The guards furnished themselves with comfortable huts, arranged with the
common conveniences, and their bunks were suspended above the contact of
the treacherous ground. Their invalids were well cared for also in the
large hospital which was erected expressly for the garrison, and which
consisted of two large two-story wooden buildings, admirably arranged,
with the conveniences proper to the service. The kitchen, the dispensary,
the ventilation, and the general arrangement, showed that scientific care
and forethought had been observed there.
The hospital system of the rebels was quite complete, and most of their
hospitals throughout the country were well constructed and equipped; and
some of them were models of neatness, comfort, and scientific arrangement.
The garrison hospital at Andersonville offers a terrible contrast to the
open space, the wretched agglomeration, which the rebel authorities called
a hospital for the prisoners.
It is true that the commanding officers were compelled, from some unknown
pressure,--whether the sense of shame, or dictate from Richmond,--to order
and commence the erection, at a late date, of a new hospital stockade.
This was to consist of a high palisade, about one thousand feet in length,
with twenty-two open sheds erected in the interior; but it was never
finished, nor occupied, and it remains to-day as it was left by the rude,
black artisans, one of the evidences of either remorse or reluctant
obedience to the lingering sense of natural compassion of its senseless
and heartless rulers.