Now along late in the fall came a report that Sherman was on his way; that is, General Sherman, to release all of the prisoners of Andersonville prison and at Macon. The rebels had sent papers to the prison, stating that they were going to take us to the nearest point of exchange. This they did so that we would not try to escape, while being removed to other quarters. Soon after this, in a very few days, there came a rush of cars, and they put us aboard of these trains, composed of box cars, and we were crowded into bacon and cattle cars. As many as seventy-five or eighty of these poor starving men were put into one of these box cars and sent to different quarters of the South. Now at this time General Sherman was near Macon, about ten miles away—when they sent the last train load of us away from Andersonville, and all the way we plainly saw the devastation of burned and destroyed railroads and stations. It seemed that the extent of the destruction was for over forty miles, and here our progress was very slow and tedious. The train moved very slowly over all of this new road, and while passing along through this country the rebels would stop the train once in a while, to our great relief, and open the car doors to let the people see the Yankees, who were quite a sight for those Southern people. They would stand and gaze at us with great curiosity, and I have no doubt it was a great sight for them, for there were men in all conceivable shapes, without a rag to cover their backs. Many of them were the hardest looking sights, I do believe, that my eyes ever beheld, and at one of those small stations there was quite a large gathering of people and a large company of young boys, who had just been conscripted into the rebel service. Here they all stood to see the great train load of Yankee prisoners.
Right here something occurred that I can’t forget very soon. The large car doors had been shoved back and here stood the gazing and gaping crowd looking us over and asking all sorts of questions, and many of them were eating melons and apples, and they would throw the peelings and cores in to us. There was one saucy appearing rough who threw a cud of tobacco in the face of a tall looking veteran. He was close to the car door and it went in his eyes. He could not take this insult, and he jumped from the train to resist it and trampled this young rebel nearly to death, but he understood that he would be paid for his rash act with his life, for there were many rebels on each car with loaded guns. Just as soon as any of the prisoners attempted to leave the trains they were shot down without mercy. Oh, how many there were who tried to escape from the train and were shot down by the rebels guarding the train! We were carried from Andersonville to Charleston City, and here they ran us under the fire of our own guns and there were some severe shots fired at the train load of prisoners. There were quite a few shots that hit some of the cars, but soon the firing ceased. I think that it was soon learned that it was not an enemy reinforcement. Here they kept us in some large tobacco houses when it was learned that during the two or three days we had been in the box cars, so many in each car, and so close that there was not sitting room for them all. As I said before, there were seventy-five or eighty in one car. Some one had sawed a hole in the bottom of the car that we were placed in, which let us have more air than we would otherwise have had. It was a sad sight to see from eight to ten poor fellows taken out of each car half suffocated.