The Alleghanian. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1859-1865, 1865-02-09
Rebel Barbarity.

before the Committee on the Conduct of
the War, by Albert D. Richardson, cor
respondent of the New York Tribune, who
lately escaped from rebel captivity:
"I was captured by the rebels May Sd,
1868, at midnight, on hay bale in the
Mississippi River, opposite Vicksburg.-
After confinement in six different prisons,
l was sent to Salisbury, n. c.; February
Sd, 1864, and kept there until December
18th, 1864, when I escaped. For eight
months Salisbury was the most endurable
prison l had seen. There were six hun
dred inmates. They were exercised in the
open air, comparatively we'll fed and kindly
treated. Early in October, ten thousand
regular prisoners of war arrived. Our
treatment Immediately changed into
scene of cruelty and horror. The prison
was densely crowded; rations were cut
down, and issued very irregularly; friends
outside could not even send in plate of
food the prisoners suffered constantly and
intensely for want of bread and shelter;
those who had to live or die on prison
rations always suffered from hunger. Very
frequently one or more divisions of one
thousand men would receive no rations for
twenty-four houys some were left without
morsel of food for forty-eight hours;
a few who had money would pay from FIVE
to twenty dollars in rebel currency for
little loaf of bread many, though the
weather was very inclemeut, and the snow
frequent, sold the coats from their backs
and the shoes from their feet.
~ was assured on authority entirely
trustworthy, that a great commissary
oh h., IL -. I,
provisions that the commissary found it
difficult to find storage for his -four and
meal that when a subordinate asked the
post commandant, Major John H. Gee,
Shall [ give the prisoners full rations p
he replied, No! G-d-n them; give them
quarter rations.' I know from personal
observation that corn and pork are very
abundant in the region about Salisbury.
For weeks the prisoners had no shelter
whatever. They were all thinly clad !;
thousands were barefoofed; not one in
twenty had an overcoat or blanket; many
hundred were without shirts, and hundreds
more without blouses. One Sibley tent
and one 'A' tent were furnished to each
squad of one hundred; with the closest
crowding, these sheltered about half the
Pl1cObCIS' AO ICSb OuIIOHCu III IuC
ground, crept under the buildings, or
shivered through the nights in the open
air upon the frozen ground.
''If the rebels at the time of our cap
ture had not stolen our shelter tents, blan-
kets, clothing and money, we would not
have suffered from cold. If the prison
authorities had permitted US, either on
parole or under guard, to cut logs within
two miles Of the prison, we would gladly
have built comfortable and ample barracks
in one week. But the commandant would
not consent He did not even furnish one
half of the fuel needed.
''The hospitals were in horrible con-
dition. More than half who entered the
hospitals died in a very few days The
deceased, always without collins, were
loaded into the dead cart, piled on each
otEer like logs of wood, and so driven out
to be thrown in trench and covered with
earth. The rebel surgeons were generally
humane and attentive, and endeavored to
improve the shocking condition of the
hospitals, but the Salisbury and Richmond
authorities disregarded their protests.
"On November 25th, many of the pris-
oners had been without food for forty
eight hours, and were desperate. Without
any matured plan few of them said, 'We
may as we'll die one in way as another
Let us break out of this horrible place
Some of them wrested guns from relief
of fifteen rebel soldiers, just entering the
yard, killing two who resisted, and wound
ing five or six others, and opened the fence,
but they had neither adequate tools nor
concert of action. Before they could
effect breach every gun of the garrison
was turned on them, the field pieces open
ed with grape and canister and they dis
persed to their quarters. In five minutes
from its beginning the attempt was quelled,
and hardly prisoner was to be seen in
the yard. The rebels killed, in all, sixteen,
and wounded sixty. Not one-tenth of the
prisoners had taken part m the attempt,
and many of them were Ignorant of it
until they heard the guns.
deliberate, cold-blooded murders of
peaceable men, where there was no pre-
tence that they were breaking the prison
regulation, we're very frequent. Our lives
were never safe for ore moment. Any
sentinel, at any hour of the day or night,
could deliberately shoot any prisoner, or
fire into group of prisoners, black or
white, and would never be taken off his
post for it. left about six thousand five
hundred remaining in the garrison. De-
cember 18th, and they were then dying at
the average rate of twenty-eight per day,
or thirteen per cent per month