The Fourth at Andersonville

A lady writes to the Worcester Spy: I am the wife of an Andersonville prisoner, and write only from facts received from my husband. Many prisoners, no doubt, like my husband, dislike to recall those terrible memories; but anniversaries, or other events, will bring up some particular incidents; so I am familiar with nearly all the trials and horrors of the prisons.

The Fourth of July, 1864, was celebrated by the Andersonville prisoners by a fast, which lasted three days. During that time no rations were issued, and this purposely, to men whom insufficient and improper food had already reduced nearly to starvation. They endured, besides, thirst, as the water supply was inadequate. Many died of that, until Providence, it seems, [...] on their behalf; for by as great a miracle as the Israelites ever knew, water gushed from the ground and all were supplied. Besides, they were without shelter from heat, cold, or storm.

All who survived, to my husband's knowledge, were men between twenty-one and forty, old soldiers, inured by two years' service to a soldier's life and to the climate. The rebel policy was to kill all possible and render the rest unfit for military duty, and in this they succeeded. No prisoner present at the meetings of the Andersonville Association but is subject to some disease, the effects of his imprisonment.