Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1869-05-14
NO 8
THE CONFEDERATE DEAD
TWENTY ACRES OF HUMAN
BONES.

THE CONFEDERATE DEAD
TWENTY ACRES OF HUMAN
BONES.
A correspondent thus writes OF the
! Confederate burial ground at Malvern
Hill, Virginia:
1.-THE cemetry keeper offered to act as
/ our guide, and, after showing rs the
4 fort and it's adjacent rifie-pfts, he escort
/ ed us to large field on the northwest
/ side of the fort, and there most terri
/ BILE scene presented itself Thousands of
! Confederate soldiers who had fallen in
their desperate and persistent attempt
to take Fort Harrison, were buried by
Confederates where they fell. Twenty
acres or more have just been plowed
mp by the owner of the field, and the
ploWshare turned to the surface all
these skeletons. Over the whole tract
the bones are strewn in profusion, and
the grinning skulls stare the visitor in
the face on every hand,
"Wheu the farmer was questioned, he
said the land was now the -achest he
had, and in justification of his sacrile-
gious act, stated that she didn't put 'em
there, nohoW.' We learned afterWard
that the bones had been taken away by
the CARLOAD and sold to fertilizing mills
10 Richmond. Two humane men, TOO
poor to do anything else, came one day
we were there, and attempted to burn
some of the bones to prevent the
wretches from carting them off. But
long job they will have if they attempt
TO burn them all
''Yet these are not the only fields Of
| Confederate bones we have seen, nor
| the first instance of disrespect for their
dead that we have witnessed. Perhaps
they are too poor as they plead, to bury
them. Then in the name of humanity,
why doJhey rear q stone monument
forty five feet square at the base and
ninety feet high, at Richmond to the
memory of the Confederate dead,' in
the cemetery, and leave their bones TO
bleach in the fields?"
The horror and hideousness of the
capital punishment system received an
almost unparalleled illustration in
Philadelphia last week, Two men
convicted of murder were to die One,
Eaton, went out and met his doom with
a perfectly immovable courage. His
march through the prison was a sort of
triumphal procession, the prisoners all
rushing to the doors of their cells and
greeting him with OUtbursts of affec-
ton and admiration. MontrOse or
Vergniaud could hardly have been fol-
lowed to the scaffo1d by more enthu-
siastic admiration from his sympathiz-
ers. So much for the deterrent effect
of the punishment of death. The 9TH
er man, Twitchell, cheated the gallows
by contriTing to take poison; and so
our civilized system, therefore, simply
sent him, burdened with one other
monstroUs crime, into the presence of
his Creator. To complete the horrors
of the day, the hardiy-coId body of
Eaton was taken down from the scaf-
fold and handed over to some doctors,
who performed experiments on it with
an electric battery, in order to see
whether they could not galyanize the
corpse into CHASTITY caricature of life.
MacauIay speaks with fitting disgust
of the horrible old system of execution
for high treason, which subjected the
sufferer, while not yet dead, to feel the
hands of the executioner grabbing in |
his entrails." The galvanizing of
EatOn's yet warm corpse seems to us |
hardly less disgusting. Here, then, is |
the net result of that one days opera |
tion of the capital punishment system. |
One man hanged, and accordingly re-
vered as a hero by the very class to |
whom the exhibition is intended to ap- |
ply as a warning. Another committing |
suicide. Then, as final tableau, the /
doctors getting hold of the corpse of |
the hanged man, and trying to make it |
initiate the motions of a galvanized !
frog. Thus is public morality imprOv-
ed, popular sentiment refined, and the /
sacro-sanctity of human life incUlcated |
and exemplified. 1t may be doubted
whether the life of the worst criminal
was ever fraught with so mech demor-
alizatiOn as the hideOus death-scenes
our humane law supplies without stint
or charge to the multitude.-Ne1O York
L1dePe9ldeJlt.