PRIVATE SAMUEL MELVIN, WITH THE 1ST MASSACHUSETTS Heavy Artillery, was captured at Harris’s Farm, Virginia, on May 19, 1864, when he was twenty years old. In his struggle to survive captivity at Andersonville, he clung to his abiding love for a fellow soldier, Lieutenant John M. Dow, adjutant of their regiment, with whom he planned to move to London, England, after the war.
As he prepared to go into battle on May 14, 1864, Melvin wrote in his diary, “Orders for us to move. I am on guard as usual. Everybody is packed up. I got excused and went down to Ft. Craig and packed up my things, marked them for James and left them in charge of Sergt. Hayes. Wrote to Caroline. Page and I read letters. Saw Lieut. Dow in the eve. We are now going into rough usage, I guess, but let it come. But if we go, I should like to return.” On May 18 he wrote that because he did not sleep with Page, he was very cold during the night. During the next day’s fighting he was helping an injured comrade to the rear when, as William Marvel wrote, he “had to abandon his comrade to save himself, but in the smoke and confusion he must have turned the wrong way; soon he could see none but grey uniforms, and he threw down his rifle.”
After his capture, sympathetic Rebels saw Melvin limping on sore feet and gave him a ride on a horse. That night, “I slept rough but was truly thankful for my treatment,” he wrote. “The guards were everlasting kind to me.” He soon grew weary with the hunger and pain. On May 25, en route to Andersonville, he wrote, “Don’t I wish I could see Page and Dow?” He was eager to get to prison, where he assumed he would be well fed and soon released. As often happened, the train they were riding in (in hog cars soiled with manure) derailed on the way to Augusta, Georgia, killing one man and wounding many others. Melvin wrote again how much he wished he could hear from Dow.
On June 3, 1864, after arriving at Andersonville, Melvin and his friends Asa Rowe and George Handy immediately “bought a little lot on the hill for $4.50,” where they slept the first night uncovered in the rain. They paid $5 for a rubber blanket and huddled beneath it in the downpour the next day while they watched a steady parade of prisoners carrying dead men across the ditch to the south gate. Melvin then wrote to his sister asking for any kind of box, “as did most of our boys,” because they were prized possessions in the camp. He also wrote a letter to Dow. Melvin was particularly distressed that had he not been captured he would have fulfilled his service soon and could have put the war behind him. He mentioned this often in his diary. His stomach began to give him trouble right away, and he struggled to remain upbeat, writing, “Still, men have lived through rougher scenes than this, and if I take good care of myself, am very hopeful.”
On June 6 he wrote: “Asa Rowe is in a bad state, and we are all in a deplorable condition, still I guess that by being prudent we will all get through it.” On June 10, Melvin, Rowe, and Handy entered into a partnership for making money and trading to improve their food supply. “My principal thoughts and hopes and fears are that my friend Dow will get killed or not be able to fulfill his promises with me.”
June 13 was cold and rainy, which inspired Melvin to record a little ditty: “When the birds cannot show a dry feather, Bring Aunt with her cans & Marm with her pans And we’ll all be unhappy together.”
June 14: His friend Handy had the shakes.
June 15: With the arrival of more than a thousand new prisoners came word that fifty-three men had been killed or wounded or were missing from Melvin’s regiment in the May 19 battle in which he was captured. “O how glad I was to learn that Dow and Page were all right up to the 2nd of June. I was painfully grieved when they told me that Dow felt very badly when he learned my fate. He came to the Co. and enquired for me of Joe. There is a TRUE friend, & if he will go home in July and wait until I come, it will be the happiest moment of my life, and I pray to God that such may be the case. How I hope Dow will get my letter, but I am afraid he will not.” He then reported that he had come down with diarrhea.
June 16: Handy still had the shakes, and his salt and spoon were stolen.
June 17: “My diarrhea is no better, but it is not very bad, so I am not alarmed about it yet,” he wrote. Then, “Ten thousand times a day do I think of my engagement to go to England. If I can’t enjoy life after this, I am not sentient.”
June 28: “Had a good shower which made it quite comfortable for a season. A large lot of Yanks came in, about 1000. I am about discouraged. Only think, if we only had staid at the forts, only one short week from today our time would be out and that long wished for period would have come, and I should have been the happiest of men. Now I might say I am quite the reverse. Only one week more, oh how good it sounds! But now the future looks gloomy. Otherwise Dow and I would have been going home together. Now it will be otherwise, and perhaps one of us never will go home. But we will look as well as we can on the dark and gloomy picture.”
June 30: “Only 5 days more, then I was expecting to enjoy life as hugely as any man could. Got out lots of raiders and tried them by court-martial.”
July 1: “O dear! Ain’t this a tough life? July has come, & instead of bringing its anticipated joys; woes as intense have followed it. But why keep sighing? Because I can’t help it.”
July 3: “Only think, tomorrow is the immortal 4th. If I were only in Boston my joy would be unspeakable. I can’t imagine the joy if Dow and I were there, free and accepted, in all things as well as Masonry.”
July 4: “This has been a curious 4th to me, and it has to us all, I guess. Not a sign of any celebration, but no rations. This is my 4th Fourth of July in the Army. 3 years ago today I was on guard for the first time in the tent at Fort Albany. I came out of the G.H. [guard-house] for seeing Dow 2 yrs [ago] today. I was with Dow at Albany, went off berrying with him. Thus time has passed with me.”
July 6: “Would not I like to be on my way home now with Dow? I guess yes. It would be the most intense joy I can think of or imagine. But I will be with him soon, I hope.”
July 7: “I have got a very bad cold and a touch of the dumb ague, making this prison life not very pleasant. I dreamed last night of being paroled and seeing Dow, and the disappointment when I awoke & found myself still in Hell! I have given up all hopes of hearing from home, likewise of their hearing from me. But while there is life there is hope, and that consoles me.”
Following the arrival of new prisoners, Melvin learned on July 9 that Page, from his regiment, had been slightly wounded but was all right and that Dow had been slightly wounded in the foot. “Dow still keeps in the field,” he wrote. “I wish he would go home!” In closing, he wrote, “I am glad to hear that Page is safe, & I think Dow will now be out of danger.”
July 10: “Today, sad news indeed I must record.” Word came that his brother Asa had been shot through the heart while charging the breastworks at Petersburg. The man who delivered the news told him that he got to his brother just in time to prevent some officers from pilfering his pockets as he lay dead on the ground. “Corp. Wm. Hills died with the diarrhea. He was a good boy, and a friend to me. It is sad, but I still have faith in my belief, & find relief therein…I am mighty glad to learn that Dow has gone home & knows where I am.”
July 12: “To have things go right, I shall get out of here this, or early next month, find Dow all right waiting for me, & then, after settling the things at home, I will start on our life’s journey.”
July 13: “How I would like to meet Dow in the Astor House or in Boston! God grant that things will work for our good & that we may be permitted to spend the life of pleasure and enjoyment together that we have doted on so much!”
July 14: Melvin’s tempo was beginning to slow. He was weary with dashed hopes of an exchange, annoyed even to hear the subject discussed. He wrote, “O dear, has Dow patience to wait for me? If I have patience to wait in this pen, I think he ought to have.”
July 17: He visited the doctor for his diarrhea and cough. “I am in a bad condition, nothing but water passes me, & no appetite for anything we see here at all. O God! The man that will take me out of this I will call him ‘Prince of Kings & Lord of Lords.’ He to me will be a true Redeemer, I think, in every sense of the word.”
July 18: “Lay on my back in the tent all day, pretty sick. This is hard, indeed, but I don’t see why we must stand it. How I wish Dow would come down to see me as he did in Albany when he heard I was sick. But I only live to see it through, I think it will be all right. The weather is quite cool today, with some rain.”
July 24: He was feeling better, but “Emery is getting worse, and Handy, too.”
July 26: Prisoners had the option of taking what was known as a parole of honor, by which they would work for the Confederates outside the stockade—a controversial choice. “Emery sent in an application for himself to go out shoemaking, and also for me,” Melvin wrote. “I do hope we shall both be successful and get where we can enjoy life a little.” He added, “If I can get out on parole of honor, I shall do it, & shall think it no harm. I wish I could ask Dow’s opinion of it. I would abide by that.”
July 29: He awoke with a strange paralysis that went away over the course of the day. He fetched salt for the ailing Emery. Another man cut his hair, and he “washed all over.”
July 30: He began to fear that Emery would die. Then he got the shakes again himself. “I thought of Dow, I can assure you, and Page and every friend I ever had.”
August 1: He was still suffering from chills, and his religious convictions were flagging. “The stories say we are not to stay here long, & if the Devil will get me out of this I will worship him, for I am discouraged.”
August 7: His diarrhea came back with a vengeance. “I was called up 30 times in 24 hours,” he wrote.
August 8: “Here I lie and wallow in the dirt from morning till night.”
August 9: “Emery is very badly off and will not live but a short time, I am afraid. I do wish I could do something for him, but can’t. My feet and face swell some, and what in the world is going to become of us is more than I know. Did not draw my ration. Some of the stockade fell in. How are you Dow, Page, sisters, and my only brother?”
August 10: His friend Asa Rowe died.
August 11: Having heard—erroneously—that Emery had also died, he went to check on his friend. Men teetering on the brink of death sometimes became extremely self-centered as their brains focused on preserving their lives, but others, including Melvin, were the opposite. They drew strength from caring for others, which could also be a survival mechanism. “I concluded to try and take care of him,” he wrote of Emery. “Cooked him some rice and it tasted good to him. In the afternoon a shower was coming on, & up he came and asked for shelter, which we gave him. He was in good cheer and I felt encouraged. He stayed here all the time, but did not sleep much. The weather was very hot and oppressive.”
August 12: “Made some rice soup for Emery, which he ate and liked, but he seemed to be worse after that, and he lay quiet until afternoon, when he was taken worse and was pressed for breath. He ate no supper, and continued to fail. I was very sick all night, vomiting. I asked him towards morning if he felt as though he could stand it long. He said ‘No.’ I asked him if he had any word to send to his folks. He said ‘No,’ and I left him. Things go the same as ever, no parole yet, and all our comfort is in Hope.” The next day Emery died, leaving behind a wife and four children back home.
August 15: Another friend died. “I never saw men slip off so easy as they do here. They die as easy as, as can be.”
August 27: “This is a cool, beautiful morning. As Handy is very sick and probably won’t survive long, there is another good man going to die in this horrid place.” Handy died two days later.
September 3: Two more friends died. “How I would like to see Dow and my folks.”
September 4: “After all the morning, I sold Emery’s shoes for $1.”
September 5: “When I get to London with Dow I guess we won’t starve like this!”
September 7: “Today I met with an accident that I was awful sorry for. I never felt so bad about anything. I lost my pocket book with my gold pen in it, that I prized, for Dow, Page, & I had used it for two years, a lock of John’s hair, and some pretty pictures that Dow made. I want Dow to make me a present of one when I see him, which I hope will be in two weeks.” By now prisoners had begun to be removed from the camp.
September 10: He wrote of how much he enjoyed hearing the rail cars leave in the night, loaded with prisoners. He noted that his friend Edward Holt had a sore throat, and “I am afraid it may be bad. How I long for the Stars & Stripes! How I long to meet Dow!”
September 11: Holt’s throat was worse. The next day he died. “He died about dusk, very hard indeed, choked to death.”
September 13: Melvin was finally among those being removed, but the train wrecked only four miles from camp. “My car was badly broken,” he wrote, “but the Powers that Be saved me.”
September 14: “This morn I could hardly stand.” With the help of a friend he made it as far as the depot but had to be taken to the hospital. “It is an awful, nasty, lousy place, and I am disgusted,” he wrote. “My diarrhea is very bad and will soon carry me off, if it is not checked, I am afraid. It is too bad, for I should hate to have my anticipations fail now, for they are so near, their termination or beginning.”
September 15: He had no appetite, and what he ate went right through him. He had yet to see a doctor. “I am lying in a tent on my rubber blanket, with an old Irishman next to me. Can’t make him hear anything. He is most dead with the diarrhea. The next is a Dutchman, most dead with scurvy. And then the tent and blankets are just as full of lice and fleas as ever can be. As things look now, I stand a good chance to lay my bones in old Ga., but I’d hate to as bad as one can, for I want to go home.”
September 25: Melvin died and was buried at Andersonville in grave No. 9,735.