Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1864-11-16


ashore oil strctchers, and died in the brief
transit. Others tottered to the hospital,
with the little strength they had remain
ing. only to die in few hours. Some
of them wore found covered with bad J
and extensive sores, caused by lying on
the sand. Many had lost their reason,
and we're in all stages of idiocy and i'm
bccility. One had become incurably
insane in his joy at being thus delivered.
Often they acted like children and had
to be taught the decencies of life, SO long
had they been unbabituated to them. A
number had partially lost their sight,
hearing and speech. One man was point
ed out to the commissioners who had been
so covered with vermin, that after having
been, as was supposed, thoroughly wash
ed, his head even been shsven. was laid
upon clean bed--in 10 minutes the
sheets and the clothing were covered with
vermin again. And this was not pecul-
lar to him. 1t was only an instance Of
the unavoidable condition of al. In some
cases they were So eaten by lice as to
resemble case of sea bblng from small
pox, teng covered with sores from head to
foot Many had been badly frost bitten,
and came ashore with feet partially am
putated. In one case it was mentioned
to the visitors that frozen foot fell off
as the man was carried ashore!
1t will be enough for most people that
the captives were hungry day and night,
and suffered the knawing pains of fam
lne, its dreams and delusions. 1t will
be enough that they became weak and
emaciated to the degree in which they
were found when exchanged. 1t will be
enough that they were poisoned by foul
air and over-crowdiug; and that they
were exposed in the depth of winter to
the cold, without shelter or covering. 1t
will be enough that thousands of them be-
came hideousiy diseased and most of them
pcrished.
On the other hand the rebel prisoners
in federal custody have been cleaned,
clothed, well-fed, and exchanged in capi-
tai condition. Whom the fag-o truce
boat landed within the rebel lines, the
two systems confronted each other. On
one side hundreds of feeble men, ragged,
filthy, hungry, diseased and dying; OIL
the other an equal number of strong and
hearty men, clad in the army clothing Of
the government against which they had
fought, having been humanely sheltered
fed, sleansed Of dirt, cured of wound,
ana disease, and now honorably returned
to fight that government again.
The commissioners have been. compel
led to accept the conclusion that thes
outrages on humanity were the result, no
of accident. want of supplies, or loca
abuse of power, but of deliberate design
on the part of the confederate government
That abuse is in all its forms, too gene
raj, too uniform, and too simultaneous t
be otherwise than the result of grea
arrangement One prison station is LIKE
anothcr-one hospital resembles anoth.
hopital. This has been made especially
apparent by intelligence that has reached
the public just as this investigation il
closing, and this report is being written
1t is the same story every where ;--pris
oners of war treated worse than convicts
shut up either in suffocating buildings
or in outdoor enclosures. without evel
the shelter that is provided for the least
of the field; unsupplied with suficien
food F; supplied with food and water in
furious and even poisonous compelled t.
live in such personal uncleanliness as t
generate vermiu; compelled to sleep O
floors often covered with human filth, o
on ground saturated with it compelle
to breathe an air oppressed with an il
tolerablc stencil hemmed in by fata
dead-line, and in hourly danger of beip,
J shot by unrestrainel and brutal guard
despondent even to madness, idiocy an
! suicide: sick of diseases ESQ congruo,
7 in character az to appear and spread lib
Q the plauge) caused by the toriid sun,
: filth, by vermin, by malaria, and by cold