Charles City intelligencer. [volume] (Charles City, Floyd County, Iowa) 1864-1866, 1864-06-30
Public Documents.

PUBLIC UOcumeuS' .r|
Hon. VIM. B. Allison has our thanks
for volume of the Report showing
the population of the United States
in 1860 ; compiled from the returns
of the 9th Census. Also, for volume
containing the Reports Of the Commit
tee on the Conduct of the War in ref
erencc to tho Fort Pillow Massacre,
and our returned prisoners at Annap-
oils. This latter report is accompa-
MED with several engravings copied
from photographs of the poor emacia-
ted men Exchanged prisoncrs) after
several months Imprisonment at Rich
mond. The Committee say:
The evidence proves, beyond all
manner of doubt, a determination on
the part of the rebel authorities, de-
liberately and persistently practiced
for long time past, to subject those
of our soldiers who have been so un-
fortunate as TO fall in their hands to a
system Of treatment which has result
ed in reducing many of those who
have survived and been permitted to
return to us to a condition, both physi.
cally and mentally, which no language
wo can use can adequately describe.
Though nearly ell the patients now in
the Naval Academy hospital at An
napolis, and in the West hospital, in
Baltimore, have been under the kind
est and most intelligent treatment for
about three weeks past, and many of
them for greater length Of time, still
they present literally the appearance
of living skeletons. many of them be-
ing nothing but skin and bone /; some
of them are MANNED for life, having
been frozen while exposed to the in
clemency of the winter season on
Belle Isle, being compelled to lie on
the bare ground, without tents or
blankets, some of them without over
coats, or even coats, with but little
fire to mitigate the severity Of the
winds and storms to which they were
exposed.
The testimony shows that the gen.
eral practice of their captors was to
rob them, as soon as they were taken
prisoners, of all their money, valua-
bles, blankets, and good clothing, for
which they received nothing in ex-
change except, perhaps, some old worn
ont rebel clothing hardly better than
none at all. Upon their arrival at
Richmond they have been confined,
without blankets or other covering,
in buildings without fire, or upon Belle
Isle with. in many cases, no shelter,
and in others with nothing but old
discarded army tents, so injured by
rents and holes as to present but lit
tie barrier to the wind and storms !;
on several occasions, the witnesses
say, they have arisen in the morning
from their resting-places upon the
bare earth, and found several of their
comrades frozen to death during the
night, and that many others would
have met the same fate had they not
walked rapidly back and forth, dur
ing the hours which should have been
devoted to sleep, for the purpose of re-
tanning sufficient warmth to preserve
life.
In respect to the food furnished to
our men by the rebel authorities, the
testimony proves that the ration Of
each man was totally insufficient in
quantity to preserve the health of a
child, even had it been of proper quail
ity, which it was not. 1t consisted
usually, at the most, of two small
pieces of corn.bread, made in many
instances, as the witnesses state, of
corn and cobs ground together, and
badly prepared and cooked, of, at
times, about two ounces of meat, usu-
ally Of poor quality, and unfit TO be
eaten, and occasionally q few black
worm.eaten beans, or something Of
that kind.
The surgeon in charge Of the Hos
pital at Baltimore, in q note to the
Committee, says:
am very sorry your committee
could not have seen these cases when
first received. No one, from these
pictures, can form . true estimate of
their condition then. Not one in ten
was able to stand alone some Of
them so covered and eaten by vermin
that they nearly rcsembled cases Of
smallpox, and SO emaciated that they
were really living skeletons, and hard
ly that, as the result shows, forty out
of one hundred and four having died
up to this date. If there has been
anything so horrible, SO fendish. as
this wholesale starvation, in the his
tory of this satanic rebellion, have
failed to note it, Better the massa-
ores at Lawrence, Fort Pillow, and
Plymouth than to be thus starved to
death by inches, through long and
weary months. / wish ! had posses
sed the power to compel all the north
ern sympathizers with this rebellion
to come in and look upon the work of
the Airalrous sons Of the hOspitabk and
sunny south when these skeletons were
FIRST received here.