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13 “Will not God deliver us from this hell?” The Downward spiral on november 21, 1864, Gen. Winder was finally named commissary general of prisoners for the Confederacy. All officers and men at Confederate prisons east of the mississippi were now officially under his authority. more important, “Commandants of posts in the vicinity of these military prisons are made subordinate to Brigadier General Winder in all matters necessary for the security of the prisoners. Department, army and other commanders are required not to interfere with the prisoners, the prison guard, or the administration of the prisons.”1 The order addressed a situation that had long frustrated Gen. Gardner. Although the War Department had placed him in charge of prisons in virginia and the Carolinas, he was seldom informed of the movements of prisoners. on october 14 he complained to officials in Richmond that the officers held at Columbia had been sent there “without my knowledge or consent.” he had “heard unofficially ” about the prison at florence. “local commanders will move prisoners about and interfere in various ways, so as to baffle all efforts to secure harmony and method,” he complained.2 The orders left no question as to Winder’s authority. Unfortunately they came three years too late. By the time the appointment came, careful planning was out of the question.The Confederacy was on its last legs, and all the commissary general could do was react to a deteriorating situation. Advancing Union armies were drastically reducing the options available for prison location. strained resources added to the problem. With no commissary general of prisoners in place, Confederate prison policy had been haphazard since 1861. now, even with a capable officer in place, circumstances dictated that it would continue to be haphazard. virtually any location that could be utilized as a prison soon was—at least tem- Downward Spiral • 211 porarily. even Richmond, despite the nearby presence of the Army of the Potomac , again housed prisoners during the late summer and fall of 1864. libby served as a holding facility for newly captured yankees. for most the stay was brief before they could be sent on to prisons farther south. however, at least a few captured in late August remained for several weeks before being either exchanged or transferred.3 some things had not changed at the former warehouse. on his first morning at libby, Julius f. Ramsdell of theThirty-ninth massachusetts approached a window for a breath of fresh air. “The guard on the sidewalk below seeing me, leveled his gun and threatened to fire,” Ramsdell wrote. “i drew back quickly, for the balls in the beams overhead were proof enough for me that he would have kept his word if i had not done so.” George Albee of the Thirty-sixth Wisconsin reported that the guards were “a parcel of old men & Boys in citizen dress.” Albee and his fellow prisoners found their attempts at guard mounting “quite interesting.” As Ramsdell indicated, they had to watch carefully to avoid hearing “the clicking of one of their old Rusty muskets.”4 As before, the libby rations were a source of complaint among the prisoners. “Got some stuff called bean soup about 5 p.m.,” maj. Byron Parsons of the ninetyfourth new york wrote. “The meat had the appearance of having been boiled without washing.” The next day brought an issue of “stinking ham & corn bread” for breakfast and “more of the celebrated bean soup” in the evening. later rations of beans were filled with bugs.The quantity of rations was no better than the quality. on september 16 Albee wrote, “To day my Ration was a little bigger than yesterday & i am not quite as hungry, for it had grown to be a settled fact that i am to be more or less hungry as long as i am in Rebel hands.”5 Another settled fact of prison life was the presence of lice. on september 9 Albee wrote that he “‘skirmished’ [and] found the ‘Graybacks’ thicker than i have before since i have been here.” six days later Parsons observed, “had a good time looking for lice this morning found three very large ones and plenty of nitts.”6 Although life at libby was less than desirable, Albee realized that things could have been worse. on a cold and rainy september 6 he wrote, “our condition seems bad enough but i can’t help but think of & pity our poor boys over on Belle island who have less to eat than us & have no...

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