Not until some time after the occupation of the prison did the care and
condition of the sick attract the attention and excite the solicitude of
the prison-keepers. Then a space was selected to the eastward, and almost
adjoining the stockade, and here were pitched the decayed and dilapidated
tents which were to form the hospital.
The exact size of the space is not known, the boundaries having
disappeared since the evacuation; but the tents were arranged, it is said,
with some degree of regularity, and the collection was surrounded by a
fence, which served only to obstruct the circulation of free air, which
was of vital importance; and besides, the fence was of no service whatever
as protection against the escape of the inmates, as they were before
admission generally far too feeble to make even an effort.
The actual amount of accommodation furnished is not known. By some it is
stated that there were nothing whatever but a few rotten tent flies; by
others, and among them one of the surgeons, it is narrated that there were
tents to cover one thousand men, and three large kettles to provide for
their cooking, and nothing more. Yet the records show that there were
nearly four thousand men at one time in this hospital. This distribution
of the means for the protection and sustenance of life is too terrible to
be believed. Let us overlook it, for there is sufficient for execration
elsewhere, without turning to the more revolting violation and desecration
of one of the sanctuaries of civilization.
Beneath these tent covers there was neither straw, nor mattresses, nor
bunks: there was simply the bare earth, with no protection but what was
afforded by the rotten canvas, the scanty clothing, the ragged blanket,
which the hapless sufferer might possess. Many of the unfortunate men who
perished here had neither shelter nor clothing. The rapacity of the
captors had taken the remnants of the rags left by the fury of battle. For
this want of shelter, and couches to protect and rest the weary limbs,
there is no excuse, and there can be none; for in the adjoining forests
there were immense quantities of timber accessible, and easy of conversion
into manufacture, and the extremities of the boughs of the long-leaved or
Southern pine afforded the means of making comfortable and healthy beds.
There were then within the stockade many thousands of men accustomed to
the use of the axe, the adze, the saw, and the plane, who would have in
few days fashioned implements of steel out of the useless scraps of
railway iron lying at the depot, and transformed the forest into vast,
even magnificent buildings, replete with the comforts, the conveniences of
advanced art. There were artisans here, of education and ingenuity, who
could have formed out of the very dust of the place edifices as beautiful
and wonderful to the imagination and understanding as the reality was
repulsive and strange.