I was put into a tent which would hold four men but the only occupant when I entered was a poor, moaning helpless wretch who died the same night. There had been as many as four deaths in one day in some of these tents and I presumed this one was as bad as any. Each of these poor fellows was absolutely helpless and had been so for many weeks and each one contributed to the vermin which formed a large part of the floor of the tent. The rest of the floor was sand about 3 or 4 inches deep…no more awful misery could be suffered than fell to my lot that night.

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After enduring all that human nature could I took up my abode in the street, about morning, and was there when the steward came around with his assistants and carried out into the street those who had died during the night, which included my tent mate. The steward inquired what I was doing out there. I told him I had moved and preferred to sleep outside. He informed me that I would have to go back into the tent. I told him I would not and called him to witness and, hobbling back into the tent on my toes, I pulled back my sleeves and scooped up a handful of the tent floor. The fleas were constantly springing from the sand scattering much of it and the vermin crawling out would take more of it. I constantly brushed my wrists to keep them from crawling up on my body.

When the sand became quiet in my hand not much more than half of the amount I had scooped up remained, I threw the rest down and turning fiercely upon the steward demanded if he had the heart to see a man put into such a place as that to sleep and telling him that, under no circumstances except being tied in the tent, would I again attempt to occupy it. A parley ensued when he offered me a nurse’s tent, with bunks in it, providing I would take the tent which I had formerly vacated and care for the eight gangrene patients with which it had been filled.

During this conversation I had been standing with bent legs and upon my toes and, casting my eyes downward, I said to him, “I am a pretty subject to attempt to take care of eight men covered with gangrenous sores.” He urged me to take it as it was the only alternative and I accepted and for three hours I stood upon my toes, attending to my patients. One man, among the eight, had 35 open sores.

The exercise, the imperative necessity for hard work, a good place in which to sleep caused my health and condition to rapidly improve and it was not many weeks before I could walk and touch my heels to the ground, with the limbs nearly straight. My mouth, also, gradually improved until I could chew my rations.

While still an inmate of the hospital in the early part of December 1864, the Confederates [attempted to improve the hospital by building sheds with the assistance of Yankee workmen]. Having been a wood-worker previous to entering the army, I was fortunate enough to be selected as one and, after being paroled, wherein we promised not to attempt to escape, we began our work.

You can scarcely imagine the delight with which we hailed our greater liberty, having no guards over us and allowed to roam at will, outside of working hours.

During [our Sunday] rambles five of the party, with which I was connected, met a colored man from the banks of the Flint River six miles away from Andersonville and, in conversation with him, conceived an idea of escape by way of the Flint River to the blockading squadron in the Appalachian Bay [Apalachee Bay] in the Gulf of Mexico.

Plans were all laid for an escape and the evening set when he agreed to meet us on a certain road and [in trade for blankets and other provisions] pilot us to the Flint River. After having left camp we failed to meet our colored friend but were never able to tell whether through his fault or ours. We started down the river on foot, knowing full well that, in the morning, the Andersonville pack of hungry blood-hounds would be after us.

After traveling a few miles as rapidly as possible, Thorp and his comrades located a boat and, in a hollow tree, its paddles. They started moving downstream, but they encountered one hazard after another: rapids, shoaling waters, submerged boulders, slippery rock and seething torrents. Finally Thorp and his party abandoned the water in favor of the riverbank and a chance for some shut-eye. They were awakened by a locomotive whistle, and discovered a nearby railroad depot.

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