Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1864-08-25

Among the passengers who arrived Mod.
day evening by the Arago from Hilton
Head, s. G., are four exchanged prisoners
Messrs. E. Bates And New York; P.
Tracy, Eighty second New York; Il. G.
Higginson, Nineteenth Illinois and S.
Noirot, Fifth New Jersey-commissioners
appointed at a monster meeting of the
$4,000 Union prisoners confined in Camp
Sumter, Andersonville, Ga, to wait upon
the Executive at Washington, with a peti-
ton praying that immediate action be
taken to terminate their suferings, either
by parole or exchange-suferings described
to be almost incredible. TWo-thirds of
them are without shelter OF any kind to
protect them from the fierce rays of tro-
pical sun and the cold, heavy dews and
thunder showers peculiar to that climate.
The commissioners describe the food upon
which the prisoners entirely and exclusive
produce nausea even in the hungriest
stomachs, consisting Of bread made from
unbolted corn meal, half ground, badly
baked and without salt, with about two
ounces of fat, rancid and rusty bacon, (dai-
ly raticn), fit only for the soap factor. The
water used by those unhappy men is truly
poisonous being taken from muddy, oozy
stream that flows for half mile through
impurities Of the tilthiest and most noxious
character before it enters the stockade, or
bull pen, in which our brave fellows are |
hudd1ed as thick as herrings packed in
barrel The clothes worn by major |
ity Of the prisoners are miserable shreds |
aud patches, insufficient even for the |
purposes of ordinary decency, filed with |
vermin, and altogether presenting scenes |
saddening and humiliating to our COM
mon humanity. The results are an amount |
Of disease and a mortality truly fearful. |
When the commission left the beastly pen,
on the 9TH inst, the deaths had reached |
one hundred and fOrty-three per day, and |
this without any epidemic among the priso-
ners; and from the rapid increase of |
deaths daily occurring at Camp Sumter,
the mortality must have reached, by this
date, at least one hundred and eighty daily
soon, doubtless, to ascend to two hun
dred
The nature of the diseases which sweep
away our brave fellows, as with scythe Of
death, are diarrhea, disentery and scurvy,
with, recently increasing, typhoid fever
As indicating the ravages of disease pro-
duced by the causes already stated, the
deaths since the opening of the prison on
the oath of last February up to the 3lst of
July were $3.50. In the month of July
the deaths were 2,lsO, including $50 from
scurvy.
1t is added-and it makes the picture
heartrending-that upwards of four hun
dred of the prisoners are maniacs, wander
ing through the camp, their minds having
given way by the fearful prospect-de-
spairing of ever being eithsr EXCHANGED or
paroled. Thousands of these prisoners
have spent from eleven to fifteen months
in Belle Island and Camp Sumter; and no
word of hope ever reach them that they
will be exchanged Indeed, so terrible is |
the agony of mind endured by the priso-
ners that thousands of them are shot down |
weekly ON the "dead line" where they
rush and invite the guards to kill them, in |
order to terminate their suferings-an in
vitation always complied with, being in
strict accordance with the instructions to |
the guards TO shoot any prisoner who in
fringes on the "dead line"
These are terrible facts to lay before our
government and the public, and cry aloud !
for immediate and effective action on the
part Of those whose duty it is to protect
those who have fought so nobly, so unset
fshly, and SO periodically for our country.