New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-06-11
New ORLEANS RHPUBI1q4N sbED4E JUN, IL l8n

fear of the same fate. The guard loaded hi,
musket after he had performed this dastardly
act, and grinning with satisfaction, viewed
the body of, the dying, murdered man, fol
nearly an hour. with apparent pleasure, oc
casionally raising the gun 80 threaten any
one who, from curiosity or pity, dared tt
approach the poor fellow. In a similar
manner men were shot upon the smallest
pretext, and that it was nothing but pre-
text Was apparent from the fact that. one
man approaching the dead line could have
ia no manner harmed the cumbersome
stockade, even had he been inclined so t.
do, and hundred men could not, with theil
united strength, have forced it. Frequently
the guard fired Unfortunately into a
| crowd. On one occasion l saw a man
wounded and another killed; one was lying
under his blanket asleep, the other standing
some distance from the dead line" >
| You doubtless will have thought that
have enumerated now every source of de-
structiOn possible to come to these prison.
| ers. You are mistaken. 1t was not in hui
man nature under the accumulated horrors
| of their condition, tor our soldiers not to
make many attempts at escape, although
hundreds of miles interviewed between them
| and any possible succOr, save from the ne
groes, who never failed to give aid and com
fort to Union soldier, even in the wilds o.
Georgia
r-. THE BLOODHOUNDs
What precautions, do yOu think, were
taken to prevent such escape, and how were
the fugitives brought back, if indeed, they
ever came back, Trained packs of dogs
bloodhounds and others, were kept in the
vicinity of the prison, and every morning
were led around the stockade to snuff the
footsteps of any fleeing soldier, whose track
I'M 10 wa thara
taken, and, unless he had found refuge in
tree so as to be out of the way of the hounds
when they reached him. his flesh was torn
by their fangs while their hunters sat on
their horses coolly looking on, or cheering
on the nObler animals; and mere than one
instance is sworn to where our men were
mangled by the dogs, and their lifeless
bodies left in the swamps.
THE NUMBER OF VICTIMS.
Your imaginations may have pictured
but your judgments can have hardly con
firmed the results of such confinement, such
food, such treatment and such cruelties.
The whole number of prisoners confined in
that prison pen was 1851; the number OF
graves was 1906. or more than one in
every three, and this without estimating
the number of whose decease there is
neither the memorial of q grave nor a
record. We all see how much more deadly
was rebel cruelty than were rebel rifles,
from the fact that it is reckOned that in
battle, even the most bloody. only four in a
hundred of the combatants engaged are
killed. Here every third man died the hor-
rible death which the official evidence has
described. No battle since the invention of
gunpowder has shown upon one side thir-
teen thousand deaths. At the battle of
Waterloo, which decided the fate of
Europe, the loss in killed of the British
was only 2,OH. The slaughter of ancient
times, when very much greater numbers of
troops were brought into the field, were
much less than the deaths at Anderson
vile. In the battle of Marathon. which de.
livered Greece from Persian armies, the |
Persian dead were six thousand four hun
dred, and the Athenian one hundred and
nlnety-two. In neither of these battles
have | spoken of the wounded. because
hardly one well man escaped from Ander-
sonville; all these were wounded by emacia-
ton and disease. 1
Such, my comrades, was the treatment of |
our soldiers in prisons during the rebellion.
The number of all who died as prisoners of |
war, such deaths as have shown so far as |
can be ascertained is 44,40l, although the |
graves of 1876 only are known leaving |
<O.oSo unknown dead, at whose graves |
neither friend, widow nor child may weep. |
do not charge these accumulated
horrors, OF which repeat again and again
here is the fullest evidence, upon the people
Of the South as mass. l do put the re-
'ponsibility thereof upon their leaders, for
t happened under their very eye, and the
testimony shows frequent reports to them
If this terrible condition of things.
But perhaps l am wrong, and ought not
wen to charge it upon these, but upon the
'xecrable and inhuman spirit that the in
titution of slavery had engendered in man
Ard even in your sorrow you will rejoice
With me that, although at such a price.
lavery has been extinguished forever.
,till its spirit has not died out, and we hear
oming up from the South daily evidences
t that cruelty, lawlessness and disregard
f the rights of others that murdered our
prisoners in Andersonville and elsewhere.
ow taking the lives of Union citizens of
he United States, both black and white,
lmost at pleasure. When any man shall
eny to you that such outrages do exist,
ecause in his experience of men and com
,unities nothing of the kind could be pos
ble, point him to the unknown graves at
ndersOnville, filled with the bodies of
nose who died of starvation from shooting
y the inhuman guards, or lacerated by the
lOodhounds of rebeldom, and say, if such
lings were possible are not Ku-Klux out
lges probable -g