Ozaukee County's
War History
by Daniel E. McGinley

as extracted from THE PORT WASHINGTON STAR
November 6, 1897



Personal Sketches
Chapter 4

WM. H. RINTELMAN

Some train loads went to Charleston, S.C., some to Savannah, Ga., some to this and some to that prison, until there were but few left in Andersonville, and those who were left behind were far better of than many of those who were sent to other places. The train which carried away the Rintelman boys and Serg. Anton Kuhnel of Company F, of the Twenty-sixth, took a large load of the naked, living skeletons to Savannah. When they reached that place, the subject of this sketch was very sick, and was taken to a so-called hospital, where he lay about three weeks. The sick in this "hospital" were quartered in small tents, four skeletons in each; and of the three who were quartered with Comrade Rintelman, two died while he was there, one of them being James Stone, of the Tenth Michigan Infantry, who said to him a day or two before he died, "Rintelman, I have something to tell you yet," meaning that he had some message to leave with him. But the young hero died very suddenly and before he delivered the message, and perhaps his fate was never known to his friends. Perhaps his poor mother looked longing for her boy's return when the war ended and the prisoners were liberated, and went down to her grave sorrowing over the unknown fate of her darling; or perhaps a young wife and a child or children still survive him and have never learned of his death in that little tent in Savannah, with not a friend near that was able to soothe him in his last moments.

The "hospital" was situated in the old slave-pen or market, which was enclosed by high brick walls. Sentinels guarded the gate -- all that was necessary to guard, as none of the poor skeletons had strength enough left to scale the walls.

Comrade Rintelman's remarkably strong constitution mastered the disease, and he was soon sent back into the prison, where he found his brother, Sergt. H. W. Rintelman, and many of the other boys who had been with them in Andersonville, but Sergt. Anton Kuhnel was missing. His brother told him that poor Kuhnel had died in his arms a few days previous, a victim to Jeff. Davisí atrocious cruelty. In the Roster of Wisconsin Volunteers, Sergt. Anton Kuhnel is reported as absent sick when the regiment was mustered out in 1865; while the fact is he died at Savannah, Ga., as above stated, some time in the latter part of September, or the first of October, 1864. This may reach the eye of some relative of the dead hero, and may bring to his family, if he has any living, the first news of his fate.

In the latter part of October, the Rintelman boys and several hundred of the other prisoners were packed on board a freight train and sent to Millen, Ga., where there was a prison-pen larger than that at Andersonville, enclosed by a similar stockade. The larger part of Shermanís army was then in northern Georgia, having gone there to drive Hood's army away from Sherman's "Cracker Line," and the rebels thought that the Yankee general would be obliged to follow Hood into Tennessee and out of Georgia; hence the sending of prisoners to Millen, which was a s near to Atlanta as Andersonville.

There was a fine stream of pure water running through the pen at Millen, but the nights were becoming quite cold and the prisoners had no shelter except what they contrived to make from the piles of rush that they found within the stockade. Here they wee when election day came around, and the rebels thinking that their sufferings would cause the poor skeletons to consider the war a failure; and that a great majority of them would vote for McClellan if they had a chance, brought in lumber, erected a voting booth, and insisted on the prisoners voting. But the result was a great surprise and very disagreeable to the rebs, as a very large majority of the votes cast that day by those starving heroes, were for Abraham Lincoln and his policy to continue the war until the rebellion was crushed. What grander lesson in patriotism than this can be found in the annals of this or any other nation? What grand heroism! what unexcelled fortitude! what an example of self-sacrifice! Here were men and boys, many of whom had been confined in rebel prisons a year and a half, suffering the pangs of hunger, and the tortures of disease while they froze in winter and baked in summer in places too filthy for a hog to live in; and who had rejected with indignant scorn the offer of liberty and plenty if they would swear to serve Jeff. Davisí government; now, when death stared them in the face and relief seemed as far off as ever, voting almost to a man in favor of re-electing President Lincoln, and continuing the war until slavery and disunion should be driven from the land! Spartan heroes were outdone, -- surpassed.

But the stay of our boys in Millen was not long. Sherman's army returned to Atlanta and began its preparations for the march to the sea. The rebels immediately hustled a large pat of the prisoners at Millen aboard cars and sent them off to more remote places. When the march to the sea began, and Shermanís army was near at hand, the last of the prisoners were sent away, and Shermanís boys found only the empty stockade when they reached the place. Of course the stockade was destroyed. The Rintelman boys were among the first prisoners sent away from Millen, and were taken back to Savannah, where they changed cars and were whirled off to the southwest on the Savannah, Florida and Western railway to a small place named Blackshear, in Pierce county, southwestern Georgia. Here they were turned into a pen in which they remained a few weeks, when they were again loaded upon cars and taken about eighty miles farther west to Thomasville, a town of 6,000 inhabitants in Thomas county.

Here they were again quartered in a pen, but they were treated much better than in the other prisons. In addition to their old rations, they were given rice and sweet potatoes twice a week, the result being that the ravages of the scurvy were lessened to a great extent, and the general health of the skeletons became much better.

On the way to Thomasville, two of the skeletons jumped from the moving train into a river which it was crossing, but the guards fired after them and mortally wounded one of the poor fellows. The other did not try to escape then, and was taken upon the train again as soon as it could be stopped.

In January, 1865, the Rintelman boys with several hundred more skeletons, were taken from the prison-pen at Thomasville, and marched some sixty miles north to Albany, a town of 4,000 inhabitants situated in Dougherton county, at the end of a spur of railroad leading to Macon, and on the west bank of the Flint river. This was a terrible march for the weak skeletons, none provided with sufficient clothing, and many nearly naked. The subject of this sketch had no shoes and scarcely any clothing, and like many of his comrades, suffered greatly from the cold and the rough roads. The poor fellows were forced to drag themselves and their weaker comrades over several smiles of the route each day, and then shiver and shake around the fires every night, for the weather was very cold. But the column of naked skeletons at length reached Albany, leaving the way marked with the numerous graves of those who died on the road, and were immediately packed on a freight train and sent north. After riding some forty miles, the cars stopped and they were ordered to get off. They did so and, dear reader, imagine if you can the horror they felt when they looked around and found themselves back in Andersonville! What a sinking of heart; what a hopelessness; what feelings of woe and despair must have been felt by those poor, naked, fleshless and seemingly friendless prisoners, when they were again driven into that horrible pen! A hundredth part of their sufferings upon this occasion never has or never will be known.

The prison-pen had been changed but little since they had left it, but there were not more than five thousand prisoners there now, and consequently, there was more room. Fortunately their second term in this ghastly and sickening pen lasted but a month.

In the latter part of February, while grant was getting ready for that wonderful campaign that ended in the capture of Richmond and Lee's great army; and while Shermanís army was sweeping through the Carolinas like an avenging spirit, the rebels began to realize the facts that their so-called Confederacy was very near its end, and cast about for ways and means of getting rid of the few thousand skeletons who still survived their cruel treatment. One day, the rebel officers informed the prisoners in the Andersonville pen that they were all to be sent to the Union lines, but as all could not go together, those who would pay them (the rebels) the most money would be sent first. This was the last ruse to draw the money, which the prisoners had kept secret so many months, away from them. There was but the difference of a day or two between the departure of the first and the last train load of prisoners, but the poor, famishing boys did not know this, and the last dollars and cents they had were soon paid over to their inhuman keepers.

The Rintelman brothers had clung to a few dollars all this time, and they now joined with George Ebert, of the Seventh Wisconsin Infantry, and John Echstein of a New York regiment, in raising a purse. Between the four, thirty dollars was paid to the monster, Capt. Wirz, and they departed from Andersonville with the first train load, wild with joy over the prospect of seeing again the dear old flag, and getting into a country where there was some humanity.

Why they did so is unknown, but instead of sending those poor fellows by rail to our forces on the sea-coast, the rebels shipped them by rail and river steamers to Jackson, Miss., from which place the starving, naked skeletons had to walk or crawl to the Big Black river, a distance of some thirty-five miles, with no assistance but a couple of guides, the rebel guards going no farther than Jackson. Had they the humanity to notify the Union troops at the Big Black River Bridge, an outpost of Vicksburg, our soldiers would have gladly sent out a train of ambulances and wagons to carry their famishing comrades, but as it was, they knew nothing of the approach of the ghastly column of naked skeletons until it came in sight of the Union pickets.

That was one of the most trying marches of the war. There were some three or four thousand of the poor fellows together, and they struggled on heroically, the strongest carrying or assisting the weaker ones, all kept up by the thought that the old flag, their own comrades and plenty was but a few miles away. But there were a few hose strength did not hold out long enough to grant them their prayer, that they might see Old Glory before they died; and with the dawn of peace lighting up the whole heavens; with relief almost at hand; with their loved banner almost in sight; within a few daysí journey of their homes and loved ones; and after years and months of uninterrupted sufferings, they heroically surrendered their young lives, adding a few more to the long list of victims of Jefferson Davis and his tools.

At length, the starving survivors came within sight of Old Glory, floating over a fort on the west bank of the Big Black, and their feelings may be imagined but not described. Some raised a feeble cheer, but the larger part of the poor fellows gazed dumbly and fondly on the bright stars and stripes -- until their comrades came and helped them across the river. None of the Union troops stationed at that point at that time, will never forget the sight presented by that ghastly procession of living skeletons. Such sights have, thank God, been seldom seen in this world of ours. "Man's inhumanity to man" has been well known in all ages and climes, but it is doubtful if there ever existed anything to equal the brutality and inhumanity of the treatment of Union prisoners in Andersonville and other rebel prison-pens.

Everything possible was done to alleviate the sufferings of the survivors who had reached the Union post on the Big Black, and many of them gained rapidly under the good care and kind treatment; but there were some who came to the post either insane or blind, who never recovered their reason or their sight, while limbs of others, rotten with disease, had to be amputated, and not a few were strong enough to live through the joyful period, and went to join their martyred comrades in the Eternal Encampment.

The Rintelman boys were very weak when they reached the Union lines, but they both had wonderful constitutions, and after a few daysí rest in Vicksburg, they, like thousands of their fellow sufferers, felt that they were strong enough to stand the journey, and were very anxious to reach their home, where relatives were living in great suspense, not knowing whether their soldier boys were living or not. The time the Rintelman brothers had been in the hands of the rebels was twenty-one months, lacking one day. Just think of it, dear reader, twenty-one months without eating a full meal; without food fit to eat; without sufficient clothing to cover their persons; without even a tent to protect them from the elements; without means to clean themselves; and most of the time, with naught but impure water to drink! Twenty-one months passed in a hell upon earth; in a living death!

In this sketch has been told but a few of the horrible facts that are vouched for by thousands of men who suffered in those disease-polluted, death-dealing prisons, and there are other facts too horrible -- too sickening to put into print. Read, if you will, the recollections of survivors of those prisons, such as "Eighteen Months a Prisoner Under the Rebel Flag," "The Smoked Yank," and "McElroy's History of Andersonville," see OíDea's famous picture of Andersonville, and you will understand the ex-prisonersí motto, "WE CAN FORGIVE, BUT NOT FORGET!"

In the latter part of April, the government furnished steamers to carry all of the ex-prisoners north from Vicksburg, who were able to undertake the journey. One of them, the large steamer ìSultana,î started up the river from Vicksburg on the 26th of April, with 2,031 ex-prisoners, a few soldiers, some members of the Sanitary Commission, and a number of ex-rebel soldiers returning to their homes in Arkansas. About six miles above Memphis, her boilers exploded, she burned to the water's edge, and 1,443 of the ex-prisoners were lost. Of those rescued, nearly 300 soon died from scalds, burns and exposure. The total loss of life was over 1700. It was charge, upon pretty good authority, that Charles Dale, a noted rebel blockade runner, in order to wreck the boat, put a torpedo in a large lump of coal, and left it on the coal pile where it was shoveled into the furnaces. If the charge was true, he was even a blacker-hearted monster than Jeff. Davis.

The Rintelman brothers fortunately took passage up the river on another steamer, and arrived at home safely but very weak. It was a long time before their flesh and strength returned to them, and they have never fully recovered from the effects of their terrible experience in the rebel prisons.

Sergt. H. W. Rintelman settled in Milwaukee, and when he became able to work, secured a position in the car shops of the C. M. & St. P. railroad, where he still labors industriously. A few months after his return home, William H. married Miss Sophia Miller of Cedarburg, and settled on the old family homestead in that town, where he has resided to this day, highly respected by all who know him. A good neighbor and upright citizen, Comrade Rintelman is as unassuming as he was patriotic and brave in those trying days of the war, but takes a deep interest in public affairs, and in 1896, was the nominee of the Republican party for Member of the state Assembly; and although in a strong Democratic district, he was defeated by a very small majority. He is an active and worthy member of the G.A.R. and past commander of the W. S. Hancock Post of Cedarburg.

Comrade Rintelman is a remarkably preserved man, considering his long term and terrible experience in rebel prison-pens, but the time is near at hand when the effects of that experience will show themselves more and more as he passes on with life's tide toward the sunset. That he may live many long years yet to enjoy the prosperity of the nation he suffered so much to keep on the map of the world is the wish, not only of his old comrades-in-arms, but of every lover of freedom and every friend of our form of government.