Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1867-07-19
[ere is the letter from the Times

T. y
To the Editor OF the New York Times:
NV attention has been called to an ar
ticle in your paper OF 2lst ult., in which,
replying to some remarks of the Rich
mond Enquirer in regard to the treat
ment Of prisoners, it is said:
Nobody Oh either side ever pretended
for a moment that the rebel prisoners
ever died in our hands or even seriously
suffered for lack of food or clething or
shelter. No such charge has ever been
made.n
VIII 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, was removed TO Fort Delaware,
where remained until June, 1865. The
winter Of 1868 is well known to have
been intensely severe.
Many rebel prisoners, 10 my own
knowledge, spent that winter without a
blanket, and in the sCaut and ragged
summer clothing worn when captured.
The barracks were the old cattle sheds
used when the prison was fair ground,
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,
nuuuliH5 lo5SIASl AiAC Hotso - nc + AAULu
freezing
It is well known to hundreds now
living that several died, actually trozen
to death, while large number were 50
badly frost bitten as to be lamea life.
During the larger portion Of D.. time
the hospital arrangements were -Iame-
fully deficient, and by many OF the sur
geOns and attendants the sick were not
only neglected but most inhumanly
treated.
Men barely able to crawl, through
weakness from insufficient food and dis
ease consequent upon exposure, were
forced, in the severest winter weather, 70
stand at roll call for two and often three
or more hours in line, like soldiers on
dress parade, and cursed like brutes or
beaten over the heads with sabres or
clubs, and sometimes shot at for moving
a little to keep from freezing. In several
instances prisoners were shot on the most
frivolous pretexts. A quiet orderly man,
an EDglishman named Coats, belonging
% my division, was murdered in cold
blood by a private Of the invalid corps
named Baker, who was on guard.
Instead of being tried and punished,
Baker, though private, was sent next
morning into camp to take charge as
sergeant of our division, in which posi-
ton he heaped upon the defenseless men
every indignity that so inhuman q 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 NOR
tslity then in proportion 10 the number
Of men to be several per cent greater.
At Fort Delaware our barracks were
more comfortable, but the rations were
miserably insufficient, and prisoners who
could not obtain money from friends
with which to purchase extra supplies
from the suffers, suffered the pangs OF
hunger night and day, and reduced to
skeletons, and eaten up by scurvy from
scaDty and unwhOlesome food, fell ready
victims TO disease, and died by hundreds.
At the close of the war, OF about 1000
men i'm one pen, fully one-half, If not
three fOurths, Were but walking skele-
tons, hundreds Of them ruined for life
with scurvy.
Il was daily occurrence for numbers
of the men to be beaten over the head
with a bludgeon, or kept for hours tied
by the thumbs in mOet agonizing ter
ture. A Dutch lieutenant, Diefz, in
charge OF our pen, was for weeks in the
habit of coming in with q large cowhide
and lashing the men most numerically
in one instance cutting a cash In the
face of an Albanian named Pardue, in
which your finger could have been laid.
1t was no uncommon thing for the
guard, upon the slightest pretext, 10 fire
into the quarters in which were 800 or