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Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott
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Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott
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"Andersonville Diary" by John L. Ransom
Author & Publisher
Auburn, N.Y., 1881

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Page 91                       August, 1864


                           MOVED JUST IN TIME
                               __________

     REMOVED FROM ANDERSONVILLE TO THE MARINE HOSPITAL, SAVANNAH -
     GETTING THROUGH THE GATE - BATTESE HAS SAVED US - VERY SICK
     BUT BY NO MEANS DEAD YET - BETTER AND HUMANE TREATMENT.

  Aug 1 -- Just about the same.  My Indian friend says: "We all get away."

  Aug 2 -- Two hundred and twenty die each day.  No more news of exchange.

  Aug 3 -- Had some good soup and feel better.  All is done for me that can
be done by my friends.  Rowe and Sanders in almost as bad a condition as
myself.  Just about where I was two or three weeks ago.  Seem to have come
down all at once.  August goes for them.

  Aug 4 -- Storm threatened.  Will cool the atmosphere. Hard work to write.

  Aug 5 -- Severe storm.  Could die in two hours if I wanted to, but don't.

  Aug 12 -- Warm.  Warm.  Warm.  If I only had some shade to lay in, and a
glass of lemonade.

  Aug 13 -- A nice spring of cold water has broken out in camp, enough to
furnish nearly all here with drinking water.  God has not forgotten us.
Battese brings it to me to drink.

  Aug 14 -- Battese very hopeful, as exchange rumors are afloat.  Talks
more about it than ever before.

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Page 92                       August, 1864

  Aug 15 -- The water is a God-send.  Sanders better and Rowe worse.

  Aug 16 -- Still in the land of the living.  Capt. Wirtz is sick and a
Liuet. Davis acting in his stead.

  Aug 17 -- Hanging on yet.  A good many more than two hundred and twenty-
five die now in twenty-four hours.  Messes that have stopped near us are
all dead.

  Aug 18 -- Exchange rumors.

  Aug 19 -- Am still hoping for relief.  Water is bracing some up, myself
with others.  Does not hurt us.

  Aug 20 -- Some say three hundred now die each day.  No more new men
coming.  Reported that Wirtz is dead.

  Aug 21 -- Sleep nearly all the time except when too hot to do so.

  Aug 22 -- Exchange rumors.

  Aug 23 -- Terribly hot.

  Aug 24 -- Had some soup.  Not particularly worse, but Rowe is and Sanders
also.

  Aug 25 -- In my exuberance of joy must write a few lines.  Received a
letter from my brother, George W. Ransom, from Hilton Head* Contained only
a few words.

  Aug 26 -- Still am writing.  The letter from my brother has done good and
cheered me up.  Eye sight very poor and writing tires me.  Battese sticks
by; such disinterested friendship is rare.  Prison at it's worst.

  Aug 27 -- Have now written nearly through three large books, and still at
it.  The diary am confident will reach my people if I don't.  There are
many here who are interested and will see that it goes north.

  Aug 28 -- No news and no worse; set up part of the time.  Dying off a
third faster than ever before.

  Aug 29 -- Exchange rumors afloat.  Any kind of a change would help me.

  Aug 30 -- Am in no pain whatever, and no worse.

  Aug 31 -- Still waiting for something to turn up.  My Indian friend says:
"good news yet."   NIGHT. -- The camp is full of exchange rumors.

*My brother supposed me dead, as I had been so reported; still, thinking it
might not be so, every week or so he would write a letter and direct to me
as a prisoner of war.  This letter, very strangely, reached its
destination.

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