The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1898-01-06
ANDERSONVILLE.
from first page.

with. dry sand from the sides of his
domicile, in which he would slumber
quietly till morning, when he would
rise, shake the sand from his garments,
and declare that he felt as we'll refreshed
as if he had slept on a spring mattress.
There has been much talk of earth
baths of late years in scientific and
medical circles. l have been sorry that
our Florence contradict he still lives
did not contribute the results of his ex-
perience.
The pinching cold cured me of my
repugnance to wearing dead mems
clothes, or rather it made my naked
ness so painful that l was glad to cover
it as best l could, and I began forsging
for garments. For awhile my efforts to
set myself up in the mortuary second
hand clothing business were not all sue
cessful. l found that dying men with
good clothes were as carefully watched
over by sets of fellows who constituted
themselves their residuary legatees as if
they were men of fortune dying in the
midst of a circle of expectant nephews
and nieces. Before one was fairly cold his
clothes would be appropriated and d.
vided, and / have seen many sharp
fights between contesting claimants.
soon perceived that my best chance
was to get up very early in the morning,
and do my hunting. The nights were
so cold that many could not sleep, and
they would walk up and down the
streets, trying to keep warm by exercise.
Towards morning, becoming exhausted,
they would lie down on the ground al
most anywhere, and die. l have fire.
quently seen as many so of these.
My first find" of any importance
was the dark, baggy trousers of ayoung
Pennsylvania Zouave. / drew the gar
ments over my own halffrozen limbs,
the first real covering those members
had had for four or five monthA The
pantaloons only came down about half
way between my knees and feet, but
still they were wonderfully comfortable
to what l had been-or rather not
been-wearing.
/ had picked up pair of boot bot
toms, which answered me for shoes, and
now / began hunt for socks. This
took several morning expeditions, but on
one of them | was rewarded, and few
days later / got another. Almost the
next morning / had the good fortune to
find a warm, whole, infantry dress-coat,
a more serviceable garment.
AS / still had for shirt the blouse
Andrews had given me at Millen, | now
considered my wardrobe complete, and
left the rest of the clothes to those who
were more needy than /.
Those who used tobacco seemed to
suffer more from a deprivation of the
weed than from lack of food. There
were no sacrifices they would not make
to obtain it, and it was no uncommon
thing for boys to trade off half their
rations for chew navy plug"
As long as one h:s5 anything -especi-
ally buttons-to trade, tobacco could be
procured from the guards, who were
plentifully supplied with it. When
means of barter were gone, chewers fire.
quently became so desperate as to beg
the guards to throw them bit of the
precious nicotine. Shortly after our
arrival at Florence, a prisoner on the
East Side approached one of the Re-
serves with the request:
"Say, guard, can't you give fellow
chew of tobacco?"
To which the guard replied: =" Yes;
come right across the line there and I'll
drop you down a bit"
The unsuspecting prisoner stepped
across the dead line, and the guard-a
boy of 16-raised his gun and killed
him.
At the North Side of the prison, the
path down to the creek lay right along
side Of the dead line, which was mere
furrow in the ground. At night the
guards, in their zeal to kill somebody,
were very likely to imagine that any
one going along the path for water was
across the dead line, and fire upon
him. 1t was as bad as going upon the
skirmish line to 60 for water after night
fall
The rations Of wood grew smaller as
the weather grew colder, until at last
they settled down to piece about the
size of kitchen rolling pin per day for
each man. This had to serve for all
cooking, as we'll as warming.
We split the rations up into slips about
the size of a carpenters lead pencil, and
used them parsimoniously, never build
ing fire SO big that it could not be
covered with halfpeck measure. We
lowered closely over discovering it,
in fact, with our hands and bodies, so
that not particle Of heat was lost.
Remembering the Indians sage re-
mark. that the white man built big
fire and sat away off from it; the Indian
made little fire and got up close to it,"
we let nothing in the way of caloric be
wasted by distance. The pitch-pine
produced great quantities of SCOT, which,
in cold and rainy days, when we hung
over the fires all the time, blackened
our faces until we were beyond the