Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1901-05-12
PROVIDENCE SPRING
FAKE VENTILATED.
A Veteran Who Was There Tells 1t
Straight,
LANDMARK OF HALF A CENTURY
Known to Farmers and Hunters
There 1t Was Covered Over By
Workmen Digging bitches and
Merely Flowed Again.

TINES RECORDERS: The effort on the
part of Northern Yankees to perpetu-
ate fraud, and the same to go into
history as fact, seeking to impress
the world that the Confederate authori-
ties treated the Federal prisoners con-
fined at AndersonviIIe cruelty and in
humanity, in that no provision having
been made to furnish sufficient water
to the prisoners in the stockade.
That the Lord. in sympathy with their
suferings and privalions, caused a
spring of water to burst forth from the
bowels of the earth, as in the shifting of
the rock told in holy writ, so that their
conditions might be made more COM
Portable and their fevered lips and
parched tongues cooled by heaven
precious water.
This has been published time and
again, as the only source from which
80, 900 prisoners obtained water, when
in fact there was creek of sufficient
quantity, force and volume running
through the stockade to furnish water
for three times the number imprisoned.
The selection of Andersonville as q
Confederate prison was largely due to
its facilities to furnish water.
When the stockade was being erected
and the digging of a ditch on the line
wherein to place the posts to surround
the prison, this so called Providence
Spring, was then flowing and running
merrily to the creek.
The truth is, while the bitches were
being dug, the laborers threw the
earth from the bitches and covered the
spring over and up, and it remained so
until hard rain in 1864 washed the
earth away and the spring again began
it's flow of about thirty gallons to the
hour.
When Andersonville was a wilder
ness, and the Indians roamed around,
this same spring furnished their water
to quench their thirst In the year 1910,
within ten steps of this providence (?)
Spring." so called, was noted deer
stand, where the hunters awaited the
game and often drank of it's water.
This so called Providence Spring"
existed long before Andersonville was
station on the Southwestern Railroad.
God created the spring when he made
the earth.
These Northerners are now spending
money to build and erect an enclosure
around it-walling it in and beautify-
ing the same, and for what ?-to per-
petnate lie; nothing more nor less
This is strong language but it deserves
it, and it is necessary to denounce and
stamp it out willful falsehood.
Even now, while the identifying is
taking place, the workmen have I'M
esrthed boxes placed around the
spring, time and again, placed there by
inhabitants long before the war, and
the same has been identified.
These facts can be substantiated by
reliable citizens of Sumter county.
If those Northerners want proof, we
will give it willingly and cLeerfully.
The Federal prisoners were treated ac-
cording to rules of war, and not other
wise. The resources of the Confeder.
ates were meager and the truth of his
tory is that the Yankee prisoners
privations and suffering were not as
bad as the gallant Southerners who
had captured them.
The records show that the mortality
of the Confederate prisoners were larg-
er, less in number, than the Federal
prisoners.
There is as much truth in this
providence (?) Spring" fake as in
Sheridan's ride from Winchester to
Cedar Greek, ten miles in three and
one-haf hours on a blood fecked
horse, or the waving of the stars
and stripes in Frederick, Nd, when
Stonewall Jackson passed by. All of
them are purely and simply falsehoods
to yilify and SANDER people they
never defeated.