Captain Fanning declares that they were half starved, and would
sometimes beg bones from the people who came to look at them. When
they obtained bones they would dig out the marrow, and devour it. The
guard was cruel and spiteful. One day they heated some pokers red hot
and began to burn the prisoners' shirts that were hung up to
dry. These men begged the guard, in a very civil manner, not to burn
all their shirts, as they had only one apiece. This remonstrance
producing no effect they then ran to the pickets and snatched away
their shirts. At this the officer on command ordered a sentinel to
fire on them. This he did, killing one prisoner, and wounding
several. There were three hundred American prisoners in the yard at
this time.
These prisons appear to have been very imperfectly guarded, and the
regular occupation of the captives, whenever their guards were asleep
or absent, was to make excavations for the purpose of escaping. A
great many regained their freedom in this manner, though some were
occasionally brought back and punished by being shut up for forty days
in the Black Hole on bread and water. Some, less fortunate, remained
three or four years in the prison.
There was always digging going on in some part of the prison and as
soon as one hole was discovered and plastered up, another would be
begun. For a long time they concealed the dirt that they took out of
these excavations in an old stack of disused chimneys.
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