The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1864-12-23
THE RETURNED PRISONERS.
SCENES IN THE ANNAPOLIS HOS.
PITFALLS. go" '-'|-"


PITFALLS. "9" '-''-"
4 81 hl.a JeUI ss- --l.r iia 2fSI'r1i
The Horrors Of Andersonville.
Condition or the vfetins...Their
Bones Projecting through the
Flesh...Lave Mon DevOured ei.
| 4l OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES 7t7
.h Covered with Skin. -
' go AsNAro1ls. Nd, Dec. 8, 1864.
CONDITION OF THE PRISONERS UNDRRArED.
You have, as Iisee by, your issue of the
day before yesterday, already had some
description Of the appearances of the men
when they were landed from the trans
ports at the hospital docks. Yonr CORES
pondent did not overstate single thing,
but rather, I should think. understat.d.
They came in the same attire, in the same
condition as when they left Andersonville
and Florence. Constant exposure, SYSTEM
attic starvation, filth arising from INSULT
Gent means for preserving cleanliness,
despair, idiocy, death were all represented
most revoltingly and disgustingly, until
pen who had flattered themselves ''hard-
enedp to witness sights which would appal
ordinary humanity, turned away sickened
and nauseated. From the general state
ment of the prisoners it appears that most
of them came from Andersonville, or
Anderson" as they Familiarity call it
and Florence. In the former place they
had been used like dogs; in the latter the
commander, Col. Iversen, son of Senator
Iverson Of Georgia, did all he could to al
leyiate their troubles. They were sent to
Charleston. where they were also very
well treated, especially by the Sisters
of Charity and the Irish and Ger
man women. These people actually
transgressed established military law in
order to bring supplies to the prisoners,
whom they furnished with every delicaoy
and comfort, except the single article of
clothing, which it seemed out of their
power to procure in any appreciable guam
tity. But though some of the men at An
Jacksonville had been released from the
hellish tyranny of the captain of the post,
scOundrel who is said to be deserter
from our army, and were for some time
under the kind care of the Christian PEG.
pie OF Charleston and the soldierly atten-
ton of Captain Iverson, yet their conli-
ton now is so horrible as to make l. al
most impossible to believe that it could be
any worse. But it must have been, though
one hesitates so to think when he looks
upon the martyrs, even when washed, and
cleaned, and attended as they now are 1t
is related that when the transports arrived
in the Savern river, with their motley,
suffering freight, among all that great
collection of in6rmity and weakness in
every form many poor fellows, who had
wasted away until all hope and desire of
life had become extinct, were found dead,
lying cold and rigid, with opened eyes, on
the decks. Their faces were turned to
the heavens, which had been for months
their only shelter. Their agony was
marked in faint lines which their wasted,
finched faces furnished hardly room to
trace, and in the twisted limbs, expanded
chest, which even to the last strove to
contain its breath, and in the contorted
muscles. Their other characteristics were
shared with them by the living. W r =
SKELETON MEN, VICTIMS OF PALSY, MAGGoTs
' AND vKRMIN. -.l-.
All the men were filthy, ragged or naked,
and swarming with verlnin. They came
to Goods country with scarce enough
strength to articulate their Joy. Their
limbs were palsied and stifened with a
scurvy which marked them everywhere;
their bodies were smeared all over with
the excrement of their diarrhoea, in which
they were compelled, from sheer weakness,
to lie; their hair was matted with filth of
the same character; some, with their limbs.
and biies filthy as they were, were swol-
len hy dropsy to such an enormous tension
as t.,suggest the idea of bursting to the
plying eyes that were bent. searchingly
upon them. Lice of great, size swarmed
over them-ravenous, torturing-living in
burrows in the flesh, honsy-combing it all
over with their dwelling-places. They were
almost the bulk and shape of grains of
wheat. Their bites were keen-their COM
bined attacks excruciating. Others were,
in addition to these ills, afflicted with
"ground-sores Their bones pierced
through the tightly-drawn flesh, reduced
by starvation; and at the hips, shoulder
blades, and other projecting portions Of the
body, these sores were formed and peOpled
with hideous, Shiny maggots, whose every
motion was untold agony to the unhappy
sufferer, who had neither the means, the
strength. nor perhaps, in the stupof of suf-
fering, the will to remove them. There
were but few of these, however, though,
as the soldiers tell us, on their oaths, such
sights were quite common at Anderson. F"
But the poor victims died too fast for any
large number to accumulate at one time.
They might be seen at all points, gasping
under their horrible pains, the maggots
disporting, eating, piercing nearer, nearer,
every day, to the vitals. In some instances
they formed lines Of communication be-
tween one sore and another by eating little
conduits for some distance under the skin.
Through these ways they travelled in lines,
/ the living arcade over them heaving up
and down as they moved. No care was
| taken of these martyrs, no medicines
| given, no facilities for even very moder-
ate attempt at cleanliness, and they died
by scores, to be buried like brutes, in great
heaps, in unmarked graves But We will
not continue this reference to life at An
dersonville. Oar friends of the Commits
| sion viii soon present these facts, and 9TH
/ era fin. more h0rribLe. IN ldetailad v,,sv