Year: 1876

To the Editor of the Press


I had an opportunity to know something of
the rebel prisons. Nothing that 1 have yet
seen in the papers in relation to the deliberate
cruelty practiced in them, has exceeded the
truth. No description can convey any clear no.
tion of the miseres endured in them by many
of the poor fellows who had experience in them.
A part of this cruelty had its origin, no doubt
in the extreme poverty of the rebel govern
ment, but the most of it was wilful and de-
liberate, intended to break down the health AMI
destroy the union soldiers that they might not
serve again, against the confederacy. re-
ceived from the q. s. Government, large
amount of commissary and quartermaster's
stores for distribution among the union prison.
ers at Libby Prison, Richmond, and to those
upon Belle Isle, a small island in James Riv-
er. near The city, where thirteen thousand prs-
oners then were. applied to the rebel authori-
ties for permission to visit the island and see
what the actual wants of the prisoners were. L
found them herded like SO many cattle, in
large yard surrounded by low earthern para
pet, upon the top of which, sentinels kept
watch and ward. Within this enclosure, were
a number of condemned rebel tents capable of
afferding feeble shelter from the wind but
not from the rain, to about half the prisoners
The remainder of them were obliged to lie ups
on the hard ground, and this continued all
through the winter, while the ice in the river
became fully eight inches thick. The soldiers
thus exposed to the weather had no resource
except to make excavations-shallow graves in
fact-in which they lay through the long cold
nights, sheltered in some measure from the
sharp winds which swept over the island /
Immediately addressed note to the rebel Of
ficer in command at Richmond, Gen Winder,
who took no other notice of my protest than to
prevent my visiting the island any more; and
so we saw upon the rebels in the streets the
warm garments sent by our government for the
union prisoners at Richmond.


Large quantities of commissory stores, food,
were also sent to me for distribution among
the soldiers, but was not permitted to so SO.
These provisions-to. some extent at least
were sold at enormous prices to the officers
eleven hundred-who were confined in Libby
Prison. We easily recognized the articles as
belonging to cur commissariat, as we did the
overcoats and other garments worn by rebel
officers and men, about the streets, which had
been sent for the use OF our prisoners, VINO were
in rags and sleeping in the open air.


When parties of our soldiers were exchanged
they always passed under the windows of Lib
by Prison, where the officers were confined.
We saw their wretched condition, as they
passed along They did rot march, they could
not do that, they stumbled along with short
feeble steps, like old men Of eighty years, en-
feebled by rheumatism.


On one occasion, In winter, party of miser-
able wretches passed by our window pinched
with hunger and cold, thin and blue in the keen
north wind, stumbling over the frozen ground.
saw one poor fellow with bare feet, red and
bleeding-just as he passed my window in
stan:ly caught my own shoes off and threw
them to him. He was too much stupehed TO
comprehend and too weak TO stoop and pick
them up Another man who had shoes seized