We cannot do better than copy into this book a very complete
description of Andersonville Prison, by Joseph Jones, Surgeon P.
A. C. S., Professor of Medical Chemistry in the Medical College of
Georgia, at Augusta, Ga., as given at the Wirtz trial at Washington,
D. C., he being a witness for the prosecution:
“Hearing of the unusual mortality among the prisoners confined
at Andersonville, in the month of August, 1864, during a visit
to Richmond, I expressed to the Surgeon General, S. P. Moore,
Confederate States of America, a desire to visit Camp Sumpter, with
the design of instituting a series of inquiries upon the nature and
causes of the prevailing diseases. Small-pox had appeared among
the prisoners, and I believed that this would prove an admirable
field for the study of its characteristic lesions. The condition of
Peyer’s glands in this disease was considered as worthy a minute
investigation. It was believed that a large portion of the men from
the Northern portion of the United States, suddenly transported
to a Southern climate, and confined upon a small portion of land,
would furnish an excellent field for the investigation of the
relations of typhus, typhoid, and malarial fevers.
The Surgeon General of the Confederate States of America furnished
me with letters of introduction to the surgeon in charge of the
Confederate States Military prison at Andersonville, Ga., and the
following is my description of that place:
The Confederate Military Prison at Andersonville, Ga., consists of
a strong stockade, twenty feet in height, enclosing twenty-seven
acres. The stockade is formed of strong pine logs, firmly planted
in the ground. The main stockade is surrounded by two other
similar rows of pine logs, the middle stockade being sixteen feet
high, and the outer one twelve feet. These are intended for offense
and defense. If the inner stockade should at any time be forced by
the prisoners, the second forms another line of defense; while in
case of an attempt to deliver the prisoners by a force operating
upon the exterior, the outer line forms an admirable protection to
the Confederate troops, and a most formidable obstacle to cavalry
or infantry. The four angles of the outer line are strengthened
by earthworks upon commanding eminences, from which the cannon,
in case of an outbreak among the prisoners, may sweep the entire
enclosure; and it was designed to connect these works by a line
of rifle pits running zig-zag around the outer stockade; those
rifle pits have never been completed. The ground enclosed by the
innermost stockade lies in the form of a parallelogram, the larger
diameter running almost due north and south. This space includes
the northern and southern opposing sides of two hills, between
which a stream of water runs from west to east. The surface soil of
these two hills is composed chiefly of sand with varying mixtures
of clay and oxide of iron. The clay is sufficiently tenacious
to give a considerable degree of consistency to the soil. The
internal structure of the hills, as revealed by the deep wells, is
similar to that already described. The alternate layers of clay
and sand, as well as the oxide of iron, which forms in its various
combinations a cement to the sand, allows of extensive tunneling.
The prisoners not only constructed numerous dirt houses with balls
of clay and sand, taken from the wells which they had excavated
all over these hills, but they have also, in some cases, tunneled
extensively from these wells. The lower portion of these hills,
bordering on the stream, are wet and boggy from the constant oozing
of water. The stockade was built originally to accommodate ten
thousand prisoners, and included at first seventeen acres. Near the
close of the month of June the area was enlarged by the addition of
ten acres. The ground added was situated on the northern slope of
the largest hill.
Within the circumscribed area of the stockade the Federal prisoners
were compelled to perform all the functions of life, cooking,
washing, the calls of nature, exercise, and sleeping. During the
month of March the prison was less crowded than at any subsequent
time, and then the average space of ground to each prisoner was
only 98.7 feet or less than eleven square yards. The Federal
prisoners were gathered from all parts of the Confederate States
east of the Mississippi, and crowded into the confined space,
until, in the month of June the average number of square feet of
ground to each prisoner was only 32.3 or less than four square
yards. These figures represent the stockade in a better light
even than it really was; for a considerable breadth of land along
the stream flowing from west to east between the hills was low
and boggy, and was covered with the excrements of the men and
thus rendered wholly uninhabitable, and in fact useless for every
purpose except that of defaction. The pines and other small trees
and shrubs, which originally were scattered sparsely over these
hills were in a short time cut down by the prisoners for firewood,
and no shade tree was left in the entire enclosure of the stockade.
With their characteristic industry and ingenuity, the Federals
constructed for themselves small huts and caves, and attempted to
shield themselves from the rain and sun, and night damps and dew.
But few tents were distributed to the prisoners, and those were
in most cases torn and rotten. In the location and arrangement of
these huts no order appears to have been followed; in fact, regular
streets appear to be out of the question on so crowded an area;
especially, too, as large bodies of prisoners were from time to
time added suddenly and without any preparations. The irregular
arrangement of the huts and imperfect shelters was very unfavorable
for the maintenance of a proper system of police.
The police and internal economy of the prison was left almost
entirely in the hands of the prisoners themselves; the duties of
the Confederate soldiers acting as guards being limited to the
occupation of the boxes or lookouts ranged around the stockade
at regular intervals, and to the manning of the batteries at the
angles of the prison. Even judicial matters pertaining to the
prisoners themselves, as the detection and punishment of such
crimes as theft and murder appear to have been in a great measure
abandoned to the prisoners.
The large number of men confined within the stockade soon, under
a defective system of police, and with imperfect arrangements,
covered the surface of the low ground with excrements. The sinks
over the lower portions of the stream were imperfect in their plan
and structure, and the excrements were in large measure deposited
so near the borders of the stream as not to be washed away, or
else accumulated upon the low boggy ground. The volume of water
was not sufficient to wash away the feces, and they accumulated in
such quantities as to form a mass of liquid excrement. Heavy rains
caused the water of the stream to rise and as the arrangements
for the passage of the increased amount of water out of the
stockade were insufficient, the liquid feces overflowed the low
grounds and covered them several inches after the subsidence of
the waters. The action of the sun upon this putrefying mass of
excrements and fragments of bread and meat and bones excited most
rapid fermentation and developed a horrible stench. Improvements
were projected for the removal of the filth and for the prevention
of its accumulation, but they were only partially and imperfectly
carried out. As the forces of the prisoners were reduced by
confinement, want of exercise, improper diet, and by scurvy,
diarrhea, and dysentary, they were unable to evacuate their bowels
within the stream or along its banks; and the excrements were
deposited at the very doors of their tents. The vast majority
appeared to lose all repulsion of filth, and both sick and well
disregarded all the laws of hygiene and personal cleanliness. The
accommodations for the sick were imperfect and insufficient. From
the organization of the prison, February 24, 1864, to May 22, the
sick were treated within the stockade. In the crowded condition of
the stockade, and with the tents and huts clustered thickly around
the hospital, it was impossible to secure proper ventilation or
to maintain the necessary police. The Federal prisoners also made
frequent forays upon the hospital stores and carried off the food
and clothing of the sick. The hospital was, on the 22d of May,
removed to its present site without the stockade, and five acres of
ground covered with oaks and pines appropriated to the use of the
sick.
The supply of medical officers has been insufficient from the
foundation of the prison.
The nurses and attendants upon the sick have been most generally
Federal prisoners, who in too many cases appear to have been devoid
of moral principle, and who not only neglected their duties, but
were also engaged in extensive robberies of the sick.
From want of proper police and hygienic regulations alone it is
not wonderful that from February 24 to September 21, 1864, nine
thousand four hundred and seventy-nine deaths, nearly one-third the
entire number of prisoners have been recorded.
At the time of my visit to Andersonville a large number of Federal
prisoners had been removed to Millen, Savannah, Charleston, and
other parts of the Confederacy, in anticipation of an advance
of General Sherman’s forces from Atlanta, with the design of
liberating their captive bretheren; however, about fifteen thousand
prisoners remained confined within the limits of the stockade and
prison hospital.
In the stockade, with the exception of the damp lowlands bordering
the small stream, the surface was covered with huts, and small
ragged tents and parts of blankets and fragments of oil-cloth,
coats, and blankets stretched upon sticks. The tents and huts were
not arranged according to any order, and there was in most parts of
the enclosure scarcely room for two men to walk abreast between the
tents and huts.
If one might judge from the large pieces of corn bread scattered
about in every direction on the ground the prisoners were either
very lavishly supplied with this article of diet, or else this kind
of food was not relished by them.
Each day the dead from the stockade were carried out by their
fellow prisoners and deposited upon the ground under a bush arbor,
just outside of the southwestern gate. From thence they were
carried on carts to the burying ground, one-quarter of a mile
northwest of the prison. The dead were buried without coffins, side
by side, in trenches four feet deep.
The low grounds bordering the stream were covered with human
excrements and filth of all kinds, which in many places seemed to
be alive with working maggots. An indescribable sickening stench
arose from these fermenting masses of human filth.
There were near five thousand seriously ill Federals in the
stockade and the Confederate States Military Prison Hospital, and
the deaths exceeded one hundred per day, and large numbers of the
prisoners who were walking about, and who had not been entered upon
the sick reports, were suffering incurable diarrhea, dysentery,
and scurvy. The sick were attended almost entirely by their fellow
prisoners, appointed as nurses, and as they received but little
attention, they were compelled to exert themselves at all times
to attend the calls of nature, and hence they retain the power of
moving about to within a comparatively short period of the close of
life. Owing to the slow progress of the diseases most prevalent,
diarrhea and chronic dysentery, the corpses were as a general rule
emaciated.
I visited two thousand sick within the stockade, laying under
some long sheds which had been built at the northern portion
for themselves. At this time only one medical officer was in
attendance, whereas at least twenty medical officers should have
been employed.
Scurvy, diarrhea, dysentary, and hospital gangrene were the
prevailing diseases. I was surprised to find but few cases of
malarial fever, and no well-marked cases either of typhus or
typhoid fever. The absence of the different forms of malarial
fever may be accounted for in the supposition that the artificial
atmosphere of the stockade, crowded densely with human beings and
loaded with animal exhalations, was unfavorable to the existence
and action of the malarial poison. The absence of typhoid and
typhus fevers amongst all the causes which are known to generate
these diseases, appeared to be due to the fact that the great
majority of these prisoners had been in captivity in Virginia,
at Belle Isle, and in other parts of the Confederacy for months,
and even as long as two years, and during this time they had been
subjected to the same bad influences, and those who had not had
these fevers before either had them during their confinement in
Confederate prisons or else their systems, from long exposure, were
proof against their action.
The effects of scurvy were manifest on every hand, and in all its
various stages, from the muddy pale complexion, pale gums, feeble,
languid muscular motions, lowness of spirits, and fetid breath,
to the dusky, dirty, leaden complexion, swollen features, spongy,
purple, livid, fungoid, bleeding gums, loose teeth, œdematous
limbs, covered with livid vibices, and petechiæ spasmodically
flexed, painful and hardened extremities, spontaneous hemorrhages
from mucous canals, and large, ill-conditioned, spreading ulcers
covered with a dark purplish fungus growth. I observed that in some
of the cases of scurvy the parotid glands were greatly swollen, and
in some instances to such an extent as to preclude entirely the
power to articulate. In several cases of dropsy the abdomen and
lower extremities supervening upon scurvy, the patients affirmed
that previously to the appearance of the dropsy they had suffered
with profuse and obstinate diarrhea, and that when this was checked
by a change of diet, from Indian corn-bread baked with the husk,
to boiled rice, the dropsy disappeared. The severe pains and livid
patches were frequently associated with swellings in various parts,
and especially in the lower extremities, accompanied with stiffness
and contractions of the knee joints and ankles, and often with a
brawny feel of those parts, as if lymph had been effused between
the integuments and apeneuroses, preventing the motion of the skin
over the swollen parts. Many of the prisoners believed that scurvy
was contagious, and I saw men guarding their wells and springs,
fearing lest some man suffering with scurvy might use the water
and thus poison them. I observed also numerous cases of hospital
gangrene, and of spreading scorbutic ulcers, which had supervened
upon slight injuries. The scorbutic ulcers presented a dark, purple
fungoid, elevated surface, with livid swollen edges, and exuded
a thin, fetid, sanious fluid, instead of pus. Many ulcers which
originated from the scorbutic condition of the system appeared
to become truly gangrenous, assuming all the characteristics of
hospital gangrene. From the crowded condition, filthy habits, bad
diet, and dejected, depressed condition of the prisoners, their
systems had become so disordered that the smallest abration of the
skin, from the rubbing of a shoe, or from the effects of the sun,
or from the prick of a splinter, or from scratching, or a musquito
bite, in some cases, took on a rapid and frightful ulceration and
gangrene. The long use of salt meat, oft-times imperfectly cured,
as well as the most total deprivation of vegetables and fruit,
appeared to be the chief causes of the scurvy. I carefully examined
the bakery and the bread furnished the prisoners, and found that
they were supplied almost entirely with corn-bread from which the
husk had not been separated. This husk acted as an irritant to the
alimentary canal, without adding any nutriment to the bran. As far
as my examination extended no fault could be found with the mode
in which the bread was baked; the difficulty lay in the failure
to separate the husk from the corn-meal. I strongly urged the
preparation of large quantities of soup from the cow and calves’
heads, with the brains and tongues, to which a liberal supply of
sweet potatoes and vegetables might have been advantageously added.
The material existed in abundance for the preparation of such
soup in large quantities with but little additional expense. Such
aliment would have been not only highly nutricious, but it would
also have acted as an efficient remedial agent for the removal of
the scorbutic condition. The sick within the stockade lay under
several long sheds which were originally built for barracks. These
sheds covered two floors which were open on all sides. The sick
lay upon the bare boards, or upon such ragged blankets as they
possessed, without, as far as I observed, any bedding or even straw.
The haggard, distressed countenances of these miserable,
complaining, dejected, living skeletons, crying for medical aid
and food, and cursing their government for its refusal to exchange
prisoners, and the ghastly corpses, with their glazed eye balls
staring up into vacant space, with the flies swarming down their
open and grinning mouths and over their ragged clothes, infested
with lice, as they lay amongst the sick and dying, formed a picture
of helpless, hopeless misery which it would be impossible to
portray by words or by the brush. A feeling of disappointment and
even resentment on account of the United States Government upon the
subject of the exchange of prisoners, appeared to be widespread,
and the apparent hopeless nature of the negotiations for some
general exchange of prisoners appeared to be a cause of universal
regret and injurious despondency. I heard some of the prisoners go
so far as to exonerate the Confederate Government from any charge
of intentionally subjecting them to a protracted confinement, with
its necessary and unavoidable sufferings, in a country cut off
from all intercourse with foreign nations, and sorely pressed on
all sides, whilst on the other hand they charged their prolonged
captivity upon their own government, which was attempting to
make the negro equal to the white man. Some hundred or more of
the prisoners had been released from confinement in the stockade
on parole, and filled various offices as druggists, clerks,
carpenters, etc., in the various departments. These men were well
clothed, and presented a stout and healthy appearance, and as a
general rule they presented a more robust and healthy appearance
than the Confederate troops guarding the prisoners.
The entire grounds are surrounded by a frail board fence, and are
strictly guarded by Confederate soldiers, and no prisoner except
the paroled attendants is allowed to leave the grounds except by a
special permit from the commandant of the interior of the prison.
The patients and attendants, near two thousand in number, are
crowded into this confined space and are but poorly supplied with
old and ragged tents. Large numbers of them were without any
bunks in their tents, and lay upon the ground, oft-times without
even a blanket. No beds or straw appeared to have been furnished.
The tents extend to within a few yards of the small stream, the
eastern portion of which, as we have before said, is used as a
privy and is loaded with excrements; and I observed a large pile of
corn-bread, bones, and filth of all kinds, thirty feet in diameter
and several feet high, swarming with myriads of flies, in a vacant
space near the pots used for cooking. Millions of flies swarmed
over everything, and covered the faces of the sleeping patients,
and crawled down their open mouths, and deposited their maggots
in the gangrenous wounds of the living, and in the mouths of the
dead. Musquetos in great numbers also infest the tents, and many of
the patients were so stung by these pestiferous insects, that they
resembled those suffering from a slight attack of the measles.
The police hygiene of the hospital were defective in the extreme;
the attendants, who appeared in almost every instance to have
been selected from the prisoners, seemed to have in many cases
but little interest in the welfare of their fellow-captives. The
accusation was made that the nurses in many cases robbed the sick
of their clothing, money, and rations, and carried on a clandestine
trade with the paroled prisoners and Confederate guards without
the hospital enclosure, in the clothing, effects of the sick,
dying, and dead Federals. They certainly appeared to neglect the
comfort and cleanliness of the sick entrusted to their care in a
most shameful manner, even after making due allowances for the
difficulties of the situation. Many of the sick were literally
encrusted with dirt and filth and covered with vermin. When a
gangrenous wound needed washing, the limb was thrust out a little
from the blanket, or board, or rags upon which the patient was
lying, and water poured over it, and all the putrescent matter
allowed to soak into the ground floor of the tent. The supply
of rags for dressing wounds was said to be very scant, and I
saw the most filthy rags which had been applied several times
and imperfectly washed, used in dressing wounds. Where hospital
gangrene was prevailing, it was impossible for any wound to
escape contagion under these circumstances. The results of the
treatment of wounds in the hospital were of the most unsatisfactory
character, from this neglect of cleanliness, in the dressings and
wounds themselves, as well as from various other causes which will
be more fully considered. I saw several gangrenous wounds filled
with maggots. I have frequently seen neglected wounds amongst
the Confederate soldiers similarly affected; and as far as my
experience extends, these worms destroy only the dead tissues and
do not injure specially the well parts. I have even heard surgeons
affirm that a gangrenous wound which had been thoroughly cleansed
by maggots, healed more rapidly than if it had been left to itself.
This want of cleanliness on the part of the nurses appeared to
be the result of carelessness and inattention, rather than of
malignant design, and the whole trouble can be traced to the want
of the proper police and sanitary regulations, and to the absence
of intelligent organization and division of labor. The abuses were
in a large measure due to the almost total absence of system,
government, and rigid, but wholesome sanitary regulations. In
extenuation of these abuses it was alleged by the medical officers
that the Confederate troops were barely sufficient to guard the
prisoners, and that it was impossible to obtain any number of
experienced nurses from the Confederate forces. In fact, the guard
appeared to be too small, even for the regulation of the internal
hygiene and police of the hospital.
The manner of disposing of the dead was also calculated to depress
the already desponding spirits of these men, many of whom have been
confined for months, and even for two years in Richmond and other
places, and whose strength had been wasted by bad air, bad food,
and neglect of personal cleanliness. The dead-house is merely a
frame covered with old tent cloth and a few bushes, situated in the
southwestern corner of the hospital grounds. When a patient dies,
he is simply laid in the narrow street in front of his tent, until
he is removed by Federal negroes detailed to carry off the dead; if
a patient dies during the night, he lies there until the morning,
and during the day even the dead were frequently allowed to remain
for hours in these walks. In the dead-house the corpses lie upon
the bare ground, and were in most cases covered with filth and
vermin.
The cooking arrangements are of the most defective character. Five
large iron pots similar to those used for boiling sugar cane,
appeared to be the only cooking utensils furnished the hospital for
the cooking of two thousand men; and the patients were dependent
in a great measure upon their own miserable utensils. They were
allowed to cook in the tent doors and in the lanes, and this was
another source of filth, and another favorable condition for the
generation and multiplication of flies and other vermin.
The air of the tents was foul and disagreeable in the extreme, and
in fact the entire grounds emitted a most nauseous and disgusting
smell. I entered nearly all the tents and carefully examined the
cases of interest, and especially the cases of gangrene, upon
numerous occasions, during the prosecution of my pathological
inquiries at Andersonville, and therefore enjoyed every opportunity
to judge correctly of the hygiene and police of the hospital.
There appeared to be almost absolute indifference and neglect of
the part of the patient, of personal cleanliness; their persons
and clothing in most instances, and especially those suffering
with gangrene and scorbutic ulcers, were filthy in the extreme and
covered with vermin. It was too often the case that the patients
were received from the stockade in a most deplorable condition. I
have seen men brought in from the stockade in a dying condition,
begrimmed from head to foot with their own excrements, and so black
from smoke and filth that they resembled negroes rather than white
men. That this description of the stockade has not been overdrawn,
will appear from the reports of the surgeon in charge.
We will first examine the consolidated report of the sick and
wounded Federal prisoners. During six months, from the 1st of
March to the 31st of August, forty-two thousand six hundred
and eighty-six cases of sickness and wounds were reported. No
classified record of the sick in the stockade was kept after the
establishment of the hospital without the prison. This fact,
in conjunction with those already presented relating to the
insufficiency of medical officers and the extreme illness and even
death of many prisoners in the tents in the stockade, without any
medical attention or record beyond the bare number of the dead,
demonstrates that these figures, large as they seem to be, are far
below the truth.
As the number of prisoners varied greatly at different periods, the
relations between those reported sick and well, as far as those
statistics extend, can best be determined by a comparison of the
statistics of each month.
During this period of six months no less than five hundred and
sixty-five deaths are recorded under the head of morbi vanie. In
other words, those men died without having received sufficient
medical attention for the determination of even the name of the
disease causing death.
During the month of August fifty-three cases and fifty-three deaths
are recorded as due to marasmus. Surely this large number of deaths
must have been due to some other morbid state than slow wasting.
If they were due to improper and insufficient food, they should
have been classed accordingly, and if to diarrhea or dysentary or
scurvy, the classification in like manner should have been explicit.
We observe a progressive increase of the rate of mortality, from
3.11 per cent. in March to 9.09 per cent. of mean strength, sick
and well, in August. The ratio of mortality continued to increase
during September, for notwithstanding the removal of one-half the
entire number of prisoners during the early portion of the month,
one thousand seven hundred and sixty-seven (1,767) deaths are
registered from September 1 to 21, and the largest number of deaths
upon any one day occurred during this month, on the 16th, viz: one
hundred and nineteen.
The entire number of Federal prisoners confined at Andersonville
was about forty thousand six hundred and eleven; and during the
period of near seven months, from February 24 to September 21,
nine thousand four hundred and seventy-nine (9,479) deaths were
recorded; that is, during this period near one-fourth, or more,
exactly one in 4.2, or 23.3 per cent. terminated fatally. This
increase of mortality was due in great measure to the accumulation
of the sources of disease, as the increase of excrements and filth
of all kinds, and the concentration of noxious effluvia, and also
to the progressive effects of salt diet, crowding, and the hot
climate.