Reports of the Committee on the Conduct of the War Part 60

Answer. I was put on Belle Isle first, and then I got sick and was taken to the hospital.

Question. Describe how you were treated there, and the cause of your sickness.

Answer. They did not treat me very kindly. I froze my feet on the island.

Question. How came they to be frozen?

Answer. When they took me prisoner they got away the good shoes I had on, and gave me an old pair of shoes, all cut and split open; and when I was on the island, I had just an old tent to lie under.

Question. Did you not have some blankets to put over you?

Answer. No, sir. They took away my blanket, and everything else--my shoes--even a pair of buckskin gloves I had.

Question. Did they give you anything in place of them?

Answer. No, sir; only that pair of shoes I said.

Question. You had stockings?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. What kind of a tent did you have?

Answer. The tent was not very good; the rain beat right through it.

Question. How badly were your feet frozen?

Answer. Well, my toes are all off one of my feet now. [The surgeon accompanying the committee here took the dressings off the witness's feet, and exhibited them to the committee. The stumps of the toes were just healing.]

Question. What did they give you to eat?

Answer. They gave us corn-bread, and once in a while a little piece of meat.

Question. How often did they give you meat?

Answer. Maybe once a day; maybe once a week--just as they happened to have it.

Question. Did you get enough to eat, such as it was?

Answer. No, sir; I did not even get enough corn-bread.

Question. How long were you on the island?

Answer. I was on the island only a month, and in the hospital three months.

Question. How long is it since you were exchanged?

Answer. I came here on the 24th of March.

Question. There were others there with you on the island?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. How did they fare?

Answer. The same as I did; we all fared alike.

Question. Were any others frozen?

Answer. Yes, sir; plenty of them frozen to death.

Question. Frozen to death?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. Were their blankets taken away like yours?

Answer. Yes, sir; they had to lie out in the open ditch. They did not have as good over them as I had.

Question. Did not they have a tent to sleep under?

Answer. No, sir; no tent at all. There was an embankment thrown up, so as to keep them inside like, and they had to lie right down in the ditch there.

Question. With nothing over them?

Answer. If some of them had their blanket, they put that over them; but they had no tent, or anything of that kind.

Question. Nothing to keep off the rain and snow?

Answer. No, sir; nothing at all.

Question. Are you certain that any of them froze to death there?

Answer. Yes, sir, I am.

Question. State about the treatment you received after your feet were frozen, when you were in the hospital.

Answer. Sometimes my feet were dressed there every day; sometimes I went three or four days without dressing--just whether their nurses happened to be busy or not. When I was exchanged, I had not been dressed for four or five days.

Question. Were any of the confederate sick in the hospital with you?

Answer. Not that I know of.

Question. Do you know how they treated their own soldiers that were in the hospital?

Answer. I do not. I suppose they treated them better than they did us, though.

Question. Was your food any better in the hospital than on the island?