Nashville Union And American

NORTHERN PRISON PENS.
The Fearful Privations and Sufferings Among Confederate
Prisoners at Camp Douglas.
Starving Men Prolonging Their
Lives by Feeding on Rats,
Cats and Dogs.

To the Editor of the St. Louis Times.

I am induced to give you another chapter of my experience in Northern prison pens, principally for the reason that tales of questionable integrity are being circulated in the newspapers, and other more enduring forms, of the horrible sufferings of Federal soldiers in Southern camps of detention. I cannot tell what others suffered, or how much of it in the South was occasioned by the impossibility of procuring provisions, but of one thing I am certain, that more wanton or purposeless cruelty never was committed upon human beings by their own flesh and blood than was wreaked for many long months upon the pitiable inmates of Camp Douglas.

Every Southern soldier was thoroughly educated into the true soldierly accomplishment of performing the greatest possible amount of hard marching and hard fighting upon the smallest possible quantity of rations. This was a necessity of Confederate war policy in a desperate struggle against a nation which carried in one hand the red sword of conquest and in the other the blazing torch of devastation.

WELL TO DO ON THE START.
Accustomed, as we are, to derive much sustenance from little substance, when we first settled down to prison fare it did not immediately occur to us that the Yankees intended what they gave us as unhandsome entertainment. We received just half of full Federal rations, and having been trained to live on less, it was sufficient, and in our simple soldierly faith we thought that we were being used in this respect quite hospitably.

We had enough, and something to spare, indeed, for the barracks soon became so overrun with rats that most of the messes were constrained to bribe the guards to bring them in each a cat. While the larder could entice a rat, or afford support to the convenient luxury of a cat, there could be no alarming indications of encroaching famine.

But care, good condition, or unbending spirit, or some equally significant token, soon satisfied our keepers that we must be too highly fed. For the first few months of captivity the writer, as has been stated, was installed in the office of the commissary of prisoners at the headquarters of the post commandant.

OPPORTUNITIES OF INSIGHT.
There he enjoyed unusually favorable opportunities of obtaining a fair insight into the Federal policy of prison treatment. In that office he saw and read the fresh orders from the commissary of prisoners at Washington (Col. Hoffman) cutting down our rations. Capt. J. C. Rhines, commissary of prisoners for Camp Douglas, handed the open order to him on arrival. The relations between this officer and the Rebel assistant were those of a pleasant and honest agreement to disagree between alien enemies, who united their efforts each to advance the individual interest of his respective cause.

The Captain was a fair type of the New England officer, often abusive of prisoners whom he did not know, and he was cordially hated by the prisoners at large for various outrages, such as striking a defenceless man (John Messick, of Danville, Kentucky), and subjecting escapers to suspension by the thumbs, as a penalty for being retaken. He was always kind to our mess, and for that reason, at least, he shall receive the full amount of credit due him. When he handed the writer the open order alluded to, he said: "You all will suffer now, and the boys will damn me for it; but you see for yourself it is no responsibility of mine. I have but to obey."

THE SCIENCE OF STARVATION
The prison soon began to feel the reduction of the allowance, and when it was cut down a second time, the stress became severe. Other orders from Washington, still further diminishing it, followed in a sequence and graduation which convinced reflecting minds that the subject and policy were to ascertain by actual experiment the minimum quantity on which the Rebel soul and body could be detained in company.

When the prisoners began to feel the pangs of hunger seriously they began to kill cats and eat them. But this supply of meat rations was limited, and the market value of a cat advanced speedily from half a dollar to a marvelous inflation. Soon there were none to be had at any price. The rats, ascertaining this fact, began to revisit their former haunts on raids of exploration. This curiosity cost some of them dearly, for the Rebs set dead falls for them, and ate rats until the rats became wise and rat catching unsuccessful.

MEAT RATIONS IMPROVISED
Two men, caught by a guard one day, with a brace of rats, ready skinned and dressed for the spit, were marched up to the headquarters of the post, where they were roundly rated by the officer on duty as carnivorous barbarians. The rebuke was received meekly to its close, when one of the culprits scandalized the Yank by assuring him that rat meat was better than no meat at all. If he didn't believe it why bet him just try no meat first, and rat meat afterward. At about the same period, a sleek terrier one day happened to follow a patrol into Little Dixie. The suspicious creature was enticed into one of the kitchens (No. 9) and there butchered in cold blood. A number of invitations to the first dog dinner was there with issued. Our mess received biddings, but excused themselves, as a piece of green back, judiciously applied, had that day provided us with a bill of fare which we deemed more inviting.

The day after the feast, the master of the missing brute posted a notice on the bulletin board offering a reward for the recovery of his dog. He seemed to be laboring under the impression that some Reb of kindred affections had conceived sudden attachment to his pet.

The clue thus offered led to the detection of the men who killed and cooked the dog. They were marched up for punishment, and, as usual, the captain of the guard delivered an oration upon the enormity and unchristian nature of the offense. At parting, an incorrigible dog-eater volunteered the statement that if they would only give him plenty of good dog meat, he would never grumble at their rations.

One fact in itself, isolated from all corroborating evidence, is amply sufficient to establish the presence of gaunt famine in the prison. The fact is that when bread was selling for five cents a loaf in the Federal square, it was eagerly sought for in Little Dixie at fifty cents and prices even higher. The guards used to bring it in, as they could secrete it under their overcoats, to sell on private speculation.

Evidence even more convincing is the fact that, at a later date, when the prison sutler learned how to turn an honest penny, by smuggling in provisions and selling them in direct but secret violation of the rigid prohibition from Washington, a low grade of fine flour, which could not have cost more than five, or at the utmost six dollars per barrel (inasmuch as good superfine was quoted daily at seven to eight dollars) was sold as fast as it could be unloaded at twenty dollars per barrel.

This, as well as every other statement in this narrative, can be abundantly proven by thousands of witnesses.

RECEPTION OF DISTINGUISHED VISITORS.
One day Gen. Sweet and a retinue of visitors, among them a foreign ambassador, made a tour of the prison, riding through in open barouches. When the cortege was passing barrack No. 5, its significance became rumored, and a shout went up: "BREAD! BREAD!!"

HOW OUR COURTESIES WERE RETURNED
In two hours an order was promulgated rescinding the bread rations of barrack No. 5 for two days. Famine rations suspended for two days! It was further decreed that any man found guilty of giving or furnishing bread to any man of barrack No. 5 during the prescribed period, should be severely punished.

The first clause of this order was rigidly enforced; but the last one was as impotent as the mandate of King Canute to the ocean. Those days were days of feasting rather than of fasting to the men of barrack No. 5.

PHILOSOPHY OF APPETITE
Those readers, at least, who have campaigned, will understand that the appetite may become blunted by fasting until the craving for food becomes dormant—in a condition to be aroused to keen activity by a few mouthfuls. This was the normal status of the appetite of the prisoners.

The slice of bread and pittance of meat issued to them twice a day were but enough to awaken hunger to a painful craving, which could not be appeased. To escape a portion of this torment it was a prevalent custom to save the morning ration until evening, eat both issuances at once, and so evade one period of pain.

Many prisoners resorted further to the dangerous expedient of fasting two or more days, in order to save the allowance for what they termed a "bait"—that is, something approximating to a satisfaction of hunger. In very many instances death resulted from thus overtasking the stomach accustomed to much lighter duty. The surgeons often informed the writer, while giving in a dead man's diagnosis, that this was the case.

BONES NOT GOING BEGGING.
On the Andersonville trial, much stress was laid upon a few instances in which men had been seen gnawing bones. In Camp Douglas the Rebel surgeons drew full hospital rations, a sick man's allowance, but about enough for a Rebel soldier to subsist upon without serious inconvenience. They also often procured additional supplies by a judicious use of greenbacks. As a consequence, the bones of their table were not closely gnawed and broken up by them, but were cast out into a bone barrel (luxurious piece of kitchen furniture which stood outside, hard-by the kitchen door).

There was usually a number of expectant Rebels hanging near this door, and as often as a lot of bones were thrown into the barrel there was an eager scramble for them. A poor fellow was shot dead by a guard one day for saying he scrambled in that barrel for a bone, because he was almost starved. [This guard was.] Wirz was tried and hanged, but the officers of Northern prisons have not had their trial yet. When they are arraigned the evidence will be forthcoming and abundant. The just decrees of Heaven is rewarding some according to their deeds already.

OPENING OUT OF A NEW FIRM.
General Sweet, the commandant of Camp Douglas during the famine era, or the last twelve months, was a married man. So also was B. F. Nightingale, the prison sutler. These Christian gentlemen had married sisters, and moved by the tie of this relationship, the General had used his official influence to obtain the appointment of the latter as sutler to the prisoners. Mr. Nightingale had been a sutler in the Federal square, where his stock was light and his gains small. His capital, at the extreme figure, was not as much as five hundred dollars.

HOW TO DO BUSINESS WITHOUT CAPITAL
But the mere appointment would enable any man to open out a stock worth several thousand dollars, bought for cash and paid for without a dollar of legitimate capital. The financial operation was quite safe and simple. Whenever after a protracted close the sutler's store was opened there was always a rush and jam for tickets. For this reason, any sutler announcing his intention to open out a stock within a given number of days, could always readily sell tickets in advance to the amount of several thousand dollars. For these tickets he received from the prisoners their orders on the Federal cashier. The sutler could cash these orders within an hour, invest the money in a stock, and so complete the beautiful operation.

In truth, almost without realizing it, the prisoners advanced a heavy capital, without interest or security, to an ungrateful Shylock, who turned it against them a mighty instrument of bold extortion and monopoly. Strict orders from Washington prohibited the admission of provisions sent to prisoners by their friends. The sutler was forbidden to sell them anything that could be eaten. Tobacco was the only thing allowed which any one would wish to put into his mouth. It was the policy of the government to put the prisoners on famine rations, cut off every other means of supply, and thus reduce the physical stamina so that the men would become an easy prey to death by cold and pestilent disease.

DEATH IN THE POT
Every circumstance of our condition pointed conclusively to this conviction—the famine rations, prohibitory orders, fireless barracks, strawless bunks, and, after many other damning evidences, last but not least significant, the almost incredible truth that while a fearfully fatal epidemic was ravaging the camp, there was not within the reach of the camp surgeons, an ounce of preventive or curative medicines. They were appealed for urgently, but withheld by orders direct from Washington.

But of this anon.