DREARY WEATHER--THE COLD RAINS DISTRESS ALL AND KILL HUNDREDS--EXCHANGE
OF TEN THOUSAND SICK--CAPTAIN BOWES TURNS A PRETTY, BUT NOT VERY
HONEST, PENNY.
As November wore away long-continued, chill, searching rains desolated
our days and nights. The great, cold drops pelted down slowly,
dismally, and incessantly. Each seemed to beat through our emaciated
frames against the very marrow of our bones, and to be battering its
way remorselessly into the citadel of life, like the cruel drops that
fell from the basin of the inquisitors upon the firmly-fastened head of
their victim, until his reason fled, and the death-agony cramped his
heart to stillness.
The lagging, leaden hours were inexpressibly dreary. Compared with
many others, we were quite comfortable, as our hut protected us from
the actual beating of the rain upon our bodies; but we were much more
miserable than under the sweltering heat of Andersonville, as we lay
almost naked upon our bed of pine leaves, shivering in the raw, rasping
air, and looked out over acres of wretches lying dumbly on the sodden
sand, receiving the benumbing drench of the sullen skies without a
groan or a motion.
It was enough to kill healthy, vigorous men, active and resolute,
with bodies well-nourished and well clothed, and with minds vivacious
and hopeful, to stand these day-and-night-long solid drenchings. No
one can imagine how fatal it was to boys whose vitality was sapped by
long months in Andersonville, by coarse, meager, changeless food, by
groveling on the bare earth, and by hopelessness as to any improvement
of condition.
Fever, rheumatism, throat and lung diseases and despair now came
to complete the work begun by scurvy, dysentery and gangrene, in
Andersonville.
Hundreds, weary of the long struggle, and of hoping against hope, laid
themselves down and yielded to their fate. In the six weeks that we
were at Millen, one man in every ten died. The ghostly pines there sigh
over the unnoted graves of seven hundred boys, for whom life’s morning
closed in the gloomiest shadows. As many as would form a splendid
regiment--as many as constitute the first born of a populous City--more
than three times as many as were slain outright on our side in the
bloody battle of Franklin, succumbed to this new hardship. The country
for which they died does not even have a record of their names. They
were simply blotted out of existence; they became as though they had
never been.
About the middle of the month the Rebels yielded to the importunities
of our Government so far as to agree to exchange ten thousand sick.
The Rebel Surgeons took praiseworthy care that our Government should
profit as little as possible by this, by sending every hopeless case,
every man whose lease of life was not likely to extend much beyond his
reaching the parole boat. If he once reached our receiving officers it
was all that was necessary; he counted to them as much as if he had
been a Goliath. A very large portion of those sent through died on the
way to our lines, or within a few hours after their transports at being
once more under the old Stars and Stripes had moderated.
The sending of the sick through gave our commandant--Captain Bowes--a
fine opportunity to fill his pockets, by conniving at the passage
of well men. There was still considerable money in the hands of a
few prisoners. All this, and more, too, were they willing to give
for their lives. In the first batch that went away were two of the
leading sutlers at Andersonville, who had accumulated perhaps one
thousand dollars each by their shrewd and successful bartering. It was
generally believed that they gave every cent to Bowes for the privilege
of leaving. I know nothing of the truth of this, but I am reasonably
certain that they paid him very handsomely.
Soon we heard that one hundred and fifty dollars each had been
sufficient to buy some men out; then one hundred, seventy-five, fifty,
thirty, twenty, ten, and at last five dollars. Whether the upright
Bowes drew the line at the latter figure, and refused to sell his honor
for less than the ruling rates of a street-walker’s virtue, I know not.
It was the lowest quotation that came to my knowledge, but he may have
gone cheaper. I have always observed that when men or women begin to
traffic in themselves, their price falls as rapidly as that of a piece
of tainted meat in hot weather. If one could buy them at the rate they
wind up with, and sell them at their first price, there would be room
for an enormous profit.
The cheapest I ever knew a Rebel officer to be bought was some weeks
after this at Florence. The sick exchange was still going on. I have
before spoken of the Rebel passion for bright gilt buttons. It used
to be a proverbial comment upon the small treasons that were of daily
occurrence on both sides, that you could buy the soul of a mean man
in our crowd for a pint of corn meal, and the soul of a Rebel guard
for a half dozen brass buttons. A boy of the Fifth-fourth Ohio,
whose home was at or near Lima, O., wore a blue vest, with the gilt,
bright-trimmed buttons of a staff officer. The Rebel Surgeon who was
examining the sick for exchange saw the buttons and admired them very
much. The boy stepped back, borrowed a knife from a comrade, cut the
buttons off, and handed them to the Doctor.
“All right, sir,” said he as his itching palm closed over the coveted
ornaments; “you can pass,” and pass he did to home and friends.
Captain Bowes’s merchandizing in the matter of exchange was as open as
the issuing of rations. His agent in conducting the bargaining was a
Raider--a New York gambler and stool-pigeon--whom we called “Mattie.”
He dealt quite fairly, for several times when the exchange was
interrupted, Bowes sent the money back to those who had paid him, and
received it again when the exchange was renewed.
Had it been possible to buy our way out for five cents each Andrews and
I would have had to stay back, since we had not had that much money for
months, and all our friends were in an equally bad plight. Like almost
everybody else we had spent the few dollars we happened to have on
entering prison, in a week or so, and since then we had been entirely
penniless.
There was no hope left for us but to try to pass the Surgeons as
desperately sick, and we expended our energies in simulating this
condition. Rheumatism was our forte, and I flatter myself we got up
two cases that were apparently bad enough to serve as illustrations
for a patent medicine advertisement. But it would not do. Bad as we
made our condition appear, there were so many more who were infinitely
worse, that we stood no show in the competitive examination. I doubt
if we would have been given an average of “50” in a report. We had to
stand back, and see about one quarter of our number march out and away
home. We could not complain at this--much as we wanted to go ourselves,
since there could be no question that these poor fellows deserved
the precedence. We did grumble savagely, however, at Captain Bowes’s
venality, in selling out chances to moneyed men, since these were
invariably those who were best prepared to withstand the hardships of
imprisonment, as they were mostly new men, and all had good clothes and
blankets. We did not blame the men, however, since it was not in human
nature to resist an opportunity to get away--at any cost-from that
accursed place. “All that a man hath he will give for his life,” and I
think that if I had owned the City of New York in fee simple, I would
have given it away willingly, rather than stand in prison another month.
The sutlers, to whom I have alluded above, had accumulated sufficient
to supply themselves with all the necessaries and some of the comforts
of life, during any probable term of imprisonment, and still have a
snug amount left, but they, would rather give it all up and return to
service with their regiments in the field, than take the chances of any
longer continuance in prison.
I can only surmise how much Bowes realized out of the prisoners by his
venality, but I feel sure that it could not have been less than three
thousand dollars, and I would not be astonished to learn that it was
ten thousand dollars in green.