The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1891-02-14
An Instance Where silence Would Have
Been Golden.
LAssoeiatedPress.1

Associated Press.
Chicago. Feb. 7.-Gen. Nelson A.
Miles was in command Of Fortress
Monroe, Va, when the late j. fferson
Davis, President Of the Confederate
States, was confined there after his
capture 1y the Union forces. In her
recently published story ofhis life Mrs.
Davis devotes considerable space to a
dennnciation of Gen. Miles, alleging
that the general sought out small ways
in which to insult and annoy his pris-
oner, such as shocking him with brutal
force, keeping him in vermin infest-
ed cell. Withholding his clothes and
linen, and making souvenirs of his
possessiOns-eyen of his hair when be
had ii cut.
Gen. Miles, speaking of these charges
to-day, said:
~Of course the woman feels bitter
toward me, as she probably does to.
wards many more Northern soldiers
and it is only expected that she should,
had charge of her husband for a
while after his arrest, and | suppose
she can never forgive that. While
caring nothing at all for anything she
may say or write, | would call atten-
tion to the fact that Jefferson Davis
managed to survive my cruel treat
ment and lived twenty yesrs after,
finally dying of old ago. That would
hardly have been the case, think, If
he had been subjected to such horrible
abuses. | was in charge Of the district
Of Fortress Monroe for eighteen
months, and for II while Jefferson
Davis was kept prisoner there after
his arrest. There was the gravest
kind of charges that could be charged
against any man preferred against
him. The government had paid $780,
600 for his arrest. Many of the rebels
had not yet surrendered, and President
Lincoln had been assassinated. Ger
tainly there were reasons enough why
close watch should be kept upon the
rebel leader that he might not escape.
| had no immediate business with him,
but of such as | had, am not ashamed
OF. There is not particle Of truth in
the statement made by his wife. Why,
the fact is, Jefferson Davis never was
in better trim than when he was liber-
ated aud the time that elapsed before
his death is good evidence Of it."
Gen. Miles would have far more
seusibly, II not decently, have kept
silent. He fret pleads justification and
then enters denial. lie may satisfy and
crafty large proportion ofa fast de-
parting generation by slurring over and
discoloring the facts of shameful
episode-making 1t appear that the
prison treatment of Mr.. Davis was o
natural and proper incident of war.
But he cannot pervert history.
All that can be said in his defense Is
that the rage against the South at that
period was intolerant of common
amenities to the fallen--that there
was abroad o bloody thirst which only
the sickeDing horror Of Mrs. Surratts
execution, and others only less abhor-
rent because the victims were men,
could quench.
We have not seen what the Davis
memoirs, edited by Mrs. Davis,
contains relative to the prison treat
ment of the late President of the
Confedcracy. But a bare quota
tion from the revelations by the
Federal surgeon who attended the
prisoner, published at the time, would
be sufficient to blacken the reputation
of those having him in charge.
Though Gen. Miles seems TO take
credit to himself that the human
frame which had inherited toughness
and longevity in extraordinary degree
did not succumb under the mean in
fictions and small privations imposed.