Millen Prison Pen

“The Prison Pen at Millen, Ga., as it appeared previous to the arrival of General Sherman’s Army. Our special artist has sketched this Golgotha, and we doubt not it will create in the bosom of our readers the same sentiments of horror which it did in those of the gallant soldiers who viewed with silent rage the scene of their brother soldiers’ persecutions and sufferings. Our illustration will prove more eloquent than any description. Here were brave and starved men compelled to burrow like wild beasts, enduring all the pangs of hunger and the insults of their brutal jailers. The stockade was a square of five hundred feet, or an area of nearly fifteen acres. It was among pines, on dry rolling ground, although in a swampy region. The stockade was of pine logs, rising from twelve to fifteen feet above the ground; sentry boxes were placed along the top of the stockade, fifty feet apart, and reached from the outside by ladders. On the eastern part extended a ravine, through which ran a small stream of good water. About three thousand prisoners had been confined here. In this space were their huts, without regularity in arrangement, roofed with loose earth, supported by sticks."— Frank Leslie, 1896

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