The great majority of the prisoners who went to the Creek for water, went as near as possible to the Dead Line on the West Side, where the Creek entered the Stockade, that they might get water with as little filth in it as possible.  In the crowds struggling there for their turn to take a dip, some one nearly every day got so close to the Dead Line as to arouse a suspicion in the guard’s mind that he was touching it.  The suspicion was the unfortunate one’s death warrant, and also its execution.  As the sluggish brain of the guard conceived it he leveled his gun; the distance to his victim was not over one hundred feet; he never failed his aim; the first warning the wretched prisoner got that he was suspected of transgressing a prison-rule was the charge of “ball-and-buck” that tore through his body.  It was lucky if he was, the only one of the group killed.  More wicked and unjustifiable murders never were committed than these almost daily assassinations at the Creek.

One morning the camp was astonished beyond measure to discover that during the night a large, bold spring had burst out on the North Side, about midway between the Swamp and the summit of the hill.  It poured out its grateful flood of pure, sweet water in an apparently exhaustless quantity.  To the many who looked in wonder upon it, it seemed as truly a heaven-wrought miracle as when Moses’s enchanted rod smote the parched rock in Sinai’s desert waste, and the living waters gushed forth.

The police took charge of the spring, and every one was compelled to take his regular turn in filling his vessel.  This was kept up during our whole stay in Andersonville, and every morning, shortly after daybreak, a thousand men could be seen standing in line, waiting their turns to fill their cans and cups with the precious liquid.

I am told by comrades who have revisited the Stockade of recent years, that the spring is yet running as when we left, and is held in most pious veneration by the negros of that vicinity, who still preserve the tradition of its miraculous origin, and ascribe to its water wonderful grace giving and healing properties, similar to those which pious Catholics believe exist in the holy water of the fountain at Lourdes.

I must confess that I do not think they are so very far from right.  If I could believe that any water was sacred and thaumaturgic, it would be of that fountain which appeared so opportunely for the benefit of the perishing thousands of Andersonville.  And when I hear of people bringing water for baptismal purposes from the Jordan, I say in my heart, “How much more would I value for myself and friends the administration of the chrismal sacrament with the diviner flow from that low sand-hill in Western Georgia.”

CHAPTER XLVII.