In his description of life in the Confederate prisons, Robert H. Kellogg, Sergeant-Major of the 16th Connecticut Volunteers, recounts his arrival at the infamous Andersonville prison. In his description, he notes that he and his comrades had heard of the horrors of Andersonville, but thought that these stories were circulated in an effort to frighten them. Kellogg writes:
As we entered the place a spectacle met our eyes that almost froze our blood with horror, and made our hearts fail within us. Before us were forms that had once been active and erect; — stalwart men, now nothing but mere walking skeletons, covered with filth and vermin.
More...At nine o'clock we were able to chronicle our arrival at Andersonville, or rather at the station, for there is no village, and the prison is nearly a mile out from this. This place, so notorious in the history of the war, is situated in Sumter Co., about sixty-five miles southwest from Macon, and fifty from the Alabama State line. We were counted as we left the cars, and then marched a short distance from the depot, where we remained all night, surrounded by a line of fires and a heavy guard. Here we heard terrible stories of small-pox being prevalent in the prison, and also about the "dead line" which was death to any one who should step over it, but even then we thought they might be trying to frighten us.
We were aroused from our slumbers the next morning at an early hour, and called to submit to the orders of a bustling officer, dressed in Captain's uniform, who did his work with a great deal of swearing and threatening, dividing us into messes of ninety men each, each mess to be in charge of a sergeant, who should call the roll every morning, draw the rations, and receive an extra one himself for his trouble. Three "nineties" constituted a detachment, which was also in charge of a sergeant. Thus classed, and our names taken, we were marched off to the prison. As we came near it, we found it to consist of twelve or fifteen acres of ground, enclosed by a high stockade of hewed pine logs, closely guarded by numerous sentinels, who stood in elevated boxes overlooking the camp.
As we entered the place a spectacle met our eyes that almost froze our blood with horror, and made our hearts fail within us. Before us were forms that had once been active and erect; — stalwart men, now nothing but mere walking skeletons, covered with filth and vermin. Many of our men, in the heat and intensity of their feeling, exclaimed with earnestness, "Can this be hell ?" "God protect us!" and all thought that He alone could bring them out alive from so terrible a place.
In the center of the whole was a swamp, occupying about three or four acres of the narrowed limits, and a part of this marshy place had been used by the prisoners as a sink, and excrement covered the ground, the scent arising from which was suffocating. The ground allotted to our ninety was near the edge of this plague-spot, and how we were to live through the warm summer weather in the midst of such fearful surroundings, was more than we cared to think of just then.
Along the edge of the swamp, from one side of the camp to the other, ran a little shallow brook, three or four feet wide, and this, with a few small springs, were to furnish our water for the season. Whatever we may have thought of the dangers of the past ; of the uncertainties which encircled us prior to our captivity, when we were exposed to the assaults of the enemy, we now felt that almost infinitely better would it be, to dwell in the midst of alarms, than reign in such a horrible place.
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