The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1866-06-19
a sOUTHERN PRISON.
Pen for .sYankees'' at Florence. $. G..
The Cemetery for Union Dead

Correspondence Of the Boston 1FonSeFlpt-
FLORENCE, May 1866.
This Mace, but short time since a
garrisoned post, has been abandoned
| by the United States forces. out VIII
ever be memorable as the famous, or
rather Infamous, South Carolina prison
pen, corresponding to AnuersonEiiIei
! Georgia. The country is fiat, ana FLOR
ence itself is only drained of stagnhht
water by numerous deep trenches, cat
| literally in every direction. About a
n mile or so from the town, and on the
edge of the swamp, lies the National
Cemetery an oblOng, four-sided inclo-
sure, containing about four acres
When left by the Rebels it WAS uuin-
closed, but has since been surrounded,
1 think, by the direction of the Quar-
termaster Mt Charleston by substan-
tial boarded fence, hye feet high, with
a cap, and all well whitewashed.
The cemetery contains two thousand
three hundred and Seventy-eiShtg graves,
being the bulk of our unfortunate de2u
| from the prison-pen, which is one
fourth of mile away 1t seemed m
| credible to an eye-Nvitness how they
managed TO bury so large a number IN
so small space; but il was done 10y
digging large pits, in which the bodies
We're laid side by side, and then the
| hole was filed up. l believe they
| Thought the "Sacred soip' of South Car
| DINA too valuable to be lavished on
| Yankees, yet in this region one would
| suppOse il could hardly be gwen away.
| The intermentS We're usually made
by the prisoners, who often managed
l to secure head-boardS of some sort,
| though some of them are very pitinbic,
being no more than common STAKES or
shingles, with here and there "a piece Of
! a cr1cker-box, when they were so Tor
] tnnate rs to secure one. These head
boards bore numbers, just discernible,
cut bv Il knife, and ! suppose done by
one person, as they all looked very
similar L counted ten graves, howcv-
er, with no head-boads, and III the cen
| tire of these was an upright board, with
the sad inscription: "Buried hero arc
| ten unknown Federal prisoners"
These numbers, together with the in
scriptions above referred to, led me 10
believe that records of the same hud
been kept, probably by one of the otii-
/ GERS in charge of the pen but if so,
they have yet failed TO appear, doubt
less through fear of prosecution q td
| Captain WirZ. Understand, however,
| that some action has been taken by tie
Government to bring these records to
light Workmen are now engaged i'll
replacing these mongrel head-boards, by
erecting new ones in their Stead. These
are painted white and numbered to
| correspond with those removed.
Three hundred yards away is still
| another inclosure, though smaller, con-
| tanning some 400 graves, similar in re
sDeCtS to those above referred to, thus
making in all nearly 5000 graves of our,
| as vet, unknown dead" We believe
| there are as graves at Andersonville
marked with this sad inscription; but
YOU will remark how Infinitely more
sad are the 5000 graves OF these un-
known martyrs, not one of whom, as
vet, can be identified.
We now come to the prison pen, the
cause in all probability, of the mnjOri-
] nf hn "A
ter of mile away, and consists of
about twenty acres, OF ODlOng shape,
and II little more than half as WIDE us
| it is long, divided into two parts by
small stream, with marshy, muddy
| banks. Your readers may Imagine the
pestilential diseases produced, when
| say truly that from eight to ten thons-
and, and at one time as many as fifteen
| thousand of our poor soldiers We're
| crowded on both sides, and, one would
suppose, into it. The place was in
closed by a stockade twenty feet high,
and about twenty feet away runs the
cruel dead line," much of 1t still re-
naming. This was n thin board, raised
some two feet from the ground, to cross
which was death. There is not II tree
| or bush inside here, and it seemed as If
Rebel malignity worked hard to make
the place as uncomfortable as possible.
Even the stream running through the
| inclosure, from which our poor prison.
| ed by them, they being encamped above,
though good water was to be bountitul-
| " had but n short distance away. Here
| was also an abundance of pine trees,
| which can be had here now for the ask
| ing. but were cruelty denied our men,
though urgent request was often made.
With this small favor our prisoners
could have constructed decent cabins
/ in less than n fortnight, but, as i said
before, every effort was made to render
their position as uncomfortable AS pos
sible: and to screen themselves from
! the burning heat of the sun in summer
and the chilly blasts of winter, our poor
| fellows were compelled to dig in the
! ground like moles, and wonder that
! even this petty privilege, II thus u can
| be called was allowed them
To give these tiends little credit
mention sort of hut or cabin, con-
structed OF pine, in the north end of
this enclosure, for hospital purposes;
| also n few huts made with poles, &c,
| covered with turf, but these had cellars
dug beneath them. Calling even this
| tolerable, it is the common testimony
| of the people here that they We're half
starved and in rags; in summer swell
| tering and roasting, and in winter shiV-
ering over few sorry embers, when
| the almost unlimited forest WAS around
/ them. Had there been no woods here
there might have been some cXcusei
| but this section abounds with pine,
even within hundred yards OF the
pen, and everybody is welcome TO cut
From these 5000 to 1900 prisoners
thrust into this living hell, to
roast, to freeze, to starve, to die.
came the 2,37S martyrs for the
Union, whose burial places
have attempted to describe. This was
the "chivalrous'' South Carolina, the
pride ofthe COntederacy, and in the nine
teenth century, / can only wonder
why these worse than demons have not
been arrested ere this, and compelled
| to suffer for such enormous outrages,
perpetrsted on our poor, unfortunate
soldiers.
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