The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1880-08-13
AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS.

which contains an engraving of Mr..
Augustus Van Cleef's fine monument to
the unknown dead" at Salisbury, North
Carolina. ST guess I ought to know
something of what the Southern prisons
were during the late war, for had five
months of it in Andersonville myself"
In Pennsylvania train, among men of
whom not a few have taken part in the
great struggle themselves, and who have
had at least one relative engaged in it,
such an announcement is quite sufficient
to command general attention.
s'No! did you, though?"
''S'pose you tell us the story, mister;
there's time enough fore New York, I
reckon"
'tAll right, if you care to hear it. You
see. when first came over from England
the war was just about beginning, and as
there didn't seem anything for me to do
/ thought I'd better soldier than starve,
and so I went and listed right away. 1
wasn't long in finding out that soldering
and starving might sometimes mean
pretty much the same thing, for rations
were pretty scarce with us once once or
twice, when we got down on the Missis-
sippi. tells ye, after lying all night in
rice swamp, stiff and wet and miserable,
with nothing to eat and only marsh
water to drink, it was just like breath
of life to me to hear the alarm sounded
and know that we'd be at the enemy in a
few minutes more"
At this moment q pale-faced man, who
was going from seat to seat with basket
of newspapers and magazines, paused
for moment to listen, with a look of
such evident appreciation that it hardly
required tne testimon of his empty coat
sleeve to show that he, too, had been a
soldier in his time.
1--WE had plenty of hard fighting down
there, pursued the narrator as the news
paper man passed on, s'but most of it
was inst the sort didn't ike-skirmish-
ing about thick woods, where all you
could see of your enemy was the smoke
of his piece as he let fly at you, where
lots of our fellows were shot down with
out ever knowing who hurt 'em. I had
pretty narrow escape myself that way
one night. was standing sentry at the
outposts when rebel let slap at me
from the thicket, and just caught me
across the cheek here; you see the scar
got behind q tree as quick as winking,
and there I stuffed my jacket with grass
and set it up against o tree, with stick
through it and my hat on top, to look as
if was peering around for a shot; and
then dropped down and crawled away
into the bushes. Presently I heard the
crack of the reb's piece again, and, look
ing, out, just caught sight of his arm
and shoulder, and brought him down
with one shot.
"Well, not very long after that, I and
some more got picked up by the South
ern Cavalry, and it wasn't great while
before we found ourselves hard and fast
in Andersonville, and there VIC did have
q time, sure enough.
The place has been described so often
that / dare say you have q pretty good
idea of what it was like. It was great,
wide, swampy field, with a stockade
around it, inside of which thousands of
us were cooped up like cattle in pen.
If q mac happened to have blanket and
two or three bits of sticks, so he could
rig up shelter against the sun and rain,
all the better for him; If he hadn't he
only took his chances, and can tell you
there were mighty few blankets among
us, and many of us had little enough
clothing, either.
IAN day long the sun kept roasting
us alive, and all night the damp and
chill ate into our very bones and set us
shivering till our teeth ratified again. As
day upon couple of biscuits, and small
ones at that, AMI SO as to water, all we
had was from stream that ran through
a cypress swamp, and you may think
what kind of stuff that was"
'sYou must have been powerful hun
CRY, reckon, remarked a sympathetic
bystander.
Hungry? Well, I'll tell you some
thing about that. One day young fell
low, the son of the general who had us in
charge, came into the pen to look
around, with his little poodle-dog follow
ing him. He had hardly turned his back
when that dog was chopped up and eaten
bodily; and when his master came back
to look for him there was nothing left
but bit of skin about SO big. They
stopped our food for whole day be-
cause we wouldn't say who did it; but we
told no tales-not we.
Now, I should tell you that to make
sure of our not 'scaping they'd run
wire all around inside, about eighteen
feet from the stockade; and that eighteen
feet was the dead line, because if pris-
oner only put his head over that line he
got bullet in him the next minute from
one of the sentries.
We'll, one night late in the fall I'd got
10 CAOSC hc COu4u W tli6 Otttu llu6, 80 dS
the stockade might shelter me bit from
the cold wind. ugh! how it did bite
through me on that nightly ] was Just
wondering if could live through till
morning, and hardly caring whether I
did or not, when sentry just outside
gave psf that made me look up.
.sSay, Yank, he whispered, ST guess
you'll want blanket tonight. Catch
hold of this" And he rolled up his own
and chucked it to me. 81 can get along
without it.
ssGod bless you, !" says land that was
all. chucked it back to him the first
thing next morning, SO as he shouldn't
get found out, but I guess it saved my
life, all the same.
Not long after that lot of us were ex-
changed, and among the rest. tell
You hardly felt the ground under my
feet when went out of that filthy hole
free man though just at first I was as
weak as . baby, and could hardly stand
without being held.