Robert Woodcock enlisted on July 7, 1863. As it usually was, he supplied his own horse, which was his plow horse. His equipment probably consisted of a saddle, riding equipment, a carbine rifle, saber, pistol, uniform, and rations.

The rations were very basic. They may have consisted of ¾ lb. pork or bacon, or 1 ¼ lb. fresh or salted beef. 18oz of flour or bread, or 12oz of hard tack, or 11½ lb. of corn meal. Per man. Fruit, fresh vegetables, milk and other dairy products where entirely absent.

Most of their diets consisted of stews and meat puddings. Hard tack or as the soldiers called it, "Sheet iron teeth dullers", were as hard as rock. The soldiers used the butts of their rifles to break them up and then soaked them in water and fried them in fat or grease to soften them. Any meat that was available was mixed with vegetables and bread to make a mush that made the food almost edible.

The uniform that Robert probably wore would have been a short, plain jacket, and a plain McClellan hat, typical of the recruits of that time.

Robert enlisted on July 7^th, 1863 and was mustered out on July 11^th 1863. Significant isn’t it, that he only spent four days in the war, I thought so too, but found nothing on why he was kicked out. He may have wandered off from boredom, as many did, and was discharged for that. He died the next year on May 12^th 1864 in Andersonville prison. He may have been put in prison for the same reasons that he was discharged.

Prison life was said to be harsh. Camp Anderson, in southwest Georgia, where Robert Woodcock died, was the worst Confederate prison there was during the Civil war. Overcrowding made the living conditions unbearable. When it was built in 1864, it covered 16 acres and had huts for 10,000 prisoners. When it was captured in 1865, it covered 26 acres of mostly swampland, and held 33,000 men with no extra huts to protect them from the sun. The men had to use branches from trees to make shelters. The only water came from a sluggish stream that ran through the camp.

The only sanitation came from a single sewage pit. No medical supplies or doctors were available. No one knows exactly how many died of starvation and medical needs in Andersonville. 12,912 bodies were found in the cemetery near the prison.

http://thepage.simplenet.com/flags__sz/us-flag1.gif

Bad medical knowledge during the civil war killed twice as many people as guns swords and starvation. The 16^th Cavalry rode 5000 miles, lost 356 men, and 56 officers. 1/3 of these men ended up in Andersonville Prison.