Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1904-05-13
PRISON LIFE DURING
THE CIVIL WAR
Written by q Student Of the
Eighth Grade from Notes
Taken Down While Being De.
livered by an Old Soldier at
the Lincoln School Last Mon
day.

/ Monday morning Mr.. Perry, o
Tomah, who is an old soldier of tn
twenty-sevenLh Massachusetts, regi
ment gave the eighth grade scholar
very interesting talk upon prisol
life during the Civil war.
| Mr.. Perry enlisted in the Unjor
army in 1861 under the command O
General Butler. While marchins
between Richmond and Petersburg OF
a campaign to take the latter, he
with two hundred and fifty OF. tht
Union soldiers was captured by the
Confederate forces and taken te
Libby prison, where all their extra
clothing, watches and so forth were
taken from them.
After remaining in Libby prison fol
short time they were marched to
AndersOnville, which is a prison,
owned by the Confederates, in the
southwestern part of Georgia, seventy.
five miles south of Atlanta.
The place where they were taken
was kind of pen surrounded by a
wall twenty feet high which was made
OF trees fattened and fastened to-
gether. There were about twenty
acres OF land inside of the stockade.
The ground had recently been plowed
and all of the trees taken out and as
there was no roof it was very dis
agreeable place to stay in. There
were no comforts OF any kind for the
men. 1t was like pen in which men
were put to die.
The ground was low and swampy in
the southern part of the stockade. A
small creek ran through the swamp
from which the prisoners obtained
their water. just outside of the
stockade was located the cook house
and all the refuse from it ran down
into the creek. Many men died from
the effects of drinking this water.
Mr.. Perry, himself had the good
fortune to be allowed to drink at
small spring which some of his COM
rades owned.
At one time when there was great
thunder storm, the tightening tore up
the ground near the wall of the
stockade and by so doing made a small
spring. But this spring was beyond
the ''dead line" SO for long time the
soldiers were not allowed to have any
benefit from it as the guards refused
to as much as to put trough past the
line SO that the water could reach
them.
The ''dead line" was narrow board
about three inches wide running
around the stockade about twenty
feet from the wall. Anyone of the
prisoners seen over this line was sure
to be shot by one of the batteries
which were stationed at each corner
of the stockade.
The men led a very rough life.
There were at the time when Mr..
Perry was a prisoner, thirty-five
thousand prisoners in the stockade of
which in one short year, eighteen
thousand either died or were shot.
When they died they were stripped
Of their clothing and merely thrown
into trenches dug by the guards.
The men sometimes made desperate
attempts to escape. At one time
some Of the men dug tunnel through
which quite few escaped, but they
either died or were recaptured before
they reached the Union forces.
The tunnels were dug with canteens.
The dirt must then be carried away.
The men carried the dirt to the
swamp where they managed to con-
ceal it. But often when a tunnel was
nearly finished some prisoner, would |
Tor mere ration or meal, betray his
and by so doing ruin the |
work of days and months
After the war was finished the
government placed government head
stones at all the graves of the
prisoners at Andersonville.
Mr.. Perry concluded bis interesting
ak by saying that the incest thing
We could do was, on Decoration Day,
% go to the cemetery and strew
lowers on the soldiers graves.
DOROTHY JACKSON.