English Diary 1
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The prison lot contains about 30 acres, located on two hills with a swamp between and a small stream running through the swamp. In this swamp men meet to draw water, wash, etc. We are served with raw rations consisting of corn meal and a small piece of bacon, so the men have to cook for themselves. A large number have nothing to cook in and bake little cakes on pieces of boards held before the fire.
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The prisoners are divided into detachments of two hundred and seventy men, each of these detachments being sub-divided into three companies of ninety, with a sergeant in charge of each ninety. He takes their names, company and regiment and also their occupation and descriptive list, and when and where captured. Roll is called every morning and each sergeant must account for his men. and if he fails to do so, his company is kept in line or ranks until the absentees are found.
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19th, Raining hard this morning. We were told that this was an elegant place for prisoners, a fine stream of water and comfortable quarters, but we know better now. You would pity us to see from five to twenty around a small fire trying to make mush in a canteen and bake cakes on a board.
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21st. I only wish I had some of the good things received from home, but alas, that was all gone two weeks ago. There is a wooden fence or wall around this pen, fifteen feet high. It is made of strong logs put close together and sunk five feet in the ground. The guards walk on a platform, their heads and shoulders above the top of the fence. About five hundred more prisoners arrived today from our old quarters. Bell Isle; they look as hard as ever.
pen-a small enclosure in which sheep, pigs, cattle, or other domestic animals are kept.
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23d. Rations the same for the last four or five days. The rebels have a large pack of bloodhounds for the purpose of hunting up any of the prisoners who may happen to escape, but I cannot see how any one can get out of this pen, it is so strong and guards are stationed all around, every fifty yards in full view. They call out the number of their post. It is quite amusing to hear them yell out every once in a while such words as these : "The Yankees are safe and the North is trembling; make Georgia's soil rich with the black abolitionists; bury them deep, let the crows have them; free the nigger and enslave the whites;" and all the slurs they can think of.
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24th. Rations one sanitary cupful of corn meal and about three ounces of half-rotten bacon. Each man got about two spoonfuls of soft soap, something we needed very badly. I have an idea that it would take about two pounds to take the black off some of us.
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26th. Rations a great deal better; over a cupful of meal and about a half a pound of corn beef. Men busy all day sitting in the sun and picking themselves. I believe there is scarcely a pair of shoes in the whole place, prisoners all in their bare feet. When it rains, a few of them who have old blankets tie two of them together and stretch it over a pole and keep part of the rain and the night dew off. Ten died yesterday and last night. What a sight! We are pretty looking soldiers now.
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"Ye sons of Columbia, give ear to my story !
Come hear what I say and your blood will run cold.
'Tis of the poor prisoners confined down in Georgia,
But what they have suffered can never be told.
Deserted by friends and ill-treated by foeman;
Starvation and hunger from morning till night,
And the hopes of our freedom can never be awaking:
Our visions of hope are almost out of sight.
There is Lincoln and Seward, Gideon Wells and Old Butler,
Who figure so high in this American war,
They must be devoid of all humanity and pity,
And resolved to leave us die where we are.
In Richmond, in Danville, besides down in Georgia,
Our bones they lie bleaching above the red sand ;
Although for our friends we may weep broken hearted,
We may never return to our own native land.
When Lincoln came out with his great proclamation.
Resolved, as he said, all the darkies to free.
He did not consider the mistake he was making.
Until it had spread over the land of the free.
When Butler tried to exchange us poor prisoners,
The negro rose up and stood in the way.
And Lincoln declared if he did not get Pompey,
The white and the black man together must stay.
And now to our fate we have bowed in submission.
Although hundreds and thousands are laid in the dust.
Two thirds of our number, the whole world may wonder,
Are laid neath the soil to moulder and rust.
Although our kind friends at home are waiting,
For those that may never again answer the call,
'Tis those fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers.
All sigh that their friends in this manner must fall."tis=it's
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28th. Rations the same as yesterday, There is plenty of fire-wood here just now, but how long it will last is hard to tell, as new prisoners are coming in all the time. Five deaths last night. Raining hard this morning and cool, but not as cold as it was on the Island. Quite a number sick.
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29th, Rations a little better this morning — about half a pint of meal and half a pound of salt junk. We can live on that. The guards were re-inforced today, and they also brought four pieces of cannon here. They say they are going to make a slaughter-pen out of this place. A great number of the guards are boys and crippled old men.
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March 1, 1864. Rations reduced to a half a pint of meal and four ounces of salt beef. We were also given a little soft soap. Four prisoners died last night. When a prisoner dies here, if his name can be ascertained it is written on a piece of paper and pinned on his breast, and then the body is hauled away in a wagon, one body thrown on top of the other, head to feet, in a previously dug ditch. These ditches are dug in rows about two hundred feet long and three feet deep, and about enough space between each row for a horse and wagon to drive.
1 - 2025-02-26
2 - 2025-02-25
3 - 2025-02-24
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