The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1868-05-19
The Hnrrors OF AndersonHllle .

The Horrors OF AndersOnVIlle.
The so-called Democratic part n
the North, during the war and since,
have endeavored to discredit the re-
ports published by the Sanitary Com
mission and the SURVIVORS Of that
fatal prison, of the Systematic and in-
territorial starvation of Northern sol
diers. They havs protested to disbe-
lieve these statements, and have
pointed to Fmira, Camp Morton and
Camp CPsse as furnishing parallel
exampbs of inhuman treatment of
rebeI prisoners. Fortunately for the
tb5 cause of truth, the world has now
before it the testimony of one whose
evidence cannot be impeached. In
October, 1864, Professor JOSEPH
JONES, then of the University of
Georgia, at the present time Professor
Of Physiology and Pathology OF the
University of Tennessee, was detailed
by the Richmond War Office to in
spect the Yankee prison at Anderson
vile. He performed that duty and
sent a full and elaborate report of
his investigations to the rebel Sur
geon General This copy was burned
at Richmond, when our army entered,
with the other archives of the Con-
federacy. The original manuscript,
in the hands of Professor JONES,
through the exertions Of the Sanitary
Commission, has been obtained aud is
now published for the first time. 1t
is tale of horrors passing belief.
1t dims the cruel and bloody scenes
enacted under Alva, in the Neither
lands. The pages of history will be
sought in vain, to reproduce parallel,
and these crueIties were inf cted5upon
brave men, by people protesting to
be chiyalrous and generous, the de-
scendents of cavaliers and no5Iemen.
The following paragraph, which we
quote from Professor JONEss Off
cial note 10 Surgeon General 5. 2.
MOORE, Of Richmond, accompanied
the first portion Of his report from
AndersOnville, bearing date October
10, 1864, only eight months aft,r the
prison was established there:
Since the ablishment of the
prison, to the present time, over ten
thousand Federal prisoners have
died: that IS, near one third OF. the
entire number have persisted in less
than seven mouths. There
were more than FIVE thousand serious
ly sick In the hospital and stockade,
and the deaths reached from ninety
to one hundred aud thirty, each day.
Diarrhea, dysentery,
scurVy. and hospital gangrene were
the diseases which have been the
mortality. More
than thirty thousand men crowded
upon tWenty-seven acres Of land. with
little or no shelter from the intense
heat OF a Southern Summer or from
the rain and dew, with coarse corn
bread, from which the husk had not
been removed, with scaut supplies of
fresh meat and vegetables. with little
or no attention to hygiene. with fes-
tering masses of filth at the very doors
of their rude dens and huts. with the
greater portion Of the banks of the
stream flowing through the stockade
a filthy quagmire of human excre-
ments, alive with working maggots.
generated by their own filthy exhala-
tons and excretions-an atmosphere
that so deteriorated and contaminated
their solids and fluids that the slight
est scratch Of the surface, even the
bites Of small insects, were frequently
followed by such rapid and extensive
gangrene as to destroy extremities,
and even life Itself.
In the light Of these revelations,
the sentence Of death against Capt.
, WIZ seems scarcely adequate for the
p