Four days I have
been ill. Among new men bloody flux and dysentery prevail; this is my trouble.
I am better today; a fine breeze lifts me. From last date it has rained every
day. We have news from my regiment. Adjutant Carpenter was killed in a charge,
both Col. Grover and Lieut. Col. Cook are disabled; Capt. J. L. Goddard, of my
company, in command. The movement of trains toward Americus is on account of
wounded Confederates being taken to Americus from battlefields about Atlanta.
All doctors absent; no sick call for a week. The dead are daily drawn out by
wagon loads.
On the 8th a
Catholic priest said to us he supposed we were badly treated, but there are as
kind hearted people about here as anywhere; that officers have it their own
way; thought our government unwilling to exchange, but if better provisions
could not be made for us, something ought to be done. Priests, though
frequently in, have little to say. They are said to be using their doctrinal
influence to get men to swear allegiance to the Confederacy. I do not accept
this as true, though one of Erin's sons frequently visited, who said to me that
he refused to renounce Uncle Sam, yesterday went out with the priest and has
not returned.
I am out of conceit
with many reports which originate in camp. I have no faith in innocent liars
who tell so much news. For instance: Lincoln is going to give two for one to
get us out; "is going to throw the nigger overboard to please
Rebels"; that Secretary Stanton has said that "none but dead beats
and coffee boilers are taken prisoners, and the army is better off without
them." Likely some Rebel started this story, but it had weight among some.
Indignant crowds gather and vent their curses on Stanton. Grant is cursed by some,
so is the President and the Cabinet; for these gossipers have but little depth
of thought and are easily moved by groundless rumors. It is cheering to know
many on whose eyes are no scales, logically rebutting these stories and laying
the blame of our abuse on the Rebel authorities, where it belongs. A small
ration of rice today.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 73-4
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