IN AND OUT
OF
REBEL PRISONS,
BY
LIEUT. A. COOPER,
12th N. Y. CAVALRY.
ILLUSTRATED.
OSWEGO, N. Y.:
R. J. OLIPHANT, JOB PRINTER, BOOKBINDER AND STATIONER.
1888.
Copyrighted 1888,
BY A. COOPER.
All Rights Reserved.
To CAPTAIN ROBERT B. HOCK,
THE GALLANT AND LOYAL COMRADE IN THE FIELD,
THE FAITHFUL AND CONSTANT FRIEND DURING THE DARK
DAYS OF MY PRISON LIFE,
The Daring Companion of my Escape
AND THREE HUNDRED MILE TRAMP THROUGH THE CONFEDERACY,
WHO, WHEN I BECAME TOO FEEBLE TO GO FARTHER, SO
GENEROUSLY TOOK OUT HIS PURSE AND GAVE ME THE LARGEST HALF OF ITS CONTENTS,
THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
Many books have been written upon prison life in the South, but shouldevery survivor of Andersonville, Macon, Savannah, Charleston, Florence,Salisbury, Danville, Libby and Belle Island write their personalexperiences in those rebel slaughter houses, it would still require thetestimony of the sixty-five thousand whose bones are covered with Southernsoil to complete the tale.
Being an officer, I suffered but little in comparison with what wasendured by the rank and file, our numbers being less, our quarters weremore endurable and our facilities for cleanliness much greater. Besides,we were more apt to have money and valuables, which would, in some degree,provide for our most urgent needs.
In giving my own personal experiences, I shall endeavor to write of theprison pens in which were confined only officers, just as I foundthem—“Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice.”
Being blessed with the happy faculty of looking upon the bright side oflife, and possessing a hopeful disposition, unaccustomed to give way todespondency, I also write upon the bright side of my subject. The readerwho[Pg vi] expects to find in this book a volume of sickening details of thehorrors of starvation and suffering endured by those whose misfortune itwas to be confined in Andersonville, under that inhuman monster Wirz—themention of whose name causes a shudder—will be disappointed. Having kepta complete diary of events during my ten months’ imprisonment, I am ableto give a reliable account of what came under my personal observation. Ihave often heard it said, even here in the North, that our men who wereprisoners, were cared for as well as the limited means of the Confederacywould admit; but the falsity of this is seen when you remember thatAndersonville is situated in a densely wooded country, and that much ofthe suffering endured was for the want of fuel with which to cook theirscanty rations, and for the want of shelter, which they would havecheerfully constructed had the opportunity been afforded them. Theevidence all goes to show that instead of trying to save the lives oralleviate the sufferings of those whom the fortunes of war had thrown intotheir hands, they practiced a systematic course of starvation and cruelty,that in this nineteenth century, seems scarcely believable. In thisscheme, the arch traitor, Jeff. Davis, was most heartily assisted by theinfamous Winder and his cowardly assistants, Wirz, Dick Turner, Tabb andothers, whose timid hearts unfitted them