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No
doubt you have read from Northern dailies and Northern histories that
your fathers treated badly Federal prisoners who were confined in
Southern prisons during our Civil War. When you hear these charges made,
we want you to ask if the Southern prisoners who were confined in
Northern pens were treated like human beings.
Let us now go into a few prison facts: There was a record taken of the
Elmira, N. Y., prison for the three months of March, April, and May,
1865, and sent to Washington to be used in Mrs. Surratt's trial. This
sworn testimony showed that there were confined in Elmira prison during
these three months five thousand and twenty-five (5025) Southern
prisoners, and only six had died during these three months, which
testified as to the good treatment they received at the hands of the
Federal government and its authorized officers.
This
record was such a glaring falsehood, manufactured for the sole purpose
of hanging a poor woman and implicating President Jefferson Davis, that
two of their own papers, viz., the Elmira Gazette, and the
Buffalo, N.Y., Courier, took it upon themselves to ascertain the
truth of this record, and they found that there were, as stated,
confined in Elmira prison for the said three months of March, April, and
May, 1865, five thousand and twenty-five (5025) Southern prisoners, but
of this number there died in March four hundred and ninety-five (495),
in April two hundred and sixty-five (265), and in May one hundred and
twenty-four (124) , making a total of eight hundred and eighty-four
(884) against six (6) as reported, which makes a difference of eight
hundred and seventy-eight (878); if the record had included the
mortality for the month of February of the same year, which was four
hundred and twenty-six (426), the death list in these four months would
have been thirteen hundred and eleven (1311) out of a total confinement
of five thousand and twenty-five (5025).
Can
the death list of the Black Hole of Calcutta beat this? Does it not look
strange that the descendants of a people who were run out of England for
conscience' sake should be found by their own paper lying in this
manner?
Let
us see what treatment the Southern prisoners were receiving at Camp
Douglas, away up on the banks of Lake Michigan, where in mid-winter the
thermometer will sometimes drop to forty degrees below zero. We find in
the depths of winter, six (6) blankets were issued to one hundred and
sixty (160) prisoners, and one stove only was allowed to ten thousand
(10,000) men. Many a poor fellow froze to death on the ground without
anything under him or over him except the clothes he had on.
Here
prisoners were hung up by the thumbs for three or four hours at a time,
for the least violation of the rules. Rats and dogs were eaten daily
when they could be had, yes, anything to save dear life.
It
was here in Camp Douglas, when it was so cold that icicles hung from the
roof of the prison down to within six inches of the stovepipes. The
breath of these men froze to their beards, many a poor fellow who was
detailed to bring in wood was frost-bitten when he returned, and often
his arms would be frozen around his load of wood so that his comrades
would have to help him turn it loose. The Northern people may talk of
Andersonville, but is was a Paradise compared to Camp Douglas.
At
Point Lookout prison, in order to humiliate the proud Southerner as much
as possible, Negro soldiers were often put on guard, and on one occasion
a Negro guard fired into a squad of, about two hundred (200) prisoners,
killing and wounding five.
The brutal officer of the day called out to his Negro guard in,
the presence of his prisoners, "If your ammunition gives out, let
me know, and I will furnish you more." This was all done without
provocation.
Here men were frozen to death by
being forced to sleep on the frozen ground without blankets or fire, and
the rations were barely enough to keep body and soul together.
It
was at Point Lookout that the fiendish brutality was practiced on the
defenseless unfortunates by the Fifth Massachusetts cavalry, and it will
never be forgotten or forgiven; their conduct to the unarmed and
helpless stamps them as barbarians and cowards unworthy to carry a flag
that represents the "homes of the free and the land of the
brave," all too in defense of the Negro that Massachusetts did more
to enslave than all the rest of the country combined. This was in
keeping with Puritan history.
At Fort
Delaware, the daily practice of hanging Southern prisoners up by the
thumbs for two or three hours for the least infraction of the rules was
simply viciousness.
At
eight o'clock each morning the prisoners received their allowance for
breakfast, which consisted of a small piece of mixed corn and wheat
bread, and one ounce of salt beef or pork, issued to each prisoner; and
at 2 P. M., for dinner, the same amount of bread, and one pint of filthy
soup was issued, and this to sustain life during the long, cold nights,
where one stove was allowed for ten thousand (10,000) men.
Now
why was so much salt meat issued to these unfortunate men? It was for no
other purpose, as we believe, than to give these helpless men scurvy and
other scrobutic diseases.
On
one occasion in this prison, a poor boy from Charlottesville, Va., was
shot dead for throwing a cup of water out of the window of his barracks;
and on another occasion General Schoepf, who was in charge, ordered a
lieutenant to have his hands tied behind him and be hung up by the
elbows until the poor fellow should faint from pain or his shoulder
should become dislocated, and a surgeon was detailed to watch the
proceedings and go to the relief of the prisoner should either occur;
this was repeated several times, after which this helpless victim was
put in solitary confinement for ten days.
It
was also here that the bodies of the dead were sold to surgeons and
medical colleges. The Washington Union of July 19, 1866, says,
"In reply to a resolution from the House of Representatives to Mr.
Edward Stanton, Secretary of War, enquiring as to the number of
prisoners that either side held and that died during the war, he made
the following report:
“Number
of Union prisoners in the South, two hundred and sixty-one thousand
(261,000); number of Confederate prisoners in the North, two hundred
thousand (200,000); number of Union prisoners died, twenty-two thousand,
five hundred and seventy-six (22,576); number of Confederate prisoners
died, twenty-six thousand, five hundred and thirty-five (26,535)."
According
to this report of their own Secretary of War, the number of Federal
prisoners confined in Southern prisons exceeded the Southern prisoners
confined in Northern prisons sixty-one thousand (61,000); yet four
thousand (4,000) more Southerners died in Northern prisons than did
Northern prisoners in Southern prisons.
This,
too, when in the North there was no lack of anything, and their ports
were all open to the world; while in the South everything was wanting,
her ports were all blockaded by the Federal fleets, and medicines were
declared contraband of war by the Federal government. The South had been
stripped of its provisions because it had contributed largely to the
support of both armies.
These
figures, according to their own testimony, ought forever to set at rest
the false accusations brought against the prison keepers of Salisbury,
N. C., and Andersonville, Ga. It must be remembered by the Southern
youth that these glaring falsehoods, that were so highly colored in the
Northern papers, about in-human treatment of Northern prisoners in
Southern pens, was done only to cover up and hide from the eyes of a
humane world their own heartless brutalities.
The
following is a lecture given by John A. Miller, who was confined in
prison at Fort Delaware, and is certified to by John P. Hickman and W.
H. Smith, of Nashville, Tenn., who were also confined there:
"Every two weeks we were formed in squads and searched. We were
allowed to have nothing. One blanket or one overcoat we were allowed to
keep, but if a man had both, one or the other was taken from him. It was
terribly cold in the winter months, and it is a wonder many of us did
not freeze to death.
"On
Thanksgiving Day, in 1864, we were given a whole potato each, a fourth
of a loaf of bread, a cup of beans and worms, and a cup of coffee. On
Christmas we got a half loaf of bread each, and some meat, and we never
enjoyed a Christmas dinner as we did that one. When we were searched
every two weeks, we were served with a notice that a drawing would take
place to see which of the Tennessee prisoners should be shot in
retaliation for what they characterized as the massacre at Fort Pillow.
This drawing continued until General Forrest had them to understand that
he would kill one hundred Yankees for every prisoner thus murdered.
"The
offal of the kitchen was carried out in slatted boxes, and emptied in
the bay at the privy at low tide; and during a high tide fragments of
meat washed upon the levee, and prisoners would fish those fragments out
from that filth of the privy, and eat the same.
"The
poor unfortunate men who would stand around the stove to keep from
freezing, were carried out, made to pull off their well-worn coats,
cross their hands, tied, and then stoop down and run their hands over
their knees; then Hackout, Fox, or O'Neal would run a stick through at
the knee-joints, and roll them upon the stone walk, and let them remain
in this pitiable condition for hours at a time, when the thermometer
would be at or sometimes many degrees below zero.
"There
was a Kentucky boy whom Fox tried to make carry a stick of wood, but he
knocked him [Fox] into the moat, and he came near drowning, and his
clothes froze on him before he got out of the Sally-port.
Hal. Wolf, Randolph O'Neal, and Hackout came in with a squad of
Yankees looking for the boy, but he had disguised himself, and they
could not find him; and when Fox rallied from the blow and his thorough
wetting in the water on that cold morning, we were all hacked out and
sent to the barracks. On going into the barracks, General Schoepf, the
commander, and all 0f his staff and squad of would-be soldiers, examined
every Confederate as he came in, but Fox failed to identify his man.
This little episode had a very salutary effect upon Fox ever after.
"In
April, 1864, there was brought to the prison a bright-eyed boy from
Tennessee. Before many weeks the horrible treatment began to tell on
him, and he began to droop, and finally became very sick. Two of the
boys got some whiskey and sugar with a little money they had managed to
keep, and gave him a toddy two of three times each day. He finally
became better. On Feb. 26,1865 one thousand and eight hundred (1,800) of
us were exchanged, but for some reason this young boy was not included
in the list. A man by the name of George Edmundson, was included, but he
died the night before, and the young boy tried to impersonate the dead
Confederate. He was discovered, and thrown into a dungeon, where he
remained for three days and nights. This dungeon was a horrible hole
under the ground, I and was Infested with rats, bugs, and vermin of all
kinds. With I the regular
fare what it was, it can be imagined what he received in the dungeon.
After
these three days and nights, he was confined in the barracks, from
whence he was released on May 28, 1865. He could have secured release
from the dungeon and obtained the fare of the regular United States
soldier by taking the oath, but he remained true. [This boy was John P.
Hickman.]
"No
one has a true conception of the horrors of war unless he was at Fort
Delaware in 1864 and 1865. Our mortality during the eleven months of the
war after we were set apart in retaliation for Andersonville, Ga., was
about twenty-seven percent, most of them dying with the scurvy or
small-pox."
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