Andersonville, vol 3 | Page 4

DIFFICULTY OF EXERCISING--EMBARRASSMENTS OF A
MORNING WALK--THE RIALTO OF THE PRISON--CURSING
THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY--THE STORY OF THE
BATTLE OF SPOTTSYLVANIA COURTHOUSE.
Certainly, in no other great community, that ever existed upon the face
of the globe was there so little daily ebb and flow as in this. Dull as an
ordinary Town or City may be; however monotonous, eventless, even

stupid the lives of its citizens, there is yet, nevertheless, a flow every
day of its life-blood--its population towards its heart, and an ebb of the
same, every evening towards its extremities. These recurring tides
mingle all classes together and promote the general healthfulness, as
the constant motion hither and yon of the ocean's waters purify and
sweeten them.
The lack of these helped vastly to make the living mass inside the
Stockade a human Dead Sea--or rather a Dying Sea--a putrefying,
stinking lake, resolving itself into phosphorescent corruption, like those
rotting southern seas, whose seething filth burns in hideous reds, and
ghastly greens and yellows.
Being little call for motion of any kind, and no room to exercise
whatever wish there might be in that direction, very many succumbed
unresistingly to the apathy which was so strongly favored by
despondency and the weakness induced by continual hunger, and lying
supinely on the hot sand, day in and day out, speedily brought
themselves into such a condition as invited the attacks of disease.
It required both determination and effort to take a little walking
exercise. The ground was so densely crowded with holes and other
devices for shelter that it took one at least ten minutes to pick his way
through the narrow and tortuous labyrinth which served as paths for
communication between different parts of the Camp. Still further, there
was nothing to see anywhere or to form sufficient inducement for any
one to make so laborious a journey. One simply encountered at every
new step the same unwelcome sights that he had just left; there was a
monotony in the misery as in everything else, and consequently the
temptation to sit or lie still in one's own quarters became very great.
I used to make it a point to go to some of the remoter parts of the
Stockade once every day, simply for exercise. One can gain some idea
of the crowd, and the difficulty of making one's way through it, when I
say that no point in the prison could be more than fifteen hundred feet
from where I staid, and, had the way been clear, I could have walked
thither and back in at most a half an hour, yet it usually took me from
two to three hours to make one of these journeys.
This daily trip, a few visits to the Creek to wash all over, a few games
of chess, attendance upon roll call, drawing rations, cooking and eating
the same, "lousing" my fragments of clothes, and doing some little

duties for my sick and helpless comrades, constituted the daily routine
for myself, as for most of the active youths in the prison.
The Creek was the great meeting point for all inside the Stockade. All
able to walk were certain to be there at least once during the day, and
we made it a rendezvous, a place to exchange gossip, discuss the latest
news, canvass the prospects of exchange, and, most of all, to curse the
Rebels. Indeed no conversation ever progressed very far without both
speaker and listener taking frequent rests to say bitter things as to the
Rebels generally, and Wirz, Winder and Davis in particular.
A conversation between two boys--strangers to each other who came to
the Creek to wash themselves or their clothes, or for some other
purpose, would progress thus:
First Boy--"I belong to the Second Corps,--Hancock's, [the Army of the
Potomac boys always mentioned what Corps they belonged to, where
the Western boys stated their Regiment.] They got me at Spottsylvania,
when they were butting their heads against our breast-works, trying to
get even with us for gobbling up Johnson in the morning,"--He stops
suddenly and changes tone to say: "I hope to God, that when our folks
get Richmond, they will put old Ben Butler in command of it, with
orders to limb, skin and jayhawk it worse than he did New Orleans."
Second Boy, (fervently :) "I wish to God he would, and that he'd catch
old Jeff., and that grayheaded devil, Winder, and the old Dutch Captain,
strip 'em just as we were, put 'em in this pen, with just the rations they
are givin' us, and set a guard of plantation niggers over 'em, with orders
to blow their whole infernal heads off, if they dared so much as to look
at the dead line."
First Boy--(returning to the story of his capture.)