ost disasterous single month for the regiment. August, and October were next with forty-four deaths each. In October, thirty-six of the deaths were at Andersonville and eight in the smaller prisons. By the end of October, the death rate since capture had reached 48 percent, or nearly one out of every two men. During the period from November through January 1865, sixteen more died in the smaller camps and sixteen more died in Andersonville. Twelve of the latter sixteen were listed as having died of scorbutus, a disease presently called scurvy and caused by poor diet. Seventy-four men had it listed as the cause of death making it the second highest killer among the 7th Tennessee. Diarrhea and scorbutus together were blamed for about 56 percent of the total deaths. Cause of death was not given for 19 percent of the men. The other 25 percent was divided among dysentery, typhus, stroke, pneumonia, and edena, etc. Two men at Andersonville died of gunshot wounds-perhaps they had ventured too close to the stockade wall and were shot by the Confederate guards. The year 1865 began for the 7th Tennessee with four more deaths in January and eleven more in February. One of the eleven people who died in February was Riley Powers of Henderson County, the fourth member of the Middleburg Powers family to die at Andersonville. His brother, Joe, and his cousin Henry M. had died in October and his cousin, Willis, brother to Henry, had died in June. A fifth member, John, died on his way home. Since Civil War companies were ofter composed of relatives and neighbors, many families and communities were eventually devastated after a company had been captured. The 16th district of Henderson County, which had only eighty-three households in 1850, lost at least twenty-two men at Andersonville and the smaller prisons. The beginning of 1865 also brought an increase in the number of prisoners at Andersonville. Cavalry raids in the vicinity of the Thomasville, Georgia...
