Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1864-09-01
The Union Prisoners In Georgia.

luC NANHduENd iiiCu VIM nav o''t'N'
home from Andersonville, Georgia, and
who were appointed by the $4,000 Union
prisoners there, at general meeting, to
lay their case before the United States |
Government, along with petition that
immediate steps be taken for their eX-
change, give fearful account of the
hardships to which these brave men are
made subject by the rebels. They are
confined in a pen, without shelter from
sun or storm, fed on insufficient and
nauseous food, with filthy water to
drink; their clothes, only miserable
shreds and patches insufficient even for
the purposes of ordinary decency and
filled with vermn. The results are an
amount of disease and mortality truly
fearful. Some OF the prisoners have be-
come maniacs in consequence Of this
brutal treatment.
The memorial Of the prisoners at An
Jacksonville closes as follows
eve are told that the only obstacle
in the way of exchange is the status OF
enlisted negroes captured from our ar
mics, the United States claiming that
the cartel covers all who serve under its
| fac, and the Confederate States refusing
to consider the colored soldiers, hereto
fore slaves, as prisoners OF war.
We beg leave to suggest some facts
bearing upon the question of exchange,
which we would urge upon this consi-
deration Is it not consistent with the
national honor, without waving the
claim that the negro soldiers shall be
treated as prisoners of war, to effect an
exchange of the white soldiers The
two classes are treated differently by the
enemy. The whites are confined in such
prisons as Libby and Andersonville,
starved and treated with o barbarism
unknown to civilized nations. The
blacks, on the contrary, are seldom i'm
prisoned. They are distributed among
the citizens, or employed on government
works. Under these circumstances they
receive enough to eat and are worked no
harder than they have been accustomed
to be. They are neither starved MOI
killed Off by the pestilence in the dun.
geons of Richmond and Charleston. II
is true they are again made slaves; but
their slavery is freedom and happiness
compared with the cruel existence i'm
posed upon our gallant men. They are
not bereft of hope as are the white sol
diers dying by piecemeal. Their chances
of escape are tenfold greater than those
of the white soldiers, and their cOndi
ton, in all its lights, is tOlerabe in com
parison with that of the prisoners o
war now languishiDg in the dens anc
pens of secession.
While, therefore, believing the claims
of our government, in matters of ex
change to be just, we are profoundly
impressed with the conviction that the
circumstances of the two classes of sol.
diers are so widely different that the
government can honorably consent tC
an exchange, waving for time the es
tablished principle justly claimed to b.
applicable in the case. Let thirty tiv'
: thousand suffering, starving and dyin:
enlisted men aid this appeal. By promp
f and decided action in their behalf thir
. ty-hve thousand heroes will be mad
. happy. For the eighteen hundred com
missioned officers now prisoners we urg
: nothing. Although DESTROYS of return
: ing to our duty we can bear imprisor
f ment with more fortitude if the enliste
men, whose sufferings we know to b
E intolerable, are restored to liberty AM
= life"
fit is true that our government hold
!, 10000 prisoners in excess of the humble
: held by the rebels, it would seem tina
all our white soldiers in rebel hand
could be exchanged, man for man, and W
still have an ample number of rebels i
our possession on which to retaliate 70
any wrongs done the negro prisoners
If the rebel authorities interpose no in
superable obstacle, our government
should surely give heed to this appea