Noon
`` And faint not , heart of man ! though years wane slow ! There have been those that from the deepest caves , And cells of night and fastnesses below The stormy dashing of the ocean waves , Down , farther down than gold lies hid , have nurs 'd A quenchless hope , and watch 'd their time and burst On the bright day like wakeners from the grave . '' -- MRS. HEMANS Noon of a sultry July day , 1864 ; the scorching sun looks down upon a pine forest ; in its midst a cleared space some thirty acres in extent , surrounded by a log stockade ten feet high , the timbers set three feet deep into the ground ; a star fort , with one gun at each corner of the square enclosure ; on top of the stockade sentinel boxes placed twenty feet apart , reached by steps from the outside ; in each of these a vigilant guard with loaded musket , constantly on the watch for the slightest pretext for shooting down some one or more of the prisoners , of whom there are from twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand . All along the inner side of the wall , six feet from it , stretches a dead line ; and any poor fellow thoughtlessly or accidentally laying a hand upon it , or allowing any part of his body to reach under or over it , will be instantly shot . A green , slimy , sluggish stream , bringing with it all the filth of the sewers of Andersonville , a village three miles distant , flows directly across the enclosure from east to west . Formerly , the only water fit to drink came from a spring beyond the eastern wall , which flowing under it , into the enclosure , emptied itself into the other stream , a few feet within the dead line .