In the month of August the stockade was lengthened six hundred and ten
feet, by what influence or from what cause it is unknown; but nevertheless
it was enlarged to the length of sixteen hundred and twenty feet,--thus
making the entire area sixteen hundred and twenty by seven hundred and
eighty-three feet. This enlargement was a salutary movement on a small
scale, but it only prolonged the sufferings of the victims. The thirty
thousand men had now twenty-two acres, minus the dead line and marsh, or
thirty square feet per man, or three and a half square yards. There were
actually, during this month, thirty-five thousand men within the prison,
and some authorities give me as high as thirty-six thousand. This density
is enormous, and cannot be tolerated by animal life in any climate, in any
latitude, of the world. There must be space for organic life to develop
and maintain itself, otherwise it perishes. To give a correct idea of the
crowded condition of this pen, we do not know where to turn for example.
The great cities of civilized lands do not even approximate in their ratio
of populations.
The relation of density, in the three great divisions of London, give
thirty-five, one hundred and nineteen, and one hundred and eighty square
yards to each inhabitant. The densest portion of Liverpool, with its lofty
and immense brick ranges of buildings, swarming with industrial life,
gives more than eighty square feet to each person. The early Roman camps,
which are a marvel to military men, and the closest known to military
science, gave to the ordinary legion three hundred and sixty-seven
square feet of area to each man. The plans of Polybius give two hundred
and thirty square feet to each soldier of the consular army of two
legions, numbering nearly eighteen thousand men, and the descriptions of
Hyginus give similar ratios.
[Illustration: _PLAN OF PRISON GROUNDS_ ANDERSONVILLE
_Measured by Dr. Hamlin Copy right secured_