You have given the best description of prison life that I have ever seen written.  The only trouble is that it cannot be portrayed so that persons can realize the suffering and abuse that our soldiers endured in those prison hells.  Your statements are all correct in regard to the treatment that we received, and all those scenes you have depicted are as vivid in my mind today as if they had only occurred yesterday.  Please let me hear from you again.  Wishing you success in all your undertakings, I remain your friend,

                              Walter, Hartsough,
          Late of K Company, Sixteenth Illinois Volunteer of Infantry.

CHAPTER LXXVI.

The peculiar type of insanity prevalent at Florence—­Barrett’s wantonness
of cruelty—­we learn of Sherman’s advance into south Carolina—­the rebels
begin moving the prisoners away—­Andrews and I change our tactics, and
stay behind—­arrival of five prisoners from Sherman’s command—­their
unbounded confidence in Sherman’s success, and its beneficial effect upon
us.

One terrible phase of existence at Florence was the vast increase of insanity.  We had many insane men at Andersonville, but the type of the derangement was different, partaking more of what the doctors term melancholia.  Prisoners coming in from the front were struck aghast by the horrors they saw everywhere.  Men dying of painful and repulsive diseases lined every step of whatever path they trod; the rations given them were repugnant to taste and stomach; shelter from the fiery sun there was none, and scarcely room enough for them to lie down upon.  Under these discouraging circumstances, home-loving, kindly-hearted men, especially those who had passed out of the first flush of youth, and had left wife and children behind when they entered the service, were speedily overcome with despair of surviving until released; their hopelessness fed on the same germs which gave it birth, until it became senseless, vacant-eyed, unreasoning, incurable melancholy, when the victim would lie for hours, without speaking a word, except to babble of home, or would wander aimlessly about the camp—­frequently stark naked—­until he died or was shot for coming too near the Dead Line.  Soldiers must not suppose that this was the same class of weaklings who usually pine themselves into the Hospital within three months after their regiment enters the field.  They were as a rule, made up of seasoned soldiery, who had become inured to the dangers and hardships of active service, and were not likely to sink down under any ordinary trials.