Andersonville, Volume 2

J >> John McElroy >> Andersonville, Volume 2

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A road was made across the swamp, along the Dead Line at the west side,
where the creek entered the pen. Those getting water would go to this
spot, and reach as far up the stream as possible, to get the water that
was least filthy. As they could reach nearly to the Dead Line this
furnished an excuse to such of the guards as were murderously inclined to
fire upon them. I think I hazard nothing in saying that for weeks at
least one man a day was killed at this place. The murders became
monotonous; there was a dreadful sameness to them. A gun would crack;
looking up we would see, still smoking, the muzzle of the musket of one
of the guards on either side of the creek. At the same instant would
rise a piercing shriek from the man struck, now floundering in the creek
in his death agony. Then thousands of throats would yell out curses and
denunciations, and--

"O, give the Rebel ---- ---- ---- ---- a furlough!"

It was our belief that every guard who killed a Yankee was rewarded with
a thirty-day furlough. Mr. Frederick Holliger, now of Toledo, formerly a
member of the Seventy-Second Ohio, and captured at Guntown, tells me, as
his introduction to Andersonville life, that a few hours after his entry
he went to the brook to get a drink, reached out too far, and was fired
upon by the guard, who missed him, but killed another man and wounded a
second. The other prisoners standing near then attacked him, and beat
him nearly to death, for having drawn the fire of the guard.

Nothing could be more inexcusable than these murders. Whatever defense
there might be for firing on men who touched the Dead Line in other parts
of the prison, there could be none here. The men had no intention of
escaping; they had no designs upon the Stockade; they were not leading
any party to assail it. They were in every instance killed in the act of
reaching out with their cups to dip up a little water.

CHAPTER XXIX.

SOME DISTINCTION BETWEEN SOLDIERLY DUTY AND MURDER--A PLOT TO ESCAPE
--IT IS REVEALED AND FRUSTRATED.

Let the reader understand that in any strictures I make I do not complain
of the necessary hardships of war. I understood fully and accepted the
conditions of a soldier's career. My going into the field uniformed and
armed implied an intention, at least, of killing, wounding, or capturing,
some of the enemy. There was consequently no ground of complaint if I
was, myself killed, wounded, or captured. If I did not want to take
these chances I ought to stay at home. In the same way, I recognized the
right of our captors or guards to take proper precautions to prevent our
escape. I never questioned for an instant the right of a guard to fire
upon those attempting to escape, and to kill them. Had I been posted
over prisoners I should have had no compunction about shooting at those
trying to get away, and consequently I could not blame the Rebels for
doing the same thing. It was a matter of soldierly duty.

But not one of the men assassinated by the guards at Andersonville were
trying to escape, nor could they have got away if not arrested by a
bullet. In a majority of instances there was not even a transgression of
a prison rule, and when there was such a transgression it was a mere
harmless inadvertence. The slaying of every man there was a foul crime.

The most of this was done by very young boys; some of it by old men.
The Twenty-Sixth Alabama and Fifty-Fifth Georgia, had guarded us since
the opening of the prison, but now they were ordered to the field, and
their places filled by the Georgia "Reserves," an organization of boys
under, and men over the military age. As General Grant aptly-phrased it,
"They had robbed the cradle and the grave," in forming these regiments.
The boys, who had grown up from children since the war began, could not
comprehend that a Yankee was a human being, or that it was any more
wrongful to shoot one than to kill a mad dog. Their young imaginations
had been inflamed with stories of the total depravity of the Unionists
until they believed it was a meritorious thing to seize every opportunity
to exterminate them.

Early one morning I overheard a conversation between two of these
youthful guards:

"Say, Bill, I heerd that you shot a Yank last night?"

"Now, you just bet I did. God! you jest ought to've heerd him holler."

Evidently the juvenile murderer had no more conception that he had
committed crime than if he had killed a rattlesnake.

Among those who came in about the last of the month were two thousand men
from Butler's command, lost in the disastrous action of May 15, by which
Butler was "bottled up" at Bermuda Hundreds. At that time the Rebel
hatred for Butler verged on insanity, and they vented this upon these men
who were so luckless--in every sense--as to be in his command. Every
pains was taken to mistreat them. Stripped of every article of clothing,
equipment, and cooking utensils--everything, except a shirt and a pair of
pantaloons, they were turned bareheaded and barefooted into the prison,
and the worst possible place in the pen hunted out to locate them upon.
This was under the bank, at the edge of the Swamp and at the eastern side
of the prison, where the sinks were, and all filth from the upper part of
the camp flowed down to them. The sand upon which they lay was dry and
burning as that of a tropical desert; they were without the slightest
shelter of any kind, the maggot flies swarmed over them, and the stench
was frightful. If one of them survived the germ theory of disease is a
hallucination.

The increasing number of prisoners made it necessary for the Rebels to
improve their means of guarding and holding us in check. They threw up a
line of rifle pits around the Stockade for the infantry guards.
At intervals along this were piles of hand grenades, which could be used
with fearful effect in case of an outbreak. A strong star fort was
thrown up at a little distance from the southwest corner. Eleven field
pieces were mounted in this in such a way as to rake the Stockade
diagonally. A smaller fort, mounting five guns, was built at the
northwest corner, and at the northeast and southeast corners were small
lunettes, with a couple of howitzers each. Packed as we were we had
reason to dread a single round from any of these works, which could not
fail to produce fearful havoc.

Still a plot was concocted for a break, and it seemed to the sanguine
portions of us that it must prove successful. First a secret society was
organized, bound by the most stringent oaths that could be devised.
The members of this were divided into companies of fifty men each; under
officers regularly elected. The secrecy was assumed in order to shut out
Rebel spies and the traitors from a knowledge of the contemplated
outbreak. A man named Baker--belonging, I think, to some New York
regiment--was the grand organizer of the scheme. We were careful in each
of our companies to admit none to membership except such as long
acquaintance gave us entire confidence in.

The plan was to dig large tunnels to the Stockade at various places, and
then hollow out the ground at the foot of the timbers, so that a half
dozen or so could be pushed over with a little effort, and make a gap ten
or twelve feet wide. All these were to be thrown down at a preconcerted
signal, the companies were to rush out and seize the eleven guns of the
headquarters fort. The Plymouth Brigade was then to man these and turn
them on the camp of the Reserves who, it was imagined, would drop their
arms and take to their heels after receiving a round or so of shell.
We would gather what arms we could, and place them in the hands of the
most active and determined. This would give us frown eight to ten
thousand fairly armed, resolute men, with which we thought we could march
to Appalachicola Bay, or to Sherman.

We worked energetically at our tunnels, which soon began to assume such
shape as to give assurance that they would answer our expectations in
opening the prison walls.

Then came the usual blight to all such enterprises: a spy or a traitor
revealed everything to Wirz. One day a guard came in, seized Baker and
took him out. What was done with him I know not; we never heard of him
after he passed the inner gate.

Immediately afterward all the Sergeants of detachments were summoned
outside. There they met Wirz, who made a speech informing them that he
knew all the details of the plot, and had made sufficient preparations to
defeat it. The guard had been strongly reinforced, and disposed in such
a manner as to protect the guns from capture. The Stockade had been
secured to prevent its falling, even if undermined. He said, in
addition, that Sherman had been badly defeated by Johnston, and driven
back across the river, so that any hopes of co-operation by him would be
ill-founded.

When the Sergeants returned, he caused the following notice to be posted
on the gates:

NOTICE.

Not wishing to shed the blood of hundreds, not connected with those
who concocted a mad plan to force the Stockade, and make in this way
their escape, I hereby warn the leaders and those who formed
themselves into a band to carry out this, that I am in possession of
all the facts, and have made my dispositions accordingly, so as to
frustrate it. No choice would be left me but to open with grape and
canister on the Stockade, and what effect this would have, in this
densely crowded place, need not be told.

May 25,1864.
H. Wirz.

The next day a line of tall poles, bearing white flags, were put up at
some little distance from the Dead Line, and a notice was read to us at
roll call that if, except at roll call, any gathering exceeding one
hundred was observed, closer the Stockade than these poles, the guns
would open with grape and canister without warning.

The number of deaths in the Stockade in May was seven hundred and eight,
about as many as had been killed in Sherman's army during the same time.

CHAPTER XXX.

JUNE--POSSIBILITIES OF A MURDEROUS CANNONADE--WHAT WAS PROPOSED TO BE
DONE IN THAT EVENT--A FALSE ALARM--DETERIORATION OF THE RATIONS
--FEARFUL INCREASE OF MORTALITY.

After Wirz's threat of grape and canister upon the slightest provocation,
we lived in daily apprehension of some pretext being found for opening
the guns upon us for a general massacre. Bitter experience had long
since taught us that the Rebels rarely threatened in vain. Wirz,
especially, was much more likely to kill without warning, than to warn
without killing. This was because of the essential weakness of his
nature. He knew no art of government, no method of discipline save "kill
them!" His petty little mind's scope reached no further. He could
conceive of no other way of managing men than the punishment of every
offense, or seeming offense, with death. Men who have any talent for
governing find little occasion for the death penalty. The stronger they
are in themselves--the more fitted for controlling others--the less their
need of enforcing their authority by harsh measures.

There was a general expression of determination among the prisoners to
answer any cannonade with a desperate attempt to force the Stockade.
It was agreed that anything was better than dying like rats in a pit or
wild animals in a battue. It was believed that if anything would occur
which would rouse half those in the pen to make a headlong effort in
concert, the palisade could be scaled, and the gates carried, and, though
it would be at a fearful loss of life, the majority of those making
the attempt would get out. If the Rebels would discharge grape and
canister, or throw a shell into the prison, it would lash everybody to
such a pitch that they would see that the sole forlorn hope of safety lay
in wresting the arms away from our tormentors. The great element in our
favor was the shortness of the distance between us and the cannon.
We could hope to traverse this before the guns could be reloaded more
than once.

Whether it would have been possible to succeed I am unable to say.
It would have depended wholly upon the spirit and unanimity with which
the effort was made. Had ten thousand rushed forward at once, each with
a determination to do or die, I think it would have been successful
without a loss of a tenth of the number. But the insuperable trouble--in
our disorganized state--was want of concert of action. I am quite sure,
however, that the attempt would have been made had the guns opened.

One day, while the agitation of this matter was feverish, I was cooking
my dinner--that is, boiling my pitiful little ration of unsalted meal, in
my fruit can, with the aid of a handful of splinters that I had been able
to pick up by a half day's diligent search. Suddenly the long rifle in
the headquarters fort rang out angrily. A fuse shell shrieked across the
prison--close to the tops of the logs, and burst in the woods beyond.
It was answered with a yell of defiance from ten thousand throats.

I sprang up-my heart in my mouth. The long dreaded time had arrived; the
Rebels had opened the massacre in which they must exterminate us, or we
them.

I looked across to the opposite bank, on which were standing twelve
thousand men--erect, excited, defiant. I was sure that at the next shot
they would surge straight against the Stockade like a mighty human
billow, and then a carnage would begin the like of which modern times had
never seen.

The excitement and suspense were terrible. We waited for what seemed
ages for the next gun. It was not fired. Old Winder was merely showing
the prisoners how he could rally the guards to oppose an outbreak.
Though the gun had a shell in it, it was merely a signal, and the guards
came double-quicking up by regiments, going into position in the rifle
pits and the hand-grenade piles.

As we realized what the whole affair meant, we relieved our surcharged
feelings with a few general yells of execration upon Rebels generally,
and upon those around us particularly, and resumed our occupation of
cooking rations, killing lice, and discussing the prospects of exchange
and escape.

The rations, like everything else about us, had steadily grown worse.
A bakery was built outside of the Stockade in May and our meal was baked
there into loaves about the size of brick. Each of us got a half of one
of these for a day's ration. This, and occasionally a small slice of
salt pork, was call that I received. I wish the reader would prepare
himself an object lesson as to how little life can be supported on for
any length of time, by procuring a piece of corn bread the size of an
ordinary brickbat, and a thin slice of pork, and then imagine how he
would fare, with that as his sole daily ration, for long hungry weeks and
months. Dio Lewis satisfied himself that he could sustain life on sixty
cents, a week. I am sure that the food furnished us by the Rebels would
not, at present prices cost one-third that. They pretended to give us
one-third of pound of bacon and one and one-fourth pounds of corn meal.
A week's rations then would be two and one-third pounds of bacon--worth
ten cents, and eight and three-fourths pounds of meal, worth, say, ten
cents more. As a matter of fact, I do not presume that at any time we
got this full ration. It would surprise me to learn that we averaged
two-thirds of it.

The meal was ground very coarse and produced great irrition in the
bowels. We used to have the most frightful cramps that men ever suffered
from. Those who were predisposed intestinal affections were speedily
carried off by incurable diarrhea and dysentery. Of the twelve thousand
and twelve men who died, four thousand died of chronic diarrhea; eight
hundred and seventeen died of acute diarrhea, and one thousand three
hundred and eighty-four died of dysenteria, making total of six thousand
two hundred and one victims to enteric disorders.

Let the reader reflect a moment upon this number, till comprehends fully
how many six thousand two hundred and men are, and how much force,
energy, training, and rich possibilities for the good of the community
and country died with those six thousand two hundred and one young,
active men. It may help his perception of the magnitude of this number
to remember that the total loss of the British, during the Crimean war,
by death in all shapes, was four thousand five hundred and ninety-five,
or one thousand seven hundred and six less than the deaths in
Andersonville from dysenteric diseases alone.

The loathsome maggot flies swarmed about the bakery, and dropped into the
trough where the dough was being mixed, so that it was rare to get a
ration of bread not contaminated with a few of them.

It was not long until the bakery became inadequate to supply bread for
all the prisoners. Then great iron kettles were set, and mush was issued
to a number of detachments, instead of bread. There was not so much
cleanliness and care in preparing this as a farmer shows in cooking food
for stock. A deep wagon-bed would be shoveled full of the smoking paste,
which was then hailed inside and issued out to the detachments, the
latter receiving it on blankets, pieces of shelter tents, or, lacking
even these, upon the bare sand.

As still more prisoners came in, neither bread nor mush could be
furnished them, and a part of the detachments received their rations in
meal. Earnest solicitation at length resulted in having occasional
scanty issues of wood to cook this with. My detachment was allowed to
choose which it would take--bread, mush or meal. It took the latter.

Cooking the meal was the topic of daily interest. There were three ways
of doing it: Bread, mush and "dumplings." In the latter the meal was
dampened until it would hold together, and was rolled into little balls,
the size of marbles, which were then boiled. The bread was the most
satisfactory and nourishing; the mush the bulkiest--it made a bigger
show, but did not stay with one so long. The dumplings held an
intermediate position--the water in which they were boiled becoming a
sort of a broth that helped to stay the stomach. We received no salt,
as a rule. No one knows the intense longing for this, when one goes
without it for a while. When, after a privation of weeks we would get a
teaspoonful of salt apiece, it seemed as if every muscle in our bodies
was invigorated. We traded buttons to the guards for red peppers, and
made our mush, or bread, or dumplings, hot with the fiery-pods, in hopes
that this would make up for the lack of salt, but it was a failure.
One pinch of salt was worth all the pepper pods in the Southern
Confederacy. My little squad--now diminished by death from five to
three--cooked our rations together to economize wood and waste of meal,
and quarreled among ourselves daily as to whether the joint stock should
be converted into bread, mush or dumplings. The decision depended upon
the state of the stomach. If very hungry, we made mush; if less
famished, dumplings; if disposed to weigh matters, bread.

This may seem a trifling matter, but it was far from it. We all remember
the man who was very fond of white beans, but after having fifty or sixty
meals of them in succession, began to find a suspicion of monotony in the
provender. We had now six months of unvarying diet of corn meal and
water, and even so slight a change as a variation in the way of combining
the two was an agreeable novelty.

At the end of June there were twenty-six thousand three hundred and
sixty-seven prisoners in the Stockade, and one thousand two hundred--just
forty per day--had died during the month.

CHAPTER XXXI.

DYING BY INCHES--SEITZ, THE SLOW, AND HIS DEATH--STIGGALL AND EMERSON
--RAVAGES ON THE SCURVY.

May and June made sad havoc in the already thin ranks of our battalion.
Nearly a score died in my company--L--and the other companies suffered
proportionately. Among the first to die of my company comrades, was a
genial little Corporal, "Billy" Phillips--who was a favorite with us all.
Everything was done for him that kindness could suggest, but it was of
little avail. Then "Bruno" Weeks--a young boy, the son of a preacher,
who had run away from his home in Fulton County, Ohio, to join us,
succumbed to hardship and privation.

The next to go was good-natured, harmless Victor Seitz, a Detroit cigar
maker, a German, and one of the slowest of created mortals. How he ever
came to go into the cavalry was beyond the wildest surmises of his
comrades. Why his supernatural slowness and clumsiness did not result in
his being killed at least once a day, while in the service, was even
still farther beyond the power of conjecture. No accident ever happened
in the company that Seitz did not have some share in. Did a horse fall
on a slippery road, it was almost sure to be Seitz's, and that imported
son of the Fatherland was equally sure to be caught under him. Did
somebody tumble over a bank of a dark night, it was Seitz that we soon
heard making his way back, swearing in deep German gutterals, with
frequent allusion to 'tausend teuflin.' Did a shanty blow down, we ran
over and pulled Seitz out of the debris, when he would exclaim:

"Zo! dot vos pretty vunny now, ain't it?"

And as he surveyed the scene of his trouble with true German phlegm, he
would fish a brier-wood pipe from the recesses of his pockets, fill it
with tobacco, and go plodding off in a cloud of smoke in search of some
fresh way to narrowly escape destruction. He did not know enough about
horses to put a snaffle-bit in one's mouth, and yet he would draw the
friskiest, most mettlesome animal in the corral, upon whose back he was
scarcely more at home than he would be upon a slack rope. It was no
uncommon thing to see a horse break out of ranks, and go past the
battalion like the wind, with poor Seitz clinging to his mane like the
traditional grim Death to a deceased African. We then knew that Seitz
had thoughtlessly sunk the keen spurs he would persist in wearing; deep
into the flanks of his high-mettled animal.

These accidents became so much a matter-of-course that when anything
unusual occurred in the company our first impulse was to go and help
Seitz out.

When the bugle sounded "boots and saddles," the rest of us would pack up,
mount, "count off by fours from the right," and be ready to move out
before the last notes of the call had fairly died away. Just then we
would notice an unsaddled horse still tied to the hitching place. It was
Seitz's, and that worthy would be seen approaching, pipe in mouth, and
bridle in hand, with calm, equable steps, as if any time before the
expiration of his enlistment would be soon enough to accomplish the
saddling of his steed. A chorus of impatient and derisive remarks would
go up from his impatient comrades:

"For heaven's sake, Seitz, hurry up!"

"Seitz! you are like a cow's tail--always behind!"

"Seitz, you are slower than the second coming of the Savior!"

"Christmas is a railroad train alongside of you, Seitz!"

"If you ain't on that horse in half a second, Seitz, we'll go off and
leave you, and the Johnnies will skin you alive!" etc., etc.

Not a ripple of emotion would roll over Seitz's placid features under the
sharpest of these objurgations. At last, losing all patience, two or
three boys would dismount, run to Seitz's horse, pack, saddle and bridle
him, as if he were struck with a whirlwind. Then Seitz would mount, and
we would move 'off.

For all this, we liked him. His good nature was boundless, and his
disposition to oblige equal to the severest test. He did not lack a
grain of his full share of the calm, steadfast courage of his race, and
would stay where he was put, though Erebus yawned and bade him fly.
He was very useful, despite his unfitness for many of the duties of a
cavalryman. He was a good guard, and always ready to take charge of
prisoners, or be sentry around wagons or a forage pile-duties that most
of the boys cordially hated.

But he came into the last trouble at Andersonville. He stood up pretty
well under the hardships of Belle Isle, but lost his cheerfulness--his
unrepining calmness--after a few weeks in the Stockade. One day we
remembered that none of us had seen him for several days, and we started
in search of him. We found him in a distant part of the camp, lying near
the Dead Line. His long fair hair was matted together, his blue eyes had
the flush of fever. Every part of his clothing was gray with the lice
that were hastening his death with their torments. He uttered the first
complaint I ever heard him make, as I came up to him:

"My Gott, M ----, dis is worse dun a dog's det!"

In a few days we gave him all the funeral in our power; tied his big toes
together, folded his hands across his breast, pinned to his shirt a slip
of paper, upon which was written:

VICTOR E. SEITZ,
Co. L, Sixteenth Illinois Cavalry.

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