Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 30.djvu/97

 Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners. 89

that we quote. They caption their report from Albany, April 5th, 1863, and say, among other things, as follows:

" In our experience, we have never witnessed so painful a spec- tacle as that presented by these wretched inmates; without change of clothing, covered with vermin, they lie in cots, without mattresses, or with mattresses furnished by private charity, without sheets or bedding of any kind, except blankets, often in rags; in wards reek- ing with filth and foul air. The stench is most offensive. We care- fully avoid all exaggeration of statement, but we give some facts which speak for themselves. From January 2yth, 1863, when the prisoners (in number about 3,800) arrived at Camp Douglas, to February i8th, the day of our visit, 385 patients have been admitted to the hospitals, of whom 130 have died. This mortality of 33 per cent, does not express the whole truth, for of the 148 patients then remaining in the hospital a large number must have since died. Besides this, 130 prisoners have died in barracks, not having been able to gain admission even to the miserable accommodations of the. hospital, and at the time of our visit 150 persons were sick in bar- racks waiting for room in hospital. Thus it will be seen that 260 out of the 3,800 prisoners had died in twenty-one days, a rate of mortality which, if continued, would secure their total extermination in about 320 days."

Then they go on to describe the conditions at St. Louis, showing them to be even worse than at Chicago, and after stating that the conditions of these prisons are "discreditable to a Christian people, '* they add:

" It surely is not the intention of our Government to place these prisoners in a position which will secure their extermination by pes- tilence in less than a year."

See also report of U. S. Surgeon A. M. Clark, Series II., Vol. VI., p. 371. See also Id., p. 113.

Is it not a little surprising, that when the representatives of this same "Sanitary Commission" published their savage and partisan report in September, 1864, as to the way their prisoners were being treated in Southern prisons, which report they had adorned with pictures of skeletons alleged to have come from our prison hospitals, they did not make some allusion to the condition of things as found by them in their own hospitals ?

But as further evidence of violations of the cartel, it will be seen that on May I3th, 1863, Judge Ould wrote to Colonel Ludlow again