Let me describe the scene immediately around my own tent during the last two weeks of July, as a sample of the condition of the whole prison:  I will take a space not larger than a good sized parlor or sitting room.  On this were at least fifty of us.  Directly in front of me lay two brothers—­named Sherwood—­belonging to Company I, of my battalion, who came originally from Missouri.  They were now in the last stages of scurvy and diarrhea.  Every particle of muscle and fat about their limbs and bodies had apparently wasted away, leaving the skin clinging close to the bone of the face, arms, hands, ribs and thighs—­everywhere except the feet and legs, where it was swollen tense and transparent, distended with gallons of purulent matter.  Their livid gums, from which most of their teeth had already fallen, protruded far beyond their lips.  To their left lay a Sergeant and two others of their company, all three slowly dying from diarrhea, and beyond was a fair-haired German, young and intelligent looking, whose life was ebbing tediously away.  To my right was a handsome young Sergeant of an Illinois Infantry Regiment, captured at Kenesaw.  His left arm had been amputated between the shoulder and elbow, and he was turned into the Stockade with the stump all undressed, save the ligating of the arteries.  Of course, he had not been inside an hour until the maggot flies had laid eggs in the open wound, and before the day was gone the worms were hatched out, and rioting amid the inflamed and super-sensitive nerves, where their every motion was agony.  Accustomed as we were to misery, we found a still lower depth in his misfortune, and I would be happier could I forget his pale, drawn face, as he wandered uncomplainingly to and fro, holding his maimed limb with his right hand, occasionally stopping to squeeze it, as one does a boil, and press from it a stream of maggots and pus.  I do not think he ate or slept for a week before he died.  Next to him staid an Irish Sergeant of a New York Regiment, a fine soldierly man, who, with pardonable pride, wore, conspicuously on his left breast, a medal gained by gallantry while a British soldier in the Crimea.  He was wasting away with diarrhea, and died before the month was out.

This was what one could see on every square rod of the prison.  Where I was was not only no worse than the rest of the prison, but was probably much better and healthier, as it was the highest ground inside, farthest from the Swamp, and having the dead line on two sides, had a ventilation that those nearer the center could not possibly have.  Yet, with all these conditions in our favor, the mortality was as I have described.

Near us an exasperating idiot, who played the flute, had established himself.  Like all poor players, he affected the low, mournful notes, as plaintive as the distant cooing of the dove in lowering, weather.  He played or rather tooted away in his “blues"-inducing strain hour after hour, despite our energetic protests, and occasionally flinging a club at him.  There was no more stop to him than to a man with a hand-organ, and to this day the low, sad notes of a flute are the swiftest reminder to me of those sorrowful, death-laden days.