Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1863-09-04
Correspondence Of the MuscAtine Daily Journal.
FROM WASHINGTON.

"
gan on Gen. Zuttle- Sche/ield and Lass-
rence-etc., etc.
WASHINGTON, Aug. %, 1868.
In company with John A. Graham, w. F.
Turner, J. H. Stevens, and Samuel Rankin,
of Keokuk, went up to the headquarters
OF subsistence for prisoners" the other day,
to see if anything could be done for Messrs.
Stannus, Gren and Vermillion, citizens also
of Kcokuk, who have been for some time con-
fined in Libby Prison, Richmond. Itappears
that the rebel functionaries will not release
our citizens whom they have captured, ex-
cept in exchange for those we have in custody
and who, citizens Of Maryland, Kentucky,
Missouri, the District of Columbia, and that
part of Virginia within our lines, have been
placed beyond the power of active injury to
the Union cause for various reasonable,
Copperheadish, and hangable offenses against
ment will not admit that jeff. Davis has any
thing whatever to do or say about men who
are PROFESSIONALLY under our own exclusive
jurisdiction, and there the matter rests
Nothing could be done for the prisoners whose
names l have mentioned. They were cap.
tured by guerrias on the Mississippi River,
some time last Spring, and have been suffer.
ering the horrors Of Libby Prison for several
months.
Of those horrors I had vivid description
by gentleman who was captured at Win.
chester a few weeks ago, but who was re-
leased by a turn of good luck which he hardly
yet understands. The Libby prisoners drag
in existence about in this wise In the morn
ing each man gets the fourth part of small
loaf of bread, and little piece of boiled meat,
"about the size Of your little finger" said
my informant and without seasoning OF
any sort. This breakfast is washed down by
a drink of water from q bucket used in COM
mon by all the prisoners. The bread is mis-
cradle, without salt, and the meat horrid-
thought to be by some the flesh of condemned
animals from the army. But upon this NOR
sci of nauseous food, the poor men are com
PEELED to go till nearly night-fall, when the
same bill of fare is again presented with the
addition of drink of soup made of rice and
peas, which is handed around in the same
bucket. They have no plates, no knives, no
forks, no spoons-no anything but Just as
have described They receive barely enough
food to keep soul and body together, and
what they do get would be spurned as unen,
durable by the convicts Of our State prisons
At night they lie down together on the floor,
which is covered with filth, as the men are,
with vermin added. No better treatment
than this can they get for love or money
They succumb under the starving hardships
contract dysentery and other diseases, and
die by the inch, slowly, painfully, dreadfully
giving up their lives, victims to more horrible
treatment than any who in the more barbar.
Gus times suffered the most studied punish.
ment of the Inquisiton. The superintendent
of Libby Prison has brought out bright
spots in the character of Ximines, and made
him saint of mercy in comparison. The
treatment have described is given to all
allke-there is no use of money. No Libby
prisoner is allowed to buy so much as even q
plug of tobacco. It's dull, dreary, desolate
starving process to all, the dreadful inhuman
ity of which take the occasion to commend
to the candid rehec ion of those among yor
who have any lingering respect for "our South
ern brethren"
The Intelligencer of Saturday morning ha;
a paragraph about the nomination Of Gen
Tuttle by the "Union Convention of Iowa
which was news to me. supposed that the
convention referred to did not nominate Tut
tie, but instead of that, and not to put toe
fine point upon it. swindled him out Of TIE
nomination At any rate, neutral paper O
Democratic proclvities published in Unior
county, Iowa, so informed me, and have
been led to suppose since that be received tn,
nomination at the hands bare majority Of 8
bare quorum of the Democratic State Contra
Committee. at meeting held in Burlington
The organ OF the liquor saloon kept in thu
State Department then goes on to say thai
Gen. futile will BE- elected as was Bramlettt
in Kentucky, etc., etc. l read Gen. Tuttle's
address to the people of Iowa day or sc
ago, and judge that he ignores the commit ee
nomination altogether, and goes in ION hi.
own hook" II beseech you, fello soldiers,
said Demosthenes Uhe General, and not De
mosthenes, Esq at Pylus, that in view O.
the circumstances now surrounding you, yor
lay aside all superhuoos wisdom" l suspect
the neat little speech Of which this is the
commencement, was the origin of the now
common express on Of gong it blind, anc
that Gen. Tuttle relies upon that kind O.
fighting to win in the gubernatorial contest
Il may be the people will shut their eyes tc
the denomination, to association with
Buncombs and Charles Mason, to the support
of Mahony, HUI chins, and Byington, even
though it be not an enthusiastic support, but
this far away from home don't see it. Pocl
Tray, though very respectable and amiable
dog, was soundly thrashed for being caught
good soldier and an honest man as l believe
him to be, thus permits designing men te
hang him up for the ravens; and l am hall
inclined to believe they have engineered his
candidacy now for the very purpose of effect
ually killing him off forever.
The news we have from Kansas will add q
brilliant, crimson feather to the cap of Gen
Schofeld, and another to thatof Gen. Tom
Ewing, jr. Meantime, those who think it is
evidence of unsullied patriotism to uphold
every act done and sustain every word said
by the President, will allow him to go unre.
buked, and consign his uaderstrappers to the
censure which they only share with him.
He removed Gen. Curtis from the command
of the Department, when, upon his own con.
fession, he was chargeable with no mistakes
or blunders, or derelic,ion of military duty
whatever. The only thing laid to his charge
by the Presidents own showing, when strip.
ped of its spacious words about factions u
was that he favored freedom rather than sla
very. For that reason, and no other, the
Department, through Schofeld, was given
over to Henderson, Gamble, Frank Blair,
and the Claybanks, and in few weeks wall
swept over the country from devoted Kansas
like the wall of another Saint Bartholomew.
have no patience in this matter, and would
rather my right arm were torn off than smp-
ly to denounce Schofield without a word oil
censure for the man who put Schofeld in
command, against the earnest protestations
of the best men in the West And now out
comes this mornings Chronicle with "The