Litchfield enquirer., 1862-05-01

ally cut to pieces. And afterwards, when these
 men would come into courts of justice, and pull of their shirts and display marks of the inhuman treatment they had suffered, the judges upon the bench would coolly inform them that these were revolutionary times, and they could give no re. dress for such grievances. Every prominent jail in East Tennessee was filled with Union men, Take the case of Andy Johnson. He is 6 man against whom have fought for twenty five years with all my might, pouring hot shot into him continually, both on the stump and through the columns of my paper, and he in turn giving me as good as sent. He and are to-day up on the most friendly amicable terms. We, the peo pie of east Tennessee, have merged every other issue into this great issue of the Union. Loud applause. You ought to do so in Indiana You should never touch one of your aspiring politicians with ten foot pole, unless he is to- tally and internationally opposed to this infer nal rebellion Where would see man who is base enough to sympathize with secession be- see him where, in the language of Milton.
 Cold performs the effect of fire ;'
 or, as Pollock says,
 Where gravitation shifting, turns the other | way,
 And sends him Ueuwards,'
 They drove Johnson's wife, far gone with con- sumption, and very feeble, to take refuge with her son in-law, in the adjoining county of Carter They drove him into tine woods, where he re- mained no less than three months, used his house and his beds for hospital, and sold his goods at public sale. But the scale has turned. An. drew Johnson is now Governor. He is {" the right man in the right place.
 If President Lincoln had consulted the Union men of Tennessee as to what man should occu- ' that noSitiop tho roY1x xyonld boya hoo al most unanimously, "give us Andy Johnson" He has the untinching courage of Old Hickory, and let me tell you too that he feels all the nal ice and venom requisite for the occasion. He will row those wretches up Salt river. He will send good many of them to Fort Warren, where, l trust, after due trial for treason, they will be hung upon gallews of similar character and dimensions as that upon which Haman died.
 When, upon the 9th of November, they thrust me into jail at Knoxville, found one hundred and fifty men whose sole offense was their faith fitness to the Union. Every man among them was an acquaintance of mine. Three of them were Baptist preachers. One of these three, old man Pope, man seventy years of age and for many years minister of the Gospel, was thrown into jail for praying previously to his sermon for the blessing of God upon the President of the United States. The Rev. Mir. Gates, a man about seventy-6ve years old, was imprisoned for throwing up his cap and hallooing as a company of Union home guards were passing.
 When l entered the door the inmates of the prison were perfectly astonished. Some of them were so overpowered by the nature of the cir. cumstances that they could hardly speak. "Oh," said they, "we never expected to come to this. We never expected the day would come when we would look through the iron grates of prison P
 I %b G olo A.o here for murder, or counterfeiting, or horse-stea ing. No. You are here for no other ofcnse than that of defending the glorious stars and stripes, and l look upon this as the brightest day of my life. These scoundrels will be sick of this business before this thing is over."
 While was in jail both of these poor preach CTS were taken sick. The furniture of the pris- on deserves description. There was 50 sign of bsdstead not chair nor a stool of any kind, and the only |" furniture there consisted of dir ty wooden pail and two tin cups. The whole one hundred and fifty prisoners could not lie down at once, so that we had to "spell'' each other, so all might have little while to sleep. A part slood while the others lay down. That's the way we lived in the jail.
 These poor old preachers came near dying. The rebels showed me one favor.. The jailor, 1 know, was mean, sneaking rascal, whom had published in my paper for forgery, and was sure he would give me arsenic in order to make sure of my not doing so again, and l obtained permission for my wife to send me my dinner every day, and had her to send the basket full every day, and in this way had the satisfaction of feeding those feeble old preachers for two weeks with something they could eat.
 Old Mr. Cate had three sons iu jail. Madi- son Cate was on the verge of the grave with ty phoid fever. He lay upon the floor of that damp brick jail, with an old over-coat under his head for pillow, and single. thickness of old home- made carpet between him and the cold, damp floor of the prison. In this condition his poor wife came thrty-Gve miles to see him, with an infant about six weeks old in her arms. She came into the yard of the prison. and asked permission to see her husband. The officer said " No, they did not allow any body to have any thing to say to these internal Union shriekers." l went to the window then, myself and by dint of persuasion, prevailed upon them at last to let her see her husband. They limited her to just fifteen minutes. When she entered the door her eyes fell upon her husband lying in the cor ner, so weak and emaeiated that he could scarce ly stir. He was nearly gone. She held her in- fant in her arms. The sight of her husband in that condition unnerved her completely. Seeing she was upon the point of letting the child fall, I took it from her, and she sank down upon the
  tered word. but clasping each others hands, they sobbed and cried together, and o, my God 1 hope that shall never see such sight as that again.
 That, ladies and gentlemen, is the spirit-the hellish, inhuman spirit of secession. The Devil himself is a Saint, compared to the leaders in that scheme.
 In Andrew Johnson's town they hung up two men to the same limb, and the bloody Colonel Ledhettes, man born and educated in the State of Maine, going down to Mobile and marrying a lot of negroes through another woman-the worst man, the biggest coward and the hlackest- hearted villain that ever made a track in East Tennessee-this man tied the knots with his own hands, and directed that the bodies of the victims should be left hanging for four days and nights over the iron track of the railroad, and ordered the engineers to run their trains slowly by the spot in order that the secessionists on board might feast their eyes upon the ghastly spectacle. And it is fact as true as t is re- volting, that men stood upon the platforms of every train that went by, and kicked the dead bodies as they passed, and struck them with sticks and ratans, with such remarks as that they locked well hanging there,n and that " all id-d Yankees and traitors should hang that way too. It is true that Col Ledbetter, as the weath' CT was somewhat warm and the corpsss were be. com!ng somewhatsof ofensive, ordered them 70 pc cut down at the expiration of some tniT.Y-si hours but 1t was for the convenience or nls se sessioa friends purely, and not from any o'nsr motive. ss ea
 One day they came with two carts and took