Let the reader reflect a moment upon this number, till comprehends fully how many six thousand two hundred and men are, and how much force, energy, training, and rich possibilities for the good of the community and country died with those six thousand two hundred and one young, active men.  It may help his perception of the magnitude of this number to remember that the total loss of the British, during the Crimean war, by death in all shapes, was four thousand five hundred and ninety-five, or one thousand seven hundred and six less than the deaths in Andersonville from dysenteric diseases alone.

The loathsome maggot flies swarmed about the bakery, and dropped into the trough where the dough was being mixed, so that it was rare to get a ration of bread not contaminated with a few of them.

It was not long until the bakery became inadequate to supply bread for all the prisoners.  Then great iron kettles were set, and mush was issued to a number of detachments, instead of bread.  There was not so much cleanliness and care in preparing this as a farmer shows in cooking food for stock.  A deep wagon-bed would be shoveled full of the smoking paste, which was then hailed inside and issued out to the detachments, the latter receiving it on blankets, pieces of shelter tents, or, lacking even these, upon the bare sand.

As still more prisoners came in, neither bread nor mush could be furnished them, and a part of the detachments received their rations in meal.  Earnest solicitation at length resulted in having occasional scanty issues of wood to cook this with.  My detachment was allowed to choose which it would take—­bread, mush or meal.  It took the latter.

Cooking the meal was the topic of daily interest.  There were three ways of doing it:  Bread, mush and “dumplings.”  In the latter the meal was dampened until it would hold together, and was rolled into little balls, the size of marbles, which were then boiled.  The bread was the most satisfactory and nourishing; the mush the bulkiest—­it made a bigger show, but did not stay with one so long.  The dumplings held an intermediate position—­the water in which they were boiled becoming a sort of a broth that helped to stay the stomach.  We received no salt, as a rule.  No one knows the intense longing for this, when one goes without it for a while.  When, after a privation of weeks we would get a teaspoonful of salt apiece, it seemed as if every muscle in our bodies was invigorated.  We traded buttons to the guards for red peppers, and made our mush, or bread, or dumplings, hot with the fiery-pods, in hopes that this would make up for the lack of salt, but it was a failure.  One pinch of salt was worth all the pepper pods in the Southern Confederacy.  My little squad—­now diminished by death from five to three—­cooked our rations together to economize wood and waste of meal, and quarreled among, ourselves daily as to whether the joint stock should be converted into bread, mush or dumplings.  The decision depended upon the state of the stomach.  If very hungry, we made mush; if less famished, dumplings; if disposed to weigh matters, bread.