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[243] This murderer is a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and dispenses the gospel to the people. Through disgust, horror and shame, I cast my pen aside, and sit in amazement, that for crimes like these an angry God has not, by His breath, cursed the earth, and sent it as a floating pandemonium throughout the immensity of space, as a warning to other worlds, if other worlds there be so depraved, corrupted and lost to the charities of life and the mercies of God. Dr. Gideon S. Bailey, in wealth and character, is one of the finest citizens of the State of Iowa. He had attended Abraham Lincoln's reputed father in his last illness for many months, and had received not one cent in compensation. Yet Dr. Bailey was arrested, placed in the very same filthy place in which the author was imprisoned, and kept there for a number of days. The weather was exceeding sultry; Dr. Bailey was in very feeble health when he was carried down to Saint Louis on the hurricane deck of a steamer. When in Saint Louis, he was placed in Gratiot street prison, where he was subjected to every manner of filth, torture and suffering. The debt due him for the attendance upon Mr. Lincoln remains unpaid, though the doctor will bear the effects of his incarceration to the grave. We will next give Rev. George W. Nelson's narrative of his prison life. Mr. Nelson is now rector of the Episcopal church in Lexington, Virginia. As an alumnus of the University of Virginia, a gallant Confederate soldier, and since the war a devoted, useful minister of the gospel, Mr. Nelson is widely known and needs no endorsation from us. The narrative was written not long after the close of the war, when the facts were fresh in his memory, and could be substantiated by memoranda in his possession. In a private letter to the editor, dated March 14, 1876, Mr. Nelson says of his narrative: “It is all literal fact, understated rather than overstated. I read it a few days since to Mr. Gillock of this place, (Lexington), who was my bunk-mate from Point Lookout until we were released, and he says that all of the facts correspond with his memory of them.” Without further introduction, we submit the paper in full:
Richmond, VA. 1876.
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