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John Ransom's Diary: Andersonville
John Ransom, Brigade Quartermaster of the Ninth Michigan Calvary, was only 20 years old when he became a prisoner of war in eastern Tennessee in 1863. He had everything to live for, and much to live with.
A war was on, and he was in it, and things were happening that seemed worth putting down from day to day. The result is a straightforward diary, free of the embroideries and purple passages of many an author of the time.
"One of the best first-hand accounts to come down to us from the Civil War, uncommonly rich in the love of life...a tale of adventure, of suspense, of fierce hate and great love. " --Bruce Catton
9 pages, Audio CD
First published January 1, 1881
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September 8, 2020
The Diarist
Andersonville, Georgia
Civil War 1864.
Confederate prison
A man, dead, lying face up
A large hole in his head
Maggots everywhere
That scene in the book just won’t let me go, and there are other scenes just as horrible. Andersonville prison may have been the worse prison camp in America. It was somewhat like Auschwitz, but then, there was nothing like Auschwitz, and I hope that there will never be one again.
There is no end to man’s inhumanity to man.
Men died from dropsy
Scurvy and dysentery
Mostly starvation
Men died to get out of prison. They just walked over the line, so they could be shot. It was called suicide. The conditions in camp were so horrible that the camped smell was so overwhelming, that even the Rebel guards stayed as far away as they could. The prisoners dug tunnels to escape but were often caught and punished, as if prison wasn’t punishment enough. Whenever a few escaped, it had not been in vain for at least they got a breath of fresh air; the scent of freedom.
This account came from the diary of the prisoner, John Ransom. He had filled three books that he had carried out with him, but the original is now gone. I don’t know what had happened to him after his release. I wish I knew as he was a fine man, kind to all.
The diarist wrote: 50 died each day. Months later it came up to 80, then 160. Towards the end when men were brought into the camp, the conditions were so deplorable that they died much earlier than the others had. He had been there a year or more and was just hanging on.
Few shoes and clothing
Blankets coveted
Corpses were robbed
The naked bodies were laid in a pile. Once a day a wagon would come into the camp, and the Rebels laid them in it like they were logs from trees. Then they drove out the gate and dumped them in a trench, covering it with dirt.
Cold moldy cornbread
A handful of sour beans
Meat a luxury
One man chewed on a bone for days on end.
The diarist came down with scurvy and dropsy in his last months at the camp. When they came to take the men to the Confederate hospital, some men hid him in the middle of the crowd and almost carried him out. Only the healthy were allowed to go. The men left behind died shortly thereafter. It was there, in this hospital, that humanity thrived
The best part of this book were the times that the diarist had escaped, for the black slaves, learning that he was a Yankee, helped him all they could, giving him food and telling him where the Rebels were and where the best routes were located. It was like an underground railroad for Yankees. And I rejoiced when he saw that one plantation had been deserted, the owners had fled, leaving the slaves behind.
Talk of a Prisoner exchange
Giving the men hope
Broken. promises
The diarist wrote down the names of some of the me men who had died and even the towns where they had lived. Those still alive gave him photos of their families, and one man gave him buttons that he had made for a family member. All were to be taken to their families because they believed that they would never see them again, that he alone would survive. Then all were taken from him, but he went to visit their families and gave them his condolences.
My weary legs will
Carry me no more
Lying under an old oak
Andersonville, Georgia
Civil War 1864.
Confederate prison
A man, dead, lying face up
A large hole in his head
Maggots everywhere
That scene in the book just won’t let me go, and there are other scenes just as horrible. Andersonville prison may have been the worse prison camp in America. It was somewhat like Auschwitz, but then, there was nothing like Auschwitz, and I hope that there will never be one again.
There is no end to man’s inhumanity to man.
Men died from dropsy
Scurvy and dysentery
Mostly starvation
Men died to get out of prison. They just walked over the line, so they could be shot. It was called suicide. The conditions in camp were so horrible that the camped smell was so overwhelming, that even the Rebel guards stayed as far away as they could. The prisoners dug tunnels to escape but were often caught and punished, as if prison wasn’t punishment enough. Whenever a few escaped, it had not been in vain for at least they got a breath of fresh air; the scent of freedom.
This account came from the diary of the prisoner, John Ransom. He had filled three books that he had carried out with him, but the original is now gone. I don’t know what had happened to him after his release. I wish I knew as he was a fine man, kind to all.
The diarist wrote: 50 died each day. Months later it came up to 80, then 160. Towards the end when men were brought into the camp, the conditions were so deplorable that they died much earlier than the others had. He had been there a year or more and was just hanging on.
Few shoes and clothing
Blankets coveted
Corpses were robbed
The naked bodies were laid in a pile. Once a day a wagon would come into the camp, and the Rebels laid them in it like they were logs from trees. Then they drove out the gate and dumped them in a trench, covering it with dirt.
Cold moldy cornbread
A handful of sour beans
Meat a luxury
One man chewed on a bone for days on end.
The diarist came down with scurvy and dropsy in his last months at the camp. When they came to take the men to the Confederate hospital, some men hid him in the middle of the crowd and almost carried him out. Only the healthy were allowed to go. The men left behind died shortly thereafter. It was there, in this hospital, that humanity thrived
The best part of this book were the times that the diarist had escaped, for the black slaves, learning that he was a Yankee, helped him all they could, giving him food and telling him where the Rebels were and where the best routes were located. It was like an underground railroad for Yankees. And I rejoiced when he saw that one plantation had been deserted, the owners had fled, leaving the slaves behind.
Talk of a Prisoner exchange
Giving the men hope
Broken. promises
The diarist wrote down the names of some of the me men who had died and even the towns where they had lived. Those still alive gave him photos of their families, and one man gave him buttons that he had made for a family member. All were to be taken to their families because they believed that they would never see them again, that he alone would survive. Then all were taken from him, but he went to visit their families and gave them his condolences.
My weary legs will
Carry me no more
Lying under an old oak
June 11, 2009
I wish this guy was still alive and had an email address so I could invite him over for dinner. He was in the 7th circle of harpy infested Hell suffering starvation, and scurvy which was slowly killing him but he wasn't going to complain about it. Throughout the whole drudgery he maintained a pragmatic peppy attitude and his advice to himself should he escape death and get out of Andersonville prison was to join the Masons and then buy and wear silk underwear. How cool is that.
His journal tends to repeat on what his prison interests were: prisoner exchanges and getting sent home, food, Yankee prisoners wilting up and dropping dead like leaves, and people's treatment of him. But he's charming. When he rereads through his journal he apologizes to potential readers about his complaining and his incessant focus on food. He mentions that he should find other things to write about but his mind is continually turning back to those subjects and he can't help it. A great read.
His journal tends to repeat on what his prison interests were: prisoner exchanges and getting sent home, food, Yankee prisoners wilting up and dropping dead like leaves, and people's treatment of him. But he's charming. When he rereads through his journal he apologizes to potential readers about his complaining and his incessant focus on food. He mentions that he should find other things to write about but his mind is continually turning back to those subjects and he can't help it. A great read.
March 19, 2020
John Ransom of the 9th Michigan Cavalry spent part of his Civil War experience under the worst possible circumstances – incarcerated in the Confederacy’s notorious Andersonville prison camp. Ransom walked into Andersonville on March 14, 1864, and staggered out of Andersonville 177 days later, on September 7th of that year – badly impaired in health, but alive. And Ransom was one of the lucky ones; out of 45,000 Union soldiers held at Andersonville, almost 13,000 died – making one’s chances of dying at Andersonville almost 3 in 10.
It is one of the starkest and saddest stories of the entire Civil War era; and fortunately for history, and for anyone who appreciates stories of the triumph of the human spirit, Ransom diligently kept a diary while being held at Andersonville. Two decades after leaving Andersonville, he published his diary and recollections as a book called Andersonville Diary (1881) – a work that details Life Inside the Civil War's Most Infamous Prison (the book's subtitle, in the edition I read), and that remains one of the best and most moving memoirs of the entire Civil War era.
Captured by Confederate soldiers while his unit was on campaign in Tennessee in 1863, Ransom was at first imprisoned in Richmond. Conditions there were rough; the food was scanty, the rebel guards were anything but friendly, and the Richmond winters could be harsh. But little could young John Ransom, just 20 years old at the start of his ordeal, have known what to expect when he and other Union prisoners were loaded onto trains and sent south toward a new camp in southwestern Georgia.
The notation in Ransom’s diary on the fateful day of his entry into Andersonville is a laconic one – “CAMP SUMTER, Andersonville, Ga., March 14. Arrived at our destination at last, and a dismal hole it is, too” (p. 53). Ransom’s words were prophetic, for the Andersonville P.O.W. camp quickly became a singularly terrible place, even by the awful standards that characterized the prison camps of the Civil War in both North and South.
Ransom and his fellow prisoners faced many challenges. The camp was terribly overcrowded, almost from the moment of its establishment. No barracks or shelter of any kind was provided, forcing the prisoners to construct their own makeshift shelters from tenting materials or whatever else they could scrounge. Food was terribly inadequate – generally corn meal ground up with the cob, a diet that wreaked havoc upon digestive systems already strained by the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables. There was no clean water supply; a creek that drained through the camp quickly became an open-air latrine that further contributed to the spread of disease. The camp’s commander, Henry Wirz, was inefficient at his work, and his mercurial personality and reputation for arbitrary inflicting of cruel punishments quickly made him a hated man among the prisoners. And the Confederate authorities’ failure to provide any sort of system of internal policing within the camp allowed gangs of “Raiders” to prey upon the weaker prisoners, robbing, beating, and even killing their fellow Unionists.
The brutal realities of Andersonville contribute to diary passages like one from June 29, 1864, where Ransom writes that “Sores afflict us now, and the Lord only knows what next. Scurvy and scurvy sores, dropsy, not the least thing to eat that can be called fit for any one, much less a sick man, water that to drink is poison, no shelter, and surrounded by raiders liable to cut our throats at any time. Surely, this is a go” (pp. 99-100).
Yet Andersonville Diary is not solely a chronicle of cruelty and squalor. Amidst the horrors of the camp, there are plenty of individuals who show how adversity and hardship can bring out the best in people – for instance, a Native American soldier from Minnesota, known only as Battese, who is unfailing in his kindness and friendship toward Ransom, nursing him in time of illness and protecting him, as well as anyone can, from the Raiders.
Andersonville Diary also shines in terms of the way it elucidates Ransom’s character. A printer in pre-war civilian life, Ransom is an educated man with a clear, no-nonsense writer’s voice. There is a certain wryness in passages like the one in which Ransom talks of starting a small business that serves the prisoner population – a widespread phenomenon within Civil War prisons on both sides. In a witty allusion to the Southern stereotype of Northerners as supposedly being greedy “money-grubbers,” Ransom dryly remarks that “It is thus that the Yankee getteth wealth.”
Moreover, as a number of commentators have noted since the book’s publication in 1881, Ransom may hate the circumstances of his imprisonment, but he does not hate all Confederates or Southerners as a result. Rather, he evaluates each person as he observes their ethical and moral qualities, no matter which side the person has taken in the American Civil War.
That fair-mindedness emerges in passages like one in which, after managing to stagger out of Andersonville (infirm prisoners were being required to remain), Ransom describes in positive terms his time at hospital in Savannah, writing on October 15, 1864, that “here it is quiet and pleasant and nice. Everyone talks and treats you with courtesy and kindness….Savannah has probably seen as little of real war or the consequence of war, as any city in the South” (p. 151).
Yet Ransom, unfortunately, does not get to stay in hospital; as more and more of the Confederacy is liberated by Union authorities, the increasingly desperate rebel government keeps transferring Union P.O.W.’s to hastily constructed new camps, and Ransom begins evolving plans for escape. In a diary entry for December 7, 1864, written at Blackshear, Georgia, while Ransom and some friends are preparing an escape attempt, Ransom describes a conversation with some Confederate guards that again emphasizes Ransom’s dry sense of humor and gift for observation: “Guards denounce Jeff Davis as the author of their misfortunes. We also denounce him as the author of ours, so we are agreed on one point” (pp. 201-02).
It seems surprising that no filmmaker has yet tried to adapt Andersonville Diary for the screen, as it has just as much drama as the stories recounted in films like The Great Escape (1963) or Papillon (1973) or Shawshank Redemption (1994). The moment when the Andersonville inmates form their own band of “Regulators” and overcome the Raiders makes for inspiring reading. And Ransom’s recollections of not one, but two, escape attempts are recounted in thrilling detail that would translate well to cinema.
But Hollywood filmmakers’ loss is the careful reader’s gain. Many, many veterans of the Civil War set down their recollections of the war period in one form or another; but Andersonville Diary stands out for its honesty, its ethical sensibility, its lack of malice. John Ransom emerges as a sympathetic figure; as the book goes on, the reader wants to see John Ransom survive the horrors of his captivity and return home safely to Michigan.
And one final reflection intrigues me as I look ahead from Andersonville and the American Civil War to even crueler camps from a later, much more vast and terrible war. Readers of Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) will recall how Frankl, looking back at his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi death camps, observed one common denominator among the prisoners who managed to survive the death camps of the Holocaust: most of them felt that they had something to live for, some form of meaning to sustain them. A family member, still living, who would need their help after the war; an unfinished project that they hoped to complete – whatever it was, it gave them a reason to live on.
Did his daily work on his diary help John Ransom to survive Andersonville? Did the task of writing each day or so in the diary give him something to look forward to, a reason to live, a reason not to give up amidst the filth and inhumanity of Camp Sumter? Can writing help all of us to endure in grim times? It is an interesting possibility to contemplate at this time, in the early days of the coronavirus/COVID-19 outbreak here in the United States of America.
But putting aside such philosophical questions for the time being, I will conclude simply by re-emphasizing that John Ransom’s Andersonville Diary is one of the best Civil War memoirs ever written -- a judgement echoed by the eminent Civil War Bruce Catton, who wrote a thoughtful foreword for this reprinting of Ransom's work. Indeed, Andersonville Diary belongs on any list of the very best soldier memoirs ever set down by a veteran of any war.
It is one of the starkest and saddest stories of the entire Civil War era; and fortunately for history, and for anyone who appreciates stories of the triumph of the human spirit, Ransom diligently kept a diary while being held at Andersonville. Two decades after leaving Andersonville, he published his diary and recollections as a book called Andersonville Diary (1881) – a work that details Life Inside the Civil War's Most Infamous Prison (the book's subtitle, in the edition I read), and that remains one of the best and most moving memoirs of the entire Civil War era.
Captured by Confederate soldiers while his unit was on campaign in Tennessee in 1863, Ransom was at first imprisoned in Richmond. Conditions there were rough; the food was scanty, the rebel guards were anything but friendly, and the Richmond winters could be harsh. But little could young John Ransom, just 20 years old at the start of his ordeal, have known what to expect when he and other Union prisoners were loaded onto trains and sent south toward a new camp in southwestern Georgia.
The notation in Ransom’s diary on the fateful day of his entry into Andersonville is a laconic one – “CAMP SUMTER, Andersonville, Ga., March 14. Arrived at our destination at last, and a dismal hole it is, too” (p. 53). Ransom’s words were prophetic, for the Andersonville P.O.W. camp quickly became a singularly terrible place, even by the awful standards that characterized the prison camps of the Civil War in both North and South.
Ransom and his fellow prisoners faced many challenges. The camp was terribly overcrowded, almost from the moment of its establishment. No barracks or shelter of any kind was provided, forcing the prisoners to construct their own makeshift shelters from tenting materials or whatever else they could scrounge. Food was terribly inadequate – generally corn meal ground up with the cob, a diet that wreaked havoc upon digestive systems already strained by the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables. There was no clean water supply; a creek that drained through the camp quickly became an open-air latrine that further contributed to the spread of disease. The camp’s commander, Henry Wirz, was inefficient at his work, and his mercurial personality and reputation for arbitrary inflicting of cruel punishments quickly made him a hated man among the prisoners. And the Confederate authorities’ failure to provide any sort of system of internal policing within the camp allowed gangs of “Raiders” to prey upon the weaker prisoners, robbing, beating, and even killing their fellow Unionists.
The brutal realities of Andersonville contribute to diary passages like one from June 29, 1864, where Ransom writes that “Sores afflict us now, and the Lord only knows what next. Scurvy and scurvy sores, dropsy, not the least thing to eat that can be called fit for any one, much less a sick man, water that to drink is poison, no shelter, and surrounded by raiders liable to cut our throats at any time. Surely, this is a go” (pp. 99-100).
Yet Andersonville Diary is not solely a chronicle of cruelty and squalor. Amidst the horrors of the camp, there are plenty of individuals who show how adversity and hardship can bring out the best in people – for instance, a Native American soldier from Minnesota, known only as Battese, who is unfailing in his kindness and friendship toward Ransom, nursing him in time of illness and protecting him, as well as anyone can, from the Raiders.
Andersonville Diary also shines in terms of the way it elucidates Ransom’s character. A printer in pre-war civilian life, Ransom is an educated man with a clear, no-nonsense writer’s voice. There is a certain wryness in passages like the one in which Ransom talks of starting a small business that serves the prisoner population – a widespread phenomenon within Civil War prisons on both sides. In a witty allusion to the Southern stereotype of Northerners as supposedly being greedy “money-grubbers,” Ransom dryly remarks that “It is thus that the Yankee getteth wealth.”
Moreover, as a number of commentators have noted since the book’s publication in 1881, Ransom may hate the circumstances of his imprisonment, but he does not hate all Confederates or Southerners as a result. Rather, he evaluates each person as he observes their ethical and moral qualities, no matter which side the person has taken in the American Civil War.
That fair-mindedness emerges in passages like one in which, after managing to stagger out of Andersonville (infirm prisoners were being required to remain), Ransom describes in positive terms his time at hospital in Savannah, writing on October 15, 1864, that “here it is quiet and pleasant and nice. Everyone talks and treats you with courtesy and kindness….Savannah has probably seen as little of real war or the consequence of war, as any city in the South” (p. 151).
Yet Ransom, unfortunately, does not get to stay in hospital; as more and more of the Confederacy is liberated by Union authorities, the increasingly desperate rebel government keeps transferring Union P.O.W.’s to hastily constructed new camps, and Ransom begins evolving plans for escape. In a diary entry for December 7, 1864, written at Blackshear, Georgia, while Ransom and some friends are preparing an escape attempt, Ransom describes a conversation with some Confederate guards that again emphasizes Ransom’s dry sense of humor and gift for observation: “Guards denounce Jeff Davis as the author of their misfortunes. We also denounce him as the author of ours, so we are agreed on one point” (pp. 201-02).
It seems surprising that no filmmaker has yet tried to adapt Andersonville Diary for the screen, as it has just as much drama as the stories recounted in films like The Great Escape (1963) or Papillon (1973) or Shawshank Redemption (1994). The moment when the Andersonville inmates form their own band of “Regulators” and overcome the Raiders makes for inspiring reading. And Ransom’s recollections of not one, but two, escape attempts are recounted in thrilling detail that would translate well to cinema.
But Hollywood filmmakers’ loss is the careful reader’s gain. Many, many veterans of the Civil War set down their recollections of the war period in one form or another; but Andersonville Diary stands out for its honesty, its ethical sensibility, its lack of malice. John Ransom emerges as a sympathetic figure; as the book goes on, the reader wants to see John Ransom survive the horrors of his captivity and return home safely to Michigan.
And one final reflection intrigues me as I look ahead from Andersonville and the American Civil War to even crueler camps from a later, much more vast and terrible war. Readers of Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) will recall how Frankl, looking back at his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi death camps, observed one common denominator among the prisoners who managed to survive the death camps of the Holocaust: most of them felt that they had something to live for, some form of meaning to sustain them. A family member, still living, who would need their help after the war; an unfinished project that they hoped to complete – whatever it was, it gave them a reason to live on.
Did his daily work on his diary help John Ransom to survive Andersonville? Did the task of writing each day or so in the diary give him something to look forward to, a reason to live, a reason not to give up amidst the filth and inhumanity of Camp Sumter? Can writing help all of us to endure in grim times? It is an interesting possibility to contemplate at this time, in the early days of the coronavirus/COVID-19 outbreak here in the United States of America.
But putting aside such philosophical questions for the time being, I will conclude simply by re-emphasizing that John Ransom’s Andersonville Diary is one of the best Civil War memoirs ever written -- a judgement echoed by the eminent Civil War Bruce Catton, who wrote a thoughtful foreword for this reprinting of Ransom's work. Indeed, Andersonville Diary belongs on any list of the very best soldier memoirs ever set down by a veteran of any war.
April 29, 2019
Admittedly, this particular book is a classic because of what John Ransom wrote about his own experiences in Andersonville (and before that in Richmond's ironically named Belle Isle prison), but Bruce Catton does a good job in framing this particular book as a masterpiece of prison literature. And so it is. In act, this particular chilling prison account bears a lot of similarities with the sort of prison literature that can be found from Nazi Germany or the Soviet Gulags, as Ransom comes off like a person not too unlike an Eli Wiesel or Alexander Solzhenitsyn in terms of his insights about prison life and the struggle for survival in the face of brutal imprisonment. Of course, in the interests of fairness and balance it is is a shame we do not have a similar masterpiece from a literate and observant and humane Confederate prisoner from Camp Douglas or Elmira prison who could have written a diary that would have served as a counterpoint to remind the reader that both the Union and Confederacy were somewhat savage in the way they set up prisons, suggesting both the ferocity of the war and the way that logistics systems for prisoners were overwhelmed by the sheer number of prisoners to be dealt with.
While the original diary had been destroyed in a fire, the text of the diary was able to be reconstructed by the letters the author had previously written to a local newspaper that immortalized the diary by having it published for his neighbors. The nearly 300 pages of this book are made up of fourteen chapters and various addenda. The book begins with the author's discussion of his capture in the Knoxville campaign due to rebel trickery (1), and how he found himself spending New Year's Day 1864 in prison in Richmond (2), and the way that the insecurity of Richmond's prisons in the aftermath of the Dahlgren raid led to the author and other prisoners to be moved to the deep south (3). The author's arrival at Andersonville (4) quickly convinces him it is the worst of all prisons, which is not far off, and he talks about how things go from bad to worse (5), have to put down the criminal population (6), and how the author was moved to a Marine hospital in Savannah just in time (7) and provides some insight on hospital life (8). His removal to Millen (9) is not a bad one, and he soon regains enough strength to escape (10) before being re-captured (11) because his accent gives him away. Finally, the author successfully escapes (12), finds himself safe and sound when Sherman's troops take Savannah (13), and allows him the chance to talk about what happened to his fellow prisoners (14), along with providing some rebel testimony about conditions in Andersonville and some news of what happened to the author after the war.
There are a few aspects that make this a prison classic of the first order. For one, the author himself was resourceful enough to provide himself with writing material while a prisoner and to prove himself an intensely observant person about the situation he found himself in. His writings demonstrate that the prison camp experience tends to bring with it the proliferation of a criminal element that preys on the prisoners, and it is telling that the Andersonville staff, for all of the cruelty of the prison, actually encouraged the larger prisoner population to put down what would become "trusties" in the gulag system, the general criminal element that found itself in such prisons as well. The author shows a great deal of loyalty to those who helped him in his second successful escape, showing that the support of local blacks and of local Unionists was critical in allowing for successful escape, and the author was a humane enough man to make sure that such people were rewarded for the risks that they had taken. Not only is the author's own narrative compelling, but the author's context of prison life is compelling as well, making this an obscure masterpiece in an admittedly dark genre of literature.
While the original diary had been destroyed in a fire, the text of the diary was able to be reconstructed by the letters the author had previously written to a local newspaper that immortalized the diary by having it published for his neighbors. The nearly 300 pages of this book are made up of fourteen chapters and various addenda. The book begins with the author's discussion of his capture in the Knoxville campaign due to rebel trickery (1), and how he found himself spending New Year's Day 1864 in prison in Richmond (2), and the way that the insecurity of Richmond's prisons in the aftermath of the Dahlgren raid led to the author and other prisoners to be moved to the deep south (3). The author's arrival at Andersonville (4) quickly convinces him it is the worst of all prisons, which is not far off, and he talks about how things go from bad to worse (5), have to put down the criminal population (6), and how the author was moved to a Marine hospital in Savannah just in time (7) and provides some insight on hospital life (8). His removal to Millen (9) is not a bad one, and he soon regains enough strength to escape (10) before being re-captured (11) because his accent gives him away. Finally, the author successfully escapes (12), finds himself safe and sound when Sherman's troops take Savannah (13), and allows him the chance to talk about what happened to his fellow prisoners (14), along with providing some rebel testimony about conditions in Andersonville and some news of what happened to the author after the war.
There are a few aspects that make this a prison classic of the first order. For one, the author himself was resourceful enough to provide himself with writing material while a prisoner and to prove himself an intensely observant person about the situation he found himself in. His writings demonstrate that the prison camp experience tends to bring with it the proliferation of a criminal element that preys on the prisoners, and it is telling that the Andersonville staff, for all of the cruelty of the prison, actually encouraged the larger prisoner population to put down what would become "trusties" in the gulag system, the general criminal element that found itself in such prisons as well. The author shows a great deal of loyalty to those who helped him in his second successful escape, showing that the support of local blacks and of local Unionists was critical in allowing for successful escape, and the author was a humane enough man to make sure that such people were rewarded for the risks that they had taken. Not only is the author's own narrative compelling, but the author's context of prison life is compelling as well, making this an obscure masterpiece in an admittedly dark genre of literature.
March 17, 2009
History in your face. I was surprised to find John Ransom’s writing so contemporary—as if a friend or co-worker had written me an Email that took over one hundred years to arrive. Lincoln reported dead in the newspapers a year too soon! Spin doctors have been around awhile.
One year in the Life of John Ransom. I’m struck by the similarities between John Ransom and the Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Gulag Archipelago and many other fine works.
They are both humble men who survived through inventive means, self-motivation, camaraderie, and humor to tell of hidden dark deprivation and sufferings from personal perspective in situations where human beings were thrown away like trash to be forgotten by the general public.
After reading these heroic missives I couldn’t help but to again embrace the riches of ordinary life. Like sweet potatoes and vegetables. Like the freedom to be clean. Like the freedom to walk down the street without being shot at.
One year in the Life of John Ransom. I’m struck by the similarities between John Ransom and the Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Gulag Archipelago and many other fine works.
They are both humble men who survived through inventive means, self-motivation, camaraderie, and humor to tell of hidden dark deprivation and sufferings from personal perspective in situations where human beings were thrown away like trash to be forgotten by the general public.
After reading these heroic missives I couldn’t help but to again embrace the riches of ordinary life. Like sweet potatoes and vegetables. Like the freedom to be clean. Like the freedom to walk down the street without being shot at.
March 15, 2019
I first heard of John Ransom's diary some years ago when I read MacKinlay Kantor's Pulitzer-Prize winning novel ANDERSONVILLE, which is a fictionalized account of life inside and outside Camp Sumter, GA, the POW camp known as Andersonville. Kantor drew heavily upon John Ransom's first-hand account of life inside this death camp - a veritable hell on earth - to describe the horrific conditions in this prison, where there was no shelter, no medicine, no potable water, no toilets, inedible food, and murderous villains on every side ready to attack their own comrades for what they could steal from them.
We've all heard of Nazi death camps and deadly Japanese POW prisons, but very few have heard of this Civil War POW camp called Andersonville, where 13,000 out of 45,000 perished from disease, starvation, and exposure. John Ransom's diary is one of a kind. Reading his account of the 14 months he spent as a POW in Andersonville and half a dozen other Rebel camps is better than any novel, and the account of his escape from two of these prisons is more exciting than any movie. It will stay with me for a long time, maybe forever.
We've all heard of Nazi death camps and deadly Japanese POW prisons, but very few have heard of this Civil War POW camp called Andersonville, where 13,000 out of 45,000 perished from disease, starvation, and exposure. John Ransom's diary is one of a kind. Reading his account of the 14 months he spent as a POW in Andersonville and half a dozen other Rebel camps is better than any novel, and the account of his escape from two of these prisons is more exciting than any movie. It will stay with me for a long time, maybe forever.
February 3, 2019
Five stars for being a straightforward and incredibly useful reference re: POWs during the Civil War. Ransom himself is very likable and, considering what he went through, has an unrelentingly positive attitude. The post-War chapters are also informative, giving us a hint of the difficulties facing veterans who were trying to receive their pensions for the disease and disability incurred during their time in Confederate prisons. The blank bureaucracy they faced will be entirely relatable since this issue has only doubled and trebled in intensity over time. The bulk of the book is the diary he kept to maintain his mental health, the entries within shortening heartbreakingly as he becomes more and more sickly and disabled, edging closer to death. At one point, he can no longer write and entreats a neighbor in the hospital to write for him as he dictates his short entries. Thank goodness for his obsessive dedication, because it paints a very full picture of the treatment of Union prisoners at a variety of POW facilities.
Unsung hero: Battese, his Native American friend who is the only reason John Ransom survives his ordeal. Battese is his friend, his partner in camp, his caretaker when sick, and - in the end - the man who drags Ransom's scurvy and dropsy-riddled body out of Andersonville by dint of sheer determination. This man, whoever he was (records can't be found and the name was likely an alias), deserves recognition for being those things most needed in the direst moments: he was stolid and steadfast.
A link to the Andersonville NPS site, the page specifically about Native American captives at the prison: https://www.nps.gov/ande/learn/histor...
Unsung hero: Battese, his Native American friend who is the only reason John Ransom survives his ordeal. Battese is his friend, his partner in camp, his caretaker when sick, and - in the end - the man who drags Ransom's scurvy and dropsy-riddled body out of Andersonville by dint of sheer determination. This man, whoever he was (records can't be found and the name was likely an alias), deserves recognition for being those things most needed in the direst moments: he was stolid and steadfast.
A link to the Andersonville NPS site, the page specifically about Native American captives at the prison: https://www.nps.gov/ande/learn/histor...
April 18, 2022
I’ve listened to the LibriVox version of this incredible story a few times. The reader was excellent, and really brought to life the author, John L Ransom. Ransom was a remarkable chronicler. His wit, authenticity, optimism, sincerity, even humor, in the face of such horrific despair, is absolutely extraordinary This is one of those recoded books that I’ll listen to again and again. Highly recommend.
March 26, 2021
Such a great book !
This book is both compelling and disgusting in it's details.
Even though I already thought I knew about Andersonville
prison, the details in this narrative show what deplorable
things are done in the name of war. The story is told in a
plain and simple manner, but it grabbed and held my attention
so I couldn't put it down until it was done.
This book is both compelling and disgusting in it's details.
Even though I already thought I knew about Andersonville
prison, the details in this narrative show what deplorable
things are done in the name of war. The story is told in a
plain and simple manner, but it grabbed and held my attention
so I couldn't put it down until it was done.
July 8, 2021
I am only half way through the audio book, and I am truly fascinated to be able to get into the mind of a soldier in the Civil War, it intrigues me that, when this soldier was writing in his Journal, he never imagined that someone would be reading his Journal almost 160 years into the future. Truly Amazing and I am enjoying every bit of this book!
October 16, 2018
POPSUGAR 2018: a book tied to your ancestry
I have an ancestor who was imprisoned at Andersonville. Ransom's writing style isn't the florid style one usually encounters in a Civil War diary. It's very spare and functional, much like his existence at the prison. For a good part of the diary, he lists what he ate (or, rather, didn't eat), his state of health (usually plagued by scurvy), and the number of new inmates and how many die each day. I'm glad I read this book, and while reading it, I couldn't help but think about my ancestor, and whether or not he had his hair cut or washing done by John Ransom.
I have an ancestor who was imprisoned at Andersonville. Ransom's writing style isn't the florid style one usually encounters in a Civil War diary. It's very spare and functional, much like his existence at the prison. For a good part of the diary, he lists what he ate (or, rather, didn't eat), his state of health (usually plagued by scurvy), and the number of new inmates and how many die each day. I'm glad I read this book, and while reading it, I couldn't help but think about my ancestor, and whether or not he had his hair cut or washing done by John Ransom.
February 10, 2024
One of the great stories of the Civil War. John Ransom kept a diary while a prisoner of the Confederacy. He moved through several camps to include Andersonville. His is a story of survival and resistance. He also provides the reader with an accurate picture of the trials and conditions he and his fellow prisoners faced. His escape attempts, culminating in a final successful effort, are thrilling. I especial ally appreciated Ransom's narrative as my Great-Great Grandfather was imprisoned with him at Andersonville for a while.
Read
February 26, 2023An interesting read with understandable, direct language that shines a light on something not talked about today: Confederate Prison Camps.
He's very funny too. Despite the hell of a situation he's in, Ransom maitain an upbeat attitude as he suffers from starvation and scurvy. He's dying, his friends are dying or getting shot, his country has been torn in half, but he's not going to complain about it because what good would it do?
He's very funny too. Despite the hell of a situation he's in, Ransom maitain an upbeat attitude as he suffers from starvation and scurvy. He's dying, his friends are dying or getting shot, his country has been torn in half, but he's not going to complain about it because what good would it do?
December 15, 2025
I had read Mackinley Kantor's book Andersonville about the notorious confederate camp for Union prisoners of war and was deeply moved. After reading, I was curious to research where Kantor got his material (he had worked on his novel ten years). One of his sources was John Ransom's diary that he had kept as a prisoner of war and published years later.
Ransom was originally sent to Belle Isle outside Richmond, Virginia, and then later transferred to Andersonville. He contrasted the treatment the prisoners received at Belle Isle with the horror of Andersonville. While being a prisoner of war at Belle Isle was no picnic, the soldiers did have plenty of food and access to clean water. One of the sad aspects of prisoner of war life was that the supplies sent by the families of prisoners in the North were not evenly distributed. Ransom often recorded how unfairly the clothing was distributed by their own soldiers and how many of the boxes sent to the soldiers were confiscated by the confederates. It just seemed pitiful to me when Ransom wrote about hoping for a box from his family, but was disappointed.
In March 1864, Ransom was transferred to Andersonville. Along the way, he bought a comforter from a confederate guard. Throughout the diary, Ransom credits the comforter with saving his life on many occasions, it became a talisman to him. He and his messmates called their group the "Astor House" mess, the men pooled their food and resources together, and mutually decided to keep clean. The camaraderie among the men helped to keep up their spirits and helped them to stay alive. Ransom and his Minnesota Indian friend, Batese, set up a business to wash clothes and cut hair. In return for these services, they received extra food. I think a lot of the reason why Ransom survived his ordeal was the fact that he kept busy and tried not to get depressed. He often writes about visiting the other soldiers in Andersonville who were fellow Michiganders. Ransom kept an interest in life, even in the midst of deprivation.
Unfortunately, not even the best intentions to do your best to stay healthy and well can keep alive people subjected to near starvation, no clean water, and filthy conditions. In June, Ransome came down with scurvy and dropsy. He came close to death, but was helped by the loyal Batese, who would scrounge onions and sweet potatoes for his friend.
In September, Ransom was removed with most of the other prisoners to Savannah. As a prisoner who was severely ill, he was not supposed to leave, but Ransom's friends Batese and Sergeant William Rowe propped Ransom between them and got Ransom out at the same time they left. This almost definitely saved Ransom's life. Ransom had high praise for the confederate hospital in Savannah and for the treatment he received there. The doctors and nurses at the hospital got him better gradually, as well as his good friends who bought him extra provisions. When admitted to the hospital, all of Ransom's things got lost-- but there was so much interest in Ransom's diaries and their preservation among his friends that the other soldiers kept the chronicle safe.
After convalescing, Ransom was removed to Millen, but he decided to escape and try to make his way north. He was recaptured, but treated so well he thought the escape was worth the risk. He escaped once again and met up with fellow escapees, the Buck cousins. Ransom had a lot of respect for these young men, especially David Buck, who was a scout and resourceful enough to stay on the lam for a couple of months. Ransom and the Bucks eventually are able to rejoin the army as Sherman's troops march through Georgia.
One of the best features of the diary is that Ransom wrote an epilogue informing the reader about what happened to the many friends he mentioned in his diary. This was both interesting and heart warming, but the person Ransom most wanted to reunite with he couldn't find, the Minnesota Indian Batese.
This is an invaluable account about one of the most shameful events in American history. While it is true that the confederacy was short on supplies, the vicious treatment of the Union soldiers could have been ameliorated by common decency and sense. The commander of the camp, Henry Wirz was brought to trial and executed for war crimes. After reading Andersonville, I came to the conclusion that while Wirz was guilty, so was General Winder who was over the confederate prisoners of war. Ransom also stated that Wirz was not the only one responsible for the conditions at Andersonville, but that people in superior roles were also guilty. What surprised me was that many of the soldiers (including Ransom) were resentful toward the Federal government for letting them languish in prison rather than exchange their soldiers.
Ransom is a likable young man, full of spirit and optimism and it was a pleasure (strange as that sounds) and privilege to read his diary. I honor him for sharing his experiences with the world.
Ransom was originally sent to Belle Isle outside Richmond, Virginia, and then later transferred to Andersonville. He contrasted the treatment the prisoners received at Belle Isle with the horror of Andersonville. While being a prisoner of war at Belle Isle was no picnic, the soldiers did have plenty of food and access to clean water. One of the sad aspects of prisoner of war life was that the supplies sent by the families of prisoners in the North were not evenly distributed. Ransom often recorded how unfairly the clothing was distributed by their own soldiers and how many of the boxes sent to the soldiers were confiscated by the confederates. It just seemed pitiful to me when Ransom wrote about hoping for a box from his family, but was disappointed.
In March 1864, Ransom was transferred to Andersonville. Along the way, he bought a comforter from a confederate guard. Throughout the diary, Ransom credits the comforter with saving his life on many occasions, it became a talisman to him. He and his messmates called their group the "Astor House" mess, the men pooled their food and resources together, and mutually decided to keep clean. The camaraderie among the men helped to keep up their spirits and helped them to stay alive. Ransom and his Minnesota Indian friend, Batese, set up a business to wash clothes and cut hair. In return for these services, they received extra food. I think a lot of the reason why Ransom survived his ordeal was the fact that he kept busy and tried not to get depressed. He often writes about visiting the other soldiers in Andersonville who were fellow Michiganders. Ransom kept an interest in life, even in the midst of deprivation.
Unfortunately, not even the best intentions to do your best to stay healthy and well can keep alive people subjected to near starvation, no clean water, and filthy conditions. In June, Ransome came down with scurvy and dropsy. He came close to death, but was helped by the loyal Batese, who would scrounge onions and sweet potatoes for his friend.
In September, Ransom was removed with most of the other prisoners to Savannah. As a prisoner who was severely ill, he was not supposed to leave, but Ransom's friends Batese and Sergeant William Rowe propped Ransom between them and got Ransom out at the same time they left. This almost definitely saved Ransom's life. Ransom had high praise for the confederate hospital in Savannah and for the treatment he received there. The doctors and nurses at the hospital got him better gradually, as well as his good friends who bought him extra provisions. When admitted to the hospital, all of Ransom's things got lost-- but there was so much interest in Ransom's diaries and their preservation among his friends that the other soldiers kept the chronicle safe.
After convalescing, Ransom was removed to Millen, but he decided to escape and try to make his way north. He was recaptured, but treated so well he thought the escape was worth the risk. He escaped once again and met up with fellow escapees, the Buck cousins. Ransom had a lot of respect for these young men, especially David Buck, who was a scout and resourceful enough to stay on the lam for a couple of months. Ransom and the Bucks eventually are able to rejoin the army as Sherman's troops march through Georgia.
One of the best features of the diary is that Ransom wrote an epilogue informing the reader about what happened to the many friends he mentioned in his diary. This was both interesting and heart warming, but the person Ransom most wanted to reunite with he couldn't find, the Minnesota Indian Batese.
This is an invaluable account about one of the most shameful events in American history. While it is true that the confederacy was short on supplies, the vicious treatment of the Union soldiers could have been ameliorated by common decency and sense. The commander of the camp, Henry Wirz was brought to trial and executed for war crimes. After reading Andersonville, I came to the conclusion that while Wirz was guilty, so was General Winder who was over the confederate prisoners of war. Ransom also stated that Wirz was not the only one responsible for the conditions at Andersonville, but that people in superior roles were also guilty. What surprised me was that many of the soldiers (including Ransom) were resentful toward the Federal government for letting them languish in prison rather than exchange their soldiers.
Ransom is a likable young man, full of spirit and optimism and it was a pleasure (strange as that sounds) and privilege to read his diary. I honor him for sharing his experiences with the world.
September 13, 2025
A stunning, miraculous book that I’m surprised has never gained more of a status as a staple in high schools. Probably because it’s easier to teach about Europeans committing heinous war crime atrocities on their people than it is to teach American students about how Americans committed similar crimes against their fellow Americans. It boggles the mind to think that we had what was darn-near an Auschwitz where Americans were dying by the hundreds every single day on our own soil. What happened at Andersonville is so awful that it’s hard to fathom, and reading a diary from someone who was there helps to comprehend it, but even reading Ransom’s account makes it easy to see how the astounding death toll starts to feel mundane after a while. It numbs you and you can’t even begin to process the loss anymore. I would consider at least the passages in this that concern Andersonville directly to be essential American writing. God bless all the men who fought for America and died like dogs in the Georgia sun.
Here’s the lyrics of one of my favorite songs:
“Pray for me, my darling
That peace might come to pass
The devil finally laid to rest
The carnage done at last
We may have left at seventeen
Before boys are men
But the ladies, they will all turn out
When we come home again
We were locked in hell in Andersonville
In shebangs hot and stinking
The stream we use as our latrine
Gives water for our drinking
And a hundred of us daily die
To fill those fresh-dug graves
Ah, but the ladies they will all turn out
When we come home again
Rumors spawn and rumors die
On the rocks of the Georgia sun
And hope is just a luxury
You learn not to count on
Oh Hannah, may you never see
The sights that I have seen
Nor the ladies who will all turn out
If we come home again
So I watch the strong and fearless
Reduced and disgraced
Each day the heart of twisted man
Stares me in the face
So I pray for death to take me
Just like it did my friends
The ladies, they will all turn out
When the coffins are brought in
At night I say my prayers
And then I hold you to my breast
And I'm reading through the Testament
You gave me for last Christmas
I swear I heard the children laugh
Or was it angels on the plains?
Or the ladies--had they all turned out
'Cause we came home again?” - Bill Mallonee
Here’s the lyrics of one of my favorite songs:
“Pray for me, my darling
That peace might come to pass
The devil finally laid to rest
The carnage done at last
We may have left at seventeen
Before boys are men
But the ladies, they will all turn out
When we come home again
We were locked in hell in Andersonville
In shebangs hot and stinking
The stream we use as our latrine
Gives water for our drinking
And a hundred of us daily die
To fill those fresh-dug graves
Ah, but the ladies they will all turn out
When we come home again
Rumors spawn and rumors die
On the rocks of the Georgia sun
And hope is just a luxury
You learn not to count on
Oh Hannah, may you never see
The sights that I have seen
Nor the ladies who will all turn out
If we come home again
So I watch the strong and fearless
Reduced and disgraced
Each day the heart of twisted man
Stares me in the face
So I pray for death to take me
Just like it did my friends
The ladies, they will all turn out
When the coffins are brought in
At night I say my prayers
And then I hold you to my breast
And I'm reading through the Testament
You gave me for last Christmas
I swear I heard the children laugh
Or was it angels on the plains?
Or the ladies--had they all turned out
'Cause we came home again?” - Bill Mallonee
May 31, 2018
History is anything but boring. Take any incident from any era and start to dig and the most amazing people and stories come to light. The historical stories are often more interesting than anything even the most talented writers might dream up.
ANDERSONVILLE DIARY by John L. Ransom (copyright 1881, reprinted in e-book format in 2016) is a great example of this truth.
Ransom defied almost insurmountable odds by not just surviving the infamous Confederate prison of Andersonville but maintaining a personal diary through his entire ordeal. It makes fascinating reading. To have heard about the horrors (starvation, disease, over a hundred deaths each day) and learning about them first-hand are two different things.
As Ransom says, “Only those who are here will ever know what Andersonville is.”
One among many of Ransom’s observations:
“Laying on the ground so much, has made sores on nearly every one here, and in many cases gangrene sets in, and they are very bad off. Have many sores on my body, but am careful to keep away the poison. To-day saw a man with a bullet hole in his head over an inch deep, and you could look down in it and see maggots squirming around at the bottom.”
On the other hand, he gets used to it:
“By four o’clock each day, the row of dead at the gate would scare the life out of me before coming here, while now it is nothing at all, but the same thing over and over.”
He learns the skills of survival in this place:
“Must take plenty of exercise, keep clean, free as circumstances will permit of vermin, drink no water until it has been boiled, which process purifies and makes it more healthy, are not to allow ourselves to get despondent, and must talk, laugh and make as light of our affairs as possible. Sure death for a person to give up and lose all ambition…Those who find the least fault, make the best of things, as they come, and grin and bear it, get along the best…”
Ultimately, it all comes down to what a man is made of inside:
“Those whom we expect the most from in the way of braving hardships and dangers, prove to be nobody at all. And very often those we expect the least from prove to be heroes every inch of them…A man shows exactly what he is in Andersonville. No occasion to be any different from what you really are. Very often see a great big fellow in size, in reality a baby in action, actually snivelling and crying, and then again you will see some little runt, ‘not bigger than a pint of cider,’ tell the big fellow to ‘brace up’ and be a man. Stature has nothing to do as regards nerve, still there are noble big fellows, as well as noble little ones.”
One of the most surprising parts of this narrative are who turns out to be the villains and who the hero. The villains are not the Confederate forces – who in some ways are as worse off than the prisoners – but their fellow Yankees:
“There are organized bands of raiders who do pretty much as they please…Raiders getting more bold, as the situation grows worse. Often rob a man now of all he has, in public, making no attempt at concealment…The raiders are the stronger party now, and do as they please; and we are in nearly as much danger now from our own men as from the Rebels. Captain Moseby, of my own hundred, figures conspicuously among the robberies, and is a terrible villain.”
The hero, however, turns out to be an American Indian named Battese, a “large, full-blooded six-foot Minnesota Indian, has quarters near us, and is a noble fellow.” Battese took “quite a fatherly interest” in Ransom and showed a way to help cope with the hell: work. They took a plank, carved notches in it to create a washboard, and started a business.
The Indian said, “I work, do me good; you do same.” The work occupied their time, but also allowed them to obtain “small pieces of bread for our labors. Some of the sick cannot eat their bread, and not being able to keep clean, give us a job. Make probably a pound of bread two or three days in the week.”
When Ransom got sick, Battese figured out how to create medicine: “My limbs are badly swollen with scurvy and dropsy combined. Mouth also very sore. Battese digs for roots, which he steeps up and I drink.”
Even so, Ransom’s condition continues to deteriorate, and Battese still looks out for him: “He does all the cooking now. He has made me a cane to walk with, brings water from the well, and performs nearly all the manual labor for us.”
Toward the end, Battese even made it possible for Ransom to leave the prison. The Confederates ruled that all prisoners who could not walk must stay behind. And Ransom could not walk. He wrote, “…trying to stand up, but can’t do it; legs too crooked, and with every attempt get faint. Men laugh at the idea of my going, as the Rebels are very particular not to let any sick go, still Battese says I am going.”
And, in fact, that is what happened:
“The Rebel Adjutant stood upon a box by the gate, watching very close. Pitch-pine knots were burning in the near vicinity, to give light. As it came our turn to go. Battese got me in the middle of the rank, stood me up as well as I could stand, and with himself on one side and Sergeant Rowe on the other, began pushing our way through the gate. Could not help myself a particle, and was so faint, that I hardly knew what was going on. As we were going through the gate the Adjutant yells out: ‘Here, here! hold on there, that man can’t go, hold on there!’ and Battese crowding right along outside. The Adjutant struck over the heads of the men and tried to stop us, but my noble Indian friend kept straight ahead, hallooing: ‘He all right, he well, he go!’ And so I got outside, the Adjutant having too much to look after to follow me.”
Ransom recovered in a military hospital and it was Battese who ensured Ransom would have his entire journal: “Battese on his last visit to me left the two first books of my diary, which he had in his possession. There is no doubt but he has saved my life, although he will take no credit for it.”
Sadly, after they were separated, Ransom and Battese never saw each other again. Ransom wrote in his afterward:
“My good old friend, Battese, I regret to say, I have never seen, or heard of since he last visited me in the Marine Hospital at Savannah. Have written many letters, and made many inquiries, but to no effect. He was so reticent while with us in the prison, that we did not learn enough of him to make inquiries, since then, effective. Although for many months I was in his immediate presence, he said nothing of where he lived, his circumstances, or anything else. I only know that his name was Battese, that he belonged to a Minnesota regiment, and was a noble fellow. I don’t know of a man in the world I would rather see to-day than him, and I hope some day, when I have gotten rich out of this book (if that time should ever come), to go to Minnesota, and look him up. There are many Andersonville survivors, who must remember the tall Indian, and certainly I shall, as long as life shall last.”
ANDERSONVILLE DIARY by John L. Ransom (copyright 1881, reprinted in e-book format in 2016) is a great example of this truth.
Ransom defied almost insurmountable odds by not just surviving the infamous Confederate prison of Andersonville but maintaining a personal diary through his entire ordeal. It makes fascinating reading. To have heard about the horrors (starvation, disease, over a hundred deaths each day) and learning about them first-hand are two different things.
As Ransom says, “Only those who are here will ever know what Andersonville is.”
One among many of Ransom’s observations:
“Laying on the ground so much, has made sores on nearly every one here, and in many cases gangrene sets in, and they are very bad off. Have many sores on my body, but am careful to keep away the poison. To-day saw a man with a bullet hole in his head over an inch deep, and you could look down in it and see maggots squirming around at the bottom.”
On the other hand, he gets used to it:
“By four o’clock each day, the row of dead at the gate would scare the life out of me before coming here, while now it is nothing at all, but the same thing over and over.”
He learns the skills of survival in this place:
“Must take plenty of exercise, keep clean, free as circumstances will permit of vermin, drink no water until it has been boiled, which process purifies and makes it more healthy, are not to allow ourselves to get despondent, and must talk, laugh and make as light of our affairs as possible. Sure death for a person to give up and lose all ambition…Those who find the least fault, make the best of things, as they come, and grin and bear it, get along the best…”
Ultimately, it all comes down to what a man is made of inside:
“Those whom we expect the most from in the way of braving hardships and dangers, prove to be nobody at all. And very often those we expect the least from prove to be heroes every inch of them…A man shows exactly what he is in Andersonville. No occasion to be any different from what you really are. Very often see a great big fellow in size, in reality a baby in action, actually snivelling and crying, and then again you will see some little runt, ‘not bigger than a pint of cider,’ tell the big fellow to ‘brace up’ and be a man. Stature has nothing to do as regards nerve, still there are noble big fellows, as well as noble little ones.”
One of the most surprising parts of this narrative are who turns out to be the villains and who the hero. The villains are not the Confederate forces – who in some ways are as worse off than the prisoners – but their fellow Yankees:
“There are organized bands of raiders who do pretty much as they please…Raiders getting more bold, as the situation grows worse. Often rob a man now of all he has, in public, making no attempt at concealment…The raiders are the stronger party now, and do as they please; and we are in nearly as much danger now from our own men as from the Rebels. Captain Moseby, of my own hundred, figures conspicuously among the robberies, and is a terrible villain.”
The hero, however, turns out to be an American Indian named Battese, a “large, full-blooded six-foot Minnesota Indian, has quarters near us, and is a noble fellow.” Battese took “quite a fatherly interest” in Ransom and showed a way to help cope with the hell: work. They took a plank, carved notches in it to create a washboard, and started a business.
The Indian said, “I work, do me good; you do same.” The work occupied their time, but also allowed them to obtain “small pieces of bread for our labors. Some of the sick cannot eat their bread, and not being able to keep clean, give us a job. Make probably a pound of bread two or three days in the week.”
When Ransom got sick, Battese figured out how to create medicine: “My limbs are badly swollen with scurvy and dropsy combined. Mouth also very sore. Battese digs for roots, which he steeps up and I drink.”
Even so, Ransom’s condition continues to deteriorate, and Battese still looks out for him: “He does all the cooking now. He has made me a cane to walk with, brings water from the well, and performs nearly all the manual labor for us.”
Toward the end, Battese even made it possible for Ransom to leave the prison. The Confederates ruled that all prisoners who could not walk must stay behind. And Ransom could not walk. He wrote, “…trying to stand up, but can’t do it; legs too crooked, and with every attempt get faint. Men laugh at the idea of my going, as the Rebels are very particular not to let any sick go, still Battese says I am going.”
And, in fact, that is what happened:
“The Rebel Adjutant stood upon a box by the gate, watching very close. Pitch-pine knots were burning in the near vicinity, to give light. As it came our turn to go. Battese got me in the middle of the rank, stood me up as well as I could stand, and with himself on one side and Sergeant Rowe on the other, began pushing our way through the gate. Could not help myself a particle, and was so faint, that I hardly knew what was going on. As we were going through the gate the Adjutant yells out: ‘Here, here! hold on there, that man can’t go, hold on there!’ and Battese crowding right along outside. The Adjutant struck over the heads of the men and tried to stop us, but my noble Indian friend kept straight ahead, hallooing: ‘He all right, he well, he go!’ And so I got outside, the Adjutant having too much to look after to follow me.”
Ransom recovered in a military hospital and it was Battese who ensured Ransom would have his entire journal: “Battese on his last visit to me left the two first books of my diary, which he had in his possession. There is no doubt but he has saved my life, although he will take no credit for it.”
Sadly, after they were separated, Ransom and Battese never saw each other again. Ransom wrote in his afterward:
“My good old friend, Battese, I regret to say, I have never seen, or heard of since he last visited me in the Marine Hospital at Savannah. Have written many letters, and made many inquiries, but to no effect. He was so reticent while with us in the prison, that we did not learn enough of him to make inquiries, since then, effective. Although for many months I was in his immediate presence, he said nothing of where he lived, his circumstances, or anything else. I only know that his name was Battese, that he belonged to a Minnesota regiment, and was a noble fellow. I don’t know of a man in the world I would rather see to-day than him, and I hope some day, when I have gotten rich out of this book (if that time should ever come), to go to Minnesota, and look him up. There are many Andersonville survivors, who must remember the tall Indian, and certainly I shall, as long as life shall last.”
January 6, 2023
The Civil War’s most infamous Confederate prison, Camp Sumter, better known as Andersonville, is the central venue in John Ransom’s diary of his 14 months as a P.O.W. in the Confederate prison system. After spending some time at Belle Isle prison in Virginia was sent to Andersonville in Georgia. There he finds a lack of food, privation, and a brutal administration resulting in the death of about half the prisoners at the camp, tens to scores daily. Among the lethal threats are the “dead lines” separating prisoners from the only source of fresh water in the camp. Crossing means death by rifle shot. Infamous Capt. Henry Wirz is not as near a threat as groups of marauders among the Yankee prisoners. Mosby’s Marauders were the worst. Ransom escapes twice, both times when being transferred to another camp. He escapes when being transferred to a prison south of Andersonville (to escape Sherman in his march through Georgia), only to be recaptured after 6 days of freedom. During that time, he finds help from the slaves he encounters, while he has a demeaning opening of the enslaved Africans. Sherman’s March to the Sea campaign results in his being shipped from Andersonville (to prevent the prisoners being freed by Union forces) and transferred again later. That advance also makes it possible for Ransom and the Buck boys, his two companions, to finally reach Union lines and freedom.
Union leadership ceased the policy of prisoner exchanges figuring that the exchanges were helping the Confederacy. Rumors of such exchanges are reported several times by Ransom, a Michigander by birth like me.
Union leadership ceased the policy of prisoner exchanges figuring that the exchanges were helping the Confederacy. Rumors of such exchanges are reported several times by Ransom, a Michigander by birth like me.
February 11, 2018
TITLE: Andersonville Diary
WHY I CHOSE THIS BOOK: Meet my reading challenge, shared format to the book before it, Theft by Finding Diaries 1977-2002
REVIEW: Since he was only in Andersonville for part of the time the diary covers it was odd that it was named that. You don't expect a prison camp to be fun and Andersonville was not. Not enough food, which was one of the most popular topics of conversation, not enough warmth, not enough sleep and plenty of death. Being abused and cheated by the Confederate guards and some of their fellow prisons preying on the weak. I was expecting something shockingly horrifying, and likely it was for its time, but in our modern times it is what one would expect. One thing that stuck in my mind was a statement he made about indians and n*******s. And this was one of the good guys, a Union soldier.
WHY I CHOSE THIS BOOK: Meet my reading challenge, shared format to the book before it, Theft by Finding Diaries 1977-2002
REVIEW: Since he was only in Andersonville for part of the time the diary covers it was odd that it was named that. You don't expect a prison camp to be fun and Andersonville was not. Not enough food, which was one of the most popular topics of conversation, not enough warmth, not enough sleep and plenty of death. Being abused and cheated by the Confederate guards and some of their fellow prisons preying on the weak. I was expecting something shockingly horrifying, and likely it was for its time, but in our modern times it is what one would expect. One thing that stuck in my mind was a statement he made about indians and n*******s. And this was one of the good guys, a Union soldier.
November 26, 2023
I'll be making this required reading for my students. A thorough account of the operations, sights, sounds, and smells of Andersonville prison with additional excerpts from a few other ex-prisoners, a surgeon's report, and entries regarding the difficulty of establishing federal pensions for prior prisoners of war. The author also describes his stays at Belle Isle prison and one additional prison.
June 21, 2017
Captures a slice of sad heritage
Had read of Andersonville and visited the site and museum, which seemed a feeble attempt to whitewash history. Ransom's diary communicates the misery of disease and death all around without embellishments. Also serves as a documentation of hope and the potential of one man's will to live.
Had read of Andersonville and visited the site and museum, which seemed a feeble attempt to whitewash history. Ransom's diary communicates the misery of disease and death all around without embellishments. Also serves as a documentation of hope and the potential of one man's will to live.
March 27, 2019
True harrowing story
Ransom 's diary is remarkable in that it survived along with his survival for the entire time throughout imprisonment and beyond when he managed to escape more than once. An honest and personal description of the lack of care to prisoners which when pushed to overcrowding was a disastrous situation in civil war confinement.
Ransom 's diary is remarkable in that it survived along with his survival for the entire time throughout imprisonment and beyond when he managed to escape more than once. An honest and personal description of the lack of care to prisoners which when pushed to overcrowding was a disastrous situation in civil war confinement.
January 21, 2023
First time I’ve read this book. What an amazing diary, reads like a diary — a direct first person history. Amazing to have survived this encounter and to have the diary survive is an incredible gift to us all to provide such a raw account of survival and sustained love of country! Better than the movie, but I haven’t seen the movies since it came out.
June 16, 2024
A just-for-fun read on one of my favorite events in history. This book is a Civil War diary written during Ransom's imprisonment (13 months over 1863-1864) in the Confederate prison of Andersonville. I'm always amazed by how well people wrote in the past, even for informal writing like diaries and journals. Learned a lot about Andersonville and the fortitude of the human spirit.
November 7, 2025
This man's personal account of the horrific conditions as a prisoner at Andersonville and the timeline described was very similar to my own 3x Great Grandfather's diary entries. My ancestor was also able to survive near death as this soldier John Ransom but so very many were not able to return to their families.
May 31, 2017
Very interesting history. The diary format really brings the story to life. Characters are well defined.
Very interesting history. The diary format brings the characters to life. Really brings to life the horrors of the civil war.
Very interesting history. The diary format brings the characters to life. Really brings to life the horrors of the civil war.
July 11, 2018
Heartwrenching. You can't put this book down. I believe this is a must read for anybody interrested in Cival War history. It's been quite some time since I read it, but never forgot how much it affected me. This will be one book that I will re-read again.
March 8, 2019
Follow John Ransom from time he becomes POW during the Civil War and the hardships and sorrows that he witnesses behind the bars of captivity. Very gripping and shocking.
All based on true diary entries of John Ransom. Recommend any Civil War History lover to read this one!
All based on true diary entries of John Ransom. Recommend any Civil War History lover to read this one!
August 28, 2019
Fascinating
This diary is well written and plausible on all accounts. The author was a humble and sincere soldier who wrote simply and well. I am very impressed with his conveyance of the facts about his imprisonment in and escape from the POW camp at Andersonville.
This diary is well written and plausible on all accounts. The author was a humble and sincere soldier who wrote simply and well. I am very impressed with his conveyance of the facts about his imprisonment in and escape from the POW camp at Andersonville.
April 24, 2022
Honest, authentic depiction of the live of a Union soldier incarcerated at the Andersonville camp. Excellent historical record, yet daunting to read due to its repetition of minor details and the lack of an overarching narrative. Lots of sequential facts, does not make for a compelling story.
September 18, 2022
Sad 1st hand account
Eye opening well written account of the terrible conditions those in captivity suffered. I currently live about 2 hours from Andersonville and after reading this will definitely make a trip to honor
Those men who died so
Needlessly for our country
Eye opening well written account of the terrible conditions those in captivity suffered. I currently live about 2 hours from Andersonville and after reading this will definitely make a trip to honor
Those men who died so
Needlessly for our country
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