Am troubled with poor sight together with scurvy and dropsy.
My teeth are all loose and it is with difficulty I can eat. Jimmy Devers was
taken out to die to-day. I hear that McGill is also dead. John McGuire died
last night, both were Jackson men and old acquaintances Mike Hoare is still
policeman and is sorry for me. Does what he can. And so we have seen the last
of Jimmy. A prisoner of war one year and eighteen days. struggled hard to live
through it, if ever any one did. Ever since I can remember have known him. John
Maguire also, I have always known. Everybody in Jackson, Mich., will remember
him, as living on the east side of the river near the wintergreen patch, and
his father before him. They were one of the first families who settled that
country. His people are well to do, with much property. Leaves a wife and one
boy. Tom McGill is also a Jackson boy and a member of my own company. Thus you
will see that three of my acquaintances died the same day, for Jimmy cannot
live until night I don't think Not a person in the world but would have thought
either one of them would kill me a dozen times enduring hardships. Pretty hard
to tell about such things. Small squad of poor deluded Yanks turned inside with
us, captured at Petersburg. It is said they talk of winning recent battles.
Battese has traded for an old watch and Mike will try to procure vegetables for
it from the guard. That is what will save us if anything
SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p.
88-9
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