local malaria, and had the benefit of a genial and healthy climate. It was of sufficient capacity for from 8,000 to 9,000 prisoners, without uncomfortable crowding. The great mortality of the previous year, I have no doubt, resulted in part from an excess of prisoners over the fair capacity of the stockade, and from the lack of sufficient shelter from the sun and rain. Before my arrival at Andersonville, Captain Wirz had, by a communication forwarded through Colonel Gibbs, and approved by him, called my attention to the great deficiency of shelter in the stockade, and asked authority to supply it. He had made a similar application, I was informed, to General Winder some time before, but it had not been acted on before the General's death. In consequence of this want of buildings and shedding within the stockade, the prisoners had excavated a great many subterranean vaults and chambers in the hillsides, which many of them occupied, to the injury of their health, as these places were not sufficiently ventilated.
The prisoners were very badly off for clothing, shoes and hats, and complained of this destitution, and of the quantity and kind of rations—corn bread and bacon chiefly—issued to them. I found, what I anticipated, that we had no clothing to give them. Many of the men on duty as guards were in rags, and either barefooted, or had their feet protected with wornout shoes held together with strings and thongs, and in lieu of overcoats many had to protect themselves against inclement weather with a tattered blanket drawn over the shoulders. Our own men being in this destitute condition, it can be well understood that we could not supply a large demand for clothing prisoners.
They also suffered greatly, and there had been great mortality, for want of suitable medicines to treat the diseases incident to their condition with any considerable success. From this cause, and this alone, I have no doubt thousands died at Andersonville in 1864, who would be living to-day if the United States Government had not declared medicines contraband of war, and by their close blockade of our coasts deprived us of an adequate supply of those remedial agents that therapeutic science and modern chemistry have produced for the amelioration of suffering humanity. The object of this barbarous decree against the Confederacy, it is now well understood, was to expose our soldiers, as well as our wives, children and families, without protection or relief, to the diseases common in our climate, and to make us an easy prey to death, approach us in what form he might; not foreseeing, perhaps, that when the grim monster stalked through our prisons he would find not alone Confederates for his victims, but stalwart soldiers of the Government which had invoked his aid against us. At the time of my inspection, there was a good deal of sickness amongst the prisoners, but not a large percentage of mortality. Our medical officers, even with their scanty pharmacopæ, gave equal attention to sick friends and enemies, to guard and to prisoners alike.
I investigated particularly the food question, and found that no
