Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1864-10-26
THE ETENDER MERetES OF
TRAITORS!
Report Of the Sanitary Com.
mission On the TFeatmeht X
Of our Prisoners.
The Horrors Of Libby PriSOH
and Belle Isle.,--
OUR BRAVE BOYS ARE ROBBE1
STARVED AND MURDEREDi
4- IN COLD BLOOD1-
THE REsELS STEAL SANITARY STORES SENT
& sai our SUFFERING BROTHERS.
The Barbarllles and Atrocities Of a
Ages OutdOne. ~


treated prisoners of war during the reVo-
lutionary struggle Is remembered it made
their name execrated amongst US for many
years. But the slsve-lords in the present
war excel in inhumanity those frst Fne-
mics of the Union. The Sanitary QOm-
mission has just printed an official report
Of the privatioBs and suferings of 2 nited
States officers and soldiers while prisoners
Of war in the hands of the rebel suthori-
ties. This volume, of two hundred and
eighty-three pages, deserves, and will
doubtless receive, extensive circulatiol. 1t
more than confirms all that newspaper re-
ports have hitherto made public.
The Commission of Inquiry appointed
BY the Sanitary Commission consisted OF
three eminent tphysicians-Va alentine Mott
Edward Delafeld and Ellersly Wallace
with Governeur Morris Wilkins Judge
Hare, of Philadelphia, and Rev. Treadwell
Walden. They examined, officially! not
only our men returned from Southern
prisons, but also Confederate soldiers, pris-
oners of war in the North; their object
being to ascertain the treatment, accorded
to each. They found that while our Own
authorities treat prisoners of war with the
utmost humanity, and the enemy y'sj sick
and wounded with precisely the sameiten-
derness and attention as our own, the lreb-
els, in the horrible prisons existing within
half an hours walk of Jefferson. Dsvis's
own house, starve, shoot at, cruelty crowd
together, insult, rob and murder the Afor-
tunate officers and soldiers who fall into
their hands as prisoners Of war.
MI sG-l ~ 81 nj
Annapolis, to which three thousand Of our
men, returned from the prisons at Rich
mond, were first brought. They saw, with
horror human skeletons, weak, perish hing
in mind and body; some swollen and mis-
shapen with dropsy or seurvy; others full
grown men, with limbs thinner than a
ehild's; other poor creatures with f'the
stomach fallen in, deep as basin, and the
bone protruding through blood-fed hole
In the hip" The complexion Of these poor
fellows was gray the skin blighted, and
trough to the touch as sharks skin" All
had upon their faces an expression Of set
tied melancholy and desolation, as though
the traces Of their bitter agony and suffer
ing would never leave them.
These were the men from the Libby and
Belle Isle. They had entered those pris-
ons hale, healthy, stout men, they were re-
turned to us reduced to skeletons, prostrat-
ed in mind and body, many dying a, few
days or few hours after reaching the
Union lines; large portion of the saryl-
vors hopelessly shattered for life, The tes-
timony of a considerable number Of these
gallant but unfortunate men is printed in
the appendix to this report. Their tales
have a sad likeness; it is the same story all
through, of inhumanity and cold-blo obded
almost incredible, and which could
not be believed did not all the evidence
concur in proving it. 7. 1--'
1t is proved that prisoners Of war are al
most invariably robbed by the rebels, either
by their captors, or later. by the rebel au-
thorities, not only of their money and
watches, but Of their blankets, overooats,
and in many cases of all their clothing,
filthy rags being given them in the place
Of shirts, trowsers, shoes and stoekingb. In
the Libby. prison, reserved for officers,
neither benches, chairs nor stools we're al.
lowed; twelve hundred officers werelc
fined in six rooms, each one hundred feet
long by forty broad; this gave ten feet by.
two to every person, without making any
allowance for space required for cooking,
washing and drying, all Of WHICH operations
had to be performed in these rooTns. They
had to-sleep- upon the floor, "wormed and
dovetailed together like fish in basket"
TO use the expression Of one witness and
by refinement of cruelty the floors were
washed late in the afternoon, and were thus
damp when the prisoners were nEdeaed to
lis down upon them. Seventy-AYe win
dows, all more or less broken, let in the cold
drsught in winter; two stoves in, each room
with but little wood, could not keep such a
damp place either warm or dry. ..- '
chs 'sentries wers encouraged to shoot
prisoners who approached the windows,
and they killed and wounded a number,
never in any instance giving notice Of
their intention TO fire, and often creeping
of their posts in order to get fsirer. shot
at 9 man unconscious of the asssssip's OBJ
jeat. s.fi
The daily ration of the officers was a
small square pisce of black, hard bread
made of corn ground with the cobs and
little over half a pound with
this, piece of beefweighing two ounces.
To make the bread eatable they had to
CRATE it and make much Of it, sometimes
they received pint of wormy black peas,
but at such times they got no meatLonly
the corn bread. An Ofleer, Captain. Cal.
houn, 3 kentuckian, tells how the. pangs
Of hunger affected him; !. he suffered "a
burning sensation in the inside, with 6
general failing of strength ~ grew so
foolish in my mind that used to blame
myself foT not eating more when at home
While these poor fellows were thus per.
ishing of starvation, within sight Of JEFF
DaVis's- house, it CHANGED that one dav some
of them pulled up a plank and gained &C
cess tothe pellsr of ths building, which
they found hlled with barrels of the finest
wheat -four, potatoes and turnips, Of which
they ate raVenously.
LAST January, the boxes which we're sent
them by friends in the North began to be
withhold by the rebel authorities. Cem-
missioner ould continued to receive them
at the rate of three hundred per week; but,
instead of being distributed to their own
sFs, they were piled up ia warehouses; in
full sight of the stsrying men to whom
they were addressed. "Three thousand
boxes were there when lieutenant Colonel
FsFnswortA came away" Frye or six
boxes we're delivered every Wesk-zbbt In .
to do as little good as possibls--a
prisoner was called, ordered to hold out his
blanket, and the opened cans-no matter
what they eontained-were promiscnously
emptisd into his blanket, mixing; totscco
and vegetables, meat aud milk, ih ohs-
nsss.
But the poor fellows confined on Belle
Isle we're yet worse of From ten %
Twelve thousand men Lay here, in a space
Of less than six acres of low, marahy
ground, without tree or a shed, or bar
-adks. They lay upon the ground winter
and summer, so closely crowded that for
zach man there was scarcely more room
han would have sufaced TO dig him a
yraEe-"three feet by nine per man. ."-z
Lumber was plentiful in the vicinity, but 4
lot 2 cabin or had uya Z bui1f-I1ol- Il ,,a+ |