April
7, 1864
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After
roll call this morning a four mule team came in driven by a Negro
on the off mule which was loaded with short stakes and strips of
scantling or narrow boards. Wirz accompanied by two Rebel carpenters
from the cookhouse came in the stockade at the same time. They measured
off from the foot of the stockade a line twenty feet wide all the
way around. The short stakes were driven in the ground and the scantling
nailed on top of them forming a rail around the whole camp inside.
Stakes were about ten feet apart and the rail about four feet high.
Wirz now went all over the camp and informed us that this was the
deadline which no prisoner could approach nearer than 10 or 12 feet
or the guard on the top of the stockade would shoot him at once.
No more trading was to be had with the guard. All of them had orders
to fire on anyone near the deadline & c. While driving the stakes,
Wirz and his men stumbled [on to] two or three tunnels. This made
him in a furious rage. He cursed and swore all the while and the
tunnels were filled up of course. One led clean under the stockade
for over twenty feet outside. The ragged tent from which it started
on the inside was quickly vacated by its occupants and Wirz could
not find out whose shanty it was, he was so mad that he knocked
down two prisoners and stamped on them with his heavy boots. He
had his pistol in hand all the while. Many of us laughed at him.
It took the best part of the day to
put the deadline up. Negroes were on the outside felling the trees
for thirty or more feet beyond the stockade so as to form a clear
space to see when anyone should make an exit for a tunnel - fires
were built of all the branches and stumps at night which lit up
the ground for several hundred of feet. Still there was a dense
forest left on the outside of the stockade on the east side where
the brook ran through it. We are having warmer weather but it rains
every day for an hour or two. The Rebel quartermasters are very
wroth because several axes and shovels which they lent us to build
the causeway across the swamp cannot be found. They threaten to
stop our rations if not found and returned to them. The prisoners
want them to chop stumps with. And at night sounds of three or four
axes are heard in the swamp. The nights are still cold and damp,
many sleep during the day in a sunny place on the ground and keep
working at the tree stumps for fuel most of the night, while hundreds
lay on the bare ground shivering with the cold until they can start
a small fire next morning. I went all over the camp to day--made
several acquaintances who were educated men--and heard their stories
of capture. Found several lawyers and doctors among them, and some
of the III Corps, but not one from my regiment. I am the only one
of them here.
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April 8 to 20, 1864
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During
the nights of 7th and 8th the prisoners tore all the rails from
off the deadline and are using them for firewood: many of the stakes
on which the rail was supported have gone the same way. The nails
are very useful for constructing shanties. Wirz was furious and
made the air blue with oaths. We only laughed at him - nobody took
the rails of course - he went into several shantys trying to see
some signs of them - but they had all been broken up in short pieces
and hidden in the sandy ground. Parts had been left intact, near
the north and south gates and where the brook enters the stockade.
In some places all traces of it had disappeared. One of the prisoners
was killed last night by some of the Raiders with clubs, he was
of course robbed of his overcoat and money, his head was smashed
in with a pine club which had been hardened in the fire recently
as the black smut left its mark. He was an old Belle Island prisoner
who had his miserable hovel near what is known as Raider's Island,
a small spit of sand on the brook and swamp near the sinks. As it
was very foggy at the time the Raiders got away and are not known.
About thirty of these scoundrels keep together and rob prisoners
nearly every foggy night.
The prisoners organized a police force
among us. They will be known as "The Regulators." About fifty of
the largest and strongest men among us were by common consent thus
formed. These men will deal with the "Raiders" and use club force
to keep them under. A squad of twenty men will always be moving
about the camp during the day while twenty-five will stand at prominent
points all night to head off and club those "hyenas" who murder
their comrades in their sleep to get their money and miserable possessions.
A certain portion of each man's ration is to be allotted them, so
that they will get more to eat than the others to keep them in fighting
trim. The chief is a large man, 6 feet high, a good natured fellow
and is known as "Big Pete." He will decide all cases of theft and
other crooked acts among the prisoners and owns a cat-o-nine-tails
to lash those found guilty of theft, etc.
The Raiders are a desperate set of
thieves and murderers who were Belle Island prisoners and came from
the slums of the cities to which they belong. Most of them have
served time in penitentiary or prisons before they enlisted. Most
of them are Irish, or Irish Americans. There are a lot of hard fellows
too among the police force, but they are supposed to be honest,
and no one's life is safe among us as long as these Raiders have
their own way. There are nearly two-hundred of these fiends, who
live always in groups so that one can help the other in a fight.
They are given a "wide berth" and no right minded prisoner will
venture into their quarters knowingly, as he is sure to be robbed
of everything he has if he does.
The daily routine in camp is monotonous
enough. Roll call at 7 a.m. (no drums now), delivery of rations--
bags of corn meal and a thronging of men around where they are delivered--
everyone cooking his mush or cornbread in little pieces of tin,
or half canteens, washing at the brook, getting water and hunting
for firewood. Some sleeping, others clustered around smokey fires
talking "exchange," some playing cards or checkers. Some fighting
among themselves, yelling and swearing, although they are so weak
that they can hardly stand up to it. Hundreds lying on the ground
sleeping, dozing in the sun, or dying from diarrhea. Then at night
huddled around the small fires or at work on tunnels until daylight.
I have taken in a new "chum" into
my shanty whose name is Brock, he having two poles and two pieces
of board, with a blanket and two half canteens and knife for cutting
large sticks, made it quite an object for me to have to share my
shanty. Together we moved the site and moved up nearer the north
gate fifty or sixty feet inside the deadline and erected a much
more comfortable shanty than I had before. . . .
The death rate for this month is very
large, over 300 have died since 1st April! Sixty or more are lying
helpless, and there is not much chance for them. The hospital (so
called) will be soon moved out of the stockade to the hill east
of the battery on the hill. Walsh and Colvin who were captured with
me are very low with diarrhea and cannot walk. The other friends
attend to their wants and cook their rations for them as best they
know how. As life is very uncertain in this hell hole, and our families
at home have no conception of the horrors of this place, we have
made contracts with each other in case any of us who were captured
together are exchanged or escape to do all we can to let our folks
at home know our fate and have written each others addresses and
residences so that we may personally apprize those who as yet do
not know our destiny or fate. The letter which I wrote home from
Crew and Pemberton Prison must never have reached my folks in New
York or I would have had an answer of some kind. Turner probably
has seized on the 10¢ silver piece which must have been sent in
the letter for postage to me. . . .
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