An interesting
gossip was afloat when I came here that there were two women in prison
disguised as Union soldiers. It was accepted as a fact by many who gave plenty
of reasons for believing it, and it was a topic for talk among them which I was
curious to hear. In June two sprightly persons were shown me as the alleged
women. Many times after I saw them, always together, always by themselves.
There was nothing in their appearance to discredit the story except male
attire; nothing to suggest to me, under the circumstances, that they were
women, in the absence of the story that they were women. They looked like
beardless boys, feminine of stature and of features, with an air of shyness.
The story could not be traced to an origin, nor was it denied except by
ridicule. Its believers said their appearance was prima facie evidence, and
accounted for their presence in several ways. For three weeks they have not
been seen. This morning believers in the rumor are on to the fact that three
weeks ago they left their dugout at sunset and passed the south gate. Where
they went, how and why, is a mystery, but the story is now more than ever
believed. They were called by some, "camp angels."
A. hints
whimsically, he shall take his duds and leave because we disagree with him on
important questions discussed. Steve is a rough, disagreeable talker on many
things, reviles our cause, slanders Lincoln and his advisers. "We don't
want a Union; that dog is dead. If we whip the South we had better give them
independence, Nonsense; yet he was all right in the ranks. Prison deprivations
disturb his equanimity.
A mere professional
patriot, if weighed, is found wanting. Principles defended through
superstition, selfish pride, blind party habit, or hatred, will ultimately be
cursed by such defenders. That pride degenerates in its grossness; the man is
"the wretch concentrated all in self," and obscures the self he
really is. He who submits to be a mere tool in the relations of life, or exerts
his power to the injury of others for rash and sordid reasons, is worse than
inertia even when unused. The man without sentiment, strikes no spiritual goal.
As I passed the gate
this morning I saw seven dead and met several on the way. Corpses are being
carried to the burying ground in army wagons, loaded in like wood. The fellow
who enjoys funerals ought to get satisfaction out of all he might see here.
During a terrific
storm a spring burst out on the north of the swamp close to the dead line on
the west side, below the north gate from a dry, sandy knoll, and now flows
profusely; is pure, clear, soft and sweet as any water I ever drank We consider
it remarkable, almost marvelous. It is difficult on the north side to reach
water by wells. Men there, 20,000, perhaps more, have been obliged to get their
water from the filthy run which catches the drainage from the Rebel camp, the
cook house, and from excrement deposited on either side covering at least an
acre, in places a foot thick, and filth from other sources. The south side,
had, several weeks ago, reached water by digging 20 to 30 feet. In the 36th
detachment, on the north side, they have sunk 80 feet and the water is red,
hard and impure. A board spout is made conveying the water from this spring
about 30 feet down the hill and out of danger of the dead line, where men flock
by thousands daily to drink and fill their little buckets. Falling into files
of four, a column is often formed which it takes two hours to pass the end of
the spout. It runs a stream as large as my arm, white and clear, from the end
of that spout.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, pp. 116-7
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