FOOD--THE MEAGERNESS, INFERIOR QUALITY, AND TERRIBLE SAMENESS --REBEL
TESTIMONY ON THE SUBJECT--FUTILITY OF SUCCESSFUL EXPLANATION.
I have in other places dwelt upon the insufficiency and the
nauseousness of the food. No words that I can use, no insistence upon
this theme, can give the reader any idea of its mortal importance to us.
Let the reader consider for a moment the quantity, quality, and variety
of food that he now holds to be necessary for the maintenance of life
and health. I trust that every one who peruses this book--that every
one in fact over whom the Stars and Stripes wave--has his cup of
coffee, his biscuits and his beefsteak for breakfast--a substantial
dinner of roast or boiled--and a lighter, but still sufficient meal in
the evening. In all, certainly not less than fifty different articles
are set before him during the day, for his choice as elements of
nourishment. Let him scan this extended bill-of-fare, which long custom
has made so common-place as to be uninteresting--perhaps even wearisome
to think about --and see what he could omit from it, if necessity
compelled him. After a reluctant farewell to fish, butter, eggs, milk,
sugar, green and preserved fruits, etc., he thinks that perhaps under
extraordinary circumstances he might be able to merely sustain life
for a limited period on a diet of bread and meat three times a day,
washed down with creamless, unsweetened coffee, and varied occasionally
with additions of potatos, onions, beans, etc. It would astonish the
Innocent to have one of our veterans inform him that this was not
even the first stage of destitution; that a soldier who had these was
expected to be on the summit level of contentment. Any of the boys
who followed Grant to Appomattox Court House, Sherman to the Sea, or
“Pap” Thomas till his glorious career culminated with the annihilation
of Hood, will tell him of many weeks when a slice of fat pork on a
piece of “hard tack” had to do duty for the breakfast of beefsteak and
biscuits; when another slice of fat pork and another cracker served for
the dinner of roast beef and vegetables, and a third cracker and slice
of pork was a substitute for the supper of toast and chops.
I say to these veterans in turn that they did not arrive at the first
stages of destitution compared with the depths to which we were
dragged. The restriction for a few weeks to a diet of crackers and fat
pork was certainly a hardship, but the crackers alone, chemists tell
us, contain all the elements necessary to support life, and in our Army
they were always well made and very palatable. I believe I risk nothing
in saying that one of the ordinary square crackers of our Commissary
Department contained much more real nutriment than the whole of our
average ration.
I have before compared the size, shape and appearance of the daily half
loaf of corn bread issued to us to a half-brick, and I do not yet know
of a more fitting comparison. At first we got a small piece of rusty
bacon along with this; but the size of this diminished steadily until
at last it faded away entirely, and during the last six months of our
imprisonment I do not believe that we received rations of meat above a
half-dozen times.
To this smallness was added ineffable badness. The meal was ground
very coarsely, by dull, weakly propelled stones, that imperfectly
crushed the grains, and left the tough, hard coating of the kernels in
large, sharp, mica-like scales, which cut and inflamed the stomach and
intestines, like handfuls of pounded glass. The alimentary canals of
all compelled to eat it were kept in a continual state of irritation
that usually terminated in incurable dysentery.
That I have not over-stated this evil can be seen by reference to the
testimony of so competent a scientific observer as Professor Jones, and
I add to that unimpeachable testimony the following extract from the
statement made in an attempted defense of Andersonville by Doctor R.
Randolph Stevenson, who styles himself, formerly Surgeon in the Army
of the Confederate States of America, Chief Surgeon of the Confederate
States Military Prison Hospitals, Andersonville, Ga.:
V. From the sameness of the food, and from the action of the poisonous
gases in the densely crowded and filthy Stockade and Hospital, the
blood was altered in its constitution, even, before the manifestation
of actual disease.
In both the well and the sick, the red corpuscles were diminished; and
in all diseases uncomplicated with inflammation, the fibrinous element
was deficient. In cases of ulceration of the mucous membrane of the
intestinal canal, the fibrinous element of the blood appeared to be
increased; while in simple diarrhea, uncomplicated with ulceration, and
dependent upon the character of the food and the existence of scurvy,
it was either diminished or remained stationary. Heart-clots were very
common, if not universally present, in the cases of ulceration of
the intestinal mucous membrane; while in the uncomplicated cases of
diarrhea and scurvy, the blood was fluid and did not coagulate readily,
and the heart-clots and fibrinous concretions were almost universally
absent. From the watery condition of the blood there resulted various
serous effusions into the pericardium, into the ventricles of the
brain, and into the abdominal cavity.
In almost all cases which I examined after death, even in the most
emaciated, there was more or less serous effusion into the abdominal
cavity. In cases of hospital gangrene of the extremities, and in
cases of gangrene of the intestines, heart-clots and firm coagula
were universally present. The presence of these clots in the cases of
hospital gangrene, whilst they were absent in the cases in which there
were no inflammatory symptoms, appears to sustain the conclusion that
hospital gangrene is a species of inflammation (imperfect and irregular
though it may be in its progress), in which the fibrinous element
and coagulability of the blood are increased, even in those who are
suffering from such a condition of the blood and from such diseases as
are naturally accompanied with a decrease in the fibrinous constituent.
VI. The impoverished condition of the blood, which led to serous
effusions within the ventricles of the brain, and around the brain
and spinal cord, and into the pericardial and abdominal cavities, was
gradually induced by the action of several causes, but chiefly by the
character of the food.
The Federal prisoners, as a general rule, had been reared upon wheat
bread and Irish potatos; and the Indian corn so extensively used at
the South, was almost unknown to them as an article of diet previous
to their capture. Owing to the impossibility of obtaining the
necessary sieves in the Confederacy for the separation of the husk
from the corn-meal, the rations of the Confederate soldiers, as well
as of the Federal prisoners, consisted of unbolted corn-flour, and
meal and grist; this circumstance rendered the corn-bread still more
disagreeable and distasteful to the Federal prisoners. While Indian
meal, even when prepared with the husk, is one of the most wholesome
and nutritious forms of food, as has been already shown by the health
and rapid increase of the Southern population, and especially of the
negros, previous to the present war, and by the strength, endurance
and activity of the Confederate soldiers, who were throughout the war
confined to a great extent to unbolted corn-meal; it is nevertheless
true that those who have not been reared upon corn-meal, or who have
not accustomed themselves to its use gradually, become excessively
tired of this kind of diet when suddenly confined to it without a due
proportion of wheat bread. Large numbers of the Federal prisoners
appeared to be utterly disgusted with Indian corn, and immense piles
of corn-bread could be seen in the Stockade and Hospital inclosures.
Those who were so disgusted with this form of food that they had no
appetite to partake of it, except in quantities insufficient to supply
the waste of the tissues, were, of course, in the condition of men
slowly starving, notwithstanding that the only farinaceous form of food
which the Confederate States produced in sufficient abundance for the
maintenance of armies was not withheld from them. In such cases, an
urgent feeling of hunger was not a prominent symptom; and even when it
existed at first, it soon disappeared, and was succeeded by an actual
loathing of food. In this state the muscular strength was rapidly
diminished, the tissues wasted, and the thin, skeleton-like forms moved
about with the appearance of utter exhaustion and dejection. The mental
condition connected with long confinement, with the most miserable
surroundings, and with no hope for the future, also depressed all the
nervous and vital actions, and was especially active in destroying
the appetite. The effects of mental depression, and of defective
nutrition, were manifested not only in the slow, feeble motions of the
wasted, skeleton-like forms, but also in such lethargy, listlessness,
and torpor of the mental faculties as rendered these unfortunate men
oblivious and indifferent to their afflicted condition. In many cases,
even of the greatest apparent suffering and distress, instead of
showing any anxiety to communicate the causes of their distress, or to
relate their privations, and their longings for their homes and their
friends and relatives, they lay in a listless, lethargic, uncomplaining
state, taking no notice either of their own distressed condition, or
of the gigantic mass of human misery by which they were surrounded.
Nothing appalled and depressed me so much as this silent, uncomplaining
misery. It is a fact of great interest, that notwithstanding this
defective nutrition in men subjected to crowding and filth, contagious
fevers were rare; and typhus fever, which is supposed to be generated
in just such a state of things as existed at Andersonville, was
unknown. These facts, established by my investigations, stand in
striking contrast with such a statement as the following by a recent
English writer:
“A deficiency of food, especially of the nitrogenous part, quickly
leads to the breaking up of the animal frame. Plague, pestilence and
famine are associated with each other in the public mind, and the
records of every country show how closely they are related. The medical
history of Ireland is remarkable for the illustrations of how much
mischief may be occasioned by a general deficiency of food. Always the
habitat of fever, it every now and then becomes the very hot-bed of its
propagation and development. Let there be but a small failure in the
usual imperfect supply of food, and the lurking seeds of pestilence
are ready to burst into frightful activity. The famine of the present
century is but too forcible and illustrative of this. It fostered
epidemics which have not been witnessed in this generation, and gave
rise to scenes of devastation and misery which are not surpassed by
the most appalling epidemics of the Middle Ages. The principal form
of the scourge was known as the contagious famine fever (typhus),
and it spread, not merely from end to end of the country in which it
had originated, but, breaking through all boundaries, it crossed the
broad ocean, and made itself painfully manifest in localities where
it was previously unknown. Thousands fell under the virulence of its
action, for wherever it came it struck down a seventh of the people,
and of those whom it attacked, one out of nine perished. Even those who
escaped the fatal influence of it, were left the miserable victims of
scurvy and low fever.”
While we readily admit that famine induces that state of the system
which is the most susceptible to the action of fever poisons, and thus
induces the state of the entire population which is most favorable
for the rapid and destructive spread of all contagious fevers, at the
same time we are forced by the facts established by the present war,
as well as by a host of others, both old and new, to admit that we are
still ignorant of the causes necessary for the origin of typhus fever.
Added to the imperfect nature of the rations issued to the Federal
prisoners, the difficulties of their situation were at times greatly
increased by the sudden and desolating Federal raids in Virginia,
Georgia, and other States, which necessitated the sudden transportation
from Richmond and other points threatened of large bodies of prisoners,
without the possibility of much previous preparation; and not only did
these men suffer in transition upon the dilapidated and overburdened
line of railroad communication, but after arriving at Andersonville,
the rations were frequently insufficient to supply the sudden addition
of several thousand men. And as the Confederacy became more and more
pressed, and when powerful hostile armies were plunging through her
bosom, the Federal prisoners of Andersonville suffered incredibly
during the hasty removal to Millen, Savannah, Charleston, and other
points, supposed at the time to be secure from the enemy. Each one of
these causes must be weighed when an attempt is made to estimate the
unusual mortality among these prisoners of war.
VII. Scurvy, arising from sameness of food and imperfect nutrition,
caused, either directly or indirectly, nine-tenths of the deaths among
the Federal prisoners at Andersonville.
Not only were the deaths referred to unknown causes, to apoplexy, to
anasarca, and to debility, traceable to scurvy and its effects; and not
only was the mortality in small-pox, pneumonia, and typhoid fever, and
in all acute diseases, more than doubled by the scorbutic taint, but
even those all but universal and deadly bowel affections arose from the
same causes, and derived their fatal character from the same conditions
which produced the scurvy. In truth, these men at Andersonville were
in the condition of a crew at sea, confined in a foul ship upon salt
meat and unvarying food, and without fresh vegetables. Not only so,
but these unfortunate prisoners were men forcibly confined and crowded
upon a ship tossed about on a stormy ocean, without a rudder, without
a compass, without a guiding-star, and without any apparent boundary
or to their voyage; and they reflected in their steadily increasing
miseries the distressed condition and waning fortunes of devastated
and bleeding country, which was compelled, in justice to her own
unfortunate sons, to hold these men in the most distressing captivity.
I saw nothing in the scurvy which prevailed so universally at
Andersonville, at all different from this disease as described by
various standard writers. The mortality was no greater than that
which has afflicted a hundred ships upon long voyages, and it did not
exceed the mortality which has, upon me than one occasion, and in a
much shorter period of time, annihilated large armies and desolated
beleaguered cities. The general results of my investigations upon
the chronic diarrhea and dysentery of the Federal prisoners of
Andersonville were similar to those of the English surgeons during the
war against Russia.
IX. Drugs exercised but little influence over the progress and fatal
termination of chronic diarrhea and dysentery in the Military Prison
and Hospital at Andersonville, chiefly because the proper form of
nourishment (milk, rice, vegetables, anti-scorbutics, and nourishing
animal and vegetable soups) was not issued, and could not be procured
in sufficient quantities for the sick prisoners.
Opium allayed pain and checked the bowels temporarily, but the frail
dam was soon swept away, and the patient appears to be but little
better, if not the worse, for this merely palliative treatment. The
root of the difficulty could not be reached by drugs; nothing short of
the wanting elements of nutrition would have tended in any manner to
restore the tone of the digestive system, and of all the wasted and
degenerated organs and tissues. My opinion to this effect was expressed
most decidedly to the medical officers in charge of these unfortunate
men. The correctness of this view was sustained by the healthy and
robust condition of the paroled prisoners, who received an extra
ration, and who were able to make considerable sums by trading, and who
supplied themselves with a liberal and varied diet.
X. The fact that hospital gangrene appeared in the Stockade first,
and originated spontaneously, without any previous contagion, and
occurred sporadically all over the Stockade and Prison Hospital, was
proof positive that this disease will arise whenever the conditions of
crowding, filth, foul air, and bad diet are present.
The exhalations from the Hospital and Stockade appeared to exert their
effects to a considerable distance outside of these localities. The
origin of gangrene among these prisoners appeared clearly to depend in
great measure upon the state of the general system, induced by diet,
exposure, neglect of personal cleanliness; and by various external
noxious influences. The rapidity of the appearance and action of the
gangrene depended upon the powers and state of the constitution, as
well as upon the intensity of the poison in the atmosphere, or upon the
direct application of poisonous matter to the wounded surface. This was
further illustrated by the important fact, that hospital gangrene, or a
disease resembling this form of gangrene, attacked the intestinal canal
of patients laboring under ulceration of the bowels, although there
were no local manifestations of gangrene upon the surface of the body.
This mode of termination in cases of dysentery was quite common in the
foul atmosphere of the Confederate States Military Prison Hospital; and
in the depressed, depraved condition of the system of these Federal
prisoners, death ensued very rapidly after the gangrenous state of the
intestines was established.
XI. A scorbutic condition of the system appeared to favor the origin of
foul ulcers, which frequently took on true hospital gangrene.
Scurvy and gangrene frequently existed in the same individual. In such
cases, vegetable diet with vegetable acids would remove the scorbutic
condition without curing the hospital gangrene.. . Scurvy consists
not only in an alteration in the constitution of the blood, which
leads to passive hemorrhages from the bowels, and the effusion into
the various tissues of a deeply-colored fibrinous exudation; but, as
we have conclusively shown by postmortem examination, this state is
attended with consistence of the muscles of the heart, and the mucous
membrane of the alimentary canal, and of solid parts generally. We
have, according to the extent of the deficiency of certain articles
of food, every degree of scorbutic derangement, from the most fearful
depravation of the blood and the perversion of every function
subserved by the blood to those slight derangements which are scarcely
distinguishable from a state of health. We are as yet ignorant of
the true nature of the changes of the blood and tissues in scurvy,
and wide field for investigation is open for the determination the
characteristic changes--physical, chemical, and physiological--of the
blood and tissues, and of the secretions and excretions of scurvy. Such
inquiries would be of great value in their bearing upon the origin
of hospital gangrene. Up to the present war, the results of chemical
investigations upon the pathology of the blood in scurvy were not
only contradictory, but meager, and wanting in that careful detail
of the cases from which the blood was abstracted which would enable
us to explain the cause of the apparent discrepancies in different
analyses. Thus it is not yet settled whether the fibrin is increased
or diminished in this disease; and the differences which exist in the
statements of different writers appear to be referable to the neglect
of a critical examination and record of all the symptoms of the cases
from which the blood was abstracted. The true nature of the changes of
the blood in scurvy can be established only by numerous analyses during
different stages of the disease, and followed up by carefully performed
and recorded postmortem examinations. With such data we could settle
such important questions as whether the increase of fibrin in scurvy
was invariably dependent upon some local inflammation.
XII. Gangrenous spots, followed by rapid destruction of tissue,
appeared in some cases in which there had been no previous or existing
wound or abrasion; and without such well established facts, it might
be assumed that the disease was propagated from one patient to another
in every case, either by exhalations from the gangrenous surface or by
direct contact.
In such a filthy and crowded hospital as that of the Confederate,
States Military Prison of Camp Sumter, Andersonville, it was impossible
to isolate the wounded from the sources of actual contact of the
gangrenous matter. The flies swarming over the wounds and over filth of
every description; the filthy, imperfectly washed, and scanty rags; the
limited number of sponges and wash-bowls (the same wash-bowl and sponge
serving for a score or more of patients), were one and all sources of
such constant circulation of the gangrenous matter, that the disease
might rapidly be propagated from a single gangrenous wound. While the
fact already considered, that a form of moist gangrene, resembling
hospital gangrene, was quite common in this foul atmosphere in cases
of dysentery, both with and without the existence of hospital gangrene
upon the surface, demonstrates the dependence of the disease upon the
state of the constitution, and proves in a clear manner that neither
the contact of the poisonous matter of gangrene, nor the direct action
of the poisoned atmosphere upon the ulcerated surface, is necessary
to the development of the disease; on the other hand, it is equally
well-established that the disease may be communicated by the various
ways just mentioned. It is impossible to determine the length of time
which rags and clothing saturated with gangrenous matter will retain
the power of reproducing the disease when applied to healthy wounds.
Professor Brugmans, as quoted by Guthrie in his commentaries on the
surgery of the war in Portugal, Spain, France, and the Netherlands,
says that in 1797, in Holland, ‘charpie,’ composed of linen threads cut
of different lengths, which, on inquiry, it was found had been already
used in the great hospitals in France, and had been subsequently washed
and bleached, caused every ulcer to which it was applied to be affected
by hospital gangrene. Guthrie affirms in the same work, that the fact
that this disease was readily communicated by the application of
instruments, lint, or bandages which had been in contact with infected
parts, was too firmly established by the experience of every one in
Portugal and Spain to be a matter of doubt. There are facts to show
that flies may be the means of communicating malignant pustules. Dr.
Wagner, who has related several cases of malignant pustule produced in
man and beasts, both by contact and by eating the flesh of diseased
animals, which happened in the village of Striessa in Saxony, in 1834,
gives two very remarkable cases which occurred eight days after any
beast had been affected with the disease. Both were women, one of
twenty-six and the other of fifty years, and in them the pustules were
well marked, and the general symptoms similar to the other cases. The
latter patient said she had been bitten by a fly upon the back d the
neck, at which part the carbuncle appeared; and the former, that she
had also been bitten upon the right upper arm by a gnat. Upon inquiry,
Wagner found that the skin of one of the infected beasts had been hung
on a neighboring wall, and thought it very possible that the insects
might have been attracted to them by the smell, and had thence conveyed
the poison.
[End of Dr. Stevenson’s Statement]
..........................
The old adage says that “Hunger is the best sauce for poor food,” but
hunger failed to render this detestable stuff palatable, and it became
so loathsome that very many actually starved to death because unable to
force their organs of deglutition to receive the nauseous dose and pass
it to the stomach. I was always much healthier than the average of the
boys, and my appetite consequently much better, yet for the last month
that I was in Andersonville, it required all my determination to crowd
the bread down my throat, and, as I have stated before, I could only do
this by breaking off small bits at a time, and forcing each down as I
would a pill.
A large part of this repulsiveness was due to the coarseness and
foulness of the meal, the wretched cooking, and the lack of salt,
but there was a still more potent reason than all these. Nature does
not intend that man shall live by bread alone, nor by any one kind
of food. She indicates this by the varying tastes and longings that
she gives him. If his body needs one kind of constituents, his tastes
lead him to desire the food that is richest in those constituents.
When he has taken as much as his system requires, the sense of satiety
supervenes, and he “becomes tired” of that particular food. If tastes
are not perverted, but allowed a free but temperate exercise, they are
the surest indicators of the way to preserve health and strength by a
judicious selection of alimentation.
In this case Nature was protesting by a rebellion of the tastes against
any further use of that species of food. She was saying, as plainly as
she ever spoke, that death could only be averted by a change of diet,
which would supply our bodies with the constituents they so sadly
needed, and which could not be supplied by corn meal.
How needless was this confinement of our rations to corn meal, and
especially to such wretchedly prepared meal, is conclusively shown by
the Rebel testimony heretofore given. It would have been very little
extra trouble to the Rebels to have had our meal sifted; we would
gladly have done it ourselves if allowed the utensils and opportunity.
It would have been as little trouble to have varied our rations with
green corn and sweet potatos, of which the country was then full.
A few wagon loads of roasting ears and sweet potatos would have
banished every trace of scurvy from the camp, healed up the wasting
dysentery, and saved thousands of lives. Any day that the Rebels had
chosen they could have gotten a thousand volunteers who would have
given their solemn parole not to escape, and gone any distance into the
country, to gather the potatos and corn, and such other vegetables as
were readily obtainable, and bring, them into the camp.
Whatever else may be said in defense of the Southern management of
military prisons, the permitting seven thousand men to die of the
scurvy in the Summer time, in the midst of an agricultural region,
filled with all manner of green vegetation, must forever remain
impossible of explanation.