The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1868-08-07
General ElowarG-The Negroes
RICHMOND, August s, 1868

EtHtorS of the Daily Dispatch:
Gentlemen. In connection with the
clever and, DOUBT not, truthful report OF
General 0. Q. Towards address at Ebe-
nezer church in your paper Of yesterday,
and your just and pertinent editorial re-
marks on the same subject to-day, | desire
to bring to your recollection and that Of the
public matter that has been very seldom
noticed in the newspapers: | mean the
cruelties practiccd upon the negroes IN the
year 1865 and subsequently by the officers
and soldiers Of the United States army and
agents Of the Freedmen's Bureau. Such
things were never before heard of at the
South, and shocked the sensibilities Of the
whole community. At Chinborazo, near
this city, negroes, besides cruel beatings,
were made to walk round the place in bar
rel shirts and were suspended upon a cross.
In some places they were made to straddle
some kind Of wooden horse, with i'm
mense weights attached to their feet,
remaining in this position for hours. In one
case, in the countyof Fluvanna, the sufferer
endured this penalty for as many az four
teen hours, and the weights, if remember
correctly, were over seventy pounds. These
facts and tuany others. can be proved by
thousands of respectable Witnesses. Hun
dreds of people saw the poor colOred man
who, on hot day in summer, was exposed
in a painful position at the corner of Main
and Twenty-hfth streets in this city. He
was encased in his coffin, which, being
placed upright, his head was made to pro-
ect out of the top and his feet at the bot
tom, his arms being painfully confined.
Molasses and -four were freely used upon
that part of his skin which was exposed, SO
that the flies might torment him az much
as possible, while he had no use of his
hands to drive them away. He remained
in this situation for painful number OF
hours-I forget how many-it may have
been nearly all day. His alleged Of
fence was impudence to two soldiers in the
street, who, on the other hand, it was as
serted, had been rude to his wife. He was
exposed to other severe and degrading pun
ishments, and confined for some time in
prison.
In the days of slavery, in the midst OF
which I was reared, no vice ever made q
man more unpopular than cruelty TO his
QepTOtS. IL tttdCusu q stl iu'i ~ HlS udmc
which went down to his children and in
jured their reputation. have known some
who, though they possessed every other re-
quisite to make them popular, and were
useful men, and even protesting Christians,
could not, by all they could do as citizens
and good neighbors, overcome the preju-
dice excited by the fact that they were il
the habit of passionately beating, feeding
scantily, or otherwise treating badly, their
slaves. never saw more Indignation OK
cited in my native county than was
aroused against citizen, and wealthy
one too, who, in the course Of
some cruelties, unintentionally, no doubt
put an end TO the life of one of his negroes
No amount Of money or legal ability could
save him from the penitentiary, to which
he was sent for SO long period as amount
ed for Imprisonment for life, and where he
ultimately died. Mrs. Stowe, i'll one of hel
books, asserts that slavery extinguished
every manly sentiment in the breast of the
southern people-eyen a regard for helpless
woman. There was never g more unbound
ed SANDER. Weakness even in the negro
brought around him friends and defenders
The laws protected him.
If General Howard knew the southern
people better, his course among us would