Andersonville, vol 2 | Page 5

as Dawson, of my company expressed it, that
"Nobody but one of them darned queer Lost Ducks would eat a varmint
like a water snake."
Major Albert Bogle, of the Eighth United States, (colored) had fallen
into the hands of the rebels by reason of a severe wound in the leg,
which left him helpless upon the field at Oolustee. The Rebels treated

him with studied indignity. They utterly refused to recognize him as an
officer, or even as a man. Instead of being sent to Macon or Columbia,
where the other officers were, he was sent to Andersonville, the same
as an enlisted man. No care was given his wound, no surgeon would
examine it or dress it. He was thrown into a stock car, without a bed or
blanket, and hauled over the rough, jolting road to Andersonville. Once
a Rebel officer rode up and fired several shots at him, as he lay helpless
on the car floor. Fortunately the Rebel's marksmanship was as bad as
his intentions, and none of the shots took effect. He was placed in a
squad near me, and compelled to get up and hobble into line when the
rest were mustered for roll-call. No opportunity to insult, "the nigger
officer," was neglected, and the N'Yaarkers vied with the Rebels in
heaping abuse upon him. He was a fine, intelligent young man, and
bore it all with dignified self-possession, until after a lapse of some
weeks the Rebels changed their policy and took him from the prison to
send to where the other officers were.
The negro soldiers were also treated as badly as possible. The wounded
were turned into the Stockade without having their hurts attended to.
One stalwart, soldierly Sergeant had received a bullet which had forced
its way under the scalp for some distance, and partially imbedded itself
in the skull, where it still remained. He suffered intense agony, and
would pass the whole night walking up and down the street in front of
our tent, moaning distressingly. The, bullet could be felt plainly with
the fingers, and we were sure that it would not be a minute's work, with
a sharp knife, to remove it and give the man relief. But we could not
prevail upon the Rebel Surgeons even to see the man. Finally
inflammation set in and he died.
The negros were made into a squad by themselves, and taken out every
day to work around the prison. A white Sergeant was placed over them,
who was the object of the contumely of the guards and other Rebels.
One day as he was standing near the gate, waiting his orders to come
out, the gate guard, without any provocation whatever, dropped his gun
until the muzzle rested against the Sergeant's stomach, and fired, killing
him instantly.

The Sergeantcy was then offered to me, but as I had no accident policy,
I was constrained to decline the honor.

CHAPTER XXIV
.
APRIL--LONGING TO GET OUT--THE DEATH RATE--THE
PLAGUE OF LICE --THE SO-CALLED HOSPITAL.
April brought sunny skies and balmy weather. Existence became much
more tolerable. With freedom it would have been enjoyable, even had
we been no better fed, clothed and sheltered. But imprisonment had
never seemed so hard to bear--even in the first few weeks--as now. It
was easier to submit to confinement to a limited area, when cold and
rain were aiding hunger to benumb the faculties and chill the energies
than it was now, when Nature was rousing her slumbering forces to
activity, and earth, and air and sky were filled with stimulus to man to
imitate her example. The yearning to be up and doing something-to
turn these golden hours to good account for self and country--pressed
into heart and brain as the vivifying sap pressed into tree-duct and plant
cell, awaking all vegetation to energetic life.
To be compelled, at such a time, to lie around in vacuous idleness-- to
spend days that should be crowded full of action in a monotonous,
objectless routine of hunting lice, gathering at roll-call, and drawing
and cooking our scanty rations, was torturing.
But to many of our number the aspirations for freedom were not, as
with us, the desire for a wider, manlier field of action, so much as an
intense longing to get where care and comforts would arrest their swift
progress to the shadowy hereafter. The cruel rains had sapped away
their stamina, and they could not recover it with the meager and
innutritious diet of coarse meal, and an occasional scrap of salt meat.
Quick consumption, bronchitis, pneumonia, low fever and diarrhea
seized upon these ready victims for their ravages, and bore them off at
the rate of nearly a score a day.
It now became a part of, the day's regular routine to