Ozaukee County's
War History
by Daniel E. McGinley

as extracted from THE PORT WASHINGTON STAR
October 30, 1897



Personal Sketches
Chapter 3

WM. H. RINTELMAN

Thus in this hell upon earth did so many thousands of our heroes suffer from starvation, exposure and various kinds of disease. Here is what a survivor writes of their appearance and life there, when they numbered 1,700 to the acre: "No one not there in person can form anything like a correct idea of our appearance about this time. We had nearly all been prisoners from seven to nine months, and our clothes were worn out, a number being entirely naked. Some had ragged shirts and no pants, and some had pants and no shirts; another with a soldier cap on his head and the remainder of his person naked; their flesh wasted away, leaving the rough weather-beaten skin drawn tightly over the bones; the hip bones and shoulders standing out so a hat could be hung upon them; the faces and exposed parts of the body coated to the thickness of thick paper with a greasy black soot from the dense black smoke of the pitch pine, the only fuel there; our long matted hair thick with the same substance, upon which water alone had no effect, and soap was not to be had. The ëdead lineí was claiming its victims, and the stocks and various other instruments of torture were well patronized. The deep-toned baying of the blood hounds often broke the stillness of the surrounding forest and swamps, where some poor fellow who had managed to escape was being chased to recapture or death. The baying of the dogs suddenly ceases, a far-away horn breaks the stillness, and the listening rebels cheer, for it is the signal that the fugitive has been caught. He is led in, torn and bleeding, and is taken directly to the stocks to which he is fastened. There he remains suffering terribly under the broiling sun for ten to twelve hours, during which the maggot flies deposit their eggs in his wounds and then is turned into the prison again, with uncared for wounds. A few days he is a working mass of maggots and his end is not far off."

Along one bank of the creek within the pen was a wet springy morass or swamp. Here the offal of the camp collected, until it was from three to ten inches deep. When the hot sun of summer reached this mass of filth, millions and millions of flies swarmed over it, and the horrible place soon became a sea of rolling, squirming maggots. "The largest," writes an eye-witness, "would crawl out on the hot sand, shed their tail-like appendage; wings would unfold, an attempt be made to fly and thousands were clumsily dropping all over the pen, falling into the food and sleeping places, and into the faces of the sick and dying."

Early in the spring of 1864, two thousand Union soldiers were surrounded in their defenses at Plymouth, N.C., and forced to surrender. But they would not surrender until the rebels promised them that their personal property should not be taken from them in the rebel prisons. This promise the rebels kept, and the 2,000 men were sent to Andersonville and marched into the prison pen with their knapsacks, blankets, tents and cooking utensils intact. Having been recently paid their ėveteran bountyî and several months wages, these boys had about $50,000 in their pockets, and their arrival was a great blessing to the famishing comrades found there by them. Wishing to keep together in one part of the pen, the new-comers paid liberal sums to the old prisoners whom they found there, to move to other portions of the grounds. Thus the old prisoners secured quite a sum of money, which was exchanged for Confederate money and invested in food at the sutler shop, a business started by the thrifty rebel commissary of the post. In this way, quite a number of men were saved from starvation.

But prosperity often leads to lawlessness and crime, and it was so in this case. A number of New York city's most unprincipled hoodlums, toughs and criminals had enlisted for the sake of securing the large bounties then offered for volunteers, thinking to desert after receiving the money. But the recruiting officers had been too sharp for them, did not give them a chance to ėjumpî their bounties, and hurried them off to the regiments at the front, where two or three hundred had been captured and sent to Andersonville. These scoundrels were not long in the prison when they began to ply their old trades, and the poor fellows that were not strong enough to successfully resist them were robbed of their scanty rations, bits of clothing, money or whatever they possessed that was desired by the "Raiders" as they were soon named. When the Plymouth boys arrived in cap with their large sums of money, they had to post sentinels in their portion of the camp to guard against the nocturnal visits of the ėRaiders,î but the poor fellows who had sold out their real estate claims were not able to protect themselves from the thieves and were robbed and often murdered for the few pennies they possessed.

As the sun grew hotter and the poor prisoners weaker, the ėRaiders,î strong and fleshy from eating the food which they had stolen from their perishing comrades, became bolder, and robbed and murdered in open daylight. By the 1st of July, they became so bold that no one was safe in the pen with any money or food in his possession. The rebels made no effort to punish the ėRaidersî or protect the weak from their raids, and the other prisoners took the law into their own hands. A large force of "Regulators" consisting of some of the strongest men in the prison, was secretly organized, but the ėRaidersî had their spies in every part of the pen and soon learning that their leaders were to be arrested by the ėRegulatorsî took steps to resist. On the morning of the 3rd of July, the ėRegulatorsî attempted to make the arrests, the "Raiders" resisted, and a battle began that raged fiercely between the contending parties for several days, the ėRegulatorsî being the most numerous and the "Raiders" strongest in flesh and muscle. But finally Right triumphed, the "Raiders" were overpowered, and over a hundred arrested. A court was organized by the "Regulators" and six of the leaders of the ėRaidersî were found guilty of such heinous crimes that they were sentenced to be hung, and on the 12th of July, the six criminals were hung together on a gallows which the rebels had erected for them. Our Rintelman boys were witnesses of the battle, trial and execution. After the execution, the "Regulator's" organization was made perfect, a police judge was appointed, a regular police force put on duty in all parts of the pen, and thereafter, law and order prevailed.

But meanwhile, the starving process went rigidly on, and by mid-summer, our boys were dying by hundreds every day. The poor fellows had a craving for onions, potatoes, pickles, meat and salt, none of which they had tasted for months, and any green substance that came within reach was quickly devoured. One mess or squad had planted a grain of corn, and when the green stalk came up, guarded it day and night as though it was gold; but one day, a poor fellow crazed with hunger, happened to pass. Seeing the corn stalk, then knee high, he rushed at it, dug it up and ran through the crowd, devouring it as fast as he could.

As the number of prisoners in the pen grew larger, the rations grew less, the water worse, and the sun hotter. The blondes among the young boys burned to blisters by the sun, soon became covered with sores, which in turn, filled with maggots, and many of these boys died in great agony. The filth and stench became horrible and spread disease on every hand. Large numbers of the prisoners were dying of scurvy and some of the kind-hearted people living in that and neighboring counties gathered up a large supply of vegetables and sent them to Andersonville, but those monsters with human forms, Gen. John H. Winder and Capt. Wirz, the commandant of the pen, would not allow the vegetables to reach the prisoners. The U.S. Sanitary Commission gathered up and sent to Andersonville several car loads of soap, combs, shears, razors, and other necessary articles of toilet, but the stores were confiscated by Winder and none of them ever reached the prisoners. Gen. Sherman, then besieging Atlanta, sent a force of cavalry to release the prisoners at Andersonville, but when Winder heard that they wee coming, he ordered the commander of the artillery to be ready, and as soon as the Yankee cavalry came within seven miles of the pen, to open fire on the prisoners with grape and canister, and to continue the firing as long as a prisoner lived. The Union cavalry was defeated by a superior force of the rebels, and a number of them became inmates of the prison instead of liberating its starving occupants.

When over thirty thousand unfortunate boys were packed into the pen, the Rebel War Department wired Gen. Winder, asking him if he had room for any more prisoners at Andersonville. He answered, "Yes, send them on. We are doing more for the Confederacy here, in getting rid of the Yanks, than twenty of Lee's best regiments at the front!" Col. C. T. Chandler was sent down from Richmond to inspect the Andersonville prison. In his report, he said: "I called the attention of Capt. Wirz and Gen. Winder to the frightful mortality that must certainly follow the crowded and filthy condition of the prison, and pointed out to them how this could be easily remedied; and I recommended a change of diet, from corn-meal to one of vegetables, which were quite plentiful in the surrounding country. To all of which, Winder indifferently replied: ëThe present arrangement is good enough, it is having the desired effect, and if let alone will soon thin the prisoners out so there will be plenty of room.'" The result was that Jefferson Davis promoted John H. Winder to general in command of all the prisons in the Confederacy. Who will say that Jeff Davis was not worse than a murderer?

But by the middle of July, the pen became such a dense mass of starving, diseased, rotting and dying humanity, that the rebels were forced to enlarge the pen, and they then added about three acres to it. Three acres; where they could have easily have added thirty or more! But it was a little relief, and when the addition was ready, those of the prisoners lying near the swamp were ordered to go to it. An eye-witness says: "The exodus begins, and what a sight! As they pass through the narrow lanes which we have opened for them, their own mothers would hardly know them. Some have lost all their teeth, hair, eyebrows and beard; some are nearly rotten and full of squirming worms, others have had their finger and toe nails sloughed off. All this is the effect of slow starvation, sameness of food, over-crowding and filth. They look as if there is not flesh enough upon a thousand of them to feed a small flock of crows; those who are able to walk are carrying or helping their weaker comrades along -- all excited with new hope that they may yet live to see the old flag and the loved ones at home."

Early in August, Divine Providence came to the rescue of many of the poor prisoners, in the form of a heavy rain -- a great cloud burst or deluge, the like of which had never been seen in that country before, and in all probability has never been seen since. True it is said that the water filled the "dugouts" and drowned some of the weak occupants, but it cleaned the prison wonderfully. Sweeping down the slope from either side, the flood washed away a portion of the stockade where it crossed the creek, and carried out the stifling mass of filth that had accumulated on the swamp, or "Death's Acre," as it was appropriately named by the prisoners. In addition to cleaning the pen, the rain brought the prisoners a blessing fully as great, which was no less than a flowing spring of pure, cool water, which burst out of the side of the slope, just beyond the ėdead lineî and flowed during the remainder of the prison's occupancy by our men, furnishing them clean, healthful drinking water, and saving thousands of lives. When the spring first burst forth, several of the prisoners were shot by the guard while reaching across the "dead line," a "Regulator" guard was placed over it and by taking their turns, all were soon supplied with the health-giving water. The boys named this spring ėProvidence Spring,î and it is said that it still continues to flow, a reminder of God's pity for those in misery.

After thus securing pure water, the health of the prisoners began to improve wonderfully and had they been supplied with enough of food to live on, there would have been but few deaths. But the starving policy was continued, and there were thousands whose systems had been poisoned by drinking the filthy water of the creek, and the death rate still continued to be quite large. A survivor thus writes how they were treated by the Christians (?) of the surrounding country: "The churches of all denominations, except one solitary Catholic priest, Father Hamilton, ignored us as wholly as they would dumb beasts. Father Hamilton was the only religious minister that I ever knew to come into the prison at Andersonville, and I certainly believe he was a true Christian. He would minister to the Catholic and Protestant alike. Rebel Masons interested themselves in assisting their brother Masons with medicine, food, ten material, reading and writing material, vegetables, and in many ways not known to Masonry. I am neither a Catholic or a Mason, but I want to give credit for every merciful act shown in that hell; they were so few that it takes but little space to give them."

Through all this misery, the Rintelman brothers lived, completing a year of their imprisonment on the 1st of July, and bore up heroically, although reduced to mere skeletons. Throughout all their imprisonment, they managed to secrete a little money, and this stood by them on several occasions of dire distress, for as in other parts of our globe, money had its charms in these prison pens. In the early part of the summer, two of their comrades of the Twenty-sixth Wisconsin, Charles Helth and Amos Holtz, succumbed to the starvation and exposure at Andersonville, and now sleep among the 14,000 heroes who perished in that ghastly prison-pen; and whose graves are now tenderly cared for in the National cemetery near by.

When Atlanta fell into Sherman's hands, the rebels became fearful that so large a number of prisoners at Andersonville might cause Sherman to make a raid down there to release them, and concluded to ship the most of them to other prisons more remote from our armies. Early in September, a rebel officer entered the prison and calling all the sergeants in charge of detachments together, said: "I am instructed by Gen. Winder to tell you that a general exchange of prisoners has been agreed upon; your vessels are now waiting for you at Savannah and Charleston. Detachments from one to ten, will leave tomorrow morning." There was no truth in the "exchange" story, it being told to make prisoners go more willingly than they might have otherwise done, to the other prisons; but the most of the poor fellows believed him, and there was great rejoicing throughout the pen. Some wept for joy, the cripples and dying seemed to take new life; some who had not walked for weeks, got upon their feet, filled with a new hope, and all was excitement and expectation. Poor fellows! what must have been their feelings when they were landed in other prisons, some little better and some worse than that which they left, and learned that there was no prospect of an exchange nor of getting out of those horrible prisons.