Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/288

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
280
Southern Historical Society Papers.


which line, if a prisoner crossed, the guard, posted on a plank walk near the top of the fence, was under orders to fire upon him. We had our "lights out"—after which, if, for any cause, a lamp or fire was lit, the guard had orders to fire upon the offending light. These orders were sometimes executed with fatal result: and it was currently reported that at least one man of the guard had been promoted to a sergeantcy, for killing a wretched prisoner who, unable to endure the frightful cold, had risen to kindle a fire. We had our "black-hole" in which "refractory" prisoners were punished, solitary, dark, damp and cramped.

At this, as at all other Federal prisons, the rations of prisoners were at sundry times reduced below the amount confessedly indispensable to the maintenance of a man in full health—in retaliation as was alleged for the starvation of Federal prisoners in Confederate prisons. During my stay on the Island, the war being substantially over, the discipline and management were more liberal, and the ration, though meagre, larger than it had been; the sutler, too, was open, and the few prisoners fortunate enough to obtain money lived reasonably well, but the majority still suffered from lack of food. After being an inmate of the pen for a few days and observing the really pitiful hunger and destitution, I organized a system of collection from the messes who had money, and patronized the sutler and distribution among the less favored who starved on the prison ration. I fed from a hundred to a hundred and fifty men every day, and this moment can well recall the scene at the daily distribution. I would form them in line, count them off in squads or messes of ten, appointing an orderly for each mess, and then separating my provisions, consisting of scraps more or less fragmentary, into as many piles as there were orderlies, deliver one pile to each orderly for distribution among his mess. After this was done the poor fellows would break ranks and scuffle on the bare ground under the table for the crumbs. These men were all officers of the Confederate—armies most of them field officers.

The clothing issued to our prisoners was quite as scanty as the rations, the post surgeon's certificate, that it was absolutely necessary in each individual case, being required to entitle a man to an overcoat—and that for Southern men exiled on a bleak island swept by chill tempests, with the thermometer frequently more than twenty degrees below zero. In order to get one of these certificates, a man was required to stand in line in the open air scantily clad, waiting his time to enter the surgeon's office and submit to an examination to test the condition of his lungs, &c. It can readily be imagined how many were saved from pneumonia and consumption by this humane distribution of overcoats. It is well known that the supply of blankets was totally inadequate until the offer of our Government to trade cotton for clothing for our prisoners was accepted. Of course I did not personally suffer from exposure to cold, being on the Island only during the spring and summer months, but I not only heard of these scenes and regulations from many men