IV.

The guards furnished themselves with comfortable huts, arranged with the common conveniences, and their bunks were suspended above the contact of the treacherous ground. Their invalids were well cared for also in the large hospital which was erected expressly for the garrison, and which consisted of two large two-story wooden buildings, admirably arranged, with the conveniences proper to the service. The kitchen, the dispensary, the ventilation, and the general arrangement, showed that scientific care and forethought had been observed there.

The hospital system of the rebels was quite complete, and most of their hospitals throughout the country were well constructed and equipped; and some of them were models of neatness, comfort, and scientific arrangement.

The garrison hospital at Andersonville offers a terrible contrast to the open space, the wretched agglomeration, which the rebel authorities called a hospital for the prisoners.

It is true that the commanding officers were compelled, from some unknown pressure,--whether the sense of shame, or dictate from Richmond,--to order and commence the erection, at a late date, of a new hospital stockade. This was to consist of a high palisade, about one thousand feet in length, with twenty-two open sheds erected in the interior; but it was never finished, nor occupied, and it remains to-day as it was left by the rude, black artisans, one of the evidences of either remorse or reluctant obedience to the lingering sense of natural compassion of its senseless and heartless rulers.