Every week saw a reduction in the number, until by midwinter the daily issue to a thousand averaged four sacks.

Let us say that one of these sacks held two bushels, or the four, eight bushels.
As there are thirty-two quarts in a bushel, one thousand men received two hundred and fifty-six quarts, or less than a half pint each.
We thought we had sounded the depths of misery at Andersonville, but Florence showed us a much lower depth.

Bad as was parching under the burning sun whose fiery rays bred miasma and putrefaction, it was still not so bad as having one's life chilled out by exposure in nakedness upon the frozen ground to biting winds and freezing sleet.

Wretched as the rusty bacon and coarse, maggot-filled bread of Andersonville was, it would still go much farther towards supporting life than the handful of saltless meal at Florence.
While I believe it possible for any young man, with the forces of life strong within him, and healthy in every way, to survive, by taking due precautions, such treatment as we received in Andersonville, I cannot understand how anybody could live through a month of Florence.

That many did live is only an astonishing illustration of the tenacity of life in some individuals.
Let the reader imagine--anywhere he likes--a fifteen-acre field, with a stream running through the center.