Martyria Part 4

How many a n.o.ble regiment have we seen impaired in its effective strength, and robbed of its glorious future, by the injudicious encampment, where vain and ignorant officers have sacrificed the health and morale of their men to please their fanciful ideas as to military etiquette--the form of shelter, the position, and the regularity of the prescribed lines of encampment!

In one of the last campaigns of Europe, when all the resources which modern wealth could afford were lavished with unsparing hand, there was a useless and preventible loss of life, that recalled the most disastrous epidemics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

War is one of the natural laws for the demolition of the human race, and we see the spirit of destruction silently at work among friends as well as foes. The supreme commands seem mysteriously to be placed in the hands of men who can cause the greatest devastation and sacrifice of life; who march their columns steadily to the deadly and murderous a.s.sault when there is no occasion for it; who encamp their troops in pestilential lowlands, when the healthy heights offer safer and better accommodations.

"n.o.bilitas c.u.m plebe perit, lateque vagatur ensis."

II.

It is a melancholy fact, attested by the distinguished Marshal Saxe, that the military men of modern times are far less informed than the great generals of antiquity in the profound knowledge of public hygiene, and especially of that which relates to the economy of armies. We can admire, but hardly improve, the physical education imposed upon the volunteers of Sparta and the legionaries of Rome; and we have not surpa.s.sed their scientific, yet rude alimentation, by which they marched over immense distances with rapidity, and preserved their vigor and morale. From the extant doc.u.ments of the ancients, from Xenophon or Vegetius, it is shown that their acquaintance with whatever related to clothing, encampment, food, the graduation of exercises, and the employ of forces, was of the highest character.

The effects of high and low lands, of good and bad water, on the diseases, energy, character, and intellect of man, have been sketched in a masterly manner by Hippocrates.

The exposure of a few hours to malignant influences may impair the strength of an army to such a degree as to thwart the most skilful plans, the wisest combinations for vigorous campaigns, as, for instance, the Walcheren expedition of the English, the Neapolitan campaign of France, when her army was reduced from twenty-eight thousand to four thousand effective men, in one hundred hours, from an injudicious encampment at Baie, or when Orloff lost his army in Paros, or, still later, the disaster to the splendid division of the French army under Espina.s.se, in the fatal Dobrutscha.

Armies have been lost, the fate of empires decided, by the violation or neglect of the simple rules of hygiene; and all through the blood-stained pages of military history do we observe examples, from the time when Scipio lost the battle of Trebbia, or when Bajazet threw away his vast empire on the plains of Angora, down to Kunersdorf, when the impetuosity of Frederick the Great would not allow rest to his men or horses.

III.

In 1863 the depots near Richmond became so crowded by the Federal prisoners that it became a matter of serious consideration to the rebel authorities how to guard them, and attempt to feed them and the regiments guarding them. Then the idea was conceived of forming a Great camp in the Gulf States, in a locality fruitful in grain, and in a position secure from raids from the Federal cavalry. Several locations were examined, but none pleased the selecting officer, until he had examined the site at Andersonville, to which he conceived a particular fancy. There were places in this section of the country where pure water could be obtained in abundance, but these spots were not so readily accessible, and wood was not so plenty and handy as at this. There was another consideration in the public view of its selection, that it was in the heart of the best corn-producing region at that time in Georgia, and easy access could be had with the everglades of Florida, where herds of half wild cattle roamed at will.

It is not the belief of the writer, although there are many facts to warrant such an inference, that the selection was made with the view of deliberately destroying the prisoners openly, and without reserve, for there were other localities far more pestilential than this; and yet, on the other hand, there were also many situations infinitely more salubrious and easy of access. There was in reality not much reflection in the matter. The selectors thought only of the geographical and strategical position; they cared not for its topography or its meteorology.

They consulted only their convenience. The idea of the preservation of the lives of their unfortunate prisoners never troubled their minds, never disturbed their conscience. They would build a safe and secure pen, and if G.o.d, in his infinite and mysterious mercy, chose to summon from earth any of the hapless wretches, they would not consider themselves as accountable for the premature deaths. Such was their reasoning. Such was their philosophy. Such was their conscience. The exult of Winder, when a.s.serting that he was doing more for the Confederacy than a dozen regiments at the front, and the exclamation of Howell Cobb, when pointing to the ten thousand graves, "That is the way I would do for them," were perhaps the bravado of the southern slaveholder. Even at this late date we can find men, of some tenderness, in this vicinity, who have reasoned their weak minds into the idea and belief that no harm was ever done or intended; and even if it can be proved, then the Federals only received what they deserved, and no more than their own sons in the prisons of the North endured.

Such was the conscience of the Pharisee.

Such was the remark made to the writer by a southern gentleman over the graves of the victims.

IV.

The topographical features of the site are not particularly objectionable for an encampment of a few hundred men.

The northern and southern banks incline sufficiently towards the stream in the centre to allow of proper drainage. The stream itself furnished water in sufficient volume to provide for the wants of ten thousand men, if it had been turned from its channel above the stockade, and introduced into the prison by simple sluices. But to this important item there was not the least attention paid.

To preface the a.n.a.lysis of this stockade, &c., we may wisely review the remarks of the late Dr. Jackson, the chief medical officer of the British army.

V.

"A necessity occurs in war, on many occasions, which leaves no option of choice in occupying posts of an unhealthy character: but there is, unfortunately, an authority, derived from example and the sanction of great names, which directs the military officer, when under no military necessity, to fix his encampment on grounds which are unhealthy in themselves, or which are exposed by position to the influence of noxious causes, which are carried from a distance.

"Such advice proceeds from the desire to act on a presumption of knowledge, which cannot be ascertained, rather than to act by the experience of facts, which man is qualified to observe and verify.

"It is consonant with the experience of military people, in all ages and in all countries, that camp diseases most abound near the muddy banks of large rivers, near swamps, and ponds, and on grounds which have been recently stripped of their woods. The fact is precise: but it has been set aside to make way for an opinion.

"It was a.s.sumed, about half a century since, by a celebrated army physician, that camp diseases originate from causes of putrefaction, and that putrefaction is connected radically with a stagnant condition of the air. As streams of air usually proceed along rivers, with more certainty and force than in other places, and as there is evidently a more certain movement of air, that is, more winds, on open grounds than among woods and thickets, this sole consideration, without any regard to experience, influenced opinion, and gave currency to the destructive maxim, that the banks of rivers, open grounds, and exposed heights, are the most eligible situations for the encampment of troops. They are the best ventilated: they must, if the theory be true, be the most healthy. The fact is the reverse. But demonstrative as the fact may be, fas.h.i.+on has more influence than multiplied examples of fact, experimentally proved.

"Encampments are still formed in the vicinity of swamps, or on grounds which are newly cleared of their woods, in obedience to theory, and contrary to fact. The savage, who acts by instinct, or who acts directly from the impressions of experience, has in this instance the advantage over the philosopher, who, reasoning concerning causes he cannot know, and acting according to the result of his reasonings, errs and leads others astray by the authority of his name.

"The savage feels, and acting by the impression of what he feels, instead of fixing his habitation on the exposed bank of large rivers, unsheltered heights, or grounds newly cleared of their woods, seeks the cover of the forests, even avoids the streams of air which proceed from rivers, from the surface of ponds, or from lands newly opened to the sun. The rule of the savage is a rule of experience, founded in truth, and applicable to the encampment of troops, even of civilized Europeans.

"In accordance with this principle, it is almost uniformly true, _caeteris paribus_, that diseases are more common, at least more violent, in broken, irregular, and hilly countries, where the temperature is liable to sudden changes, and where blasts descend with fury from the mountains, than in large and extensive inclined plains, under the action of equal and gentle breezes only. From this fact, it becomes an object of the first consideration, in choosing ground for encampments, to guard against the impression of strong winds, on their own account, independently of their proceeding from swamps, rivers, and noxious soils.

"In countries covered with woods, abundantly supplied with straw, and other materials applicable to the purpose of forming shelter, it is, upon the whole, better to raise huts and construct bowers than to carry canvas.

The individual is exercised by labor, and as his mind is employed in contriving and executing something for self-accommodation, he is furnished with a daily opportunity of renewing the pleasure. The mode of hutting, here recommended, effectually precludes the evils arising from those contaminations of air in which contagion is generated--an evil which often arises in tents, and is carried about with an army in all its movements in the field."

The view of the ancients in regard to the encampment of troops may be understood from the counsel of Vegetius: "Ne aridis et sine opacitate arborum campis, aut collibus ne sine tentoriis aestate milites commorentur."

VI.

As we have remarked before, the site of the prison was covered with trees when its outlines were traced and surveyed by the rebel engineers. These trees, felled to the ground, were hewn, and matched so well on the inner line of the palisades as to give no glimpse of the outer world across the s.p.a.ce of the dead line, which averaged nineteen feet in width, and which was defined by a frail wooden railing about three feet in height, from fifteen to twenty-five feet distant from the palisades.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

This line of stockade rose from fifteen to eighteen feet above the surface of the ground, while the outer line of logs, which was erected about sixty paces distant from the inner line, was formed of the rough trunks of pines, and projected twelve feet above the earth. The original stockade measured but ten hundred and ten feet in length, and seven hundred and eighty-three feet in width; and within this s.p.a.ce were jammed together, for several months, from twenty-two thousand to thirty-five thousand men, thus giving a superficial area to each man, when the prison contained thirty thousand prisoners, but seventeen square feet, after deducting the nineteen feet average for the dead line, and the quagmire, three hundred feet in width. This measurement would allow for thirty-five thousand men but fifteen square feet of area, or less than two square yards to each person, or more than twenty times the density of Liverpool. This was all the s.p.a.ce that was afforded before the enlargement, and this reckoning does not include roads or by-paths for communication among the prisoners.

Seventeen and a half square feet of earth are allowed for the coffin's length in the field of sepulchres. There were here to be seen twelve acres of living men, packed together like the immense shoals of fish in the ocean, but like nothing that has life on the earth, not even the ant-fields. The ratio of density was equivalent to more than sixteen hundred thousand people to the square mile. The densest portion of East London has the great number of one hundred and sixty thousand to the square mile.

VII.

In the month of August the stockade was lengthened six hundred and ten feet, by what influence or from what cause it is unknown; but nevertheless it was enlarged to the length of sixteen hundred and twenty feet,--thus making the entire area sixteen hundred and twenty by seven hundred and eighty-three feet. This enlargement was a salutary movement on a small scale, but it only prolonged the sufferings of the victims. The thirty thousand men had now twenty-two acres, minus the dead line and marsh, or thirty square feet per man, or three and a half square yards. There were actually, during this month, thirty-five thousand men within the prison, and some authorities give me as high as thirty-six thousand. This density is enormous, and cannot be tolerated by animal life in any climate, in any lat.i.tude, of the world. There must be s.p.a.ce for organic life to develop and maintain itself, otherwise it perishes. To give a correct idea of the crowded condition of this pen, we do not know where to turn for example.

The great cities of civilized lands do not even approximate in their ratio of populations.

The relation of density, in the three great divisions of London, give thirty-five, one hundred and nineteen, and one hundred and eighty square yards to each inhabitant. The densest portion of Liverpool, with its lofty and immense brick ranges of buildings, swarming with industrial life, gives more than eighty square feet to each person. The early Roman camps, which are a marvel to military men, and the closest known to military science, gave to the ordinary legion three hundred and sixty-seven square feet of area to each man. The plans of Polybius give two hundred and thirty square feet to each soldier of the consular army of two legions, numbering nearly eighteen thousand men, and the descriptions of Hyginus give similar ratios.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _PLAN OF PRISON GROUNDS_ ANDERSONVILLE

_Measured by Dr. Hamlin Copy right secured_

J. H. BUFFORD'S LITH BOSTON.]

The encampments of the United States infantry afford, in the most restricted portion (between stacks of arms and kitchens), two hundred and forty-four square feet per man, or seventeen hundred and thirty-one square feet per man for the whole camp.

The s.p.a.ce allowed by law for barracks alone is fifty-four square feet for each soldier, reckoned on the basis of a full complement of men. The rules of the rebel army concerning camps are the same as those of the regulations of the United States army.

The United States prison at Elmira contained six thousand men, and extended over forty acres. The other prisons, at Chicago, Johnson's Island, Point Lookout, and Fort Delaware, were provided with s.p.a.cious exercise grounds, and furnished with covered barracks, built of proper form, and fitted up with the required conveniences of life. Belle Isle, which held ten thousand prisoners, had but six acres, and no shelter, no conveniences whatever.

Andersonville, which contained over thirty thousand prisoners, had in the stockade, before enlargement, but eighteen acres in all, and but twelve acres for the use of the prisoners, minus the dead line and the marsh.