, 1869-01-01
The American Navv.

porting to be written BY can Eye Wines" /"
on the sJstm Of discipline and the nature of
the punistneuts in use iD our navy. This
article eo1ains severalraiher startling asssr.
tiOus Of facts, which, whether true or false,
should be generally known, and to this end
they ara here reproduced:
The "Eye Witness" for example. says,
alt will be found thai there is 40 almost
totaI ignorance, even among the best in-
formed officers, as to the ends Of discipline,
and more especially as to the best methods
for securing it. 1t may be asserted, without
fear Of contradiction, that no where 10 the
United States, not even on the Southern
plantations 10 those sunny days for which
our misguided brethren still sigh, we're there
ever more systematic crueties practiced than
on some of our ships Of war during the last
five years.
= "The punishmeuts constantly
inflicted during the war, in direct violation
or evasion of the Articles for the Better
Government Of the Navy were numerous
and severe, and some officers, not cruel,
thought of the days of the cat at the gang.
way, and wondered whether we have i'm.
proved 10 abandoning it.
"A surgeon of ship Of Charleston had
his attention called, upon joining the ship,
to the case of boy made permanently i'll,
apparently BY being kept for hours at a time
on deck, with a running moose around his
neck, aud fastened in the rigging above, SO
that any motion to ease himself from the in
tolerable weight would end in strsngulation
if persisted in ; this punishment being order.
ed by his commanding officer.
"The universal place of impris
ouutent is the brig or sweat box for it
is the same thing with two names. 1t is a
room built in the middle of the berth-deck,
closed above and below, without windows,
aud ventilated only by few halfiDch auger
holes in the door, or the side. Although it
often contains four men at once, it is rarely
large enough to allow full grown man to
stretch out on the floor. Yet here men pass
their weary days and weeks, being permitted
to leave only for the calls of nature and then
under the custody of the master-at-arms.
ain the fall of 1862, medical officer on
board ship lying at the Portsmouth yard
was called at 10 O'Clock at night by the
master-at-arms, who informed him that man
in the brig wanted to see him, and when the
door opened he found four men standing,
sitting ahd lying 10 space of four feet wide,
two and one-half deep, and six and one half
high. They all belonged to the belligerent
aud offensive negro race. One was sitting
at the back Of the cell with his hand-cutfed
hands to his face, heartbroken at the disgrace
that had befallen him, after a years faithful
service. The man who had asked the help
OF the Doctor, had since fallen asleep on the
floor; and on attempting to awake him, it
proved to be the merciful insensibllity of
asphyxia that had so nearly rescued him from
the routine of naval discipline. Upon inqui-
~, it proved that the executive officer had
gone to bed leaving no orders for the liberia
tion Of these men. So they we're certain to
be in all night. A knock on the door show,
ed him to be enjoying the sleep Of innocence
and peace, and au appeal to the commander,
who had only that day reported for duty,
caused the prompt liberation of the prison
ers. This worthy executive officer was dis
charged from the service by board of med>
cal survey for feigned anneurosis, and those
in his confidence have enjoyed the excellent
humor with which he described how be blum
dered against his Doctor at midday and thus
secured his verdict The sweat,box, on one
of the monitors, at least was desigpedly
placed near the boilers, so that artificial heat
could, at pleasure, be added to the tortures
of confinement
"There was, in the early years of the war,
punishment beside which the brig was
merciful and kind Let the reader imagine
his hands placed behind his back, the wrists
securely bound together, and then the other
end of this cord fastened to bolt on the
deck overhead, with so little slack that the
ends of the toes just touch the berth deck
the shoulders are thrown forward, and when
the least roll of the ship takes place the
poor wretch loses his hold upon the deck aud
swings to and fro, the weight of the body
striving to dislocate the arms from the
shoulder-blades And these were not the
scum and refuse of our great cities, nor the
habitually degraded European sailors; nei>
ther was it away back 10 the times of the
Duke of Alba and the Inquisition. that these
atrocious cruelties were practiced; but Wor>
cester county farmers sons, who did not hear
an order to come on deck, were thus tortured
in 1862. One night in the fall of that year
a man was ordered to be triced up (for
that was the name of this hellish crime) for
an hour, and when be told the officer that be
had no right to punish him in that way, the
order was changed to punishment during the
pleasure of the officer; and in this case the
man was forgotten, the officer went to bed,
and his victim hung from six o'clock to ten.
A sudden night call, in this awful autumn,
took the surgeon to his dispensary 90 the
birth deck, and as the ship was rolling heav-
lily, be steadied himself against the side Of
the ship, and waited until a sudden roll
brought swinging body against bin, and
then he heard a grOan. There were three
young men, for some small offence, wearing
away the darkness in that place, humping
against each other, with their faces so dis
tOrted BY agony that none Of them were
recognized even on close inspection"
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