Page:The Immortal Six Hundred.djvu/199

   back to me, and the kind face of that doctor, who did all that man could do for us with the medicines allowed for our use by that Christian soldier, Gen. J. G. Foster, U. S. A. All the doctor had in his medicine chest for use in the prison was calomel pills, opium pills, salts, and jamaica ginger, with a few other medicines the doctor would smuggle into the prison for the very sick. Had he been detected by Foster's spies in this act of humanity, he would have lost his commission, and possibly his liberty, for disobedience of orders. Language cannot describe our condition during the last days at Fort Pulaski, on the corn meal and pickle diet. Words are inadequate to make the picture. No pen can draw the ghastly picture and horrors of those days and nights, when the United States government permitted Gen. J. G. Foster, U. S. A., to starve six hundred helpless Confederate prisoners of war, at Fort Pulaski and Hilton Head. Edwin M. Stanton, Federal Secretary of War, gave the