The hospital is a tough place to be in, from all accounts,
the detailed Yankees as soon as they get a little authority are certain to use
it for all it is worth. In some cases before a man is fairly dead, he is
stripped of everything, coat, pants, shirt, finger rings (if he has any), and
everything of value taken away. These the nurses trade to the guards. Does not
seem possible but such is the case, sad to relate. Not very pleasant for a man
just breathing his last, and perhaps thinking of loved ones at home who are all
so unconscious of the condition of their soldier father or brother, to be
suddenly jerked about and fought over, with the cursing and blaspheming he is
apt to hear. The sick now, or a portion of them, are huddled up in one corner
of the prison, to get as bad as they can before being admitted to the outside
hospital. Every day I visit it, and come away sick at heart that human beings
should be thus treated.
SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p.
51-2
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