Davis received from month to month the reports of the
conditions in these and in the other prisons of the Confederacy. Davis
could not have been unaware of the stupidity and the brutality of
keeping prisoners in Richmond during the last winter of the War when the
lines of road still open were absolutely inadequate to supply the troops
in the trenches or the people of the town. Reports were brought to Davis
more than once from Andersonville showing that a large portion of the
deaths that were there occurring were due to the vile and rotten
condition of the hollow in which for years prisoners had been huddled
together; but the appeal made to Richmond for permission to move the
stockade to a clean and dry slope was put to one side as a matter of no
importance. The entire authority in the matter was in the hands of Davis
and a word from him would have remedied some of the worst conditions. He
must share with General Winder, the immediate superintendent of the
prisons, the responsibility for the heedless and brutal
mismanagement,--a mismanagement which brought death to thousands and
which left thousands of others cripples for life.
As a result of the informal word given by Lincoln, it was generally
understood, by all the officers, at least, in charge of posts and picket
lines along the eastern slope, that Davis was not to be captured.
Pages:
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184