Robert Stiles

“ During my stay on the Island, the war being substantially over, the discipline and management were more liberal, and the ration, though meagre, larger than it had been; the sutler, too, was open, and the few prisoners fortunate enough to obtain money lived reasonably well, but the majority still suffered from lack of food. After being an inmate of the pen for a few days and observing the really pitiful hunger and destitution, I organized a system of collection from the messes who had money, and patronized the sutler and distribution among the less favored who starved on the prison ration. ”

“ The clothing issued to our prisoners was quite as scanty as the rations, the post surgeon's certificate, that it was absolutely necessary in each individual case, being required to entitle a man to an overcoat—and that for Southern men exiled on a bleak island swept by chill tempests, with the thermometer frequently more than twenty degrees below zero. In order to get one of these certificates, a man was required to stand in line in the open air scantily clad, waiting his time to enter the surgeon's office and submit to an examination to test the condition of his lungs, &c. ”