Read: "Andersonville," by John McElroy, 1879 (manybooks.net)
Why: It looked awesome, and the preface says that it is written in simplified spelling
A memoir of the Confederates' Andersonville prison
Takeaway: Incredible. The writer was captured by the Rebels at Cumberland Gap and sent to Andersonville prison, in southeast Georgia, where he stayed for seven months. I have always wondered about the practice of taking war prisoners; the idea that you would go from trying to kill your enemy to treating him well, feeding and clothing him and letting him get mail, always seemed a little odd. So the Rebels just didn't; they dumped 30,000 Yankee prisoners into a stockade, gave them a piece of cornbread 2 inches square once a day, no tents, no bedding or clothing, no toilets, no nothing. It's amazing that more prisoners didn't die, but only 10,000 of them did in seven months. McElroy writes like a reporter, with wit and directness. His point-by-point explanation of why the North and South stopped trading prisoners, resulting in such a horrible loss of life, is clear and understandable, which is an accomplishment when you remember that he was one of the prisoners who was not traded, and thus came close to death, and saw his friends die of hunger, slowly. The story was published as a serial in the Toledo Blade!