"Unparalleled in Humanity."
--Under the above caption the ‘"Local"’ of the New Orleans
Delta has the following bitter satire upon a petition drawn up and presented to
Gen. Palfrey by the
Federal prisoners confined in that city:
‘
A gross outrage, in connection with the
Federal prisoners now confined in our Parish Prison, has just been brought to light.
We allude to the inhuman treatment of those unfortunate gentlemen.
When we consider the kind and humane management of those Southern prisoners who have had the good fortune to fall into Federal hands, we hide the face in shame.
Lock at their kindness and humanity in putting to death a Southern man for the reason that he sympathized with the rebels.
They were afraid he would die a lingering death, and they put him out of this troublesome world, putting one hundred bullets into his body.
’
That was noble and generous.
But they did more.
When the widow of the deceased, unconscious of his death, came to console him in his imprisonment, and asked to see him, they granted her the pleasure, and exhibited to her, with pride and satisfaction, the stiff and bloody corpse of her loved partner.
The loving wife was so overcome with this exhibition of humanity, that misery has found no place in her bosom since — the world is a bright and happy panorama to her — and if the laugh of the maniac be an evidence of freedom from sorrow, oh ? how happy she must be ?
This in one of the many instances of humanity on the part of the
Federals; and it is hard to see with what crudity we treat those who have fallen under our care.
The prisoners confined in our jail have sent a sort of protest or petition to
Gen. Palfrey, in which a list of their sufferings is carefully detailed.
It culminates with a charge against the prison authorities which we were not prepared to believe.
It is this:
‘"Since our confinement, not even the ladies of New Orleans are permitted to visit us, to sympathize with us and to weep over our misfortunes."’
"There now, did any one ever hear of such atrocity upon the part of those in power ? Search the blackest pages of the greatest tyrant's history, and tell us if such cruel and inhuman conduct was ever heard of ? Unless the
Provost Marshal immediately issues an order commanding all the ladies in the city to put on their best
dry goods, make a New Year's call on the
Federal prisoners, and weep rivers of salt tears over their forlorn fountain, a public will immediately having his commission refused.
