The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1866-11-08
The Horrors Of the Dry Tortugas,

there languish in illegal Imprisonment
several hundred State prisoners sent
thither by military commissions--tri6u-
fnals that have been denounced by the
United States Supreme Court as unknown
to and unwarranted by law, ana from
whose, commitments that Court has re-
leased all political prisoners confined IN
Northern penitentiaries-these men are
now undergoing, and have undergone,
torture at the hands of brutal, officials
(disgraces to the uniform of asoldier) that
make life intolerable, and which would,
| if exposed, rouse the horror and indigna-
tion of the civilized world. Confined on
this desolate spot, with no means of COM
munication with their friends, many of
them entirely innocent of charges for
which those military courts, $50 called, ;,
have condemned them, they are exposed
to cruelties and punishments at the hands
of brutal sergeants and commissioned Off
GERS, administered at their caprice and
Ewhim, for comparisons of which we would
have to 60 back to the Dark Ages, or
search the records of the Inquisition.
A. short time since we saw letter from
an intelligent State prisoner, confined
upon the Dry Tortugas, man of veracity
and character, giving an account of the
inhuman and barbarous punishments in
ficted, not only on the poor Confederate
| prisoners confined there, but on the Fed
eral soldiers of the garrison. The recital
the writer gave of the facts, Of which he
had been an eyewitness, was sickening,
and made one blush for humanity. 1t
was tale of woe that would have melted
heart of stone-the atrocities committed
there by United States officers and under
the United States flag, Haunting in idle
mockery as the guardian of liberty, the
protector of human rights. He gave the
names of the sufferers, the dates when
the torture was inflicted, the names of the
brutes in human shape who ordered and
executed them. 1t seems that the devil
ish tyranny of the jailors wreaked itself
alike on United States soldiers and Con-
federate prisoners.
In August last, while a party of pris-
oners were unloading vessel, some Of
the crew gave them liquor, and one OF
the poor unfortunates became hclplessly
drunk. In this condition he was tied up
by the thumbs by order of the officer OF
the day and kept suspended for hours,
the. cords cutting the flesh to the bones, and
until the poor wretch, to all appearances,
was evidently dying. Then the conaman-
dant, Brigadier-General, accidentally
passing and observing the mans condi-
ton, ordered him to be taken down; and
he was conveyed to the hospital with one
of his hands disabled for life. He had been
suspended this for hours. Could the
Russian punishment of the knout be worse
than this? Was the thumbscrew applied
to DR.. Mudd to extort from him the
names OF his accomplices in his attempt
to escape severerl
But another case which the writer of
the letter saw, and we are done with this
shocking recital; for though we could
quote other instances OF barbarity that
would startle the demons in hell, we
shrink from the melancholy record It
was that of o. United States soldier, who,
for some trivial offence, some petty neg
lect of his equipment, was tied up by the
thumbs for hours. Manned, with the
tendons of his arms stretched and dis
placed, his hands useless and incapacita-
ted, he was ordered to pick up forty
pound ball and carry it for certain num-
ber of hours in the broiling sun. His
hands refused their duty-they could
clasp nothing, much less lift forty-pound
shot, and the poor fellow said he could
not. He was then ordered to be tied,
taken to the end of the garrison wharf,
and there, bound hand and foot, rith
rope around has neck, he was thrown into
the water, to be ducked until he promised
to carry the ball. The severest punish
ment known in the British Navy, when
Britannia's marine was noted for its bar
barons punisbments, was "keel-hauling,"
to which the terrible "cat" was mercy,
and Observation-Disclosures man un-
der. the vessel-was identically the same
punishment this poor wretch of soldier
was, subjected to- by his officers at the
Tortugas. He was allowed to sink sew
eral moments, and then, being drawn up,
he was asked if he would carry the ball.
His mouth and throat being filled with
water he could not at once reply, and he
was again allowed to sink. A second
time he was up, and, making some ges-
tu,res of assent to the interrogatory Of his
brutal torturer, he was taken out.
These things, and many similar ones,
are perpetrated daily in this enlightened
nineteenth century on the poor unfortu-
mates at the Dry Tortugas. While Exc.
| ter Hall is moaning over the sufferings OF
the negro slave-while Plymouth Church
| and other political Radical associations
are weeping over the outrages on the
freedmen by unrepentant "rebels"-these
horrors are being perpetrated on 'ohtte
men, By United States officers, under the
United States flag, on that barren island
off. the coast of Florida. We call upon
4 C4o4oc o,+L fo inuacfi-