Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/125

Rh rancid. Of one of these meats a half pound a day was issued for each prisoner, and considering the kind of ration this was certainly enough.

The square box contained "hard tack," a kind of ship biscuit that would have been nutritious and wholesome if in good condition, but which was always stale, often moulded, not unfrequently wormy and putrescent. These articles of diet, with once a week perhaps some Irish potatoes and an occasional change to fresh beef, constituted our prison diet. The rancid meat and the musted bread, which made the staple of it, were utterly destructive of health, and had we not been provided with better food through the generosity of friends in Baltimore, without the knowledge of the officers of the fort, few of us would have survived even the brief time of our imprisonment.

That it was the design of the Federal authorities to subject us to these hardships I seriously question. I think that in both Confederate and Federal prisons it will be found that most of the discomforts and privations came through the negligence or malice or greed of those to whom the care of the prisoners was immediately entrusted. The assistant steward, who brought our rations to us, acknowledged, when closely pressed, that the rations served to us were not those issued to us by the Government, but damaged commissary stores that had been condemned for army use and sold at auction in Baltimore, and which were bought by the steward of the prison for a mere trifle and issued to us, whilst the rations assigned us by the Government were converted to their own use and disposed of at high rates of profit.

We did not live upon these rations. Kind friends in Baltimore supplied us from time to time with money. Cooked vegetables and fruits were brought every day into the barracks for sale, and we were thus enabled to purchase what was needful to our comfort and health. Indeed, if the friends of the South in Baltimore had been permitted to do for us all that their generous hearts prompted, our every want would have been supplied. Day after day we saw carriages enter the fort laden with blankets and clothing, while the white handkerchiefs waved to us as the carriages swept by showed us that these supplies were designed for us. They never reached us, however, and though many of our number were in threadbare clothing, and during the latter part of our stay shivering with cold, the only supplies of clothing they received were those which by secret channels of communication were conveyed to us by friends.