Ravages of the Scurvy among the Chickamauga Prisoners.—Too Long without Fruit or Vegetables.—The Horrors of the Scurvy.—Certain Death.—Frightful Mortality.—Fortunate Removal from Andersonville.—Arrival at Charleston, S. C.—Transferred to Florence, S. C.—Description of the latter Prison.—Shortest Rations ever issued.—Certain Starvation on the Rations.—Efforts for more Food; Providential Success.—Three Days without Rations.—Prison-Keepers Cruel and Inhuman.—Terrible Sufferings during the Winter.—Unparalleled Mortality.—Raw Rations and Insufficient Fuel.—Life under Ground.—Swamp Fever.—Taken with the Fever.—Flight from Florence.—Wilmington.—Goldsboro’.—Hard Times of a Sick Man.—Prison Exchange Foolery.—Back to Wilmington.
Ravages of the Scurvy among the Chickamauga Prisoners.—Too Long without Fruit or Vegetables.—The Horrors of the Scurvy.—Certain Death.—Frightful Mortality.—Fortunate Removal from Andersonville.—Arrival at Charleston, S. C.—Transferred to Florence, S. C.—Description of the latter Prison.—Shortest Rations ever issued.—Certain Starvation on the Rations.—Efforts for more Food; Providential Success.—Three Days without Rations.—Prison-Keepers Cruel and Inhuman.—Terrible Sufferings during the Winter.—Unparalleled Mortality.—Raw Rations and Insufficient Fuel.—Life under Ground.—Swamp Fever.—Taken with the Fever.—Flight from Florence.—Wilmington.—Goldsboro’.—Hard Times of a Sick Man.—Prison Exchange Foolery.—Back to Wilmington.
I shallnow attempt a description of the ravages of the scurvy among the Chickamauga prisoners.
It must have been during the month of July, 1864, that this dreadful disease made its appearance,—I mean among the men with whom I was identified (the Chickamauga men); how much sooner or later it afflicted other classes of prisoners, I am unable to state. Our men seemed to be doing well at this time, having shelter, and the rations still beingtolerably fair. But it was all outward show, the inside being rotten. We had lived too long without green vegetables, or acids, or fruit of any kind. The first symptoms of the scurvy appeared in the mouth, the gums becoming black, swollen, and mortified. Then in quick succession the lower limbs were involved,—large, dark spots appearing near the knee or on the calves of the legs. These spots gradually became larger and more sore and disabling; at the same time, the cords under the knees becoming so contracted as to draw the calves back against the thighs, or nearly so. The spots varied a trifle in color,—that is, as to shades,—but generally bore the same heavy, dull, dead, blackish appearance, as though the blood had congealed in one place underneath the skin, and then putrefied. It usually took the disease several months to run its course, the spots growing larger, and the whole system becoming greatly shaken; the victim, long since deprived of the power of locomotion, lies helplessly on his back, calmly awaiting his Lord’s release from his terrible suffering; until, at length, the disease reaches his bowels and vital parts, when his chain is broken, his fetters fall loosely from him, and his spirit speeds its winged flight, glorious with its sudden joy, to that prisonless realm of everlasting peace. Hundreds upon hundreds lay upon their backs in this condition, the number decreasing day by day as the quota of dead was carried off. No hope for themon this side of the valley,—and well they knew it, and died like heroes. Twenty good-sized Irish potatoes would have cured any case of scurvy before it reached the vitals; but if two would have done it, they could not have been obtained, as the rebels did not issue them, and the prisoner had no money,—so he sleeps the long last sleep. So many old prisoners died of the scurvy, that scarcely any were left to tell their story. Hovel after hovel was emptied entirely, every man swept away by the relentless scourge. Oh, what a heavy charge rests against those who could have prevented, or at least mitigated, this! But the Confederates could have prevented the scurvy entirely. Their own men did not have it. However, it is not my object to criminate or stir up old animosities. I merely wish to relate some of my prison experiences, and describe their results. There are twelve thousand “Yankee†prisoners buried at Andersonville. During the month of August, 1864, when there were thirty-five thousand men incarcerated there, the number of deaths averaged one hundred per day. All the day long the dead were being carried out, and every morning a long line of corpses, which had accumulated during the night, could be seen lying at the southern gate.
It seemed as though an odor of death pervaded the atmosphere of the camp. The entire prison-ground was strewn with dying men,—dying without a groan and without a mourner. It was indeedfortunate for me that Sherman’s army threatened that place during the month of September, 1864, when, so nearly gone that I could scarcely walk to the depot, I was shipped, among thousands of others, to another part of the Confederacy. We went from Andersonville to Charleston. We stayed at Charleston about one month, during which time I mended a little through having a slight change of diet. From Charleston we were removed to Florence, in the same State of South Carolina.
At Florence a prison was erected something similar to the stockade at Andersonville, but smaller in dimensions. It was situated in a perfect wilderness, with swampy woodland all around it. The inclosure was not by any means cleared of fallen trees and brush when we were marched into it. This was much to our advantage, as winter was coming on. We arrived there about the latter part of October. The shelter we put up,—and all were enabled to have shelter here,—though in general more substantial than at Andersonville, in many instances I could not deem very healthy. To be explicit, I refer especially to dwelling wholly under ground. Camp reports of death statistics tended to confirm this opinion. As for myself, I had good shelter all of the time, and, during the latter part of our sojourn at Florence prison, I was an occupant of one of the best houses (shanties) in it. The rations drawn at this prison were among the shortest ever issued bythe rebels to Yankee prisoners. It was certain starvation to any that depended entirely upon their rations. I did not, and for that reason I am alive to relate this history. It would be too tedious now for me to undertake to relate how I succeeded in doing otherwise; let it suffice, that every faculty of my mind was concentrated upon the subject of getting more to eat than was issued to me, and that I got it by the exercise of my faculties to the utmost,—and my muscles, too.
On first arriving at Florence, I got some sweet potatoes, and these eradicated the scurvy from my body, and gave me a new lease on life; and after that my sole business was to get enough to eat, for I knew the preservation of my life depended upon it. At Andersonville, by activity and the virtue of one or two potatoes, and a taste or so of something else, perhaps, I had managed to keep the scurvy down sufficiently—and that is all—for me to get away from that place with my life; and then it seemed God’s providence, more than anything else, for I had so very little to assist me. But, having gotten away from there and reached Charleston, and improved a little there, and arriving at Florence, I was placed under such influences that I regained sounder footing once more. I then went to work with a determination of trying to live as long as the rebels held me in their bonds. I knew I must get more to eat than they gave me, or die. I was an old prisoner,and very thin, and much shattered and broken, and needed all the food I could get there. A pint of meal was not enough for a man to subsist upon, as was plainly demonstrated by our men dying off with prodigious rapidity. Winter was coming on, and more food was needed instead of less. The prison authorities were cruel and persecuting. Once for three days not a mouthful of rations was issued. At the end of that period a heavy increase in the per centum of dead was carried out;—though I heard poor fellows who had stood it out saying, afterwards, that they were not so hungry on the third day as on the first. Poor fellows, the reason was plain,—their stomachs on the third day had become too weak to manifest the ordinary symptoms of hunger.
Hence my effort to live was not out of place; on the contrary, if I had still a lingering hope of surviving, the greatest efforts I could put forth seemed there almost mockery, and sadly inadequate to the end.
In fact, though I could not bring myself to the thought of yielding and dying, I nevertheless felt that my ever getting North again alive was most “too good a thing to happen.†As far as possible, I kept the subject from my mind.
Winter came on at last. The weather was cold, and, after a particularly cold night, one could go into the “poor-houses†of every “thousand,†and therefind men stark dead in the attitude in which they had fallen backward from their scanty fires. Each “thousand†afforded a “poor-house.†These were occupied by poor wretches who, in the vain hope of saving their lives by obtaining more food or making their escape, or both, had taken the oath of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy, and joined the rebel army.
The Confederates found this expedient and experiment in recruiting their depleted army a failure, and turned the “galvanized Yankees†(as they were called) back into the stockade again. Having lost their local habitation, and become isolated and alienated from their former friends, who condemned their action and remained behind, being cast off and forsaken of everybody, they congregated together in these “poor-houses,†which were erected for the benefit of such as they. At Charleston and at Florence we were divided, for convenience, into sections of one thousand men each.
Although located in the midst of a forest, we did not draw enough wood to cook our rations, let alone to keep us warm. A day’s ration of wood was about the size of an ordinary stick of oven-wood. We were also situated in a very unhealthy place, being surrounded by an immense swamp. The swamp furnished the water we drank and consumed otherwise.
A disease, commonly designated the “swampfever,†broke out, seizing a majority of us, and proving fatal in many cases. The per cent. of mortality here was far higher than at Andersonville. We were under worse conditions, and suffered and died proportionately. Though in respect to shelter our condition seemed improved, this consideration was enormously outweighed and overbalanced by our much worse condition in many other regards. The longer a man was detained in rebel prisons, the weaker he became, and we seemed to have reached the culminating point and extreme end of human endurance at this time at Florence, viz., the winter of 1864 and ’65.
The elements of the swamp fever were in every Florence prisoner (and bound to come out some time), and were the outgrowth and effect of the water we drank, and the other conditions in which we participated in common; and I believe that, almost without an exception, every man had it,—though some not until they were safely within our lines. With regard to myself, I was attacked by it on the evening of the night we left Florence prison forever. We took our sudden departure in the month of February, 1865. We were hurried out at a terrible rate, the rebels being greatly frightened by the report that Sherman was near. Although feeling wretchedly, and burning with fever, I went along. We were marched to the railroad, and shipped aboard freight cars, the rebels crammingas many of us as they could in each car. We were so crowded we could scarcely sit or stand; yet I was so sick that I could do neither, and had to lie down upon the floor, and risk being trampled upon.
Of the journey to Wilmington, N. C., I scarcely remember anything except our starting. At Wilmington, after lying upon the sand some hours, I was assisted into the cars, and we started for Goldsboro’. At the latter place we got off the cars, and were marched some distance out of town to camp.
That night there was a heavy storm, and the rain poured down in torrents. We lay upon the ground with nothing but a blanket over us; and, though I was suffering from fever, I got soaking wet to the skin. Oh, dear, it is almost heart-breaking to think over those times. Almost dead, as I was, from long privations, sickness, and exhaustion, produced by trying, in my sick and weakened state, to keep along with my companions, one would think this in addition would have utterly annihilated and finished me. The next day we marched back to Goldsboro’. It being evening, and no train ready to take us on to Salisbury, whither they said we were bound, we laid ourselves down to rest and sleep.
“Care-charmer, Sleep, son of the sable Night,Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,Relieve my anguish, and restore the light;With dark forgetting of my care, return,And let the day be time enough to mournThe shipwreck of my ill-advised youth;Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,Without the torments of the night’s untruth.Cease, dreams, the images of day desires,To model forth the passions of to-morrow;Never let the rising sun prove you liars,To add more grief, to aggravate my sorrow;Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,And never wake to feel the day’s disdain.â€Daniel.
During the night we were awakened by a loud noise and hubbub, arising from the announcement that an exchange of prisoners had been effected, and that we were going straight back to Wilmington to be turned over to our men. This we hardly dared believe. We had been deceived so often, that we could scarcely credit the report. But trains being got ready, we were put aboard and started for Wilmington, sure enough. Arrived at the city of happy deliverance, and debarked from the cars, we lay in the wind and sun all day upon the sand. Toward evening we observed a great flurry among the Confederates, and we were suddenly got together, put upon the cars, and started for Goldsboro’ again; and thus ended this exchangefiasco.
Return to Goldsboro’.—Drunk with Fever.—Too Sick to Walk.—Left Behind.—God bless the Ladies of Goldsboro’.—Personal Experiences.—Negotiations for a Friend.—An Improvised Hospital.—Sick unto Death.—Semi-Consciousness.—More Kindness from the Ladies of Goldsboro’.—Paroled.—Passed into our Lines near Wilmington.—At Wilmington in the Hands of the Blue Coats.—Friend Lost.—Still very Sick with Fever.—Determined to go North.—Efforts to get North.—On board Ship.—Ho for Annapolis!—Incidents of the Voyage.—Annapolis.-Getting Better.—Stomach Trouble.—Sent to Baltimore.—Furloughed Home.
Return to Goldsboro’.—Drunk with Fever.—Too Sick to Walk.—Left Behind.—God bless the Ladies of Goldsboro’.—Personal Experiences.—Negotiations for a Friend.—An Improvised Hospital.—Sick unto Death.—Semi-Consciousness.—More Kindness from the Ladies of Goldsboro’.—Paroled.—Passed into our Lines near Wilmington.—At Wilmington in the Hands of the Blue Coats.—Friend Lost.—Still very Sick with Fever.—Determined to go North.—Efforts to get North.—On board Ship.—Ho for Annapolis!—Incidents of the Voyage.—Annapolis.-Getting Better.—Stomach Trouble.—Sent to Baltimore.—Furloughed Home.
Onreaching Goldsboro’, after alighting from the cars, we marched out to camp again. This last time it was all I could do to walk to the camp. I was fairly blind with fever, and staggered from side to side, almost dumb and insensible from prolonged suffering and exertion in sickness. While at Wilmington the last time, and from that time on, I was far too sick to look after myself much.
I reached the camp, however, and there remained until removed by other force than my own. The next morning, after coming to this camp, the lot of prisoners to which I belonged was removed toanother camping-ground, some distance away. I essayed to go along, but accomplished nothing but wild staggering to and fro, and the little distance I gained I had to be carried back over.
Excepting some care received by our sick from the Sisters of Charity while we were at Charleston, Goldsboro’ was the first place in the South where Southern women manifested any sympathy for our deplorable condition. Here, the last time we came, the ladies of Goldsboro’, though the guards strove to keep them back, burst through the lines, and came into our camp loaded with baskets of provisions, which they distributed among the sick and most needy.
On being carried back to the camp, after my futile attempt to follow my comrades, I, among other sick, was loaded on a wagon and hauled to a large brick building near Goldsboro’. Here we were taken out and carried in. I had selected as a companion, on my way thither, a boy of about my own age by the name of Orlando. I promised to share my blankets with him, if he would stay with and take care of me. As he had no blanket, and I had two, one having been left with me by a man that made his escape at Macon, Ga., Orlando gladly accepted my offer, and we bunked together accordingly. Here I laid—I don’t know how many days exactly, but several—sick unto death, and expecting to die momentarily. I was very low and weak. My comrade was stronger.I noticed he prayed, and as I found difficulty in praying to my satisfaction, though I did pray,in desire to pray, continually, I asked Orlando if he would not pray for me. He did so, and I did everything I could for him that he would do this; gave him the most of what the ladies gave me (we depended solely on the ladies of Goldsboro’ for provisions), as I was so sick that I did not want food. One day, I noticed more commotion than usual in the house. Soon after, among the rest, I was carried to the cars and taken by railroad to a steamboat-landing, not many miles distant from Wilmington; here we were put on board of a boat, and placed in the hands of men bearing the uniform of the United States; and the moment which I had during all my captivity looked forward to as the happiest of my life, was one of the darkest I have ever known!
At Wilmington we were put in ambulances and hauled to improvised hospitals. The city had just been taken by our army, and our authorities were not prepared for us. But thank God that we came, anyhow, though they were unprepared. I lay in a brick building several days, without knowing any one about me. In my blind and crazy fever, I had strayed away from Orlando, I think. I sometimes staggered out to houses and asked for milk, thinking that would do me great good. I saw I was not getting along very well, and did not know how soon I might die.
One day, a man thrust his head in the door and cried out: “All those wishing to go North had better get ready and go down to the wharf, as a boat is going to leave to-day.†This news went through me like electricity. I remarked to the head nurse that I was going. “Yes,†said he, “you are a sweet-looking thing to start North.†I was then one of the sickest patients in that ward. I replied, determined to make the attempt, cost what it would, “that I might as well die on the way North as die here,†and started. I staggered down the streets without knowing the direction to the point I desired to reach. Weak, sick, and reduced almost to a skeleton, I was a ghastly-looking spectacle. On I stumbled, asking almost every person I met to inform me the way, and sometimes forgetting their advice a moment afterwards. I finally reached the wharf, and there sank down to rest under the blasting disappointment of being told that no boat would leave that day. I saw soon after standing near me a member of a Kentucky regiment, whom I knew. He told me where he was staying, and that it was not far from where we then were. I immediately got up, and started for the place. I was not at all particular where I stayed; one place suited me as well as another.
I reached my friend’s stopping-place, and was taken up on the second floor. I remained here for a couple of hours, and was then given permanent quartershigher up. Reaching the room assigned me, after resting some time, I felt the vermin attack me as I had not done for many days. I hailed it as a good omen; a sign of returning sensibility. I felt that I was getting a little better. I fell to exterminating the peculiar pests with all the strength I could command. I had not been engaged in this occupation long before a physician protruded his head into my room, and stated that there was a boat going North, and that all who were able could go.
I at once spruced up my best, and told the doctor that I was ready to start. He smiled as he looked at me, but, perceiving my great anxiety to go, allowed me to undertake the voyage.
When I reached the wharf, I saw so many there expecting to go, that I knew some must be left behind; that the boat could not take all of us. I knew the habit of prisoners, and that there would be a general rush when the hatchways of the boat were thrown open. So I placed myself as near one of the hatchways as possible, and when it was opened, and the rush made, the crowd of its own force lifted me from my feet and bore me into the boat.
After several days of foggy weather—the month was March—we arrived at Annapolis, Md. During our voyage I could see that many of my companions were eating too much, and feared the result. As for myself, I was still too sick to eat anything. Perhaps this was fortunate for me. To have been turned intoour lines with the starvation appetite, I might have killed myself by over-eating, as many others undoubtedly did. At Annapolis I was carried on a stretcher from the boat to a hospital in one of the Naval School buildings. Here I remained for a couple of weeks, and was then sent with some others to Baltimore, having recovered sufficiently to be allowed to undertake the journey.
On commencing to get better at Annapolis, I found my greatest trouble was with my stomach. It seemed contracted into a space no larger than my fist, and everything I ate seemed to irritate it; and I could apparently feel the exact size of any meal I had eaten, as it lay deposited in my stomach. Everything I took into my stomach seemed to weigh like lead, and constantly bear down so hard, that it made me continually miserable and unwell.
We stayed at Baltimore a few days, when our furloughs, which had been made out at Annapolis, were handed to us, and we started for home—two months’ pay and our ration commutation money having been paid to us before we left Annapolis.
At Home.—Nothing but a Skeleton.—A good Imitation of Lazarus.—A Digression upon the Subject of Sleeplessness.—A well-intended Fraud on a Hospital Nurse.—Return of Sleep.—Improvement in Health.—Stomach the only Difficulty.—A Year passes.—Stomach worse.—Constant Headache.—Much Debilitated.—Awful Suffering.—Bodily Agony Debilitates the Mind.—Sufferings Intolerable.—Physicians and Remedies tried without Avail.—Forlorn Hope and Last Resort.—Better.—Doubts as to Treatment.—Suspicions Confirmed.—Uncomplimentary Remarks concerning an M. D.—Uncomfortable Discoveries and Reflections.
At Home.—Nothing but a Skeleton.—A good Imitation of Lazarus.—A Digression upon the Subject of Sleeplessness.—A well-intended Fraud on a Hospital Nurse.—Return of Sleep.—Improvement in Health.—Stomach the only Difficulty.—A Year passes.—Stomach worse.—Constant Headache.—Much Debilitated.—Awful Suffering.—Bodily Agony Debilitates the Mind.—Sufferings Intolerable.—Physicians and Remedies tried without Avail.—Forlorn Hope and Last Resort.—Better.—Doubts as to Treatment.—Suspicions Confirmed.—Uncomplimentary Remarks concerning an M. D.—Uncomfortable Discoveries and Reflections.
Ongetting home and taking an inventory of myself, I found that I was but a skeleton. Sores and scars soon covered me from head to foot. Decent living was driving the corruption engendered by prison life out of my system. So much of this stuff appeared on my skin, that I cannot but think it was a very fortunate thing for me that it did come out in this way; for had it lingered in me, and waited some slower process, it seems to me I surely must have died. I began to have natural sleep at night, also. This is a feature in my experience to which I should have referred before. I cannot rememberthat I had any sleep at Wilmington, unless when we first arrived. I could sleep none on the trip North, and when we got to Annapolis, I told the attending physician that I had not slept for a month,—for so it seemed to me,—and that I wanted him to give me some medicine that would induce sleep. To this he objected, averring, that being tired and having a clean body and clean clothing, I would now sleep soundly. But I did not sleep at all, and the day following I was almost distracted from the loss of much-needed sleep and rest. I so informed the doctor, and he had a draught prepared for me; this sent me into a very sweet sleep the succeeding night, and I awoke the next morning much refreshed indeed. The ensuing night was sleepless again, the physician refusing to prescribe anything for me. On the following night he did, however, and I enjoyed another night’s invigorating slumber and recuperative rest.
With what felicity of expression and justice of observation the universal Bard bodies forth the heavenly virtues of this ever-renewing well-spring of life and health:
“Innocent sleep;Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care,The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,Chief nourisher in life’s feast.â€
Since I suffered my great experience, I have had an inexpressible relish of appreciation for the peculiarsweetness, simple truth, and inspiring beauty of this rare gem of genuine poetry.
I could see that the doctor thought the medicine would be hurtful to me if taken every night, and for that reason allowed me to have it only every alternate night.
I felt that the sleep would, even with taking it, much more than counterbalance all evil effects that would likely arise from the medicine, and I determined to procure it if possible.
It was the custom of the doctor to prescribe his medicines, and leave the prescriptions with the head nurse of each ward, who would go at a certain time to the dispensary and get them filled. In cases where the same medicines were prescribed each day, the same phials were used.
The phial which had been used for me I noticed still remained after the physician had prescribed for our ward, one morning, without giving me anything, and had gone; so when the hour for going after medicine came around, I informed the head nurse that the doctor had prescribed my draught for me as a general thing; that I was to have it every night, and that he must not fail to get it for me. I startled the fellow; he looked astonished.
“Why,†said he, “I didn’t hear him say anything about it. I guess not,†etc.
“Yes, he did, though; I heard him,†I replied; “and I want you to get it without fail.â€
The stratagem was successful, and the duped nurse brought the medicine regularly every day, and the result was that I slept every night, owing to the kindness of the medicine, and my health began to improve from that time; and I may say I noticed no injurious consequences or effects of the medicine.
On arriving home, I told my mother of my inability to sleep. The first night on my arrival home I did not, because, arriving in the night, I could get no medicine; but the next day I spoke to my mother about the matter, as I have stated, and she procured me some medicine. This I took for a short time, when I discontinued it without any difficulty. I found that I needed it no longer.
After this, for some time, my main and only trouble was with my stomach. Although I had a good appetite, and was so hungry inmy mindthat I could not see victuals removed from the table, or scarcely a bone thrown away, without feeling pained at the loss; I could not eat very much, as my stomach seemed so diminutive that it would contain but a small quantity, and what I did take into it seemed to turn to lead within me, or rather into a pound of tenpenny nails, determined to cut and grind its way to the outside. That is, it did not sour; my food digested (slowly and painfully), but from some cause it hurt me continually. I gradually became able to eat more; grew somewhat fleshy, and looked well; but my stomach hurt me, nevertheless,all the time.
I did not apply for a pension within a reasonable time after coming home, because my mother thought I was young, and would soon recover my health.
Alas! never was prophecy so contradicted or hope so defeated. For a year I suffered from my stomach, keeping wonderfully well up in strength. At the end of a year or more, I became afflicted with constant headache, viz., about 9 o’clockA. M., the headache would come on and continue during the day. From the time I was liberated from Southern prisons (and in fact long before I was released), up to the setting in of the daily headache, I had been occasionally afflicted with it. Now, headache became one of the most direful curses. From this time forward, for a year or more, I was on the down-hill road. My stomach was much worse than ever, and my headache became worse in proportion with my stomach. My body was very much debilitated; I suffered fearfully, wretchedly. From the ravages made on my entire physical system by constant headaches, and the terrible agonies and torments of my stomach, my mind became debilitated. In my extremity, I cried to God, and asked him why He so afflicted me! My sufferings were so intolerable and continuous, that my face became the reflected image of agony. My mother, God bless her! who could not conceive the uncommon suffering I was enduring, and imagining that I might have some trouble on my mind, begged me, in alarm, not to look sopain-stricken; that persons were noticing the appalling expression of my countenance.
The reader will please remember that I was making my own living, during all this time, as a clerk. I tried different physicians and remedies without avail. Nothing seemed to benefit me, and I quit trying. At last a physician in the town where I resided, in whom I had but little confidence, and who for six months past had been endeavoring to get my consent to allow him to treat my case, induced me to place myself under his professional care. None of the rest had benefited me, and he could but fail, and might do me some good. I would die if there were not a change soon, and I could but do this at the worst under his treatment. Besides, I wanted present relief from the most distracting pain. I was suffering daily torment and torture, with a body weak and wasted, and a constitution whose resisting power, before persistent and repeated assaults, had at last given way; my mind was become greatly impaired, and my spirits had sunk into a black midnight of despair.
“’Tis no time now to stickle over means and remedies; let him cure me who can, or let me die if I must,†I thought. Nevertheless, in going into this physician’s office, I emphatically charged him not to administer to me any opium or morphia, as I had a horror of such things.
I perceived that he was going to use, in my case,what was a new instrument in the practice there at that time, viz., the hypodermic syringe. “Oh, have no fear,†he replied, holding up at the same time a phial of clear and colorless fluid; “this is no opium or morphia; it is one of the simplest and most harmless things in the world; but it is a secret, and no one in the town knows anything about it except myself.†On this assurance, I allowed him to inject a dose into my arm. This first dose was too large, and nearly killed me or scared me to death, and I determined not to go back to him again. And I would have adhered to my determination, had he not accosted me at a hotel, about two weeks thereafter, and asked me why I had remained away; and on my telling him the reason, he entreated me to come back, saying, that as soon as he had ascertained the right dose for me, he would certainly cure me. God in heaven knows I wanted to be cured, and reasonably. I recommenced taking the injections then, and allowed him full liberty to do what he could for me.
Contemporaneously with the injections, though not by prescription from this physician, but with his approval, I commenced taking carbonate of iron.
This preparation of iron had been prescribed by another physician for one of my sisters, who was suffering from neuralgia, and with good results; so I thought it might probably have a beneficial effect in the case of my headache and the generally debilitated condition of my system. I took about one or twoinjections a week; sometimes, perhaps, I may have taken one or two more. The number was varied by the frequency or infrequency of the severer headaches. I did not go every day. I had headache every day, but only submitted to the injection when it manifested itself more severely than usual. The iron I took three times a day after meals. I thus particularly notice the iron, because it had considerable to do in forming an estimation of the results of this doctor’s treatment, which I made at a certain time. I continued the hypodermical treatment, taking about the same number of injections for a couple of months, when I found myself getting better, and in a much more substantial condition of health than I had been for many a long day, or even year.
I felt, indeed, better; but I observed one peculiarity in my case that was not comforting. It raised my suspicions, not having unlimited confidence in my physician. But should my suspicions turn out well founded, I argued, the great improvement in my health has justified my treatment, and I cannot see yet that I am in any danger. Let me go on a little while longer, until my health becomes permanently established, and then I will drop this doctor and his treatment. I found that the taking of my medicine had settled down into something like regularity, and when the time came around that I was restless, lacking spirit, and unable to do anything to any purpose till I had an injection.
Had such not been the case, everything would have been revealed at first, and the terrible consequences averted; but, as it was, any suspicion of the effect of the medicine—that is, immediate effect orinfluence—had been forestalled in my mind by my having read, previous to this treatment, that there were other drugs of similar effect; but when I noticed the unmistakable evidences of the habit forming, I was troubled about it.
My fears were confirmed some time after by my coming in upon the doctor whilst he was preparing the solution, and thus detecting him. I exclaimed: “Ah ha, doctor, you have been giving me morphia.†“Yes,†he replied, “a little; but the main part wascannabis indicus†(Indian hemp). I don’t know that he ever gave me a particle ofcannabis indicus, for I know that some time after, and fromthatperiod on, he did not disguise the fact that he was giving me the unadulterated sulphate of morphia. The doctor soon found he had an elephant on his hands,—saw that I was in the habit; became tired of my regular calls for hypodermical injections, and endeavored to shake me off. After giving him fully to understand his culpability in the matter, we parted.
Knowing, then, that I was simply an opium eater, I purchased my own morphia at the drug-stores, and took it per mouth instead of by a hypodermic syringe. Thus was I, as the notorious fly, invited into the parlor of the deceitful spider, and met with somethinglike the same sad fate. Tripped up by an ignoramus who had hung about me for six months to allow him to treat my case; who had brought me medicine which I threw behind my desk, and never tasted; who had told me he had “taken a fancy to me;†who used every persuasive art within his command to get me to his office, and under his professional care, only for the purpose of giving me bare morphia by way of a syringe!—while I, well duped and deceived, gave his treatment all the credit which the iron I was taking should have received for building up my broken-down health.
His treatment inconjunctionwith the iron did me good; the morphia killed the pain, and the iron built me up; one might not have done without the other. I might have died but for the opium; but this fact does not exonerate this blundering and perjured empiricist from the charge of malpractice. He did my case, as he had done others before, and no doubt has done many since, and will go on doing until Divine Justice calls him to account, and sinks his abhorred countenance out of the sight of man. I soon realized that I had experienced all the good results to be obtained from the treatment, and that to go on longer would be injurious. So I endeavored to discontinue the morphia, but found myself in the fangs of a monster more terrible than the Hydra of Lake Lerna, and whose protean powers it is not man’s to know till it is too late to escape.
I discovered that the power to fight and overcome great obstacles in this life, and which had always served me in my struggles theretofore, and which I relied upon then, was the very first thing destroyed by the enemy, namely, the will. Here I was, then, an opium eater. The outward effects and injurious properties of the drug soon made themselves manifest: what was I to do? Quit it, some may say; but no one well posted upon the opium habit would use those words, so hard and feelingless. A reply like this, I think, would betray more wisdom and humanity: “Your case is wellnigh hopeless; I can give you no encouragement whatever; do your utmost to release yourself from the unhappy predicament in which you have been placed; and may God help you, for I fear you will need other help beside your own.â€
“What then? What rests?Try what repentance can: what can it not?Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?Oh, wretched state!â€
The War Begins.—Struggles to Renounce Opium.—Physical Phenomena observed in Attempting to Leave Off the Drug.—Difficulty in Abjuring the Fiend.—I Fail Absolutely.—Some Difference with De Quincey regarding the Effects of Opium.—A Preliminary Foresight into the Horrors of Opium.
The War Begins.—Struggles to Renounce Opium.—Physical Phenomena observed in Attempting to Leave Off the Drug.—Difficulty in Abjuring the Fiend.—I Fail Absolutely.—Some Difference with De Quincey regarding the Effects of Opium.—A Preliminary Foresight into the Horrors of Opium.
Whetherto annoy the reader with the history of my repeated attempts and failures, that is the question: for that I did attempt to throw off my shackles, honestly and earnestly, I would have the reader fairly believe.
Yet why traverse again step by step this sad pilgrimage; the reader has read similar experiences; then why trouble him with mine? Simply because in the lives of all persons there is some variation, one from another; and besides this, though I have taken some pains to read fully our opium literature, as I may properly term it, I must say that I have found it in a very demoralizing condition. That is, it does the reader, with reference to opium, more harm than good—and much more. I know this from experience, and it is one of the moving reasons why this personal history is written.
I might tire the reader’s patience over and again,by recounting my frequent attempts to throw off the accursed incubus, but shall content myself with briefly referring to such as may benefit the public, and especially those who are in danger from opium, but who as yet have not passed beyond recovery. The first attempt of any real interest I made about one year after the commencement of my unfortunate medical treatment, which resulted in fastening the habit upon me.
In order that I might be as well advised in the undertaking as convenient, I called upon a veteran physician, as well as opium eater, of the place for information and counsel. One of the consequences attending previous attempts had been diarrhœa, and a general upsetting of all the gastric functions. I did not know why this was, or that it attended all cases necessarily.
The physician gave me a great deal of information, which, taking it simply as a much better knowledge of my condition, rallied and cheered my spirits considerably. In referring to the diarrhœa, he said that it invariably followed; that leaving off the opium unlocked all the secretions, and the diarrhœa was a natural consequence. I was not using much morphia at this time. The quantity was indeed so small that the physician almost ridiculed the idea of my being in the habit at all. I knew better than that, however. He said it was hardly necessary to give anything to check the diarrhœa, in fact, that itwas almost useless, and unless it actually became too severe, it was better to let it take its own course; that when it stopped of its own accord I would perceive that I was better. He gave me a few powders to take along, nevertheless, which I did not find it necessary to use.
I stopped square off. The first day I felt meanly and sleepy, and had such an influx of remorseful and melancholy thoughts, and such a complete loss of command over myself, that I could have wept the livelong day,—I felt so crushed and broken-hearted. The second day was similar to the first, except the diarrhœa now set in. On the third day I began to feel more comfortable in some respects, the sleepy, drowsy feeling having passed away; I also had gained a little more command over my feelings, though I was still morbidly sensitive, sad, and broken in spirit, and at a word would have burst into tears. The diarrhœa was rushing off at a fearful rate; but that I did not mind much,—it was carrying away my trouble, and this was what I desired. My stomach and bowels were in an unsettled, surging, and wishy-washy condition, the gastric processes so completely disturbed that my stomach was no stomach, and felt simply like a bottomless pipe that ran straight through me. I describe these phenomena now thus particularly, not because I had not observed them in previous attempts, but because I have not described any other attempts to the reader. I intend, as Iproceed with this narrative to describe the effect of morphia at the beginning, and at and up to the time of which I am now writing, and its effect years after, and the phenomena observed and suffering undergone in attempting to abandon its use in the latter years.
The experienced reader will observe, from the attending phenomena which I have so far described, that I was not very deep into it at the period now referred to.
Generally, during the day (to recur to the subject in hand), did my stomach feel like a straight and bottomless pipe, but when I attempted to eat or drink I felt as though it incorporated a volcano; and every time I thought of food its whirling, surging contents threatened an eruption and overflow. Everything eaten seemed perfectly insipid and tasteless, and to fall flat upon the very bottom of my bowels. The region “round about†my epigastrium was in a state of communistic insurrection and rebellion. Nothing digested during this time, or if anything, digestion was very imperfect. Nothing remained in me long enough to pass through a complete process of digestion. I did not become hungry. To eat a meal of victuals was precisely like taking a dose of physic, only much more quick in operation. I experienced constant flushes of heat and cold (hot flushes predominating), and was in a continual perspiration, all the secretions beingthrown wide open. My flesh seemed stretched tightly after the third day, and at night my limbs pained me,—principally my legs below the knees. I could do, and did, nothing but stand and gaze vacantly; too nerveless and shattered to attempt any mental labor.
My voice was hollow and weak, and sometimes almost inarticulate. After the fifth day my remorseful and melancholy thoughts and feelings gave way, to some extent, to more cheerful ones. I continued ten days without touching morphia, or anything of the kind. By that time my diarrhœa had ceased, and my stomach about the region of the epigastrium seemed drawn together as tightly as if tied in a knot. I had some appetite for food, though not much, and poor digestion. Everything was still quite tasteless to me. I craved something eternally which seemed absolutely necessary to make up the proper constitution of my stomach:—and of my happiness, also, I should add, for this is the whole truth.
The appetite for morphia, which while I was suffering I was able to control, grew much sharper after I had reached the tenth day, and my pains and physical difficulties had subsided, as it were. This is a point which I have ever observed in my case, namely, that, while undergoing severe pain or suffering, I have had power to resist appetite and carry out my purposes against the habit, but so soonas the pain or strain upon me departed, it left me collapsed in my will and powerless. But, in the instance under consideration, while my stomach was in a disorganized condition, the appetite was not near so strong as when I regained a more natural state, when it returned with an irresistible vigor. I believe the appetite destroys the will as firmly as I do that God exists.
I took a small dose of morphia, thinking I might thus stay the violent cravings of the appetite, and be thereafter clear of it. The time was in the midst of a political campaign; I was in a public office as a clerk; my employer was rendering his fealty to the party that gave him his place, and I was compelled to remain in the office and work. I was suffering in secret, my employer knowing nothing of my thraldom, and I could not work with the accursed appetite raging within me.
The affinity between the brain and the stomach is most plainly demonstrated by the disease of the opium habit; the appetite feeds as much on the brain as on the stomach. I could not work; I could do nothing but look, and that in a blank and dazed way; and being compelled to work, I took a small dose, thinking that would quiet the enemy and give me peace, and that thereafter I could probably worry it through. Cruel illusion! My unhappy fate willed differently, and the peculiar effects of opium can only be learned by bitter experience. I fell prostrateas before, with this difference, that I was less hopeful.
Oh, the melancholy years that have intervened between then and now! Hopeless upon a dark and boundless sea, drifting farther and farther from land! Oh, the youthful aspirations that have been wrecked by, and gone down forever in, this all-swallowing deep!—the mortifications, disappointments, and humiliations that stand out upon this black ocean of despair, and like huge and abortive figures of deformity mock me in my dreams, and taunt me in my waking hours! For I sing only the “pains†of opium; its “pleasures†I have yet to see. For that cannot be accounted a pleasure which is attended with sadness, and that stimulation will not be considered a benefit which is followed by reaction and collapse.
De Quincey says that he never experienced the collapse and depression consequent upon indulgence in opium. The first doses I took, though they stimulated me to the skies, sickened me at the same time, and left me in such a collapsed condition that it required twenty-four hours to completely recover. I do admit that, when one’s sensibilities have become deadened and hardened by long use of opium, when all the fervor is burnt out of one, and it no longer stimulates, or its stimulation is barely perceptible,—that then, indeed, there is not much reaction. But what eater of opium, after taking muchof the drug the day previous, ever arose in the morning without feeling unutterably miserable? What would you call this, unless reaction?
“The time has been, my senses would have cool’dTo hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hairWould at a dismal treatise rouse and stir,As life were in’t.â€
And I could not even go into an unlighted room after nightfall without the most terrifying feelings of abject fear. There was not a night came during a certain period without bringing with it the most harrowing and dreadful forebodings of death before morning. I must in justice state that I was using some quinine at this time to break up a fever that was continually attacking me, and that I was then again using morphia by means of the hypodermic syringe (having been induced to adopt that mode by another person who was using it in the same way,—which I found to be much more injurious than taking it per mouth); nevertheless, it was still the opium habit, and it was that which induced the fever, and made necessary the quinine.
No tongue or pen will ever describe—mine shrinks from the attempt, and the imagination of another, without suffering it all, could scarcely conceive it possible—the depth of horror in which my life was plunged at this time; the days of humiliation and anguish, nights of terror and agony, through whichI dragged my wretched being. But I am anticipating other and future parts of this narration. It is my intention to disclose, as I proceed, the effects of opium from the first dose, and commencement of the habit, till it reaches its ultimate and final effects, and to describe an attempt to renounce its use at the latter stage.
Still, I have thought it proper, even at this juncture, to give the reader to understand that the opium habit, from first to last, produces nothing but misery,—and that of a kind entirely without hope in this world. This I expect to prove in detail as I proceed.