Andersonville, vol 2 | Page 6

take a walk past the
gates in the morning, inspect and count the dead, and see if any friends
were among them. Clothes having by this time become a very

important consideration with the prisoners, it was the custom of the
mess in which a man died to remove from his person all garments that
were of any account, and so many bodies were carried out nearly naked.
The hands were crossed upon the breast, the big toes tied together with
a bit of string, and a slip of paper containing the man's name, rank,
company and regiment was pinned on the breast of his shirt.
The appearance of the dead was indescribably ghastly. The unclosed
eyes shone with a stony glitter--
An orphan's curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high: But, O,
more terrible than that, Is the curse in a dead man's eye.
The lips and nostrils were distorted with pain and hunger, the sallow,
dirt-grimed skin drawn tensely over the facial bones, and the whole
framed with the long, lank, matted hair and beard. Millions of lice
swarmed over the wasted limbs and ridged ribs. These verminous pests
had become so numerous--owing to our lack of changes of clothing,
and of facilities for boiling what we had--that the most a healthy man
could do was to keep the number feeding upon his person down to a
reasonable limit--say a few tablespoonfuls. When a man became so sick
as to be unable to help himself, the parasites speedily increased into
millions, or, to speak more comprehensively, into pints and quarts. It
did not even seem exaggeration when some one declared that lie had
seen a dead man with more than a gallon of lice on him.
There is no doubt that the irritation from the biting of these myriads
materially the days of those who died.
Where a sick man had friends or comrades, of course part of their duty,
in taking care of him, was to "louse" his clothing. One of the most
effectual ways of doing this was to turn the garments wrong side out
and hold the seams as close to the fire as possible, without burning the
cloth. In a short time the lice would swell up and burst open, like pop-
corn. This method was a favorite one for another reason than its
efficacy: it gave one a keener sense of revenge upon his rascally little
tormentors than he could get in any other way.
As the weather grew warmer and the number in the prison increased,
the lice became more unendurable. They even filled the hot sand under
our feet, and voracious troops would climb up on one like streams of
ants swarming up a tree. We began to have a full comprehension of the
third plague with which the Lord visited the Egyptians:

And the Lord said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod,
and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice through all the
land of Egypt.
And they did so; for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and
smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man and in beast; all
the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.
The total number of deaths in April, according to the official report,
was five hundred and seventy-six, or an average of over nineteen a day.
There was an average of five thousand prisoner's in the pen during all
but the last few days of the month, when the number was increased by
the arrival of the captured garrison of Plymouth. This would make the
loss over eleven per cent., and so worse than decimation. At that rate
we should all have died in about eight months. We could have gone
through a sharp campaign lasting those thirty days and not lost so great
a proportion of our forces. The British had about as many men as were
in the Stockade at the battle of New Orleans, yet their loss in killed fell
much short of the deaths in the pen in April.
A makeshift of a hospital was established in the northeastern corner of
the Stockade. A portion of the ground was divided from the rest of the
prison by a railing, a few tent flies were stretched, and in these the long
leaves of the pine were made into apologies for beds of about the
goodness of the straw on which a Northern farmer beds his stock. The
sick taken there were no better off than if they had staid with their
comrades.
What they needed to bring about their recovery was clean clothing,
nutritious food, shelter and freedom from the tortures of the lice. They
obtained none of these. Save a