The Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1837-1867, 1865-07-07
From Harper's Weekly.
Rebel CrtIeItieS.

From Harper's Weekly.
Rebel Cr1SeIties.
We purpose, in the following brief rec
ord, to indicate by few facts which w.
know to be truly and fairly stated, thu
manner in which Union prisoners hav,
been dealt with by the rebel authorities
10 some the record will be distasteful-
for there are many who desire to believe
no evil of Davis and his fellows, however
indisputable the proofs. TO many ten
der-hearted reader it may seem too horrid
for decent recital. Yet it is true rec
ord, and in the history of the rebellion
will form an important chapter, to be read
in tears, indeed, but written in adamant.
The illustrations on page $50 will bring
to the eye features Of cruelty which could
not we'll be described by the pen. They
have been selected, not because they were
more effective than hundred others we
might give, but because we had not space
to give ALL We have limited our illustra-
tions to a special class Of prisoners, name
ly, those who from exposure and lack of
food have lost their feet These illustra-
tions are the exact fac-similes of photo
graphs. They do not come to us from a
distance. A large number of the victims
have been for a long time within an hours
ride of this city. OF the class represent
ed in our illustrations there were in the
prisoners paroled and sent to Wilmington
on the 26th of March two hundred and
eighty-seven cases These had, from
starvation and frost in Southern prisons,
lost their feet wholly OF in part. These
cases were placed in the hands of Chap
lain J. J. Geer, of the lS3d Ohio volun-
teers. Chaplain Geer, from whom we
received the photographs, and whose state
ments are perfectly reliable, has done
much for the comfort of these unfortunate
men. But his statements do not stand
alone Others have visited the hospital
in which the prisoners were confined
One of them writes:
81 wish every eye in the land could
rest on the poor fellows in the Geer hos
pital, and especially every one who be-
lieves in treating leniently this rebellion,
could 90 as did from bed to bed, and see
the blankets lifted to expose a pair of
stumps from srhich the feet had rotted off by
cold and exposure. And this not in one
case, nor two, nor ten, nor twenty, but
scores. Men who had committed no
crime, but were honorable soldiers, brave,
loyal, true to their government, but made
prisoners by the fortunes of war, and as
such entitled to food and comfortable shell
ter. AS went from bed to bed, and from
ward to ward, and found, now a son of
Massachusetts, next, a boy from Maine,
then soldier from Michigan, or from In
diana, or New York, differing from one
another only in some new and horrid form
of gangrene of the feet and legs, which
left the bone protruding sometimes six
inches beyond the flesh, decaying, putrid,
offensive, while they could be strengthened
with food few days and made able to
bear an amputation, l felt almost unable
to endure the strain upon my sensibilities."
These unhappy prisoners have under
oath given the record of their terrible ex-
perience, which, in many cases, is too
loathsome for detail. You do not want to
know, gentle reader, to what means these
men swear they were obliged to resort to
keep from actually starving. Only the
very strong survived at all, and these
come back to us pitable wrecks Of what
they once were-how pitable let our illus
trations show. Nearly all whose atfida-
Wits have been taken attest that they were
robbed of their clothing, receiving in its
place dirty blanket or bundle of latter
ed rags. In regard to all the prisons the
uniform testimony is that no shelter of any
kind was provided for the prisoners; that
they were thrown into stockades and ex-
posed to all sorts of weather; and that they
had not received rations adequate to sus-
tain vitality. Byron Churchill swears that
when he was captured he was by the sane
tion of rebel authority robbed of all his
clothing except his shirt and drawers:
that the prisoners for wapt of other shell
ter burrowed in the ground, and that "by
reason Of exposure, starvation, cruelties,
and countless outrages inflicted on him by
the rebels while prisoner in their hands,
a part of the time he was bereft of his
reason, lost all the toes on his left foot"
and has otherwise been reduced to the
condition shown in the illustration.
Calvin Bates testifes that "by reason
of exposure and other inhumanities prac-
ticed upon him at Andersonville his feet
decayed so that both of them have since
been cut off at the ancle with scissors, and
that previous to his imprisonment he was
in good health.
John H. Matthews, a corporal in Co.
F of the 4th Pennsylvania, testities that
he enlisted in this company August 20,
1861; was taken prisoner October II,
1863, in Meade's retreat from Culpepper,
and that after various marching and coun-
ter marching he was taken to Richmond.
For three days he was without food. He
testifies that in long marches which the
prisoners were compelled to make from
one place of confinement to another the
rebel authorities issued, for three days ra-
tions, one pint of shelled corn. This pris-
Oner lost the use of both his feet.
Many of these sworn statements were