It must be said to the credit of the Federal prison officials, that the sanitary and hygienic arrangements were as near perfect as man could well make them.  These officials were exceedingly jealous of the health of the place.  In fact, it was often thought they were unnecessarily strict in enforcing their hygienic rules.  Everything had to be thoroughly clean.  Cleanliness was compulsory.  A laundry machine was furnished, and a kind of laundrying was accomplished.  Blankets were required to be dusted and sunned regularly.  Every few weeks the whole army of prisoners were turned out into the cold, and there remained until the “shacks” were thoroughly white-washed, both inside and outside.  This work was performed by “galvanized Yankees.”  A “galvanized Yankee” was a Confederate prisoner who had “swallowed the yellow pup,” i.e., had taken the oath of allegiance to the United States Government.  These men were looked upon even by the Federal officers as a contemptible set, and were required to do all kinds of menial service.

The water was good and plentiful.  There could be no just criticism along this line.  I am constrained to believe that it was owing to these stringent health laws that the percentage of sickness was so very small.  Of course, I can only speak of the officers in Fort Delaware.

The prison fare is the most difficult, as well as unpleasant, part of prison life of which to treat.  However, I will give the simple facts, and allow the reader to draw his own conclusions as to the justice and necessity for such treatment.  To say that the fare was entirely insufficient, is putting it mildly, and would not be more than might be expected under similar circumstances and conditions; but the reader will more fully understand the situation when this insufficiency is exemplified by the facts which follow.  Think of being compelled to live on two ounces of meat and six ounces of bread per day.  Yet this was a prison ration for us towards the close of the war.  This was totally inadequate to appease hunger.  Men who had no other means of procuring something to eat were nearly starved to death.  They stalked about listlessly, gaunt looking, with sunken cheeks and glaring eyes, which reminded one of a hungry ravenous beast.  Hungry, hungry all the time.  On lying down at night, many, instead of breathing prayers of thankfulness for bountiful supplies, would lie down invoking the most severe curses of God upon the heads of the whole Federal contingent, from President Lincoln down to the lowest private.  Hunger makes men desperate and reckless.  The last six or eight months of the war the fare was much worse than at any time previous.  It was at this period that the Federal administration was retaliating, as they claimed, for the treatment their prisoners were receiving at Andersonville, Ga.

This inhuman condition of affairs was absolutely brought about by the United States Government itself by positively refusing time and again an exchange of prisoners, and it can not escape the just odium and stigma of the inhuman treatment, the untold suffering, and agonies of both the Confederate and Union prisoners of war.