This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XI THAT TERRIBLE AUGUST August was a terrible month at Andersonville. The heat was terrific and the fatality among the prisoners was something awful. Scurvy, the most destructive disease that afflicted us, was now fearfully prevalent. Nearly one-half the men were afflicted with it, and hundreds were dying daily. The first symptoms of the awful disease were generally a soreness of the gums, and shortly afterward ulceration set in, and unless the malady was checked the teeth became loose and fell out. Lieutenant Davis was in command, and, I believe, did all he could with the scant supply of food and medicine at hand, to alleviate the condition. Notwithstanding the derogatory reports relative to Wirz, I heard men say during that awful August, "I wish that Captain Wirz was back." The reader, North and South, will concede that during the summer of 1864 the Southern Confederacy was on "its last legs." Its means of transportation was broken in many places and its food and clothing supplies meager and inadequate. In fact, the whole South was in an impoverished condition. Here was the same as a city with a population of over 30,000 souls. Some writers put it at 35, ooo, but at the lowest there were 30,000 prisoners at Andersonville in August, 1864. Imagine what it was under the conditions in the South at that time to provide food, scant though it was, for those thousands. It was said at Andersonville, and I have, during the past fifteen or twenty years, read accounts from Southern sources, that the Confederate Government during the summer of 1864 asked the Washington authorities to send physicians and hospital supplies for the express use of Union prisoners held in the South; they pledged that those supplies would be only for the Union...