no one could stay on it). In one year 14,000 young men from the northern States died here and were buried in the potter's field! Over 4,000 of these died during one month.
    The daily ration for each prisoner was 1 pint of coarse, very plain corn meal and 1 tablespoon of peas or in place of the peas 1 ounce of meat or a bone of 8 ounces - a bare bone to be sure, but no cooking utensils, no cups or a container of any sort. Those prisoners who had kept and brought into the prison a fruit can or something similar could consider themselves lucky. The prisoners were organized in companies of 90 men and the rations were issued to their leaders. A pair of trousers or underwear with the legs tied had to serve as sacks and from these the rations were measured out to the men who ate it immediately and wished for more. Many who had nothing to cook with ate it raw. Many died of scurvy but there were many who died solely of hunger. Their clothes slid off so many went with just ragged shirts. Many still had their army caps but absoultely no other clothing. One hears talk of skin and bone but there were many with no skin on their bones. Their legs swelled up because of scurvy so the skin split and every bone stood sharply out.
    But even in this hell hole where the suffering was common for all there were robbers who stole from and murdered their comrades. The robbers organized themselves in 3 different groups, each with a chief, and they became so dangerous that the other prsioners also had to organize themselves to punish the robbers. Six of them were actually hanged in the prison.
    Even though the prisoners as a rule were plundered by the rebel officers before they came into the stockade, there were still a few who in some way or other hid their money and with it bought at exorbitant prices a bit of soft lye soap, a biscuit or other necessary erticles. The Freemasons were lucky since they could get medicine or other 'luxury' items from their brothers among the rebels. But as for other rebels who might have had sympathy for their fellow humans the prisoners who sat between the walls found it impossible to get anything smuggled in.
    Many prisoners were shot because they unexpectedly came too close to the deadline but others folded their arms over their chest and stepped over the line to end their suffering. The guards squeezed and shot and often the bullet went threw the victim and into an innocent. Many were killed or wounded in that way. The prisoners were more at risk of the rebel's bullets here than on the battlefields. Death became so commonplace that the prisoners themselves lost sympathy for the dying. A large number lost their sight, hearing and speech. Many were punished with the torture instruments and sent back to the stockade with many large wounds. Blow-flies laid their eggs in these and in a few days the poor beings were a wriggling mass of maggots.    All sorts of nasty creatures developed in the swamp. They jumped and flew through the whole stockade and fell into everything and it was disgusting beyond all boundaries.
    Once when things were at the worst, a doctor was sent for, one of the rebels. He suggested another diet, vegetables instead of cornmeal since there was a surplus of vegetables in the neighbourhood which could be reduced greatly by the great numbers in the prison. But he got the answer that the management was good enough and it was having the desired effect and if it continued there would soon be enough room. The doctor appealed to Davis himself but he answered in dismissal and such was the answer of the commander of all the military prisons in the South.
    In connection with this and for a closer look at how great the mortality was in these prisons there are these statistics:
    To defend the Union there were 2,261 actions in which 44,238 soldiers were killed, 49,205 died of wounds, 186,216 died of disease, 24,184 of unknown cause and 526 of suicide, murder and executions. The total 304,369. Of the total 188,353 died in hospitals. There were 16 rebel prisons for the captives and by counting the graves that have some sort of a marker we find that there are 36,401 Union soldiers that died under imprisonment, 11,599 prisoners died before getting home and 12,00 died right after they returned home, thus 60,000 men from the North died because of imprisonment. But that is not all of them for a careful account was not kept of how many died - and many died at the teeth of the bloodhounds.
    The Confederate records show that they took 188,145 prisoners, the released on parole or exchanged 94,073. There is a remainder for accounting of 94,072. Let us assume that, at the most, 10,000 deserted or joined the rebel army and we have 84,072 remaining. Over 84,000 Union soldiers died, this is 24,000 more than the records show. A whole army of 24,000 men in the Northern army disappeared without a trace in the South's ditches, swamps and morasses. The suffering these people underwent is inconceivable and their history can never be written.
    With these numbers in mind we will take another look at Andersonville Prison where so many of the Fifteenth's boys sat in imprisonment (It is according to Buslett's book that this account of Andersonville is reproduced):
    It is evening, the day has been hot and the ragged, sometimes naked men with brown, filthy and shriveled skin over their protruding bones staggered about their fellow-sufferers. Or they lay in the sun and told stories already told hundreds of times before or walked about and looked at the dead and dying with lustreless eyes and listened to the raving and cursing of people driven to insanity since so many had lost their senses. But now it is dark, the night cold sets in and the thick mist comes and settles in. Outside, the torches burneed casting a little light in and the black smoke swirled into the mist and sprinkled soot and sparks into their rags. Those who had remnants of tents sought shelter in them and others who had dug holes in the ground crept into them. But often the soil slides and buries them alive and if it happens at night they die there. Others, who have no roof over their head lie or sit as best they can and wait for the sun and swarms of mosquitoes. When the day came they helped in carrying out their dead or stiffs as they called them in prison - and there are many. And so it went day and night, weeks, months through the year. Those who came first are carried out as stiffs by the later arrivals.

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