Surviving Andersonville: One Prisoner's Recollections of the Civil War's Most Notorious Camp
Ed Glennan
Language: English
Pages: 224
ISBN: 0786473614
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This is a documentary work offering a first-person account of a Union soldier's daily adversity while a prisoner of war from 20 September 1863 to 4 June 1865. In 1891, while a patient at the Leavenworth National Home, Irish immigrant Edward Glennan began to write down his experiences in vivid detail, describing the months of malnutrition, exposure, disease and self-doubt. The first six months Glennan was incarcerated at Libby and Danville prisons in Virginia. On 20 March 1864, Glennan entered Camp Sumter, located near Andersonville, Georgia. He reminisced about the events of his eight-month captivity at Andersonville, such as the hanging of the Raider Six, escape tunnels, gambling, trading, ration wagons, and disease. Afflicted with scurvy, Glennan nearly lost his ability to walk. To increase his chances for survival, he skillfully befriended other prisoners, sharing resources acquired through trade, theft and trickery. His friends left him either by parole or death. On 14 November 1864, Glennan was transported from Andersonville to Camp Parole in Maryland; there he remained until his discharge on 4 June 1865.
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I Know it?} Gosh, dont I feel Him? There He goes again. Ha, you [—] now I am going to Catch you So I reach my Hand Back & down my Back Bone. Ha! Ive got Him between my Thumb & Fore finger. I Haul Him out Kicking & Biting me He is ashamed to Show His dirty face to me after the way He Has treated me, Back Biting me, Living of[f] my Poor Bones. Goodness, nows How Long but Ive got you at Last, my Fine Fat Southern Fellow & I take Him by the nape of the neck & walk Him to a window where I Can see the
Gallant Stars & Stripes.” Glennan promised, with God’s help, he “would do it while there was danger to it” or he “would never show [his] face to [his father] at home, who so bravely told [him] to stick to [his] colors & do [his] duty.”7 In addition, while at Smithton, he was promoted to rank of corporal. Glennan participated in the battles of Island Number Ten, Corinth, Farmington, Columbia, Nashville, Stone River, Hoover’s Gap, Liberty Gap, Tullahoma, and Chickamauga of the Western Theater. Of
what the matter was. That was the Same Rule with us in our Army when troops were in Garrison or in Camp when Far away from the Enemy so that the Sound Seemed Natural to me. But the Fact to myself was Far, very Far, from me being alls well & with those thoughts, I went to Sleep. When I woke in the Morning & after the Rebel sergeant Had Came in & Counted us or called the Roll, Knowing I Had several Hours untill Ration time, I took a strolle around to Kill time & will Endeavor to give you what I
Dance & for a short time, there was musick without the Band but Every thing soon Quieted & the Ball went on with your Humble Servant in His Position. I Began My Army Life in war in Chicago August 1861—& I End it in June 1865 in Chicago with this my Last Trouble with Fellow man, For I was Discharged June 4th 1865—& now Kind Friends Farewell with many thanks For your Kindness in Following me through my Pleasures & Trails of three years & nine months of a Soldiers Life—Farewell. The End.
lined up for their piece of the available two million acres and within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie were formed, with populations of at least 10,000. [Roy Gittinger, The Formation of the State of Oklahoma (1803–1906) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1917), 152–157.] 21. The town of Neodesha is located in Wilson County in southeast Kansas. On 26 May 1888, Boston Corbett, John Wilkes Booth’s killer, escaped from an asylum and stayed briefly with Richard Thatcher. They