Private WALTER S. SMITH, sworn and examined:
Am from New York; enlisted August 27th, 1861, in the 48th New York’; captured July 18th taken to Columbia, S. C.; never had any blanket; rations were corn bread—enough— small piece of meat and rice; done very well there; from there taken to Richmond — Libby Prison.
Was put on Belle Isle in two days after; tents torn, holes in them; about half of our men slept outside—fifty; it rained through the tents.
Some laid out in the snow and frost; I laid on the ground; the men that laid out, some had blankets and some had none; some froze to death; many had their feet frozen; all that slept out suffered from cold some in tents suffered from cold.
I saw men that had frozen to death in the night; I saw this seven or eight times.
We had wheat bread when we first went there; about eight inches by four and a-half, by an inch and a half or more thick; meat ration four or five times a week, as big as my three fingers, each time, for three or four months; after that got none, except once in a while: I had a chronic diarrhœa; kept my strength pretty well till then; lost flesh before.
The corn bread was very poor—ground with cob; on the days they gave us meat, they gave us less bread; when we had meat, the bread ration was about one-half the size of the loaf produced here, (same as before referred to, weighing fifteen ounces); we got half of this loaf (for the whole day) when we got meat; two-thirds when we had no meat; we never got as much as the whole loaf; when we came away, they gave us rations to last through the day—one loaf; we got soup four or five times a week at first; soup and meat same day; latter part of time, scarce any soup.
The guards fared better; they got meat when we did not; they got a third more bread; our rations not sufficient to keep down hunger; suffered the last three months; had the diarrhœa twice; got it the last time, three or four days before I came away; the men suffered very much who had been on the island for some time; felt no pain when hungry; never kept from sleeping from hunger; left Belle Isle, 17th of March; think thirty or forty died while I was there.
I have heard the men running round the tents to keep warm at all hours of the night; the river was frozen a little while I was there; the current is rapid.
The water would freeze two or three inches in the bucket at night; the main street of the camp would be very much filled with men lying there. From the general talk from the men in the camp, I think that the statement, that seventeen men would die on an average a night, is likely to be correct.
WALTER S. SMITH.
Sworn to and subscribed before me,
May 31st, 1864.
D. P. BROWN, JR.,
United States Commissioner.
Certification for statements taken May 31 and June 1, 1864 (There was only one certification in the document; however it is being included here on the web-page for each applicable statement - MpG ):
I certify that the foregoing testimony was taken and reduced to writing in the presence of the respective witnesses, and by them sworn to in my presence, at the times, places, and in the manner set forth.
D. P. BROWN, JR., United States Commissioner.
Evidence of Officers and Soldiers of the United States Army Returned after Confinement in Rebel Prisons.
Testimony taken at Annapolis, Maryland, at United Slates Army General Hospital, May 31, A.D. 1864.