Chapter 39

JULY--THE PRISON BECOMES MORE CROWDED, THE WEATHER HOTTER, NATIONS
POORER, AND MORTALITY GREATER--SOME OF THE PHENOMENA OF SUFFERING AND
DEATH.

All during July the prisoners came streaming in by hundreds and thousands
from every portion of the long line of battle, stretching from the
Eastern bank of the Mississippi to the shores of the Atlantic. Over one
thousand squandered by Sturgis at Guntown came in; two thousand of those
captured in the desperate blow dealt by Hood against the Army of the
Tennessee on the 22d of the month before Atlanta; hundreds from Hunter's
luckless column in the Shenandoah Valley, thousands from Grant's lines in
front of Petersburg. In all, seven thousand one hundred and twenty-eight
were, during the month, turned into that seething mass of corrupting
humanity to be polluted and tainted by it, and to assist in turn to make
it fouler and deadlier. Over seventy hecatombs of chosen victims
--of fair youths in the first flush of hopeful manhood, at the threshold
of a life of honor to themselves and of usefulness to the community;
beardless boys, rich in the priceless affections of homes, fathers,
mothers, sisters and sweethearts, with minds thrilling with high
aspirations for the bright future, were sent in as the monthly sacrifice
to this Minotaur of the Rebellion, who, couched in his foul lair, slew
them, not with the merciful delivery of speedy death, as his Cretan
prototype did the annual tribute of Athenian youths and maidens, but,
gloating over his prey, doomed them to lingering destruction. He rotted
their flesh with the scurvy, racked their minds with intolerable
suspense, burned their bodies with the slow fire of famine, and delighted
in each separate pang, until they sank beneath the fearful accumulation.
Theseus [Sherman. D.W.]--the deliverer--was coming. His terrible sword
could be seen gleaming as it rose and fell on the banks of the James, and
in the mountains beyond Atlanta, where he was hewing his way towards them
and the heart of the Southern Confederacy. But he came too late to save
them. Strike as swiftly and as heavily as he would, he could not strike
so hard nor so sure at his foes with saber blow and musket shot, as they
could at the hapless youths with the dreadful armament of starvation and
disease.

Though the deaths were one thousand eight hundred and seventeen more than
were killed at the battle of Shiloh--this left the number in the prison
at the end of the month thirty-one thousand six hundred and
seventy-eight. Let me assist the reader's comprehension of the
magnitude of this number by giving the population of a few important
Cities, according to the census of 1870:

Cambridge, Mass 89,639
Charleston, S. C. 48,958
Columbus, O. 31,274