The True Story of Andersonville Prison (Civil War Memoir). James Madison Page

I was trying to make up for lost time and get even with my eight days' fast. The tears come to my eyes now when I recall the many instances of — I must call it deception, on the part of my comrades in order to divide their meager rations with me.

      "Here, Jim," said Bowles, a few days after I had got on my feet, "take part of my hoe-cake and put it down your neck. I am not very hungry today and have had enough." He was starving and I knew it.

      Oh, how tenderly they cared for me—Bowles and Whitcomb and Swain and Dalzell and Douglas and Monroe and Whitworth and Holcomb!

      Thanks to the brave fellows, I gained strength and lived.

      While I was convalescing, a rebel soldier off duty passed me one day with a bundle. He turned and keenly looked at me. I was little more than skin and bones. After eyeing me for a second with a look of "Southern hatred" and with an air of "studied cruelty," he handed me a large red apple, and adding insult to injury, he said, "Stick your teeth into that apple, Yank, and try for a minute to fohget about the Nawth."

      He hurried away before I had time to thank him; in fact, he didn't give me an opportunity to speak a word. I was dumbfounded. His reward will come to him hereafter.

      I never saw him afterward, although I tried to find him, and my seeming ingratitude has been a source of regret to me ever since. I hugged the apple to my breast, then sat down and cried. I then took it to the boys and insisted upon its being divided. "No," said Swain, "it will only be a taste for us. Don't be silly, Jim. You must eat it yourself." But it was passed around and each one took a good smell of it. It was one of those fine, large apples with a delicious fruity aroma.

      I kept the apple until the following day, when one of our men happened to get a loaf of white bread. He gave me a liberal portion of it, and with half the apple, for I would have no more, I had a feast, and I thought that when I got home I never would want anything to eat but white bread and apples.

      After this I fully recovered my health and strength, and soon entered into active business on "Market Street."

      I sold my watch (a present from my brother Rodney) to one of the guards and laid out the price of it in a stock of salables, consisting of sausage, biscuits, chewing and smoking tobacco, and such things. Each day I would take a portion of my merchandise and prepare it for sale by retail. The sausage I cut into small pieces, and putting part of my stock as temptingly as I could on a piece of board, I marched up and down Market Street, which ran from the main entrance through the prison grounds, crying out my wares: "Here is your fresh, delicious sausage, only ten cents in money or a dollar in 'confed.' " My business was fairly good, but I was more than eating up the profits. I kept at it day after day, buying a fresh supply with the money I was taking in; but both stock and money were dwindling. At night I would be tired and would sleep well. In this way I kept my mind occupied, and obtained a little means to satisfy my cravings for food, which helped me to endure my miserable surroundings.

      At last I "went broke," and something had to be done to get back in business again. I made a bargain with one of the guards. I traded him a pair of expensive cavalry boots that cost me $15 shortly before I was captured, for a haversack full of small hard biscuits and a quantity of tobacco. As soon as I reached my tent I gave half my stock to Dar Swain, my bunk-mate. It was evening and I was very hungry, but I concluded to pass the night on an empty stomach rather than the next forenoon. I wanted to be in the best condition possible to re-embark in the mercantile business, and placed my stock in trade under my head for a pillow. Next morning my first thought was for my valued haversack, and I reached for it and found it missing. Some "Yank," hungrier than myself, had purloined it by cutting a hole in the tent. I don't think that I ever met with a loss in my life that I felt as keenly as this. But Swain had his share safe and another division was made of the property.

      Eleven of us that were captured together, all close friends and comrades, now occupied an old bell tent that furnished us shelter. Our condition was far better than it had been before I was taken sick, and about the first of November blankets were issued to each one of us by the Confederate authorities. This was a God-send to the prisoners, as the weather was getting more severe.

      Of the eleven, I can remember the names of nine, Wm. Bowles and T. T. Whitcomb of Company L, Sixth Michigan Cavalry. The others belonged to Company A, Sixth Michigan Cavalry, namely: Darwin P. Swain, Wm. Dalzell, Reuben B. Douglas, David A. Monroe, Wm. G. Whit-worth, John Holcomb, and myself.

      The liveliest one of our squad was Wm. V. Bowles, first sergeant of Company L, Sixth Michigan Cavalry. He was a natural-born soldier; born and reared in the English army, where his father was a soldier. He was a hardy, jolly companion, always making the best of everything and thankful that it was no worse; but on Christmas Day, when for some unknown cause there were no rations issued to us and we were obliged to retire to our quarters unusually hungry, it was too much for Bowles, and he lustily cursed the "blowsted" Southern Confederacy for giving him nothing to eat on Christmas Day.

      "Why, ye knaw," said he, "the lowiest 'cottier' in England will have his roast beef and plum puddin' on Christmas Day!" He cursed the whole country from Baffin's Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. The Washington Government and Secretary Stan-ton came in for a full measure of vigorous profanity. He wound up with, "You half-starved Yankees, we are not going to be cheated out of our Christmas dinner. I shall now invite you all to a Christmas dinner to take the place of this one that we didn't have to-day. As soon as we are exchanged I shall set up the dinner and pay for it myself." And, taking a small memorandum-book, he took down our names and made out a bill of fare. It was an elaborate menu. We expected as usual to be exchanged in a few days.

      Bowles's bill of fare was an inviting one. It consisted, to begin with, of turkey stuffed with oysters, plum pudding and roast beef. I have forgotten the minor items. We knew that he would keep his word if he had to pawn his clothes. Bill Bowles never went back on a friend and never went back on his word.

      The bill of fare was headed with: "Bill of fare that we didn't get at Belle Isle, on Christmas, 1863." The discussion of this forthcoming dinner brought tears to the eyes of the most of us, but there was not that degree of grief that was exhibited by the very few of us who did really partake of that dinner, precisely as Bowles designed it, after we were exchanged at Baltimore, late in 1864. Only two of us partook of it, but Sergeant Bill Bowles kept his word.