Miles O. Sherrill: A Soldier's Story: Prison Life and Other Incidents in the War of 1861-1865

since we had met. We were not in the same command in the army. "Nick" asked me if I had anything to eat. I replied, "Yes." He said: "I want to trade you a cup, spoon, etc., for some bread; I am about perished." Poor fellow, he looked the picture of despair. I said: "Nick, I do not want your cup and spoons, but you are welcome to what I have." He devoured in short order all that I had, and wanted more. Poor fellow, he soon died, as did W. P. Sherrill; died away from home and loved ones, buried by their enemies. I had to spend several days in the barracks before I was transferred to the surgical or hospital ward. I was there long enough to know why Cousin Nicholas was so anxious for my bread. After I was placed in the surgical ward of the hospital I fared fairly well - a great improvement over the fare out in the wards of the regular prison. After a few weeks I was taken with small-pox, and of course was transferred over S. Creek to the small-pox camp. I was carried over on a cot, or "stretcher," with blanket thrown over my face. When I reached the place, and the blanket was removed, I found myself in a large "wall tent," with several cots, or "bunks," about two and a half feet wide, with two Confederates on each "bunk," in reverse order, i. e., A's head at one end and B's at the other - so your bed-fellow's feet were in very close proximity to your face. They were all sandwiched in this way, because the bed was too narrow to admit of the two to lay shoulder to shoulder. On waking up on a morning one of these poor fellows would be dead and the other alive; this, of course, occurred day after day, and night after night. Well might those poor fellows, who had spent at least a part of the night with a corpse for a bed-fellow, have exclaimed with St. Paul, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" When I took in the situation, I told the man who was going to place me on a bunk by the side of a poor fellow bad off with that awful disease (and who finally died) "that he could not put me on there." He replied "that he would show me whether he could or not." I stuck to it that I would not be put there. The