[632] Assistant Surgeon Tinsley testifies: “I have seen many of our prisoners returned from the North, who were nothing but skin and bones. They were as emaciated as a man could be to retain life, and the photographs (appended to ‘Report No. 67,’ ) would not be exaggerated representations of our returned prisoners to whom I thus allude. I saw two hundred and fifty of our sick brought in on litters from the steamer at Rockett's. Thirteen dead bodies were brought off the steamer the same night. At least thirty died in one night after they were received.” Surgeon Spence testifies: “I was at Savannah, and saw rather over three thousand prisoners received. The list showed that a large number had died on the passage from Baltimore to Savannah. The number sent from the Federal prisons was three thousand five hundred, and out of that number they delivered only three thousand and twentyeight, to the best of my recollection. Capt. Hatch can give you the exact number. Thus, about four hundred and seventy-two died on the passage. I was told that sixty-seven dead bodies had been taken from one train of cars between Elmira and Baltimore. After being received at Savannah, they had the best attention possible, yet many died in a few days.” “In carrrying out the exchange of disabled, sick, and wounded men, we delivered at Savannah and Charleston about eleven thousand Federal prisoners, and their physical condition compared most favourably with those we received in exchange, although of course the worst cases among the Confederates had been removed by death during the passage.” Richard H. Dibrell, a merchant of Richmond, and a member of the “ambulance committee,” whose labors in mitigating the sufferings of the wounded have been acknowledged both by Confederate and Northern men, thus testifies concerning our sick and wounded soldiers at Savannah, returned from Northern prisons and hospitals:
I have never seen a set of men in worse condition. They were so enfeebled and emaciated that we lifted them like little children. Many of them were like living skeletons. Indeed, there was one poor boy, about seventeen years old, who presented the most distressing and deplorable appearance I ever saw. He was nothing but skin and bone, and besides this, he was literally eaten up with vermin. He died in the hospital in a few days after being removed thither, notwithstanding the kindest treatment and the use of the most judicious nourishment. Our men were in so reduced a condition, that on more than one trip up on the short passage of ten miles from the transports to the city, as many as five died. The clothing of the privates was in a wretched state of tatters and filth.
The mortality on the passage from Maryland was very great, as well as that on the passage from the prisons to the port from which they started. I cannot state the exact number, but I think I heard that three thousand five hundred were started, and we only received about three thousand and twenty-seven.
I have looked at the photographs appended to “ Report No. 67 ” of the committee of the Federal Congress, and do not hesitate to declare that several of our men were worse cases of emaciation and sickness than any represented in these photographs.The testimony of Mr. Dibrell is confirmed by that of Andrew Johnston, also a merchant of Richmond, and a member of the “ambulance committee.” Thus it appears that the sick and wounded Federal prisoners at Annapolis whose condition has been made a subject of outcry and of widespread complaint by the Northern Congress, were not in a worse state than were the Confederate prisoners returned from Northern hospitals and prisons of which the humanity and superiour management are made subjects of special boasting by the United States Sanitary Commission! In connection with this subject, your committee take pleasure in reporting the facts ascertained by their investigations concerning the Confederate hospitals for sick and / wounded Federal prisoners. They have made personal examination, and have taken evidence
