All the hardships we suffered from lack of fuel and shelter could have been prevented without the slightest expense or trouble to the Confederacy.

Two hundred men allowed to go out on parole, and supplied with ages, would have brought in from the adjacent woods, in a week's time, enough material to make everybody comfortable tents, and to supply all the fuel needed.
The mortality caused by the storm was, of course, very great.

The official report says the total number in the prison in March was four thousand six hundred and three, of whom two hundred and eighty-three died.
Among the first to die was the one whom we expected to live longest.
He was by much the largest man in prison, and was called, because of this, "BIG JOE." He was a Sergeant in the Fifth Pennsylvania Cavalry, and seemed the picture of health.

One morning the news ran through the prison that "Big Joe is dead," and a visit to his squad showed his stiff, lifeless form, occupying as much ground as Goliath's, after his encounter with David.
His early demise was an example of a general law, the workings of which few in the army failed to notice.

It was always the large and strong who first succumbed to hardship.