The boys of '61; or, Four years of fightingPersonal observation with the army and navy, from the first battle of Bull run to the fall of Richmond . azed upon the iron-grated windows and the reeking filth uponthe slippery floors, and gave way to uncontrollable emotions. Libby Prison! What horrors it recalls! What sighs andgroans! What prayers and tears! What dying out of hope!What wasting away of body and mind ! What nights of dark-ness settling on human souls ! Its door an entrance to a livingcharnel-house, its iron-barred windows but the outlook of hell!It was the Inferno of the slave Confede
The boys of '61; or, Four years of fightingPersonal observation with the army and navy, from the first battle of Bull run to the fall of Richmond . azed upon the iron-grated windows and the reeking filth uponthe slippery floors, and gave way to uncontrollable emotions. Libby Prison! What horrors it recalls! What sighs andgroans! What prayers and tears! What dying out of hope!What wasting away of body and mind ! What nights of dark-ness settling on human souls ! Its door an entrance to a livingcharnel-house, its iron-barred windows but the outlook of hell!It was the Inferno of the slave Confederacy. Well might havebeen written over its portal, All hope abandon, ye who enterhere. Visiting the prison the next morning, I found it occupied byseveral hundred Rebels, who were peering from the gratedwindows, looking sadly upon the desolation around them. Alarge number were upon the roof, breathing the fresh air, andgazing upon the fields beyond the James, now green with theverdure of spring. Such liberty was never granted Union pris-oners. Whoever approached the prison bars, or laid his handupon them, became the victim of a Rebel WS?£hr # 1865.] RICHMOND. ,)15 There was a crowd of women with pails and buckets at thewindows, giving the prisoners provisions and talking freelywith their friends, who came not only to the windows, but tothe door, where the good-natured sentinel allowed conversationwithout restraint. The officer in charge conducted our party through the wardsThe air was saturated with vile odors, arising from the un-washed crowd, — from old rags and dirty garments, frompuddles of filthy water which dripped through the floor, randown the walls, sickening to all the senses. From this prisonfifteen hundred men were hurried to the flag-of-truce boat onSunday, that they might be exchanged before the evacuationof the city. Many thousands had lived there month aftermonth, wasting away, starving, dying of fever, of consumption,of all diseases known to medical
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Keywords: ., bookauthorcoffinch, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookyear1884
