The Dickinson press., 1884-08-23
a11nxAoAnnAx..
Members Of the arssly Party CHARGED
With Killing ana Eating the Bodies
4 Their Comrades.


The New York Times of Tuesday morning
says: Written documents now in the posses
sion of the navy department. at Washington
add to the record of miserable human suffer-
ings already published in connection with the
finding of the Greedy relief expedition, the
most shocking stories of inhumanity and can
mbalism. All the facts have been in the pos
session of Secretary Chandler for nearly three
weeks, but SO closely have they been guarded,
and 30 strictly have the naval officers and
sailors maintained the silence imposed upon
them, that not even an inkling Of the true and
horrible condition of affairs has yet reached the
public ear. The sufferings and privations of
the mel in their csnvas hut, during the long,
bitter winter of 1884,, have not half been told.
1t has been published hat after game gave out
early in February they lived principally on
seal skins, ichens and shrimps.
As a matter of fact they were kept alive on
human flesh. When the rescuing party dis
covered the half starved survivors, their first
duty was to look to the men who were insen-
sible from cold and privation even to the point
of death. One of them, a German, was wild.
In his delirium he shrieked, s'Oh!'' as the sail
ors took hold of him to lift him tenderly,
'Don't let them shoot me as they did poor
Henry. Must I be killed and eaten as Henry
was? Don't let them do it, don't" The sailors
we're Mortified, but at once reported the mans
words to Commander Schley.
When the horrible reality was brought out
before ansnvestigating committee, Commander
Schley intrusted two or three gentlemen,
among whom was DIR. Ames, the surgeon of
tho Bear, to make o careful examination, and
put their conclusions in writing. This was
done, and the reports are now in tho hands of
the navy department.. Lieut.. Greeley was de-
cidedly averse to having the bodies of the
buried dead disturbed, butt bodies were dug
from their graves. Most of the blankets
contained nothing but heaps of white bones,
many of them picked clean. By inquiries
Commander Schley discovered many of the
seventeen men who are said to have persisted
from starvation had been eaten by their fam
It is reported that the only men who escaped
the knife were three or four who died of scurvy.
The amputated limbs of men who afterward
persisted, Were eagerly devoured as food.
Whether the four bodies which were swept out
further evidence to this story of horrible
though the papers in the possession
of the navy department give all the
particulars as told by the survivors.
tragic: Drivento despair by his frightful hun
ger, Henry saw m opportunity to steal a little
more than his share Of %rations, and he made
the attempt. He was found and shot for his
crime. In the published official report the
death Of this man is set down as having oc-
CURED June 5. When the body was found his
hands and face, though shrunken, were intact
and recognizable; but nearly everywhere else
the skin had been stripped from him and the
flesh picked from the bones. Even his heart and
was in this condition when it was inferred last
Saturday. The letter from his friend Robert
S. Oberfelder, of Sidney, Neb., which is daily
looked for, will probably never come to light.