from the Stockade. These still wore the same lice-infested garments as
in prison; no baths or even ordinary applications of soap and water
cleaned their dirt-grimed skins, to give their pores an opportunity to
assist in restoring them to health; even their long, lank and matted
hair, swarming with vermin, was not trimmed. The most ordinary and
obvious measures for their comfort and care were neglected. If a man
recovered he did it almost in spite of fate. The medicines given were
scanty and crude. The principal remedial agent--as far as my observation
extended--was a rank, fetid species of unrectified spirits, which, I was
told, was made from sorgum seed. It had a light-green tinge, and was
about as inviting to the taste as spirits of turpentine. It was given to
the sick in small quantities mixed with water. I had had some experience
with Kentucky "apple-jack," which, it was popularly believed among the
boys, would dissolve a piece of the fattest pork thrown into it, but that
seemed balmy and oily alongside of this. After tasting some, I ceased to
wonder at the atrocities of Wirz and his associates. Nothing would seem
too bad to a man who made that his habitual tipple.

[For a more particular description of the Hospital I must refer my reader
to the testimony of Professor Jones, in a previous chapter.]

Certainly this continent has never seen--and I fervently trust it will
never again see--such a gigantic concentration of misery as that Hospital
displayed daily. The official statistics tell the story of this with
terrible brevity: There were three thousand seven hundred and nine in the
Hospital in August; one thousand four hundred and eighty-nine--nearly
every other man died. The rate afterwards became much higher than this.

The most conspicuous suffering was in the gangrene wards. Horrible sores
spreading almost visibly from hour to hour, devoured men's limbs and