thoroughly drenched with rain. Changing
cars at Savannah, they proceeded to Macon, and thence to
Andersonville, arriving there at nine in the evening. Leaving the cars
they were marched into an open field near by, where they remained
during the night, and marched into the prison pen the next morning
under the escort of a strong guard. How each one felt as he entered
this "hell upon earth," can little be imagined. The first night ten
died near the position of the 16th. The men seemed to stand it pretty
well at first, much better than the other regiments captured at
Plymouth, and it was not until the 20th of June that the first of
their number died, Alonzo A. Bosworth, Co. D. But by the 1st of
August, some of the Sixteenth died nearly every day.

The inhuman treatment which our men experienced in Southern Prisons
has been told over and over, and is well known in history and need not
be repeated; but this history would not be complete without inserting
the following testimony of rebel barbarity taken from the diary of
Corporal Charles G. Lee, (Co. B.,) who died from exposure and lack of
food, immediately after being exchanged at Wilmington, N.C. He writes
as follows, "Again I am called to bid adieu to the passing year, but
under very different circumstances from any in which I have ever been.
During the year 1864, I have passed eight months in the most degrading
imprisonment. In that time, our inhuman captors had not furnished
shelter of any kind; and we have repeatedly been for two and three
days at a time without a morsel of food; and even that we have
received would at home have been generally thought unfit for swine. We
have not had a particle of meat for forty-two days, and but little
molasses, or any thing to take the place of it. Our rations chiefly
consist of about a pint and a half of coarse corn-meal, and half a
teaspoonful of salt daily. Now and then we receive a few beans or
sweet potatoes. Many a night have I lain awake because I was so hungry
that I could not sleep."

About the 1st of September the prisoners were removed to Charleston,
South Carolina, where they remained about four weeks, when the yellow
fever broke out and raged so fearfully among the rebel forces who
guarded the prisoners, that they were removed to Florence, where they
spent the winter months. During the latter part of December, 1864, and
the months of January and February, 1865, the men were--a few at a
time--paroled and allowed to come