Year: 1868

y
ter passing from one den of imprison-
ment and cruelty to another, they were
finally immured with thousands OF
other unfortunates in the death pen OF
Andersonvile. Eighteen months OF
hunger and nakedness, exposure to the
schOrching sun and the winters freez-
ing, did their work on these stalwart
and brave men. Many of them died
idiotic, some of them feebly insans-all
the victims Of system of starvation
and cruelty planned by demons and
executed by devils. Ny sons bodily
vigor and resoluteness of spirit carried
him through the horrors of Anderson
vile, with life left in him-with hardly
anything more. Heis home again with
his mother, and have just received a
letter from her urging me to "try an-
other doctor, for he grows worse. "
But the energetic, intelligent, hopeful,
self-reliant, brave boy, who left my
house to fight the enemies of his coun-
try, has not returned to me, and never
will return.


think you will find that, in common
with me, hundreds Of thousands of loyal
men, whose hearts yet bleed with
wounds received in the wicked war the
shareholders waged against the nations
life, have been shocked end outraged
by your recommendation to do honor
to the authors of their sorrows and the
workers of the country's woes.


Had you served in the army, either
in person or through a son, and pre-
sented your offering of patriotism to
your country on the picket line or the
line of pitched battle, you would never
have made the heartless mistake you
have made, in what your biographer,
writing your life, will call ''the Antie-
tam Letter" How much I wish you
had initiated the manly and sympath-
etic behavior of Governor Geary, of
Pennsylvania, a soldier and a states
man, who thus repelled the proposition
to mingle the rebel with the Union dead
under the Antietam Monument:


"The custom has ever prevailed to
specially honor those in death who won
special honor by meritorious lives.
The monuments reared to the memory
of departed worth bear ample testimony
that our people have not been unmind-
ful of this custom. But where were
such memorials ever erected for men
whose actions were infamous, and who
persisted in an ignoble cause Who
would glorify the treason Of Benedict
Arnold with such monuments as have
arisen to the memory Of Washington
Who would dare'to insult the loyal
heart Of this nation by proposing to
lay, side by side, in the same sepulchre,
the body of the assassin Booth and that
of Abraham Lincoln? No loyal man
would take the heartless Wirz and the
other demons that presided over the
prison dens of cruelty, starvation and
death, and the executed conspirators
against the nations illustrious chief,
and deposit them in the same tomb
with the patriotic men who sacrificed
their lives in battling for the right
against the wrong Yet it is proposed
that the loyal States construct cemete-
ries for their heroic dead, and then des-
ecrate them by the burial therein Of
those who prosecuted against the coun-
try warfare which for its diabolical
ferocity is without a parallel in the his
tory of civilization, and even to erect
monuments to their memory Garry
out this purpose, and what inducement
can be hereafter offered to the loyal
citizens to fight against treason, when
he feels assured that should he fall in
battle the traitors grave will be honor
ed equally with his own?


''The cause of the Union was a holy
one, while that which opposed it must
have been its reverse. TO one side
alone the glory belongs This was not
a war of nations, but of treason against
loyalty, 1t was contest of rebels who
would have drained the llfe's blood of
the government which had sustained
and protected them, against its patriotic
sons who fought to save it from de-
struction. II was a war carried on by
the defenders and promoters of oppress-
ion against the friends and lovers lib
erty and their country's integrity.


"While there is no reasonable obiec-
ton to giving decent sepulture even to
the rebel dead, those who consider them
deserving of honorable testimonials
may give them. 1t is our duty to rem
der honor only to whom we believe
honor is due"


1t is with grief, Gov. Fenton, that /
write this letter to you. The subject
is painful to me. But there sits on my
hearth-stone, and there lies in my village
graveyard, and there broods in my heart
a controlling reason why, since the ap-
pearance of your Antietam letter, I
should regard your entrance into Ma
tional Republican Convention, candi-
date for office, an intrusion to which the
survivors of the Union army, and the
relatives of its dead and wounded,
should sternly object.


Yours,


JOHN COvODE.