Almost July 1st, when Jimmy Devers will have been a prisoner
of war one year. Unless relief comes very soon he will die. I have read in my
earlier years about prisoners in the revolutionary war, and other wars. It
sounded noble and heroic to be a prisoner of war, and accounts of their
adventures were quite romantic; but the romance has been knocked out of the
prisoner of war business, higher than a kite. It's a fraud. All of the “Astor
House Mess” now afflicted with scurvy and dropsy more or less, with the
exception of Battese, and myself worst of any. Am figh ting the disease,
however, all the time, and the growth is but slight. Take exercise every
morning and evening, when it is almost impossible for me to walk Walk all over
before the sun comes up, drink of Battese's medicine made of roots, keep clear
of vermin, talk and even laugh, and if I do die, it will not be through
neglect. Carpenter, the teamster who sold me the boots, is about gone, and
thank the Lord he has received his sixty cents from me, in rations. Sorry for
the poor fellow. Many who have all along stood it nobly now begin to go under
Wm. B Rowe, our tall mess-mate, is quite bad off, still, he has an iron
constitution and will last some time yet.
SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p.
70-1
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