The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1867-07-09
TREATMENT OF CONFEDERATE
PRISONERS.


PRISONERS.
Mr. Wilson, of Huntsville Female College,
writes letter to the New York Times, in reply
to an article of that paper in regard to the treat
ment of Confederate prisoners of war. In pub
fishing the letter the Times makes the following
honorable comments:
"Ths letter comes from source so respectable
and responsible and its statements are so specific,
that we have no hesitation in publishing it, Our
Government has excuse for inhumani.y to the
prisoners it captured daring the war, and its honor
is involved in Furnishing with just severity all in
stances of such cruelty the part of it's agents as
are specified above"
We hope other Confederate soldiers who suf-
fered themselves, or witnessed the suHeriues of
others, from the cruelty and brutality of their
prison keepers, will give the Northera public
the benefit of it, 10 order that it may be seen
that one side has DO mole right to complain than
the other. IF this were done we would hear
but little of the ciuelties of Andersonviile ard
Salisbury. The letter is as follows:
HUNTSVILLE, Ala, June Is, 1867.
To the Editor of the New York Times:
My attention has been called to az article in
your paper of the 31st ult in which, replying
to some remarks of the Richmond Enquirer, 10
regard to the treatment of prisoners, it is said :
'Nobody on either side ever pretended for a
moment that rebel prisoners ever died IN our
hands or even seriously suffered for lack OF food
or clothing shelter No such charge has
ever been made"
Will you, then, permit such charges to be
made through your columns was captured
in October, 1868, and spent six months in Camp
Morton. In March, 1864, l was removed to
Fort Delaware, where l remained until June,
4 -
have been intensely severe. Many rebel pris-
ouers, to my own knowledge, spent that Winter
without blanket, aud in the scant and ragged
Summcr clothing worn when captured. The
barracks were the old cattle sheds used when
the prison was fair ground, and open ecough
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, budding together like hogs to keep
from freezing.
1t 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
famed for life.
During the larger portion of the time the
hospital arrangements we're slIamefully deficient,
and by many Of the surgeons and attendants the
sick were not only grossly neglected but most in-
humanity treated.
Men, barely able to crawl through weakness,
from insufficient food ADD disease consequent
upon exposure were forced il the severest win
ter weather to stand at roll call for two and Of
ten three or more hours in lne like soldiers on
dress parade, and cursed like brutes, or beaten
over the heads with sabres or clubs, and some
times shot at for moving little to keep from
freezing. In several instances prisoners were
shot on the most frivolous pretexts. quiet,
orderly man, an Englishmap named Coats, be-
longing to my division, was murdered in cold
hood by private of the Invalid Corps named
Baker who on guard.
Instead OF being tried and punished, Baker,
though a private, was sent next morning into
camp to take charge as sergeant of our divi-
sion, in which position he heaped upon the de-
fenceess men every indiguty that so inhumau
a wretch could devise.
At the very time that such an cutlery was
raised about the mortality among Northern
soldiers in Southern prisons, the inmates of
Camp Morton knew the mortality there in
proportion to the number of men to be several
per cent greater.
At Fort Delaware our barracks were more
comfortable, but the rations we're miserably in
sufficient, and prisooers who could not obtain
money from friends with which to procure extra
supplies from the suffers, suffered the pangs Of
hunger Dight and day. and reduced to skeletons,
and eaten up by scurvy FROM scanty and uu
wholesome food, fell ready victims to disease,
and died by hundreds.>
AT the close of the war, of about 1000 men
in one pen, fully one-balf, if not three-fourths,
were out walking skeletons, hundreds of them
ruined for life with scurvy.
1t 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
Lieutenant Dietz, in charge of our pen, was for
weeks in the habit of coming 10 with large
coWhide and lashing the men most numerically
in one instance cutting a cash 10 the face of
au Alabamian named Pardue, in which your
finger could have been laid.
1t was no uncommon thing for the guards up
on the slightest pretext, to FIRE into the quarters
In which were 800 or 400 men, and several
prisoners were needless and recklessly killed by
them.
The above, and the half has not been told,
are plain, unexsggerated facts which can be sub
Stimulated by most unquestionable testimony,
and for the truth of which pledge ny cbarac-
ter and reputation as a minister of the gospel
l request the insertion of this as 40 act of
justice. J. G WILSON,
President of Huntsville Female College
The RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES AT RoME.-
The religious ceremonies at Rome in celebra-
ting the 1900 anniversary Of St. Peters martyr
dom and the canouization of the martyrs in
Japan vas one oil the most gorgeous ever wit
messed in the world since the day of King Solo,