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.
And laid his body at the South Gate, beside some scores of others that
were awaiting the arrival of the six-mule wagon that hauled them to the
Potter’s Field, which was to be their last resting-place.
John Emerson and John Stiggall, of my company, were two Norwegian boys,
and fine specimens of their race--intelligent, faithful, and always
ready for duty. They had an affection for each other that reminded
one of the stories told of the sworn attachment and the unfailing
devotion that were common between two Gothic warrior youths. Coming
into Andersonville some little time after the rest of us, they found
all the desirable ground taken up, and they established their quarters
at the base of the hill, near the Swamp. There they dug a little hole
to lie in, and put in a layer of pine leaves. Between them they had an
overcoat and a blanket. At night they lay upon the coat and covered
themselves with the blanket. By day the blanket served as a tent. The
hardships and annoyances that we endured made everybody else cross and
irritable. At times it seemed impossible to say or listen to pleasant
words, and nobody was ever allowed to go any length of time spoiling
for a fight. He could usually be accommodated upon the spot to any
extent he desired, by simply making his wishes known. Even the best of
chums would have sharp quarrels and brisk fights, and this disposition
increased as disease made greater inroads upon them. I saw in one
instance two brothers-both of whom died the next day of scurvy--and
who were so helpless as to be unable to rise, pull themselves up on
their knees by clenching the poles of their tents --in order to strike
each other with clubs, and they kept striking until the bystanders
interfered and took their weapons away from them.
But Stiggall and Emerson never quarreled with each other. Their
tenderness and affection were remarkable to witness. They began to
go the way that so many were going; diarrhea and scurvy set in; they
wasted away till their muscles and tissues almost disappeared, leaving
the skin lying fiat upon the bones; but their principal solicitude was
for each other, and each seemed actually jealous of any person else
doing anything for the other. I met Emerson one day, with one leg drawn
clear out of shape, and rendered almost useless by the scurvy. He was
very weak, but was hobbling down towards the Creek with a bucket made
from a boot leg. I said:
“Johnny, just give me your bucket. I’ll fill it for you, and bring it
up to your tent.”
“No; much obliged, M ----” he wheezed out; “my pardner wants a cool
drink, and I guess I’d better get it for him.”
Stiggall died in June. He was one of the first victims of scurvy,
which, in the succeeding few weeks, carried off so many. All of us who
had read sea-stories had read much of this disease and its horrors, but
we had little conception of the dreadful reality. It usually manifested
itself first in the mouth. The breath became unbearably fetid; the
gums swelled until they protruded, livid and disgusting, beyond the
lips. The teeth became so loose that they frequently fell out, and
the sufferer would pick them up and set them back in their sockets.
In attempting to bite the hard corn bread furnished by the bakery the
teeth often stuck fast and were pulled out. The gums had a fashion
of breaking away, in large chunks, which would be swallowed or spit
out. All the time one was eating his mouth would be filled with blood,
fragments of gums and loosened teeth.
Frightful, malignant ulcers appeared in other parts of the body; the
ever-present maggot flies laid eggs in these, and soon worms swarmed
therein. The sufferer looked and felt as if, though he yet lived and
moved, his body was anticipating the rotting it would undergo a little
later in the grave.
The last change was ushered in by the lower parts of the legs
swelling. When this appeared, we considered the man doomed. We all
had scurvy, more or less, but as long as it kept out of our legs we
were hopeful. First, the ankle joints swelled, then the foot became
useless. The swelling increased until the knees became stiff, and the
skin from these down was distended until it looked pale, colorless and
transparent as a tightly blown bladder. The leg was so much larger at
the bottom than at the thigh, that the sufferers used to make grim
jokes about being modeled like a churn, “with the biggest end down.”
The man then became utterly helpless and usually died in a short time.
The official report puts down the number of deaths from scurvy at
three thousand five hundred and seventy-four, but Dr. Jones, the Rebel
surgeon, reported to the Rebel Government his belief that nine-tenths
of the great mortality of the prison was due, either directly or
indirectly, to this cause.
The only effort made by the Rebel doctors to check its ravages was
occasionally to give a handful of sumach berries to some particularly
bad case.
When Stiggall died we thought Emerson would certainly follow him in a
day or two, but, to our surprise, he lingered along until August before
dying.