The evening times., 1898-09-22
Why Didn't He Know.


blow that has been inflicted on the
whitewash journals comes from Secre-
tary Alger himself. After denying that
there We're any abuses in the army-af-
ter displaying the Boynton report to
prove that everybody at Chick
amauga but the soldiers them
selves had been above reproach,
and affirming that there was no cause
fer an nyestigation-they are met by
the confession of Secretary Alger that
there was an outrageous condition at
Camp Thomas; that IF the commanders
at Chickamauga had advised us at
Washington of the real conditions there.
the soldiers would have been removed
from that place weeks and weeks be-
fore they were"
1t is possible that the War Depart
ment was not informed as to the worst
of the abuses at Camp Thomas, but that
is no excuse. With all its resources
with its great army of officials. it is
amazing and even criminal that II
should have taken no immediate steps
to learn the facts when the first COM
plants were made. General Boynton,
who was finally detailed to make re-
port on the camp, was the very man
who chose the site and whose Judgment
must be affected by his own response
bility if it should prove to be unwhole-
some. If the Secretary had been prop
erly enterprising and sufficiently consid-
Of tn E.~a- Of he he
would have made then the personal in
spection he is making now, or would.
at the least, have sent some qualified
and wholly disinterested person like
Colonel Waring to make an examina-
tion of the place
But there is evidence that the War
Department was Indifferent when ii was
in possession of positive evidence of the
scandalous state of the camp. Three
regular army officers, brigadier generals
and West Point men, made an investi-
cation at Camp Thomas and reported
facts that aroused popular indignation.
Their report recited the rapid increase
of typhoid fever cases, criticised the
manner in which the camp was formed,
noted the lack of everything necessary
to the comfort and health of the men
and the lack of hospital supplies. dis
tinctlyand specifically denied the asser-
ton of General Boynton that regimental
and company officers were to blame. and
concluded with an urgent appeal for the
instant removal of the troops. No ap-
parent attention was paid TO this report
Many weeks after another commission.
composed of three surgeon majors. took
the testimony of regimental and COM
pany officers, of surgeons and nurses,
and made report that would have
caused wholesale lynchings in the West
1t revealed horrors beyond the widest
fancy, and made Dante's hell pleasant
abode by comparison. Sick soldiers
were tortured by neglect in a way to
delight the insane frenzy of Nero. 1t
had no apparent effect.
In all these official reports the world
and, therefore, the War Department
was informed that the acquisitions of
the commanders and the surgeons were
treated with contempt, and that ap-
peals and protests sent to Washington
were ignored. a hospital without med
icine, without instruments, without
nurses, without a sheet or pillow
soldiers dying neglected in their tents;
patients in the fury of fever lying in
the hot summer sun in a Southern
camp; the sick and dying covered with
vermin, and other things too horrible
to be described in newspaper. Yet
Secretary Alger says if the War De-
partment had only known 1t would have
removed the soldiers. 1t was its busi-
ness to know, and two commissions
did all they could to inform it. General
Wiley had sent protesting kilograms to
the quartermaster general, who is a
part of the War Department. General
Sanger had protested against the sick