The mountain Democrat., 1863-12-25

CONDITION OF THH CoHTRABAKDG-Has
the condition Of the contfabands. who
have been emAncipated BY President Lin
coins proclamation, ,besnimprOvedS Have
their Abolition friends treated them kind
" and supplied their wants Has not
their freedom been . curse to themf What
is the testimony Of Government agents
Rev. A. s. Fiske, Superintendent OF Con-
trabands, in q recent address to the Freed
mans Relief Association, in New York,
after narrating some Of the horrors At
tending the condition Of the negroes with
in the Federal lines, says
"The suffering of these people was
national dishonor. If they were NOT IES
cued history will write something like
this: The American people enticed
within their lines ten thousand slaves,
aiiuring them with promises of liberty,
took from among them all able bodied
men to reinforce their armies, huddled
the rest together in great camps, and LETT
them there to perish of nakedness by the
hundred How, he asked, would that
page Of history read :"
! E,l'~ = ~-Nr-A--~a>~~ Who
did this ? The cruel Southern slavehold-
ers = Not at all The gentle, sympathi'
sing, benevolent, Christian AbolitiOnists
the men who profess to be the peculiar
friends and brother of the "poor, op-
pressed negrol" What hypOcracy! Dis
graceful and brutal and cowardly as the
above is, it is mild in comparison with
the treatment the contrabands receive on
d" abandoned plantations leased by Gov
ernment Commissioners. The New Or
leans correspondent of the New York
Evening Post, an Administration organ,
gives the following Sickening account Of
the condition Of the contrabands on the
Government plantations" The cores
pondent, recolIect, reader, gives an ex'
tract from the official report of the in
spector of plantations, who visited the
plantations under the control Of Colonel
Hanks, superintendent Of contrabands. "
Recollect, too, that the correspondent, in.
spector and superintendent are all loyal
Abolitionists, devoted to their party and
admirers of the Administration, and that
their statements, therefore, are more apt
to be softened than exaggerated:
"While referring to the subject Of plan.
tations, my attention has been called to
the apparently impartial report Of Mr.. w.
Ii. Wilder, the inspector Of plantations,
who recently visited the plantations un-
der the control Of Colonel Hanks, super.
intendent Of contrabands. He says, in
his report to the proper authorities -
More particularly would | call your At
tention to the Old Hickory plantation.
y The mortality that has and is oc.
curing there is Sppalling. On white
CoStle' plantation, out of one hundred
and iorty-nine negroes, eighty Eve have
died and twenty-five run away, thus
leaving but forty-two Of the original nun
Der. At the old Hickory plantation
there were four hundred and thirteen ne.
groes; Of these two hundred and two
have died since June last. On my visit
there found thirty-eight negroes sick,
without proper nurses or medical attend
ance. The hospital is building eighteen
by twent.t three feet in size, in which the
sick referred to were packed. In the
midst Of this lazar house was the dead
body Of a woman who had died on
Wednesday. at 8 o'clock, A. NJ. At five
O'Clock, p. NJ, tine following day, no mea-
sures had been taken for her sepulture,
and the body had commenced to decom.
pose.'"