When we left off George H. Hill and his comrades had just landed at Andersonville Prison in Georgia, a few days after the Battle of the Wilderness. In this part of his narrative he describes his 5 month incarceration there. Keep in mind, George's 3 year term of enlistment expired July 16, 1864. If he had managed to stay with his regiment, he would have gone home then.
[Part Two]
Would to God remembrance of this hell, controlled and
rejoiced in by that fiend incarnate, Capt. Henry Wirz, this blot upon humanity,
could be erased from our nation's history.
To describe the sufferings of its inmates from exposure, starvation and
neglect requires greater power than mine. To exaggerate its terrors is an
impossibility. No one not actually a
prisoner in this "Chamber of Horrors" can form a conception of its
reality.
The sergeant
having charge of squad No. 1 (prisoners were divided into squads of one hundred
each), John McElroy, has published in book form a description of life inside
the stockade at Andersonville. I pronounce it the most vivid and truthful of
any attempt I have ever seen. He knew of
what he wrote. Twelve thousand
half-clothed skeletons crowded around us, and besieged us with questions of
news from home. Except from prisoners
entering from time to time, nothing was known inside those walls of union
success, while discouraging reports of real or imaginary victories of the rebel
army were freely circulated. "Where
is Grant?" "Where is Sherman
?" "Has Charleston been taken?" "Is there any chance of parole or
exchange?" And a thousand other
questions, all of which we answered, and all of which we, in turn, asked again
and again of each new lot that followed us into this crater of misery and
death. Counted off into squads - for the
purpose of drawing rations - we were directed to assemble each morning at the
call of the bugle, and then left to ourselves to find, if possible, an
unoccupied spot large enough to lie down upon.
Next morning
rations were issued for the day - a piece of corn bread about four inches
square, and a small slice of bacon. Twice each week we had in addition half a pint
of bean soup, cooked as farmers cook it for their hogs (pods and all). The last part of my stay here, when the number
had increased so there were twenty thousand or more, the ration consisted of
corn bread alone, and the size was reduced at least one-half.
No shelter but
the sky - no bed but the earth - no cover from the hot sun by day and the heavy
dew by night - exposed alike to rain and sun, there we remained, hoping against
hope, revived and encouraged one day by news brought by prisoners of union
success, and discouraged the next by the boastful bragging of the rebel
guard. Seeing one after another whose
acquaintance we had formed sink and die; ourselves reduced to living skeletons;
many to idiotic imbeciles; kept alive only by the one hope that the war would
end. And let me say here - among that dying throng not one word of copperhead
disloyalty; not one wish for that end to come in any way but with victory and
honor to the nation and the flag. Twelve
thousand nine hundred men died in Andersonville.
Think of it,
nearly thirty percent of all who entered that prison, gate were buried (most of
them in unknown graves) in the cemetery just outside the stockade, while of
those that lived at least fifty percent were walking skeletons of what we call
men.
It was here,
when it seemed to me we were deserted both by God and by the government we
loved so well, and when we had almost abandoned hope, I heard for the first
time that song (sung by new prisoners from Sherman's army) to which I never
listen, even after so many years, without a thrill of joy left over from that
memorable night:
"Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are marching,
Cheer up, comrades, they will come,
And beneath the starry flag we shall breathe the air
again
Of the Freeland in, our own beloved home!"
If George F.
Root could have seen the joy which came to that throng of helpless, almost
hopeless beings, as they crowded around and listened to what seemed to them an
inspired message, and could have heard their shouts for repetition, over and
over again, he would have felt gratified that at least one of his compositions
had received its reward of merit, and that he had made good use of his
God-given talent to do good to his fellow-men.
At last Atlanta fell, and victorious Sherman
started to rescue the prisoners at Macon and at Andersonville. This necessitated a change of location,
and to more safely make this move the report was given out that we were to be
sent North for exchange. So many such
rumors had come to us which had proved groundless that until the first lot
actually left we took but little stock in this one; but when once convinced
there came a struggle - every prisoner anxious to get away, and under such
circumstances it is not strange that selfishness predominated to an extent that
it became almost a fight for life to get counted into a squad to leave.
Accompanied by
Fuller - between whom and myself had ripened a friendship born from mutual
suffering - I left Andersonville with the fourth lot of five hundred, and after
five months in hell was once more out into the world again. Sixty men in each
lot, we were put on board a train of freight cars and started, as we believed,
for home. At Macon we stopped for wood and water. Rations
of corn bread and bacon were issued to us, which we were told must last us
three days.
While stopping
here we overheard a conversation between one of our guards and a soldier on the
depot platform which dispelled our dream of home - we were simply being moved
to Florence, N.C., where another stockade had been built,
and no exchange was contemplated. Turning
to Fuller, I declared I would never enter another stockade alive, and together
we began to plan our escape from the train, preferring, if necessary, to die by
bullet rather than the slower death of starvation or disease which we knew
awaited us by further imprisonment.
Fortune
favored us. At a Junction we changed cars, and noticing one car with rickety
flooring, we managed to get in line to count into that particular car. Once inside, we persuaded a young soldier of
the 32d Mass.,
Billie Crossett, to lie down over a large hole, and covering him with our
jackets, we insisted he was too weak to stand when our car was inspected by the
officer in charge to see if it was properly filled and guarded.
After the
train started we began to perfect our plans, taking into our confidence three
more of our fellow-prisoners, Jim Trounsell, Henry Klingingsmith, and John
Rice, all members of the 11th Penn., the Bucktail Regiment - We
planned to wait until night and then at the first stop after dark to quietly
drop down through the hole, lie flat on the road-bed, and take chances of the
train passing safely over us. We kept
the rest in the car ignorant, even of the hole itself, lest too many would
attempt the escape, thereby causing commotion and detection. It seemed as if night would never come, but
about sunset we stopped at a small station in South Carolina, called Sumpter,
and our car being at the platform, which was crowded with old men, women, and
children (at that time every man able to carry a musket was in the rebel army)
we overheard the guard on top of the car ask, "How far to Florence?" "Ten miles" was the reply, and our
hearts fell, for we knew this was the last stop. It was now or never, and I crawled through the
hole, followed by Rice, Crossett, Trounsell and Klingingsmith, and watching our
chance when the guard was busy talking to the girls, we slid out between the
wheels, under the depot platform, and lay down as close as possible to the
building in single file. (For some
reason Fuller did not follow, and I never heard of him again.) The train moved on, and there we were.
To Be Continued...
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