Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1862-05-05
A Dreadrt,l RECORD.
IFrnln the N.Y.pn.,N


When Mr.. Sumner made his earnast and
eloquent speech in the Senate, on what he
called the "BarbOrism of Slavery" he was
thought to have taken an extreme view of
the case. Although he supported his phil
osopby by convincing array of facts.
showing the Influences of an unjust social
relation in barbsriziug the character of its
members, he was accused of bitter and
malevolent motives 1t was said that.
having been once grossly assaulted in per
son BY So1th Carolina representative, be
could not forget the affront, and sought 70
avenge his personal wrongs on the general
system iu defence of which they were
Inflicted. No one to-day, we think, who
reads the official report OF a committee of
Congress on the barbarities OF the war.
which we publish in fuII elsewhere, will
repeat those charges of extravaganza. and
exaggeraIion. The words that M Sumner
uttered two years ago are not half So Sc
we're as the simple narrative of actual &C.
curTence given bT the committee
The horrors Of the Jersey prison ships
are traditional remembrance with US, bnt
nothing suffered by the soldiers of the
second war with England equals the afro
cities inflicted upon our prisoners al Rich.
mond. une testi6es that their food was
nauseous; another that the apartments
I were crowded to sufocation and filthy: an
other that wounded men were sometimes
/ maltreated, and ut other times allowed to
die OF sheer neglect; while the SURGICAL
! operations were often bRicheries, rather
! than scientific performances. Corporal
! Prescotts leg was twice sawed off, and
( then there was not flesh enough left over
the bone to form uniting fiap. So COM
mon necessity as water Was refused to
the patients, and the rain caught in their
caps under the caves of the building was
their only resource. If our readers will
place themselves in the position of our
( poor brothers, wounded at Bull Run and
{ left for days in the places where they fell,
I then hurried off in carts ami cars to a
! strange city, cruelty maugled by unskillFal
surgeons, heaPed together like pigs in a
/ pen, black with filth aud alive with yer.
! min, sunocated by heat and the stencil of
decaying wounds, denied not only the
comforts but the uecessaries of life, and
insnlted daily aud almost hourly by men
and women who seem to gIoat over their
wounds, they will form some idea of what
those brave defenders OF their country
must have endured.
But evidences Of barbarity do not stou
here; US the rebels had little sympathy for
the living. it is not to be supposed that they
would pay much respect TO the dead: thew
left corpses, which they had stripped of ali
clothing, unburried from FIVE to ten DAYS :;
many which they did bury they inferred
with their faces downward as mark of IN
/ dignity; they bayonetted the llfeless God.
les which could no longer do them harm;
( portions of them were boiled to obtain the
/ bones as relics, and skull was sent to New
& Orleans To serve
weary OF the disgusting details. Our hearts
refuse to believe that We are reading the
doings of American citizens in the nine
teenth century. lnstinctively we recur to
what IN former times we have heard of the
saVagery of the Indian tribes, or the AIge-
rines, or more recently of the madeued Sc
POys of India. Yet the testimony il de-
rived from the actual Conversations and en-
periences OF persons Of established veracity
and anquestionable character.
1t would be agreeable to think, If we
could, that these atrocities were the work
of few individuals only, of those excep-
ttonaI and monstrOus characters which are
TO De found in all communities. But the
reports are too particular and direct to al
low MS to acquit the leaders of the rebel
lion ofau approval Of, if not a particination
10, these outrages. Many of them. doubt.
less, Will condemn the conduct of their
fellows as heartily as we do, but no sol.
diers are so thoroughly under the control
OF their officers as those of the South. who
are accustomed to act in complete defer
ence to the rule of their upper classes, and
none could be more easily restrained from
outrage if their leaders were disposed to |
restrain them. The deeds We record couId |
not have been committed by the ranks |
without some countenance from the files. |
Besides, it is never to be forgotten that
'lthe Institution" under which SHAREHOLDERS
live haTe-a tendency to harden and brutify |
the character. JEFFERSON, long since, de-
scribed their influences in this respect.
They make petty tyrants Of the masters,
land the cruelties Of tyrants are proven
6ial,) while they accustom the poorer
masses to sights of wrong and outrage
PERSONS bred in a state of society, in which
one'half the population exists, at the
mercy OF the other, are not likely to ob.
se sr.,e any refnements even those which
! c,'lLllatiOn has introduced into the nsages