Getting warmer and warmer. Can see the trees swaying back
and forth on the outside, but inside not a breath of fresh air. Our wood is all
gone, and we are now digging up stumps and roots for fuel to cook with. Some of
the first prisoners here have passable huts made of logs, sticks, pieces of
blankets, &c. Room about all taken up in here now. Rations not so large.
Talk that they intend to make the meal into bread before sending it inside,
which will be an improvement. Rations have settled down to less than a pint of
meal per day, with occasionally a few peas, or an apology for a piece of bacon,
for each man. Should judge that they have hounds on the outside to catch
run-aways, from the noise. Wirtz don't come in as much as formerly. The men
make it uncomfortable for him As Jimmy Devers says, “He is a terror.” I have
omitted to mention Jimmy's name of late, although he is with us all the time — not
in our mess, but close by. He has an old pack of cards with which we play to
pass away the time. Many of the men have testaments, and “house-wives” which
they have brought with them from home, and it is pitiful to see them look at
these things while thinking of their loved ones at home.
SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p.
49-50
