The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1864-12-09
The Treatment of Our Prisoners ia
Georgia.

In addition to the account we printed
yesterday of the treatment of our pris-
oners at Andersonville, Georgia, the New
York Times of the 2Sth publishes the
names of three thousand who miserably
persisted under the inhuman treatment of
their captors. In locking over the list we
find only one Ninnesotian, o. GRER, of
company F, Ninth Regiment, who died
July 18th. The Times also prints several
officers at Andersonville, as to the bar
barities practiced upon the prisoners, and
against which these surgeons, in many
cases, felt called npon professionally to
protest. The following is summing up
of their testimony.
1. The room allowed our prisoners within
the AndersOnville stockade might have been
enlarged, so that the rs, 600 or 80, 900 prison.
ers could have been removed from unwhole-
some contact; 80 that the means of ablution
and general attention to personal cleanliness
might have been available; and so that the
sick might have been separated from those in
health.
2. Our prisoners might have had abundant
shelter, at NO cost to the rebel authorities.
Pine woods abounded all around them, and
shelter tents of moderate comfort our men
would gladly have extemporized from these,
by their own labor.
8. Water could have been supplied TO our
men at q small cost of labor which the healthy
prisoners would themselves have readily borne.
4. Fuel was superintendent on every side OF
the Enclosure. Yet, the Confederate surgeons
testify that enough was not permitted to reach
L. 49, 40 10,
the hospital tents. g,
s. Our men might have been permitted to
remove the excrement of the camp; but it ap-
pears to have been part of the punishment in
ficted on them to prevent such removal-fve
acres being completely covered Herewith.
We might add to this list Of needless and
celebrate cruelties-cruelties arising in no sense
or degree out of the straits Of the COnfederncy
either in the matter of labor or provisioning
But it is useless to enlarge the Indictment
Saws Dr. Patterson. writing to his superior in
the Confederate Medical Department, on the
18th of August II find great negligence in
interring the dead, some of the bodies having
mometer at 100 in the shade, We know what
this means. -Four days later, DR.. Thornburg
reports to his superior from the same capital :
| 1.-The patients are compelled to lie on the
ground, many of them without blankets and
some without clothes" This officer pleads in
the same report for small supply of washing
| basins: 1.-The ones we have been uing Che
urges) for dressing wounds and ulcers are not
| fit for other use" The surgeon prays. too, for
some means OF getting water Npply for the
hospital
Dr. Massee making his hospital report On
the 29th of August, states that l find the beef
| in very bad condition, having been blown by
flies so long that 1t was infested with live in
sects or creepers."
% lota "a the eth of SeDtember DR. Thorn
| burg testifes regarding his patients that
..many of them are still on the ground, with.
out blankets or any thing to protect them. "
Another surgeon complains that the peas fur.
nished to his patients "would produce dis
ease among swine;" and still another says;
THE crowded condition, the Lack of an
abundance OF good water, the accumulation of
human excrement, the prisoners food not be-
ing cooked. don't speak well of the health of
the prison" MANY Of my patients" again
adds DR.. Thornburg, "are suffering as much
from hunger as from their disease