I have seen men, by the hundred, standing huddled together for mutual warmth and support (you could not fall very well with men on every side standing tight to you) but these men were weakened by disease and starvation, and during the night many would have to lie down and, in the morning, if it had rained hard you would approach a man who looked like a pile of sand, the heavy rain having thrown sand over his prostrate body. Many of them would be dead in the morning and would be carried out to the deadhouse by their comrades….A sluggish stream separated the north from the south side of the prison and this was all the provision made by the Johnnies for the drink needed by the prisoners. This stream was surrounded by wet, marshy ground which was unfit for men to camp in, nor could they occupy all of the hill-side so that much of the space was worthless as a camp, but very valuable as a source of disease and death.

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The water would spread out over this low ground, especially near the west or upper side of the stockade. Into this the men would wade by the hundreds, with the canteens of their squads upon their backs, waiting their turn to get near the dead-line, where they might reach above the muddy water, to get some which was clear. [If the] wrong kind of a guard happened to be on duty, he was apt to get a bullet into his head.

Our provisions were very much short of the necessary. If cooked rations were issued we would get a piece of corn-bread about 2” x 2” x 3,” the meal being ground cob and all, coarser than one in the north would buy for his horse, a few beans (perhaps one-half pint) and a couple of ounces of pork or bacon….Soon the meat supply failed and I have seen a team loaded up high with the under jaws of hogs, smoked and old, and as we did not get a jaw-bone to each man you may guess that we were not fattened by them.

Our daily occupations were as follows: We would sleep all we could, say 12 or 15 hours daily, getting up sometime before noon. We would then (I am speaking of the most careful among us) remove our garments, which we never removed for sleeping, one at a time and spend an hour skirmishing, looking carefully along the seams, where the enemy were likely to be in hiding after having taken to the woods, so to speak, at the approach of daylight. These enemies of ours were evilly disposed and preferred making their attacks in the night time and lying in seclusion in the day time.

Many of the men had no clothing or blankets to protect themselves, and at night, would dig into the banks and crawl in until they were nearly hidden and often, when a heavy rain came up, the earth would become loosened and cave in, burying all the men sleeping in the hole or cave. I have seen several pairs of feet projecting out of the ground in the morning after a rain. Tunnelling under the stockade, for the purpose of escape was often undertaken but seldom amounted to anything except hard work and the discouragement of defeat, as in almost all cases some one would inform on them and the Rebels would come in, dig down to the tunnel and fill it up.

During June it became quite the fashion to dig wells. Many wells were dug and the condition of a large part of the prisoners was much improved. The party with whom I associated were fortunate enough to secure good water at a distance of about 18 feet down.

The soil was sandy and apt to cave so that it was necessary to dig the well considerable wider at the top so that it would have quite a slope to prevent caving in. The means used for removing the earth were generally a pair of pants legs tied at the bottom and were hauled up with ropes made from strips of clothing, blankets, etc.

Privations, lack of vegetable food and lack of exercise [led many of us to contract that] dread disease, scurvy. The mouth would become infected, the gums swollen so the teeth could not be closed together and we would be unable to chew any solid food. The gums would become black and decayed and, in my own case, with long and sharp finger nails I could gouge away parts which were in such condition as to be exceedingly offensive to the smell.

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