Treatment of prisoners.
--Yankee paragraphia are very fond of placing before the
Northern public statements of imaginary sufferings endured by "Union prisoners" confined in the Libby and other Confederate prisons in the city of
Richmond and other places in the
South.
This is done manifestly to keep alive the war feeling amongst the ignorant poplars who read their falsehoods, and whose prejudices are to be operated on by wordy pictures of the imaginary sufferings of "Union patriots,"captured whilst fighting for the "dear flag" The truth is, there has always been a marked difference in the mode of treatment of prisoners taken by the
Yankee and Confederate forces.
The
Yankees have ever regarded the unfortunate men who fell into their hands as objects on which to wreak in safety all the hoarded matico of years.
Their diabolical ingenuity has been taxed to its utmost extent to devise now ways at rendering their temporary victims unhappy and miserable.
This has been proved times and again by evidence that could not be denoted.
Accounts from the
West represent that 70) of the 3,500 Confederate soldiers of
Arkansas Post died from exposure and hardship after falling into Yankee hands.
All are familiar with the treatment of
Colonel Zirvona, a Virginia officer, which separate in its, devilish atrocity the accounts which come down to us from the dark ages.
A Confederate
Colonel, recently returned here by flag of truce from the
North, who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the vandals in
Missouri, says, when taken, the Abolitionists raged around himself and comrades like demons.
Fearing to take the lives of their prisoners, they entered into, the more ceremonial business of plunder, and soon had every article of any value removed from their persons.
The officer in question was robbed of $5,15 in money, and all his
wearing apparel was removed from his person save his bools, pantaloons, and shirt.
He says hand calling Confederate officers on the slightest pretence was resorted to in order to heap on the unfortunate men all the ignominy that brutal treatment could confer.
In these statements the officer was sustained by several others who witnessed the conduct spoken of. They stated that over 600 of our men were huddled together in a room not capable of holding comfortably 123, and were left without blankets or fire.
As a matter of course many died.
This is only what has been and is being done at Camp Chase and other places where the
Federal thumbscrew is applied unrelentingly.
Yankee editors are particularly fond of depicting the horrors suffered by Abolition soldiers and officers confined in the
Libby prison in this city.
Everything they have said is the exact reverse of truth.
The
Richmond prison is kept scrupulously clean and neat; sufficient covering in given each man to render him comfortable; a fire is constantly maintained in each room of the captious building.
Possibly the inmates would be satisfied of they had the range of the town, and were allowed to go about murdering and robbing everybody, and burning down houses, with impunity, as they do generally before being captured.
So far as the food given these wretches is concerned, it is far better than any one gets who belongs to our army.
They get full rations, and the best that can be gotten.
Even at Government prices, (at which supplies are obtained for the prison,) it costs the
Confederacy $1,50 per day to support each one of the vandals in idleness.
No one here ever heard of one of the
Yankee officers being hardened, or treated with indignity.
The truth is, they are not allowed the opportunity, doubtless coveted, of robbing one another.
Every cent they have is restored to them on their exit from the prison.
The officers and men are treated by
Capt. Turner and his subordinates with all the consideration due prisoners of war. --They perform their exact duty to the
Confederacy and to the vandals who are temporarily confided to their charge, and there stop, as they should.
The proportion of gentlemen, either among the officers or men of the
Yankee army who have been captured and brought here, is very small when compared with the vast number who have been, within the part two years lodged at the public expense at the Libby and other prisons in
Richmond.
