On the 3d of September a train load of one thousand men was shipped away from the prison, and each day after that saw the exodus of a like number, until all who were able to walk to the station had been shipped to more secure points. Some were sent to Millen and Savannah, Ga., and some to Charleston, and Columbia, South Carolina.
During the latter part of August long sheds with an upper and lower floor, and open at the sides, had been built in the northern portion of the stockade. The carpenters who performed the labor of building these sheds or barracks, as they were called, were of our own numbers. They received as compensation for their labor an extra ration of food, and they thought themselves lucky to get a chance to work for their board, as indeed, they were.
On the 5th Ole Gilbert, Rouse, and myself left our quarters near the swamp, and moved into the sheds. We gave up our well with regret, as it had proved to be a great blessing to us, but September had come, and soon the storms of the autumnal equinox would be upon us, and our little tent, made of a ragged blanket and pine boughs, would but poorly shelter us from the storm.
We took up our quarters on the upper floor, with no straw for bedding, nothing between our skeleton like bodies and the floor but a piece of ragged blanket. We suffered terribly for the lack of bedding, our protruding hip bones could not possibly reconcile themselves to the hard floor and we were rolling about continually trying to find some part of our anatomy that would fit a pine board, but we never found it. But we did find a little purer air than we found down by the excrement burdened swamp, the foul gases arising from decomposing human excrements fermenting in a hot sun were not quite so strong and nauseous and besides we had a little more room. Day by day the thinning process went on, there being two strong powers at work to accomplish the task, death and the trains of cars.
I have never been quite satisfied with the tables of mortality published with reference to Andersonville. Dr. Jones in his report, gives the number who died between Feb. 24th and September 21st, 1864, as nine thousand four hundred and seventy-nine. McElroy gives twelve thousand nine hundred and twelve as the whole number that died during the time Andersonville was used as a prison.