Limbs would be drawn up to the body and the back of them would become discolored and from the heels to the hips resembled, in color, a very severe black and blue spot. A dropsical swelling of the flesh would take place and I could pull the flesh of my feet out of shape or press an indentation into the flesh and it would remain in that shape until action replaced it.

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We termed our habitations “shebangs,” a sneak thief a “flanker,” a robber a “raider.” There being no law within the stockade, evil men among us took to robbing from their comrades. There was an organization of robbers so bold and daring that they would go in squads through the prison and whatever they saw, in the way of clothing or blankets, they captured. For instance, four men would be lying under a fairly good blanket, a raider would come along and lay hold of the blanket and if the men under it attempted to reclaim it each man would quickly receive a blow on the head from a short club in the hands of the raiders companions. [These] raiders committed several cruel and vicious murders. At last the Rebels were appealed to and a guard of a few men under a non-commissioned officer entered the prison and appealed to the Yanks to organize and hunt these desperadoes down.

All that was necessary to cause swift vengeance to fall upon the heads of the evil-doers was done. They were chased and beaten with clubs and captured. The Confederate authorities rendered assistance in the prosecutions which followed by allowing a jury to be impanelled and a regular court to be instituted with able lawyers from among the prisoners as judges and counsel for the defense and prosecution.

The witnesses were subpeoned, and after a fair and impartial trial, six of the raiders were convicted and hanged, and from that time forward flanking and raiding were unknown among the prisoners.

In the month of July, I became so helpless that a few friends volunteered to carry me out to the gate, in hopes that I might be admitted to the hospital. Many poor fellows as helpless as myself were borne by comrades and laid upon the ground near the gates, waiting for the hour to come when they could be seen by Doctors, on the outside of the inner gate.

Here we lay in the broiling sun, between two stockades where no breath of air could come and many of us were not even looked at by the doctors. During the day one-horse wagons were used as ambulances in carrying the sick to the hospital….On being taken from the ambulance I was set upon the ground among a lot of other comrades. Soon a hospital steward came along and eight of us were assigned to the first tent in the ward, where we slept protected from the weather for the first time since the 1st day of May. Our rations were not materially different, but we received some medicine for our scurvy, although not very much to brag about. The medicine consisted of less than one pint of, shall I say, swill and prepared thus: a bushel or so of corn-meal was put into a barrel at the head of the ward and filled with water from a neighboring swamp, a stream from which ran across the lower end of the hospital grounds, this, when allowed to sour, became the medicine which was to cure our scurvy.

A few days after we had been thus fortunate in securing a tent on entering the hospital, a few boards were hauled into the hospital and unloaded near our tent. We inquired for what purpose and were informed that all tents were to have bunks put into them. The seven men in the tent with me, all scurvy patients, were quite an intelligent body of men and pretty good talkers and we proceeded at once, with arguments, to persuade the hospital steward to have the boards put into our tent first, which he finally consented to do, and for the first time our beds were raised from the ground. Our improvement after this was quite marked.

Gradually I became able to walk with my limbs a little straighter until I could stand with my knees at an angle of about 90 degrees, resting my weight upon my toes. At this time came the terrible news that our tent was to be used for gangrene patients and the following day we were separated and I never knew what became of my seven comrades.

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