urned grey with lice is rather unbelievable. However, picking the lice from clothing seems to have been a regular morning ritual in all the prison camps. After their release, the former prisoners who were freed on the east coast were generally sent by steamer to an army hospital in Annapolis, Maryland. Some were too ill to survive the voyage and died on the boat. Nineteen year-old Isaac Reed of Co. A died on the transportNorthern Lights and was buried at sea the same day. Some of the men who were released from Andersonville went by train to Jackson, Mississippi and then over to Vicksburg. There they boarded steamers which took them up the Mississippi River to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri or to Camp Chase, Ohio. Ten members of the 7th Tennessee were unfortunate to be aboard the ill-fate steamer Sultana. When the ship exploded just above Memphis, eight were killed and the other two rescued only after a terrifying night clinging to debris in the water. Many of the men remained in hospitals for months. Eight died in the hospital at Annapolis. Those well enough to be discharged from the hospital were given thirty days leave. Three died on leave, one on a train on his way home. Most were given individual discharges. Those few who eventually returned to the regiment were mustered out at Nashville, Tennessee on August 9, 1865. About 66 percent of the enlisted men, or two out of every three who had been captured at Union City that day in March of 1864, never made it home. Two hundred and seven died at Andersonville, sixteen at Millen, twelve at Savannah, ten at Mobile, seven at Florence, eight on the Sultana, four at Charleston, seventeen in northern hospitals, seven enroute to and from various prisons or hospitals, two on furlough, and one at an unknown place. This total of 291 includes only those for whom we have records. It does not include those who died from prison related illnesses after their discharges. Also, many more men were partially...
