were taken out in the presence of the garrison and tortured with the thumb-screw until they fainted with pain.
In February, 1864, the cruelty became extreme; they beat prisoners with clubs and a leather belt, with a United State buckle at the end of it. They shot prisoners without provocation. For spilling the least water on the floor, the prisoner was elevated on a four inch scantling fifteen feet high, and tortured for two or three hours. For any similar offence, when the perpetrator was not known, the whole regiment was marched out and kept in the cold all day, sometimes freezing their limbs in the effort. Because a sick man vomited on his floor, the whole of the prisoners, in the dead hour of a chilling cold night, were made to stand out in their night clothes, until frozen, and from which several died, whilst others lost their health, which they never recovered.
Mr. Mason was driven by this night's cruelty into the hospital, where, among empyrics, he refused to take their medicines; in turn his own physician was not allowed to see him.
From twelve to thirty prisoners died every day, during the months of July, August, September and October, from brutal treatment.
When James Wandle, a Virginia giant near seven feet high, died through neglect in the hospital, the ward-master could not lay him in the small coffin which was furnished, but his body in a most brutal manner was stamped down into its narrow limits to prepare it for the grave.
Such were the every day affairs of this loathsome place.
Again, in the coldest winter night, the prisoners were aroused and driven out in the storm barefooted, in their night clothes, and made to sit down until the snow melted under them.
Late in December, several hundred prisoners came from Hood's army, near Nashville, almost destitute of clothing; coming from a warm climate, they were kept out all night in the cold, shivering and freezing. Upon the next morning, nearly one hundred were sent to the hospital. As a consequence, many of their limbs were frozen and required amputation, and death kindly came to the relief of all.
J. Risque Hutter, late Lieutenant-Colonel Eleventh Regiment Virginia Infantry, writes that he was captured at Gettysburg, and was eighteen months in prison on Johnson's Island.
During the tyranny of a fellow of the name of Hill, rations were reduced and stinted; that prisoners were neglected in sickness; straw and other necessaries were declared contraband.
That suffering from thirst was common, right on "the shores of the lake-bound prison."
That the rations were indifferent in quality and insufficient in quantity to satisfy hunger. Rats were eaten by hundreds of prisoners, who regarded themselves fortunate to get them, such was the reduced condition of the prisoners.
That Colonel Hutter's brother, an officer in the Confederate
