Andersonville, Volume 1
ory, called the "Pemberton building," possibly from an owner of that name, and standing on the corner of what I was told were Fifteenth
the sidewalk, watching the fifteen hundred officers confined within its walls. At intervals during each day squads of fresh prisoners could be seen entering its dark mouth, to be registered, and searched, and then marched off to the prison assigned them. We could see up
a gap in the woods seemed to indicate a fort, which we imagined to be Fort Darli
the other. But these were so few as to make even more pronounced the customary idleness that hung over the scene. The tug's activity seemed spasmodic and forced-a sort of protest against the gradually increasing lethargy that reigned upon the bosom of the waters -the gunboat floated along as if perf
the First Division, First Corps distinguished by a round red patch on their caps; First Division, Second Corps, marked by a red clover leaf; and the First Division, Third Corps, who wore a red diamond. They were mainly captured at Gettysburg and Mine Run. Beside
trim and clean, and their floor as white as a ship's deck. They did not court the society of the "sojers" below, whose camp ideas of neatness differed from theirs. A few old barnacle-backs always sat on guard around the head of the steps l
h mess electing a Sergeant as its head, and each floor electing a Sergeant-of
th rags. Each mess detailed a man each day to wash up the part of the floor it occupied, and he had to do this properly or no ration would be given him. While the washing up was going on each man
-guard, consisting of a big Irishman, who had the air of a Policeman, and carried a musket barrel
four ranks f
, with his gun-barrel cane raised ready for use upon any one who should arouse his ruffianly ire. Breaking ranks we returned to our places, and sat around in moody s
f the way to search for it, as one could have a full fledged article of overwhelming size on his hands at any instant, by a trifling indiscretion of speech or manner. All the old irritating flings between the cavalry, the artillery and the infantry, the older "first-call" men, and the later or "Three-Hundred-Dollar-men," as they were derisively dubbed, between the different corps of the Army of the Potomac, between men of different States, and lastly between the adherents and opponents of McClellan, came to the lips and were answered by a blow with the
appearance at the head of the stairway of the Iris
lure: fourtane mi
e did not get any more gyrations or obtain them any sooner by this, but it was a relief, and a ch
ge of sending food and clothing through the lines to us. Of course but a small part of that sent ever reached its destination. There were too many greedy Rebels along its line of passage to let much of it be received by those for whom it was in
day in the Richmond papers that "President Davis and his Cabinet had come to the conclusion that it was incompatible with t
icient commentary upon this assumption of punctiliousness that the paper went on to say that some five tons of clothing and fifteen tons of food, which h
hey are all h
save th