Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/335

 Prison Pens North. 335

INSOLENT GUARDS.

The guard was generally of negroes, and their insolence and bru- tality were intolerable. They would beat the prisoners, order them about, and point their guns at them, "jest to see the d d rebels scatter," these performances being much enjoyed by the "Yanks."

"Our rations grow daily worse, the pork more rancid, the soup more watery, the beef more lean and stringy."

In July two hundred and eighty-two of the nine thousand prisoners here penned were transported to Elmira, Mr. Keiley being of the number.

"Embarking," he says, "we were packed like sheep or cattle in the reeking hold of a villianous tub, with no means of ventilation, save two narrow hatchways, the sun melting the pitch in the seams overhead. Many were seasick and all hungry, but for fifty hours the only food given us was a slice of bread and a couple of ounces of fat per man."

SYSTEMATIC INHUMANITY.

The prison-pen at Elmira was divided by a stagnant piece of water or "lagoon," the miasma arising from which " rendered it necessary for eight or ten hospitals to be built. Yet the head surgeon, Dr. Sanger, would sign no report which ascribed to this cause the death of a patient;" consequently the lagoon remained undisturbed, and the frightful mortality continued. " The better class of officers were loud and indignant in their reproaches of Dr. Sanger's systematic inhumanity to the prisoners, and they affirmed that he avowed his determination to stint these poor, helpless creatures in retaliation for alleged neglect on the part of our own authorities ! "

PERISHED FROM STARVATION.

In August there were nine thousand six hundred and seven pris- oners at Elmira. "The most scandalous neglect," says Mr. Keiley, " existed in providing food for the sick, and many of them perished from actual starvation. One man in the hospital complained to his comrades that he could get nothing to eat, and was dying in consequence. They got leave (Dr. Sanger not being consulted) to buy him some potatoes, and when these were roasted and brought him the poor creatures in the neighboring cots crawled out of their