Year: 1863

ried--'Ihe Black Last


The great number of rebels wounded
taxed the resources of the medical d.
-rector of Richmond, and so our own sick
and wounded were deprived of all but
the commonest things. There was lack
Of stimulants indeed, so poorly supplied
were our wounded that some Of our sur
geons who had money, spent it all to buy
whiskey and brandy for the sick. Many
OF our men died who might have lived
had they been given what they needed.
The food of the hospitals was very poor;
beef, bread and rice ; and so poorly was
it cooked that lbe feeble could not relish
It. / think about one out of five lived
of the difficult cases, and 25 per cent. Of
ordinary cases died.


When any one died, the body was at
once put into a wooden box and set into
the dead house, and after five or ten had
died, hole was dug and they were in
mediateIy thrown in, all in one common
grave. The dead cart was driven by
slave, and many of the rebels often made
coarse jokes about the yankees at last
being waited on by niger"


As l lay on my sick bed unable to
help myself 1 could look through the
iron bars Of my prison and see the piles
of wooden boxes that were brought eve
ry day, and see the dead house and the
emaciated remains of the dead soldiers,
and could hear the vulgar jokes of the
rebels as they watched our men bring
out lifeless comrade ; and a bitterness
that is not hate nor contempt, but which
has something of the venom of both, FL
led my heart.


From that time / began to get better.
| could not die to be joked over by the
rebels, thrown like a dog into a ditch
aud covered with the cursed soil Of Vir-
ginia.


Man may be trampled on for a sea-
son, but there is a point beyond which
he cannot be pushed alive. As we saw all
that was heaped upon us, sullen angry
look filled many face, and a desperate
plan of escape was formed.


This plan was, to seize the guards
and take their arms and
and then with few of our
men, with iron bars carried like muskets,
to march out as the relieving guard and
secure all the arms in the guard house,
arm our party, rush TO the armory and
get the park of light artillery, go and
take jeff Davis and Cabinet and hold
them as hostages as we made our way
down the river, taking them with U.S.
All this was wild and reckless, and yet
we had such accurate information Of all
about the city, ! am of opinion it would
have succeeded. all but the getting away
This plan was abandoned owing to two
regiments coming from camp and being
quartered near the prison, and 20 a strict
search for arms made among US, showing
that some traitor had informed.


You have all doubtless heard of 1t.
Todd, the renegade brother of Mrs. Lin
coin. He was a tall, well formed fellow,
with a gross, sensual look, l will dis
miss him with bis descriptive list'--a
brute, that might have been a decent
dog, had he always had good company.


odd Warner the cook, was a north
erner by birth, and talked broad yankee,
though he affected great contempt for all
yankees. He did all sorts of dirty lying
to Gen. Winder, and got commissioned
Captain Commissary of Prisons One
could not help laughing to see how odd
he looked when he doffed the cooks
apron and donned the Captains uniform.
Asinus cum pele Ieonis'-the ass in the
lions skin-was never better illustrated.


One day this Old Warner brought in
an old man with long white hair and
restless eye--a man of small form, bent