The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1880-03-25
ANDERSONVILLE.

ANDERsONVILLE.
A Story Of Southern Military Prisons.
The Most Successful Book Since "Un.
Gle Toms Cabin"-Twenty Thousand
Copies Sold Before One Was Printed
A Graphic Story ofa Private Soldiers
Experience In Richmond, Anderson.
Vile, Savannah, Millep, Blackshear,
Charleston and Florence.
No book since "Uncle Toms Cabin" has
had the unparalleled success that has attend
ed the publication in the form of a copions
ly illustrated volume of q series of articles
that ran tbr'o the Toledo BLADE last year
under the title of "Andersonville; a Story
of Southern Military Priaons." Such was
the interest aroused by the subject, and the
fa-inating manner in which it was treated
that the near announcement that the
sketches were TO be reproduced in book
form was sufficient to bring in orders for
more than 10000 copies before one was
printed. and the volume has been upon
the market now less than four months, the
sales have nearly reached 10000, with ev-
cry prospect that that figure will doubled
or trebled before the year is out. Certain
ly no book ever sold itself to the extent
that this one has, because the effort to in.
t-oduce it anywhere have been of the
slightest, and in much the greater part of
the country none have been made.
There ia deep facination in the subject
Of Anderaonville, for that Golgoths, in
which lie the wiihering bones of IL, 900 gal.
lont young men, represents to them very
much Of the dearest and costliest sacsifce
of the war for the preservation Of our ma.
tional unity. 1t is type, too, Of its class
Its more than hundred hecatombs of dead
represent several times that number oil
their brethren, for whom this prison gate
Of Belle Isle. Danville, Salisbury, Florence
Columbia and Cahawba opened only in
eternity. There are few families in the
North who have not at least one dear rela.
tive or friend among these 10000 whose
sad fortune il was to end their services TO.
the Union by lying down and dying for il
in a Southern prison pen. The manner o
their death, the horrors that clustered
thickly around every moment Of their ex.
is,ence. the loyal, unfalteriDg s,eadfastnesl
with which they endured ell that fate
arougbt them has never been adequately
told. 1t was not with them as with theil
comrades in the field, whose every act wal
performed in the presence of those whose
duty it was TO observe such matters and
report them to the world.
Hidden from the view of their friend,
in the North by the impenetrable veil
which the military operations of the Reb.
els drew around the so-called Confedracy
the people knew next to nothing of their
career or their sufferings. Thousands d.
cd there less needed even than the hun
drefs who perished on the battle field.
Grant did not lose as many men killed out
right, in the terrible campaign from the
Wilderness to the james rives-43 days of
desperate fshting-as died in July and
August in Andersonville. Nearly twice as
many died in that prison as fell from the
day Grant crossed the Rapidan, till he set-
tied down into the trenches before Peters
burg. More than four times as many
Union dead lie under the solemn, sough-
ing pines above that forlorn little Village
in Southern Georgia than mark the course
of Sherman from Chattanooga to Atlanta
The Nation stands aghast at the expendi-
ture Of life which attended the two bloody
campaigns Of 1864 which virtually crush
ed the Confedracy, but no one remembe
that more Union soldiers dted in the rear
of the Rebel lines than were killed in the
front Of them. The great military events
that stamped out the Rebellion d ew at
,ention away from the sad drama which
Starvation and Disease played in the
gloomy pens in the far 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 met
the Rebel cavalry, and after sharp fight,
worst it badly, sending IL flying from the
field. For while the Union cavalry live
of the fatness of the land, but at length
they are trapped in a narrow valley, and
after desperate resistance, are all captur-
ed, and sent to Richmond. Two months
Of hardship and exposure on Bell Isle,
and in the tobacco foctories and by their
being sent to ville-the author
arriving in the FIRST squad that enters the
pen. Then insues six month Of terrible
suffering. inwhich four out of five Of thoes
around him die. This is ended by the
fall of Atlanta, Immediately upon which
the Rebels, fearful of the safety of 40 grea.
q mass OF persons in such proximity to the
National lines as the fall of that strong
hold has brought about, hurry the bulk o
them of to another and more remote place
Of confinement.
| The author ia first taken to Savannah
after short stay there, to Millen: thence
to Savannah again; thence TO Blacksbear
where he is paroled and sent back to Sa-
vannah again, osiensibly to be exchanged
but really to get him and his companions
safely past Shermans advancing lines and
take them to Florence s. G. where they
are kept until the Confedracy begins goiD,
to peices in March 1864.