Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1867-07-03
TERMS OF ADVERTISING:
Treatment of Confederate Prisonsrs
FEMALE COLLEGE,
l.. lO 1897

FEMALE COLLEGE,
HUNTSVILLE, Ala, June Is, 1861
RI The E1zi.or of the Neao York Times:
90 NV attention has been called to an article 10
vour paper of 3lst ult., in which, replying to
some remarks of the Richmond Enquirer IN
regard to the treatment of prisoners it IS
said - are
sNobody on either side ever pretended for
moment that rebel prisoners ever died 10 our
hands or even seriously suffered for lack OF
food or clothing or shelter. No such charge
has ever been made.
Will YOU then permit such charges to be
ma6e through your columns? was captured
in October 1868, and spent SIX months In
Camp Morton In March, 1864, l was re-
moved to Fort; Delaware, where L remained
until June 1865. The winter OF 1863 4 Is we'll
known to have been intensely severe
Many rebel prisoners, to my knowledge,
spent that winter without blanket, and IN
the scant aad ragged summer clothing. worn
when captured The barracks w ere the old cattle
sheds used when the prison was fair eround,
and open enough for the winter Winds TO
sweep through freely. Scores OF the men in
the dead OF winter slept in these sheds, upon
the bare ground, without covering, huddh0g
r. is we'll known to hundreds now living that
several died, actually frozen to death, while a
large number were so badly frost bitten as to
be lamcd for life.
During the larger portion of the time tue
hospital arrangements were shameiully deh-
cept, and by many Ot the surgeons and at
tendants the sick were not only grossly neglect
ed but most inhumanly treated.
Men barely able to crawl through weakness
from insufficient food and disease consequent
upon exposure, were forced in the severest
winter weather, to stand at rollcall for two
and often three or more hours IN llne, like
soldiers on dress parade, and cursed like brutes
or beaten over the heads with sabres or clubs:
and sometimes shot at tor moving little 10
keen from freezing. In several instances prls-
oners we're shot on the most frivolous pretezts.
\ quiet orderly man, an Euglishman named
Goats, belonging to my division, was murder.
ed in cold blood by private Of the Invalid
Corps named Baker. who was on guard.
Instead of heing tried and unishcd, Baker,
though private, was sent next morning into
camp to take charge as sergeant OF our division,
in which position be heaped upon the defence
less men every indignity that so lnhuman
wretch could devise.
At the very time that such an outcry was
raised about the mortality among Northern
soldiers in Southern prisons, the inmates OF
Camp Morton knew the mortality then 10 pro
portion to the number OF men to be several
per cent greater.
At Fort Delaware our barracks were more
comfortable, but the ratlons were miserably 10
sufficient, and prisoners who could not obtain
money from friends with which to procure ex-
ira supplies from the sutlcrs suffered the pangs
of hunger night and day. and reduced to skele-
tons, and eaten up by scurvy from scanty and
unwholesome food, fell ready victims to dis
ease and died by hundreds. -
AT the close of the war, of about 1000 men
in one pen, fully one-half, if not three tourths,
we're but walking skeletons, hundreds of them
ruined for ifed with scurvy.
It was daily occurrence for large numbers
of the men to be beaten over the head with
bludgeons, or kept for hours tied up by the
thumbs in the most agonizing torture. A
Dutch Lieutenant, Dietz, in charge Of our pen,
was for weeks in the habit of coming in with
large cowhide and lashing the men most un-
mercifully-in one instance cutting a cash IN
the face of an Alabamian named Pardue, in
which your finger could have been laid.
It was no uncommon thing for the guards,
upon the slightest pretext, to fire into the
quarters in which were 800 or 400 men, and
several prisoners we're needlessly and recklessly
killed by them.
The above, and the half has not been told,
are plain, unexaggerated facts which can be
substantiated by most unquestonab'e tcstimo-
ny, and for the truth of which | pledge my
character and reputation as a minister OF the
gospel.
request the insertion Of this as an act of
Justice. j. G. WILsoN,
Pres't of Huntsville Female College
In publishing the regoing, the New York
Times remarks:
This letter comes from source so respectable
and responsible and its statements are so spe-
eifc, that we have no hesitation in publishing
it. Our government has no excuse for inhu
manity to the prisoners it captured during the
war, and its honor is involved IN punlshlng
with just severity all instances of such cruelty
on the part Of its agents as are specified above
LIBEL SUiT-It will be remembered that
in the summer of 1865 Gcrritt Smith COM
menced a libel suit against the Chicago Tri-
bune on account of the latter, in the course Of
severe article rejecting on MIR. Smith s CON
duct in pleading against any punishment for
treason in the case of Mr.. Davis, having init
mated that the venerable Abotionist' had
first aided John Brown to 60 to Harper's Fer
ry, and then feigned insanity to escape the
consequences of bis act The libel was claimed
to be the charge of feigning insanity. AT the
first hearing the judge decided that charge of
that character was not belIous, unless it was
shown that the alleged feigning Of insanity was
on account of criminal action. It, is now pro
posed by both parties to prove that it was on
account of the Harper's Ferry affair, Mr.
Smiths counsel taking ground that that would
be such libel as the court would take cogD-
zanee Of, while the Tribune proposes to prove
that Mr.. Smith, by money and counsel, did
help John Brown, and did teign insanity to
escape the consequences thereof To do this
they will call on the stand all parties known to
have been identified Herewith, and some also
who are not publicly so known. Washington
Chronicle