,0 o^ ^^ -n. ,0- '<^, " 8 1 -V - X^"" O' ^^ "' , C' '-^'^ ^' ,0o o 0^ .\T^ '^<^. - o>* i> ' ■•■r<, ''~" -i*- -■> oX' %S <. ■'0-^* A * .'X ^'X V " ,V''- '^/^ V ^^^ "'^.^ .0' > <•■ ti ,. -c .x= .-^ "^^ v^' V' :/•. .^^• -^^-i' v^^' '^'.■^ 'OO' \ "' ^-<. ■y '-%, ^-^^ '"■'^^- ,^x^^ ^ ■''^., .v^- 0- ' ,.. V -^ .A .^^ -''^. ^\ov'' .^.;%'^^-^\x^:. ^'^^^ .^^' ■ ^' -s-^ .^" • .0 o '^^ \^' ■<<. ^ y'' sQ c -0- ,. ':*";^ ^' iUf Q WEHSOM7LW ■r JHBulTo,-.! s hill lioslonj^fass ANDERSON VILLE PRISON. 1 7 give a wide and extended view of the landscape, but the pi'imeval pines everywhere hide the distant horizon. The song of the laborer rarely disturbs the silence, which is oppressive. Song is the imjDulsive outburst of a heart filled with joy and hope. The slave has neither. His voice is the cry of anguish, of a soul burdened and crushed, and is more like the moan of the winds than the accents of civilized man. The physical aspect of the white inhabitant indicates the local impressions and inspirations — listless and apa- thetic in look, lank and haggard in form. There are countries, there are even limited localities, where the moral and mental faculties expand in accordance with external impressions. The laws of beauty and deformity are regulated by the condition and circumstances of the outward world to a remarkable degree. The landscape, the sunshine, and the luxuriance at Corinth and Athens gave rise to the most beautiful flowers of art and love, and to that wonderful type of human beauty, which the world has since lost ; but the rugged and stern defiles of the mountains of Calabria, of Albania, and the dreary marsh fens of the Campagna, or of the Netherlands, still produce characters that rival in ferocity the hyenas of the desert. * * * * Nature appears to have selected for man the sites where are performed the noble acts which charm and enlighten the mind, or the dark deeds which cause men to ponder and regret the frailty of their organization. " It seems that the instincts of war conduct from age to age the armies of successive empires to the same rendez- iS MARTYRIA, OR vous of contest, and that geography ha* laid off in ad- vance certain fields of battle, as a sort of arena for these great immolations of humanity." " Hungary," said So- bieski, " is a clump of earth, which, if squeezed, would give out but human blood." The name and look of An- dersonville will always be synonymous with and sugges- tive of cruelt}'. At the distance of eight hundred paces from the rail- way which connects the town with Central Georgia on the north and the Gulf of Mexico on the south, appears the Prison Stockade, which was located by the Winders of the Rebel army, at the suggestion of Howell Cobb, in 1S63, and occupied for its specific purpose in February, 1864. It is situated about fifty miles south of Macon, and its position on the geographical map is defined by longitude 7° 30' west from Washington, latitude 32° 10' north of the equator, corresponding in the western hemisphere to the central region of Algiers. A dense forest of primeval trees covered the spot which was selected by the engineers when they marked out the line of the prison. The massive pines were levelled by the strong arms of several hundred negro slaves, and when their branches were cut away, they were placed side by side, standing upright in the deep ditches, which were excavated witii ixgularity, and in parallel lines, north and south, east and west. Thus were formed the boundaries of the palisade, wherein nearly forty thousand human beings were to be herded at one time. I,|!ll>;,{ll!| V,;, / •, . ■ V''f^> ^XSll ;M ■ lliiiii ■''i't'i':!iiiPiSilil''illl t Ji llili ni^ H iiii^ ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I9 The surface of the earth was cleared completely away, so as to give full play to the elements of destruction. Neither shade nor shelter was there to protect from the storm, or from the merciless rays of an almost tropical sun. Not a tree nor a shrub was left there to cast a fihadow over the arid and calcined earth. There was simply a rampart of logs, rising from fifteen to eighteen feet in height above the surface of the ground. This rampart measured at first ten hundred and ten feet in length by seven hundred and seventy-nine feet in width, and was surrounded, at a distance of sixty paces, by another palisade of rough logs more than twelve feet in height. It was afterwards lengthened, in the autumn of 1864, to sixteen hundred and twenty feet. This enormous structure still stands there, with its giant walls of trees, undisturbed. * * * " May none those marks efface, For they appeal from tyranny to God," XII. A small stream of water, which arose in two branches scarcely a thousand paces distant, in bogs and fens whose bitterness and impurities continued with the current, passed through the central portion of the enclosed space with sufficient volume to supply the wants of many thousand men, if it had been propei'ly received, pro- tected, and economized. During the summer many springs burst forth from the soil on either bank of the stream within the prison ; but 20 MARTYRIA, OR the water, neglected by the military guards, soon became defiled b}^ the feet and grime of the prisoners, and then this portion of the enclosure, embracing several acres, was transformed into a deep and horrible mire, quivering with those disgusting forms of organic life which are produced by putrid and decaying matter. The stench would have corroded the surface of adamant. Within the two lines of palisades, and on the western side, was erected the single bakery which was to furnish the munition bread for the prisoners. Upon the hill to the northward, at the distance of two hundred paces from the outer line, was strangely placed the building which was known as the kitchen. The reason why this cookery was placed so far from water, and the direct line of communication with the main gate, the projectors alone can tell. Consider the enormous weight of provisions and water which full rations to even ten thousand men would require daily. Consider, then, the distance from the railway depot, the circuitous route to the entrance of the prison, the mode, and inefficient transportation, and you will have an idea of the ignoi-ance, the careless- ness, the perversity or wilfulness, or call it what you will, which prevailed here in the prison system, if system it can be termed XIII. To the south, on the high land which overlooked the prison and its appendages, was erected the two-story building which served as quartei's and offices for the officers and clerks. Along the same elevated ridge were located the well-built huts of the guards, who were igggs (/rttt-r i/if/r/ AJtVtsti/r.i by t^r. HamUiiy B/t>( ', Htvi/iii-orks iiiil.cj itiii- I'l i>iUixtiifi OfJ'icers fjfUtir/er.f iQ //ns/'Hii/ yfiukiii/t' !)ZS ft. font/ tt-,'// Net'er fuiuilwii ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 21 selected from the Confederate Reserves of Georgia, under the command of Howell Cobb, and numbered from three to five thousand men. Farther to the west, along the same airy and commanding ridge, and close to the track of the railway, appears the large two- story wooden buildings, which were built and arranged, carefully and comfortably, for the sick of the rebel guards. XIV. To the south-east, and at the distance of a stone's throw from the prison, were placed the few miserable and decayed tents which were to sei-ve as hospitals, in mockery of science and humanity. To-day the traces of this useless philanthropy have passed away, but the results are fearfully shown in the field to the northward, where thirteen thousand soldiers sleep in death, — the hai-vest of one short year ! " Here," said one of the surgeons to the inquirer, " death might be predicted with almost absolute certainty." Here came a medical officer of the highest rank in the Rebel army, and one of the most eminent savatzs of the South, to study the physiology and philosophy of stai'vation. The notes of that fearful clinic are preserved, and may some future day startle the scientific world with their clearness, their candor, their positive evidence of the cause of death. Thus the scalpel silences the argu- ment, the reasoning of sophistry. That there was scarcity of medicines, and all of those delicacies known to the cultivated or luxurious taste, there can be no doubt. Neither the country, nor the 22 MARTYRIA, OR desires of the people, produced or favored their pio- duction ; but let us thank Heaven there is proof that there were some among the medical officers in whom the virtues of the heart were not entirely reversed, who did protest against the needless deficiencies and the system of treatment. The sufferings here were less poignant than in the pen ; for nature always comes to the relief of dying mortals, and tempers the pangs of dissolution. •» Food w^as demanded, but it was wanting. Shelter and the pure air of heaven were prayed for by gasping men ; even these, too, were wanting. Yet close by rose the gigantic pines, of the growth of centuries, standing in all the grandeur of the primeval forests, and offering to the disordered vision and senses of the dying wretches grateful shades, cool bowers, or the images of home, and the forms of the well-loved, as the faint and sinking traveller beholds them in the fai--off mirasre of the desert. The dense pine forests on either side still attest the luxuriant growth, which was regarded at the time of its selection as the finest timbered land of all Georgia. These immense pines are even 3'et so near as to cast their lengthened shadows, at morning and evening, over the accursed area where so many noble men perished for want of shelter from the heat of the noonday sun, the chilling dews of evening, and the frequent rain. The shade temperature of this place sometimes i*ose to the height of 105°, even no° Fahrenheit. The sun \\M\||\l\l\ \^A^j^ V' \ ANDERSOXVILLE PRISON. 23 temperature within the stockade must have risen to I2cr" and upwards, for the height of the walls prevented the free circulation of the air. The heat of this region during the days of summer is unusually great. Its elevation above the tide level is only about three hundred feet ; and the hot blasts from the burning surface of the Gulf of Mexico, which is only about one hundred and fifty miles distant, sweep up over it north- ward, without being deviated or modified by ranges of mountains. The intervening country is unbroken, from distance to distance, by the undulation of the soil, and resembles more the level of a wide, green sea than the usual configurations of the solid earth. It bears the reputation of being unhealthy, and it is not strange ; for there are certain isolated local climates which are abso- lutely pestilential, as we observe in the detached mountain groups and table lands of India and Southern Europe. Its isothermal line passes through Tunis and Algiers, and the hyetal charts show it to be one of the most humid regions in America. Fifty-five inches of rain fall here annually, whilst Maine, with her constant fogs, receives but forty-two. and England but thirty-two. Was it possible for human life to endure these ex- tremes of heat, rendered still more positive by exposure to the damp and chilly dews of the nights of southern latitude ? It is a well-known fact, that neither men nor animals can labor or expose themselves with impunity to the rays of the noonday sun of tropical climes. Man, of all terrestrial animals, is the least supplied with nat- ural protectives. 24 MARTYRIA, OR Around this ill-fated spot were stretched a cordon of connected earthworks, which completely enveloped the palisades, and commanded, with seventeen guns, every nook and corner of the enclosure. The forts were well constructed, and provided against the chances of sudden and desperate assaults. The cannon were well mounted, and placed in barbette and embrasure. Lunettes and redoubts covered all the approaches to the two great gates. Several regiments of the rebel reserves constantly occupied the forts and trenches, and guarded closely every avenue. Escape was impossible. XVII. To preside over this assemblage, with its arranged, pre- meditated, and atrocious system, were selected men well known for their energy of purpose and their ferocity of soul, and who hoped, like the Parthian, that cruelty might seein to the eye of man a warlike spirit. Winder has already been summoned to his God, without affording to the tribunals of men the opportunity to judge of his jus- tification or his shame. The wretched Wirz, arraigned and convicted by the most overwhelming evidence, has since paid the severest jDenalty which the majesty of vio- lated law can exact on earth. The instincts of nature always demand a certain respect for the memory of the dead, no matter how the death may take place. But shall this shield for the executione' ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 25 obstruct justice, or reverence and admiration for the remembrance of the virtues of the nobler victims? Let us bring to light, and praise the heroism of noble men, even if we violate and break to pieces the sacred mauso- leums where a thousand criminals lie buried. XVIII. The dispositions of man depend greatly upon the asso- ciations of his early life. The youthful and pliant organ- ization is easily impressed by the natural scenes of birthplace and childhood, and the effect of the views of the savage mountain gorges, the dark and gloomy forests, or the distant landscape, smiling in the rays of the sun, and decorated with the most beautiful works of human industry, are felt hereafter in the labors and conceptions of manhood. Men sometimes are but the living reflec- tions of the savage scenes among which they have been reared, and seldom do we see them arise from that im- mense and world-wide mass of fallen humanity to cherish anew, to maintain the noble principles of this earthly life, and lead the willing world to the true worship of the Creator. Wirz was born among the glorious mountains of Swit- zerland, where the lofty and dazzling peaks of eternal snow, pointing upwards into the clear vault of heaven, impress the human mind with sublimity, or where the deeper glens sadden the heart and blast the aspiring imagination. It seems that the natural impressions made upon this man in this beautiful country were of an earthly and sor- 2 26 MARTYRIA, OR did character, for he has always exhibited, in his wander- ings in pursnit of fortune, the reckless and degraded soul of a mercenary. Seeking gain in the New World, he turned up in the Slave States when the revolt was determined upon, and without reluctance, offered his services to the frantic and savage horde. Although a Swigs and republican by birth and inheritance, he does not hesitate between liberty and despotism. The principles of political dogmas do not agitate him ; it is the desire for money, and an in- satiate thirst for blood, blasting the natural heart with cruel and remorseless passions, that led him blindly and swiftly to ruin. The fatal plunge taken, and there was no return. The compunctions of humanity passed over his seared and unfeeling conscience, with no more effect than when the waves surge over the huge rocks which form the bed of the deepest ocean. He was selected for the fatal position by the brutal Winder, who first observed him among the unfortunate prisoners of the first disastrous battle of the republic. What should recommend him, then, to the notice of this inhuman officer, can be easily conjectured by the sui- vivors of the prisons of that period. Cruelty then was pastime, it afterwards became a law. It was tJien that some of the chivalry, after the manner of the tribes of Abyssinia and Eastern Africa, made glorious trophies of the skulls and the bones of their antagonists who had fallen in battle. This man appeared at times kind and humane, and his voice had the accents of benevolence ; but when ex cited, natural sentiments recoiled with horror at th^ ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 37 depth and extent of his imprecations. This assumed gentleness of disposition is of but little weight among the examples of history. " I have often said," writes Montaigne, " that cow- ardice is the mother of cruelty, and by experience have observed that the spite and asperity of malicious and inhuman courage are accompanied with the mantle of feminine softness." The ensanguined Sylla wept over the recital of the miseries he himself had caused. That daily murderer, the tyrant of Pheres, forbade the play of tragedy, lest the citizens should weep over the misfortunes of Hecuba and Andromache. The beautiful eyes of the Roman maidens glistened with tears at the imaginary sufferings of the inanimate marbles of Niobe and Laocoon, yet how remorselessly they gave the signal of death to the defeated gladiator on the arena of the Colosseum ! The warm, generous, natural impulses of the heart soon become affected, impaired, and even reversed by brutal associations. Circumstances develop greatly the characters of men, and they sometimes rise to true greatness, or sink into baseness, according to the law of effect, of contact, and example. BOOK SECOND. " Plus in carcere splritus acquirit, quam caro amittit." Tertullian. " Eternal spirit of the chainless mind ! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty ! thou art, For there thy habitation is the heart — The heart which love of thee alone can bind : And when thy sons to fetters are consigned — To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom. And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind." Prisoner of Chillon. WITHIN the deadly shadows of this enormous palisade were assembled and confined together at one time during the hot months of 1S64, more than thirty-five thousand soldiers, of the various armies of the United States — more men than Alexander led across the Hellespont to the conquest of Asia ; more men than followed Napoleon in those glorious campaigns over the bright fields of Northern Italy, where every helmet caught some beam of glory. Here were men of all conditions, birth, and fortune — some of the best blood and sap of the republic. The strong-limbed lumbermen from the forests of Maine, the tall, gigantic men from the mountains of (28) : I SC Oh ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 29 Pennsylvania, the hunters of the great prairies of the West, — those men of wonderful courage and endurance, — the artisan from the workshop, the student from his books, the lawyer from the forum, the minister from the pulpit, the child of wealth, and the poor widow's only son, wei"e collected here in this field of tortui'e. They were men in the prime of life — young, vigorous, and active — when they surrendered themselves as pris- oners of war. And as prisoners, they were entitled to the care and treatment acknowledged by the general laws and usages of civilized nations, and expected even more from those who boasted of having revived the generosity and chivalric tone of the feudal ages. Besides justice to all men, we owe special grace and benignity to those who come into our power from the hazard of battle. However degraded the suppliant may be, there is always some commerce between them and us, some bond of mutual relation. Why these men did not receive that respect which true courage always accords to the vanquished brave, why they did not receive even that atom of compassion which be- iongs to the nature of man, and which is seen even among the lower animals, history, which \o\es to avenge the weak and oppressed, and which aflbrds to all men, to all nations, the opportanity for their justification, their ven- geance, their glory, will surely exhibit in burning charac- ters of horror and shame. There are men even now who would sanctify the acts of cruelty of t1ie rebellion over the very ashes of this the nation's sepulchre. There are men even now who would outrage virtue, and deify the crime. There are men living, like those of the past, 30 MARTYRIA, OR but not forgotten iron age, possessed of that remorseless fiuy, that implacable hatred, which nothing could arrest, nothing could disarm, and which could no more receive a sentiment of comjDassion than that sophistry which allowed outrage and death to the tender and guiltless child of Sejanus. "Ut homo hominem, non iratus, non timens, tantum spectatuni-- occiclat." II. The intention which directed the formation of this vast camp was Cruelty. The system which governed, or rather the want of system which neglected, each depart- ment, whether hospital or commissariat, meant Death. The evidence against the leaders of the Confederacy is not wanting, neither is it obscure. It is true that most of the witnesses have perished, or are fast passing prema- turely away ; but the chain of circumstantial evidence is so connected, so apparent, that, unless the faith of hu- manity changes, that voice, which Tacitus calls " the con- science of the human race," will, until the end of time-, overwhelm with withering scorn the memory of these men as the assassins of sedition, rather than the heroes and saints of a just revolution. We may search history in vain for a parallel in modern times. Civilization, in its known vicissitudes, cannot point out a spectacle so horrible. The massacre, in hot blood, of the Tartars of the Crimea by Potemkin, will not compare wath this slow, merciless, implacable process of murder by starvation, ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 3I and violation of those hygienic laws upon which the principle of life depends. The fusilades of that satur- nalia of blood, the French Revolution, which swept away whole generations, had the pomp of military executions, which threw a gleam of brilliancy over the scene, and gave momentary enthusiasm to the victims. Those great immolations of the Saracens and Persians by the Tartars were as rapid as the cimeters could flash. " The fury of ideas," says Lamartine, " is more implacable than the fury of men ; for men have heart, and oj^inion none. Systems are brutal forces, which bewail not even that which they crush." " See," said Timour to the learned men of Aleppo, "I am but half a man, and yet I have conquered Irak, Persia, and the Indies." " Render glory, therefore, to God," replied the Mufti of Aleppo, " and slay no one." " God is my witness," said, with apparent sincerity, the destroyer of so many millions of men, " that I put no one to death by a premeditated will ; no, I swear to you I kill no one from cruelty, but it is you who assassinate your own souls." The world has never seen such a display of courage and devotion as was exhibited by the intelligent masses of the freemen of the North, when the liberties of the great republic were menaced b}^ the fierce gestures of the slave faction and their misguided supporters. Men of all classes, forsaking home, kindred, and prop- erty, rushed to present a living barrier to the impetuous march of the enraged and misguided horde that pressed 32 MARTYRIA, OR on with almost resistless fury, and threatened to over- whelm and destroy the noblest fabric of the enlightened mind. At last the carnage of battle has ceased. Nature smiles again, and rapidly obliterates the marks of the ravages left upon her green fields, where the huge and desperate armies have swayed and struggled in deadly conflict. The emblems of civil liberty are again restored, the fasces replaced ; and it now becomes the country to arouse itself from the depths of apathy, and revive those sentiments of tenderness and gratitude which nature everywhere bestows upon the memory of those who upheld the cause of liberty, and fell in its defence. IV. To understand fully the determined character, the stead- fast loyalt}', of these brave and vmfortunate men, we must consider at length the details of this enclosure, with its hungry, emaciate, filthy mass of humanity, whence arose a stench of death so powerful as to be pei'ceived at the distance of a league — the burning sky, the array of in- struments of torture, the manifest design of cruelty. The suffering wretch had only to pronounce the magic words, " Allegiance to the Rebel cause," and his sufferings and misery were at an end. The huge gates flew open, and with grim smiles, the enfeebled and tottering apostate was welcorned as an accession to the southern ranks. But the republic was safe here, and the sacred fire of its altars burned steadily through all the horrors and noxious vapors of this hell on earth. AXDERSONVILLE PRISOX. 33 Strange to relate, that out of the seventeen thousand registered sick, there is record of only about tivcnty- Jive who accepted the offers to save their lives, and took the oath of the rebels. Is it not wonderful that this great number of men should thus, in silence, brave the horrors by which they were surrounded, and remain firm in their convictions of right and wrong? An entire army perished, rather than deny the country which gave them birth ! They would no more surrender their princi- ples, than their homes and altars, as ransoms for their lives. Has the world's history a joarallel to this devotion? "But these are deeds which should not pass away, And names that must not wither, though the earth Forgets her empires with a just decay." V. Heroism in the damp and noxious prisons, where the noble qualities of the mind are shaken and swayed by the sufferings of the body, is far different from that which is displayed upon the battle-field, amid the glit- tering and inspiring pomp of war. The men at Thermopylae fought in the shadows of the soul-inspiring mountains, and beheld, through the charm of distance, their homes and the beautiful val- leys they had sworn to defend. The Decii saw the shining swords of their enemies when they rushed into battle, and the dying nobly and the glory made all fear of death but of little weight. Here, instead of bright and glorious banners and the flash of arms, the long array of men eager for tla^ con- 2* 34 MARTYRIA, OR test, and the songs, the shouts of defiance, there was a vast ditch, crowded with Hving beings of scarce the human form, haggard and unnatural in appearance — a sea of red and fetid mud, trampled and defiled by the immense throng. Instead of the white tents and canopies of military encampments, there were the rag- ged blankets vainly stretched over upright sticks ; there were the holes in the earth, the burrows in the sand, like the villages of the rats of the great prairies of the West. They were more like the dens of the beasts of the desert than habitations for human beings. No Christian hand ever penetrated to their depths to aid the sick and suffering inmates, to nourish the hun- gry and console the dying, save one Romish priest ; and in spite of the horrors and dangers of the place, he was faithful to his trust. Noble man ! you have proved by these acts that humanity is not a mendacious idol, and that devotion to humanity is not a mere mat- ter of gain and self-aggrandizement. More than four thousand human beings perished in these excavations ! It seemed as though vengeance was prolonged be- yond death itself. " Where was thine ^gis, Pallas, that appalled Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way ? " VI. Life here was brief. The victims, as they entered the gate, were appalled at the horrors that were presented to ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 35 them in this living sepulchre. Natui"e seemed to have abandoned the struggle earl}', and the young men passed, with rapid pace, from youth — that youth so rich in its future — to manhood, from manhood to old age. Neither prudence nor philosophy could protect them from the grievous influences of the morbid conditions to which they were exposed. The delicate and noble faculties were blunted and destroyed. Some perished at once, almost as quickly as though struck by the lightning of heaven, whilst others lingered, according to the strength of the hidden resources, the reserved and superabundant powers of 3'outh. Among the few survivors of the present day we can learn of the fearful struggle between life and death, by the gray hairs, the impassive features, from which the smile of youth has fled forever, the feeble and tottering steps of the man who has prematurely arrived at his limit of earthly existence. The integrity and character exhibited by these men, in the midst of these tortures, is unsurpassed. It was the same morale that immortalized the armies of Italy and Moreau, that covered with splendor the heroes of Sparta and Rome, and proved incontestably the superiority of the volunteer over the mercenary regu- lar. The wretched men died in silence, or with the name of home or the loved ones on their lips, and adjuring their comrades to stand firm in defence of their fiith, their country, their God. " Aly treatment here is killing me, mother ; but I die cheerfully for my country." They died as the wounded French died at Jemappes, with the delirium and exaltation of patriotism, uttering at the last 36 MARTYRIA, OR moment some of the strains of the songs of freedom, and the names of country and liberty. " Thus the enthusiasm of the combat prolonged or reproduced itself, and sur- vived even in their agony." The sufferings of these men, wasting, putrefying, dying daily by scores, by hundreds, without touching the re- morseless hearts of the prison-keepers, recall to mind those monsters which history points out as rising now and then from out the wreck of social order. It was one of the results of Slavery, for Slavery weakens the natural horror of blood. Cruelty is naturally progressive, for it engenders the fear of a just revenge. New cruelties succeed, until ex- termination becomes the rule and ends the scene. " To hate whom we have injured is a propensity of the human mind," says Tacitus. VII. At the distance of about five hundred paces northwest- ward fi'om the stockade, in a little field which is almost overshadowed by the sui'rounding pines, appear a multi- tude of stakes standing upright in the earth, in long and regular lines. Upon every one of these fragments of boards figures have been carelessly scratched by an iron instrument ; and thev run up to the appalling number of almost thirteen thousand ! Each stick represents a dead man, — a hero, — ahd this multitude of branchless and leafless trunks reminds us rather of a blasted vineyard than of a ceme- tery arranged for the human dead. i rt a AXDERSONVILLE PRISON. 37 I have seen many of the rarest sculptures in civiUzed lands, where art has lavished and exhausted its' powers to awaken sympathy for the dead, but have met with none that moved my heart more impressively than the brief, vague inscriptions, the rude memorials of this silent and neglected field, where sleep an entire army of freemen, who preferred lingering death rather than alle- giance to a rebel and wicked faction. Beneath the red clods of this field, thickly as the leaves of autumn, are stretched side by side a number of men more numerous than all of the American soldiers who perished by disease and casualty of battle during the Mexican war — more than all of the British soldiers who were killed, or perished from their wounds, on the bloody fields of the Crimea, the desperate struggles at Waterloo, the four great battles in Spain, — TalaverA, Sala- manca, Albuera, Vittoria, — and also the sanguinary con- test at New Orleans. All these losses of the sons of the British empire do not build up a hecatomb of the human dead so high, so vast, so red, as this one single link of the great chain of wrong that stretched from Virginia to Texas. There is no battle-field on the face of the globe, known to the antiquaiy, where so many soldiers are interred in one group as are gathered together in the broad trenches of this neglected field among the pine forests of Georgia. What a gathering is this ! What a monument of the incarnation of political lust, of the reckless desperation, the implacability of the depraved human heart, when resolved upon cruelty ! The world does not ofler, among all of her extant memorials, a more terrible, a more im- pressive comment upon the ambition, the power, the glory of mankind. 38 MARTYRIA, OR VIII. Respect to the dead is an instinct of nature ; and to leave the remains of a fallen comrade upon the field, unhonored, is repugnant even to the red men of the for- est. How much more, then, does a civilized nation, of high degree, owe to the memory of its brave defenders ! Will it now forget the noble sacrifice of its sons amid the debasing influences of commerce and manufacture? Shall these sticks, which mark the nation's sacrifice, moulder into dust, and with their brief inscriptions be swept away by the winds of the world, and all traces of this heroism, this martyrdom, lost? Here is something required more than brief, hollow, human gratitude, and a sonorous, perishable epitaph. Whatever rises above the level of this plain to com- memorate for future ages the devotion of the men who sleep beneath, should be of lasting material, and as co- lossal as the gigantic proportions of the republic itself: or the field should be levelled and swept, and every dis- tinguishing sign blended and effaced, and the true altar of memorial erected in the hearts of all men who be- lieve and revere those eternal principles of love, justice, truth. Liberty has but one inscription to offer, and that is the noble lines which were traced on the dungeon wall in the blood of the noblest and purest of the Girondins : '•'•Potitis viorl quam fozdari " — Death rather than dishonor. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 39 Impartial history will give to the memoiy of these men a place among the records of useless murder. The law of parole was all-sufHcient to prevent their return to service, and their absence from the fields of campaign would have been of no material weight with the pi'olific North. But the intent of their captors was ci'uclty ; and they strove to reduce the numbers, and to intimidate the cour- age, of the Federal soldiers, by acts of savage barbarity, as the relentless Tartar hoped to terrify the Hindoos into the profession of Mohammedanism by sacrificing multi- tudes, and deluging whole countries in blood. To deny the criminality is, as Lamartine says of the massacres of September, "• to belie the right of feeling of the human race. It is to deny nature, which is the mo- rality of instinct. There is nothing in mankind greater than humanity. It is not more permissible for a go\crn- ment than for a man to commit murder. If a drop of blood stains the hand of a murderer, oceans of gore do not make innocent the Dantons. The magnitude of the crime does not transform it into virtue. Pyramids of dead bodies rise high, it is true, but not so high as the execration of mankind." BOOK THIRD. I. LET us now examine and consider, with impartial eye, the Stockade in detail — the locality, the hos- pital, the dietary, and, in fact, all that relates to the con- dition of life in this region ; reviewing at length .the laws which regulate the animal economy, and judging of cause and effect with that spirit which Bacon calls the ''^ pi'tidens quivstio." In selecting new grounds for the habitations of human families, whether in large or limited numbers, particu- lar care must always be observed, especially in warm climes, or where malarial influences are known to pre- vail. In the selection of places for the encampment of troops, the problem is still more difficult to treat, on account of the general dyscrasial condition of the soldier ; and oftentimes far more skill and prudence are required than in the choosing of a field for battle. How many a noble regiment have we seen impaired in its effective strength, and robbed of its glorious future, by the injudicious encampment, where vain and ignorant officers have sacrificed the health and morale of their men to please their fanciful ideas as to military etiquette — the form of shelter, the position, and the regularity of the prescribed lines of encampment ! (40) ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 4I In one of the last campaigns of Europe, when all the resources which modern wealth could afford were lav- ished with unsparing hand, there was a useless and pre- ventible loss of life, that recalled the most disastrous epidemics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. War is one of the natural laws for the demolition of the human race, and we see the spirit of destruction silently at work among friends as w^ell as foes. The supreme commands seem mysteriously to be placed in the hands of men who can cause the greatest devastation and sacri- fice of life ; who march their columns steadily to the deadly and murdei^ous assault when there is no occasion for it ; who encamp their troops in pestilential lowlands, when the healthy heights offer safer and better accommo- dations. "Nobilitas cum plebe peiit, lateque vagatur ensis." It is a melancholy fact, attested by the distinguished Marshal Saxe, that the military men of modern times are far less informed than the great generals of antiquity in the profound knowledge of public hygiene, and especially of that which relates to the economy of armies. We can admire, but hardly improve, the physical education im- posed upon the volunteers of Sparta and the legionaries of Rome ; and we have not surpassed their scientific, yet rude alimentation, by which they marched over immense distances with rapidity, and preserved their vigor and morale. From the extant documents of the ancients, from Xenophon or Vegetius, it is shown that their ac- 42 ■ MARTYRIA, OR quaiiitancc with whatever related to clothing, encamp- ment, food, the graduation of exercises, and the employ of forces, was of the highest character. The eflects of high and low lands, of good and bad water, on the diseases, energy, character, and intellect of man, have been sketched in a masterly manner by Hippocrates, The exposure of a few hours to malignant influences may impair the strength of an army to such a degree as to thwart the most skilful plans, the wisest combinations for vigorous campaigns, as, for instance, the Walcheren expedition of the English, the Neapolitan campaign of France, when her army was reduced from twenty-eight thousand to four thousand effective men, in one hundred hours, from an injudicious encampment at Bale, or when Orlotricst his army in Paros, or, still later, the disaster to the'splcndid division of the French army under Espinasse, in the fatal Dobrutscha. Armies have been lost, the fate of empires decided, by the violation or neglect of the simple rules of hygiene ; and all through the blood-stained pages of military, his- tory do we observe examples, from the time when Scipio lost the battle of Trebbia, or when Bajazet threw away his vast empire on the plains of Angora, down to Kunersdorf, when the impetuosity of Frederick the Great would not allow rest to his men or horses. III. In 1S63 the depots near Richmond became so crowded by the Federal prisoners that it became a matter of serious ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 43 consideration to the rebel authorities how to guard them, and attempt to feed them and the regiments guarding them. Then the idea was conceived of forming a great camp in the Gulf States, in a locality fruitful in grain, and in a position secure from raids from the Federal cavalry. Several locations were examined, but none pleased the selecting officer, until he had examined the site at Ander- sonville, to which he conceived a particular fancy. There were places in this section of the country where pure water coidd be obtained in abundance, but these spots were not so readily accessible, and wood was not so plen- ty and handy as at this. There was another consideration in the public view of its selection, that it was in the heart of the best corn-producing I'egion at that time in Georgia, and easy access could be had with the everglades of Flor- ida, where herds of half wild cattle roamed at will. It is not the belief of the writer, although there are many facts to warrant such an inference, that the selection was made with the view of deliberately destroying the prison- ers openly, and without reserve, for there were other local- ities far more pestilential than this ; and 3'ct, on the other hand, there were also many situations infinitely more salubrious and easy of access. There was in realitv not much reflection in the matter. The selectors thought only of the geographical and strategical position ; they cared not for its topography or its meteorology. They consulted only their convenience. The idea of the preservation of the lives of their unfortunate prisoners never troubled their minds, never disturbed their con- science. They would build a safe and secure jDcn, and if God, in his infinite and mysterious mercy, chose to A/I MARTYRIA, OR summon from earth any of the hapless wretches, they would not consider themselves as accountable for the premature deaths. Such was their reasoning. Such was their philosophy. Such was their conscience. The exult of Winder, when asserting that he was doing more for the Confederacy than a dozen regiments at the front, and the exclamation of Howell Cobb, when pointing to the ten thousand graves, " That is the way I would do for them," were perhaps the bravado of the southern slaveholder. Even at this late date we can find men, of some tenderness, in this vicinity, who have reasoned their weak minds into the idea and belief that no harm was ever done or in- tended ; and even if it can be proved, then the Federals only received what they deserved, and no more than their own sons in the prisons of the North endured. Such was the conscience of the Pharisee. Such was the remark made to the writer by a south- ern gentleman over the graves of the victims. IV. The topographical, features of the site are not par- ticularly objectionable for an encampment of a few hun- dred men. The northern and southern banks incline sufiiciently towards the stream in the centre to allow of proper drainage. The stream itself furnished water in sufficient volume to provide for the wants of ten thousand men, if it had been turned from its channel above the stock- ade, and introduced into the prison by simple sluices. But to this important item there was not the least at- tention paid. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 45 To preface the analysis of this stockade, &c., we may wisely review the remarks of the late Dr. Jackson, the chief medical officer of the British army. V. " A necessity occurs in war, on many occasions, which leaves no option of choice in occupying posts of an un- healthy character : but there is, unfortunately, an authority, derived from example and the sanction of great names, which directs the military officer, when under no mili- tary necessity, to fix his encampment on grovmds which are unhealthy in themselves, or which are exposed by position to the influence of noxious causes, which are carried from a distance. " Such advice proceeds from the desire to act on a presumption of knowledge, which cannot be ascertained, rather than to act by the experience of facts, which man is qualified to observe and verify. '' It is consonant with the experience of military peo- ple, in all ages and in all countries, that camp diseases most abound near the muddy banks of large rivers, near swamps, and ponds, and on grounds which have been recently stripped of their woods. The fact is pre- cise : but it has been set aside to make way for an opinion. " It was assumed, about half a century since, by a cele- brated army physician, that camp diseases originate from causes of putrefaction, and that putrefaction is connected radically with a stagnant condition of the air. As streams of air usually proceed along rivers, with more 46 MARTYRIA, OR certainty and force than in other places, and as there is evidently a more certain movement of air, that is, more winds, on open grounds than among woods and thickets, this sole consideration, without any regard to experience, influenced opinion, and gave currency to the destructive maxim, that the banks of rivers, open grounds, and exposed heights, are the most eligible sit- uations for the encampment of troops. They are the best ventilated : they must, if the theory be true, be the most healthy. The fact is the I'everse. But demon- strative as the fact may be, fashion has more influence than multiplied examples of fact, experimentally proved. " Encampments are still formed in the vicinity of swamps, or on grounds which are newly cleared of their woods, in obedience to theory, and contrary to fact. The savage, who acts by instinct, or who acts directly from the impressions of experience, has in this instance the advantage over the philosopher, who, rea- soning concerning causes he cannot know, and acting according to the result of his reasonings, errs and leads others astray by the authority of his name. "The savage feels, and acting by the impression of what he feels, instead of fixing his habitation on the exposed bank of large rivers, unsheltered heights, or grounds newly cleared of their woods, seeks the cover of tlic forests, even avoids the streams of air which proceed from rivers, from the surface of ponds, or from lands newly opened to the sun. The rule of the savage is a rule of experience, founded in truth, and applica- ble to the encampment of troops, even of civilized Europeans. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 47 " In accordance with this principle, it is ahiiost uniform- ly true, cceteris paribus, that diseases are more common, at least more violent, in broken, irregular, and hilly coun- tries, where the temperature is liable to sudden changes, and where blasts descend with fury from the mountains, than in large and extensive inclined plains, under the action of equal and gentle bi'eezes only. From this fact, it becomes an object of the first consideration, in choosing ground for encampments, to guard against the impression of strong winds, on their own account, inde- pendently of their proceeding from swamps, rivers, and noxious soils. "• In countries covered with woods, abundantly su^^plied with straw, and other materials applicable to the pur- pose of forming shelter, it is, upon the whole, better to raise huts and construct bovvers than to carry canvas. The individual is exercised by labor, and as his mind is employed in contriving and executing something for self-accommodation, he is furnished with a daily oppor- tunity of renewing the pleasure. The mode of hutting, here recommended, effectually precludes the evils arising from those contaminations of air in which contagion is generated — an evil which often arises in tents, and is carried about with an army in all its movements in the field." ***** The view of the ancients in regard to the encampment of troops may be understood from the counsel of Vege- tius : " Ne aridis et sine opacitate arborum campis, aut collibus ne sine tentoriis jestate milites commorentur." 48 MARTYRIA, OR VI. As we have remarked before, the site of the prison was covered with trees when its outhnes wci-e traced and surveyed by the rebel engineers. These trees, felled to the ground, were hewn, and matched so well on the in- ner line of the palisades as to give no glimpse of the outer world across the space of the dead line, which averiged nineteen feet in width, and which was defined by a frail wooden railing about three feet in height, from fifteen to twenty-five feet distant from the palisades. " ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. • 49 This line of stockade rose from fifteen to eighteen feet above the surface of the ground, while the outer line of logs, which was erected about sixty paces distant from the inner line, was formed of the rough trunks of pines, and projected twelve feet above the earth. The original stockade measured but ten hundred and ten feet in length, and seven hundred and eighty-three feet in width ; and within this space were jammed together, for several months, from twenty-two thousand to thirty-five thousand men, thus giving a superficial area to each man, when the prison contained thirty thousand prisoners, but seventeen square feet, after deducting the nineteen feet average for the dead line, and the quagmire, three hundred feet in width. This measurement would allow for thirty-five thousand men but fifteen square feet of area, or less than two square yards to each person, or more than twenty times the density of Liverpool. This was all the space that was aftbrded before the enlargement, and this reck- oning does not include roads or by-paths for communi- cation among the prisoners. Seventeen and a half square feet of earth are allowed for the coflin's length in the field of sepulchres. There were here to be seen twelve acres of living men, packed together like the immense shoals of fish in the ocean, but like nothing that has life on the earth, not even the ant- fields. The ratio of density was equivalent to more than sixteen hundred thousand people to the square mile. The densest portion of East London has the great number of one hundred and sixty thousand to the square mile. 3 ^O • MARTYRIA, OR VII. In the month of August the stockade was lengthened six hundred and ten feet, by what influence or from what cause it is unknown ; but nevertheless it was enlarged to the length of sixteen hundred and twenty feet, — thus making the entire area sixteen hundred and twenty by seven hundred and eighty-three feet. This enlargement was a salutary movement on a small scale, but it only prolonged the sufferings of the victims. The thirty thousand men had now twenty-two acres, minus the dead line and marsh, or thirty square feet per man, or three and a half square yards. There were actually, during this month, thirty-five thousand men within the prison, and some authorities give me as high as thirty-six thou- sand. This density is enormous, and cannot be tol- erated by animal life in any climate, in any latitude, of the world. There must be space for oi'ganic life to develop and maintain itself, otherwise it perishes. To give a correct idea of the crowded condition of this pen, we do not know where to turn for example. The great cities of civilized lands do not even approximate in their ratio of populations. The relation of density, in the three great divisions of London, give thirty-five, one hundred and nineteen, and one hundred and eighty square yards to each inhabitant. The densest portion of Liverpool, with its lofty and im- mense brick ranges of buildings, swarming with indus- trial life, gives more than eighty square feet to each person. The early Roman camps, which are a mangel to military men, and the closest known to military Eai'th uwks ,VV;r/// 7S7 fl. I I.U ft X 20 slieds Nc'iv Sbckade iHllt- TT.l p.G in . wide jSM/l sca/c PLAN or P/l/>O.V CnOLrNDS Mi'iisinr.f /,y Dr. HamUtiy J.H.BUrrORo's LITH BOSTON ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 5I science, gave to the ordinary legion three hundred and sixty-seven square feet of area to each man. The phms of Polybius give two hundred and thirty square feet to each soldier of the consular army of two legions, num- bering nearly eighteen thousand men, and the descriptions of Hyginus give similar ratios. The encampments of the United States infantry afford, in the most restricted portion (between stacks of arms and kitchens), two hundred and forty -four square feet per man, or seventeen hundred and thirty-one square feet per man for the whole camp. The space allowed by law for barracks alone is fifty- four square feet for each soldier, reckoned on the basis of a full complement of men. The rules of the rebel army concerning camps are the same as those of the regula- tions of tlie United States army. The United States prison at Elmira contained six thou- sand men, and extended over forty acres. The other prisons, at Chicago, Johnson's Island, Point Lookout, and Fort Delaware, were provided with spacious exercise grounds, and furnished with covered barracks, built of proper form, and fitted up with the required conveniences of life. Belle Isle, which held ten thousand prisoners, had but six acres, and no shelter, no conveniences whatever. Andersonville, which contained over thirty thousand prisoners, had in the stockade, before enlargement, but eighteen acres in all, and but twelve acres for the use of the prisoners, minvis the dead line and the marsh. The prison at Dartmoor, in England (which was a paradise in comparison with Andersonville), where our prisoners were held in captivity by the English during C3 MARTYRIA, OR the last war, furnished two hundred to three hundred square feet to every prisoner in the barracks, besides allowing spacious yards, where the prisoners were per- mitted to exercise daily. There were there seven large two-story stone buildings, each one hundred and eighty feet in length. Five thousand prisoners enclosed within twenty acres of land at Dartmoor, thirty thousand in twelve acres, or thirty-five thousand in twenty-two acres, at Andersonville. VIII. The timbers composing the stockade were of entire trunks of pines, massive and solid, and measuring from one to three feet in diameter. They were sunk into the earth for about five or six feet, and held in position at the top by long, slender pines, nailed on the outer side by large iron spikes. There were but two gates for this vast prison, and but two corresponding apertures in the outer palisade. These gates were constructed of massive tim- bers, and protected by a strong porch, occupying a base of about thirty feet square. These were always strongly guai'ded, to prevent the sudden rush of masses of men. At intervals of about one hundred feet, were erected detached and covered platforms, upon the outer side of the palisades, which, overlooking the summit of the wall, and the enclosure beyond, served as sentry boxes. The sentries, perched buzzard-like on the wall, could observe, from their high positions, at all times, the actions, the motions of the uncovered prisoners, and with their rifles shoot down the offending prisoner, whether he stood ANDERSONVII.LE PRISON. 53 u _4ll^iJ talking with his comrades, in the centre of the space, or whether he approached the sacred precincts of the dead line. Sometimes they threw down their unconsumed frag- ments of bread to the hungry men. Sometimes they were hurled with curses ; rarely were they thrown from feelings of compassion. Yet there were some kind- hearted men here, in the degrading position of the sentry box, who viewed the scene with affright, and who wept bitterly over the awful torture and sacrifice of life. The author, travelling on foot among the mountains and forests of Northern Georgia, after peace was declared, found these evidences of humane feeling among the letters preserved in the humble cabins of the poor whites. That unoffending men were shot down without warning, there is no doubt whatever ; that men, weary of torture, stag- ^4 MARTYRIA, OR gered to the dead line, and calmly, joyfully received the fatal shot, there is positive evidence. IX. The trees were all removed from the enclosure, and with the specific intent of cruelty, as was openly stated by the brutal builders. They should have no shade, it was said, and no shade had the wretched men but what was cast by the few ragged and rotten blankets and shel- ter tents that the prison examiners passed by as utterly worthless in their examination and search for articles of value, whether watches, bank notes, hats, shirts, and even shoes. There were men who, robbed at the outer gates, entei'ed the prison almost naked. This system of robbery was open and audacious, and it is said that the only pris- onei^s who escaped spoliation were those who were taken from Sherman when Atlanta fell, and when consternation prevailed at the prison in consequence. It is positively stated that it was sanctioned by Wirz and Winder. At all events, tvvo men, by the names of Hume and Duncan, robbed the prisoners systematically, and appropriated the packages sent to the prisoners, from the United States, to such an extent that few if any articles ever reached the poor men to whom the boxes of food and clothing were sent. These blankets and rags were vainly stretched over sticks, to form the semblance of a habitation, wherever the earth gave firm foothold, even along the borders of the pestilential marsh. Those who were destitute of even these shreds of cloth, dug with their hands holes in the ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 55 earth, after the example of wild beasts, or with the slimy water from the brook they built up, with handfuls of mud, little cabins over hollows scooped out from below the surface of the ground, and as rude as the clumps of earth, which that lowest degree of the human form Indian — inhabits. the Digger These may be seen at the present day, looking like the lodges of the beaver, or the mounds of the marmots of the pi-airies, and half concealed by those wild, useless, and noxious weeds which linger in, and cling to the footsteps of man, as he wanders in his migrations over the uncul- tivated lands of the globe. Sometimes the heavy rains washed away the roofs of mud, inundating the occupants beneath. Some of the 56 MARTYRIA, OR poor wretclies had not the strength to lift up the incum- bent mass of earth, and perished miserably in their dens. There are now in these demolished excavations the bones of some of our fellow-citizens, unknown and unhonored. The cry of distress was so constant that few heeded the smothered moan. The stumps of the fallen trees were grubbed up by the knives and fingers of the prisoners for firewood to warm themselves with, or to cook their scanty food ; even the roots were followed down deep into the earth, for the purpose of obtaining the means of warmth which were almost entirely denied them by the prison keepers. X. There is no excuse for this wanton exposure to the vicissitudes of the climate, for the forests adjoining were immense in their extent, and thousands of the suffering men offered, begged to go and obtain material to build sheds or huts to protect them from the inclemency of the weather. Neither parole was allowed for this purpose, nor real attempts made to obtain the building tools. To show the force of the argument that the rebels had not sufficient aid, and that it would have been dangerous to have paroled any of these prisoners, there is the fact that there were several large steam saw-mills in the vicinity, and they could have easily afforded, in few weeks, all the lumber required for the purpose of shelter. Was it recklessness, was it perversity, or was it malice aforethought, that withheld from the prisoners the means of shelter? The few sheds that were erected were not commenced until late in the term of its occupa- View op the manner in which the Dead were Interred. The bodies were laid in rows of one hundred to three hundred, and after the earth was thrown over them a stake was thrust down to mark the place of burial. This view is taken from a rebel photograph. — Page 57. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 57 tion, too late to render much service. They were merely roofs of boards, placed upon posts, at the distance of seven feet from the ground. There were neither sides nor partitions to these sheds, and they were not required during the hot months. Pity was not a virtue that was recognized here : the noble impulses of the heart were reversed, and the natural instincts perverted. The dead bodies of the thousands who perished within the stockade, without medical attendance, were dragged forth, without care, and thrown promiscuously into the common field-carts, which, with their carelessly heaped-up burdens, proceeded to the trenches, where the dead heroes were laid in long lines, side by side, two or three hun- dred in a trench, and then a stick was thrust into the ground, at the head of each man, to indicate the place of burial. For the care observed in the burial of the dead after the carts arrived at the cemetery, and the preserving of the records of the victims, and the place, we are in- debted to our own men, who were paroled especially for the purpose. The only solicitude observed by the rebels during or after interment of their victims, was shown by the civil engineer or surveyor of the town. He thought that so much animal matter should not go entirely to waste, and so commenced to plant grape vines over the mounds of the decomposing dead. To show the utter want of decency which ruled all things connected with the prison, it is stated by positive eye-witnesses that the same carts that transported the dead, went forth (without being cleansed of their reeking 3* eg MARTYRIA, OR and disgusting filth), to the shambles and the depots for the meat and corn for the living prisoners. An eminent statistician has stated that mortality is in direct ratio to the density of population, and that super- ficial area is as essential to health as cubic space. To the writer's mind, the overcrowding of the men, and their exposure to the variations of heat and cold, the in- fluence of moisture, and the foul emanations of the infected soil, were sufficient to cause great destruction of human life ; and when combined with the deficient dieta- ry, the imagination can hardly conceive of a better field for disease and death than the condition of this swarming pen. All the elements and combinations of physical de- structiveness were here in full play. " Losses by battle," says Sir Charles Napiei", " sink to nothing, compared with those inflicted by improperly constructed barracks, and the jamming of soldiers — no other word is sufficiently expres- sive," " Diseases," states the French Inspector Baudens, " slay more men than steel or powder, and it is often easy to prevent them by a few simple hygienic precautions." In all campaigns where the care of the soldier is left to the military man, — .who is educated for destruction, and has not been taught in the economy of life, — we see in the mortuary and non-efficient lists a disgraceful and cul- pable array of thoughtless routine, vulgar prejudices, and systems. In our Military Academies the elements and the means of destruction are taught, but not a law un- folded that relates to the principles of health, strength, ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 59 and life. To alleviate the burden of the military list by- sanitary measures is an idea unheard of, or at least un- noticed. " For these works," writes Chadwick, in his papers on " Economy," " a special training is needed for our military engineers, whose present peculiar training is only for old works for war, and for those imperfectly, — works for the maintenance of the health of an army being necessary means to the maintenance of its mili- tary strength. " The one-sided character of the common training of our military engineers was displayed in the Crimea, in the proved need of a sanitary commission to give in- struction for the selection and the practical drainage of proper sites for healthy encampments, for the choice col- lection and the proper distribution of wholesome water, for the construction of wholesome huts, and the proper shelter and treatment of horses as well as men." XII. In this enclosure, during a period of twelve months, from five thousand to thirty-six thousand human beings ate, slept, and drank, whilst the piles of filth were con- stantly accumulating, and the germs of infection silently at work. There was no regularity in the arrangement of the interior. Men collected in groups in the day time, and they lay in rows, like swine, at night. The stream, which with little ingenuity could have been turned to a blessing for the prison, was allowed to be obstructed by the heaps of grime ; and enlarging its area, it assisted in forming the extensive quagmires, 6o MARTYRIA, OR which were several acres in extent. So little care was observed for the comfort or the health of the prisoners, that all the washings of the bakery, all the filth of the out-houses of the workmen, were allowed to pass down and mingle with the current of the stream only thirty feet above the point of entrance into the stockade. The trav- eller can observe to-day that this malicious act of refined cruelty, or fatal error in hygiene, was really perpetrated. Besides this, the drains of the camp and the town above emptied themselves into this stream which sup- plied the prison with water. XIII. The bakery was located on the west side of the stock- ade, about equidistant from either line of palisade. It was of rough boards, and but one story in height. Its interior disclosed two rooms, one of which communicated with the two ovens, which were built of common brick. These two ovens — fourteen feet in length by seven feet in width, and with one kneading-trough fifteen feet long, and less than three feet in width — supplied the prisoners with all the bread they obtained ; and so far the writer has not learned that there was any other source of supply. These same ovens, kept red hot, and worked night and day, to the fullest capacity, by the commissary bakers of the United States service, could not have produced but eight thousand rations of white bread, and but nine thousand six hundred rations of corn bread. This is the extreme limit ; and regarded by the workmen, who have made the calculations, as almost an impossibility. The 47 p. .'> />/ . /^//. Moiuulx of earfJi i/yc iiJikiunt'ii 1^' r///;ir ^ Pun Hack Kiiiuii/iiiij fnmiih PLAN OF PTUSON BAl^FCf f ; a ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 6i ordinary capacity of this establishment was probably about four or five thousand rations of corn bread. This quantity, divided daily among thirty thousand men, would give but a small morsel to each one ; and this gives the appearance of truth to the statement, that from two to six ounces of corn bread were furnished as rations to the prisoners. Ask a survivor of this prison treatment, if perchance you can find one, how he preserved his life, and he will tell you, " By eating the rations of the dying." Ten thousand men were sick or dying in this enclosure at one time. After the carts, with their scanty burdens of food, had passed into the prison, and distributed their contents, ten or fifteen thousand of the haggard and starving men might be seen collected together in the central portion of the prison trading with each other. Some of the poor 62 MARTYRIA, OR wretches would be offering a handful of peas for a knot of wood no larger than the human fist, in order that they might cook their allowance ; others offering, in barter, their remnants of clothing — a cap, or a shoe, or any- thing they possessed — for a morsel of food. The little knots of wood above mentioned had a stan- dard value of fifty cents ; yet there were immense forests all around, and within sight on every side. XIV. There appears to have been but one kitchen for this vast assemblage, and that strangely situated — far in rear of the outer palisade, away from water-course or sj^ring. The soil to-day does not present traces of a much-trav- elled road from its doorway to the main gate, distant about one third of a mile by the route taken. Consider the enormous weight of provisions which should have passed over this road when the prison contained more than twenty thousand men. This kitchen was a plain one-story shed, built of rough boards, one hundred feet in length, and less than fifty feet in width. It contained in the interior two medium-sized ranges, and four boilers of fifty gallons' capacity each. The capacity indicated does not by far equal the cooking apparatus which is required and furnished to the Lincoln and Harewood Hospitals, of Washington, for twelve hundred men. It is the opinion of the writer, who is familiar with the amount of cooking apparatus required by large hospitals and camps, that this kitchen, with its implements, could ANDERSONVILLE PRISOX. 63 not, in the course of twenty-four hours, by constant re- lays of industrious workmen, have furnished cooked rations to more than five thousand men. There may have been other arrangements for cooking in the open air ; but there are no longer any traces of such opera- tions, nor has the writer any evidence that such was the case. ■(- .i jM* 1 y^^^^^ " *'-'^' XT. Upon the banks of the same stream, and near the rail- road station, was erected the stockade which was in- tended for the confinement of the officers ; but it was abandoned, after few weeks' occupation, partly from mo- tives of prudence and in fear of revolt in keeping officers near so great a number of the rank and file of the army, and partly from the unfortunate selection of the locality. The officers were removed to Macon, and were confined there in the cotton sheds during a long period. This 64 MARTYRIA, OR pen, known as the officers' stockade, was built of pine- tree palisades, fifteen feet high, and measured one hun- dred and ninety-five feet in length by one hundred and eight feet in width, and was provided with a shed in the interior forty-five feet long by twenty-seven feet wide, and also with a walk, suspended on the outside of the palisade, for the use of the sentries. The location and the provisions of this stockade were worse and more dangerous than even the main prison. XVI. "^^- On the path\vay to the graveyard, not far from the prison, and in open sight, was built the hut where the bloodhounds were kept, always ready to track and pur- ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 65 sue the fugitives, who were so fortunate as to escape by evading the vigilance of the guards, or by the slow and dangerous process of tunnelling beneath the palisades.^ The system of pursuit was so perfect, the dogs so numerous and well trained, that it was very rarely that any one escaped, and then it was only by the kind inter- vention of the black man. There were but nine bloodhounds kept here, but there were more than fifty dogs, kept in relays, along the route of escape, extending from the town to the city of Macon, fifty miles distant. The names of these inhuman wretches, who kept and hunted with these hounds, are known to the writer, the places of their residence, the number of their animals, and the price they received for each hap- less victim overpowered by their dogs. These packs of hounds were generally accompanied by dogs of fierce and determined courage, to seize and hold the object pur- sued until the hunters arrived. The ordinary bloodhound of these regions is cowardly from degeneration, and dare not face the look, nor disregard the voice of man, and until the catch-dogs arrive and dash in, and lead the way, they bay and show their teeth from safe distances ; but the victim once disabled, they tear and rend the living limbs without reluctance. The bloodhound is said, when in a state of tranquillity, to be the most affectionate of all the canine race, but when once excited, he no longer recognizes the blood of his master from that of the stranger. That many men were pursued, and caught, and paid for by the rebel authorities, at the price of ' thirty dollars a head, there is abundant proof; that men were disabled, and torn wantonly by the hounds, and X 66 MARTYR lA, OR afterwards died of their wounds, the writer has positive proof. That Federal soldiers were overpowered and destroyed in the forests by the dogs, and their brutal owners, there is evidence. It did not shock the civil communities of the vSouth to hear of the use of the bloodhounds to pursue and maim men of their own race and nation, for in every locality, for a long period past, it had been the custom to rear and train dogs to catch the hapless slave who had incurred the rage of his master, and vainly sought to escape from his fury in the obscure recesses of the tangled forests. Usage, by long repetition, had blunted the natural sym- pathies, so that hate readily excused the difference in class and color. XVII. The bloodhounds here used appear to have been of a degenerate breed, and to have lacked the great strength, the invincible determination, which the true race pos- sesses. The bloodhounds introduced into Cuba, to exter- minate the Indians, were ferocious and powerful animals. From these the present stock in Southern Georgia were probably descended, and during three centuries of change, have gradually lost their nobler qualities, but have pre- served the form. The true bloodhound is taller than the fox-hound, and stronger in his make. His color is of a reddish brown, shaded here and there with darker tints. His muzzle and jaws wide and strong, and the frame firmly knit. His scenting power is extraordinary, and from time immemorial his services have been made ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 6"] use of in tracking wounded animals or fugitives from justice. " Soon the sagacious brute, his curling tail Flourished in air, low bending, plies around His busy nose, the steaming vapor snuffs Inquisitive, nor leaves one turf untried, Till, conscious of the recent stains, his heart Beats quick ; his snuffing nose, his active tail Attest his joy : then with deep, opening mouth, That makes the welkin tremble, he proclaims Th' audacious felon : foot by foot he marks His winding way, while all the listening crowd Applaud his reasonings, o'er the watery ford. Dry sandy heaths, and stony, barren hills ; O'er beaten paths, with men and beasts disdained. Unerring he pursues, till at the cot Arrived, and seizing by his guilty throat The caitiff vile, redeems the captive prey." BOOK FOURTH ANIMALS eat that they may live. Man eats, not only that he may live, but that he may gather strength, and fulfil his high destiny on earth. When God gave form and animation to the dust of the earth, and man appeared, he did not intend that the sustenance of life should be left to chance or to careless selection. This intent of the Creator is revealed in the study of the organic world, w^here wonderful varieties and productions are offered to the appetite of man, in order that the " force of the universe may glow within his veins," and that the faculties of his mind may so expand that he may behold and comprehend the works and designs of his Maker. Food, next to the purity of the air, determines the degree of the physical well-being ; it gives the beauty of contour to the form ; it builds up the marvellous structure of the brain ; the ravishing smile of the features, the sublimity of thought, depend alike in great measure upon the benign influence of food. It not only gives to nations their characteristics of strength and solidity, but it bestows upon society more of grace and refinement than philosophy is willing to allow. (68) ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 69 The question of alimentation with the civil laborer, exposed to healthy influences of properly distributed air and sunlight, and to the regular motions of a well- conducted life, is easy of solution to the inquiring mind. But when it relates to the soldier, subjected to strange and unhealthy influences, the explanations involve much study, care, and research. In the natural condition of man it is easy to determine how much food will support life and sustain physical exertion. The dietaries of the public institutions of diftei'ent countries, the experiments of physiologists, and the records of history give the data with sufficient clear- ness. As to the amount of food required daily to repair the waste and wants of the human organism, much depends upon the degree of muscular exertion and nervous excitation, as well as the temperature of the season. In the alimentation of armies scientific princi- ples must not be disregarded. Food must be considered as force ; it must contain, not only material, but power. The strength of men, says Baron Liebig, is in direct ratio to the plastic matter in their food. In determining the absolute quantities of nutrient sub- stances required by the system, Lehman observes that there are three magnitudes especially to be considered. The first is the quantity requisite to prevent the animal from sinking by starvation. The second is that which aflbrds the right supply of nourishment for the perfect accomplishment of the functions, and the last is that which indicates the amount of nutrient matter which yo MARTYRIA, OR may, under the most favorable circumstances, be sub- jected to metamorphosis in the blood. No one of the four classes, the carbohydrates, the fats, the albuminous matters, and the salts, will answer the purpose alone, but all must be employed together, and this invariable proportion according to the local, and, therefore, variable waste of the system. These considerations indicate how complicated the problem is. III. Life is an action ; the principle of life, whatever may be its nature, is eminently and visibly a principle of excitation, of impulsion, a motive power. " It is taking a false idea of life," says Cuvier, " to consider it as a simple link which binds the elements of the living body together, since, on the contrary, it is a power which moves and sustains them unceasingly." These elements do not for an instant preserve the same relation and connection ; or, in other words, the living body does not for an instant keep the same state and composition. " This law," adds Flourens, " does not aflect alone the muscles, viscera, and tissues, but there is a continual mutation of all the parts composing the bone." These views have been substantiated by the extended experiments of Chossat, of Von Bibra, and a host of experimentalists, showing how positive and decided are the changes in the material composition of the body, and especially the constitution of even the bone from the influence of food. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 71 " It is from the blood that life derives the principles which maintain and repair it. The more vigorous, plastic, and rich in nutritive material, so much the more life increases and manifests itself, so much the quicker the reparatory processes restore a lesion to its natural condition. " The blood owes its vivifying properties to the pres- ence of oxygen, which it receives by the respiratory organs ; but that nourishing fluid, to complete its physio- logical role^ needs to receive combustible and organizable material." These Protean principles of the healthy blood form one fifth of its weight. Oxygen unites with the carbon of the food in the blood of animals ; carbonic acid is formed and heat evolved. When the atmosphere is vitiated, the oxygenating pro- cesses are diminished in ratio to the vitiation. The experiments of Seguin, Crawford, and De la Roche show that in a vitiated and highly heated atmosphere the blood is not thoroughly decarbonized, thereby deranging the nervous system, and affecting the animal functions as well as the mental faculties. The blood is subject to in- cessant variations. The more feeble the respiration the less rich it is. Man absorbs twenty to thirty quarts of oxygen every hour. The pure air is a real food, and is as necessary for the development and repair of the physi- cal force as the more solid forms of matter. Nine ounces of cai-bon are consumed every day, and the phenomenon of the expired carbonic acid has its maxima and minima 72 MARTYRIA, OR during the day, like the regular variations of the barom- eter or the tides of the ocean. V. The great nervous prostration and the lack of energy which were observed among the prisoners, were not due entirely to climate. The activity of the nervous mechan- ism depends greatly upon the supply and purity of the arterial blood. It is the same with the nerve fibres as with the nerve centres, but in less degree. We obsen^e that the exaltation and depression of the nervous power are within the control of man by the administration of certain drugs, or respiration of appropriate gases. The accumulation of bile or urea in the blood diminishes the nerve energy. Many physiologists enumerate moral de- pressions among the principal causes of epidemics ; and this opinion is not strange when we consider how com- pletely the system is under control of the nervous influ- ence, and how much the supply of oxygen and blood to the organs and tissues depend upon the nervous power ; and how much, moreover, the integrity of the nervous system depends upon the purity of the blood. In the process of stai'vation, during the struggle for life, the hidden forces in reserve — the superabundant muscle, fat, tissues, even the brain-substance — are grad- ually absorbed. The volume of blood may remain the same, but the vivifying particles which circulate in the vital stream are rapidly consumed by the wants of the wasting economy, and disappear. And when these hematic srlobules are lessened td a certain limit below the ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 73 normal proportion death ensues. Vierodt has discovered that the limit of this singular law is 52 per 1000 for the dog, and about 60 per 1000 for some other species of the mammalia. The physiologists have shown how the vivi- fying principles acquire vigor through the blood discs, and how these, when absorbing pure oxygen through the pulmonary circulation, contribute to the development of muscular fibre and the nervous material. Mammals and birds, when deprived of food, die in ten to twenty days, losing from one thii^d to one half of their weight. In determining the nutritive value of aliments by the study of their chemical composition, we cannot adhere strictly to the results furnished by analysis. For, says Baron Liebig, we cannot reckon upon results In the human stomach with the same regularity as we would in the alembics of our laboratories. Physiologists divide alimentary substances into two classes : the nitrogenous, which, according to Dumas, supply the demands of assimilation, and the non-nitro- genous, which are called by Liebig respiratories, from furnishing the products consumed by respiration. Neither the one nor the other will alone support life indefinitely, and when one or the other decreases below well-defined limits, health declines, and finally life becomes extinct from inanition. Milne Edwards gives, as the mean amount of these two classes, required for all climates, not less than three hundred and fifteen grains of nitrogen and thirty-three 4 74 MARTYRIA, OR hundred and fifty grains of carbon in the twenty-four hours. These views are adopted by most physiologists ; yet the analyses of Schlossberger and Kemp indicate that the idea of estimating the value of food by the quantity of nitrogen it contains is a fallacious one. The beautiful experiments of Bernard and the modern physiologists have vinfolded many of the laws that i-egulate digestion and assimilation. Yet the human researches in the great arcana of nature are extremely limited, in comparison with the vast range of physical phenomena, and every day we are reminded of the re- marks of Boerhaave to his students : " Let all these heroes of science meet together ; let them take bread and wine, the food which forms the blood of man, and by assimila- tion contributes to the growth of the body ; let them try b}' all their art, and assuredly they will not be able from these materials to produce a single drop of blood, — so much is the most common act of nature beyond the utmost efforts of the most extended science." The composition of the typical food of nature is revealed to us in the analysis of human milk. VII. The need of varied food is apparent to the casual observer, and it is well proven in the immortal work of Cabanis. " The experience of civilized life has shown," says Professor Horsford, in his admirable pamphlet on the marching ration of armies, " that the human organ- ism requires, to maintain it in health, both organic and inorganic food. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 75 " Of the organic, it needs nitrogenous food for the sup- port of the vital tissues for work ; and saccharine, or oleaginous food, for warmth. Of the inorganic, it needs phosphates for the bones, brain, muscles, and blood ; and salt for its influence on the circulation and the secretions, and for various purposes where soda is required for a base ; and doubtless both phosphates and salt for many offices as yet imperfectly understood. ' A man may be starved by depriving hint of phosphates and salt, just as effectively as by depriving him of albumen or oil.' (Dalton's Physiology.) " The salts of potassa, magnesia, and iron, of manga- nese, silica, and fluorine, are always present, and perform services of greater or less obvious moment in the animal economy. These organic and inorganic substances are essential, but they are not all that are needed. Man, especially when compelled to exhausting labor, requires beverages and condiments. He wants coffee, or tea, or cocoa ; or, in the absence of these, he may feel a craving for wine or spirits. He wants salt, pepper, and vinegar. To preserve a sound body, then, there are required organic and inorganic food, beverages, and condiments." " A mixed food," says another writer, " which varies from time to time, seems to be essential ; and there can be no doubt that the changes which physicians have recognized in the nature of the predominating diseases, from century to century, are connected with changes which have taken place in the nature of the diet. Ex- cess of oil, albumen, and starch produce liability to ar- thritic, bilious, and rheumatic affections ; a deficiency of oleaginous materials, scrofula, &c." 76 MARTYRIA, OR VIII. In attempting to form a proper estimate of the alleged ration furnished by the rebels to their prisoners at Ander- sonville, we will endeavor to arrive at just conclusions by comparing the known quantities with the dietaries of long-established hospitals, prisons, and the ration of armies of different periods of history. The effects of food upon the civil prisoners, both of the long and short term, have been carefully studied by Christison, Liebig, Barral, and Edwards ; and it is con- clusively shown by their statistics of the prisons of Eu- rope how much food will keep the prisoners in athletic condition when exposed to healthy influences. The quantity of food required depends upon the wants of the system and the quality of food consumed. Some articles are far more nutritious than others, and are far less bulky ; for instance, the rice eaters of China, the potato and milk consuiners of Ireland, eat enormously, compared with the beef-eating people. But rarely will a less quantity than seventeen ounces suffice for the animal economy, and not then, even, unless it is the concentrated essences and principles of carefully selected grains, and healthy meat from cattle killed in their native pastures, like the scientific ration correctly proposed by Professor Horsford. This ration is intended to enable armies to change their base with intervals of more than a month, and to assist raiding parties to per- form long journeys without relying for subsistence on the doubtful and difficult forage along the i^oute, or on the distant depots at the point of departure. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 77 A handful of the ripe, golden grains, roasted and mixed with a little sugar, with a few ounces of beef dried from the meat of healthy cattle killed instantly, will sustain the power of life wonderfully. This is shown by the mountaineers of the Cordilleras, of the Andes, and the Rocky Mountains. It was substantially the same ration that enabled the Romans to traverse countries far remote from their main depots of supplies, and the Greeks to advance across, with safety, the immense arid deserts of Asia. Any of our splendidly equipped and fed armies of modern times would perish in a few days along the route where Xeno- phon and his immortal ten thousand passed with safety, and without much loss. IX. The mode of rationing the Roman armies, and the manner in which the supplies were obtained and pre- served, is well shown in the extant writings of those times. Besides the allowance of wheat daily, — one to two pounds, — the Roman soldiers often received a ration of pork, mutton, legumes, cheese, oil, salt, wine, and vin- egar. With the grain, a porridge-pot, a spit, the casque for a cup, and with vinegar to mix with their water, — which formed the i-egulation drink posea, or acetum, — they marched rapidly, and retained their extraordinary vigor in the midst of pestilential regions. Every soldier carried his own food for a given length of time, which was from eight to twenty-eight days. " Cibo cum stw." Hence Josephus wrote, the Roman soldier is laden like a '^8 MARTYRIA, OR mule. This food was always of the best quality ; and the wheat was always carefully selected by a commission appointed for the purpose, as we may learn from the in- scription on the column of Trajan. This wheat was not always eaten raw ; but was oftener roasted, and crushed upon a stone. " Frugesque receptas Et torrero parant flammis et frugere saxo." With all of these arrangements and movements, there was method even as to the time of taking food. The soldier ate twice a day, and at appointed hours — at the sixth hour, " Prandium ; " and at the tenth hour, " Ves- perna." The I'equirements of the system differ greatly, accord- ing to the degree of heat, the purity of the air, and the degree of physical exercise. What suffices at the equa- tor would be but a morsel at the pole. What sustains the quiet student would starve the active athlete. W^hen Volney spoke in surprise of the few ounces required to sustain the Bedouin, he forgot the purity of the air of the desert, as well as the indolent life of the Arab. When we offer as example the frugal diet of Cornaro, which was twelve ounces of solid food, with fourteen ounces of wine, daily, we must remember that the cele- brated man lived a life of moderation, avoided bad air, and guarded against the extremes of heat and cold. The data of Frerichs, the obsei-vations of Sir John Sin- ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. ^9 clair, and the determinations of Professor Horsford, show that eighteen ounces of properly selected food may sus- tain life ; and they also show that the nutrient substances must be of known value. xr. In forming our ideas as to the required amount of food necessary to healthy vigor, we will not attempt to analyze the magnitudes of Lehman, nor accept the statement of Chossat, that the animal body loses daily about one twenty-fourth of its weight by the metamorphosis of tissue ; but will again examine the diet tables of the prisons, hospitals, and armies of Eui'ope, leaving the reader to form his own conclusions. The distinguished physiologist, Milne Edwards, main- tains that the food must contain three hundred and fifteen grains of nitrogen and thi'ee thousand three hundred and fifty grains of carbon, otherwise the animal economy loses force, and gradually deteriorates. The data of Frerichs give the same views, and they accord with the observa- tions of the ten years' study of tlie regimens of the pris- ons of Scotland. Dumas, in his calculations of the ration of the French army, gives as its equivalent three hun- dred and thirty-five grains of nitrogen and four thousand nine hundred and fifty grains of carbon. In the prisons and hospitals of England, Scotland, France, and Germany, the dietaries furnish from seven- teen to twenty-eight ounces of nitrogenous and carbona- ceous food. For a time, the solid ration of the prisons of Scotland 8o MARTYRIA, OR was reduced to seventeen ounces, but the prisoners lost weight. In the pubhc institutions of England we find the total quantity of solid food to be as follows : The British soldier receives in home service 45 ounces ; the seaman of the Royal navy 44 ounces ; convicts 54 ounces ; male pauper 29 ounces; male lunatic 31 ounces. The full diet of the hospitals of London furnish from 35 to 31 ounces of solid food, besides from one to five pints of beer daily. The Russian soldier has about 50 ounces ; the Turkish more than 40 ounces ; the French nearly 50 ounces ; the Hessian 33 ounces ; the Yorkshire laborer 50 ovmces ; United States navy 50 ounces ; and the sol- dier of the United States army about 50 ounces, of solid food. XII. The food allowed to the prisoners at Andersonville, according to the statements of the prisoners and other . witnesses, was from two to four ounces of bacon, and from four to twelve ounces of corn bread daily ; some- times a half pint to a pint of bean, pea, or sweet potato soup, of doubtful value. Vegetables were unknown. Thus giving a total weight of solid food, per diem, of six to sixteen ounces of solid food. The amount was not constant : some days the prisoners were entirely without food, as was the case at Belle Isle and Salisbury. Neither was the deficiency aftei-wards made good. The amount given was oftener less than ten ounces than more. The contrast furnished by the dietaries of our own mil- itary prisons, of those of the British hulks (so much cursed during the last war), or by the food given by the ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 51 Algerine pirates to their prisoners and slaves, gives rise to terrible convictions as to the regard the rebel authori- ties placed upon the lives of their prisoners. The United States allowed to the rebel prisoners held by them thirty- eight ounces of solid food at first ; but afterwards, in June, 1S64, they reduced the ration to thirty-four and a half ounces per day. The range of articles composing the ration was the same as with our ovv^n ti'oops, the excep- tion being in the weight in bread. In the Dartmoor prison in England, where our men were confined by the English, when taken prisoners during the last war, and of which so much cruelty has been alleged, the authori- ties allowed to the prisoners for the first five days in the week 34 ounces of coarse brown bread, 8 ounces of beef, 4 ounces of barley, ^ ounce of salt, ^ ounce of onions, and 1 6 ounces of turnips daily (or more than 50 ounces of solid food) ; and for the remaining two days the usual allowance of bread was given v^nth 16 ounces of pickled fish. The daily allowance to our men, at the Melville Island prison, at Halifax, during the last war, was 16 ounces of bread, 16 ounces of beef, and one gill of peas ; the American agent furnishing coffee, sugar, potatoes, and tobacco. The allowance on the noted Medway hulks was 8 ounces of beef, 24 ounces of bread, and one gill of barley, daily, for five days; and 16 ounces of codfish, 16 ounces potatoes, or 16 ounces of smoked herring, the remaining two days of the week. Furthermore, in addi- tion to these generous allowances of the British joeople, it can be said that the quality of the food was almost always excellent. The writer, with one exception, knows of no dietary to 4* Sz MARTYRIA, OR compare with that adopted, or made use of without the formality of adoption, by the rebel authorities in the treat- ment of their prisoners. This exception is found in ancient history, which Plu- tarch has handed down to us. The Athenians, captured at the siege of Syracuse, were placed in the stone quar- ries of Ortygia, and fed upon one pint of barley and half a pint of water daily. Most of them perished from this treatment. XIII. The corn bread furnished was made, according to the evidence, from corn and the cob, ground up together, and sometimes mixed with what is called in the south cow peas. It varied from four to twelve ounces in weight daily, generally from four to eight ounces. A pound (of sixteen ounces) of corn bread contains, according to chem- ical analysis, two thousand eight hundred grains of car- bon and one hundred and twenty-one grains of nitrogen, and therefore the highest quantity of corn bread furnished, say twelve ounces, afforded but two thousand one hun- dred grains of carbon and ninety grains of nitrogen, leav- ing a deficiency, according to the physiologists, of more than twelve hundred grains of carbon and two hundred grains of nitrogen, to be supplied by the two or four ounces of doubtful bacon. • That the bacon could not furnish this deficiency must be apparent to the scientific observer. The quantity of bread alone, required to furnish the desired amount of carbon and nitrogen, would have been over three pounds daily, which quantity the prisoners did not have. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 83 Milne Edwards, after treating at length the subject of alimentation, and offering many examples, arrives at the conclusion that the mean quantity of bread and meat required to sustain the life of man, consists of sixteen ounces of bread and thirteen ounces of beef daily. This conclusion is sustained by most of the experimentalists, and if lesser quantities ai'e used, they must be of choice selections. A small loaf of bread made of flour, ground from ripe, healthy wheat, will accomplish more for nutri- tion than two or three larger loaves, baked of damaged and unripe grain ; and likewise it is with meat : half a pound of beef from cattle killed instantly in their native pastures, when the flesh retains all its natural juices and sweetness, is worth more for the support of the system than two or three pounds of beef from animals that have been fasted and terrified, and have thereby lost, in a very great measui'e, their nutritious qualities. The flesh of mammalia undergoes a great change in its nutritive qualities by reason of fasting, disturbance of sleep, and long-continued suffering, resulting in its becom- ing not only worthless, but deleterious. XIV. Vegetable substances alone will not sustain life for a great length of time in every climate, but there is a vast difference betw'een the wants of inan at the equator and his necessities at the pole. Nature requires for the working of her plans materials of diverse natures : neither the oil, nor starch, nor sugar, will sustain life alone. Chemical analysis and physiologi- 84 MARTYRIA, OR cal histoiy point out to us how positive is the law which fixes the component parts of grains and plants, and how imperative the necessity of adjusting in alimentation these forms of nutritive matter, which spring up on every side in profusion, and offer endless variety to the wants of man. There must be harmony of certain principles ; there must be union of starch, of gluten, and fat, to complete the process of digestion and assimilation. To feed a patient upon arrow-root, tapioca, or sago, and the like, is to consign him to certain death. Instinct impels us some- times to make use of articles which our habits have thrown aside. XV. It appears from the reasoning of Baron Liebig, that when we replace the flesh and bread of ordinary diet by juicy vegetables and fruits, the blood is beyond all doubt altered in its chemical character, the alkaline carbonates being substituted for the phosphoric acid and alkaline phosphates, which are supposed to exert a disturbing in- fluence in so many diseases, especially typhoid and inflam- matory affections. The gluten of grain, and the albumen of vegetable juices, are identical in composition with* the albumen of blood, but there are varieties of wheat, the ashes of which are in quantity and in relative proportion of the salts the same as those of boiled and lixiviated meats, and it cannot be maintained that bread made of such flour would, if it were the only food taken, support life permanently. The experiments of the French academicians, show ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 85 that dogs fed exclusively on white bread, made from the sifted flour, died in forty days ; but when fed on black bread (flour with the bran), they lived without disturb- ance of health. Bread should always be made of grains grown in healthy places, and should contain the entire seed, with the exception of the husk ; then it will realize the idea of Paracelsus : " When a man eats a bit of bread, does he not therein consume heaven and earth, and all of the heavenly bodies, inasmuch as heaven by its fertilizing rain, the earth by its soil, and the sun by its luminous and heat-giving rays, have all contributed to its produc- tion, and are all present in the one substance?" Desiccated vegetables, which have lost the water of vegetation and other gaseous elements, which chemistry thus far has been unable to discover, cannot adequately replace the fresh articles ; the particular principle, the water of vegetation, can no more be restored to them than the dust of the crushed quartz can be recrystallized by the simple addition of water. XVI. In the alimentation of armies bread is the basal element. If it be poor, the whole system of the commissariat is de- ranged. History shows that it is the most important item in the feeding of soldiers, and that many a campaign, since the disaster to the army of Belisarius at Methon, has been lost in consequence of the quality of its munition bread. France allows to her soldiers 26 ounces of bread, Eng- land 34, Belgium 28, Sardinia 26, Spain 23, Prussia 32, 86 MARTYRIA, OR Austria 32, Turkey 33, United States 22, Rebel Prisons 4 to \2 oiutcesl The quantity of corn meal allowed to the rebel soldiers by the rebel government was about one and one-third pounds daily : this would give about 28 ounces of bread, allowing 30 per cent, of water, which is the rule among bakers ; at least it is the average quantity established by the civil tax commission of Paris. Besides the corn meal they had six ounces of bacon, and peas, and rice. This ration was sufficient to preserve life, as it has been shown by the condition of the rebel armies ; the bread alone con- tained 4900 grains of carbon, and 210 grains of nitrogen, without the aid of bacon or the peas. The bread alone has an excess of 1600 grains of carbon, and- a deficiency only of about 100 grains of nitrogen, which was readily supplied by the bacon and other articles. Corn bread is one of the chief articles of diet in the Southern States, and it is likewise used extensively in the South of Europe. It makes heavy bread unless carefully prepared and mixed with flour, and when mixed with the cob it often produces a laxative effect, the degree of which depends greatly upon the quantity the meal contains. When properly prepared with milk and the usual ingredients, it becomes an agree- able and nutritious article of diet, but carelessly handled, it is disagreeable to the palate and difficult to digest. The bread furnished to the prisoners was simply mixed with salt and the dirty water from the brook, or the foul spring in the rear of the bakery, and then dried in the heat of the oven. That bad effects arose from such a quality of bread cannot be doubted ; the injurious in- fluences of impure water in panification have been pointed ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 8/ out by Boussingault, in a paper presented to the French Academy in 1857. It is the common saying in the Southern States, where the use of wheaten bread is comparatively rare, tliat a bushel of corn contains more nutriment than a bushel of wheat. Yet the southern wheat is superior to the north- ern varieties, and is richer in the azotized, glutinous prin- ciples so essential to the formation of blood and muscle. Vermicelli and macaroni can be made only from the best southern wheat. Of the varieties of Indian corn in America, the yellow flinty corn is reckoned the sweetest and most nutritive ; the white corn of the South makes the fairest, but con- siderably the weakest flour. We do not find special fault with the coarsely ground meal, provided the cob is not included, for Mayer has pointed out, in discarding the commercial bi'an we throw away fourteen times as much phosphoric acid as there is in superfine flour. In this bran are contained most of the layers of gluten, in which are lodged the phosphates and the companion nitrogenous compounds — the sources of living tissues. The nutri- tious Graham bread is an example ; also the pumpernickel of Westphalia, the black bread of Russia, the coarse oat- meal of Scotland, contain all the gluten, all the phosphates and nitrogenous compounds, as well as the starch of the grains. Such was the bread that Celsus considered as equal to flesh in its capacity of nourishing. MARTYRIA, OR XVII. Fresh meat was rarely furnished to the prison, accord- ing to the reports and statements of witnesses, and we should doubt that it was furnished at all, if it were not for the number of sections of the horns of cattle which are strewn about the enclosure, and which the prisoners had used for drinking dishes ; still, many of these horns may have been taken from the cattle killed for the guards. That the issue of fresh beef would have been beneficial to the men, there is no doubt ; in fact, the experiment at Jamaica, which continued twenty years, proves it ; for the troops who were fed with a larger allowance of fresh meat suffered far less from dysentery than any of the troops of the West India islands. There is always great difficulty in presei-ving the good qualities of fresh meat in hot climes, and, on the other hand, the use of salt meat in the same regions is apt to engender scorbutic disorders. Whenever putrefactive fermentation begins with any kind of meat, or any recently living nitrogenized substance, catalytic action takes place, ammonia is evolved, and the product is no longer pleasant to the taste or nutritious to the system. Food, when even exposed to vitiated air, becomes deteriorated in quality, just as good flour is rendered worthless by mixture with the damaged fungoid grain. Butchers' meat on the average affords but thirty- five per cent, of real nutritive matter, at least such was the opinion presented to the French Minister of the Interior by Vauquelin and Percy. Accepting this deter- mination, we may form some idea of the relative value ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 89 of the scanty allowance of the doubtful beef furnished to the prisoners, if it was furnished at all. That bacon was furnished, there is no doubt ; neithei has the quantity been underrated by the sufferers them- selves, as we shall presently see. And there is no reason why the qualitj- should not have been most excellent, unless it had been selected for the purposes of ciaielty. There is evidence that it was sometimes of very bad quality ; but that it was generally and systematicallv selected to disgust the prisoners, we are unwilling to believe, although we have evidence that rotten bacon was furnished by contractors, and the fact boasted of by them. The influence and effect of this decomposed food may be surmised by the following remark of Donovan : " Flesh contains the elements of some of the most deadly poisons that are found even in the vegetable kingdom ; a slight change in their mode of combination, or of the ratio of their quantities, may convert nutriment into a source of death." XVIII. There is another very important item to be considered in the dietary of this prison, and that is the qualit}^ and quantity of the water furnished for potable purposes. " Water," says Milne Edwards, " is an aliment, as well as sugar and fibrine ; for it is indispensable for the nutri- tion of the body, and, by whatever means it arrives in the economy, its role is always the same." The water consumed in the prison was obtained from the brook, and from the few wells or springs within the stockade. The volume of water in the brook was quite 90 MARTYRIA, OR sufficient to furnish all the drinking water desired, if it had been introduced into the stockade by means of sluices. As it was, the course of the stream was left to nature, and no effort made to prevent its defilement by the camps situated farther up, or by the bake -house located close by. All the camps on the declivities about Andersonville were drained into this stream. Some few wells were sunk in the prison which yielded scanty supplies, and there were also a few springs undefiled ; but the quality of water everywhere was surface w^ater, tinged and tainted with the impurities of the soil and the infections of the collected filth. The thirst, which was excessive among the prisoners, could only be slaked by drinking the impure waters. Yet a very little care on the part of the rebel authorities would have increased the comfort of the prisoners in this respect, and pre- vented the loss of life to a very considerable degree. " The preservation of potable water," writes Felix Jacquot, " is certainly one of the capital points of hygiene." " I am sometimes disposed to think," states Dr. Leth- eby, the health officer of London, " that impulse water is before impure air as one of the most powerful causes of disease." In cold climates slight impurities in the drink- ing water are not of vital importance ; but in the tropics, and the adjacent regions, the least decayed vegetable or animal matter renders it injurious and unpalatable, and often is the determining cause of disease, especially enteric, to a fearful degree. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 9I XIX. During the months of June, July, August, and Septem- ber, 1S64, there was an aggregate number of prisoners of about twenty-eight thousand for each month. To sup- ply this vast number of men with bread would have been ordinarily no easy task, requiring, as it would have done, twenty-eight thousand rations of bread daily, or eight hundred and forty thousand rations monthly. We have shown that the bakery could not have furnished more than ninety-six hundred rations of corn bread, of the United States weight of twenty ounces, or ninety-six hundred rations daily, or two hundred and eighty-eight thousand rations monthly, and probably furnished but five thousand rations daily, or one hundred and fifty thousand rations monthly. If this deficiency of a half a million of rations existed, how can it be explained ? Was munition bread brought from a distance to supply the deficiency? When and whence, we will ask? During the period embracing the months of July, August, and September, 1864, the rebel commissary fur- nished, according to his statements, two hundred and twenty-three thousand bushels of coi^n meal, and thirty- seven hundred bushels of flour for the prison. There was, during this time (ninety-two days), a monthly aggregate of twenty-nine thousand prisoners, who required twenty-nine thousand rations of corn meal daily ; or, multiplied by ninety-two days, two million six hundred and sixty-eight thousand rations for the period of three months ; or, allowing the same weight as the rebel ration, we have 2,668,000 X ij = 37567,333 pounds of C)2 MARTYRIA, OR corn meal, or seventy-one thousand one hundred and forty-six bushels, allowing fifty pounds to the bushel. If wc now estimate the rebel garrison to have been four thousand in the aggregate, we will have for the re- quirements, 4000 X 92 X i^ =^ 553,000 pounds of meal, or ten thousand one hundred and ninety bushels, which gives, as total for the prison and garrison, eighty-one thousand two hundred and eighty-six bushels of corn meal. Yet the commissary states that he sent two hundred and twenty-three thousand bushels, or almost thi'ee times as much as the quantity required. This is a strange statement to make, as we shall endeavor to show. The rebel ration allowed by their law gave thirty-seven and a half pounds of corn meal, three pounds of rice, or five pounds of peas, ten pounds of bacon, salt, &c., monthly, of twenty-eight days, or about twenty ounces of meal daily, and about six ounces of bacon. We have, as an aggregate number of men for the above period (prisoners and guards), 29,000 -j-4000 X 92 =: 3,036,000 men, requiring, according to law, three million seven hundred and nmety-five thousand pounds of corn meal. Now the commissary states that he furnished 226,700 bushels of corn meal and flour; or, multiplied by 50 pounds rr 11,335,000 pounds, thus giving to each man more than three and one-fifth pounds of meal and flour ; or, allowing the usual per cent, of water, more than four pounds of bread. That these men had sixty- eight ounces of corn bread apiece, or that they could have eaten it if they had been furnished that quantity, is not for a moment to be considered. This analysis ANDERSONVILLE PRISOX. 93 betrays the falsity of the commissary's statement, and invahdates the remainder of his accounts. It cannot be said that this meal was to be stored for future use, for it is well known that corn meal will not keep in this climate but for a few days without fermenta- tion taking place. There is, again, anodier serious item to be considered in connection with this statement. Why should this overplus, of more than seven millions of pounds of meal, be sent to this prison, when the army of Virginia was calling loudly for grain? The statement and the figures indicate simply a foolish desire to cover up deficiencies, and that too in a very hasty manner. The same commissary states that he sent, during the same period of time, three hundred and thirty-nine thousand pounds of bacon, or five million four hundred and twenty-four thousand ounces. This will give thirty- six hundred and eighty-four pounds of bacon each day of the ninety-two days ; and, after allowing six ounces per man to the rebel garrison, we shall have- remaining but two thousand pounds to be divided among the twent}- nine thousand prisoners, or about one and one seventh ounces of bacon to each man. Thus the account of the commissary, if true, proves that the statement of the prisoners, that they received but two to four ounces of bacon daily, was correct. If the full amount of bacon had been allowed, there would have been required, at the rate of six ounces per man, ten thousand eight hundred and seventy-five pounds 94 MARTYRIA, OR daily, whereas there was in reality but two thousand pounds, leaving a deficiency of more than eight thousand pounds daily. If fresh beef had been allowed at the same rate as the bacon, there would have been required ten thousand eight hundred and seventy-five pounds daily, or a herd of thirty of the native cattle, allowing three hun- dred and sixty pounds net weight to each carcass. If the full ration of one pound of fresh beef had been furnished, there would have been required more than one hundred and twenty of the same class of cattle daily. XXI. That the dietary of the prisoners was far from being adequate to their wants there is no doubt, and it only remains to be determined whether this deficiency arose from design, from ignorance, or from real scarcity of food. We have very serious doubts as to the truth of the state- ments that there was a scarcity of food in this vicinity during the time of the occupation of the prison. At the time of its selection the region was considered to be the richest in cereals of all the Southern States. In times previous it had proved to be fertile, and during the progress of the war the slave labor was undisturbed by the Federal troops. It is shown by their own statistics that in i860 the four counties near the prison, and along the line of railroad, produced nearly fourteen hundred thousand bushels of corn, thirty-three thousand bushels of wheat, three hundred thousand bushels of potatoes, and more than one hundred thousand bushels of beans and peas, besides forty-eight thousand bales of cotton. ANDERSOXVILLE PRISON. 95 It is highly probable that these quantities were doubled, if not trebled and quadrupled during the succeeding years of the war, when the planting of cotton was forbidden by rebel ukase, and all energy and labor were -turned to the jDroduction of food. There were in these four counties alone more than twenty thousand slaves. In the south of Georgia, in the wire-grass region, were great numbers of cattle roaming at will, and the numbers in the everglades of Florida were so vast, that two old steamboat captains offered to furnish the rebel govern- ment, at this very period, with half a million pounds of salt beef, along the railroads in Florida. Governor Watts wrote from Alabama in April, 1S64, that there were teii million pounds of bacon accessible in that State. In September of the same year, Mr. Hudson, of the adjoin- ing State of Alabama, offered to deliver to the rebel government half a million pounds of bacon in exchange for the same quantity of cotton. The rebel war clerk, in his diary at Richmond, wrote, March 17, 1864, "It appears that there is abundance of grain and meat in the country ; " and again, July 3, 1864, he notes down, " Our crop of wheat is abundant, and the harvest is over." According to the census of i860, there were in Florida more than six hundred thousand cattle and swine, and more than five millions in Georgia and Alabama. These two States produced during the same year more than sixty million bushels of corn and thirteen million bushels of potatoes. (Vide Appendix.) g6 MARTYRIA, OR As to the arrangement for the distribution of the food, there was but little attention paid to system. The prison- ers were ordered to arrange themselves into squads of two hundred and ninety men, and these squads were then subdivided into three messes. None of these messes appear to have been properly supplied with utensils to receive and distribute their food. Every prisoner was obliged to take care of himself, and all ai'ound the area of the stockade ma}^ be seen at the present day remains of bent pieces of tinned iron, the rudely-fashioned little tub, and sections of the horns of cattle which the poor prisoners had worked up with their knives, and utilized for their necessities. Civilized men would never have resorted to these primitive, rough, and slovenly means, if they had been supplied with the ordinaiy utensils. At certain hours carts, laden with the corn bread and bacon, were driven into the enclosure, and the rations were dis- tributed right and left. When soup was made, it was brought in pails, and the prisoners received it in their ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 9^ horn cups, wooden tubs, or as best they could. No drink was allowed but the water from the brook, whose ripples were like the river Lethe, for they contained the elements of oblivion and death. XXIII. It is evident to the writer that the quantity of food fur- nished to the prisoners was far from being adequate to support animal life, and from this deficiency alone he can explain to his satisfaction the enormous loss of life. The admirable experiments of Boussingault and the French academicians show how the increase of weight in the feeding of animals is in direct proportion to the amount of plastic constituents in the daily supply of food, and how positive is the law which regulates the animal econ- omy. Again, we can form some idea of the positive effects of the horrible condition of the prison, and of the extremes of heat and moisture upon the feeble digestion and assimilation, by the experiments of Claude Bernard, who shows how these functions may be disturbed by external influences, and how agony even causes the dis- appearance of sugar in the hepatic organ, and how fear disturbs the glucogenic process. There is connected with inanition a singular tendency to decomposition and putridity, alike in the blood and viscera. The system left unnourished rapidly wastes, and its vitality soon lessens to a degree beyond recovery. This degree depends upon the forces in resei've, which belongs especially to youth ; middle age is less liable to impressions, but when once affected, has less support from the system. The rapidity 5 ^8 MARTYRIA, OR with which the dead decomposed immediately after death, astonished the observing surgeon. The prevailing diarrhoea and scorbutic condition were the results of the want of food and the combined in- fluences of the bad air and water, and not the primary causes of the feebleness and death. The effect of the want of food first appears in loss of color — wasting away of the form, diminution of strength, vertigo, relaxation of the system of the viscera as well as of the muscles, diarrhcea appears, and rapidly closes the struggle of the natural forces for life. A few days, or a few weeks, according to the initial condition, is sufficient to test the tenacity of the powers of life. Death always takes place whenever the diminu- tion of the total weight of the body reaches certain limits, which is from from -^^q to ^^ of the usual weight. We observe this law to be quite positive and regular with the lower animals, with whom the effect of starvation has been well studied, and the limit of loss, compatible with life, found to be jYa ^o^' mammals and -f"^^ for birds. BOOK FIFTH. " Les Hopltaux. C'est ici que rhumanite en pleurs accuse les for- faits de rambition." THE Hospital is the recognized type of mercy, in its broadest range of benevolence, tenderness, and com- passion, all over the countries of the earth, w^herever the noble sentiments of nature have force. It is one of the emblems of the great religion of civilization. It is coeval v\^ith Christ, for it appeared among the institutions of men in definite shape only after the establishment of Christian- ity ; and to its true exalting effects upon the dispositions of men, the Chiistian religion owes in great measure its rapid progress among the barbarous and pagan nations of the earth. In earlier times public charity w^as rare or impulsive among the civil communities. It was only the suffering and disabled defenders of the general service who were cared for at the expense of the state, as at the Prytaneum among the Athenians, or the numerous asylums which munificent Rome erected to the brave men who carved out with their strong arms and their blades of steel the colossal forms of her glory and grandeur. The mag- nificent ruins of Italica, which sheltered the disabled veterans and heroes of Africanus, look down at the pres- (99) lOO MARTYRIA, OR ent day over the vast and fertile plains of the Guadalquivir, to reproach later and higher civilizations with neglect and ingratitude. II. But it is to the beneficent and sublime influences of Christianity that are to be attributed the noble institutions of the present day, where the suflcring and infirm receive the attentions of science and the consolations of humanity. Never among civilized nations are they profaned for the purposes of cruelty, never defiled by murder under the mask of philanthropy. Enlightened communities vie with each other in self- sacrifice in the great and heroic labor of devotion to suflering mortality. It is the distinguishing degree of difiercnce in their excellence, their refinement, their religion. It is the last thought and reflection of the djang man, who, in dividing his worldly material with charity and benevolence, hopes to be kindly remembered on earth. It is the first dawning idea of childhood, with its infant hands filled with roses and garlands of flowers to relieve the pains of human suflering, or adorn the pale features of the departed. To delight in human misery is the last degree of earthly degradation and perversity. The mockery of the agony of death belongs only to the fiends of hell and their baser imitators. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. lOI Not until some time after the occupation of the prison did the care and condition of the sick attract the attention and excite the solicitude of the prison-keepers. Then a space was selected to the eastward, and almost adjoining the stockade, and here were pitched the decayed and dilapidated tents which were to form the hospital. The exact size of the space is not known, the bounda- ries having disappeared since the evacuation ; but the tents were arranged, it is said, with some degree of regu- larity, and the collection was surrounded by a fence, which served only to obstruct the circulation of free air, which was of vital importance ; and besides, the fence was of no service whatever as protection against the escape of the inmates, as they were before admission gen- erally far too feeble to make even an effort. The actual amount of accommodation furnished is not known. By some it is stated that there were nothing what- ever but a few rotten tent flics ; by others, and among them one of the sm-gcons, it is narrated that there were tents to cover one thousand men, and three large kettles to provide for their cooking, and nothing more. Yet the records show that there were nearly four thousand men at one time in this hospital. This distribution of the means for the protection and sustenance of life is too ter- rible to be believed. Let us overlook it, for there is suf- ficient for execration elsewhere, without turning to the more revolting violation and desecration of one of the sanctuaries of civilization. Beneath these tent covers there was neither straw, nor I02 MARTYRIA, OR mattresses, nor bunks : there was simply the bare earth, with no protection but what was afforded by the rotten canvas, the scanty clothing, the ragged blanket, which the hapless sufferer might possess. Many of the unfortu- nate men who perished here had neither shelter nor clothing. The rapacity of the captors had taken the remnants of the rags left by the fury of battle. For this want of shelter, and couches to protect and rest the weary limbs, there is no excuse, and there can be none ; for in the adjoining forests there were immense quantities of timber accessible, and easy of conversion into manufac- ture, and the extremities of the boughs of the long-leaved or Southern pine afforded the means of making comfort- able and healthy beds. There were then within the stockade many thousands of men accustomed to the use of the axe, the adze, the saw, and the plane, who would have in few days fash- ioned implements of steel out of the useless scraps of rail- way iron lying at the depot, and transformed the forest into vast, even magnificent buildings, replete with the comforts, the conveniences of advanced art. There were artisans here, of education and ingenuity, who could have formed out of the very dust of the place edifices as beau- tiful 'and wonderful to the imagination and understanding as the reality was repulsive and strange. IV. The guards furnished themselves with ccwnfortable huts, arranged with the common conveniences, and their bunks were suspended above the contact of the treacherous ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. IO3 ground. Their invalids were well cax'ed for also in the large hospital which was ei'ected expressly for the gar- rison, and which consisted of two large two-story wooden buildings, admirably arranged, with the conveniences proper to the service. The kitchen, the dispensary, the ventilation, and the general arrangement, showed that scientific cai'e and forethought had been observed there. The hospital system of the rebels was quite complete, and most of their hospitals throughout the country were well constructed and equipped ; and some of them were models of neatness, comfort, and scientific arrangement. The garrison hospital at Andersonville offers a terrible contrast to the open space, the wretched agglomera- tion, which the rebel authorities called a hospital for the prisoners. It is true that the commanding ofiicers were compelled, from some unknown pressure, — whether the sense of shame, or dictate from Richmond, — to order and com- mence the erection, at a late date, of a new hospital stockade. This was to consist of a high palisade, about one thousand feet in length, with twenty-two open sheds expected in the interior ; but it was never finished, nor occupied, and it remains to-day as it was left by the rude, black artisans, one of the evidences of either x'emorse or reluctant obedience to the lingering sense of natural com- passion of its senseless and heartless rulers. V. In the organization of a hospital the most important parts are the system of nursing and the supply and cook- I04 MARTYRIA, OR ing of food ; when these are observed, much exposure to the elements can be endured. Pestilences are retarded, and sometimes completely checked, in their destructive career when opposed by generous alimentation and sympathetic care ; and the vital powers, — the vis medicatrix 7iatzirce, — rally their mighty strength for renewed effort. We have for instance the great and marked change in the healthy con- dition and the mortality of the British army before Sebas- topol in the spring of 1856, when England poured out lavishly her treasures, and sent men of scientific ability to correct the well-nigh fatal errors of hygiene which were committed by her military men. We have also another instance in the check of a devas- tating pestilence at New Orleans, as obsei"ved and men- tioned by Dr. Cartwright. " As soon as a generous public diffused the comforts of life among the seventy thousand destitute emigrant population of New Orleans, last summei", the pestilence, which was sweeping into eternity three hundred a day, immediately began to dis- appear, before frost or any other change in the weather, its artificial fabric being broken down by the beneficent hand of the American people." VI. Here there appears to have been neither system, nor order, nor humanity. The chances of recovery were far less than the certainty of death. In reality, it was almost certain death ; for only t^venty-four out of the hundred who entered ever returned to the prison again. Those ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. IO5 patients who possessed sufficient strength helped them- selves to what was at hand, and what was afforded by the meagre dietary ; those who had not, folded their arms and died. Medical men went through the formality of prescribing for the dying men, but with formulce whose ingredients were unknown to them. Some of these surgeons gloated over the distresses of their fellow-men, and delighted in the awful destruction of life which was branding with eternal infamy the man- hood of their nation. Others turned and wept, for humanity was not extinct. Those tears have in part blotted out and redeemed the fearful inscriptions in that record of the events of life which form the history of the human race. It is not known that woman ever visited these precincts from feelings of compassion, and offered to console the last moments of the dying. We do know that they gazed upon the scene from a distance, but with what emotion history wisely makes no note. In Catholic countries we observe the hospitals attended by nuns, sisters of mercy and charity, all eager to labor in behalf of humanit}''. Besides these, the deaconesses of the Rhine and the beguines of Flanders have acquired an imperishable record in history for their philanthropic efforts. " There is is nothing," says Voltaire, " nobler than the sight of delicate females sacrificing beauty, youth, often wealth and rank, to devote themselves to the relief of human miseries under the most revolting forms." We have seen in our own time, in the hospitals of the Federal armies, a devoted band of self-sacrificing women 5* 106 .MARTYRIA, OR striving to perform their part in the great work of philan- thropy. Here woman never appeared. There were, in reality, only the vivid impressions of horror, complaints, groans, delirium, and the agony of death. More than eight thousand of our men perished miser- ably in this neglected and iniquitous spot. Men were seen here in all stages of idiocy and imbe- cility from the effects of starvation. They were seen ask- ing for bones to gnaw to relieve the pangs of hunger. Compassion never will believe that this request was made by dying mortals, and that too in a hospital, which is re- garded among men as the holy institution of society, and even by infuriated combatants as tlie only sacred precinct on the brutal fields of war. The same wail of distress was heard on the plains of Texas, and along the military lines of Virginia. Thus the black flag, threatened by the rebel cabinet, was hoisted. Without the courage to proclaim their in- tentions openly and boldly upon the battle-field, they exhibited them in as sure, but different form, in the management of their prisons. VII. The stories relating to vaccination with poisonous mat- ter are doubtless untrue. That there were disastrous effects from vaccination is probably correct, but they must have been the results of accident. Similar conse- quences have been observed in civil communities, in armies, and in hospitals. Serious results have been noticed by the writer in our own armies and hospitals. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 107 Vaccine matter is exti'emely liable to decomposition ; and when heated, even by the warmth of the body, fer- mentation arises, and by catalytic action putrefaction results, forming a positive poison. That the directors of this hospital should resort to such means for the de- struction of human life is not at all probable, for the process required labor : and besides, the wretched inva- lids died with sufficient rapidity without the intervention of this new art of malice. VIII. In all military hospitals, food is to be regarded as the principal medicament. With good food, the results of surgery may be foretold with tolerable certainty, and the obstructions to the medical treatment lessen greatly or disappear. Without the aid of pure, healthful, life-giving aliment, the duration of animal life is always brief when when exposed to vicious and hostile influences. The ration used here, or the system of dietary, was not constant ; neither do we know sufficiently well the quan- tity, or quality, or variety, to form a true and candid esti- mate of its value in sustaining the physical strength, or repairing the waste and metamorphose of the organs and tissues of the system. We know, however, that it was supposed to be bacon, flour, and corn bread — rarely fresh meat ; and vege- tables were almost unknown. The only vegetables and delicacies were either obtained in exchange, at exorbitant rates, for the little cuiTcncy which the prisoners had man- aged to secrete among their rags, or they were now and I08 MARTYRIA, OR then introduced stealthily by a few of the humane sur- geons at the peril of their lives. Persons whose systems are weakened by want of proper food, by exhaustion from excessive labor, or exposure, or disease, require a great variety of articles from which to select the substan- ces which a depraved but instinctive palate often craves. Food which would disgust the healthy appetite, will not quicken into action the debilitated and flickering sensa- tion of taste. During an enfeebled condition, loathsome morsels become injurious ; for digestion is clearly at the command of the mind, and is often checked by its ca- prices. IX. The effect of gentle care and kindly sympathy is more felt, more marked in the militaiy hospitals, than in the civil. Home is farther away, and the sense of loneliness which all invalids experience is far more oppressive. Here it is that woman's influence is the strongest, and her sweet disposition, her friendly, compassionate smile, seems to prolong life, and put to flight the advancing shadows of death. " It is not medicine," says Charles Lamb ; " it is not broth and coarse meats served up at stated hours with all the hard formality of a prison ; it is not the scanty dole of a bed to lie on which a dying man requires from his species. Looks, attentions, con- solations, in a word, sympathies, are what a man most needs in this awful close of human sufferings. A kind look, a smile, a drop of cold water to a parched lip — for these things a man shall bless you in death." With soldiers, these little attentions have great effect ; ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 109 partly from the law of contrast with the roughness of their every-day occupations and life, and partly from the rarity of such influences. And finally, when grim Death appears, there is with them a singular philosophy, calm- ness, and resignation. The writer has observed this upon many battle-fields, and in the hospitals far removed. Rarely do we hear lamentations, regrets, and shrieks for help : the conscious man folds his arms, and resigns himself to his inward thoughts, thinking, perhaps, of •< His native hills that rise in happier climes, The grot that heard his song of other times, His cottage home, his bark of slender sail. His glassy lake, and broomwood blossomed vale." The forms of disease observed here were simple, and they seldom exhibited positive indications, or, rather, the immediate effects and influences of malaria. Neither of the four great pestilential diseases appeared — cholera, yellow fever, plague, or remittent fever. The diseases treated, or noted down rather upon the hospital register, were generally the different forms of inanition, or of exhaustion of the powers of life by the absorption of noxious vapors, or by the exposure when in feeble condition to the extremes of heat and moisture. The mortality among the patients removed to this place was perfectly appalling. Nearly eight hundred men out of every thousand perished. Yet this might have been foretold from the horrible condition, the pre-arranged destitution of the hospital. Besides carefully selected no MARTYRIA, OR food, pure and dry air is indispensable for the recovery of a diseased condition, and damp and vitiated air is sure to retard improvement, or to induce complications. Neither food nor healthy atmosphere were aflbrded. The symptoms of the patients indicated the want of food, and were not in reality the signs of actual disease. And the post-mortems made at this hospital revealed the absence of lesion, save those consequent upon stai'v-ation or prolonged suffering. The minutes of this clinic are very extensive and par- ticular, and they exhibit in overwhelming proof the cause of death. Life was prolonged to the last degree of the natural vitality, and among the phenomena observed, the law of muscular irritability, as discovered and explained by Brown-Sequard, was well illustrated. Thei'e was no cadaveric rigidity ; for the want of nutrition, the vitiated atmosphere, the exposure to the vicissitudes of climate, had weakened and utterly destroyed all nervous power. Immediately after the cessations of the functions of life, putrefaction appeared and progressed with great rapidity. In discussing the rate of inortality of this hospital, we cannot with propriety assume a standard for comparison, for nowhere can we turn to analyze results from similar causes. We may, perhaps, take the data and statistics of our own military prisons, but the contrasts are too fearful for credulity. We will consider these at length, with other comparisons, in the next Book. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. Ill " The truth is in the facts, and not in the spirit that judges them." XII. The want of system cannot be charged to the fault of the organization of the rebel Bureau of Medicine, for that was well arranged and strictly governed. It may partly be ascribed to the general carelessness of the officers in charge, and partly to the desire of the rulei-s that the numbers of prisoners should decrease, and consequently their labors should diminish, no matter how, nor how quickly. That there were men in charge of the patients who were destitute of all moral scruples, of all refined and humane sentiments, there can be no doubt, but there were a few men who did not partake of the general madness of the spirit of destruction, and who exhibited a tender regard for the sufferings of their fellow-men. The names of Thornberg and Head will always be preserved as among the only few redeeming acts in the story of the great wrong. The sympathy of these men was undis- guised, and when protest failed to produce kindly impres- sions, or to bring alleviation to misery, they secretly sought to succor the dying men from their own scanty store at the peril of their lives. Dr. Head was not only threatened with death by the brutal Wirz, but he was actually imprisoned for a short time for giving to the dying some vegetables which he had gathei-ed from his little garden. " Sire," said the noble Surgeon Larry to Napoleon, " it is my avocation to pro- long life, and not to destroy it." 113 MARTYRIA, OR Let no man attempt to recall the scenes that took place in this wretched enclosure, which was falsely called a hospital ; let no man attempt to lift the veil of darkness which now obscures the acts or the animus which gov- erned and directed this mockery of philanthropy, for the human mind already staggers under the load of horror which is imposed by the events of every-day life, and advanced civilization has no desire to renew the recollec- tion of the atrocities of the dark ages. BOOK SIXTH " To die, is the common lot of humanity. In the grave, the only distinction lies between those who leave no trace behind and the heroic spirits who transmit their names to posterity." — Taoitus, IT is always difficult to determine the natural duration of life, or the death-rate for any locality or any class of people, since the range of circumstances that affect the health of men and animals is so vast, that it requires great research, powers of analysis and comparison ; so extensive a knowledge of the phenomena and the laws of life, that few men have the courage to attack, or the ability to com- prehend and solve the complex problem. In our estimations we must consider what is due to the agencies of the natural world, such as geology, meteorol- ogy, and the like, as well as to age, constitution, tempera- ment, antei-ior professions, and morbid predispositions, also the exaltation and demoralization of moral action. " We see," says Buftbn, " that man perishes at all ages, while animals appear to pass through the period of life with firm and steady pace." The great naturalist shows how the passions, with their attendant evils, exercise great influence upon the health, and derange the principles (113) 114 MARTYRIA, OR which sustain us ; how often men lead a nei-vous and contentious life, and that most of them die of disappoint- ment. Buftbn is right, and the English statistics show us that the duration of life is generally in proportion to its happiness and regularity, and that miserable lives are soon extinguished. Hope sometimes forsakes the stoutest hearts, and with hope disappears the mainspring of earthly life. In deciding upon the causes of the excessive mortality at Andersonville, there is not much obscurity to contend with. But we must admit that there must have been some mortalit}^, for there is a determined duration of life for every species of animal ; and we must also allow that imder the most favorable circumstances, the death-rate of soldiers encamped in this unhealthy locality would have been far beyond the normal limit. From calculations based upon the most accurate and extensive observations made in England for a long series of years, it was determined that a mortality of less than two per cent, per annum for all ages might be assumed as a fair average rate of deaths in a population where sanitary measures were properly attended to. It is noticed by eminent observers, that the mean rate for Europe is about three per cent. ; which is regarded as ■ excessive, being about double of what is estimated as the natural ratio. Our distinguished statistician, Dr. Edward Jarvis, re marks that the mortality of two per cent, in England ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. II5 includes all ages — infancy as well as the last decades of life ; and he states that the proper rates for comparison are those of the males in England of the military age, which is observed to be less than one per cent. He shows that the death-rate of the soldier in England is less than one per cent., and also considers the stated mortality of three per cent, for the continent of Europe as much too high. The mortality on the continent is greater than in England, and greater in England than in Scotland. In times of peace, the mortality of soldiers is not much greater than that of the civil laborers ; but during cam- paigns no limit can properly be given, for the vicissitudes are so x*apid, and the exposures so varied, that the chances of life and death cannot be estimated with fairness, or with any degree of certainty. But when encampments are an-angcd, and occupied for any considerable length of time, the possibilities and probabilities of health may then be considered with propriety. III. These chances and these causes of general mortality depend upon the atmospheric influences, the mephitism of the soil, the density of the population, and the excel- lence of the food and shelter, as well as upon the natural vieror and streng;th of the individual. Some classes of human beings have greater tenacity of life than others, but all are aftected by vicious influences, and yield sooner or later to the elements of destruction. " Everything in the animal economy is regulated by fixed and positive laws." Il6 MARTYRIA, OR " We live on our forces," says Galen : " as long as our forces are sound, we can resist everything ; when they be- come weak, a trifle injures us." The truth of this remark is well illustrated in the life of the soldier, whose health is in exact ratio to the condition in which he is placed. And his mode of existence, the combined influence of food, exposure, and the training of mind and body, give a peculiar character, which requires, when disabled, special modification of treatment, and a particular kind of experience. The ancient physiologists distinguished two kinds, or rather two provisions of strength — the forces in reserve and the forces in use ; or, as they said, " Vires in posse et vires in actu ; " or, as Barthez describes it, the radical forces and the acting forces. The young soldier, supported by this buoyancy of the unknown force of life, recovers from terrible shocks and disasters to his system, while the old man, fatigued and exhausted by the great and protracted labors of active campaigns, feels that he has the hidden resources — the reserved and superabundant powers of youth — no longer. " The atmospheric influences, the mephitism of the soil, and the inhabited locality, are the three principal conditions of the causes of general mortality," says Pringle. He should have added food ; for diet, of all external causes, affects the condition of the human race more than any other. Those who have observed the mortality curve follow the harvests in Ireland and Germany, and noticed AXDERSONVILLE PRISON. II7 how strangely the number of the dead corresponded to the scantiness of food, and those who have experimented with the feeding of domesticated animals, will agree with me on this point. Let us review these three great principles of destruc- tion, as laid down by the distinguished European au- thority, and 'ipply them in the explanations of the mortality at Andersonville. y. It has been observed by medical men, from the time of Hippocrates- down to the present day, that the effects of a heated atmosphere, saturated with moisture, are very injurious, and exceedingly pi'olific of disease. Air at 32° of Fahrenheit, according to Leslie, contains, when saturated with moisture, y-^^ of its weight of water ; at 59°, ^V ; ^t 86°, 5V ; at 1 13°, gJj ; its capacity for moisture being doubled by each increase of 37° of Fahrenheit. The degree of heat within the stockade sometimes rose to beyond 110° Fahrenheit, and the degree of humidity was correspondingly as great. That moisture exerts more influence in the production of disease than any other meteorological condition, is well observed in every- day life. M. Bossi found, in his investigations, that the extreme and constant humidity of the atmosphere affected the barometer of health very markedly, and he established the following ratio of mortality for the different regions : The ratio for mountains and elevated regions he observed to be one in thirty-eight ; on the banks of rivers, one in twenty-six ; on the level plains, sown with grain, one in Il8 MARTYRIA, OR twenty-four, and in parts interspersed with pools and marshes, one in twenty. ■ VI. The influence and value of pure and healthy air may be seen in the simplest physiological obser\'ations. Animal life is fed and sustained by respiration, as well as vegetable life. It is from the blood that animal life derives the materials and forces which maintain it, and we have seen how this owes its vivifying properties, in a great measure, to the oxygen which it receives from the respiratory organs, and how its power is in direct ratio to the purity of the air breathed. A vitiated atmosphere manifests itself at once in the nutritive powei's of the vital stream ; and the more feeble the respiration, the less rich the blood. This " oxygen enters by the lungs into the blood, and with the blood flows on and circulates through the body ; it also enters partly into the composition of the tissues, so that it is a real food, and it is as necessary to the construction of the human body as the other forms of food which are usually introduced into the stomach." The weight of oxygen, says Professor Johnston, taken up by the lungs, exceeds considerably that of all the dry, solid food which is introduced into the stomach of a healthy man. Man consumes one hundred gallons of air every hour, ordinarily with eighteen respirations per minute, and two hundred and six cubic feet of air is the minimum for the preservation of health. The minimum allowed to the English hospitals by artificial ventilation is twenty-two ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. II9 hundred cubic feet the hour. The patients of St. Guy's receive four thousand cubic feet of fresh air every hour. The quantity required by the sick is enormous, to com- pensate the products of respiration, and all the deleterious evaporations of the locality w^here they are placed, and all other effluvia of diverse natures. In the Hospital Lariboissaire, at Paris, where about fifteen hundred cubic feet of air arc furnished by machinery every hour, a taint is perceptible in the atmosphere : and Morin, in his experiments at Hospital Beaujon, thought that two thousand cubic feet were hardl}^ sufficient. Dr. Sutherland believes four thousand feet to be necessary. The quan- tity, however, is nothing compared to quality. The quality is of the highest importance. The air must con- tain the vivifying properties of its normal constitution, or it loses force, and death must ensue. The source of animal lieat is in the mutual chemical action of the oxygen and the constituents of the blood conveyed by the circulation. When the atmosphere is impure the oxidating processes are much diminished. We receive into our lungs about one hundred gallons of air j^er hour, and from this we absorb about five gallons of oxygen, or about one twentieth of the volume of air inspired. " The essential and fundamental condition of all respi- ration is the reciprocal action of the nourishing fluid, and a medium containing oxj-gen." Dumas believes that oxygen is necessary to the conservation of the vitality and proper structure of the globules of the blood ; also that the integrity of these organisms is one of the essen- tial conditions to the arterialization of the nourishing stream. I20 MARTYRIA, OR , Milne Edwards, also, maintains that the great absorb- ing powers of the blood exist in the globules. The normal number of these globules is one hundred and twenty-seven out of the thousand component parts of the blood ; but they vary according to the barometer of health ; sometimes they are observed in disease to descend to sixty-five. Vierodt has shown how a certain limit in the number of blood globules in the mammalia cannot be passed in the descending scale without death taking place. Simon and others have also shown how a careful and nutritious regimen may increase these globules in the blood of the consumptive, bringing them up from sixty-four to even one hundred and forty-four. The blood of man is the richest of all the mammalia, and it contains, according to Berzelius, three times as many hydrochlorates as the blood of the ox. Its richness depends upon the species and individual, and also upon the degree of health, it varying according to the condition of the person. " A diseased pathological condition causes a diminution in the proportion of active principles of the nourishing fluid, and especially in fibrine, of which the abundance is allied to the most important activity of the vital work in some parts of the organism." " The blood," says Dr. Jones, " is not only distributed by innumerable channels through every recess of the body ; the blood is not only the source of all the elements of structure ; the blood not only furnishes the materials for all the secretions and ex- cretions, and for all the chemical changes, — but the blood is in turn affected by the physical and chemical changes of every vessel, of every nerve, of every organ and tex- ANDERSON VILLE PRISON. 121 ture of the body. It is evident then that the constitution of the blood will depend upon the food, upon the vigor and perfection of the organs of digestion, respiration, cir- culation, secretion, and excretion ; upon the vigor and perfection of the nervous system, and of all the organs and apparatus ; and upon the correlation of the physical, vital, and nervous forces. The character of the blood will then vary with the animal ; with the organ and tissue through which it is circulating ; with the age, sex, tem- perament, race, diet, previous habits, occupation, and previous diseases ; with the soil and climate ; and with the relative states of the activity of the forces." VII. Thus it appears how important is the function of res- piration, and how vital the necessity for pure air. Pure dry air contains about 21 gallons of oxygen, and 79 gallons of nitrogen out of 100, and about one gallon of carbonic acid out of 2500. Man will consume, on the average of 20 respirations a minute, or 1200 respirations the hour, about 20 pounds of air, and give off 2^ pounds or more of carbonic acid, besides half a pound of watery vapor, per diem, or, according to Andral and Gavaret, 22 quarts of carbonic acid per hour. We have shown in the chapter on Alimentation how this process of respira- tion affects the nutrition, and how serious the results of its disturbance. The purer the air, the more perfect the type of men and animals. This was understood by the ancients, and they established their most famous schools for gladiatorial training at Capua and Ravenna. 6 123 MARTYRIA, OR The same law is observed at the present day by the admirers of the race-horse. The purity of the air gives purity to the blood, and the blood builds up the system in like proportion of excellence. VIII. Fifteen hundred cubic inches, or twenty-two quarts, of carbonic acid are expired from the lungs every hour, and thrown off into the surrounding atmosphere. Besides this. Sequin found that iS grains of organized matter were thrown off per minute from the body in the form of insensible perspiration, — 7 grains by the lungs, and 11 grains by the skin. Hence we may form some idea of the rapid corruption of the air in this stockade, where 30,000 men were breathing at one time. The foul and heavy vapors could not rise above the palisades unless a strong breeze prevailed ; and even then they became so offensive as almost to extinguish life, like the deadly air of the Grotta del Cane. The exhalations from putrescent ani- mal surfaces are always specifically heavier than the up- per warm strata in the confined spaces where men are crowded together, such as the wards of hospitals. We find, according to Professor Graham, the vitiated air to be composed somewhat as follows : Phosphoretted hydro- gen, sulphuretted hydrogen, carbonic acid, carburetted hydrogen, cyanogen with its compounds. The first gas is always recognized where the diseases of the internal organs are present, especiall}^ affections of the liver, stomach, bowels, and in fever and dysentery; and we observe the blackening of the lead plaster, &c., when the ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 1 33 second is present. Stupor, headache, and sleepiness betray the presence of the other three gases. The diffu- sion of each gas is always inversely as the square root of the density of such gases. The density is thus, air being regarded as looo : — Phosphuretted hydrogen, 1240 Sulphuretted " 11 70 Carburetted " 559 Carbonic acid, 1524 Cyanogen, 1806 The report of the British Parliament Commission gives the following data in this important question : " The amount of carbonic acid in the air is about 2-oW5 or .0005 ; the amount expired is about ^V? or .083. Respired air contains yV or i of carbonic acid, and this must be diluted ten times to make the air safe. Thus, yV -^ Jy^ = y^^, or .01 ; and this again divided by 10, or y^,^ -f- JjQ- ^^ttjVct? oi" .001, gives the amount of ventilation needed to reduce the air to that state of purity that only y^V^ more of carbonic acid should be added to the air, when it would be represented by .0015 instead of .0005." Observing this rule, and taking 300 cubic feet as the air respired for the 34 hours, to dilute it ten times it must be mixed with ten times the bulk, or 3000 cubic feet — the space to be allowed for each individual ; but if it is wished to keep up a pure air, it must be mixed with ten times this bulk again, or 30,000 cubic feet, which shows 134 MARTYRIA, OR the ventilation needed to maintain an atmosphere nearly pure ; or there must be admitted into the space of 3000 cubic feet nearly 21 cubic feet per minute of fresh air by ventilation, if the man in it is to breathe an atmosphere which shall contain only three times more of carbonic acid than the air he breathes originally contained ; or again, 300 cubic feet, 3000, and 30,000, mark the re- quirements of one individual, in 24 hours, for respira- tion, space, and ventilation. On a calm day, when there were no strong breezes to change the air of the stockade, the entire quantity of air in the old stockade, allowing the palisades to be on the average 20 feet high, coidd be exhausted in 20 minutes by the 30,000 men respiring 300 cubic inches per minute. This is not a proper estimate to ofler ; but it will give a just idea of the rapid and fear- ful vitiation of the air that took place within the en- closure. Vierodt shows how rapidly carbonic acid increases when foul air is breathed, and Lehman proves the rapid disengagement of the gas in moist atmospheres. Symptoms of uneasiness manifest themselves when the air contains from yo'oTT to y^^o of carbonic acid, and when the proportion amounts to ten parts to 100 of air, death ensues. " This effect is visible upon vegetables also, and many of them are extremely susceptible of impurities in the air, and very slight modifications in the proportion of its constituents are more or less prejudicial to their growth." But plants, like animals, vary in regard to the delicacy of their constitutions, some being much more susceptible than others. In warm climes the respiration becomes slower, and in ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I 25 consequence there is less of carbon burned and less oxy- gen absorbed ; but on the other hand the functions of the skin become vastly increased, the bilious secretions be- come more active, and the excess of carbon is eliminated by this channel. That w^e expire more carbonic acid in a warm, moist atmosj^here, and less in a cold, dry climate, is shown by the exhilaration of our spirits on a fine frosty morning. No wonder that men lost their reason in this prison, for the blood no longer i-eddened from the imperfect arte- rialization, and burdened the brain with its effete matter, paralyzing and clogging up the delicate filaments and the narrow channels of thought and life. We have seen that the blood is subject to incessant vari- ations in its precise chemical constitution ; a free atmos- phere, well supplied, oxygenates and destroys the numer- ous impurities that tend to lin-k in the system and develop disease. Bichat shows, in his researches on life and death, how the black and carbonized blood disturbs the functions of the brain and acts like a narcotic poison, causing the , heart finally to cease its throbbings. These miasms and poisons floated about the enclosure where there was not the least sign of vegetable organism to absorb and convert them. As they passed into the systems of the prisoners they became the cause of disease, decrepitude, and death. 126 MARTYRIA, OR Vitiated air is one of the most subtile and powerful of poisons, and it seems to afiect soldiers more than any- other class of persons, and its consequences have been commented upon by most of the military writers, — from Xenophon among the Greeks, Vegetius among the Ro- mans, down to those of the present time. Cavalry horses have been observed to suffer deterioration and death from the same cause. Ague and fever, states Dr. Johnson, " two of the most prominent features of the malarious influences, are as a drop of water in the ocean when compared with the other, but less obtrusive, but more dangerous maladies that silently disoi^ganize the vital structure of the human fabric under the influence of this deleterious and invisible poison." One fourth of the sailors of the English navy are sent home invalided every year, and one tenth of them die from the effects of foul air of their cabins. " Two thirds of the pulmonary diseases which desolate England are induced by this cause." Baudelocque long ago pointed out its influences in the etiology of scrofula. It is really the same influence observed by Magendie, and not contradicted to the present day, that putrid blood, brain, bile, or pus, when laid on flesh wounds, produce in animals, after a longer or shorter interval, vomiting, languor, and death. The same results and phenomena are observed in the inspiration of bad air ; the most ter- rible forms of fever arise from the overcrowding of peo- ple in confined and limited sj^aces. Most of the zymotic ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I 37 diseases enter by the lungs, which are the principal absorb- ing agents. The breathing in of foul air, loaded with perceptible and putrid animal and vegetable emanations, gives rise to those z3rmotici, the ideas of which originated with Hip- pocrates, and to which the distinguished Liebig has since given form and prominence. Not only is animal life disturbed and destroyed, but we observe that vegetables even are affected by the same or similar causes ; that they are extremely susceptible of impurities in the air, and that the rapidity and vigorous appearance of their growth are affected whenever there is very slight modification in the healthy proportions of the atmosphere. Again, we see how seeds, when placed in elementary oxygen, germinate with extreme rapidity, and soon decay, thus indicating how the presence of nitrogen in the natural air restrains the force of the other element. xr. There was another serious defect in the management of the prison, and that was, the neglect to provide the means for entire ablution, which, in warm climes, becomes an imperative necessity. "Animals perspire, that they may live ; " and this function is as necessary to a healthy life as either breathing or digestion : the skin, like the lungs, gives off' carbonic acid and absorbs oxygen. But it differs from the lungs in giving off a much larger bulk of the former gas than it absorbs of the latter. The quantity of carbonic acid which escapes varies with cir- cumstances. It is sometimes equal to one thirtieth, and 128 MARTYRIA, OR sometimes amounts to only a ninetieth i^art of that which is thrown off from the lungs, but generally it amounts to lOO grains daily. But exercise and hard labor increase the evolution of carbon from the skin, as it does from the lungs. A large quantity of nitrogen also escapes by the skin. Hence we may infer the effect upon the prisoners, from the want of ablution, and the means of removing the accumulating filth of their bodies. The functions of the skin, and their influence in the practical feeding of ani- mals, have been carefully studied by the experimentalists, and they have observed that the difference in washed and unwashed animals, during the process of fattening, amounts to one fifth. Pure air and the enforcement of daily ablutions hav- ing been introduced into some of the English schools, the sick rate was reduced two thirds. A general of a belea- guered city in Spain was obliged to put his soldiers on short allowance, and compelled them to bathe daily in order to amuse them, when he found, to his surprise, that they became in better condition than when on full rations. Chadwick states, in his papers on Economy, that " amongst soldiers of the line who have only hands and face washing provided for, the death-rate is upwards of 17 per 1000." When sent into prisons where there is a far lower diet, sometimes exclusively vegetable, and without beer or spirits, but where regular head to foot ablutions and cleanliness of clothes, as well as of persons, are enforced, their health is vastly inci-eased, and the death-rate is reduced to 2^ per 1000. ANDERSON VILLE PRISON. 1 29 It appears from the mortuary records of the prison that 13,000 men were registered and buried during the year of its occupation. It also appears from the same hospital lists that 17,873 men received medical treatment, or were known to be sick, and their names entered in the books. Of these, 825 men wei'e exchanged, leaving 17,048 to be accounted for; thus giving a mortality of more than 76 per cent,, &y 760 men out of every thou- sand. It is said, and stated with confidence, that the names of the 4000 soldiers who died in their mud-holes within the pen, and who did not generally receive any medical treat- ment whatever, wei^e placed upon the hospital register, and their diseases diagnosed after death and removal from the stockade. But of this the writer is not positive, although he has seen tables of statistics of certain periods of the prison, where it is shown that every patient who was treated for disease perished. XIII. To form an idea of the awful mortality which reigned here, let us review the records of the hospital prisons, and the casualties of armies of foreign as well as our own country. These comparisons must, however, be received with much allowance, for the circumstances which led to death are very different. * * « * » In the prisons of Switzerland, before they were im- 6* 130 MARTYRIA, OR proved, the mortality was 25 to 35 per 1000. In the county jails of England it is reckoned at 10 per 1000; in the terrible hulks (Les Bagnes) of France it is 39 to ^^ per 1000, including epidemics of cholera. The average mortality of the London hospitals, where only the severer cases of disease and accident are received and treated, is nine per cent. In the hospitals of Dublin it is less than 5 per cent. ; in the civil hospitals of France it is from 5 to 9 per cent, ; in the military hospitals of the same country it is much less ; at Val de Grace it was 4 per cent, for a period of fort}^ years ; at Vincennes it was 3 per cent, for a long period; at the Gros Caillou, for a term of eleven years, it was less than 3 per cent, out of 55,000 patients. The mortality at Moyamensing Prison for many years was I per cent., and in the New York Penitentiary less than that for seven years. The average deaths in the prisons of Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, and Maryland, was about 2 per cent. The death-rate of the rebels con- fined in our military prisons was small, comparativel}^ : at Fort Delaware it was 2 per cent, for eleven months ; at Johnson's Island it was 2 per cent., or 134 deaths out of 6000 prisoners, for the period of twenty-one months. The loss at the i-ebel prison at Elmira is not known for the entire term ; but it was much less than the rebel " Vinculis" desires to make it. His own statements make but 4 per cent, during the worst month for instance : " Now out of less than nine thousand five hundred prisoners on the first of Septem- ber, 386 died that month." "At Andersonville the mortality averaged loooper month ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I3I out of 36,000 prisoners, or t^^. At Elmira it was 386 per month, out of 9500, or ^V ^f the whole. At Ehnira it was 4 per cent. ; at Andersonville less than 3 per cent. " If the moitality at Andersonville had been as great as at Elmira, the deaths should have been fourteen hun- dred and forty per month, or fifty per cent, more than they were." The official records of Andersonville show that Vin- culis is greatly in error ; for, instead of fourteen hundred and forty, the great number he imagines, they were even more ; for the figures show two thousand six hundred and seventy-eight for SejDtember, or more than fifteen jDer cent., and in October fifteen hundred and ninety-five, or more than twenty-seven per cent., and in the month of August three thousand men died, and on the twenty- third of that month one hundred and twenty-seven per- ished, or one every eleven minutes out of the number present. XIV. In the hospitals of the allied forces, during the cam- paign of the Crimea, which were established along the banks of the Bosphorus and at Constantinople, there were admitted, during the twenty-two months of the war, one hundred and thirty-nine thousand patients, and of these nineteen per cent, were lost during the entire period, or at the rate of ten per cent, per annum. One hundred and ninety-three thousand patients were admitted into the French hospitals during the same period, and but fourteen per cent, were lost, or less than eight per cent, per annum. 133 MARTYRTA, OR The mortality of the military hospitals of the army of occupation of Spain in 1824 was less than five per cent. The extemporized and regular hospitals of Milan, says Baron Larrey, received during the Italian campaign thirtj^-four thousand sick and w^ounded ; of v\^hom four- teen hundred died, or four per cent., or forty men out of evei-y one thousand. The temporary hospitals of Nash- ville received during the year 1864 sixty-five thousand sick and wounded, of whom twenty-six hundred died, or four per cent. The numerous hospitals of Washington treated in 1863 sixty-eight thousand patients, and lost twenty-six hundred, or less than four per cent. ; and, in 1864, the same hospitals treated ninety-six thousand patients (forty-nine thousand sick and forty-seven thou- sand wounded), and lost six thousand, or six per cent. The department of Pennsylvania received fifty-six thou- sand patients in its various hospitals, and lost but two per cent. Twenty-nine thousand nine hundred patients were cared for in the medical and surgical wards of the fourteen great civil hospitals of London in 1861, and but twenty-seven hundred of these died, or nine per cent. The diary of the rebel War Clerk says, that in the hospitals of the rebel service sixteen hundred thousand patients were treated, with a loss of four per cent. ; yet it appears from a surreptitious copy of the cjuarterly report ending 1S64, relating to the prisoners in hospital at Richmond, that twenty-seven hundred patients were treated, and thirteen hundred and ninety-six died, or fifty per cent. ; more than half of these cases were those of diarrhoea and dysentery, and only seventy deaths from fever. It appears from the ofticial data of the Surgeon- ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I33 Generars oflice, published in November, 1865, that eight hundred and seventy thousand cases of w^ounds and dis- ease were treated by the medical staff of the United States army in 1863, and but two per cent, were lost; also, that in 1863, seventeen hundred thousand cases were cared for, with a loss of three per cent. only. XV. The statistics of the great armies of Austria, Sardinia, and France during the Italian war, when half a million of men met in conflict at Magenta and Solferino, show, according to Boudin, that but six thousand four hundred and ten men lost their lives — of the French, three thou- sand five hundred and five ; of the Sardinians, one thousand and forty-five ; of the Austrians, one thousand eight hun- dred and sixty. It is shown by the records of the British army, that, out of the aggregate number of four hun- dred and thirty-eight thousand British soldiers who were engaged in the twenty-two great battles of the British empire from 1801 to 1854, but fourteen thousand men were killed, or died of their wounds, or three per cent. These battles embrace those of Eg3-pt, Spain, France, Waterloo, and the Crimea. Contrast these blood-stained records with this one instance of rebel cruelty at Andersonville. Of the number of the Federal soldiers who have been held in captivity during the rebellion by the rebels, more than thirty thousand of them are now dead. We know from official records that twenty-three thousand are buried at Andersonville and Salisbury alone. 134 MARTYRIA, OR XVI. Up to the month of September, 1864, forty-two thou- sand four hundred prisoners had been received, and out of this number seven thousand five hundred and eighty- seven, or eighteen per cent., had died since the occupa- tion of the prison — a period of about six months. During August the manoeuvres of Sherman alarmed them so much that they thought best to remove many of the prisoners to other stockades in Alabama and in North and South Carolina ; but yet the mortality for the remainder of the year was for the month of September seventeen per cent, out of the number present ; October, twenty-seven per cent. ; November, twenty-four per cent. ; and seven per cent, in December, when there were but five thousand inmates. This gives nineteen per cent, average for each of those four months, and indicates that out of the thirty-two thousand present on the first of August, but few thousand would have been living at the close of the year, had not Sherman compelled a reduction in the number of inmates. Out of this number present in August, and distributed afterwards, I believe that but few thousand survived the system of treatment at the other prisons, and ever lived to reach home. Of these few thousand men who were finally exchanged, a great many have since perished ; which statement will be admitted by all who have watched the phases of disease since the termination of the war. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. XYII. 135 The records state that eight thousand died from diar- rhoea and scurvy, and that three thousand more died from dysentery and vniknown causes. Two hundred and fif- teen tliousand cases of diarrhoea were treated in the United States army in 1S63, and but one thousand one hundred died; and of thirty-seven thousand cases of dysentery, but three hundred and forty-seven died ; and but one death from scurvy per thirty-five thousand of mean strength. In 1S63, according to the official records by Surgeon Wood- ward, five hundred thousand cases of diarrhoea and dysentery were treated, and but two per cent. died. According to the same authority there were but eight thousand six hundred cases of scurvy during the first two years of the war, and but one per cent, of tliese died. Fever was ahnost unknown, ahhough the foul atmos- pheres and malarial miasms are generally so eager in their attacks, and so rapid in their eflects ; the autopsies of the dead mdn revealed to the astonished pathologist the utter absence of all the usual lesions of these diseases. Boudin, of the French army, in 1843, in his " Essai de Geographic Medicale," observes that phthisis and typhoid fever are very rare in the marshy districts where intermit- tent fevers of a certain gravity prevail. It does not appear that either of these diseases declared itself to any per- ceptible degree. The effect of starvation was so strong that miasmatic disease could not gain a lodgment in the system, although every other condition was favorable to its production. Scurvy seems to be prominent in the alleged diseases. 136 MARTYRIA, OR The combined influence of all the vicious conditions could readily have produced this form of malady in its worst shape ; but it is one of those diseases which are clearly within the control of man, and for the existence of which, in this case, there is no excuse whatever. They required the treatment, practised with success in India, for those fluxes which are marked by a scorbutic state of the system — potatoes and lime juice. The neighboring plantations produced the potatoes in great quantities. In the everglades of Florida the lime tree, which furnishes a positive antidote, grows in wild luxuriance ; and the woods everywhere, the corn and potatoes of their fields, furnish vinegar by distillation. If the plantations failed in their supplies of vegetables, the forests furnished, with trifling labor, an excellent substitute. Vinegar, in the early history of war, was the chief and the sure reliance against the attacks of scurvy and malaria. To this drink chiefly. Marshal Saxe ascribes the amazing success of the Roman campaigns in the varied climates of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Scientific men, from Dioscorides to Orfila, have extolled its virtues in this respect. It is idle to say that they did not know how to make it, for the merest tyro in chemistry under- stands the method of fermentation and distillation. XVIII. It has been stated that the mortality was caused by epidemics ; by dysentery or camp distempers ; but the testimony of nature, as revealed by the scalpel of the dis- sector, does not admit of such statement. There was ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I37 neither epidemic nor jiestilence. There was starvation instead. That a vast amount of this mortality was caused by the unfavorable, the needless, the cruel circumstances in which the prisoners were placed, no one acquainted with the phenomena of life and death will deny. But as to how much more than the normal rate, no man has sufficient generosity and impartiality to determine. This we know, however, that it is an axiom with all hygienists and military men, that the health of the soldier is always in direct ratio of the care taken of him. To give a just estimate of the normal degree of the mortality that was caused by diarrhoea, will indeed form a complex problem, since it is not only the last stage of starvation, but it is often produced by the decomposition of the blood by the dyscrasia peculiar to camp life. We obsei've it in all armies during the summer months, and that it seems to result from manifold causes. Although the predispos- ing cause is the dyscrasiac condition of the soldier, the determining cause is most always the quality of the food consumed, and the purity of the water used for potable purposes. Surface water mixed with confervoids and decomposed vegetable matter, and the deeper currents of water which pass through the rotten limestones, arc, during the summer, the fruitful sources of intestinal disorders. Those who have observed the influence of atmospheric changes upon disease, will comprehend why the diarrhrea curve followed the line of high temperature, and how it progressed in consequence of heat, even when unassisted by inanition. 1 3$ MARTYRIA, OR XIX. It has been maintained by the rebels that many of the deaths were caused by nostalgia, or home-sickness. The truth of this remark we do not consider of sufficient im- portance to discuss in the extenuation of the crime, al- though we will admit that this disorder, which impairs the intellectual faculties and enfeebles the digestive func- tions, is often the cause of death among the French armies in Algeria, and the English in India, and that it can even become epidemic and lead to suicide. But the disease is clearly within the control of man. We can find a more I'eady reason for the explanation of the derangement of the mind and nervous system in the dietary. The statistics of insanity show how sad or ferocious delirium may arise from starvation ; and accord- ing to Combe, " a species of insanity, arising from defec- tive nourishment, is very prevalent among the jMilanese, and is easily cured by the nourishing diet provided in the hospitals to which the patients are sent." The survivors have explained the causes of death of their comrades. The fiices of these men told the story better than the tongue could describe. The peculiar look of these men was common to them all : the shrunken and pallid features — the rough and blighted skin — the va- cant, wild, and unearthly stare of the hollow and lustreless eye, — all told of the results of starvation. This look can no more be described than forgotten, when once seen. Wherever the returned sufferers landed, the bystanders were struck with horror by this fearful appearance. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I39 XX. The impure air, the marked and rapid changes of tem- perature, and the foul water, rendered the tenacity of. animal life a simple problem, and when joined to the deprivation of food, it became a matter of surprise that any of the hapless wretches escaped with life. The intense heat served to accelerate the destruction of the organism, already weakened and sapped by the want of food and the putridity of the atmosphere. Life is always best supported at a moderate tempera- ture, which, however, is restricted to a certain degree, de- pending upon the forces of reserve in the animal ; and it is observed by experimentalists that all the vital proper- ties of the nervous centres, the nerves and muscles in adult as well as in young warm-blooded animals, may be much increased by a diminution of temperature. This is shown by Brown-Sequard, in his illustrations of the influences of prolonged muscular exertion on cadav- eric rigidity and putrefaction. Some few of the soldiers arriving from the army, with their systems already saturated with paludal and animal poisons, apd who were profoundly cachectic, could rally very slowly if at all, under the combined influences of the mephitic miasms and heat of the locality, even had there been no fault in the alimentation. But there was a very great number of the prisoners who were free from disease and debility, as they were direct from their homes in the North, or from the healthy camj^is of instruction. Scurvy and the vicious forms of zymotic disease, which depend upon starvation and vitiated atmosphere, raged 140 MARTYRIA, OR unchecked. The medical care does not seem to have made any impression upon them, because of the limitations of their materia medica, and the want of attention and ac- commodations for the patients. There does not seem to have been any sanitary regula- tions, nor the simplest hygienic precautions adopted by the jDrison authorities. No proper military arrangements to enforce order among the turbulent or insane, to protect the weak from the strong in the struggle for a morsel of bread, a bone, or a rag of clothing ; no proper system of nurses to assist the feeble within the stockade or the hos- pital, and administer to their wants. Filth was deposited everywhere, because the enfeebled and dying wretches had not sufficient strength to crawl down to the qviag- mire by the banks of the stream. In the midst of these horrible circumstances, men met their fate with singular calmness and stoicism. Nature strangely appears to con- form and temper the asperities of fate to men and animals alike. XXI. It is often asked why the prisoners did not revolt, and w^ith the mighty energy of despair wrench down the gates, and strangle with their hands the few thousand of rebel guards. To burst through the massive timbers of the gates and the outer lines of palisades, and then force the encircling row of ramparts, which were bristling with troops and cannon, required something more than courage. This gigantic strength, this desperation of vigor, was not possible for the prisoners; for the food, and the external impressions — whether of the heat, cold, ANDERSOXVILLE PRISON. I4I or horror — had too much impoverished the blood, — the blood, which imparts force to human volition. In the summing up of the condition to which life was exposed in this stockade, and reviewing the vicious influ- ences at work, we may come to some definite conclusion as to the true causes of the results. It is evident from the comparisons and estimates of the dietary that the want of food alone was sufficient to cause a great number of deaths. It is also evident from the statements relative to ratio of density, to exposure, to deadly miasms, and exhalations from decomposing animal matter, that these conditions were alone sufficient to cause excessive mor- talit}', even if the alimentation had been generous and proper. This terrible mortality, without the influence of epi- demics, is without parallel, and is without excuse, save on the principle that war is for mutual destruction, that the captor has the right of disposal, and that the captives must be put to death. The philanthropist may console himself with the idea that climate, with its unseen but powerful agencies, has been the author of the destruction of this army of men ; but the sui^geon and man of science will recognize the true causes, and express their opinion in but one word, and that word is murder : that it was deliberate destruction ; but whether with the conscience of the Tartar, or with premeditated free-will, it matters little, — the result is the same. BOOK SEVENTH " Homo sum ; humani nihil a me alienum puto." — Terence. " Since no man has a natural right over his fellow- creature, and since force produces no right, conventions then remain as the base for all legitimate authority among men." — Rousseau. WAR," exclaims the author of the " Social Contract," " Is not exactly a relation of man to man, but a relation of state to state, In which the individuals are enemies only by accident, and not as men, neither even as citizens, but as soldiers, — not exactly as members of the country, but as its defenders. In fine, every state can have as enemies only other states, and not men, on ac- count of the interference of things of diverse natures, which cannot fix any true relation. " This principle is even conformed to maxims established in all times, and to the constant practice of all civilized people. The declarations of war ai"e more as warnings to the powers than to their subjects. The stranger — either king, or individual, or people — who seizes, kills, or detains the subjects, without declaring the war to the ruler, is not an enemy, he is a brigand. " Even in open war, a just ruler seizes property in an (142) ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 143 enemy's country, all that which belongs to the public ; but he respects the person and the property of the indi- vidual ; he respects the rights upon which his own are founded. "The intent of the war being the destruction of the hos- tile state, we have the right to kill the defenders so often as they have arms in their hands ; but as soon as they lay them down, and surrender, ceasing to be enemies, or in- struments of the enemy, they become again simpl}' men, and we have no longer a right to their lives. Sometimes we may destroy a state without killing a single one of its members ; but war does not confer any right which is not necessary to its end. " These principles are not those of Grotius : they are not founded upon the authorities of jDoets : but they are de- rived from the nature of things, and are founded upon reason. With regard to the right of conquest, it has no other foundation than the law of the most force. If war does not give to the conqueror the right to massacre the vanquished people, that right, which he has not, does not establish that to enslave. We have no more right to kill an enemy than to make him a slave. The right to en- slave does not then come from the right to kill. This is then an unjust exchange, to compel him to purchase life at the price of liberty, upon which we have no right. " In establishing the right of life and death upon the right of slavery, and the right to enslave upon the right of life and death, is it not clear that we fall into a wicked circle?" 144 MARTYRIA, OR Says Mirabeau, in his beautiful essay on " Despotism," " Wc can destroy the life of a man for a frightful crime ; but that is not to appropriate my existence when it is forced from me. Consider, upon this subject, how absurd is the opinion of the pretended philosophers who have established force as title ; who have set up a right of con- quest, and recognized to the conquerors the legitimate power to grant life or put to death. " It is not true that the right of life and death, exercised by a man upon another man, has ever been anything else than an act of frenzy ; for your enemy reduced to slavery can be yet useful to 3'ou, provided you preserve his life, — and this is less than the right that he has upon you, and the relation which binds you together ; but the massacre of a man is nothing more than to dishonor and disgust humanity, * * * the right of life and death, * * * and what other has the Creator to exercise over our existence ? " From man to man the rights then are always respec- tive. Personal propriety cannot surrender itself, liberty cannot alienate itself. This first gift of nature is impre- scriptible ; and men, even in their delirium, cannot re- nounce it." " Opinion makes the law." If human laws are uncer- tain and contradictory, it is not the fault of nature, since man has invented or discovered rules in the science of physics which are constant and invariable, like those of geometry and chemistry. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 145 Whatever renders the laws of society invariable, inop- erative, is due to the inherent weakness of their basis, and not to the eternal principles of truth and justice. All human laws must be founded on that fundamental and immutable law of nature, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." This precept of divine origin is the great balance of the human mind ; and it is the secret spring of the progress of na- tions, as well as the social development of individuals : for without this principle the world would be nothing but a vast arena, in which all classes of people would be ar- rayed against each other in deadly conflict ; impelled by the force oF passion and appetite, error and prejudice would soon banish the influence of truth and reason. The weaker families would soon be consumed by the stronger in the wars of avarice and religion. " The laws of nature," writes M. Regis, " are the dic- tates of right reason, which teach every man how he is to use his natural right ; and the laws of nations are the dic- tates, in like manner, of right reason, which teach every state how to act and behave themselves toward others." " As God," says Blackstone, " when he created matter, and endowed it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that motion, so when he created man, and endued him with free will to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down cer- tain immutable laws of human nature whereby that free will is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws." This law of nature being coeval with mankind, and 7 1^6 MARTYRIA, OR dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obliga- tion to any other. It is binding all over the globe, in all countries and at all times : no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this ; and such of them as are valid, derive all their force and all their authority, medi- ately or immediately, from this original. Human laws originate in the wisdom of man, and are designed to regulate their behavior to one another, and are enforced by human authority and worldly sanc- tions. The fear of punishment and revenge are not strong enough to control the lusts and passions of men. The true idea and comprehension of the majesty and mercy of the law is infused by the spirit of philosophy. IV. " The existence of states," says Montesquieu, " is like that of man, and the first have the I'ight to make war for their proper preservation ; the latter have the right to kill in the case of natural defence. In the case of natural defence I have the right to kill, since my life is my own, as the life of him who attacks me belongs to himself. * * * From the right of war follows that of conquest, which is the consequence : it ought then to follow the spirit. * * * It is clear when the conquest is made, the conqueror has no longer the right to kill, since he is no longer in the position of natural defence, or for his proper preserva- tion, " That which has made them think thus (right to kill), is that they have believed that the conqueror had the ANDEKSONVILLE PRISON. I^J right to destroy society, whence they have concluded that they had that to destroy the men who composed it, which is a false consequence extracted from a false principle. Because the society should perish, it does not follow that the men who form it ought also to perish. Society is a union of men, and not men : the citizen can perish and the man remain. From the right to kill in conquest, politics have derived the right to enslave ; bnt the conse- quence is as badly founded as the principle." There are certain rules that arise from the principle of self-preservation, and foi'm what Wolff calls " the vol- untary law of nations." "Hence it follows that all na- tions have a right to repel by force what openly violates the law of the society which nature has established among them, or that directly attacks the welfare and safety of that society. At the same time care must be taken not to extend this law to the prejudice of the lib- erty of nations." V. The right of jurisdiction belongs only to those societies which have united for the purpose of maintaining the natural rights of each individual. The ablest writers have maintained that society has not the right of life and death, and whoever arrogates that power commits a " divine lese inajeste." " The object, the interest, and the function of all government are, then, to maintain the harmony of society established upon the moral relations of justice, and upon the physical order that no human power can change, and to pi'otect all those who compose that society." Louis XI., that Tibe- 148 MARTYRIA, OR rius of France, caused to be put to death more than four thousand persons, and nearly all without process of law. We see passionate men defending palpable errors with fanaticism and metaphysical temei'ity, as though they were divine dogmas. Thus Slavery would legalize frightful tyranny, and declare permanent proscriptions, with the same ease that it consigned thousands to starvation. " If liberty," says the author of the " Essai sur le Despotisme," " is the first of resorts for man. Slavery must alter all the sentiments, blunt all the sensations, and denaturalize them ; stifle all talent, blend all shades, corrupt all the ordei-s of state, and scatter discord, the germ of anarchy and revo- lutions. Man is only wicked when a superstitious insti- tution or a tyrannical government gives the example of ferocity, and supplies him with fear for motive and cu- pidity for passion. But it is necessary to distinguish with men the chai-acter acquired from natural inclination : we are, of all beings, the most susceptible of modifications, and above all, of extreme passions. An enslaved people are alwa3's vile : they can be wicked and cruel, because they are irritable, gloomy, and ignorant ; and when, although instruction will not be the only rampart of lib- erty against tyranny, it will always be the first safeguard of man against man ; but the slave is a mutilated man." Every writer will admit this whose pen is not enslaved by fear, or rendered venal by interest. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I49 VI. The right of making prisoners of war, and depriving them of their liberty, and of the power and opportunity of farther resistance, is undoubted, for it is founded on the principles of security and self-defence. But when tlie soldier has laid down his arms, and submitted to the will of tne conqueror, the right of taking his life ceases, unless he should forfeit the right himself by some new crime ; and the savage errors of antiquity, in putting prisoners to death, have long been renounced by civilized nations.- Among the European states prisoners of war are sel- dom ill-treated ; and when the number of prisoners is so great as not to be fed, or kept with safety, it has been the custom to parole them, either for a certain length of time, or for the war. All authorities agree that they cannot be made slaves, although under certain circumstances they may be set at labor on the public fortifications and works. Prisoners of war are retained to prevent their returning to the field of conflict, and there are times when they may be detained and refused all ransom, when, for instance, it is obvious that the parole will not be regarded by the opposing commanders, and when their exchange would throw a preponderance of weight into the ranks of the antagonist. It would have been very dangerous for the Czar Peter the Great to have exchanged his Swedish pris- oners for an equal number of unequal Russians ; but whilst retained they were treated with kindness. I^O MARTYRIA, OR The rebel policy and system towards the Federal pris- oners, along the entire line, without exception, from Virginia to Texas, was one of stupendous atrocity. It was one of the most inhuman and monstrous that hate and tyranny ever invented. It was no less derogatory to human character than defiant to the principles of Chris- tianity ; but Christianity was unknown there. The gods of worship were the deities of the dark ages, and the fancied garlands of flowers that decorated their statues were nothing more than wreaths of Cyprus leaves. This stockade was the epitome and concentration of all earthly misery, to which the Bastile and the Inquisition offer but feeble comparisons, as prototypes, as models, as ideas, for the destruction of human life. In this we recognize the perversion of the natural sen- timents after two centuries of crime, the defiance of all honorable law, " the barbarism of slavery." What can we, in extenuation, ascribe to recklessness, what to ignorance? " There is," says the eloquent Rous- seau, " a brutal and ferocious ignorance, which s^Drings from a bad heart and a false spirit. A criminal igno- rance, which extends itself even to the duties of humanity ; which multiplies vices, which degrades reason, debases the soul, and renders man like the beasts." These men destroyed the strength, the lives of thou- sands, by stealthy means, and excused their consciences by the reflections of perverted nature : as Timour said to his victims, " It is you who assassinate your own souls ! " ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I5I VIII. It has been the custom, among European nations, to treat prisoners of war liberall}', and the expenses of maintaining them are paid by both sides at the close of the war. The British Parhament voted, in 17S0, to pay forty tliousand pounds sterhng to disinfect and improve the prison where the Spanish prisoners were confined, and where a fatal fever had declared itself. And there ai'e many instances where European powers have acted kindly and humanely towards those who had fallen into their power from hazaixl of battle. War was de- clared against states, and not against the individual subjects of those states. At all times, kindness to the unfortunate, and hospi- tality to strangers, has always been considered as a virtue of the first rank among people whose manners are simple, and who, uncontaminated by vices of a false and frivo- lous civilization, exhibit the natural qualities of the human race. Even among the darkness of the middle ages kind- ness was compulsory, and hospitality enforced by statute, and whoever denied succor to misery was liable to pun- ishment. '• Qiiicunque hospiti venienti lectum aut focum negaverit trium solidorum in latione mulctetur." (Leg. Burgund., tit. 38, §1.) The laws of the Slavi ordained that the movables of an inhospitable person should be confiscated, and his house burned. 152 MARTYRIA, OR In comparison with these humane provisions, how ter- ribly contrasted are the modes of treatment as practised by the rebel authorities upon the Federal soldiers ! " Let us hoist the black flag, and kill every prisoner," said one of the cabinet officers. " I will sell my wheat," said another cabinet officer, " to my fellow-citizens, at exorbi- tant prices." " My God," said a poor woman, " how can I pay such prices ! I have seven children ? What shall I do? " " I do not know^, madam," was the brutal answer, " unless you eat them." When such sentiments prevailed at Richmond, what could be expected in kindness by those who were looked upon with hatred and as worthy of death? In the revolutionary times of .177^ there was no brutal treatment of prisoners of war by Americans. Washing- ton was extremely solicitous that no act of barbarity should stain the sanctity of the cause. In a letter of May II, 1776, Washington wrote to the President of Congress, recommending that measures be adopted to secure for prisoners of war the most humane treatment ; and again to the Massachusetts Committee, February 6, 1776, he wrote, recommending that captives should be treated with humanity and kindness. The Continental Congress passed a resolution in 1 776 that all taken with arms be treated as prisoners of war, but with humanity, and allowed the same rations as the troops in the service of the United States. ANDERSOW^ILLE PRISON. I53 The United States Government adopted the following rules in 1863 for the guidance of our armies, and pub- lished them in General Order, No. 100, April 24 : — * * * * II. The law of war not only disclaims all cruelty and bad faith concerning engagements concluded with the enemy during the war, but also the breaking of stipula- ^ tions solemnly contracted by the belligerents in time of peace, and avowedly intended to remain in force in case of war between the contracting powers. It disclaims all extortions and other transactions for individual gain ; all acts of private revenge, or con- nivance at such acts. Offences to the contrary shall be severely punished, and especially so if committed by officers. 14. Militaiy necessity, as understood by modern civil- ized nations, consists in the necessity of those measures which are indispensable for securing the ends of war, and which are lawful according to the modern law and usages of war. 15. Military necessity admits of all direct destruction of life or limb of armed enemies, and of other persons whose destruction is incidentally unavoidable in the . armed contests of the war ; it allows of the capturing of every armed enemy, and every enemy of importance to the hostile government, or of peculiar danger to the captor ; it allows of all destruction of property, and obstruction of the ways and channels of traffic, travel, or communication, and of all withholding of sustenance 154 MARTYRIA, OR or means of life from the enemy ; of the appropriation of whatever an enemy's country aflbrds necessary for the safety and subsistence of the army, and of such deception as does not involve the breaking of good faith, either positively j^ledged regarding agreements entered into during the vv^ar, or supposed by the modern law of war to exist. Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another and to God. i6. Military necessity does not admit of cruelty, — that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or revenge, — nor of maiming or wounding, except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit of the use of poison in an}' way, nor of the wanton devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but dis- dains acts of perfidy ; and, in general, military necessity does not include any act of hostility which renders the return to peace unnecessarily difficult. 27. The law of war can no more wholly dispense with retaliation than can the law of nations, of which it is a branch ; yet civilized nations acknowledge retaliation as the sternest feature of ^var. A reckless enemy often leaves to his opponents no other means of securing himself against the repetition of barbarous outrage. 28. Retaliation will, therefore, never be resorted to as a measure of mere revenge, but only as a means of pro- tective retribution, and cautiously and unavoidably ; that is to say, retaliation shall only be resorted to after careful inquiry into the real occurrence and the character of the misdeeds that may demand retribution. 33. It is no longer considered lawful — on the contrary ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 1 55 it is held to be a serious breach of the law of war — to force the subjects of the enemy into the service of the victorious government, except the latter should proclaim, after a fair and complete conquest of the hostile country or district, that it is resolved to keep the country, district, or place permanently as its own, and make it a portion of its own country. 49. A prisoner of war is a public enemy, armed or at- tached to the hostile army for active aid, who has fallen into the hands of the captor, either fighting or wounded, on the field or in the hospital, by individual surrender or by capitulation. 52. No belligerent has the right to declare that' he will treat every captured man in arms, of a levy en masse, as a brigand or bandit. * * * 56, A prisoner of war is subject to no punishment for being a public enemy, nor is any revenge wreaked upon him by the intentional infliction of any suffering, or dis- grace by cruel imprisonment, want of food, by mutilation, death, or any other barbarity. 57. So soon as a man is armed by a sovereign govern- ment, and takes the soldier's oath of fidelity, he is a bel- ligerent ; his killing, wounding, or other warlike acts are no individual crime or offence. * * * 67. The law of nations allows every sovereign govern- ment to make war upon another sovereign state, and therefore admits of no rules or laws different from those of regular warfare regarding the treatment of prisoners of war, although they may belong to the army of a gov- ernment which the captor may consider as a wanton and unjust assailant. 156 MARTYRIA, OR The use of poison in any manner, be it to poison wells, or food, or arms, is wholly excluded from modern war- fare. He that uses it puts himself out of the pale of the laws and usages of war. 71. Whoever intentionally inflicts additional wounds on an enemy alread}^ wholly disabled, or kills such an enemy, or who orders or encourages soldiers to do so, shall suffer death if duly convicted, whether he belongs to the army of the United States, or is an enemy captured after having committed his misdeed. 73. Money and other valuables on the person of a pris- oner, such as watches or jewelry, as well as extra clothing, are regarded by the American army as the private property of the prisoners, and the appropriation of such valuables or money is considered dishonorable, and is prohibited. 74. A prisoner of war, being a public enemy, is the prisoner of the government and not of the captor. No ransom can be paid by a prisoner of war to his individual captor or to any officer in command. The government alone releases captives, according to rules prescribed by itself. 75. Pi'isonei's of war are subject to confinement or im- prisonment, such as may be deemed necessary on account of safety, but they are to be subjected to no other inten- tional suffering or indignity. The confinement and mode of treating a prisoner may be varied during his captivity, according to the demands of safety. 76. Prisoners of war shall be fed upon plain and whole- some food whenever practicable, and treated with humani- ty. They may be required to work for the benefit of the ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I57 captor's government, according to their rank and con- dition. 77. A prisoner of war who escapes, may be shot or otherwise killed in his flight, but neither death nor any other punishment shall be inflicted upon liim, simply for his attempt to escape, wliich the law of war does not con- sider a crime. Stricter means of security shall be used after an unsuccessful attempt at escape. * * « 109. The exchange of prisoners of war is an act of convenience to both belligerents. If no general cartel has been concluded it cannot be demanded by either of them. No belligerent is obliged to exchange prisoners of war. A cartel is voidable as soon as either party has \'iolated it. 119. Prisoners of war may be released from captivity by exchange and under certain circumstances, also by jDarole. 120. The term parole designates the pledge of individ- ual good faith and honor to do, or to omit doing, certain acts after he who gives his parole shall have been dis- missed wholly or partially from the power of the captor. 121. The pledge of the parole is always an individual but not a private act. 133. No prisoner of war can be forced by the hostile government to parole himself, and no government Is obliged to parole prisoners of war, or to parole all cap- tured officers, if it paroles any. As the pledging of the parole is an individual act, so is paroling, on the other hand, an act of choice on the part of the belligerent. I5S MARTYRIA, OR XI. From the evidence obtained from different souixes, and from the results, it may be properly reasoned that there was a secret and fixed intent on the part of the cabal at Richmond to weaken the Federal armies by destroying the prisoners by starvation and exposure. The open robbery of all the captives, the neglect of the commissariat when there was no excuse, the refusal to remedy atrocious evils, all betray malice and design. That intrepid and humane officer. Colonel Chandler, made complaint of this prison, in his Ins2Dection Report, as early as July 5, 1864, when he uses the following lan- guage : "No shelter whatever, nor materials . for con- structing an}^, had been provided by the prison authori- ties, and the ground being entirely bare of trees, none is within reach of the prisoners ; nor has it been possible, from the overcrowded state of the enclosure, to arrange the cainp with any system. Each man has been permit- ted to protect himself as best he can, by stretcliing his blanket, or whatever he may have about him, on such sticks as he can procure. Of other shelter there has been none. There is no medical attendance within the stock- ade. Many (twenty yesterday) are carted out daily who have died from unknown causes, and whom the medical officers have never seen. The dead are hauled out by the wagon-load, and buried without coffins, their hands, in many instances, being first mutilated with an axe in the rem^oval of any -inger-rings they may have. Raw rations have to be issued to a very large portion, who are en- tirely unprovided with proper utensils, and furnished so AJVDERSONVILLE PRISON. 159 limited a supply of fuel they are compelled to dig with their hands in the filthy marsh before mentioned for roots, &c. No soa^D or clothing have ever been issued. After inquir}^, the writer is confident that, with slight exertions, green corn and other anti-scorbutics could readily be ob- tained. The present hospital an-angemcnts were onlv in- tended for the accommodation of ten thousand men, and are totally insufficient, both in character and extent, for the present need, — the number of prisoners being now more than three times as great. The number of cases requiring medical treatment is in an increased ratio. It is impossible to state the number of sick, many dving within the stockade whom the medical officers have never seen or heard of till their remains are brought out for in- terment." Later reports were made by this inspector, and they were forwarded to the rebel executive, indorsed by the as- sisant-secretaiy of war, Campbell, that this condition was a reproach to the Confederates as a nation. But not the least notice was taken of these startling and heart-rending revelations, in which Winder was denounced as a mur- derer from the statements made by Winder himself. The wretch and the system of treatment were denotmced by Stephens of South Carolina, by Foote of Tennessee ; yet no response was obtained from the secretary of war, or from the executive, Davis. When Breckenridge became secretary of war, shortly before the downfall of the re- bellion, the brave Chandler demanded that some notice, some action, should be taken on the reports he had sub- mitted months before, or he would resign his commission ; for his honor and humanity were involved. l6o MARTYRIA, OR What action was taken, if any thei'e was, is not known to the writer. The thanks of the South, the kind wishes of all who honor the warm and generous impulses of our better nature, are due to the noble Chandler, who had the courage, the temerity, to expose the suffering condition at Andersonville, and to denounce the authors again and again at the peril of his life. It is known to the writer that Surgeons Bemis and Flu- ellen, of the rebel army medical staff, inspected the con- dition of the prison, and protested against the cruel man- agement. One of the chief medical officers of the rebel army of the South informed the author that the medical men at this prison were without any influence whatever ; and al- though the prison was within his department for a time, he had no more voice or influence in its management than the man in the moon ; and that everything relating to the prison was controlled and devised by the atitJiorities at Richmond. The refusal or the neglect of the rebel authorities, to whom these reports were submitted, to take notice of or remedy the exposed evils, is a tacit acknowledgment and approval of the system at work. XII. Northrop, the rebel commissary-general, whom Foote denounced in the rebel Congress as a monster, and incom- petent, urged the secretary of war, vSeddon, to reduce the rations to gruel and bread, in retaliation for alleged abuses to the rebel prisoners in our hands. Seddon de- AXDERSONA'ILLE PRISON. l6l clined to do it openly, on account of the technicalities of the law ; but Northrop took the measure quietly into his own hands, and withheld meat so often and so long from the prisoners near Richmond as to call forth a yell of remonstrance from even the inhuman Winder. When the prisoners at Belle Isle — numbering from eight to thirteen thousand — were deprived of meat, — from the incompetency or the wilfulness of the conmiis- sary-general, — for a fortnight at a time, the secretary of war refused to allow compassionate parties to buy cattle in the neighborhood of the city, and bring them to the prison, stating that Northrop had informed him that the prisoners fared as well as the soldiers. And in pursuance of this diabolical plan of starvation, orders were given, in December, by the rebel war de- partment, that no more supplies should be received from the United States for the prisoners, for which no apology or reason was ever given. Winder was denounced by members of Congress ; but Davis took no notice, because he was his personal friend. vSeddon took sides with Northrop, and would not allow Captain Warner to buy cattle for the prisoners around Richmond, as he offered to do, and relieve their sufler- ings. The postmaster-general wanted to kill the prisoners taken in raiding ; and Seddon, the secretary of war, stated that he was always in fovor of fighting under the black flag. When Chandler made his report, Cobb was writing that all was going on well at the prison. Colonel Persons, who was the first conunander, and relieved by Winder, 1 62 MARTYRIA, OR applied for an injunction against tlie prison as a nuisance. No' compassion, humanity, or decency was observed in the demand for the process : it was simply a nuisance, and dangerous to the health of the surrounding region. No plea was made that thousands were being murdered there. XIII. It is known, and proved beyond " cavil of a doubt," that the prisoners were robbed of all articles of value, even hats, coats, blankets, and shoes, and that no attempt was made to restore them, or to supply any deficiency that arose from this rapacious dishonesty. In striking contrast with this " barbarism of slavery," notice the treatment in our own prisons, where all need- ful clothing and blankets were issued to- the rebel pris- oners, whenever their circumstances required it ; and during the period of rebellion, a vast quantity of coats, blankets, stockings, shirts, and drawers were supplied by the quartermaster's department. Thirty-five thousand articles of clothing were issued in eight months to the rebel prisoners at Fort Delaware alone. Of the many thousand rebel wounded and sick prisoners in our hands, who have been under the observation of the writer during the war, all, without exception, were treated with kind- ness, and the wants of all supplied in the same manner as with our men. In the Dartmoor prison, the British allowed to each of our men a hammock, a blanket, a horse rug, and a bed containing four pounds of flocks ; and every eighteen months one woollen cap, one yellow jacket, one pair of ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 163 pantaloons, and one waistcoat of the same material as allowed to the British army ; and also, every nine months, one pair of shoes, and one shirt. The prison was in- spected by the chief surgeon of England, and whenever complaint was made by the prisoners, the admiralty sent officers of high rank to investigate the causes of com- plaint. The officers of the prison hulks in England be- haved generally with kindness and humanity to our men, as is shown by the records of the captivity. But even this treatment, humane as it appears when compared with the rebel system, was less generous than that bestowed by the Algerine pirates upon our sailors captured by them. The captives in Algiers received good and abundant vegetable food, and were lodged in airy places. XIV. This system of barbarity of the rebels towards their prisoners having become known to the United States government, efforts were made to ameliorate the con- dition of the suffering men, but without avail. /Measures of retaliation were entertained by Congress, in hopes of effecting a change by the clamors from the rebel prisoners themselves, and the following resolutions were introduced by Mr. Wade, of Ohio, but they were not adopted : — ^^^ Joint Resolution, advising Retaliation for the Cruel Treatment of Prisoners by the Insui'gents. W/iereas, It has come to the knowledge of Congress that great numbers of our soldiers, who have fallen as 164 MARTYRIA, OR prisoners of war into the hands of the insurgents, have been subjected to treatment unexampled for cruelty in the history of civilized war, and finding its parallels only in the conduct of savage tribes ; a treatment resulting in the death of multitudes by the slow but designed process of starvation, and by mortal diseases occasioned by insuffi- cient and unhealthy food, by wanton exposure of their persons to the inclemency of the weather, and by delib- erate assassination of unoffending men ; and the murder, in cold blood, of prisoners after surrender ; and, whereas a continuance of these barbarities, in contempt of the laws of war, and in disregard of the remonstrances of the national authorities, has presented to us the alterna- tive of suffering our brave soldiers thus to be destroyed, or to apply the principle of retaliation for their protec- tion : Therefore, Resolved^ by the Senate and House of Representa- tives of the United States of America, in Congress as- sembled, That, in the judgment of Congress, it has become justifiable and necessary that the President should, in order to j^revent the continuance and recurrence of such barbarities, and to insure the observance by the in- surgents of the laws of civilized war, resort at once to measures of retaliation. That, in our opinion, such re- taliation ought to be inflicted upon the insurgent officers now in our hands, or hereafter to fall into our hands, as prisoners ; that such officers ought to be subjected to like treatment practised towards our officers or soldiers in the hands of the insurgents, in respect to quantity and quality of food, clothing, fuel, medicine, medical attendance, per- sonal exposure, or other mode of dealing with them ; that, ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 165 with a view to the same ends, the insurgent prisoners in our hands ought to be placed under the control and in the keeping of officers and men who have themselves, been prisoners in the hands of the insurgents, and have thus acquired a knowledge of their mode of treating Union prisoners ; that explicit instructions ought to be given to the forces having the charge of such insurgent prisoners, requiring them to carry out strictly and promptly the principles of this resolution in every case, until the President, having received satisfactory informa- tion of the abandonment by the insurgents of such barba- rous practices, shall revoke or modify said instructions. Congress do not, however, intend by this resolution to limit or restrict the power of the President to the modes or principles of retaliation herein mentioned, but only to advise a resort to them as demanded by the occasion. Mr. Sumner offered the following Resolutions as a sub- stitute for the Resolution of the Committee : — Resolved^ That retaliation is harsh always, even in the simplest cases, and is permissible only where, in the first place, it may reasonably be expected to effect its object, and where, in the second place, it is consistent with the usages of civilized society ; and that, in the absence of these essential conditions, it is a useless bar- barism, having no other end than vengeance, which is forbidden alike to nations and to men. Resolved^ That the treatment of our officers and sol- diers in rebel prisons is cruel, savage, and heart-rending beyond all precedent ; that it is shocking to morals ; that it is an offence against human nature itself; that it adds 1 66 MARTYRIA, OR new guilt to the great crime of the rebellion, and consti- tutes an example from which history will turn with sorrow and disgust. Resolved^ That any attempted imitation of rebel bar- barism in the treatment of prisoners would be plainly impracticable, on account of its inconsistency with the prevailing sentiments of humanity among us ; that it would be injurious at home, for it would barbarize the whole community ; that it would be utterly useless, for it could not affect the cruel authors of the revolting conduct which we seek to overcome ; that it would be immoral, inasmuch as it proceeded from vengeance alone ; that it could have no other result than to degrade the national character and the national name, and to bring down upon our country the I'eprobation of history ; and that, being thus impracticable, useless, immoral, and degrading, it must be rejected as a measure of retaliation, pi-ecisely as the barbarism of roasting or eating prisoners is always rejected by civilized powers. Resolved^ That the United States, filled with grief and sympathy for cherished citizens, who, as officers and soldiers, have become the victims of Heaven-defying cuti-age, hereby declare their solemn determination to put an end to this great iniquity by putting an end to the rebellion of which it is the natural fruit ; that to secure this humane and righteous consummation, they pledge anew their best energies and all the resources of the whole people, and they call upon all to bear witness that, in this necessary warfare with barbarism, they renounce all vengeance and every evil example, and plant them- selves firmly on the sacred landmarks of Christian civili- AXDERSONVILLE PRISON. 167 . zation, undei* the protection of that God who is present with every prisoner, and enables heroic souls to suffer for their country. The pathetic letter, which was composed by the suf- fering and dying men at Andersonville, and addressed to the President in August, 1S64, and forwarded by the prisoners who were sent to Charleston, led to renewed efforts on the part of the United States government ; but no notice was taken by the rebel authorities of the plea in behalf of humanity. The following letter is said to be the one sent to the President : — The jSIeniorial of the Union Prisoiiers conjincd at Andersonville^ Georgia^ to the President of the United States. Confederate States Prison, Charleston, S. C, Aiig., 1864. To THE President of the United States : The condition of the enlisted men belonging to the Union armies, now prisoners to the Confederate rebel forces, is such that it becomes our duty, and the duty of every commissioned officer, to make known the facts in the case to the government of the United States, and to use every honorable effort to secure a general exchange of prisoners, thcreb}' relieving thousands of our comrades from the horror now surrounding them. For some time past there has been a concentration of prisoners from all parts of the rebel territory to the State of Georgia — the commissioned officers being confined at Macon, and the enlisted men at Andersonville. 1 68 MARTYRIA, OR Recent movements of the Union armies under General Sherman have compelled the removal of prisoners to other points, and it is now understood that they ^^•ill be removed to Savannah, Georgia, and Columbus and Charles- ton, South Carolina. But no change of this kind holds out any prospect of relief to our poor men. Indeed, as the localities selected are far more unhealthy, there must be an increase rather than a diminution of suffering. Colonel Hill, provost-marshal general Confederate States army, at Atlanta, stated to one of the undersigned that there were thirty-five thousand prisoners at Ander- sonville, and by all accounts from the United States sol- diers who have been confined tJiere, the number is not overstated by him. These thirty-five thousand are con- fined in a field of some thirty acres, enclosed by a board fence, heavily guarded. About one third have various kinds of indifferent shelter, but upwards of thirty thou- sand are wholly without shelter, or even shade of any kind, and are exposed to the storms and rains which are of almost daily occurrence, the cold dews of the night, and the more terrible effects of the sun striking with al- most tropical fierceness upon their unprotected heads. This mass of men jostle and crowd each other up and down the limits of their enclosure in storms or sun, and others lie down upon the pitiless earth at night with no other covering than the clothing upon their backs, few of them having even a blanket. Upon entering the prison every man is deliberately stripped of money and other property, and as no clothing or blankets are ever supplied to their prisoners by the rebel authorities, the condition of the apparel of the sol- ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 169 diers, just from an active campaign, can be easily im- agined. Thousands are without pants or coats, and hundreds without even a pair of drawers to cover their nakedness. To these men, as indeed to all prisoners, there are issued three quarters of a pound of bread or meal, and one eighth of a pound of meat, per day. This is the entire ration, and upon it the prisoner must live or die. The meal is often unsifted and sour, and the meat such as in the North is consigned to the soap-maker. Such are the rations upon which Union soldiers are fed by the rebel authori- ties, and by which they are barely holding on to life. But to starvation, and exposure to sun and storm, add the sickness which prevails to a most alarming and terrible extent. On an average, one hundred die daily. It is impossible that any Union soldiei's should know all the facts pertaining to this terrible mortality, as they are not paraded by the rebel authorities. Such statement as the following, made by , speaks eloquent testimony. Said he, " Of twelve of us who were captured, six died, four are in the hospital, and I never expect to see them again. There are but two of us left." In 1862, at Montgomery, Alabama, under far more fiworable circumstances, the prisoners being protected by sheds, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred were sick from diarrhoea and chills out of seven hundred. The same percentage would give seven thousand sick at Andersonville. It needs no comment, no efforts at w^ord-painting, to make such a picture stand out boldly in most horrible colors. 8 lyo MARTYRIA, OR Nor is this all. Among the ill-fated of the many who have suffered amputation in consequence of injuries re- ceived before capture, sent from rebel hospitals before their w^ounds were healed, there ai*e eloquent witnesses of the barbarities of which they are victims. If to these facts is added this, that nothing more demoralizes soldiers and develops the evil passions of man than starvation, the terrible condition of Union prisoners at Andersonville can be readily imagined. They are fast losing hope and becoming utterly reckless of life. Numbers, crazed by their sufferings, wander about in a state of idiocy ; others deliberately cross the " dead line," and are remorselessly shot down. In behalf of these men we most earnestly appeal to the President of the United States. Few of them have been captured, except in the front of battle, in the deadly encounter, and only when overpowered by numbers. They constitute as gallant a portion of our armies as carry our banners anywhere. If released, they would soon return to again do vigorous battle for our cause. We are told that the only obstacle in the way of exchange is the status of enlisted negroes captured from our armies, the United States claiming that the cartel covers all who who serve under its flag, and the Confederate States refusing to consider the colored soldiers, heretofore slaves, as prisoners of war. We beg leave to suggest some facts bearing upon the question of exchange, which we would vu-ge upon this consideration. Is it not consistent with the national honor, without waiving the claim that the negro soldiers shall be treated as prisoners of war, to effect an exchange ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I^I of the white soldiers? The two classes are treated dif- ferently by the enemy. The whites are confined in suck prisons as Libby and Andersonville, starved and treated with a barbarism unknown to civilized nations. The blacks, on the contrary, are seldom imprisoned. They are distributed among the citizens, or employed on government works. Under these circumstances they receive enough to eat, and are worked no harder than they have been accustomed to be. They are neither starved nor killed oft' by the pestilence in the dungeons of Riclimond and Charleston. It is true they are again made slaves ; but their slaveiy is freedom and happiness compared with the cruel existence imposed upon our gallant men. They are not bereft of hope, as are the white soldiers, dying by piecemeal. Their chances of escape are tenfold greater than those of the white sol- diers, and their condition, in all its lights, is tolerable in comparison with that of the prisoners of war now lan- guisliing in the dens and pens of secession. While, therefore, believing the claims of our govern- ment, in matters of exchange, to be just, we are pro- foundly impressed with the conviction that the circum- stances of the two classes of soldiers are so widely differ- ent that the government can honorably consent to an exchange, waiving for a time the established principle justly claimed to be applicable in the case. Let thirty- five thousand suffering, starving, and enlisted men aid this appeal. By prompt and decided action in their behalf, thirty-five thousand heroes will be made happy. For the eighteen hundred commissioned officers nov\^ pris- oners we urge nothing:. Although desirous of returning 1^3 MARTYRIA, OR to our duty, we can bear imprisonment with more forti- tude if the enlisted men, whose sufferings we know to be intolerable, were restored to liberty and life. XVI. The threatening manoeuvres of Sherman alone caused the rebel authorities to diminish the number of inmates of this stockade, and thereby lessen the dangers of recap- ture, and remove the temptation to the United States authorities to make an effort for their rescue. It has been stated that the rebels were anxious to exchange pris- oners, man for man, and that the obstructions were caused by the Federal authorities, and that Mr. Stanton, in par- ticular, was responsible for the stoppage of exchange and the consequent death of so many thousands of our fellow- citizens detained in the rebel prisons. General Hitchcock, the United States commissioner of exchange, however, denies most emphatically that Mr. Stanton was any way responsible for the refusal to make exchanges, man for man, officer for officer, according to grade, and he makes the following statement : " At no instance within my knowledge did Mr. Stanton refuse to acquiesce in any proposition looking to that result. There is not in my office, nor have I ever seen such a proposi- tion from a rebel commissioner or the rebel authorities. Nor have I any reason to believe that any such proposi- tion was ever made by Judge Ould, or any of his supe- riors, except in a letter from Judge Ould addressed to Major Mulford, which fell into the hands of Major- General Butler. This is true, emphatically, as a protec- ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 1 73 tion against the accusations levelled at Mr. Stanton. ***** Mr. Stanton has not only been willing, but anxious to make exchanges referred to, as I have abundant means of showing by indisputable documents, the aim and purpose of Judge Ould was to draw from us all of the rebel prisoners held in exchange for white troops of the United States held as prisoners in the South, persistently refusing to exchange colored troops to a very late date ; when, to carry a special purpose, he receded so far as to agree to exchange free colored men, leaving the general principle where it was on his side against the just claims of a large body of colored prison- ers held in the South." XVII. The following letter from General Butler to the rebel commissioner of exchange will throw some light upon the subject, and give an idea as to whom the blame of non-exchange and non-intercourse belongs : — Letter of Major- General Butler^ United States Com- missioner of Excha7ige^ to Colonel Ould^ the Confed- erate CommissioJier. Headquaktees Department of Virginia and North ) Carolina, in the Field, August, 1864.' ) Hon. Robert Ould, Commissioner of Exchange. Sir: Your note to Major Mulford, assistant agent of exchange, under date of loth August, has been re- ferred to me. You therein state that Major Mulford has several times "174 MARTYRIA, OR proposed " to exchange prisoners respectively held by the two belligerents — officer for officer, and man for man," and that " the offer has also been made by other officials having charge of matters connected v^ith the exchange of prisoners," and that " this proposal has been hereto- fore declined by the Confederate authorities." That you now " consent to the above proposition, and agree to deliver to yovx (Major Mulford) the prisoners held in cap- tivity by the Confederate authorities, provided you agree to deliver an equal number of officers and men. As equal numbers are delivered from time to time they will be declared exchanged. This proposal is made with the understanding that the officers and men on both sides who have been longest in captivity will be first delivered, where it is practicable." From a slight ambiguity in your phraseology, but more perhaps from the antecedent action of your authorities, and because of your acceptance of it, I am in doubt whether you have stated the proposition with entire accuracy. It is true, a proposition was made both by Major Mul- ford and mj'Self, as agent of exchange, to exchange all prisoners of war taken by either belligerent party, man for man, officer for officer, of equal rank, or their equiva- lents. It was made by mc as early as the first of the win- ter of 1S63-4, and has not been accepted. In May last I forwarded to you a note, desiring to know whether the Confederate authorities intended to treat colored soldiers of the United States army as prisoners of w^ar. To that inquiry no answer has yet been made. To avoid all pos- sible misapprehension or mistake hereafter as to your ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 175 offer now, will you now say whether you mean by " pris- oners held in captivity " colored men, duly enrolled, and mustered into the service of the United States, who have been captured by the Confederate forces ; and if your authorities are willing to exchange all soldiers so mustered into the United States army, whether colored or other- wise, and the officers commanding them, man for man, officer for officer? At the interview which was held between yourself and the agent of exchange on the part of the United States at Fortress Monroe, in March last, you will do me the favor to remember the principal discussion turned upon this very point; you, on behalf of the Confederate gov- ernment, claiming the right to hold all negroes who had heretofore been slaves, and not emancipated by their mas- ters, enrolled and mustered into the service of the United States, when captured by your forces, not as prisoners of war, but upon capture to be turned over to their supposed masters or claimants, whoever they might be, to be held by them as slaves. By the advertisements in 3our newspapers, calling upon masters to come forward and claim these men so cap- tured, I suppose that your authorities still adhere to that claim — that is to say, that whenever a colored soldier of the United States is captured by you, upon whom any claim can be made by any person residing within the States now in insurrection, such soldier is not to be treated as a prisoner of war, but is to be turned over to his sup- posed owner or claimant, and put at such labor or service as that owner or claimant may choose, and the officers in command of such soldiers, in the language of a supposed 176 MARTYRIA, OR act of the Confederate States, are to be turned over to the governors of States, upon requisitions, for the purpose of being punished by the laws of such States for acts done in w^ar in the armies of the United States. You must be aware that there is still a proclamation by Jefferson Davis, claiming to be chief executive of the Confederate States, declaring in substance that all officers of colored troops mustered into the service of the United States were not to be treated as prisoners of war, but were to be turned over for punishment to the governors of States. I am reciting these public acts from memory, and will be pardoned for not giving the exact words, although I believe I do not vary the substance and effect. These declarations on the part of those whom you rep- resent yet remain vuirepealed, unannulled, unrevoked, and must therefore be still supposed to be authoritative. By your acceptance of our proposition, is the govern- ment of the United States to understand that these several claims, enactments, and proclaimed declarations are to be given up, set aside, revoked, and held for nought by the Confederate authorities, and that you are ready and willing to exchange, man for man, those colored soldiers of the United States, duly mustered and enrolled as such, who have heretofore been claimed as slaves by the Confederate States, as well as white soldiers ? If this be so, and you are so willing to exchange these colored men claimed as slaves, and you will so ofliciall}' inform the government of the United States, then, as I am instructed, a principal difficulty in effecting exchanges will be removed. ANDERSOXVILLE PRISON. 177 As I informed you personally, in my judgment it is neither consistent with the policy, dignity, or honor of the United States, upon any consideration, to allow those who. by our laws solemnly enacted, are made soldiers of the Union, and wdio have been duly enlisted, enrolled, and mustered as such soldiers, who have borne arms in behalf of this country, and who have been captured while fighting in vindication of the rights of that country, not to be treated as prisoners of war, and remain imchanged and in the service of those who claim them as masters; and I cannot believe that the government of the United States will ever be found to consent to so gross a wrong. Pardon me if I misunderstand you in supposing that your acceptance of our proposition does not in good faith mean to include all the soldiers of the Union, and that you still intend, if your acceptance is agreed to, to hold the colored soldiers of the Union unexchanged, and at labor or service, because I am informed that very lately, almost contemporaneously with this ofier on your part to exchange prisoners, and wdiich seems to include all pris- oners of war, the Confederate authorities have made a declaration that the negroes heretofore held to service by owners in the States of Delaware, Maryland, and Mis- souri are to be treated as prisoners of war, when cap- tured in arms in the service of the United States. Such declaration that a part of the colored soldiers of the United States w^ere to be prisoners of war, would seem most strongly to imply that others were not to be so treated, or, in other words, that the colored men from the insurrectionary States are to be held to labor and re- turned to their masters, if captured by the Confederate S* 178 MARTVRIA, OR forces while duly enrolled and mustered into and actu- ally in the armies of the United States. In the view which the government of the United States takes of the claim made by you to the persons and ser- vices of these negroes, it is not to be supported upon any principle of national and municipal law. Looking upon these men only as property upon your theory of property in them, we do not see how this claim can be made, certainly not how it can be yielded. It is believed to be a well-settled rule of public international law, and a custom and part of the laws of war, that the capture of movable property vests the title to that property in the captor, and therefore where one belligerent gets into full possession property belonging to the subjects or citizens of the other belligerent, the owner of that projoerty is at once divested of his title, which rests in the belligerent government capturing and holding such possessions. Upon this rule of international law all civilized nations have acted, and by it both belligerents have dealt with all property, save slaves, taken from each other during the present war. If the Confederate forces capture a number of horses from the United States, the animals are claimed to be, and, as we understand it, become 'the property of the Confederate authorities. If the United States capture any movable proj^erty in the i-ebellion, by our regulations and laws, in conformity with international law and the laws of war, such prop- erty is turned over to our government as its property. Therefore, if we obtain possession of that species of prop- erty known to the laws of the insurrectionary States as ANDERSON VII-LE PRISON 1 79 slaves, why should there be any doubt that that proioerty, like any other, vests in the United States? If the property in the slave does so vest, then the jus dispone7idi^ the right of disposing of that property, vests in the United States. Now, the United States have disposed of the property which they have acquired by capture in slaves taken by them, i. e,, by emancipating them, and declaring them free forever ; so that, if we have not mistaken the principles of international law and the laws of war, we have no slaves in the armies of the United States. All are free men, being made so in such manner as we have chosen to dis- pose of ovu" property in them which we acquired by cap- ture. Slaves being captured by us, and the right of property in them thereby vested in us, that right of property has been disposed of by us by manumitting them, as has al- ready been the acknowdedged right of the owner to do to his slave. The manner in which we dispose of our prop- erty while it is in our possession certainly cannot be ques- tioned by you. Nor is the case altered if the property is not actually captured in battle, but comes either volun- tarily or involuntarily from the belligerent owner into the possession of the other belligerent. I take it no one would doubt the right of the United States to a drove of Confederate mules or a herd of Con- federate cattle which should wander or rush across the Confederate lines into the lines of the United States army. So it seems to me, treating the negro as property merely, if that j)iece of property passes the Confederate lines, and comes into the lines of the United States, that property is I So MAUrVKlA. OR as much lost to its owner in the Confederate States aa would be the mule or ox, the propert}- of the resident of the Confederate States, which should fall into our hands. If, therefore, the privilege of international law and the laws of war used in this discussion arc correctly stated, then it would seem that the deduction logicall}'- flows therefrom in natural sequence, that the Confederate States can ha\c no claim upon the negro soldiers cap- tured by them from the armies of the United States be- cause of the former ownership of them bj' their citizens or subjects, and only claim such as result, under the laws of war, from their captor merely. Do the Confederate authorities claim the right to re- duce to a state of slavery free men, prisoners of war cap- tured by them? This claim our fathers fought against under Balnbridge and Decatur, when set up by the Bar- bar}' Powers on the northern shore of Africa, about the year iSoo, — and in 1S64 their children will hardly yield it upon their own soil. This point I w411 not pursue further, because I under- stand you to repudiate the idea that you will i-educe free men to slaves because of capture in war, and that you base the claim of the Confederate authorities to re-enslave our negro soldiers, when captured by you, upon the jus fostllminii^ or that principle of the law of nations which inhabilitates the former owner with his property taken by an enem}' when such property is recov- ered by the forces of his own countr3%. Or, in other words, you claim that, by the laws of nations and of war, when property of the subjects of one belligerent power, captured by the forces of the other belligerent, is ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. l8l recaptured by the armies of the fonncr owner, then such property is to be restored to its prior possessor, as if it had never been captured ; and, therefore, under this principle, your authorities propose to restore to their masters the slaves which heretofore belonged to them which you may capture from us. But this postliminary right under which you claim to act, as understood and defined b}' all writers on national law, is applicable simply to immovable property^ and that, too, only after complete resubjugation of that por- tion of the country in which the property is situated, upon which this right fastens itself. By the laws and customs of war, this right has never been applied to movable property. True it is, I believe, that the Romans attempted to apply it to tlie case of slaves ; but for two thousand years no other nation has attempted to set up this right as ground for treating slaves diflcrcntly from other property. But the Romans even refused to re-enslave men cap- tured from opposing belligereilts in a civil war, such as ours unhappily is. Consistently, then, with any principle of the law of nations, treating slaves as property merely, it would seem to be impossible for the government of the United States to permit the negroes in their ranks to be re-cnslaved when captured, or treated otherwise tlian as prisoners of war. I have forborne, sir, in this discussion, to argue the question upon any other or dilTerent ground of right than those adopted by your authorities in claiming the negro as property, because I understand that your fabric of l82 MARTYRIA, OR opposition to the government of the United States has the right of property in man as its corner-stone. Of course, it would not be profitable in settling a question of exchange of prisoners of war to attempt to argue the question of abandonment of the very corner-stone of their attempted political edifice. Therefore I have admitted all the considerations which should apply to the negro soldier as a man, and dealt with him upon the Confed- erate theory of property only. I unite with you most cordially, sir, in desiring a speedy settlement of all these questions, in view of the great suffering endured by our prisoners in the hands of your authorities, of which you so feelingly speak. Let me ask, in view of that suffering, why you have delayed eight months to answer a proposition which by now accepting you admit to be right, just, and humane, allow- ing that suffering to continue so long? One cannot help thinldng, even at the risk of being deemed uncharitable, that the benevolent sympathies of the Confederate author- ities have been lately stirred by the depleted condition of their armies, and a desire to get into the field, to affect the present campaign, the hale, hearty, and well-fed pris- oners held by the United States in exchange for the half- starved, sick, emaciated, and unserviceable soldiers of the United States now languishing in your prisons. The events of this war, if we did not know it before, have taught us that it is not the northern people alone who know how to drive sharp bargains. The wrongs, indignities, and privations suffered by our soldiers would move me to consent to anything to procure their exchange, except to barter away the honor and faith andersojSTV'ille prisox. 183 of the government of the United States, which has been so solemnly pledged to the colored soldiers in its ranks. Consistently with national faith and justice we cannot relinquish this position. With your authorities it is a question of property merely. It seems to address itself to you in this form : Will you suffer your soldier, cap- tured in fighting yovir battles, to be in confinement for months rather than release him by giving for him that which you call a piece of property, and which we are willing to accept as a man? You certainly appear to place less value upon your soldier than you do upon your negro. I assure you, much as we of the North are accused of loving property, our citizens would have no difficulty in yielding ujd any piece of property they have in exchange for one of their brothers or sons languishing in your prisons. Certainly there could be no doubt that they would do so, were that piece of pi'operty less in value than five thousand dollars in Confederate money, which is believed to be the price of an able-bodied negro in the insurrectionary States. Trusting that I may receive such a reply to the ques- tions propounded in this note as will tend to a speedy resumption of the negotiations in a full exchange of all prisoners, and a delivery of them to their i-espective authorities, I have the honor to be, Very respectfully. Your obedient servant, Benjamin F. Butler, Major- Geoieral and Commissioner of Exchange. 184 MARTYRIA, OR The wretched " material " exchanged for healthy rebel soldiers called forth a note of joy from the rebel commis- sioner, Ould. The exchanged Fedei^al soldiers were half- naked, " living skeletons," covered with filth and vermin ; and nearly all of them were unfit for service or labor, and most of them physically ruined for the remainder of their lives. The flag-of-trucc boats of the different parties pre- sented terrible contrasts. On the one wei'e to be seen feeble, emaciated, ragged, filthy, and dying men from the rebel prisons ; whilst on the other were the rebels return- ing from our prisons, well clad in our uniforms, strong and healthy from the abundance of food. We returned men who had been well treated, and who were then ready to take the field again ; whilst we received in turn abused and decrepit soldiers, who were so much reduced and weakened that few, comparatively, ever again returned to service. Along the entire line of prison stockades, from Belle Isle in Virginia to Prison Tyler in Texas, the same story is told of fiendish cruelty. More than thirty thousand of our soldiers have un- doubtedly perished during, or in consequence of the bar- barities of their prison life in the South. To ascertain the precise number will be a difficult task, for many of the returned prisoners have died since they have left the service ; but when we consider the number of prisons, and the long period of occupation, we think that the esti- mate of thirty thousand is not too high. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 1 85 When General Stoneman made his attempt to rescue the prisoners, Winder issued the order No. 13, which stamps the brute with infamy beyond redemption. In this order, which has been preserved. Winder commanded the officers in charge of the artillery to open tlieir batte- ries, loaded with grape-shot, as soon as the Federals ap- proached within seven miles, and to continue the slaughter until every prisoner was exterminated. Similar threats were made all along the line of the prison stockades in North Carolina and in Virginia. " Was the prison mined," said Colonel Farnsworth to Turner, the jailer of Libby Prison, " when General Kilpatrick approached Richmond to attempt to rescue the prisoners?" "Yes," was the brutal reply ; " and I would have blown you all to Hades before I would have suffered you to be rescued." Twelve hundred men blown into atoms at one explosion ! Thirty thousand men to be torn into shreds by the iron bullets of the cannon ! Contrast the orders of these chi- valric men with that of Aboukere, the chief of a reputed barbarous horde of Bedouins of the desert : — " Warriors of Islam ! attend a moment, and listen well to the precepts which I am about to promulge to you for observation in times of war. Fight with bravery and loyalty. Never use artifice or perfidy towards your ene- mies. Do not mutilate the fallen. Do not slay the aged, nor the children, nor the women. You will find upon your route men living in solitude, in meditation, in the adoration of God : do them no injury, give them no of- fence." 1 86 ^ MARTYRIA, OR In which are the evidences the most positive of a fra- ternal religion and an advanced civilization? XX. Even women and young girls came from distances to view the spectacle. They climbed the parapets of the earthworks, and gloated and made merry over the scene of suffering. They threw crusts of bread over the pali- sades to see the star\'ing wretches struggle for the morsel of life. They even reviled the condition of the dying. This surpasses the ferocity, the depravity, the wickedness of gladiatorial times. " The fury of women when once ex- cited," says the French historian, " soon rises to profana- tion and excess." When the love of humanity vanishes from our breasts, it is the death of nature. There were, however, a few noble exceptions to those strange acts of delight in cruelty ; and the deeds of kind- ness of a few women in other parts of the South shine with increased brilliancy from the terrible contrast. XXI. Several of the papers of the South openly and unhesi- tatingly approved of the methods of their prison deple- tion, and gloated over the fearful destitution and mor- tality. The Macon " Telegraph and Confederate," only the day before the surrender of the city to the Federal forces, justified the atrocities at Andersonville ; and the Rich- ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 187 mond " Examiner" exclaimed, " Let the Yankee prison- ers be put where the cold weather and scant fare will thin them out in accordance with the laws of nature." There were, however, noble exceptions to the general exhibition of ferocity ; and several officers of the rebel army did declare that the condition of aflairs at Ander- sonville was a " reproach to them as a nation." The author, who served for five years in the Federal armies of Virginia, of the South, and the South-west, and whose opportunities for observation and inquiry were ex- tensive, does not believe General Lee to be implicated in these outrages. It is true that Lee might have openly and boldly protested against the bai^barities, and gained there- by the admiration and the blessing of mankind ; but he knew full well that the remonstrance would have fallen upon the cold ear of the implacable executive with no more effect and weight than when the snow-flake falls upon the Alps. The Virginian struggled to hold his own against the selfish and jealous ambition of the remorseless Mississip- pian. To have participated in the revolting cabal of cruelty, there was required the baseness of political intrigue, and to this depth the soldier never sank. XXII. To charge an entire people with barbarity, because its rulers sanction crime, and a vile and venal press applaud the motives and the deeds, should not be maintained without long deliberation. " History has the right of 1 88 MARTYRIA, OR suspecting without evidence, but never of accusing with- out proof." The rank and file of the rebel army were drawn from the classes of poor whites, who were essen- tially rural in their populations, and who possessed some trace of the morals and the natural sentiments of gene- rosity that belong to people who cultivate the earth. Al- though their instincts wei"e modified by the contact of slave labor, they never sank so low in the social scale — to that level of the vile populace of the Roman or medie- val times, when the crimes of the emperors were applaud- ed. These men on the battle-field exhibited feelings of humanity ; and it was only under the direction of their leaders that they became unkind and ferocious. It was the leaders who were responsible for the crimes of the sedition ; and what of humanity could be expected from men degenerated in blood? What of noble intelli- gence could be looked for from mental faculties Ions: since degraded? What evidence of a Christian spirit could be hoped for from men who had openly perverted or denied all the divine precepts, upon which revolve the well-being of the human race? " If we had triumphed," says one of its apostles, at this late day of forgiveness and repent- ance — " if we had triumphed, I should have favored strip- ping them naked. Pardon ! They might have apj^ealed for pardon, but I would have seen them damned before I would have granted it ! " When Suwarrow forced his way by the sword into the heart of Poland, dividing the realm, devastating the land, and destroying multitudes of people, he offered blasphe- movis thanks to Heaven for victories obtained over men fighting in the sacred cause of liberty, and for all th'». human heart holds dear. ANDERSONVILLK PRISON. iSq XXIII. To judge correctly of the magnitudes of these immola- tions, these crimes, history must wait for a calmer period, when prejudice shall have relaxed its hold upon the un- derstanding, and when time shall have rolled up its accu- mulated materials of accusation and denial, of proof and exoneration. At present we can form some idea of their designs, and the degree of the implacability of their souls, from the evidence already placed before us, as we measure inaccessible heights by the awful shadows which they project. , Pity appears to have been with them only a vain, fleet- ing emotion, if the soul was disturbed at all ; and when- ever an act of humanity was dis^^layed, there seems to have been the secret motive of gain at work. In defining the natural sentiments of pity, they would have declared them the illusions of the imagination. The brutalizing scenes of Slavery had .modified and affected their natural feelings, as the gladiatorial combats and exposures of the Christians to the attacks of infu- riated wild beasts had inspired the vile populace of Rome with the love of blood and cruelty. When these men, with sonorous rhetoric, proclaimed themselves as the guiding minds of the republic, the patrons, the judges of the correct ideas and j^i'iuciples of civilization, — when they arrogated to themselves the ap- pearance of the wisdom of Lacedtemon with the polite- ness of Athens, — they forgot or despised those cardinal virtues of society, " justice and truth — these are the first duties of man ; humanity, country — these his first af- fections." 190 MARTYRIA, OR xxrv. " I fear," writes the rebel War Clerk, observing from his secure position in the war office, " I fear this government in future times will be denounced as a cabal of bandits and outlaws, making and executing the most despotic decrees." Whether this system of the reduction of prisoners was devised by the executive, or his immediate advisers, time may reveal. But of this we may remain positive, that the crime belongs to that little faction of Breckinridge Democrats who ruled the Confederacy as they pleased, and of which Davis was the recognized leader. Wirz was only the De Vargas and Winder the Alva of the arranged system. Neither is there any doubt that the power of affording relief was clearly within the control of the executive. This power was not withheld from want of audacity, for the man who dared place in power, in spite of remonstrance, men who jeopardized the exist- ence of the Confederacy, and who openly disgraced its honor, certainly had sufficient courage to perform a com- mon act of humanity, and relieve the sufferings of tor- tured prisoners, if such had been his inclination. No ; there was a system, and " systems are brutal forces." " What are your laws and theories," said Dan- ton, brutally, to Gensonne, " when the only law is to trium^Dh, and the sole theory for the nation is the theory of existence." — "Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and con- sequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality. This, too, we find confirmed by matter of fact. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 191 How many hopeful heirs-apparent to grand empires, when in possession of them, have become such monsters of hist and cruelty as are a reproach to human nature ! " — "Ambition brings to men dissimulation, perfidy, the art of feigning the language and sentiments which lay at the bottom of the heart ; of measuring their hate and their friendship only by their interests and circumstances ; and above all, the perfidious science of composing their fea- tures, rather than correct and govern their princijDles." The wills of bad men are their laws, and brute strength their logic. XXV. It is only distance in time that separates and distin- guishes the Caligulas of history, the early, medieval, and jDresent periods. History exhibits the first as the undis- guised monster of atrocity. The last, overshadowed by the mantle of the law, stands but partially revealed. To the perverted imaginations of the first the senate presented no force of resistance. To the petulant as- perity, the abuse of power of the last, the doubtful liber- tics of the people imposed certain restrictions, which led to the resort of narrow and malignant minds — secrecy and concealment. Nature had not cast him in the mould of those states- men who sacrifice all personal feelings for the public good, and who willingly yield up their lives to advance the noble work of true civilization. Obstinacy with him was firmness ; cunning, deptli ; resistance to humane feelings, resolution. Envy, hatred, murmurs, were braved with inflexible determination when pursuing his plans of 192 MARTYRIA, OR favoritism, or defending his tools of oppi-ession and cruelty against the voice of nature and outraged liberty. There ai'e some men who appear to be destined for the instruction of the world, as the abettors and satellites of despotism, who cannot or who do not recognize the differ- ence between interest or conscience ; vvdio desire to debase mankind, that they may appear above the common level of humanity, conscious of their incapability of lifting themselves up by virtue and by nobility of action. This man was the incarnation of the spirit of Slavery ; he could have exclaimed, with Barnave, " Perish the colonies rather than a principle." This man was, for the time being, the entire incorporation of the sedition — its principles, its passions, its impulses, its cruelties. "There are abysses which we dare not sound, and characters we desire not to fathom, for fear of finding in them too great darkness, too much horror." This man, so calm, so dignified, so wise in his exterior, could not find -sufficient generosity in his soul, although the representative of five millions of men, to say to these armies of suffering prisoners, * * * indignus Ccesaris h-ce — unworthy of the anger of Caesar. xxvr. What have the wretches to offer in atonement for these outrages upon nature, these violations of the spirit and majesty of the law, from %vhich they now claim pro- tection ? Will the blood of these living monsters expiate the martyrdom of the host of dead heroes? No ! ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. I93 Will it give ease or bring congratulation to the broken and aching hearts who yet revere the memory of the thirty thousand victims? Never! The divine spirit of liberty would protest against the defilement of her sacred altars with the foul blood of such filthy and depraved sacrifices. Let the gates of the prison open, and these men stand forth to the full gaze of offended mankind, assassins and murderers as they are. Vengeance does not belong to the human race. There are times in the history of men when human in- vectives are v*^ithout force. " There are deeds of which no men are judges, and which mount, without appeal, direct to the tribunal of God." 9 c BOOK EIGHTH ERTAIN branches of the human family present physical peculiarities and aptitudes for certain cli- mates which others do not. The one thrives and arrives at perfection, whilst the other languishes and dies. Floras and Faunas have well-defined limits of latitude, beyond which they decline and become extinct, and in some countries we observe certain limitations as to longi- tudes. " There are tropical trees that become shrubs in our zone, and the flowers of our meadows have their types in the tapering trunks of other climes." How rajiidly the beautiful varieties of domestic animals deteriorate and disappear when removed from the locali- ties and conditions in which they attained their excellence. The handsome Swiss cattle when carried to the plains of Lombardy, and the remarkable varieties of the English herds when removed to Central France, quickly lose their characteristics of form and superiority. Under the tropics the sheep loses its silken fleece, and the noble qualities of the dog greatly change. Even the insect world changes greatly in every twelve degrees of latitude, and an alteration, almost total, ap- pears in double the space. (194) ANDERSONVILLE PRISOX. 195 The influence of climate and locality, which exercises so positive a power in the vegetable kingdom and animal reign, affects man likewise, and would be as distinctly marked were it not resisted by the forces of the intelli- gence. We find under certain parallels of latitude more energy of mind and greater activity of body than at others ; we observe this more distinctly with particular races or varieties than with others, thus indicating that all have not the same aptitudes : again, through a combination of organic and social laws, types adajDted to certain pursuits spring up in every civilized country, these types distinct from either varieties or s^^ecies. We also see the sharp characteristics of races, when migrating, become less dis- tinct, and mixtures increase, and the inferior races disap- pear, like " the elementary language or the primitive forms of the social state." The observed limit of range of the Hindoo and the African, in the Old World, is not beyond 30° of the equa- tor, and in a lower latitude than 36° the European colonies have never prospered, never succeeded, in their attempts for empire. Where now are the countless hosts of Ro- mans, Gauls, and Vandals that have occupied Northern Africa in past times? The ethnologist of to-day cannot discover a feature, hardly a trace even, of the language of the conquerors remaining among the present tribes of occupation. Even the Roman has vanished, and the only vestige of the Carthaginian and Numidian is shown by the scattered and diminished Bergers. These varieties contended with the climate, and were gradually absorbed by the stronger native tribes. The Mongols once held Central Europe, the Goths 196 MARTYRIA, OR ruled Italy. Where are they? There is no longer Van- dalic blood in Africa or Gothic blood in Italy. In later times the strong, the fierce and dauntless North- men held the Sicilies, and as the incorruptible Varingar guai'ded and upheld with their fearless swords the waning empire of the efieminate Greeks at the Dardanelles. Where are they and their descendants? The only traces are seen among the tombstones at Palermo, or in the Runic inscriptions which they sacrilegiously sculptured with their long blades of steel upon the flanks of the marble lion of the Piraeus. II. In the year 1600 hardly a European family could be found along the headlands and indentations of the coast which form the southern limit of the Slave States of America. Since that time the countless multitudes of the red men who inhabited the forests of these lands have disappeared, and other races from an older world and other climes have taken their places, increasing in numbers with as great rapidity as the other declined. We have seen here the swarthy sons of Nubia, under the fostering care of Slavery, or under the mysterious and unexplained influences of climate, increase with such rapidity, that the ratio for the last decade (previous to the wai"), if continued for a century, would give a black population of more than forty millions. Strange spec- tacle in the movement of races ! Here we see, almost during the memory of living men, ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 197 a distinct race disappear, and a new nation of totally opposite character rise up, as if by magic, in their vanishing footsteps. How prophetic was the speech of the Indian chief to his tribe, when he beheld with dismay the steady progress of the white men who lived upon the cereals ! '' I say, then," exclaimed the red man, " to every one who hears me, before the trees above our heads shall have died of age, before the maples of the valley cease to yield us sugar, the race of the sowers of corn will have extirpated the race of flesh-eaters." III. This rate of increase observed among the blacks of our Slave States is not seen among the population of the West India Islands, where singular oscillations are exhibited, and the statistics of the past two centuries have inclined two of the most eminent European statisticians to assert that in a century the negro will nearly have disappeared from these islands. Observations at Martinique and Guadaloupe certainl}' warrant the inference. In Cuba the blacks decreased four or five thousand during the period of 1S04 to 181 7. This decrease or stand-still in the progress of the race in these regions may have been caused by conditions, moral or physical, wholly within the control of man. There are animals who will not propagate and con- tinue their species whilst in a state of servitude, and it is reasonable to believe that the same moral causes affect the condition of enslaved mankind. Naturalists have shown how the evils of Slavery degrade animals, and 1^8 MARTYRIA, OR Buffon has pointed out the deep and conspicuous im- pressions it has made upon the camel. IV. Since the discovery and forcible entrance of the golden Empire of Mexico, and the display of her marvellous mineral treasures by the bold Cortez and his companions, we have seen a constant stream of the Spaniards and ■ the affiliated nations of the Latin race pouring across the Atlantic to the new worlds which were given to the house of Castile and Leon by the sublime genius of the Genoese, following the stars and the traditions of the Northmen. Wealth and the baseless fabrics of martial glory were the alluring objects of this migrating column of men. "Hast thou gold?" exclaimed they to the Mexican princes. " I and my companions have a malady which is only cured by gold." After these four centuries of occupation of the elevated plains and table-lands of Mexico, where the mean tem- perature does not exceed 77° Fahrenheit, and whei'e the mildness of climate, the wealth of a wonderful, prolific nature, excite the ambition and the cupidity of men ; and after the long efforts at colonization, in which the parent country was almost exhausted by the drain of her best blood, — Spain finds that the predictions of Dr. Knox are rapidly being realized, and that only 600,000 Europeans and their hybrid descendants, and but 8000 Spaniards of pure blood, can be found of all the numberless hosts that have embarked for these lands. Spain halts, and reflects ANDERSON VILLE PRISON. 1 99 upon this report of her scientific commission, which shows a decrease of one half since the estimate of Hum- boldt, in 1793; whilst France, always blind to reason whenever the eagles of glory desire to expand their wings, persists in her useless occupation of Algeria, where Gaul has again and again vainly endeavored to rear her colonies in times past ; and she now attempts to unfurl her standards and establish her institutions on those Mexican shores where the blood and energy of a stronger and better adapted people have been expended in vain. Idle effort ! The elements of nature are stronger than the will of men ; neither do they give way to the desires or attacks of human ambition. There are geographical boundai-ies which races cannot pass in pursuit of wealth or the dreams of ambition. A single generation will not determine the law of expansion and decay. In this connection it will be proper to glance over the past, among those phenomena which men have observed, and those laws which the Creator has thus far revealed to us for guidance in the procession of races or the march of intellect. In the mysteries of the material world everything is governed by fixed and positive laws. Not a flower ap- pears in the field to gladden the hearts of men but what rises up with invariable structure, and blooms at definite periods. Not a sparrow falls to the earth but in accord- ance with Nature's law. Not a star shines in the firma- ment but in unison with the great and illimitable designs 200 MARTYRIA, OR of God. Everywhere do we observe harmony in space, in movement ; everywhere visible signs of a beneficent, protecting Creator. It is the same with the enormous forms of living animals as with the insignificant shapes of the insect world : all play their part in the problem of Nature. Size is nothing with the Creator ; form is notliing. Perchance " the poor beetle, that we tread ui^on, In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great As when a giant dies," VI. History indicates mysterious laws in the progress of the typical stocks of the human families ; and it shows, in the colonization of the past, how frail are human calcu- lations in migration and settlement unless based upon science. " It is not unknown to me," said the Roman soldier, .two thousand years ago, when about to attack the remnant of the army of Brennus, that had passed over into Asia Minor, and conquered the land by the fierceness of their attack, and the terror of their name, — " it is not unknown to me," said Manlius, " that of all the nations inhabiting Asia, the Gauls have the highest reputation as soldiers. "A fierce nation, after overrunning the face of the earth with its arms, has fixed its abode in the midst of a race of men the gentlest in the world. Their tall persons ; their long, red hair ; their vast shields, and swords of enormous length ; their songs also when they are advan- ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 20I cing to action ; their yells and dances, and the horrid clashing of their arrows while they brandish their shields in a peculiar manner practised in their original country, — all these are circumstances calculated to strike terror. But let Greeks, and Phrygians, and Carians, who are un- accustomed to and unacquainted with these things, be frightened by such. The Romans, long acquainted with Gallic tumults, have learned the emptiness of then- parade. Our forefathers had to deal with genuine native Gauls ; but they are now a degenerate, a mongrel race, and in reality what they are named, Gallogrecians. Just so is the case of vegetables, the seeds not being so efhca- cious for preserving their original constitution as the prop- erties of the soil and climate in which they may be reared, when changed, are towards altering it. The Macedoni- ans who settled at Alexandria, in Egypt, or in Seleucia, or Babylonia, or in any other of their colonies scattered over the world, have sunk into Syrians, Parthians, or Egyptians. " What trace do the Tarentines retain of the hardy, rugged discipline of Sparta ? Everything that grows in its own natural soil attains the greater perfection : what- ever is planted in a foreign land, by a gradual change in its nature degenerates into a similitude to that which affords it nurture. Brutes retam for a time, when taken, their natural ferocity ; buf after being long fed by the hands of men, they grow tame. Think ye then that Nature does not act in the same manner in softening the savage tempers of men ? Do you believe these to be of the same kind that their fathers and grandfathers were? * * « "By the very great fertility of the soil, the very 9* 203 MARTYRIA, OR great mildness of the climate, and the gentle dispositions of the neighboring nations, all that bai'barous fierceness which they brought with them has been quite mollified." And finally the Romans themselves, in spite of their sanitary measures, became from year to year more alien in blood from the genuine stock of Romulus and Remus, until the distinctive characters of the conquerors of the earth finally disappeared. The Latins, Sabines, and primitive Etruscans pressed constantly upon them with the irresistible force of destiny. When Scipio ^milianus was interrupted in the forum by this mongrel populace, he exclaimed, " Silence, false sons of Italy ! Think ye to scare me with your brandished hands, ye whom I led my§elf in bonds to Rome?" When the fierce and hardy Northmen descended into Southern Europe, they carried along with their laws a chastity and a reserve that excited universal surprise. But these virtues were not of long continuance there ; the climate and the customs of the new society soon warmed their frozen imaginations, and their laws by degrees re- laxed, and their manners even more than their laws. The giants of the North many times swept down over the plains of Italy, and regenerated with fresh and pure blood the puny breeds of degenerate Rome, but they have since disappeared, and their descendants are no longer to be found in these countries. VII. In relation to the futile efforts of Spain in Mexico, the ethnologist Knox exclaims, " Neither climate, nor gov- ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 203 ernment, nor external influences ever alter race. They may and they do aflect them, and in time destroy them, but they never give rise to a new race. In half a century the dreams of Humboldt, of Canning, of Guizot, and other profound statesmen, have come to a close, and Nature once more, as I long ago predicted, asserts her rights." Naturalists, from Hippocrates to Buffbn, have believed that climate, heat and cold, dryness and humidity, the qualities and abundance of nouiishment, have power to modify men and animals, but " neither climate, nor gov- ernment, nor external circumstances ever give rise to a new race." The generous qualities once gone, are de- parted forever, and their loss can rarely be retrieved. Where is the instance of a fallen man, class, or nation? " The history of nations," writes the Registrar-General of England, — "the history of nations on the Mediter- ranean or the plains of the Euphrates and Tigris, the deltas of the Indies and Ganges, and the rivers of Cliina, exhibits the great fact : the gradual descent of race from the highlands, their establishment on the coasts, in cities sustained and refreshed for a season by emigration from the interior — their degradation in successive generations under the influence of the vmhealthy earth, and their final ruin, effacement, or subjugation by new races of con- querors. The causes that destroy individual men lay cities waste, which, in their nature, are immortal, and silently undermine eternal empires. " A thousand years scarce serve to form a state ; An hour may lay it in the dust : and when Can man its shattered splendors renovate, Recall its virtues back, and vanquish time and fate ? " 204 MARTYRIA, OR VIII. During this period of two centuries of colonization the European races have attempted to perpetuate their fami- lies upon these lands in question. They brought with them strong physical forces, and a high degree of mental cultivation. Mental strength will endure extremes of climate to a singular degree, but even this gradually yields to cosmic influences. It is a well-observed law of Nature that man must be organized in harmony with the condi- tion of climate, othei*wise he perishes. This scale of the strength of resisting opposing forces depends greatly upon the purity of the blood and the cultivation of the mind, whose remarkable powers of resisting disease have been observed and pointed out by Malte-Brun, Goethe, Kant, and other philosophers. Europeans may visit and remain for limited periods in almost every portion of the globe. The deadly miasms of Central America, the pestilential atmospheres of Cen- tral Africa, and the frozen mists of either pole, ai'e braved b}' the inquiring travellers of the civilized races, but not with impunity. Intelligent and educated men may live for a while as gentlemen of leisure, in the midst of malarial climates, almost without perceptible effect, but the moment they apply their forces to the cultivation of the earth. Nature asserts her rights. Yet during the period of the rich man, whilst he lives without physical labor, in ease, contemplation, and con- tentment, degeneration is slowly but surely taking place. The law of fecundity proves it, as with the Mamelukes in E?vpt, as observed by Volney. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 205 The English race loses its energy, according to Farr, in two or three generations in the lowlands of the West India Islands and in Southern Asia. The Duke of Wel- lington believed that every English family in Lower Bengal would die out in the third generation. The laws of nature as regards influences of climate, food, and society, have operated less upon the condition of the rich slaveholder than the poorer white, who has struggled for existence, contending with the poverty of sterile or abandoned soils, and the hostile influences of climate, and the sneer of the slave and his master. The rich man has resisted the opposing forces of the elements with less apparent changes, whilst the poor man has suc- cumbed to the influences and sadly degenerated, but the poor white still possesses the rough nobility and majesty of natural man, whilst the rich slaveholder, with his per- verted ideas of honor, virtue, and justice, has gained the merited contempt of mankind. For the one, civilization has the sympathetic feeling of compassion ; from the other, Nature herself recoils in horror. This degeneration of the poor white is no mystery. Their poverty of blood and weakness of mind were not engendered by the insalubrity of climate, nor even by the sterility of the soil alone. Deny to any race, class, or community free social condition, freedom of thought, the expansion of the mind, the liberty of political and re- ligious ideas, and it is sure to degenerate, and in time to perish. 206 MARTYRIA, OR The doctrine of Adam Smith and the theory of Malthus as to the fatal necessity of starvation, are in some measure correct, but they are mistaken in the view that human fecundity tends to get the start of the means of subsist- ence, for on the contrary it keeps pace with it. We find that the fishes in the lakes, and the wolves in the forests, increase in exact ratio to the amount of food furnished. Nature regulates the fecundity of animals and human beings when society neglects it. X. The influences of climate, of food, of temperature, of domesticity upon the variation of species is well known. These mediate and external causes act with more vigor when the immediate and internal causes favor the effect. " All the mechanism of the formation of varieties," says Flourens, "turns upon these two internal causes — the tendency of the species to vary, and the transmission of the acquired variations." Cultivated plants and domes- ticated animals, when deprived of the modifying influence of man, return to the state of nature, and undergo new modifications, alterations, degenerations, even so far as to disguise and conceal the primitive type. A few generations suffice to restore a variety to the primitive stock without retaining any of the organic ele- nients which would debase it. The more the influence of civilized man makes itself felt, the more the superior species overpower, absorb, or modify the inferior species. The more rude the people and the less polished their ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 207 societies, the more powerful and rapid will be the influ- ences of climate. Civilized men are continually exer- cising their talents to conform their conditions to the necessities of the time and place, and by their ingenuity i-emedy the defects, and by the resisting powers of a cultivated and occupied mind resist many of the morbid influences of climate. But plants and animals succumb at once if not protected by man. XI. During the more than two centuries of occupation of these southern lands there appear sufiicient data to form, perhaps, some definite ideas of the success or failure of colonization, and the vague and doubtful process of accli- mation. These evidences, thus far, are decidedly in favor of the black man. For he has multiplied with astonish- ing rapidity, and preserved his physical forces, and during this long and brutalizing term of his servitude he has not exhibited the ferocity of his master, save when hunted down like the beasts of prey, as in Hayti ; neither has he sunk so low in the scale of true humanity as those who have held him in bondage. The hungry and maimed soldier of the re^^ublic, escaping from the murderous prison-dens of the rebels, always found a crust of bread, a protecting shelter, and a kind word from the humblest and most oppressed of these beings. Never were they betrayed by the black man, although the reward was large. Never were they denied assist- ance, although the penalty was death. 2o8 ISIARTYRIA, OR Although history seems to forbid, we are not of that class of men who maintain that there are inferior races, intended by nature for servitude ; for we beheve that every race contains the elements of greatness, and that there is a common destiny to all. And we cherish the idea that there is a better future even for the black man among the civilized nations of the earth. The singular aptitude of the black man for music, which is the lan- guage of the soul ; his deep, sincere, immovable venera- tion for the precepts, the faith, the hope of Christianity, do not indicate a race lost to the nobler impulses, or to the benign influences of civilization, nor a people aban- doned and accursed by Providence. God has gifted every living creature with the instinct of self-preservation ; he has endowed all animated creatures of the human form with the love of the beautiful, with the desire of develop- ing and perfecting their innate powers, and of leaving on earth some act, some memorial worthy of imitation or remembrance. He who declines to help his fellow- creature in the struggle for social existence, in the effort for happiness, knowledge, and immortality, is less than a man. The problem of civilization is left mostly to the free will of men, and God blasts and crumbles into dust only those nations who have abused the gifts and privileges of nature, and who, when arriving at the height of prosperity and power, have disregarded and despised those principles of morality and religion which form the true base of all society. How all the noble aspirations may be crushed and the instincts perverted ; how from a species of volun- tary insanity, by our own fierce passions, and by a strange ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 2O9 desire of mutual destruction, men rush on to contest and to ruin, is well illustrated by the past of the slave faction. xir It is evident that the black man has not deteriorated during his sojourn in these countries ; on the contrary, he has improved in physique : the repulsive Congo type has changed, and the Circassian features rippear. It is the result of the law of contact and example ; it is the effect of civilization. Has the white man gained in similar ratio ? Go to the cotton fields and rice lands, and learn a lesson from the instructive contrast of the gaunt and apathetic white laborer, with the sturdy, well-developed, lively black. You will then obsen'e that these vast alluvial lands, which rank in richness and fertility with the best on the globe, must be consigned to waste by reason of insalubrit}'-, if not cultivated by races of men who are congenial to the soil and climate. There is no white race who can cultivate these lands, and enjoy life and establish society with any duration. Malaria would forbid, if other conditions were favorable. The littoral lands of the lower tier of Slave States, which are composed of post tertiary and alluvial soils, tertiary sands and secondary chalk marls, can be tilled in safety and with economy and with gain only by the black man. Below the upper terraces and the slopes of the mountain ranges of the northern limits of these States, where we find the primary and metamorphic rocks and their debris, the white laborer cannot descend without 2IO MARTYRIA, OR contending with the full force of his nature, with disease, degeneration, and jDre mature death. There are now in the States of Florida, Alabama, Mis- sissippi, and Louisiana thirty millions of acres of arable land yet belonging to the United States, unsold and un- occupied. In all England there are but seven million acres of uncultivated land. XIII. Malaria, that curse of the Circassian race, which is the chief source of the inefficiency and mortality of their efforts of colonizations in semi-tropical climes, exerts but little influence upon the negroes, and hence they are ad- mirably qualified for the occupation of pestilential soils. It appears from the statistics of the English that remit- tent and intermittent fevers, which prove the great source of inefficiency and mortality among the white troops in trojDical climes, exert compai^atively but little influence upon the blacks. The writer has observed the fatal effects of the perni- cious fevers upon the white inhabitants of the low coasts of Georgia and South Carolina, and has seen men perish in a single night from the deadly action of the miasms, whilst the negroes were unaffected. During the English expedition up the Nile nearly all the whites were prostrated by fevers, and none of the native blacks were affected. After the French landed at Vera Cruz the yellow fever found great numbers of vic- tims among the Europeans ; but according to the report of the inspector-general, Regnaud, not one of the 600 ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 211 negro soldiers and sailors from the West Indies, though hard at work there, were attacked, or rather not one of them died. There are hundreds of similar examples to illustrate the theory. We cannot escape the mephitism of the soil. So long as we respire the air, so long shall we receive into the system the deleterious vapors by the respiratory apparatus, which is the most perfect of the absorbing agents : the time of effect is determined only by the health, the strength, and vigor of our forces. The destroying ele- ments may take effect at once, or they may be resisted for a long, though definite period of time. Malaria alone has a wide range among the causes of human misery, and it is believed to cause more than half of the mortal- ity of the human families on the globe. Its deadly action, in depopulating cities and provinces, is well attested in history, and its effect upon the intellec- tual expansion is still more marked ; sadness, languor, paludal cachexia, scrofulous, deformed, and short-lived offspring, are among its train of evils. In the Roman states alone, sixty thousand perish every year from this paludal influence. These deltas of the Southern States are among the greater miasmatic foyers of the world, and are as deadly in their miasms as the Campagna of Italy or the Sunderbunds of Hindostan. XIV. There are many reasons to induce the belief, that if properly directed, the blacks may attain distinction in social life and progress, and a higher degree of perfection 213 MARTYRIA, OR in physical development. The skeleton of the negro is firmer and heavier, the bones being larger and thicker than that of any other race ; but physiologists observe that the muscular development does not correspond to the strong dimensions of the frame. This deficiency of nature may be explained by the want of proper nutrition, or to physical causes within human control, for all proportions in nature are hai'monious. Tv/o of the most admirable boxers that have appeared in the British arena were blacks, and the dark, swarthy hue of the famous wrestler, Marseilles, reminds how common is the tinge of African blood in South France, Spain, and Italy. While statistics appear to exhibit the physical supe- riority of the blacks in the low countries, they also prove how prone to pulmonary disease are they when migrating to the uplands, or higher latitudes, and how fearful the mortality. Thus Nature, it seems, offers serious barriers to their progress, and boundaries within which they must confine themselves or perish. XV. It has been urged that the intermingling of the freed blacks with the whites in these States will produce a variety of people more vicious, and less willing to be controlled by the social laws, than either pure race. Of this there is but little danger, as ethnology will show. There will not be, under any ordinaiy circum- stances, any intermingling of the two races, for the law of ethnic repugnance is too great. The strong ethnic antipathies will keep them apart. The possibility of the ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 213 intermixture of families and races so widely remote is as rigidly limited as the law of chemical proportions, and the absorption of the minor quantity is inevitable. Give both races the same field for expansion in these States, and the white race will soon find itself in the minority, both of numbers and in physical strength ; for, according to natural laws, the stronger blood always absorbs the weaker when there is unobstructed action, and especially ■yvhen climate favors vastly one of the contending types. There are to-day four or five times as many centenarians among the blacks as there are among the whites of the cotton I'egions. In consideration of this subject of miscegenation, let us review the phenomena that have been brought to light by the naturalists who have studied hybridity among animals, and recall a few facts from history to support the experimentalists. XVI. In the animal world, in the wild state, hybrids are rarely if ever produced, and it is only from the experi- ments of the naturalists that the law of hybridity has been explained. We see the bipartites appear, when two kindred species mix together under the influence of man, these animals partaking of the qualities of both. The horse and the ass ; the ass, zebra, and hermione ; the wolf and the dog ; the dog and the jackal ; the goat and the ram ; the deer and the axis, &c., unite and breed ; but these ar- tificial species are not durable, and they have only limited fecundity. " The mongrels of the dog and the wolf are 214 MARTYRIA, OR Sterile from the third generation. The mongrels of the jackal and the dog are so from the fourth. Moreover, if we unite these mongrels to one of the two primitive species, they soon revert completely and totally to that species. " The mongrel of the dog and jackal contains more of the jackal than the dog. It has the straight ears, the pendent tail ; it does not bark ; it is wild. It is moi-e jackal than dog. This is the first product of the crossed union of the dog with the jackal. I continue to unite the successive produce, from generation to generation, with one of the two primitive roots, — with that of the dog, for example. " The mongrel of the second generation does not bark yet, but it has the ears pendent at the tip : it is less wild. " The mongrel of the third generation barks : it has pendent ears, raised tail : it is no longer wild. The mongrel of the fourth generation is entirely dog. Four generations, then, have sufficed to restore one of the two primitive types — the dog type ; and four generations suf- fice also to restore the other type — the jackal type. Thus, when the mongrels produced from the union of two distinct species unite together, either become soon sterile, or they unite with one of the two primitive stocks, and they soon revert to this stock ; in no case do they yield what may be called a new species, that is, an intermediate, durable species. " Whether, then, we consider the external causes, — the succession of time, years, ages, revolutions of the globe, or internal causes, — that is to say, the crossing of the species, the species do not alter, do not change, nor pass from one ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 215 to the other ; the siDecies is fixed." Such are the concki- sions of the admirable efforts of Flourens. " The imprint of each si^ecies," says Bufibn, " is a type, the principal features of which are engraved in characters ineffaceable, and permanent forever ; but all the accessory touches vary ; no individual perfectly resembles another." XVII. Among the human families, the law of hybridity, which has been pointed out so cleai'ly by Flourens, has also its fixed and inflexible rules ; these rules have not been so well studied with men as with animals, but it is believed to have its limit at the seventh generation. At all events, the experiments of human hybridism, and acclimation in strange latitudes, have always in time ended in disaster ; and that such will always be the fate of the attempted union of different races in unfavorable climes, have been the views of Humboldt, of Canning, of Guizot, and other profound statesmen. We observe among the races in savage life a natural repugnance to vmite : as for instance, the negroes and the fairer people of the Philippine and Polynesian Isles show no disposition to unite ; and though living side by side, in the same country, for a long period, they have not produced an intermediate I'ace. Neither do the Eskimos nor the Red Men, neither do the Caffi-es nor the Hottentots mix, for in the state of nature the law of ethnic repugnance is supreme. It is only in the arti- ficial and depraved states of society that hybrids appear, and their existence is of short and fixed duration. The apjDarent duration and perfection of the Coulouglis, 2l6 MARTYRIA, OR the bipartates of the Bergers and Turks, may be an excep- tion to the general rule. But the results of the mingling of human families, widely separated, is generally very decided. The Creoles, produced by the African with the Span- iard, Italian, and the Southern French, possess consider- able durability, but disease and degeneration soon appear when the black mingles with the blood and humors of the more northern nations. With all these mixtures there is a profound characteristic, which constitutes the unity, identity, and reality of the species, which is, continuous fecundity ; and this characteristic never varies : it is im- mutable. The mulattoes live less time than the black or the white race, and their offspring perish readily, and are rarely prolific, except when united with stronger in- dividuals of either primitive tyjDe, to which they soon return. xvm. The blacks have been too degraded to more than con- ceive of liberty, too debased to think of resistance to the forces that crushed them, and they have neither obsei-ved, nor sought for opportunities, to throw off their chains and sweep over the lands, like a destroying element, with the accumulated wrongs of centuries. Yet there were black men among them who were capable of high cultivation. The long contact with the superior white race had recast the faculties of their mind, and had altered perceptibly the rugged contour of their forms and features. The writer observed with wonder in the regiment of black men which formed part of the column of the des- ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 217 perate assault upon Fort Wagner, beautiful heads, whose classic and regular outlines recalled the finest of the antique. We believe with the writer in the " Revue des Deux Mondes," that contact with the white races has given the negro the lines of the Caucasian form, and that the Congo type can disappear or become greatly modified. These changes in the typical form, which we have since observed elsewhere, appear to have taken place sometimes without the admixture of the blood of the whites. That the black men in the United States army fought well, no one will deny ; that they conducted themselves admirably in the murderous assaults at Fort Wagner, or under the destroying fire at Olustee, and in many other conflicts, every one possessed of any candor will admit. When we consider the degradation whence they suddenly rose, and the steadiness and firmness, and the manly bearing they exhibited after the few lessons of military training, we are compelled to render thanks to them for their efforts in the struggle for national existence, and to admit the probability of their attaining that degree of in- telligence, wisdom, and virtue which distinguish the true citizen. That these men will attain the standard of intel- lect of the Caucasian, we neither expect nor believe ; but we do maintain, that in the nature of every race, however debased by prejudice, and the avarice of superior society, there exists the element of honesty, virtue, truth, and a horror of wrong, which may be developed and turned to the good of all society, in repelling and resisting the force of machination, the intrigue which arises from disap- lO 3l8 MARTYRIA, OR pointed ambition, or the insatiable lust of more favored and less considerate classes. No one acquainted with the history of the commerce of human beings will wonder at the present condition of the blacks, or that they have not risen in the scale of social and intellectual advancement. For, looking back to the primitive ages we may see how the human species have been depressed in servitude, and how the very same families, who carried the arts and sciences to celestial limits, were affected by this influence. Persons of the same blood and inheritance as the best families of Greece and Rome, were often reduced to slavery, and they sank rapidly under its debasing effects. They were tamed like the black man of the South ; " like brutes, by the stings of hunger and the lash ; and their education was so con- ducted as to render them commodious instruments of labor for their possessors. This degradation of course depressed their minds, restricted the expansion of their faculties, stifled almost every effort of genius, and exhib- ited them to the world as beings endued with inferior capacities to the rest of mankind. But for this opinion there appears to have been no foundation in truth or jus- tice. Equal to their fellow-men in natural talents, and alike capable of improvement, any apparent or real dif- ference between them and some others must have been owing to the mode of education, to the rank they wei^e doomed to occupy, and to the treatment they were ap- pointed to endure." After all, the world appears to be a vast arena, where the good and the bad are gathered together, and men are left to their own efforts, whether to rise up in that scale ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 210 of intelligence and virtue which conducts to immortality, or to grovel deeper into the depths of degradation, where there is nothing but death and annihilation. The vault of heaven grows in immensity as we gaze into its limit- less expanse, whilst the shadows and attractions of earth fade away from view, or allure only those who have for- saken nature. XVIII. Have the European races advanced in these latitudes in strength of mind and body with equal ratio as the black man? We think not. Let us consider. The qualities of plants and vegetables are often affected by external influences, so as to assume different charac- ters, and the impressions upon the leaves and the fruits are distinctly marked. These alterations, degenerations, and modifications may disguise the primitive type so far that it is no longer recognizable. We observe these properties among all organic bodies, among those of the animal and as well as of the vegetable world. The vine and its golden extracts are very much dependent upon these influences. The exquisite bouquet, the soul-inspiring qualities of the best varieties of wine, cannot be acquired by the eflbrts of man at pleasure ; without the generous nature of the soil, the rays of sunlight, and the inspiring breezes of favored localities and climes, the extract of the pressed grape is without that flavor and force which warm into life the brilliancy of the imagination, the nobility of the soul. There is also a marked effect of soil and climate upon 220 MARTYRIA, OR the odor of plants, and in their narcotic constituents. Does not the same law affect man? The Italian violets grow sweeter as we climb the Alpine slopes ; the mignonette blooms with greater perfection and jjerfume as we ajDproach the shoi'es of the lowlands of the Mediterranean. We find the finest types of the human race among the uplands and the mountains ; below, on the low coasts and river margins, where pestilences are generated, the physical and mental forces do not fully expand, and we find there neither liberty, virtue, nor science. Dr. Rusdorf, in his work on the influence of European climate, regards the temperate zone as the brain-making region, and attempts to prove it by physiological deduc- tions. The brain of the Caucasian, he says, determines the 'superiority over the other races, and it is the standard of the organism. This, he maintains, is produced by the richness of albumen in the blood, which is also de- pendent upon the oxygen of pure air. The extensive observations of the English Registrar-General show in- disputably that the elevation of the soil exercises as decided an influence on the English race as it does on the native races of other climes and soils. They also show that the finest animals are raised in the healthiest districts. We see that certain heights above the plains are remarkably exempt from maladies which devastate nations inhabiting lower levels. Cholera, remittent fever, yellow fever, and plague, disappear at well-defined degrees of elevation. At Vera Cruz, and along its latitude, the yellow fever vanishes at the height of three thousand feet above the Gulf shores. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 221 The Prussian, in his " Medicinische Geographie," ap- pears to indicate with great degree of certainty the Hmits and ahitudes of the three zones, into which he clas- sifies the catarrhal, the dysenteric, and the scrofulous dis- eases. The scrofulous zone ceases at an altitude of two thousand feet above the level of the sea, and here, he says, there is no pulmonary consumption, scrofula, cancer, or typhus fever. " It is," says Babinet, " the climate of each country which permits or arrests the development of the human race, which, joined with the industry of populations, imposes limits to the numerical force of each meteorological district, and which subsists four million of men in fertile Belgium, which is no more than a small fraction of the territory of France, whilst Siberia can with difficulty nourish a part of that number with an extent which is twenty-six times that of France." " All over the wcti'ld, physical circumstances," exclaims Draper, " control the human race." It is vain to assert that the atmospheres of the maritime or the low levels do not affect the physical and mental condition o(_men ; and after all, Fontenelle was right when he maintained, in a curious paradox, that inspiration is a barometer that varies, which mounts to genius or descends to absurdity, according to the inconstancy of the weather ; that there are unhealthy countries, full of mists, winds, tempests, that never produce clear understandings ; and, on the contrary, there are lands with beautiful skies and fields filled with sunlight and roses which give out flashes of divine light. 222 MARTYRIA, OR Nearly all of the Grecian lyrists were born in the enchanting climates, and among the beautiful scenes of the Asiatic shore or the isles of the yEgean Sea. Most of the eminent men of Italy rose from similar inspirations, which Michael Angelo observed when speaking of Vasari in terms of admii'ation. Historians say that the sun was never softer, the heavens brighter, the roses more prolific, the winds more perfumed, than in the dawn of the eigh- teenth century, which produced that " wild garland of beautiful women who recalled by their graces, their genius, the courtesans of Greece," which gave birth to those phi- losophers who gave a new impetus to liberty and religion. XX. According to some writers, the unequal distribution of solar heat over the earth is the cause of marked differ- ences in national character ; others refer the distinctive effects to the quality of the air they breathe. Arbuthnot maintains that air not only fashions the body, but has also had great influence in forming language ; that the close, serrated method of speaking of Northern nations was due to coldness of the climate, and hesitation of opening the mouth ; whilst the sweet, sonorous phrases of temperate climes, like those of the Mediterranean, were due to the mildness of climate, where the vocal organs could be exposed without danger. " It is incontestable," also writes Alfred Maury, in his " Earth and Man," " that climate has upon the mode of government a considerable influence, because it exercises an immediate effect upon the character of individuals. In the warm countries. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 23^ under an enei-\\iting atmosphere, where all inclines to effeminacy and idleness, the soul has not that energy and that foixe of will necessary to a people who wish to be free. Under a severe and cold climate, to the contrary, the character acquires more of energy, and the body more of activity. The passions are less violent, and leave to the reason a freer exercise. In the hot climes the in- stincts are impetuous, and they pass from an extreme of dejection to a state of exaltation which produces revolu- tions, insurrections, but which do not establish the .:ide- pendence. For, to the contrary, these violent crises intro- duce retaliation ; and in the sanguinary conflicts, the power of an individual, although tyrannical, appears as a benefit, or is accepted as a necessity." XXI. The anger of the European has always raged with un- definable fury, when once aroused, in these southern lati- tudes, and especiall}'^ in the regions in question. The spirit is the same, whether we review the cruel and use- less extermination of the Indians in Cuba or Florida ; the massacres of the Mexicans by the merciless Spaniards ; the internecine slaughter of the French, English, and Sf)aniards along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida ; the extermination of whole tribes, like the Yemassee, or the forced removal of the red men from the broad lands of their birthplace and inheritance. All show the implacable depth of his avarice or his ire. It was not merely the honor of subjugation, of conquering strange races, tliat was the object of the politics, and that 224 MARTYRIA, OR excited the emulation of these iron-mailed and iron- hearted men and their descendants : it seems to have been an irresistible desire to immolate human races, to glut with blood that thirst for destruction which arises from depraved and burning hearts. It was the same spirit, under the mask of avarice, that tore the vs^ell-behaved Creeks and Cherokees from the homes of their ancestors, and banished them to the prairies of the West ; that hunted down the last Seminole in the everglades of Florida, where there are to-day twenty mil- lions of acres of land unsold and unoccupied. It was the same spirit that, in later times, recklessly and ruthlessly destroyed, at Camp Sumter, an army of free- men, under tlie pretence of treating them as prisoners of war. XXII. Yet this depraved fury does not appear to have been natural to the soil, climate, or the native races, as observed by the early navigators ; although Ponce de Leon received his death-wound from them when he sought the fountain of youth in the everglades of Florida, and De Soto en- countered fierce opposition from the red men of the forest when he pursued his way towards the Appalachian moun- tains in search of the mines of gold. But nevertheless the Europeans were treated almost always with kindness whenever they approached the Indian with good inten- tions. Contrast the present time and the people with the period and the natives when the great Navigator discovered the adjacent isles. " Nature is here," he exclaims, " so pro- ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 335 lific, that property has not produced the feehngs of ava- rice or cupidity. These people seem to live in a golden age, happy and quiet, amid open and endless gardens, neither surrounded by ditches, divided by fences, nor pro- tected by walls. They behave honorably towards one another, without laws, without books, without judges. They consider him wicked who takes delight in harm- ing another. This aversion of the good to the bad seems to be all their legislation." These people with natural sentiments have passed away, and new races, with strange and repulsive ideas, have taken their place. " Like the statue of Glaucus, that time, the sea, the storms have so disfigured that it resembles less a god than a ferocious beast, the human soul, altered in the bosom of society by a thousand causes rising without cessation, by the acquisition of a multitude of creeds and errors, by the changes produced in the con- stitution of bodies by the continual shock of passions, has caused a change in appearance almost unrecognizable ; and we sooner find, instead of the being acting always by certain and invariable principles, instead of that celestial and majestic simplicity in which the Creator has left his impress, the deformed contrast of the understanding in delirium, and of the passion which pretends to reason." xxiir. Wherever society forms and sustains itself, there must be adopted certain rules and laws to maintain it. These seemingly arbitrary laws represent the interest? the passions, and opinions of those who establish tliet 10* 226 MARTYRIA, OR and they differ widely, according to the nature of the men and the climate which they inhabit. The inhabitants of hot climes and the cold zones pre- sent strange contrasts in their natural ideas of justice, as well as in instincts and appetites. The Turk regards in- temperance as a crime, and polygamy as a virtue. The Englishman looks upon the one with complaisance, but regards the other with horror. Thus reason yields to physical force, or to the differences of climate ; and what men call virtue in one clime, loses its force and beauty in another. Yet there are natural laws older than the empires of force or reason ; more ancient than society itself; more powerful and sublime than the passions and, interests of men. These laws of kindness, of mercy, of friendship, like elementaiy language, come from divina- tion. Nature has planted certain instincts in the bosoms of all the different races of the globe alike ; and these be- come developed according to cultivation, or debased according to degrading influences. The good of society may define the measure between good and evil, but it cannot extinguish the principles, or obliterate the sharply defined distinctions. The will of the Creator has mani- fested itself clearly in the workings of the natural world, if it has not been revealed to us in those tablets which fell from the skies. XXIV. The benign influences of society, the exercise of polite- ness and reason, inspire polished and agreeable manners ; yet, in the midst of these, we find men who think barbar- ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 227 ity to be one of their rights ; and they abuse their fellow- creatures without pretext, and commit murder without necessity, which is a degree of ferocity below that of the carnivorous animals ; for they destroy life only when im- pelled by the motives of hunger. Societies of men are institutions of nature, and they are founded upon the principies of mutual obligations. Society relapses into barbarism when the golden rule of " doing as we would be done by" is violated ; when individual liberty is lost; and when man treats his fellow-man as property under the right of force, and therefore without legal relations. Constitutions are the indices of the education and the aspiration of nations, and they keep pace with the on- ward march of intelligence. These become altered and modified, as the intellect and hearts of men expand ; and it is nothing but bigotry that believes in the inviolability, the perfection of the doctrines and tenets of men in the present or the past. The wise man, says the old prov- erb, often changes his opinion, the fool never. XXV. Slavei-y appears to be coeval with war ; and war is as ancient as the human race. Plutarch believed that there had been a time, a golden age, when there were neither masters nor slaves. The human mind, at the time when Plutarch wrote, was almost controlled by the empire of force. The selfishness and superstition of society fet- tered the nobility of nature, and healthy reason could not assume its rightful sway. The depth of the philosophical reasoning, the degree of humanity of one of the brighest periods of antiquity, 228 MARTYRIA, OR may be comprehended from the "Politics" of Aristotle, when he says, " To the Greeks belongs dominion over the barbarians, because the former have the understanding requisite to rule, the latter, the body only to obey. For the slave, considered simply as such, no friendship can be be entertained, but it may be felt for him, as he is a man," Some of the ancient nations, the most enthusiastic in the dreams of liberty, were the most savage and stern in their laws concerning their slaves ; and they adhered to their brutal doctrines in defiance of nature with singular te- nacity. The right of life and death over the slave was one of the fundamental principles of the society of the Athenians, Lacedemonians, Romans, and Carthaginians, Strange condition of society among men who culti- vated the arts and sciences so successfully ! Yet it does not appear that any legislator attempted to abrogate ser- vitude. Stranger still that the glorious period of the reign of democracy at Athens should not have brought with it the universal freedom of men, when liberty was the divine ideal of its aspirations. Not until the star of Christianity rose above the horizon of the pagan and superstitious woi'ld, softening the hearts of men and revealing to them a new life, did Slavery vanish from among refined and generous societies, under the charter, Pro amore Dei, pro niercede animce. And never has it reappeared, except among those nations who have become debased from avarice, or depraved by ambition. When cupidity allows fanaticism to blind the ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 229 mind with the behcf that savages or negroes can be more easily converted to Christianity whilst in slavery than in freedom, then there is an end to social progress. Yet such were the ideas of Louis XIII. when he consigned the negroes of his colonies to Slavery. And such has been the creed of the slaveholders and breeders of America. The monstrous doctrine imjDosed itself upon the understandings of the slave faction, as the supersti- tions of the false prophets have fettered and crushed the minds of the pagan nations. It has debased their natural sentiments, as well as it has depressed and perverted their natural talents and virtues. " In the same manner," said Longinus, " as some children always remain pygmies, whose infant limbs, fettered by the prejudices and habits of servitude, are unable to expand themselves, or to attain that well-proportioned greatness which we admire in the ancients, who, living under a popular government, wrote with the same freedom as they acted." XXVII. We may learn from the history of the past, if we will not accept the data of the present, how climate, food, domesticity, or recognized customs of society may alter the minds and dispositions of men ; how they may gradually build up governments, founded upon monstrous ideas, and yet in unison with the compunctions of their conscience. Ascribe the origin to any cause you will, it does not alter the revolting facts, nor lessen the repulsive- ness of the absurdity, nor the enormity of the crime. Volney believed " that the social institutions called 230 MARTYRIA, OR Government and Religion were the true sources and regulators of the activity or indolence of individuals and nations ; that ,they v\^ere the efficient causes which, as they extend or limit the natural or superfluous wants, limit or extend the activity of all men. A proof that their influence operates in spite of the difference of climate and soil is, that Tyre, Carthage, and Alexandria formerly possessed the same industry as London, Paris, and Amsterdam ; that the Buccaneers and the Malayans have displayed equal turbulence and courage with the Normans, and that the Russians and Polanders have the apathy and indifference of the Hindoos and the Negroes. But, as civil and religious institutions ai'e perpetually varied and changed by the passions of men, their influence changes and varies in very short intervals of time. Hence it is that the Romans commanded by Scipio resembled so little those governed by Tiberius, and that the Greeks of the age of Aristides and Themis- tocles were so unlike those of the time of Constantine." Volney observes that " the moral character of nations, taken from that of individuals, chiefly depends on the social state in which they live ; since it is true that our actions ai'e governed by our civil and religious laws, and since our habits are no more than a repetition of those actions, and our character only the disposition to act in such a manner under such circumstances, it evidently fol- lows that these must essentially depend on the nature of the government and religion." Says Addison, " In all despotic governments, though a particular prince may fivor arts and letters, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind, as you may observe from ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 231 Augustus's reign, how the Romans lost themselves by de- grees, until they fell to an equality with the most barba- rous nations that surrounded them. Look upon Greece under its free states, and you would think its inhabitants lived in different climates and under ditlerent heavens from those at present, so different are the geniuses which are formed under Turkish slavery and Grecian liberty. " Besides poverty and want, there are other reasons that debase the minds of men who live under Slavery, though I look on this as the principal. The natural tendency of despotic powers to ignorance and barbarity, though not insisted upon by others, is, I think, an unanswerable ar- gument against that form of government, as it shows how repugnant it is to the good of mankind and the perfection of human nature, which ought to be the great end of all civil institutions." " Liberty should reach every individual of a people, as they all share one common nature ; if it only spreads among pailicular branches there had better be none at all, since such a liberty only aggravates the misfortune of those who are deprived of it, by setting before them a dis- agreeable subject of comparison." " The pride of Athens," writes Mirabeau, " and the jealousy of the Greeks, banished forever the liberty of those countries, so long fortunate." Such is and always was our world, covered from time to time with conquerors and slaves, because the conquer- ing, in forging the irons of the unhappy, with which they bound them, sharpen those which must bind dicm in turn. Such is and always will be man, from time to time despot 233 MARTYRIA, OR and slave, for man, denaturalized by servitude, becomes readily the most ferocious of animals if he escapes an instant from oppression. There is but one step from the despot to the slave, from the slave to the despot, and the chain becomes them alike. There ai^e strange forces constantly at work : civiliza- tions spring up, disappear, and sometimes, but rarely, re- turn again after a sleep of ages : it seems as though genius laid fallow for a period, like the golden grains. The Greek mind teaches the Arabs under the Caliphs of Bagdad and Cordova, and in turn the Arabian influence instructs the reviving European mind after the dark ages. The fall of Constantinople crushed the Greek mind com- pletely. The genius and the " godlike men " of Rome vanished under the influence of the strong blood of the Goths, and the flourishing nations of the African shore have yielded so completely to physical and moral causes, that we justly doubt the story of their magnificence, their power, their intelligence. We see the eftete races infused with the fresh blood ; the vigorous juices of the Scandinavians march forward with unparalleled pace to the triumphs of reason and philoso- phy. The pure, warm, healthy vitality of the North re- calls to life the exact sciences, the laws of reasoning, and philosophy, and sesthetics, which, arising from Grecian genius, had slumbered for a thousand j^ears. ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. XXIX. 233 In the slave lands of America a high order of intellect was proclaimed ; but when analysis approached, it sank into mediocrity, or vanished into dust, like the forms in the ancient tombs when exposed to the light of heaven. Slavery has produced nothing but horror. The flashes of light that have burst forth through its mists have been the expiring efi:brts of genius. Here the sciences have always languished and declined to take root, for the}' are the offspring of genius and reason. The arts never ap- peared, for the spirit of imitation never arose. To culti- vate the sciences, there is need of exalted desire, which comes from healthy and prosj^erous races or from celestial fire. Here there was the barbarity of ignorance ; the only desires were to Increase the enormities of their crimes, by the spread and general adoption of Slavery, and to conceal its proportions and influences beneath a cloud of mental darkness, which Is frightful to contemplate, when jDlaced in comparison with Intelligent communities like New England, Belgium, and Prussia. They thought to perpetuate an aristocratic power, and transmit the inheritance of Slavery as a blessing, but they forgot that In the formation of happy nations and states humanity forms the broad base ; they forgot that ambi- tious and avaricious families quickly degenerate and dis- appear completely from the earth. The vicissitudes of political life hasten that decline which is commenced by riches and rank, when supported by morbid ideas and sentiments. The noble families of Athens and Corinth, the patrician 234 MARTYRIA, OR body at Rome, vanished so rapidly as to excite the sur- prise of the nations they governed. The names of the descendants of the founders of Venice, written in the Libro di Oro, are no longer to be found among the living in Italy. The same law is silently at work in our times. The inequalities of the earth's surface are like the rugosities of the human brain : the depths of the one contain the richest and most inexhaustible treasures of . mineral wealth, as the wrinkles of the other collect the stores of mental lore. As the surface of the brain be- comes less marked and rugged, the strength and scope of the mind vanish, and approach the standard of the lower animals ; and likewise, as the elevated lands of the earth shrink in form, and sink into the level of the plain, so the characters of the races who inhabit them lose force and elevation. Sometimes the minds of men are the reflections of the beauties and sublimities of nature. Sometimes men be- come degraded, and nature then does not inspire. The lofty and diversified mountain range, or system of ranges, known as the Appalachian or Alleghany, rises or reappears in the State of New York, midway between the Atlantic coast and the shores of those fresh-water seas, Erie and Ontario. It then stretches down south- ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 235 westward, with its adjacent spurs, through the great States of Pennsylvania and Virginia ; then, dividing, it forms, with its eastern range, the western and northern limit of North and South Carolina and Georgia ; and with the western it intersects Tennessee, forming that beautiful basin known among the white men as East Ten- nessee, but among the traditions of the red men as the Garden of the Manitou — their God. In Northern Ala- bama, the separated ranges seemingly unite ; and passing southward, towards the central portion of the State, the mountain summits gradually contract, and finally sink into the level of the great alluvial plains, which stretch away, without undulation, to the shores of the Gulf. These huge masses of rock, dislocated and elevated like the Vosges and the Hartz Mountains at the close of the car- boniferous or devonian period of the earth's age, contain, with the adjacent and connecting bands, — which are com- posed of the Silurian, primitive, and metamoriDhic ledges, — most of the accessible mineral wealth of the republic. And the collective beds of iron, coal, marble, zinc, cop- per, and gold are unsurpassed in similar extent and rich- ness by the mines of any country of the known world, with the exception of those wonderful deposits of ores and minerals among the unexplored and almost inaccessible recesses and plateaus of the Sierra Nevada or the Andes. With the exception of the northern extremity of this mountain group, these mines of natural wealth may be said to have been unexplored. Below the rich and popu- lous State of Pennsylvania, the hum of human industry ceases ; for we then pass into die paralyzing shadow of Slavery. This Slavery forbade the development of tlie 236 MARTYRIA, OR earth's treasures, as well as the enlightenment of the minds of the poor and ignorant whites. The forges of Vulcan would have hammered out and bi'oken into frag- ments the chains of that bondage which not only op- pressed the fettered blacks, but debased, with its corrod- ing influence, the competing labor of the white man. The slaveholders concealed this immense natural wealth from the eyes of science from motives of policy ; and rather than incur the hazard of revolution, by educating the masses of their own people, they preferred to neglect their natural advantages, and to send to distant and even foreign lands the products of their fields and their system., to be worked up into the marvellous fabrics of human ingenuity and skill. This same State of Virginia, which is the real gateway to the empires of the West, and which is not surpassed in natural physical advantages by any equal extent of territory on the globe, is the most ignorant of all of the States of the republic. Ninety' thousand of its native-born free people, over twenty years of age, before the war could not read nor write ; whilst sterile and stormy Maine, with her cold lands and colder skies, contained but two thousand of the same class, out of a population more than half as great. And New Eng- land, with a population of almost three times as great as the free people of Virginia, is ashamed by the number of seven thousand illiterate natives past the age of twenty. Who will wonder at the display of barbarity and audacity when the statistics of education and ignorance are ex- hibited? "Education and liberty," says Mirabeau, "are the bases of all social harmony and all human prosperity." Which can civilization curse the most, London or Am- ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 237 sterdam ? the Dutch who introduced SJaveiy, or the Eng- lish who thought Virginia a good place to "colonize aristocratic stupidity," and who sent colonists, who were, according to the historian, " fitter to breed a riot than to found a colony." The condition of the present day shows how rigidly the first instructions have been observed and enforced. " Thank God," writes one of its early gover- nors to the English Privy Council, " thank God there are no free schools or printing, and I hope we shall not have any these hundred years ! for learning has brought diso- bedience and heresy and sects into the world, and print- ing has divulged them and libels against the best govern- ment. God keep us from both ! " XXXII. And so these mines, and fields, and forests, remain to the present day, unsurveyed, unexplored and unknown, save to a few wanderers of science. In Northern Alabama, where the terminating slopes of this upheaval of rocks disappear beneath the level of the vast cotton fields, which number their acres by the mil- lion, there appear enormous deposits of ii^on ore, of ex- traordinary richness and depth, lying in juxtaposition with corresponding beds of limestones and coal. Here is alone sufficient material for the iron fingers and forges and the steam power to fabricate the vegetable growths, the harvests of the vast and fertile plains of the entire South, and to build up with enduring form those great and thriving cities which are seen in the dim vista of the future of the Mississippi Valley, with its hundred 238 MARTYR! A, OR millions of people.. These elevations, when denuded of their immense primeval forests of pine and oak, will be covered with constant verdure, affording sure sustenance to numberless flocks and herds of kine, which will require less care than the cattle of the plains of Texas or the pampas of Peru, since Nature, with her caverns and nar- row valleys, will afford shelter from the destructive storms of winter and the chilling blasts of spring. Between the two great spurs of the divided mountain range which encompass the head-waters and tributaries of the Tennessee, appears the garden spot of the Republic : the soils, enriched by the decomposition of the blue lime- stones, are here of great strength and endurance ; the innumerable streams are of sufficient force and volume to satisfy the wants of industry and mechanics, whilst the lofty mountains, which rise to the height of seven thou- sand feet above the ocean, with their broad and impres- sive shadows, temper the atmospheres, so that the body can labor and the mind expand. To the natural beauties of the landscape art has yet added nothing : from the teeming harvests of the valle3's, from the massive ledges of minerals, man has yet detracted nothing. Nature here is almost inexhaustible. No wonder that the dying Indian returns to the region of the Hiwassee to end his days on earth, impelled by an irresistible desire to behold once more the wonders and beauties of natural scenery, which are preserved among the fading traditions of the tribes tliat liave been banished to the far off western frontiers. ANDERSO>rV'ILLE PRISON. 239 XXXIII. From beneath the eastern aspect of the mountains of Alabama, a broad belt of metamorphic rocks bursts forth, and trends to the north-eastward, following the mountain ranges in almost parallel lines through the States of Geor- gia, South and North Carolina, and disapjDearing in Virginia beneath the waters of the Potomac. These lands of decomposed mica and talcose schists contain through- out their broad extent particles of gold ; and some of the narrow and circumscribed fields are unsurpassed in their undeveloped richness by any of the known gold fields of similar extent in the world. These auriferous soils, owned or controlled by the slaveholder, have yielded, by the superficial scratchings and washings of the slave and the poor white, during the period since the discovery of the precious metal, about forty millions of dollars. There are not less than one hundred inillions more within the reach and grasp of skilled and determined labor. Along beside, and traversing through and through these golden rocks and sands, occur immense bands of itacolu- mite, known, from its flexibility, as the elastic sandstone. They stretch from Alabama to the interior of North Car- olina, bursting forth now as great flexible bands of stone, and then bulging out as entire mountains. This singular formation is the same that has been recognized in Brazil, Ural Mountains, and Hindostan, as the matrix of the diamond ; and here, nearly one hundred of the precious gems of fine water have been picked up from the earth, from time to time, by the careless observer. 240 MARTYRDV, OR xxxrv. This upheaval of the earth's surface, reminding the geographer of the Italian peninsula, vaguely perhaps in form, in natui'al fertility and in purity of climate, is des- tined to play an important part in the future advance- ment of the Republic. For here is the heart of the eastern portion of the continent, geographically, clima- tologically, and mineralogically. Here Nature is too prolific to be long neglected by the cupidity or the ambi- tion of men, when the barriers and obstructions of in- quiry and settlement, which have been reared against the advance and design of civilization by the Slave Faction, shall have been removed. When the tide of European emigration, which steadily brings to the New World the pure blood and youth of races, turns its stream of indus- trial life towards these valleys, mountain slopes, and ter- races ; when the laws of alimentation are understood and properly observed ; when the spire of the school-house rises in the vista of every landscape, or points the way at every cross-road, — then we may expect to see a new variety of the human race appear, possessed of remai'kable physical strength and beauty, and whose ideas and efforts, typical of the healthy and developed mind, will, like the influ- ences of New England and Scandinavia, give fresh im- pulse and impress to the civilizations of the earth. ANDERSOKVILLE PRISON. 2d.I Races of men — nations — even the lesser communities, dunng the periods of their social existence, erect monu- ments, or leave, unwillingly sometimes, traces of their progress, their advancement, their culture, as memorials for the admiration, or as the objects of horror for the contempt, of future generations. The gigantic pyramids and sphinxes of Egypt tell of the civilization of their extinct founders ; the airy and graceful columns, with the wonderful sculptures of the Parthenon, disclose the degree of the perfection and the delicacy of the Greek mind. Rome, though long since vanished from among the nations of the earth, has left the impress of her force, grandeur, and wisdom in those laws which now direct the tribunals of men ; the lofty and colossal structures of the temples of the Rhine are the emblems of fixith as well as the masterpieces of the Gothic heart and intellect ; even the mysterious and history-for- gotten Druids have left their rude reminiscences in those weird circles of enormous and cyclopeaii rocks, beyond which all is darkness. Thus men perpetuate their memories among the annals of the earth. But after their long period of existence and progress, what have the Slave Faction left for tlie historian to contemplate with satisfaction? for an attentive world to study, imitate, and admire? What beyond this appall- ing cloud of ignorance have they left as legacy to the poor white? What besides misery, violence, and crime have they bequeathed to the black man? With what treasi.u-es, in the estimation of mankind, have they cn- II 242 MARTYRIA, OR ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. riched themselves, or left as inheritance to their degen- erate oflspring? The history of this remorseless pai'ty, its selfish and sordid aims, its cruel results, will always find place among the annals of civilized man so long as the noblest acts of men are admired, and so long as the dark deeds of cruelty appall and overshadow our better nature. Thermojoylce, Marathon, and the holy sites whei^e Liberty has struggled for existence, and where men have risen above the tram- mels of their earthly natures, will be remembered no longer than this field of blood and torture among the obscure forests of Georgia. Who will say that Nature and Libeiiy were the genii who directed the labors of the leaders of the Rebellion? Soil, climate, hereditary traditions, and customs of so- ciety, give to a people the fierceness and gentleness of character, as well as the pei-fection of mind and body. This fatal Stockade, with the silent mound of earth which contains its harvest of death, is a fair and just exponent of the bigoted and selfish policy that struck down the Flag of the Republic ; of that cruel and vmearthly spirit which has despised all the " attachments with which God has formed the chain of human sympathies," and which, without a tear of remorse, has strewn the Atlantic Ocean with a broad pathway of human bones ! APPENDIX. NOTES. Since the close of the war, and since the time when the sketch of the graveyard was taken, Colonel iloore, of the U. S. Quarter- master's Department, has been to Andersonville, under orders from the Secretary of War, and arranged the cemetery in a very acceptable manner. All of the stakes were removed, and neat head-boards placed instead, with the names of the dead properly painted in black letters. The ground has been cleared up by this efficient officer, and the cemetery carefully laid out into walks, adorned with flowers and trees. Colonel Moore, in his report to the Quartermaster-General, writes the following account : — " The dead were found buried in trenches, on a site selected by the rebels, about three hundred yards from the stockade. The trenches varied in length from fifty to one hundred and fifty yards. The bodies in the trenches were from two to three feet below the surface, and in several instances, where the rain had washed away the earth, but a few inches. Additional earth was, however, thrown upon the graves, making them of still greater depth. So close were they buried, with- out coffins, or the ordinary clothing to cover their nakedness, that not more than twelve inches were allowed to each man. Indeed, the little tablets marking their resting-places, measuring hardly ten inches in width, almost touch each other. United States soldiers, while prisoners at Andersonville, had been detailed to inter their compan- ions ; and by a simple stake at the head of each grave, which bore a number corresponding with a similarly numbered name upon the An- dersonville hospital record, I was enabled to identify, and mark with a neat tablet, similar to those in the cemeteries at Washington, the number, name, rank, regiment, company, and date of death of twelve thousand four hundred and sixty-one graves ; there being but four hundred and fifty-one that bore the sad inscription, ' Unknown U. S. Soldier.' " (^3) 244 APPENDIX. Extract from letters of the rebel Senator Foote, dated Montreal, June 21, I860. "Touching the Congressional report referred to, I have this to say: A month or two anterior to the date of said report, I learned from a government officer of respectability, that the prisoners of war then confined in and about Richmond were suffering severely from want, of provisions. He told me, further, that it was manifest to him that a systematic scheme was on foot for subjecting these unfortunate men to starvation ; that the Commissary-General, Mr. Northrup (a most wicked and heartless wretch), had addressed a communication to Mr. Scddon, the Secretary of War, proposing to withhold meat altogether from military prisoners then in custody, and to give them nothing but bread and vegetables; and that Mr. Seddon had indorsed the docu- ment containing this communication affirmatively. I learned, further, that by calling upon Major Oukl, the commissioner for exchange of prisoners, I would be able to obtain further information upon the subject. I went to Major Ould immediately, and obtained the desired information. Being utterly unwilling to countenance such barbarity for a moment, — regarding, indeed, the honor of the whole South as concerned in the affiiir, — I proceeded without delay to the hall of the House of Representatives, called the attention of that strangely con- stituted body to the subject, and insisted upon an immediate committee of investigation." As "to the capacity of the bakery, any one can make his own esti- mates from the plan given. The foreman of the government bakery at Nashville, gives his views in the following note : — " SiB : Our system in wheaten flour bread is, five men bake si.x ovens full in the twelve hours ; one oven full, 36 pans; 9 loaves (18 rations) in each pan ; 36 pans X 18 = 648 X 6 ovens full = 3888 X 2 (for twenty-four hours) = 7776 rations : this is done bj' two ovens. Say six men on each oven (any more would be in the way), two and a half hours to knead and bake each oven full (almost impossible), ten ovens full in the twelve hours in the day time (two ovens five times full in the twelve hours), ten ovens full in the twelve hours in the APPENDIX. 245 night time, each oven full 40 pans, 12 rations in each (20 oz. of corn bread) ; 40 pans X 12 = 480 X 10 for day's work = 4800 + 4800 for night work = 9600 rations in the twenty-four hours. Sir, all the above are in the extreme. Most respectfully, JonN WiTUERsi'ooN, Foreman U. S. Bakery." The hospital register gives the following data as to the number of prisoners present during each month, the number treated medically, and the average number of deaths : — ) „ ^, """ 1' Kuraberof 1 Month. 1 Prisoners. | Number in 1 Hospital. 1 Average DailjDcatlis. February, 1864 • 1,600 33 March, (< 4,603 909 9 April, " 7,875 870 19 !May, i( 13,486 1,190 23 June, " 22,352 1,605 40 July, " 28,689 2,156 56 August, " 32,193 3,709 99 September, " 17,733 3,026 89 October, (( 5,885 2,245 51 November, » 2,024 242 16 December, «« 2,218 431 5 January, 1865. 4,931 595 6 February, li 5,195 365 5 March, <( 4,800 140 3 The greatest number of deaths, on any sing le day, was on the 23d of August, 1864, an d was 12 7, or one death ev cry eleven n linutcs. The fact of the employment of blood-hounds is too notorious to admit of doubt. Many packs of dogs were kept, and a profitable business was done in the catching of escaped prisoners. Ben Harris was seen to receive pay for the capture of sixty prisoners, at thirty dollars apiece. That some of the pursued were killed in the forests during the pursuit, ihere is no doubt in the writer's mind, from the evidence offered. 246 APPENDIX. The following table vras collated from the hospital records of the prison, and is believed, by the writer and clerks who were employed at the rebel office, to be quite correct : — Month. Deaths in Hospital. Deaths in Stockade. Deaths in .Small Po.K Hospital. Total. February, 1864. . 1 1 March, " . 262 15 5 282 April, " . 471 71 34 576 May, " . 633 65 10 708 June, " . 1,041 150 10 1,201 July, «« . 1,119 614 5 1,738 August, " • 1,489 1,592 3,081 September, " . 1,255 1,423 2,678 October, " . 1,294 301 1,595 November, " . 494 494 December, " . 166 2 168 January, 1865. 191 8 199 February, '« . 147 .. 147 March, " . 100 •• 100 Total 8,663 4,241 64 12,968 Hung in stockade for c 6 ered. . . . . . . . . . . Total deaths as re gist 12,974 The hospital records show that 17,873 patients were registered, and that 823 of these were exchanged, and about 25 took the oath of allegiance, leaving 17,048 to be accounted for, giving a mortality of seventy-six per cent. Besides the registered dead, there were some who perished by the falling of the excavations in the stockade, and others destroyed by hounds and hunters in the forests. The meteorological tables and the vegetal charts of Blodgett M'ill give the rain-fall of this region in comparison with the other districts of the United States. APPENDIX. 247 The following tabic, which Wcis compiled by the author from the official records of the British army, gives the number of soldiers who were killed in action, or afterwards perished from their wounds, in many of the great battles of the British empire : — Year. 1 Battles. Total Stroiigth eiij,'agcd. Estimated Deaths. 1809. Talavera, 22,100 1,445 1811. Albuera, 9,000 1,358 1812. Salamanca, 30,500 770 1813. Vittoria, 42,000 890 1815. Ligny. Quatre Bras, ... •• Wavre, 49,900 3,245 Waterloo, New Orleans, 6,000 625 1854. Crimea, 4,595 Total number of deaths from woi inds. . . . 12,928 STATISTICS FROM THE CENSUS REPORTS OF 1860. Georgia. Counties. Corn, bushels. Wheat, bushels. Cotton, bales. Potatoes, busliels. I Peas and Beans, bush. Macon. . . Lee. . . . Sumter. Dougherty, Total. . 313,906 319,653 386,892 356,812 22,312 2,250 8,396 553 10,248 14,445 14,423 9,580 86,000 G0,000 92,234 56,310 37,836 34,599 12,483 23,061 1,377,263 I 33,5U | 48,696 | 294,544 | 108,019 Counties. Macon Lee Sumter. . . . Dougherty. . . Total. . . . Land fmproved, acres. 88,353 85,840 102,327 91,470 '367,9^ Land unim- proved, acres. Number of .Slaves. 108,170 4,865 113,172 4,947 160,742 4,890 99,048 6,079 I 481,138 I 20,781 248 ACIMMMV. Tln'W VWM'O. i(\ lSr>0, u»-;(vly |UH>,000 ciittU" mul s\vi<>»> in [W St!\to of VUuiilii nlono, whilst Muiui- hail l>ut '.'00,000 «t t)\o suiwo X'mw. (\i\ny.\i\ ami Alubnn\a \m\ tk\s,vthrr. vi\ ISOO. .^.000.000 ot" cattlo !»ml s\vii\(>, ami thov produooil dvivu>sj tho saim- vi ar (»>oro than (>0,000,000 biishols of ooru. 4.000,000 husht>ls ot" wheat, awil K'i.OOO.OOO Inishi'ln ofj'otatvH^s. All Now K>»,s;lainl, lUiviuy; tho saiwo pnioil, priulviooil but 1,000.000 Inishi-ls of whoat awd 0,000,000 bvvshols v>f ooru, although ooutuining « iwilUon nu>ro ihh>j>Io than Uoorgia awil Alaha>\i«. Tho fvUlv>wiug is n roj^v of tin- ovvloc n-latiMs^ to tlu> tn-atiwi-ul k^( tho v>-Ih-1 lU'isoivtTs in tho hamU of tho I'uitv-vl States anthovitios. (.\Mitiast it with the vebtl barhaiitios. A. \ (>KlVri- Ol- t\>MMlSSAUY t}KNKUA». Ol' I'UlSONlCliS, ^ \YASUINUI\>N. .\\>Hl .v. IfilM. N \\\ nnthovvty of tho >Vav Popavtinont. tho t'ollowiujj Ko^ilatioivs will bo obsovvod at all stations w hoiv jniMnxors of wav and political vu' state pvisonovs a\o hehl. Tho Ko^nlations will sniuTsovlo thoso issued lVun> this othvo July 7. ISdl : - - I. *rhe l\>\nn\ainlinv;- OlUeor at eaih station is held aeoonntablo for the diseipliixe a\ul ijood order of his eon\n\aud, and for the soenvity of the pvisouevs; «»»d will take sueh lueasvues, with the means \daeed at his ilisposftl, «» will best seexive theso n>sults,\lIo will divide the i>vis- o»\t>»"s into eom)>anies. and w ill eause written reports to bi> made tv) him of their eomlitiim t>viry mvunitiij, showin^y; the ehaniivs nvade dnvinjj the piveedinj; twenty-fovir hours, jjivins; the nan\es of the ••jv>ineil," "transferred." '-deaths," v<;e. vVt the end »>f every nvouth, t\>mn>;mders will se(\d to the I'ommissary liei\eral of Tiisoners a lu-tunv of Trisoners, givnn; nami-s and details to explain "altera- tions." If rvdls of "joined" ov "transferred" have l>een forwarded ilnrins;' the n\onth, it will be sntlleieut to refer to them on the return, aeeording to forn»s f\nnished. Al'l'lCNDlX. -49 II. On tlu> aniviil (if iuiy prisoiKTs iil, iiiiy stiitioii, u ciinrnl coni- imrisou of tliciu witli (lie rolls wliicli uicoinpany llicm will I..' iiiiulr, and nil I'lTors on tlic rolls will he coi iccUd. When no roll iicconi- piinies the prisoners, one will ininu'dialily lie nmilc out, contiiinin^ all the information rocpiirod, as oorrcc'l, as can ho, from tlic statements of prisoners themselves. Wlien the prisoners are citizens, tlie town, county, and Stale from which lliey eome will be ^iven on the rolls, mider the headinj^s JvanU, iu^imeul, and (Nimpany. At slafions where prisoners are reeeived fre(|nently, and in small parlies, a list will he furnished every liflh day — the last one in tlie mmilli may lie for six days — of all prisoners reeeived dnriiif;; the jireeedinf^ (ive days. Iihmediately on llicir arrival, ])iisoneis will he re(piireil to f^ive up all arms and weapons of every deserijilion, of whirli tlu; Conimandiuf;- Ollicer will re((nire an accurate list to \n) made. Wlien prisoners are forwarded for (,'.\ehan>^e, chiplieate parole rolls, sii^ned hy the prisoners, will he sent witii them, and an ordinary roll will he sent to the Commissary (jieneral of Prisoni'rs. Wlien they are trans- ferred from one station to anothei', an ordinary roll will he sent witli them, and a copy of it to the ('ommissary General of I'risoneis. In all cases, the ollieer charged with conducting prisoncus will report to the officer under whose order he acts the execution of his service, fur- nishing a receipt for the prisoners delivered, and aix'ounting hy name for those not delivered ; which icpcut will he forwarded, without de- lay, to the (^)iiniiissary (ieiiera! ol' Trisoners, III. The hospital will be under the immediate ehargt; of the Hcnior Medical Officer pr(-'sent, wlio will be lield responsihh; to the (Join- manding Officer for its good order and the proper ticalne nl of the sick. A fund for this hospital will be created, as for othei' hos])itals. It will he kept separate from the fund of the liospital for the trrxjjjs, and will be expended for the objects speeilied, ami in the manni'r j)re- seribed, in paragraph 1212, Revised liegulations for the Army of l«(i.'}, except that the re(iuisition of the Medical Officer in charge, and the bill of ])urchase, before payment, shall bo approved l)y the (Command- ing Officer. When this "fund" is nufficiently large, it may he expended also for shirts and drawers for the sick, the expense of washing clothes, articles for policing purposes, and all articles and I 250 APPENDIX. objects indispensably necessary to promote the sanitary condition of the hospital. IV. Surgeons in charge of hospitals where there are prisoners of war will make to the Commissary General of Prisoners, through the Commanding Officer, semi-monthly reports of deaths, giving names, rank, regiment, and company ; date and place of capture ; date and cause of death ; place of interment, and number of grave. Effects of deceased prisoners will be taken possession of by the Commanding Officer — the money and valuables to be reported to this office (see note on blank reports), the clothing of any value to be given to such prisoners as require it. Money left by deceased prisoners, or accruing from the sale of their effects, will be placed in the Prison Fund. V. A fund, to be called "The Prison Fund," and to be applied in procuring such articles as may be necessary for the health and con- venience of the prisoners, not expressly provided for by General Army Regulations, 1863, will be made by withholding from their rations such parts thereof as can be conveniently dispensed with. The Ab- stract of Issues to Prisoners, and Statement of the Prison Fund, shall be made out, commencing with the month of May, 1864, in the same manner as is prescribed for the Abstract of Issues to Hospital and Statement of the Hospital Fund (see paragraphs 1209, 1215, and 1246, and Form 5, Subsistence Department, Army Regulations, 1863), with such modifications in language as may be necessary. The ration for issue to prisoners will be composed as follows, viz. : — ,^ , ^ , -(14 oz. per one ration, or Hard Bread, ? i 18 oz. Soft Bread one ration. Corn Meal 18 oz. per one ration. Beef, 14 " Bacon or Pork, .... 10 " " " Beans 6 qts. per 100 men. Hominy or Rice, ... 8 lbs. " " Sugar, 14 " " «< R. Coffee 5 lbs. ground, or 7 lbs. raw, per 100 men. Tea, 18 oz. per 100 men. Soap, 4 " " " APPENDIX. 251 Adamantine Candles, . . 5 Candles per 100 men. Tallow Candles, ... 6 " '• " Salt, 2 qts. '< « Molasses, ...... 1 qt. " '< Potatoes, 30 lbs. " « When beans are issued, hominy or rice will not be. If at any time it should seem advisa.ble to make any change in this scale, the circum- stances will be reported to the Commissary General of Prisoners for his consideration. VI. Disbursements to be charged against the Prison Fund will be made by the Commissary of Subsistence, on the order of the Com- manding Officer ; and all such expenditures of funds will be accounted for by the Commissary, in the manner prescribed for the disbursements of the Hospital Fund. When in any month the items of expenditures on account of the Prison Fund cannot be conveniently entered on the Abstract of Issues to Prisoners, a list of the articles and quantities purchased, prices paid, statement of services rendered, &c., certified by the Commissary as correct, and ajiproved by the Commanding Officer, will accompany the Abstract. In such cases it will only be necessary to enter on the Abstract of Issues the total amount of funds thus expended. VII. At the end of each calendar month, the Commanding Officer will transmit to the Commissary General of Prisoners a copy of the " Statement of the Prison Fund," as shown in the Abstract of Issues for that month, with a copy of the list of expenditures specified in preceding paragraph, accompanied by vouchers, and will indorse thereon, or convey in letter of transmittal, such remarks as the matter may seem to require. VIII. The Prison Fund is a credit with the Subsistence Depart- ment, and at the request of the Commissary General of Prisoners may be transferred by the Commissary General of Subsistence in the manner prescribed by existing Regulations for the transfer of Hospital Fund. IX. With the Prison Fund may be purchased such articles, not provided for by regulations, as may be necessary for the health and 253 APPENDIX. proper condition of the prisoners, such as table furniture, cooking utensils, articles for policing, straw, the means for improving or en- larging the barracks or hospitals, &c. It will also be used to pay clerks and other employees engaged in labors connected with prisoners. No barracks or other structures will be erected or enlarged, and no alter- ations made, without first submitting a plan and estimate of the cost to the Commissary General of Prisoners, to be laid before the Secre- tary of War for his approval ; and in no case will the services of clerks or of other employees be paid for Avithout the sanction of the Commissary General of Prisoners. Soldiers employed with such sanction will be allowed 40 cents per day when employed as clerkif, stewards, or mechanics ; 25 cents a day when employed as laborers. X. It is made the duty of the Quartermaster, or, when there is none, the Commissary, under the orders of the Commanding Officer, to procure all articles required, and to hire clerks or other employees. All bills for service or for articles purchased will be certified by the Quartermaster, and will be paid by the Commissary on the order of the Commanding Officer, who is held responsible that all expenditures are for authorized purposes. XI. The Quartermaster will be held accountable for all propeiiy purchased with the Prison Fund, and he will make a return of it to the Commissary General of Prisoners at the end of each calendar month, which will show the articles on hand on the first day of the month ; the articles purchased, issued, and expended during the month ; and the articles remaining on hand. The return will be sup- ported by abstracts of the articles purchased, issued, and expended, certified by the Quartermaster, and approved by the Commanding Officer. XII. The Commanding Officer will cause requisitions to be made bj' his Quartermaster for such clothing as ma)' be absolutely necessarj' for the prisoners, which reqviisition will be approved by him, after a careful inquiry as to the necessity, and submitted for the approval of the Commissary General of Prisoners. The clothing will be issued by the Quartermaster to the prisoners, with the assistance and under the supervision of an officer detailed for the purpose, whose certificate that the issue has been made in his pres- APPENDIX. 253 ence will be the Quartermaster's vouchor for the clothing issuerl. From the 30th of April to the 1st of October, neither drawers nor socks will be allowed, except to the sick. When army clothing is issued, buttons and trimmings will be taken off the coats, and the skirts will be cut so short that the prisoners who wear them will not be mistaken for United States soldiers. XIII. The Sutler for the prisoners is entirely under the conti'ol of the Commanding Officer, who will require him to furnish the pre- scribed articles, and at reasonable rates. For this privilege the Siitler will be taxed a small amount by the Commanding Officer, according to the amount of his trade, which tax will be placed in the hands of the Commissary to make part of the Prison Fund. XIV. All money in possession of prisoners, or received by them, will be taken charge of by the Commanding Officer, who will give receipts for it to those to whom it belongs. Sales will be made to prisoners by the Sutler on orders on the Commanding Officer, which orders will be kept as vouchers in the settlement of the individual accounts. The Commanding Officer will procure proper books in which to keep an account of ail moneys deposited in his hands, these accounts to be always subject to inspection by the Commissary Gen- eral of Prisoners, or other inspecting officer. When prisoners are transferred from the post, the moneys belonging to them, with a state- ment of the amount due each, will be sent with them, to be turned over by the officer in charge to the officer to whom the prisoners are delivered, who will give receipts for the money. When prisoners are paroled, their money will be returned to them. XV. All articles sent by friends to prisoners, if proper to be de- livered, will be carefully distributed as the donors may request ; such as are intended for the sick passing through the hands of the Surgeon, who will be responsible for their proper use. Contributions must be received by an officer, who will be held responsible that they are de- livered to the person for whom they are intended. All uniform, clothing, boots, or equipments of any kind for military service, weap- ons of all kinds, and intoxicating liquors, including malt liquors, are among the contraband articles. The material for outer clothing should be gray, or some dark mixed color, and of inferior quality. Any I 254 APPENDIX. excess of clothing, over what is required for immediate use, is con- traband. XVI. When prisoners are seriously ill, their nearest relatives, being loyal, may be permitted to make them short visits ; but under no other circumstances will visitors be admitted without the authority of the Commissary General of Prisoners. At those places where the guard is insidS the enclosure, persons having official business to transact with the Commander or other officer will be admitted for such purposes, but wilL not be allowed to have any communication with the pris- oners. XVII. Prisoners will be permitted to write and to receive letters, not to exceed one page of common letter paper each, provided the matter is strictly of a private nature. Such letters must be examined by a reliable non-commissioned officer, appointed for that purpose by the Commanding Officer, before they are forwarded or delivered to the prisoners. XVIII. Prisoners who have been reported to the Commissary Gen- eral of Prisoners will not be paroled or released except by authority of the Secretary of War. W. HOPFMAN, Col. 3d Infantry, Commissary General of Prisoners. NOTE. The publishers have the names of all of those soldiers who perished at Andersonville, the date of death, and the number of their graves ; and they contemplate publishing the list hereafter, if sufficient encour- agement is offered. Address LEE & SIIEPARD, 149 Washington Street, Boston. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The Illustrations were drawn by the author from sketches upon the spot, and from photographs which were taken by the rebels during the occupation of the prison. The figures arc by Charles A. Barry, Esq., and the engraving by Henry Marsh, Esq. NnjIBEH l-ACE I. View from Main Gate (from rebel photograph) 2 II. Vignette 7 III. Bird's-eye View of Stockade 19 IV. View of Officers' Stockade 21 V. View of Interior of the Prison 29 \T. View of Graveyard (from rebel photograph) 37 VII. View of Dead Line (from rebel photograph) 48 VIII. View of Gates 53 / IX. View of Mud Huts • 55 ^ X, View of Burial (from rebel photograph) 57 XI. View of Bakery 61 XII. View of Kitchen 63 XIII. View of Blood-hound Hut 64"^ XIV. View of Utensils used by the Prisoners 96 t' XV, Map of Georgia 18 i XVI. Plan of Andersonvillc 20 v XVII. Plan of Prison 50 - XVIII. Plan of Bakery 60 INDEX. BOOK FIRST. Page Introduction. Description of Andcisonville : Locality, Arrajitjenicnf, and Construction of the Camp 7-28 BOOK SECOND. Descriptive : the Number of Prisoners compared with ike Armies of Alexander and Napoleon. The Dead compared with the Losses of the British Soldiers at Waterloo, Crimea, Spain, Mexican War, Sjc. 28-40 (255) 256 INDEX. BOOK TIIIRD. Describes at length the Stockade, xoith all the Arrangements, loith Comparisons, Ratio of Density, §c 40-68 BOOK FOURTH. Relates to the Alimentation of the Prisoners, toith Comiiarisons with the Dietaries of Foreign Armies, Hospitals, Prisons, Scarcity of Food in the Prison, Abundance of Food mi the Coimtry, ^c. . 68-99 BOOK FIFTH. Revicto of the Hospital — its Ajrangement and Results. . • . 99-113 BOOK SIXTH. Relates to the Mortality as cojnjMred with that of our Arjnies a7id Prisons, also with Foreign Ar}nies, Prisons, and Hospitals, §c. 113-142 BOOK SEVENTH. Relates to the Legal Right of Death over the Captive, icith the Views of the Ablest Wnters of Past Times, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Mira- beau, i§-c. The Treatment of Prisoners of War by the Rebels con- trasted icith Usages of Civilized Nations. Regulations of the United Slates. Letter of General Butler on the Exchange of Pnsoners. Complicity of Jeff Davis, §c., S^c 142-194 BOOK EIGHTH. Review of the Physical and Moral Causes, — Climatological, Ethno- logical, Social, S^c, — that have led to the Degeneration of the WJiite Race hi the South, and the consequent Degree of Perversity and Barbarity, S^c 194-242 APPENDIX. Notes, Statislieal Tables. General Orders of the United States in Reference to Treat7ne7it of tlieir P}isoners 243-254 x^-i^. . ,H ^. '^o. -^0' \^^^. ^ % #■ ■^ .>^^^- A^' ^; ' %. V^ .^^ ^'^^d^ ' r •^ ^-^ •J' ■^ '^'J^ 0^ \ o5 -^ ^ ■v":--5^-^>/ ' : \^^ ' y 1 .^^' ^ cP^^r" :>>,. ^0^ "t; -^ . ^ (7 \' ..\ ^^^?^^> ^ X (j^ •>t..