Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1889-01-21
Prison Life.
BY A MEMBER OF THE FIRST VT.
CAVALRY.

In my last I mentioned the parole
and departure of my friend Anderson
for the north. AS he left me he urged
me very hard to take some of his
money, but | declined-a thing l
greatly regretted afterwards. gave
him, however, valuable watch which
he promised to send to my friends
home, but / never heard from him or
tho watch oftor<E-arol,-
We were soon put IN a room, not
very large, which contained 200 sick
and wounded men. The ration to
each person for "a hours consisted in
a piece of coarse corn bread, about
two inches square, by three inches in
length, with little black bean soup
to 90 with it. Here little episode
occurred which taught US one Of our
first lessons in regard to the honesty
of the chivalry: One of the guards
promised for the sum of 5000 and
gold watch to permit seventeen of the
prisoners to escape. The money was
raised and the guard opened the door
at the hour of the night agreed upon
and the prisoners rushed out into a
back yard, there to be gobbled up by
a posse of soldiers who were in read
mess for their capture. The whole
thing was a put up job to get our
money. We never sold out after
wards to a rebel guard.
While imprisoned here the city
water works gave out and we suffered
terribly for the want of water. A
dollar glass was often paid for wa
ter. Those who had no money seem
ingly almost perished for the want of
water. This unnecessary cruelty to
the soldiers in confinement might easi-
ly have been remedied by sending to
the river, only short distance away,
for water, either by truck team or by
sending men for it, but we were only
Yanks and this was only one of the
thousand cruelties the northern pris-
oners suffered. While in this place
the dreaded smallpox broke out, and
in seven days not less than a dozen
were taken out to pest house, per-
haps. Strange as it may seem, not
many died from the disease and ere
long they came back to their dreary
situation with us. We now had an
experience in Pemberton prison, the
old tobacco factory which many
northern soldiers will remember.
Here we were terribly crowded, and
suffered for room as we'll as food.
On the night before we entered this
prison Quartermaster Sergeant Crane
and a fellow by the name of Davis
from our regiment had escaped by
out an attic window and
sliding down the lightning rod. While
in this prison | became acquainted
with the celebrated military genius of
the South, Dick Turner. | we'll re-
member how on the morning of Jan.
18th, 1864, his cheek highly flushed
with apple-jack, he came in unusual
ly excited: showing that something
was up. We were ordered into line
and commanded to ''dress up little
fuller on the extreme center.' After
''fulling" out, on the extreme center,
we were counted off and marched out
into the streets, chilly wind blowing
which seemed like cold blast to us
who came out of the hot and smoth-
cred prison. Our destination proved
to be Belle Isle, and on reaching this
sight met ny eyes which can nev-
er forget. We were met with signs
of distress on every hand. Hundreds
of emaciated, dirty, detected beings,
once brave soldiers from the North,
met us with the marks Of disease, de-
spondency and death enstamped on