English Diary 2
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28th. The camp today presented one of the wildest scenes I have ever witnessed. The balance of the prison thieves were arrested, but not until after a general fight had taken place, in which clubs and knives had been freely used; four or five men were killed, but the raiders were overpowered and taken to the guard-house.
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July 1864. The prison Sergeants were ordered to write out new company rolls this morning, there being so many deaths and sick in the hospital, that there are very few of the old prisoners left; this is regarded as a good sign for parole or exchange. The weather is very hot; several shots fired at the prisoners last night; one man shot in the knee; over a hundred deaths reported yesterday. I am almost crippled with rheumatism; there are many cases of insanity, the poor fellows not knowing what they do, wander inside the dead line and are shot.
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3d. We cannot live long on the quantity of rations we have been getting. Thinking of our friends at home who are preparing to celebrate the Nation's birthday of freedom tomorrow; they do not imagine the condition of us poor sufferers in this accursed place.
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4th. No rations of any kind today; this is the way the rebels intends us to celebrate the Fourth. A thousand deaths would be preferable to this intense suffering; I have been in twenty engagements and skirmishes, and would rather be in twice as many again than endure the tortures of this hell.
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5th. Captain Wirz sent for all the sergeants of squads and told them he was imformed of an organization in camp numbering six thousand men who were resolved in breaking out of prison, and capture the guards, muskets and artillery; he admonished us to beware, for he was well prepared, night or day, and would not be caught sleeping; he read an order to us received from Richmond, instructing him to open fire when any demonstration was made; he said he would do so with grape and canister, and would not stop while a man was left kicking, inside or out. He has two white flags up, one on each hill inside of the stockade; warning us not to congregate in crowds outside of those flags or he will open fire on us.
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6th. Rations, one pint of meal and two or three spoonfuls of beans and two ounces of bacon; prisoners almost crazy with hunger; there is a gang of men in here this morning selecting a place to build a scaffold upon which to hang the six raiders; I think they are only doing this to frighten the balance of them.
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8th. It is reported this morning that one hundred and twenty-five have died in the last 24 hours; it is comparatively quiet here now since the raiders have been arrested; and we have a good strong police force of about four hundred men, who are divided into squads with a captain in command of each; two-thirds of the prisoners cannot stand or walk, but lie around in all positions.
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9th. Men came in to put up the scaffold today, and to their great astonishment there was no lumber; the prisoners carried it off during the night for firewood and this morning not a stick could be seen; when the news reached Capt. Wirz he was as mad as a hornet and drove all through the camp with twenty of his guards, but could not find any of the lumber; he carried four revolvers.
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10th. One hundred and fifty-two prisoners have died within the last 24 hours; they say almost as many die in the hospital as here. It is said the raiders will be hanged tomorrow, and that is the chief topic of conversation. It is awful hot here now; the sun almost melts us.
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11th. About twenty men came in this morning to put up the scaffold; rations served at nine this morning; the rebels say the raiders are to be executed this afternoon, as soon as the scaffold is finished. It had become known about that we were going to hang some of our own men. When the appointed time arrived, a large crowd of citizens — men, women and children, gathered on the high ground between the principal forts and the prison to witness the hanging. Capt. Wirz was alarmed and excited, fearing we had some Yankee trick on hand to get up a commotion and all break out and capture the place. He had the whole rebel force under arms and the cannon of all the forts loaded with grape and canister and trained on the prison. Everything was ready to fire at the signal. But this act created an exciting scene, which Captain Wirz thought was the expected break. He ran to the signal battery yelling "Fire! fire! — shoot! shoot !" The Captain of the battery being a man of cool judgement, did not obey Wirz. The citizens and guards who were in the way of the cannon stampeded into a regular panic, injuring many of the citizens. Had the Captain of the battery obeyed Wirz, there would be 24 cannon loaded with grape and canister opened upon that human mass in the prison. The 35,000 lives in the prison hung on the firing-cord of that signal gun.
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LATER, — 5. GO P. M. The six raiders were hanged this afternoon; it was an awful sight; the judge, jury, etc., were all prisoners, no rebels participating at all. At about half-past four, Captain Wirz rode into camp at the head of the guards who had the condemned men in charge to the scaffold, and delivered the sentenced men to our police, who stood around with clubs. One of the condemned men escaped through the crowd to the swamp but was soon brought back.
He knows that he has gong astray.
And sees the danger of his way.
And to the right would turn again.
If a pardon he could gain.
Not for the crime he would repent.
But much he fears the punishment
The spoils he got among the throng,
He had hoped would serve him long.
The six men were hanged together; after hanging about twenty minutes, they were taken down and carried out to the dead-house, I was one of the six who carried Mosby, the leader, out, and was glad to breathe fresh air for a few minutes. -
July 12, 1864. All the talk in camp is about the hanging of the raiders. The scaffold upon which they were hanged was all carried away in an hour by the boys; I have a piece of it which I want to lake home if I ever get out alive. The raiders were buried this morning; the number of deaths in camp reached its highest mark yesterday, one hundred and eighty-five having died. I don't wonder, as everything is composed of dirt and filth; the stench from the swamp is sickening and the water full of maggots and all kinds of vermin, which we must use or die of thirst; there is a spring inside the dead-line, but cannot get to it without running the risk of being shot.
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13th. We are suffering very much from heat, as we have no shelter of any kind to protect us from the scorching sun; we are almost all barefooted and hatless. Have not heard how many died yesterday, but think from the heat there must have been a great many; the wagons have been busy all day hauling away the dead; they use a regular hay wagon, and when thev throw in one body upon the rest, you can see it shake the whole load. Oh! what a horrible sight!
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14th. One of the guards shot at a man this morning but missed him and struck a prisoner who was sitting smoking his pipe, hitting him in the upper part of the jaw, passing out at the opposite side, cutting his tongue in two. Ten detachments get one load of wood per day for twenty-five hundred men. Oh! only God in heaven known how we are treated.
We suffer much, we suffer long,
Beneath their vile oppression.
Nor could they say we did them wrong,
Theirs was the first aggression. -
16th. The rebels are engaged in throwing up breastworks and making rifle pits all around the stockade; we can see them at work. They are evidently afraid of Sherman's raid or Kilpatrick; they would as soon see the devil as the latter general. Deaths average about one hundred and twenty per day, and the rebels say it will take us all away in August, as that is the hottest month in the year in Georgia.
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17th. It it terribly hot here. Another prisoner was shot by the guards this morning; he was taken sick while near the dead-line and was vomiting, and had hold of the railing to support himself when the guard, who was only twenty feet from him, shot him, the ball passing clear through his breast; he belonged to a New York regiment. They say when a guard shoots a prisoner he gets thirty days furlough. I guess that accounts for the shooting of so many prisoners. We are truly in a wretched condition, and the gigantic, the proud, the boasted republic of the world, America is allowing its citizens, its soldiers, its volunteers to remain here to starve, to rot, and to die.
1 - 2025-02-26
2 - 2025-02-25
3 - 2025-02-24
In 2024, the number of babies born in South Korea increased for the first time in nine years. The change is welcome news for a country that is dealing with serious population problems.