Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-08-28
PUBLIC LEDGER.
LARGEST CITY CIRCULATION.
THE TRUTH COMING OUT.
BRYANT, the Abolition poet, says;

Truth crushed TO earth Will rlse AGAIN.
And he was right But whether out.
ragged, crushed truth, will recover JUS
tice in an action against public opinion,
is a point he did not discuss, and re-
mains undetermined. To illustrate In
response to resolution of the House OF
Representatives, the Secretary of War
recently furnished to that body tabular
statement of the number of prisoners of
war held on either side, and the number
that died in confinement during the war.
The figures are as follows: lil
Number of Union prisoners held South,
26O,940.
Number of Confederate prisoners held
North, 100000.
Number of Southern prisoners dying
in captivity, 26,436.
Number of Union prisoners dying in
captivity, 22,576. .iff83l
The smoke that hung over the prisons
of the South had hardly disappeared,
when great lamentation was heard at
the North-lamentation for the Union
soldiers who had been, as was alleged,
starved and murdered by the policy of
the Confederates Keepers of South
ern prisons were arrested, tried, con-
demned and executed amid the APP
plause of Congress and the greater
part of the North. All the fertility of
Northern literary resource was sum
moned to the work of denunciation.
Every term of opprobrium, every damag-
ing metaphor, every cutting sarcasm,
every crushing epithet, was brought into
reouisition. The world, under the in
spiration Of ex parte statements the
most startIy, condemned without hear
ing, the people of the South. The voice
of the South was then dumb in the pres
ence Of bayonets. 1t dared not utter one
word of contradiction, for the Govern
ment would not tolerate il. Shocked and
grieved, it remained still, while the heart
aspired only, at that time, for the privi-
lege of disproving and deuouneing the
false facts lapsing rapidly into history.
We groaned under the imputation Of
numbering prisoners of war for the pur-
pose Of reducing and weakening the Fed
eral armies, when we knew it was false,
but dared not hurl back the crushing
proof and contradiction.
But that contradiction is not now ne
cessary, on our part It is made by the
first war officer Of the Federal Govern
ment. The South held 260,940 Union
prisoners, while the number. Of rebel
prisoners held by the North was 200, 900,
making difference in favor Of the South
of 90, $40. And still, the number of
Northern prisoners who died in Southern
prisons was 1000 less than the number Of
Southern prisoners who died in Northern.
prisons. 1t is curious to inquire by what
agencies this result happened tits not
pretended that the North is less healthy
than the South. The fact is quite the
reverse. Southern people go North
for health, as habit. 1t is true,
Northern winters are more severe than
Southern, but Southern summer is as
fatal to a Northern man as q Northern
winter is to a Southern man. IL we ad-
NIT for the sake Of arriving at the truth,
that the effect of climate upon each was
about equal, how is the disparity in pri-
son deaths to be accounted for? The
facts, as they exist, are startling, and,
instead of running down and hanging
Southern prison-keepers for alleged cru
elites to prisoners, those Of the North
should be compelled to walk through the
red hot Goals of thorough examination.