English Diary 1
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:45 last edited by
6th. Rations same as yesterday. Great many of the prisoners sick now; Bell Isle's history will be dreadful.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:46 last edited by
7th. Rations to-day half a loaf of corn bread and half a pint of boiled rice.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:46 last edited by
8th. Rations same as yesterday. Have a little left from the box yet, but very careful of it. Had a cup of coffee this morning. Froze hard last night and about six hundred of the prisoners who came in last night were almost frozen to death, not having any shelter.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:46 last edited by
9th. No change in the rations for the last two or three days. The part of the Island I occupy is the part nearest Richmond and washed on both sides by the James river. At the place where the river unites again, the point of land running in between is very narrow, and here the prisoners meet in hundreds all day long to wash and draw water. You may think it is a very nice place, but no person can form any idea of Bell isle as it appeared to us unfortunate creatures. It is very much crowded now, about eight or nine thousand prisoners being here, naked and hungry, and shivering with cold and suffering with vermin. And then you cannot walk five yards without meeting men answering to the call of nature, diarrhoea being very prevalent, rendering the camp a wilderness of filth, which requires a company of prison police to clean every day. Hogs are better cared for than us poor prisoners who are in the South. I wonder if our government knows how we are suffering in this hell upon earth.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:47 last edited by
10th. Rations half a loaf of corn bread. Froze hard again last night.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:47 last edited by
11th. Rations as usual; the same kind and quantity; no change whatever in the bill of fare. Sometimes when I look around and see so many fine fellows carried out dead, I think I will not write any more in my diary, expecting that the same will soon be my lot, and my diary would never be sent home to my friends. But then, again, I think I may probably pull through, and that spurs me on. It occupies my mind for a time at least.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:47 last edited by
12th. No change in rations. One of the prisoners was shot at by a guard this morning. The poor fellow saw a small piece of wood near the ditch, and in attempting to pick it up, he fell on the ice", and as he was straightening himself up, a guard shot him through the lungs. He died in about an hour. Our lives are not safe here for one moment. A sentinel may at any time of the day or night deliberately shoot any prisoner or fire into a group and he is not even taken off his post or the least attention paid to it.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:47 last edited by
13th. Rations half a loaf of some kind of stuff, I don't know what to call it. It is cobs all ground up and raw, also half a pint of rice.
cobs-short for corncobs
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:48 last edited by
14th. Resorted to the contents of the box this morning. Rations half a loaf of bread and two small raw turnips. The rebels say the turnips will give us an appetite and help us digest the corn dodger.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:48 last edited by
15th. It is reported that the flag of truce boat arrived this morning with political prisoners and that they are going to send a boat load of us North. I do hope that I will be one of the lucky ones. Rations a little better than usual.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:48 last edited by
16th. Some of the guards reported that Commissioner Auld (rebel) went to City Point to meet General Butler to make arrangements for exchange of prisoners. Rations same as yesterday.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:48 last edited by
17th. About five hundred more prisoners came on the Island today from Richmond. They say they are going to send all the Yankees they have in Richmond on this Island, so as to freeze them and get rid of them. Rations about the same, It is hardly worth while to mention rations and the quantity. There is not enough change to be of any importance.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:49 last edited by
18th. Railroad trains running all night towards the South. The guards say they are sending reinforcements to Longstreet, who, the rebel papers say, was badly cut up.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:49 last edited by
19th. Three men found dead this morning; dying of starvation; no rations at all today; many taken to the hospital.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:49 last edited by
20th. Rations three-fourths of a pound of bread, half a pint of boiled rice, and about a gill of molasses. They say it is to make up for not getting anything yesterday.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:49 last edited by
21st. The prison police receive extra rations; and well they earn it; they carry the filth away in tubs and empty it in the James river. Heavy rain last night and this morning.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:50 last edited by
22d. We got rice soup and dodger this morning. One prisoner stabbed another today, the result of an altercation.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:50 last edited by
23d. Great joy this morning owing to the news of a speedy exchange and that every prisoner in Richmond and vicinity would be paroled or exchanged before the first of the month.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:50 last edited by
24th and 25th. Nothing transpiring.
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wrote on 24 Jan 2025, 21:51 last edited by
26th. Guards report great excitement in Richmond about our cavalry making a raid on the city.
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2 - 2025-02-08
3 - 2025-02-07
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