Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2011, All Rights Reserved U.S. Data Repository Please read U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the US Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ ========================================================================= U.S. Data Repository NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization. Non-commercial organizations desiring to use this material must obtain the consent of the transcriber prior to use. Individuals desiring to use this material in their own research may do so. ========================================================================= Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== "Andersonville Diary" by John L. Ransom Author & Publisher Auburn, N.Y., 1881 =========================================================================== Page 23 NEW YEARS DAY AND THE PLACE IT FINDS US -- APPLES TO EAT AND AN OLD COMRADE JOINS US -- MATTERS GETTING WORSE WITH OCCASIONAL RUMORS OF EXCHANGE, ETC., ETC. ____________________ Jan 1, 1864 -- A great time this morning wishing one another a Happy New Year. Robinson bought on the outside a dozen apples and gave us all a treat. Nothing but corn bread to eat and very poor quality. Dr. F.L. Lewis, Vet. Surg. 9th Mich. cavalry, came in to-day; was captured at Dandridge, East Tennessee, where our regiment had a severe engagement. Tells me all the news. Col. Acker wounded, etc., etc. Thinks it a queer New Year trip, but also thinks we will be exchanged before many weeks. Jan. 2 -- Rebel congress about to meet, and the people of Richmond demand through the papers that the prisoners confined here be removed immediately, as there is hardly enough for themselves to eat, aside from feeding us "Northern Hirelings." Hear of bread riots and lots of trouble across the river. A big fire last night in the vicinity of Libby Prison. Jan. 3 -- Received a letter from Michigan. Not quite so cold, but dis- agreeable weather. Nine men bucked and gagged at one time on the outside, two of them for stealing sour beans from a swill-barrel. They would get permission to pass through the gate to see the lieutenant, and instead, would walk around the cookhouse to some barrels containing swill, scoop up their hats full and then run inside; but they were caught, and are suffering a hard punishment for it. Jan. 4 -- Some ladies visited the island to see us blue coats, and laughed very much at our condition; thought it so comical and ludicrous the way prisoners crowded the bank next the cook- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 24 house, looking over at the piles of bread, and compared us to wild men, and hungry dogs. A chicken belonging to the lieutenant flew up on the bank and was snatched off in short order, and to pay for it we are not to receive a mouthful of food to-day, making five or six thousand suffer for one man catching a little chicken. Jan. 5 -- Succeeded in getting Dr. Lewis into our tent; is rather under the weather, owing to exposure and hardship. Jimmy Devers spends the even- ings with us and we have funny times talking over better days -- and are nearly talked out. I have said all I can think, and am just beginning to talk it all over again. All our stories have been told from two, to three or four times, and are getting stale. We offer a reward for a good new story. Jan. 6 -- Still prisoners of war, without the remotest idea as to how long we are to remain so. Some of the paroled Yankees on the outside curse and treat the inside prisoners more cruel (when they have a chance,) that the rebels themselves. Blass, a Spaniard, who has been a prisoner over a year and refuses to be exchanged, is the lieutenant's right hand man. He tied up a man a few days ago for some misdemeanor and whipped him. He is afraid to come inside, knowing he would lose his life in a jiffy. He also raises the rebel flag at the island mornings, and lowers it at night. It is a dirty rag, and the appearance of it ought disgust any sensible person. Jan. 7 -- Rainy, cold and disagreeable weather. Henry Stilson, a fellow who was captured with me, was carried out dead this morning. He was diseased when taken, and fell an easy prey to their cruelties. A good deal of raiding is going on among the men. One Captain Moseby commands a band of cut-throats who do nearly as they please, cheating, robbing, and knock- ing down -- operating principally upon new prisoners who are unacquainted with prison life. Moseby is named after the rebel guerilla, his real name being something else. He is from New York City, and is a regular bummer. Jan. 8 -- All taken outside to-day to be squadded over -- an all day job, and nothing to eat. The men being in hundreds and some dying off every day, leave vacancies in the squads of as many as die out of them, and in order to keep them filled up have to be squadded over every few days, there by saving rations. Richmond papers are much alarmed for fear of a break among the prisoners confined within the city. It is said there are six hundred muskets secreted among the Belle Islanders. The citizens are frightened --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 25 almost to death, double guards are placed over us, and very strict orders issued to them. Jan. 9 -- A signal light suspended over the island all last night for some reason unknown to the men confined here. We are cautioned against approaching within eight or ten feet from the bank. One of the raiders went through a man who lay near the bank and started to run after robbing him. A guard who saw the whole affair shot the villian dead and was app- lauded by all who knew of the affair. Fifteen or twenty carried out this morning dead and thirty or forty nearly so in blankets. Jan. 10 -- A brass band over to-day giving us a tune. Looks more like a wandering tribe of vagabonds than musicians. Discoursed sweet music, such as "Bonnie Blue Flag," "The Girl I Left Behind Me," and for their pains got three groans from their enemies in limbo. Dying off very fast on the is- land. Jan. 11 -- A steady rain for twenty-four hours, and have not been dry during the time. However it is a warm rain and get along very well. We are still issuing clothing but very slow. About one hundred per day get partly clothed up. No news of exchange. Abe Lincoln reported dead. Papers very bitter on Beast Butler, as they call him. Manage by a good deal of skirmishing to get the papers almost every day in which we read their rebel lies. A plan afoot for escape, but am afraid to say anything of the particulars for fear of my diary being taken away from me. As I came inside to-night with some bread in my haversack some fellows who were on the watch pitched into me and gobbled my saved up rations. I don't care for myself for I have been to supper, but the boys in the tent will have to go without anything to eat for this night. It don't matter much -- they are all hungry and it did them as much good as it would our mess. Jan. 12 -- James River very high. A continental roar in our ears caused by the water falling over the cataract just above the island. Rebels fired a large shell over the prison to scare us. Jan. 13 -- Everything runs along about the same. Little excitements from day to day. The weather is fair, and taken all together thus far this winter has been very favorable to us as prisoners. Lieut. Bossieux lost his dog. Some Yanks snatched him into a tent and eat him up. Bossieux very mad and is anxious to know who the guilty ones are. All he can do is to keep all our rations from us one day, and he does it. Seems pretty rough when a man will eat a dog, but such is the case. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 26 Jan. 18 -- Too much exertion to even write in my diary. Talk of getting away by escaping, but find no feasible plan. Rebs very watchful. Some mail to-day but nothing for me. Saw some papers, and a new prisoner brought with him a New York paper, but not a word in it about "exchange." Am still outside most every day. Geo. Hendryx at work in the cook house cooking rations for the prisoners. Comes down where I am every day and hands me something to take inside for the boys. He tells the Lieut. he has a brother inside that he is feeding. Although it is against orders, Lieut. Bossieux pays no attention to it. Jan. 20 -- Rebel officers over to-day inspecting us Yanks. Some of the worst looking Arabs in shape of officers I ever saw. Jimmy Devers comes to our tent every night and sits with us until bed time. Is a jolly chap and keeps us all in good spirits with his sayings. Sergt. Robinson, I learned to-day, instead of being a sergeant is a lieutenant. His whole company being captured, he preferred to go with them and share their trials, than go with the officers. The men are very much attached to him and no wonder, as he is a fine fellow. His home is Sterling, Whiteside Co., Illinois. Corp. McCartin is, as his name would indicate, an Irishman, and his home is Louisville, Ky. Is a shoemaker by trade. He is also a Mason, and I am going to write down wherein the fact of his being a Mason has brought good into the camp to-day. The boys feeling rather more hungry than usual were rather despondent, when the corporal gets up and says: "Boys, I'll go and get something to eat." Went out of the tent and in twenty minutes came back with three or four pounds of bacon and two loaves of corn bread. We were surprised and asked how he had performed the miracle. Told us then that he was a Mason, as also was the lieutenant in charge, from whom the food came. We decided then and there that the first opportunity that pre- sented itself we would join the Masons. Can see the rebles drilling across the river. Jan. 22 -- Cold and clear weather. Nothing to write to-day. It's a task. Jan. 24 -- We are all troubled with heart-burn, sour stomach, &c. Drink weak lye made from ashes for it. Every day some new ones come inside, but they know nothing as to the prospects of our being exchanged. All are con- siderably surprised to find themselves in quite so bad a place, and the subject of prison life begins to interest them. Good deal of gambling going on among prisoners. Chuck-a-luck is the favorite game. You lay your ration of bread --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 27 down on a figure on a board, and a fellow with a dice-box shakes it up a little, throws out the dice, and your bread is gone. Don't understand the game myself. That's all I ever saw of the game. Lay down the bread and it's gone. Rather a one sided affair. Some men are very filthy, which makes it disagreeable for those of more cleanly habits. I believe that many, very many, who now die, would live if they adopted the rules that our mess has, and lived up to them. It is the only way to get along. Jan. 25 -- Being in this place brings out a man for just what he is worth. Those whom we expect the most from in the way of braving hardships and dangers, prove to be nobody at all. And very often those whom we ex- pect the least from prove to be heroes every inch of them. Notably one of these is George Hendryx, who is nothing but a good looking, effeminate boy, fit, you would say, to be going to school with a mother to look after him, and for not much else. But instead, he is brave, cheeful, smart, watching every chance to get the best of the Johnny Rebs. His position in the cook- house has given him a chance to feed, I presume, hundreds of men. Near the cook-house is a store-house, and in it are several hogsheads of hams. These hams were sent from the Sanitary Commission at the North for Union prisoners, but they for whom they were intended do not get them, and they are being eaten up by the rebels. Hendryx has managed to get up a board in the cook-house floor, where he can crawl fifteen or twenty feet under the store-house and up through that floor. By this Yankee trick he has stolen, I presume one hundred hams and gotten them inside where they belong. This is very risky on his part, for should he be discovered it would go very hard with him. He is about as unselfish a fellow as you can well find. This is only one of his plans to outwit the rebels for our benefit. His head is all the time, too, planning some way of escape. Well, we all hope he won't get caught. All shake in our boots for him. Was on guard last night, outside, over the clothing. There is so much clothing stole by the rebels that Bossieux put a guard of two over the boxes through the night, and if any of the Rebs. come around to steal we are instructed to wake up the lieutenant , who sleeps near by in a tent. I was on duty last night with Joe Myers, and Hendryx came where we were and unfolded a plan for escape which he has been working up. It is a risky affair, and had best be thought over pretty thorough before put into execution. Robinson has been found out as a lieutenant, and taken over to Richmond to be placed with the --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 28 officers in Libby Prison. We are sorry that we must lose him. Jan. 26 -- Ninety-two squads of prisoners confined on less than six acres of ground -- one hundred in a squad, making nine thousand and two hundred altogether. The lice are getting the upper hand of us. The ground is literally covered with them. Bean soup to-day and is made from the follow- ing recipe, (don't know from what cook book, some new edition): Beans are very wormy and musty. Hard finding a bean without from one to three bugs in it. They are put into a large caldron kettle of river water and boiled for a couple of hours. No seasoning, not even salt put into them. It is then taken out and brought inside. Six pails full for each squad -- about a pint per man, and not over a pint of beans in each bucket. The water is hardly colored and I could see clear through to the bottom and count every bean in the pail. The men drink it because it is warm. There in not enough strength or substance to do it any good. We sometimes have very good bean soup when they have meat to boil with it. Jan. 27 -- More prisoners came to-day and say there is to be no general exchange during the war, and we are to be sent off into Georgia immed- iately. Storymy and disagreeable weather and everybody down-hearted. Very still among the men, owing to the bad news -- hardly a word spoken by any- body. The least bit of anything encouraging would change the stillness into a perfect bedlam. I this morning looked into a tent where there were seventeen men and started back frightened at the view inside. What a tab- leau for a New York theatre? They were all old prisoners nearly naked with nothing under or over them, and no fire; had just been talking over the prospect ahead and all looked the very picture of dispair, with their hollow eyes, sunken cheeks and haggard expression. I have before imagined such scenes but never before realized what they were until now. And such is but a fair sample of hundreds of men fully as bad. Jan. 28 -- No officers over from Libby for a few days past. Nearly all the clothing issued. A few days more will close up the clothing business, and then probably all the outsiders will be sent inside; and for fear such will be the case we have decided upon to-morrow night for the escape (which I have not said much about in my diary). The nights are dark and cloudy. Messrs. Mustard and Hendryx both sleep outside now, and I must arrange to, both to-night and to-morrow night. I have been two weeks trying to get --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 29 a map of Virginia, and have at last succeeded. A negro brought it to me from the city. It has cost over thirty dollars Confederate money -- at the North would have cost me twenty five cents. I would not take for it, unless I could get another one, one thousand dollars in gold. We are well rigged, have some food saved up to take along; in good health and deter- mined to get away. Lieut. Bossieux suspects, and to-day took the pains to say in our hearing that he knew an escape among the outsiders was in view, and as sure as there was a God in heaven if we tried it and got caught, and we surely would be, he would first shoot all he could before catching us, and the balance would be tied up and whipped every day until he got tired, as long as we lived. We must expect trouble. It does not change us in the least; if anything, makes us the more determined to get away. To-night we are to start, and I will write down the plans we have, running the risk of the rebels getting hold of it. At a few moments past eleven and before midnight the guard will let us cross his beat and go to the water's edge. We all have rebel clothing which we are to wear, furnished partly by a negro, and partly by the guard who helps us off. We take the quarter- master's boat, which we unlock, and having been furnished the countersign give it to the picket who will pretend that he thinks we are rebel guards going over to the city, in case we are caught, which will screen him in a measure. Having passed him, we get into the boat and row across the river, give the countersign to the guards on the other side of the river, and talk with them a little, being ourselves posted on general information regarding the place. To quiet their suspicions if they have any, we then start, up into the town and when out of sight of the guards take a turn to the left, and go straight to the Richmond jail; taking care to avoid patrols &c. We will then meet with a negro who will guide us ten miles up the river, and then leave us in charge of friendly blacks who will keep us through the next day and at night pilot us farther along towards our lives. If pos- sible, I shall steal the rebel flag, which is kept nights in the lieutenant's tent, and a few other relics, to take along with me. The big bell in Richmond strikes six, and we close our diary, hoping never to look upon it again until we return to free our fellow prisoners, with the glorious army of the North. Now we leave our diary to finish preparations for the flight for freedom. May God aid us in this land of tyranny, where we have met nothing but suffering. Good bye, Belle Isle and Prison. Hail! Freedom, Home, Friends, and the --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 30 Grand Army of the Old Flag! What is in store for us in the future? ===========================================================================