The difference of a few spoonfuls of meal, or a large splinter of wood in the daily issues to me, were of more actual importance than the increase or decrease of the death rate by a half a score or more.

At Andersonville I frequently took the trouble to count the number of dead and living, but all curiosity of this kind had now died out.
Nor can I find that anybody else is in possession of much more than my own information on the subject.

Inquiry at the War Department has elicited the following letters: I.
The prison records of Florence, S.C., have never come to light, and therefore the number of prisoners confined there could not be ascertained from the records on file in this office; nor do I think that any statement purporting to show that number has ever been made.
In the report to Congress of March 1, 1869, it was shown from records as follows: Escaped, fifty-eight; paroled, one; died, two thousand seven hundred and ninety-three.

Total, two thousand eight hundred and fifty-two.
Since date of said report there have been added to the records as follows: Died, two hundred and twelve; enlisted in Rebel army, three hundred and twenty-six.

Total, five hundred and thirty-eight.
Making a total disposed of from there, as shown by records on file, of three thousand three hundred and ninety.
This, no doubt, is a small proportion of the number actually confined there.
The hospital register on file contains that part only of the alphabet subsequent to, and including part of the letter S, but from this register, it is shown that the prisoners were arranged in hundreds and thousands, and the hundred and thousand to which he belonged is recorded opposite each man's name on said register.