his past sufferings in his present wretchedness; he had neither the time to lament, nor the inclination to talk about his treatment in prison; he was thankful if his health permitted him to labor for those dearer to him than himself, and for the cripple and the invalid there was no resource. There was no lack of sympathy, but his friends were the poor. Thus it happened that the cruelty practised in Northern prisons never came to light. The victor monopolized the story of suffering as well as the spoils.
I arrived at Rock Island prison, Illinois, on the 16th January, 1864, in company with about fifty other prisoners, from Columbus, Kentucky. Before entering the prison we were drawn up in a line and searched; the snow was deep, and the operation prolonged a most unreasonable time. We were then conducted within the prison to Barrack No. 52, and again searched—this time any small change we had about our persons was taken away and placed to our credit with an officer called the Commissary of Prisoners. The first search was probably for arms or other contraband articles. The prison regulations were then read, and we were dismissed. Rock Island is in the Mississippi river, about fifteen hundred miles above New Orleans, connected with the city of Rock Island, Illinois, on the East, and the city of Davenport, Iowa, on the West, by a bridge. It is about three miles in length.
The prison was 1,250 feet in length by 878 feet in width, enclosing twenty-five acres. The enclosure was a plank fence, about sixteen feet high, on the outside of which a parapet was built about twelve feet from the ground. Here sentinels were placed overlooking the prison. About twenty feet from the fence, on the inside, was what was called the "Dead Line"—at first marked with stakes, afterwards by a ditch—over which it was death to pass. The barracks were sixty feet from the fence, the width between each barrack thirty feet, and streets one hundred feet wide between each row of barracks. Two avenues, one the length of the prison, and ninety feet wide, the other in length the width of the prison, and one hundred and thirty feet wide, divided the space enclosed, into four equal divisions each containing twenty-one barracks, making a total of eighty-four. These barracks were each one hundred feet long by twenty-two feet wide, and contained three tiers of bunks—platforms of rough plank for sleeping. About fifteen feet of the rear of the room was partitioned off for a cook-room, and was furnished with a stove and boiler. The main room had two stoves for burning coal—this article being cheap and abundant. Each barrack was constructed to receive one hundred and twenty men. The sinks were first erected in the centre of the streets, but afterwards built on the dead line; there being no sewerage, tubs were used, and details of prisoners every morning carried the tubs to the river, a most disgusting duty. Towards the end of the war a sewer was made in one of the avenues extending to the river, the prisoners being employed in blasting rock for that purpose.
