[
205]
of orders, letters, &c., from the
Confederate authorities, showing that they were doing all in their power to mitigate the sufferings of the prisoners, and the emphatic testimony of
Dr. Randolph Stevenson, the surgeon in charge of the hospital, to the following effect:
The guards on duty here were similarly affected with gangrene and scurvy.
Captain Wirz had gangrene in an old wound, which he had received in the battle of Manassas, in 1861, and was absent from the post (Andersonville) some four weeks on surgeon's certificate. (In his trial certain Federal witnesses swore to his killing certain prisoners in August, 1864, when he (Wirz) was actually at that time absent on sick leave in Angusta, Georgia.) General Winder had gangrene of the face, and was forbidden by his surgeon (I. H. White) to go inside the stockade.
Colonel G. C. Gibbs, commandant of the post, had gangrene of the face, and was furloughed under the certificate of Surgeons Wible and Gore, of Americus, Georgia.
The writer of this can fully attest to effects of gangrene and scurvy contracted whilst on duty there; their marks will follow him to his grave.
The Confederate graveyard at Andersonville will fully prove that the mortality among the guards was almost as great in proportion to the number of men as among the Federals.
The paper of
General Imboden, which we published, fully corroborates the above statements.
But we gave the testimony of
Mr. John M. Frost, of the Nineteenth Maine regiment, the resolutions of the Andersonville prisoners adopted September 23d, 1864, the testimony of
Prescott Tracy, of the Eighty-second regiment, New York volunteers, and of another
Andersonville prisoner — all going to established in the most emphatic manner the points we made.
The Nation ignores most of this testimony, and uses what it alludes to very much as
Judge Advocate Chipman did
Dr. Jones' report in the Wirz trial--
i. e., uses it to prove that great suffering and mortality existed at
Andersonville, but
suppresses the part which exonerates the Confederate authorities from the charges made against them.
Even at the risk of wearying our readers, we must (for the benefit of those who have not seen our previous papers on this subject), repeat our comments on the testimony we introduced:
It appears, then, from the foregoing statements that the prison at Andersonville was established with a view to healthfulness of location, and that the great mortality which ensued resulted chiefly from the crowded condition of the stockade, the use of corn bread, to which the prisoners had not been accustomed, the want of variety in the rations furnished, and the want of medicines and hospital
