762 NortH CaroLina Troops, 1861-65.

to have the creek turned to run through the grounds, but
Major Turner, on examination, pronounced it impracticable
with the means at hand. One of the guarl was detailed to
try to obtain a pump of sufficient capacity for the purpose,
but he could not find one.

The hospital accommodations were not such as were de-
sired by the prison officials, and were greatly inadequate to
the necessities of so large a number of men so unfavorably
situated. The buildings were too small, there was a limited
supply of bunks and covering and even straw, and withal
a distressing scarcity of medicines. Time after time were
requisitions made for these articles upon the proper officials,
but with very little success. The United States had made
medicines contraband of war—a remarkable innovation on
the rules of civilized warfare—and the meagre and irregular
medical stores that ran the blockade were their sole depend-
ence (outside of captures by the army) for the supply of the
scores of thousands of the sick and wounded who were wel-
tering in homes and hospitals all over the bleeding, panting
South. The humane surgeons of the prison had but little
margin for the exercise of their professional skill. Their
dispensary was painfully scant and ill-furnished. As they
looked upon the empty bottles and bare shelves, they must
have mused often and painfully of the vast repositories of
those articles which would save those men’s lives, hoarded in
the warehouses of their kinsmen and fellow-citizens at the
North, and denied by the government which they had im-
periled all to defend. When demands were made upon Cap-
tain Goodman for straw and lumber for bunks, he urged the
improbability of obtaining either. The hospital on, the sec-
ond floor of the large building was fitted with good bunks,
and two or three of the smaller ones had bunks also. One of
them was better supplied than the hospital for the guard.

General Bradley T. Johnson, who by appointment took
command of the prison on 24 December, 1864, was a true
gentleman with a generous, sympathetic heart, and joined his
strenuous exertions to those of other officials to alleviate the
sufferings of the prisoners. He complained heavily of the
Quartermaster to General Gardner for his inefficiency, and

SALISBURY PRISON. 763

deplored the necessity of the sick having sometimes to lie on
the bare floor. If all the efforts made by Drs. Currie and
Wilson, Major Gee and General Johnson to have the hospi-
tals furnished were known, it would speak loudly in their
honor and silence the maledictions of those who say that the
prisoners suffered from inhumanity instead of necessity.
Captain Goodman may or may not have done the best he
could. His good teams were taken away from him and
broken-down stock put in their places. The roads were al-
most impassable. Straw was scarce. The saw mills were
not competent to the constant demands upon them. His
wagons had to be used for various indispensable purposes. It
may-safely be affirmed that a far more efficient man would not
have been able to meet the overwhelming requisitions made
upon him in the general dilapidation and scarcity.

A SURGEON GAVE HIS LIFE FOR THE PRISONERS.

The Surgeons were faithful and humane, by the admission
of the prisoners themselves. Dr. Richard O. Currie, from
Knoxville, established a most enviable reputation by his self-
sacrificing efforts, as Chief Surgeon, to minister to the poor
sufferers. They seemed to burden his heart continually. He
visited them with the spirit of his Saviour. A good physi-
cian, he ministered to them in sickness—an earnest preacher
of the Gospel, he strove to instruct them in the way of life.
So incessant and exhausting were his cares and labors for
them that, at the close of a day of overpowering toil, he was
violently attacked with brain fever, and in a few days passed
from his noble toils to the Land of Rest—dying a martyr to
the Federal prisoners.

His successor, Dr. Wilson, was also a kind-hearted, faith-
ful, Christian surgeon. After the main body of the prison-
ers had left, I received an invitation from him to hold divine
service for the sick in the basement of the large building.
At his request I had before held services in the main grounds.
In the hospital were a considerable number of sick, some on
bunks and some on the floor. Those on the floor were not
required but permitted to lie there, as they preferred it. ‘The
floor was clean, and, considering the means at his disposal,
the apartment was in good condition. He accompanied me