Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

“ But there were cruelties worse than these,” said the report of the Committee, “because less the result of impulse and recklessness, and because deliberately done.” It was the starvation of the prisoners, by a systematic diminution in the quantity, and deterioration of the quality of their daily allowance with which they were supplied, the character of which may be understood by the remark of a young officer, “I would gladly have preferred the horse-feed in my father's stable.” The process of the slow starvation of the captives began in the autumn of 1863, and was so general and uniform in all the prisons and prisoner-pens, that there can be no doubt of its having been done by direct orders from the Conspirators at Richmond. “The corn bread,” says the report, “began to be of the roughest and coarsest description. Portions of the cob and husk were often found ground in with the meal. The crust was so thick and hard that the prisoners called it iron-clad. To render the bread eatable they grated it, and made mush of it; but the crust they could not grate. Now and then, after long intervals, often of many weeks, a little meat was given them, perhaps two or three mouthfuls. At a later period, they received a pint of black peas, with some vinegar, every week. The peas were often full of worms, or maggots in a chrysalis state, which, when they made soup, floated on the surface.” And this was done when there was abundance of food at the command of their jailors.¹

For awhile, the prisoners were allowed to receive boxes of food and clothing, sent by their friends in the North, and by the Sanitary Commission, but it was found that this privilege would defeat the starvation scheme of the Conspirators, and in January, 1864, it was denied, without any reason being given. “Three hundred boxes,” says the report, “arrived every week, and were received by Colonel Ould, Commissioner of Exchange, but instead of being distributed, were retained, and piled up in a warehouse near by.² The contents of many of these boxes were used by the Confederates.” The officers, “says the Report,” were permitted to send out and buy articles at extravagant prices, and would find the clothes, stationery, hams, and butter, which they had purchased, bearing the marks of the Sanitary Commission.