Page:The Immortal Six Hundred.djvu/188

   subjected, and I challenge a denial. Since the 1st day of January last our ration has been per day ten ounces of corn meal, about four ounces of wheat bread, salt, etc., and more pickles than we can eat! And until very recently this, too, was the only diet for those of us who were sick. Three-fourths of our number are in consequence sick with scurvy, diarrhœa, and coughs, and supplies have not been allowed to reach such of us as had friends to send them, but were returned; and we are directed to apply to General Wessel at Washington, D. C, for permits to receive them. A number of applications have been made, but as yet no reply has been received. I write requesting that these facts be made known in the proper quarter. To our enemies I have no complaint to make.


 * Very truly your friend,
 * John S. Cantwell,
 * Captain 3d N. C. Inf.,
 * Prisoner of War.

Our condition was almost beyond endurance during the last days of January. Colonels De Gurney, Le Breton, Captain Cantwell, and others wrote Colonel Brown, commandant of the prison, a letter, which must have been sent to