Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1864-12-30


sport in which all, the very clean list
are rewarded by bagging more or lesi
game. Some Of those around the fire
are coatless and shoeless, many ragged
and altogether hard looking set. Some
have been prisoners for year and 9
half, others are 'fresh fish," All are
hoping and praying for an exchange. ,
On Oct. 9Th, at very sudden notice, We
left our prison at Charleston for Column
bia, where we arrived, to the number OF
1896, that night by cars. The yellow
fever had become epidemic in Charles
ton, and few of our officers had be-
come victims to it. We remained day
In Columbia, in an open lot near the
depot, without shelter and exposed to q
furious storm of rain, and with very
little food. The next day we marched
about two miles and were placed in a
large field with no shelter but few lit
tie pine trees-and here we are yet, ex-
cepting those who have escaped and are
now tramping towards the North and
Liberty.
We have now been in this place near
ly six weeks. No shelter whatever has
been provided for US, nor means of
making our own shelter, except thirteen
axes among our fourteen hundred men,
given us couple or three weeks after
our arrival. With no other tools except
these, and a few axes we bought, (price
now forty-dve dollars without han
dles,) some substantial log cabins have
been erected. At the start we all built
huts of pine bushes, a protection against
the sun, but very little against the rain
and the severe cold of the nights, for
we have had many heavy frosts and
hard freezes. From two to half q dozen
officers mess together, and each mess
has made its own Shelters AS tastes
differ, these habitations differ accord
ingly. A singular spectacle is present
cd at our prison camp. It is utterly
without plan or system, as each mess
built where it originally squatted, and
the shanties are of every conceivable
form and figure. All the material,
whether logs or brush, had to be car
ried long distance. One hou day
the guard lines are so extended b to
take in part of the surroundi1 rest
ct one point, then parties are. n
ly permitted to 60 out and chop
~ logs and brush for houses al
to burn the next twenty-fouf ht [fs.
Many of the officers have not blanket
or but one scant apology, and others
have no shoes and but very little cloth
ing. There has been, and there still is,
. great deal of suffering from inefficient
shelter, yet our keepers seem to be
making no effort to remedy the evil.
Lord! how the Northern rebel copper
heads would howl if rebel prisoners
were treated SO barbarously.
Yet have said nothing as to oNra-
tiOns. Corn meal and sorghum, me
former unbolted and the latter miser-
able stuff which could find no market
in the North, are almost our sole artl p
of diet as furnished by the authorities.
Occasionally we get little bad flour
and very little rice, about enough of the
latter to roast for "coffee :" of salt,
about the fourth of a Tablespoonful day
per man. Not a pound of meal ID any
kind, or lard, has been given to US here.
Not single cooking utensil has been
provided us, but we have had to depend
upon what we could bring with us on
our backs from Charleston in that line,
and very little of this ever furnished
by the rebs. Those who have money
can buy beef at $3.50 per pound of the
rebel sutler, and sometimes mutton at
$3.50; sweet potatoes $500 per peck,
Irish, $900@10.00; cabbages $5.OO@S.O0
per head; chickens the same; flour
$1.OO pint lard $500 per pound butter
$1200; eggs 5000 per dozen, etc. But
OAtCn Vic AlOStO VI CuCSc CAuuOt Ue UOuXlll
at all. There are hundreds of officers
who have no money, and thus are
obliged to live on their "rations." This
IL next to, starvation, as I kn0w o man
may Hve on them, but he is hungry all
the time, and I tell you hunger is very
disagreeable feeling. Besides, continued
SO long, it makes children of men both
In muscle and mind. There are num-
bers here whom / fear their friends
would hardly recognize, to talk with
them, even If but little changed in APP
pearance.
Under date Of Nov. 2sth, Col. San
ders thus speaks Of the attempted escape
8 of Capt. J. H. Turner:
Capt. Turner and Lieut.. Laird have
been returned. They tried to reach the
coast, and had made long distance,
going down the Edisto river in canoes
when captured by their own impru-
dence. They are now busy building a
log cabin, yet both contemplating an
other strike for liberty. Yesterday we
numbered 11O2in this prison camp, and
81 In hospital. We numbered original
~ 1466, and probably fifty others have
have escaped, or are now tryingto reach
our lines.
Under date of Dee. 9Th, he adds:
Capt Turner, of Muscatine is pre-.
pairing for third attempt to escape
Lieut.. Purcell, of the same place, has
had his haversack packed fora week
but can't get chance to dodge.
1t is proper to add that the letter o.
Col. Sanders from which these extracts
were taken was struggled through the
lines in the boots of one of his fellow
prisoners, who was fortunate enough te
be exchanged. The rebel authorities
would not have permitted such an ex
position of their barbarity to pas.
through their hands.
QUESTIONABLE CONGREGATIONs.' y
The newspaper reporters pay very
equivocal compliment to this or tina
preacher when they tell us he was lis
tened to by fashionable" congrega
ton. Fashion is all right at the theatr
or opera-or other public assemblages 0
q secular character-but the jade ougll
not to have anything to do in the TEN
pie of the Most High Think of Pau
preaching to fashionable" congrega
L. - q d. =,