Daily Republican., 1883-11-28
We the Peoples Appeal.

The military and the home guards
are now getting ready for the Thanks
giving dinner. We have toiu thein
about our granddads one hundred years
ago at Valley Forge, and about the boys
in blue that went down TO DiXle; now
Yet us have little about the Anderson
vile prison pen about the Tbanksglv-
ing dinner down there by one who
knows and was there to share 1t. Col.
Felix La Baume says the bakery was
located on the west side of the stockade
about an equal distance from the inner
and outer line of palisad 8. ltsinterior
cons sted of two rooms, one OF when
communicated with the two ovens,
which were built OF common brick.
These two ovens, fourteen feet in length
BY seven feet in width, supplied the
prisoners with all the bread they OBJ
tained, and 80 far have not learned
that there was any other source OF sup
ply. These same ovens, kept red hot,
are worked day and night to the fullest
capacity by the commissary bakers OF
the United States Service, could not
have produced more than eight thous-
and rations Of white bread, AMI but
nine thousand ratioIs of corn bread.
This is the extreme limit regarded by
workmen, who have made The cal
lculation, as almost an impossibility.
The ordinary capacity Of the establish
ment was probably about four OF I'VE
thousand rations Of corn bread. This
auantity, divided daily among over
thirty thousand men, would give but a
small mOrsel to each man, and this
vsrifes the statement that from two to
four ounces of corn bread were furnish
ed AZ full raiions TO the prisoners. ASK
\ survivor of this prison, If perc$ance
you meeet one, how he preserved his
life, and he will tell you "by eating the
rations OF the dying" Ten thousand
men we're sick and dying in this en-
closure at one time. After tle carts,
with their scanty burdens Of food had
passed into the prison and distributed
their contents, ten to fifteen Thousand
of the haggard and starving men might
be- seen collected in the central portion
of the prison, trading with each other
Some of the poor wretches would be
offering handful of peas for knot OF
wood no larger than II mans fist IN
order that they might cook their allow
ance, Others offering, in barter, their
remnants Of clothing, cap, shoe, OF
anything they possessed, for morsel Of
| food.
The little knots nf wood mentioned,
had standard value Of 80 cents, yet
there were immense forests all around
and within sight of the prison. Ihei"
was but one kitchen Tor this vaSi
Assem- blage and that strangely situated
far in the rear of the outer palisade,
away from any creek or spring. TINS
kitchen was a pain, one-story shed,
built of rough boards, one hundred feet
in length aud about fifty feet in width.
1t contained In the interior two me
dium sized ranges and four boilers OF
fifty gallons capacity each. The capaci.
ty mentioned does not by far equal the
cooking apparatus which was required
and furnished to the Lincoln and Mt.
Pleasant General Hospitals of Wash
ington, for twelve hundred men. 1t Is
nv firm belief from what ! saw with
my own ey. s, that this kitchen with all
its miserable implements, could not, in
the course of twenty-fOur hours, by con
stant relief of good workuen, have fur
nished cooked rations to more than foNr
thousand men, Mr.. Ed tor, it was very
amusing to see the military and the
home guards, come up and read the
program of the adopts boy of the 4tl
regiment of the Della ware Volunteers
with their dolly warden hanging on
their arms. This is only one Of the rag
ged, barefooted Arabs running about,
whose father was foolish enough to g.
down and hit jeff Davis, but Lev-I
minded Dolly and made big wages fol
US, to buy store clothes with and 6
: and see Jumbo and the lying horses.
i "WETHE PEOPLE