ANDERSONVILLE by T. L. Waters

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 9, 1867

ANDERSONVILLE.

By T. L. Waters

BRO. SMITH: Permit me through the columns of the Review to correct a few inaccuracies in the article, in No. 21, vol. xxix, of Review, in regard to Andersonville. Having been a prisoner of war there ten months, and among the last who left it, I have a practical knowledge of the place.

1. It is not located in South Carolina, but in Georgia, 60 miles south of Macon, on the Atlanta and Albany R. R. It contained fifteen acres of ground, three or four of which were swamp, and was surrounded by a stockade of hewn timber twenty-five feet long, set five feet in the ground, thus leaving the stockade twenty feet high. A brook ran through this place or pen (I cannot call it an encampment). Above this pen, and on this brook, was the cook house, the filth of which was thrown into the stream. There were also camped above the cook house, three regiments of guards, the filth of which washed into the stream. Besides it was very small and entirely inadequate for the thousands crowded together there. The ground on one side was sandy, on the other hand, red clay, in which wells were dug from fifty to sixty feet, with little water, not with tin cups, but rebel spades furnished by the Quartermaster. On the sandy side, which was the side I stayed on, we had a number of wells from twelve to twenty feet deep, with plenty of soft water. These were, however, very dangerous on account of caving in, and as there was a great deal of scurvy, and no person would lend his cup to another to drink, and there being but few cups, the suffering for good water was great.

I was taken out to the hospital the last of July, sick with scurvy, and cannot say whether the spring Bro. Clarke speaks of broke out during the terrible storm of the 9th of Aug. or not. Suffice it to say the spring I found there on my return, between the dead line and stockade, having broken out of the solid clay where there was no more the appearance of water than in the middle of any dry road. A hogshead was set in the ground inside the dead line, further down the hill, and a spout conveyed the water from the spring to the same, while a policeman, with club in hand, guarded it and caused those who came there to fall in line and to await each his turn.

It is needless to add that we considered it something like the smiting of the rock spoken of in the Bible; and I have often as I slaked my thirst with it, thought of that incident, and of God's goodness and mercy to us poor miserable mortals.

T. L. WATERS.

Newaygo Co., Mich.