From Ashby to Andersonville

the long version

Private George Hitchcock's From Ashby to Andersonville is a remarkable soldier's epic of the American Civil War. Unlike most accounts penned by enlisted men, which usually cover only a brief timespan in a small geographic area, Hitchcock's writings encompass a broad spectum of experiences across several theaters of war, including his hellish months as a prisoner of war. Despite the hardships and death that make up the daily routine in Andersonville, Hitchcock's account of his months there is remarkably free of vitriol and refreshingly objective in its assessments of his Southern jailers. The sweep of General William T. Sherman's armies deep into Georgia forced the transfer of thousands of Federal captives, including Hitchcock, to other prisons. Hitchcock ended up in Millen's Camp Lawton, and eventually Florence, South Carolina, two little-known prisons about which the Massachusetts native had much to say. - Jacket flap. This remarkable journal of an enlisted Federal soldier provides an abundance of fresh information on camp life, battles, picket duty, skirmishing and, ultimately, life in a Confederate prison. It includes descriptions of service with the IX Army Corps.