The National tribune., 1910-06-02
THE ExtpRrsiSEns OF WAR.

THE E4tpKrsosERs OF WAR.
While the ex-prlsoners OF war are a
class at least as deserving as any other
veterans. t1iey laSe been much the
worse neglected Every other class of
veterans has receItsd attentive hearing
by Congress and some measure of re-
cognition of their unusual services.
For some ineXplicsble reason Congress.
altho the highly 1meritorious claim of
those who suffered in Southern prisons
has been pressed upon it for years with
the greatest force, has refused or ne
elected 10 give them any OF that relief
(which has been extended to other
classes.
The prisoners of war rendered a ser
vice of momentous value and which
was probably vital to the success of our
army. 1t must be assumed that men
who We're captured were at the very
front doing their duty. They would
not have been captHred had they not
been within close reach of the enemy
and when we recall that the bulk of the
prisoners were taken in the tumultous,
manu- 1'-iiStiIu HSHtluS tii' III 81 bt'S
at Gettysburg. in the wild swirl of
Chickamauga, in the tangled depths of
the Wilderness and in the confusing
clash of breast-to-breast fighting
around Petersburg, we have to admit
that the prisoners must have been
among the bravest and best of their
comrades. Many thousands of them
l,,-a S.t,f n n
tured. All the time it is not to be de-
MED that the man who was captured
was at the very front and doing his
duty. 1t is significant of this that we
broke the power of the rebellion by cap
turing such an enormous number of
their best fighting men and holding
them out of the army while We forced
the rest to submission.
During the awful fighting of the last
year and a half of the war we cap
tured no less than 100000 of the Con-
federates and reduced them to actual
possession by confining them in safe
prisons in the North. Had it not been
for the absence of this great army from
| the Confederate forces in the field the
war would have lasted indefinitely. OF
course in capturing these 100000 Con-
federates we had to lose large numbers
of our own men, and the COnfederates
captured from us about $4,000. Any
thinking man will be astonished that
we were so much more successful in
this game of war than the ConfedeTates
were.
The $4,000 men whom the Confed-
crates took from us were sent to such
prisons as Salisbury. Andersonville.
| Florence, Cahaba and Camp Ford,
where they suffered everything and the
mortality',amongi them was incompara-
! bly, greater than it would have been
had they remained in the field. 1t was
| no idle boast ofoGen. Winder that he
had built in Andersonville a place
where he would kill more Yankees than
Gen. Lee could in'the field" The NOR
tality in those prisons far surpasses
that of any other incident of the war
| Out OF an army confined at Anderson
vile of about haTf the size of that
which fought at Gettysburg, nearly
three times as many lost their lives
| The mortality at Salisbury was even
more appalling, but we have no figures
TO measure this These prisons real
! ly only lasted short time, so that
the deaths in them had the actual
effect of men killed in battle. More
than half of the $4,000 captured in
the last IS months of the war and
sent to prison must have died in those
prisons, on the roads between them OF
Immediately after their delivery to the
Union lines.
Every man who had even a few
weeks in prison received injuries from
which he suffered all his life. Where
out of every four men who so much
as set foot in Andersonville one died
before he got out and another one must
have died upon transfer to another pri
son. no man could escape terrific dam
age to his constitution and vitality.
These facts have all been repeatedly
presented to Congress and the great
debt due by the country to those men
who enuured with such unfinching
loyalty the terrible experiences in
Southern prisons. In spite of this
there has been nothing done in the
way of recognition of this most de-
serving class. Where Congress has
hastened to pay Southern people Tor
the chickens and fence rails which
they may have lost, it has given moth
ing to the young man who was cap
tured while bravely standing by his COL
ors in the wild fight of the Wilderness,
who had his life blighted by the scurvy
and starvation of Andersonville, and
who has suffered from poverty and dis
ease thru all the years since because of
his courage and devotion to his coun-
try. 1t is a shame upon Congress that
this has not been done, and the ne
gIect of the Government to do this is
the severest possible reproach upon
Congress, who has in its hands the
performance of the country's duty to-
ward those who sacrificed so much
for it.
SENATOR BURROWS'S BILL.