Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1880-04-02


slightest, and in much the greater part
o, the country zone whatever have
been made.
There isa deep fascination in the
subject of Andsrsonville, for that
Golgotha, in which lie the whitening
bones of $4,000 gallant young men, re-
presents to them very much of the |
dearest and costliest sacrifice of the
war for the preservation of our ma
tional unity. 1t is type, too, of its
class. Its more than hundred hes
atombs of dead represent several times
that punber of their brethren. for
whom the prison gates of Belle Isle,
Danville, Salisbury, Florence, Column
bia and Cahawba opened only in etsr-
nifty. There are few families in the
North who have not at least one dear
relative or friend among these 10000
whose sad fortune it was to end their
service for the Union by lying down
and dying for it in Southern prison
pen. The manner of their death, the
horrors that clustered thickly around
every moment of their existence, the
loyal, unfaltering steadfastness with
which they endured all that fate
brought them has never been ade-
quately told. 1t was not with them as
with their comrades in the field, whose
every act was performed in the pres
ence of those whose duty it was to OBJ
serve such matters and report them to
the world.
Hidden from the view oftheir friends
in the North by the impenetrable vail
which the military operations of the
Rebels drew around the so-called Con-
federacy, the people knew next to
nothing of their career or their suffer
ings. Thousands died there less heed
ed even than the hundreds who per
ishod on the battle field. Grant did
not lose as many men, killed outright,
in the terrible campaign from the Will
derness to the James River-43 days OF
desperate fighting-as died in July and
August at Andersonville. Nearly
: twice as many died in that prison as
fell from the day that Grant crossed
the Rapidan, till he settled down into
the trenches before Petersburg. More
than four times as many Union dead
lie under the solemn, Soughing pine
about that forlorn little Village il
Southern Georgia than mark the
course of Sherman from Chattanooga
to Atlanta. The Nation stands aghas
at the expenditure of life which attend
ed the two bloody campaigns of 1856
which virtually crushed the Con
federacy, but no one remembers thai
: more Union soldiers died in the real
of the Rebel lines than were killed il
front of them. The great military
events that stamped out the Rebellion
drew attention away from the sac
drama which Starvation and Disease
played in the gloomy pens in the fal
recesses of somber Southern forests.
The author begins with an account
of the raid made into the enemy's
country by the cavalry command in
which he was serving as an enlisted
man. They meet the Rebel cavalry
and after sharp fight, worst it badly
sending it flying from the field. For 6
while the Union cavalry live off the
fairness of the land, but at length they
are trapped in a narrow valley, anC
after a desperate resistance, are al
captured, and semitic Richmond. Two
: months of hardship and exposure Oh
Bell Isle, and in the tobacco factories
end by their being sent to Anderson
ville-the author arriving in the frs
: squad that enters the pen. Then en-
sues six months of terrible suffering, il
which four out of five of those around
him die. This is ended by the fall O
Atlanta, Immediately upon which the
Rebels, fearful of the safety of SO grea
mass of prisoners in such proximity
to the National lines as the fall of tina
: stronghold has brought about, hurry
the bulk of them off to another ant
more remote places of confinement.
The author is first taken to Savan
Il nah after a short stay, to Millen
thence to Savannah again !; thence t.
Blackshire, where he is paroled ant
sent back to Savannah again, ostensi
bly, to be exchanged, but really to ge
him and his companions safely pas
Sherman's advancing lines and tax
them to Florence, S. c., where they ar
,, kept until the Confederacy began go
ing to pieces in March, 1864.
Into this warp and wool of daily
history are woven numberless bits O
fascinating description of thrillin,
incidents, and even laughable cpl sode
for there was fun, even in that drear,
experience. Among the most thrillin,
recital to be found anywhere is that O
the story of the fights with and tin
capture and execution of the Raiders
a band of murderous desperados VIII,
infested the prison, and six of whom
were hanged IN tev0rene, and as
punishment for their multifarious OF
fences This is the only full and &C
l.. - Al, I