January 1862.
. . . Sunday evening James Gillette came up to our room to tell us his story. He is one of the two hundred and forty Union soldiers just released from Richmond prisons in exchange for an equal number of rebel prisoners from Fort Warren. He was with the 71st N. Y., a three months’ regiment, and his time was out before the battle in which he was taken prisoner. These five months of prison life have turned him from a dapper little fellow into a sad-looking, care-worn, sick man. He and his fellows were in Prison No. 2, a tobacco factory, dirty and uncomfortable beyond description–170 men in a room 40 feet by 60. They immediately organized themselves, however, into a little military community under strict discipline. A detail of men was made every day to police the place, and all unnecessary uncleanliness was punished by the court they instituted for the trial of offenders. They had plenty of water but no soap or towels. Their rations were about eleven ounces of bread daily and one ration of beef or pork, and the water in which this was boiled was served at night as soup– “Confederate swill” they called it. They had no clothing given or sent them except what came to the Massachusetts and Rhode Island men, and an occasional little bundle handed in secretly by some sympathizing citizen. . . . The principal suffering was from the ignorance and brutality of the prison guards, who treated them roughly and often shot at them. Several were killed in that way; and yet these same sentinels would let the prisoners stand guard in their places, and go off and get them whiskey; and when they themselves were drunk, our men would pass them and take an airing in the city. The sick suffered and still suffer for want of decent care and medicine. One building is given up to cases of gangrene–a sufficient commentary on the condition of things. As a rule the prisoners kept up their spirits well and used all sorts of means for entertaining themselves; a debating club, a court, menagerie exhibitions, carving in beef-bones, etc. I have a little ring cut from part of their rations. Some men, though, have grown simple, almost idiotic, from the confinement; some have gone insane; and some of good standing at home will now wrangle pitifully over a bit of cracker or meat. About one hundred of our men, he says, have already died in Richmond of sickness, besides those dying from their wounds.