The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1876-01-21
AyDERSONyILLE.
The Congressional Committees Repert-The Death
R=te en- Both sides.


From tHe Detroit Tribune.
There may be some who have grown
into manhood since the close of the War
of the Rebellio. who do not remember
the horrors of Andersonville; though
few who lived through the war. and were
old enough to understand the awful
atrocities of the rebel prison pens at the
time they occurred, will ever forget them
1t is well to recall them accurately, now
that they have been brought into fresh
mention by the debate in Congress. In
1867 Congressional committee, com
posed of both Democrats. and Republi-
cans, unanimously reported the follow
ing terrible description of Anderson
vile, after Winder and Wr.z had b Ell
given full power there by j. fl. Davis.
''The subsequent history of Anderson
vile has startled and shocked the world
with a tale of horror. of woe, and death,
before unheard and unknown TO civiIi-
zation. No pen can describe, no painter
sketch, no imagination comprehend, its
fearful and unutterable iniquity 1t
would seem a. If the concentrated mad
ness of earth aud hell had found its
final lodgmeat in ih,- breasts of those
who inaugI rated tie rebellion and con-
trollei the policy of tie Confederate
Government, and that the prison at
Andersonviie had been selected for the
most terrible hun!a:I sacrifices which the
world had ever see'i Into its narrow
walls W. re crowded -. 000 enlisted men.
many of them the br..yrst aud the he st,
the most devoted and heroic of those
grand armies which carried the flag of
their country to final victory. For long
and weary months here they suffered,
maddened, were murdered and died.
Here they fingered, unsheltered from the
burning rays Of tropical sun 6y day,
and drencsing and deadly deoos 5ynight,
in every stage of mental aud physical
disease, hungered, emaciated, starving,
maddened; fostering with unhealed
: wounds; gnawed by the ravages of
scurvy and gangrene; with swollen
limb and distorted visage; covered with
vermin which they had no power to ex-
tirpate; etpOSed TO the flooding rains
aChich drOUe them drOlOning from the
miserable holes in lChicL, like S1cine, Hey
6uTrO1Ced; parched with thirst and mad
with hunger; racked with pain or pros
trated with the weakness of dissolution;
with naked limbs and matted hair; filthy
with smoke and mud; soiled with the
very excrement from which their TX
ness would not permit them to escape;
eaten By tie gnaICiIig 1UOImS aohich their
OICn lC0unds hal engeadeTed: with no
bed but the earth; no covering save the
clouded sky-theSe men, these heroes,
born in the image of God, thus crouch
ing and writhing in their terrible torture
and calculating barbarity, stand forth
iushistory as monument of the surpass-
ing horrors of Andersonville as it shall
be seen and read in all future time, re
aliZing in the studied torlnents of tlei,
prison house the ideal of Dante's Inferno
and Millions Hell,"
The New York Nail, while deprecat-
ing the attempt to bring before the pub
lie again the horrors of the rebel prison
pens, remarks: ''To say that the Davis
Government shall not be made to face
responsibility in the light of the no
torious brutal facts is. to talk nonsense
and insult all reason and humanity.
There are a few figures which Mr.. Hill
needs TO be set right about Surgeon
General Barnes can hardly be good au-
thority if he says Gas Mr.. Hill quotes)
that the Confederates had in their pris-
ors so, 600 more Union prisoners than we
had of COnfederates. And death-rate
based upon such a statement is fallacious
and misleading. AS we understand the
matter, the number of Confederates
captured aud sent to depots at the North
was 222, S47, aud the number of Union
soldiers captured by the other side and
sent to depots at the South was 126, $50.
1t is upon these figures that the death
rate Mr.. Hill wants to establish should
be computed, aud so computed It is
found that 1--WE quote Dr. j. w. Draper
the death-rate of prisoners in the pris.
ons of each side was one i'm S.27 in the
Union depo:s, and one in 3.44 in the
Confederate depots. And the same au-
thority expresses the opinion that ''the
true ratio will probably be not less than
three United States soldiers to one Con
federate soldier" 1t is in most respects
unfortunate that this old ulcer should
again be publicly exposed but the
North is not to be slandered and the
world insulted by such tactics for the
overturning of historical truth, as those
pursued by Mr.. Hill. To whtewash
jeff. Davis and his gang at the expense
of Lincoln, Stanton, an their compa-
triots, is indeed n bold procedure, but
truth can not be crushed out i'm any
such way.