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sp;                                   EckhartMines,
                              Alleghany County, Md., March 24.

To the Editor of the Blade: 

Last evening I saw a copy of your paper, in which was a chapter or two of a prison life of a soldier during the late war.  I was forcibly struck with the correctness of what he wrote, and the names of several of my old comrades which he quoted:  Hill, Limber Jim, etc., etc.  I was a drummer boy of Company I, Tenth West Virginia Infantry, and was fifteen years of age a day or two after arriving in Andersonville, which was in the last of February, 1884.  Nineteen of my comrades were there with me, and, poor fellows, they are there yet.  I have no doubt that I would have remained there, too, had I not been more fortunate.

I do not know who your soldier correspondent is, but assume to say that from the following description he will remember having seen me in Andersonville:  I was the little boy that for three or four months officiated as orderly for Captain Wirz.  I wore a red cap, and every day could be seen riding Wirz’s gray mare, either at headquarters, or about the Stockade.  I was acting in this capacity when the six raiders —­“Mosby,” (proper name Collins) Delaney, Curtis, and—­I forget the other names—­were executed.  I believe that I was the first that conveyed the intelligence to them that Confederate General Winder had approved their sentence.  As soon as Wirz received the dispatch to that effect, I ran down to the stocks and told them.

I visited Hill, of Wauseon, Fulton County, O., since the war, and found him hale and hearty.  I have not heard from him for a number of years until reading your correspondent’s letter last evening.  It is the only letter of the series that I have seen, but after reading that one, I feel called upon to certify that I have no doubts of the truthfulness of your correspondent’s story.  The world will never know or believe the horrors of Andersonville and other prisons in the South.  No living, human being, in my judgment, will ever be able to properly paint the horrors of those infernal dens.

I formed the acquaintance of several Ohio soldiers whilst in prison.  Among these were O. D. Streeter, of Cleveland, who went to Andersonville about the same time that I did, and escaped, and was the only man that I ever knew that escaped and reached our lines.  After an absence of several months he was retaken in one of Sherman’s battles before Atlanta, and brought back.  I also knew John L. Richards, of Fostoria, Seneca County, O. or Eaglesville, Wood County.  Also, a man by the name of Beverly, who was a partner of Charley Aucklebv, of Tennessee.  I would like to hear from all of these parties.  They all know me.

Mr. Editor, I will close by wishing all my comrades who shared in the
sufferings and dangers of Confederate prisons, a long and useful life. 
                                   Yours truly,
                                                  Ransom T. Powell