Question. How were you treated at Richmond?
Answer. I suffered there terribly with hunger. I could eat anything.
Question. Can you tell us what kind of food you got there?
Answer. Dry Indian bread, and, when I first went there, a very little meat.
Question. When were you taken sick?
Answer. I was taken sick – I was sick with the diarrhœa a fortnight before I went to the hospital, and I was in the hospital a little over a week before I was exchanged. I was released on the 7th of March, and got here the 9th.
Question. How were you treated while in the hospital?
Answer. I was treated there worse than on Belle Isle. We did not get any salt of any account – only a little piece of bread that would hardly keep a chicken alive.
Question. Did you get any rice?
Answer. No, sir.
Question. Any soup?
Answer. Once in a while of mornings I would get a little.
Question. Did the physician come round to see you every day?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. Did he give you any medicine?
Answer. He gave me some pills.
Question. What was their manner towards you after you were taken sick and in the hospital? Were they kind, or rough?
Answer. They were neither kind nor rough, but indifferent. The corn-bread I got seemed to burn my very insides. When I would go down to the river of mornings to wash myself, as I put the water to my face it seemed as though I wanted to sup the water, and to sup it, and sup it, and sup it all the time.
Question. Did you make no complaint to the officers on Belle Isle of your food?
Answer. No, sir.
Question. Did you ask them for any more?
Answer. No, sir; I knew there was no use. I do not think I spoke to an officer while I was there.
Question. Did you ever tell those who furnished you with the food you did get, of the insufficiency of it?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. What answer did they give you?
Answer. That was all we were allowed, they said.
Question. Did you have blankets while you were on Belle Isle?
Answer. I had no blanket until our government sent us some.
Question. How did you sleep before you received those blankets?
Answer. We used to get together just as close as we could, and sleep spoon-fashion, so that when one turned over we all had to turn over.
Question. Did they furnish you any clothing while you were there?
Answer. No, sir; the rebs did not furnish us a bit. It was very warm weather when I was taken prisoner, and I had nothing on me but my pants, shirt, gloves, shoes, stockings, and cap; and I received no more clothing until our government sent us some in December, I think. We had to lie right down on the cold ground.
Question. Did you not have a tent?
Answer. I had none when I first went there. After a while we had one, but it was a very poor affair; the rain would come right through it.
Question. Were you exposed to the dew and rain, and wind and snow?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. And before you got the tent you lay in the open air?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. How did the others there with you fare; the same as you did?
Answer. Many of them had money, with which they bought things of the guard; but I had no money.
Question. Were there others there who had no money?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. Did they fare the same as you?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. After you went into the hospital, did you receive the same treatment as their own sick received who were in the hospital with you, or did they have any of their sick in there?
Answer. I think none of their sick were in there. I suffered a great deal with hunger when I was on Belle Isle. When I first went there I had no passage of the bowels for eighteen days, and when I did have one it was just as dry as meal.
Question. Did you have any medicine at that time?
Answer. No, sir; I took no medicine until I went to the hospital. About the middle or last of February (somewhere about there) I took a very severe cold. It seemed to settle all over me. I was as stiff in all my joints as I could be.
Question. Did your strength decrease much before you were taken sick in February?
Answer. Yes, sir; I stood it very well until about the 1st of February. After that I commenced to go down pretty fast. I know that one day I undertook to wash my shirt, and got it about half washed, when I was so weak I had to give it up.
Question. Do you think you had any other disease or sickness than what was caused by exposure and starvation at that time?
Answer. No, sir. When I was taken prisoner I weighed about 170 pounds, I think. I had always been a very hearty, stout man – could eat anything, and stand almost anything.
Isaac H. Lewis, sworn and examined.
By Mr. Julien:
Question. To what company and regiment do you belong?
Answer. Company K, 1st Vermont cavalry.
Question. When were you taken prisoner?
Answer. I was taken prisoner on the 22d of March, on Kilpatrick's raid.
Question. Where were you then carried?
Answer. They carried me to Richmond, and put me in a tobacco house there.
Question. How did they treat you there?
Answer. Well, they did not treat me as well as they might.
Question. What did they give you to eat?
Answer. They gave me corn-bread.
Question. How much and how often?
Answer. Not but very little. They gave me a little twice a day.
Question. Did they give you any meat?
Answer. Once in a while, a little.
Question. What kind of meat?
Answer. Beef.
Question. Could you eat it?
Answer. No, sir.
[The witness here was evidently so weak and exhausted that the committee suspended his examination.]
Mortimer F. Brown, sworn and examined.
By the chairman:
Question. Where are you from, and to what company and regiment do you belong?
Answer. I am from Steubenville, Ohio; I was in the 2d Ohio; Colonel McCook was our colonel when I was taken prisoner.
Question. Where were you taken prisoner?
Answer. At Chickamauga.
Question. Where were you then carried?
Answer. From Chickamauga to Richmond.
Question. How did you fare while in Richmond?
Answer. We lived very scantily, and hardly anything to eat. Some of the boys, in order to get enough to live on, had to trade away what clothing they could to the guard for bread, &c.
Question. What did they allow you to eat?
Answer. When we first went to Richmond our rations were bacon and wheat-bread. We did very well at first, but they went on cutting it down.
Question. How was it finally?
Answer. We received corn-bread once or twice a day – I think it was twice. After we went to Danville we fared a great deal better in regard to rations.
Question. Did you have enough to eat, such as it was?
Answer. I did, at Danville.
Question. How was it at Richmond?
Answer. Well, some had plenty to eat, but, as far as I was concerned, I was hungry most all the time. From the time we left Richmond until we drew our meat at Danville – say ten days – we had with us to eat only what they called Graham bread – nothing but bread and water for those ten days. After we got to Danville it was better. They issued us pork and beef sometimes. There, there would be times when we would be without meat for a couple of days.
Question. What was their bearing and treatment towards you, aside from your food?
Answer. We were treated tolerably kindly until we commenced our tunnelling operations; then they treated us very harshly; then they took the prisoners that had occupied three floors and put them all on two floors, and would only allow from three to six to go to the rear at one time.
Question. What is the matter with you now?
Answer. Nothing at all but scurvy. I am getting along very well now since I got here. The treatment at Danville was a palace alongside of that at Richmond.
Franklin Dinsmore, sworn and examined.
By the chairman:
Question. Where did you enlist?
Answer. At Camp Nelson, Kentucky.
Question. To what State do you belong?
Answer. Eastern Tennessee.
Question. How long have you been in the army?
Answer. I enlisted on the 11th or 12th of last July; I do not remember which day.
Question. To what regiment do you belong?
Answer. Eighth Tennessee cavalry.
Question. Who was your colonel?
Answer. Colonel Strickland.
Question. Where were you taken prisoner?
Answer. At Zollicoffer, near the East Tennessee and Virginia line.
Question. Where were you then carried?
Answer. Right straight on to Richmond. I was taken on the line of the railroad. We were burning bridges there to keep the enemy out.
Question. How did you fare after you got to Richmond?
Answer. They just starved us.
Question. What did they give you to eat?
Answer. For forty-eight hours after we got there they gave us only just what we could breathe; then they gave us a little piece of white bread and just three bites of beef. A man could take it all decently at three bites. That is the way we lived until we went to Danville, and then we had meat enough to make half a dozen bites, with bugs in it.
Question. What brought on your sickness?
Answer. Starvation. I was so starved there that when I was down I could not get up without catching hold of something to pull myself up by.
Question. What did you live in?
Answer. In a brick building, without any fire, or anything to cover us with.
Question. Had you no blankets?
Answer. No, sir; we had not. They even took our coats from us, and part of us had to lie there on the floor in our shirt sleeves.
Question. In the winter?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. Did any of the men freeze?
Answer. Yes, sir; many a man just fell dead walking around trying to keep himself warm, or, as he was lying on the floor, died during the night; and if you looked out of a window, a sentinel would shoot you. They shot some five or six of our boys who were looking out. Some of our boys would work for the guards to get more to eat, just to keep them from starving. There would be pieces of cobs in our bread, left there by the grinding machine, half as long as my finger, and the bread itself looked just as if you had taken a parcel of dough and let it bake in the sun. It was all full of cracks where it had dried, and the inside was all raw.
Question. Were you hungry all the time?
Answer. Hungry! I could eat anything in the world that came before us. Some of the boys would get boxes from the north with meat of different kinds in them, and, after they had picked the meat off, they would throw the bones away into the spit-boxes, and we would pick the bones out of the spit-boxes and gnaw them over again.
Question. Did they have any more to give you?
Answer. They had plenty. They were just doing it for their own gratification. They said Seward had put old Beast Butler in there, and they did not care how they treated us.
Question. Did you complain about not having enough?
Answer. Certainly we complained, but they said we had plenty. They cursed us, and said we had a sight more than their men had who were prisoners in our lines.
Question. Do you feel any better now since you have been here?
Answer. A great deal better; like a new man now. I am gaining flesh now.
By Mr. Odell:
Question. What was your occupation before you went into the army?
Answer. I was a farmer.
By Mr. Julian:
Question. Do you know how they treated their own sick?
Answer. No, sir.
By Mr. Odell:
Question. Were other Tennesseeans taken prisoners the same time you were?
Answer. Yes, sir; there were twenty-four of us taken prisoners. The smallpox was very severe among us. Our own men said that they were just trying to kill the Tennesseeans and Kentuckians. Out of the twenty-four, there were ten of us left when they started for Georgia. No man can tell precisely how we were treated and say just how it was.
L. H. Parhan, sworn and examined.
By Mr. Gooch:
Question. From what State are you?
Answer. West Tennessee.
Question. To what regiment do you belong?
Answer. The 3d West Tennessee cavalry.
Question. Where were you taken prisoner?
Answer. In Henry county, West Tennessee.
Question. From there where were you carried?
Answer. From there they marched us on foot, some 350-odd miles, to Decatur.
Question. What were you given to eat?
Answer. Sometimes for twenty-four or thirty hours we would have a little piece of beef and some corn-bread.
Question. Were you a well man when you were taken prisoner?
Answer. Yes, sir; a stout man for a little man. I was very stout.
Question. Were you brought to your present condition by want of food?
Answer. Yes, sir; and sleeping in the cold. They took my money and clothes and everything else away from me, even my pocket-comb and knife, and my finger-ring that my sister gave me. They were taken away when I was captured.
[The witness, who was so weak that he could not raise his head, appeared to be so much exhausted by talking that the committee refrained from further examination. As they were moving away from his bed, he spoke up and said: "I am better now than when I came here. I have some strength now. I hope I shall get better, for I want to see my old father and mother once more."]
James Sweeney, sworn and examined.
By Mr. Gooch:
Question. Where did you reside when you enlisted?
Answer. Haverhill, Massachusetts.
Question. To what company and regiment do you belong?
Answer. Company E, 17th Massachusetts.
Question. When were you taken prisoner?
Answer. First of February.
Question. Where?
Answer. Six miles from Newbern, North Carolina.
Question. Where were you then carried?
Answer. To Richmond.
Question. How were you treated after you were taken prisoner?
Answer. We had no breakfast that day. We started out early in the morning – the 132d New York was with us – without anything to eat. We had nothing to eat all that day, and they made us sleep out all that night without anything to eat. It rained that night; then they marched us the next day thirty miles, to Kingston, without anything to eat, except it was, about twelve o'clock, one of the regular captains, who had some crackers in his haversack, gave us about one each, and some of the boys managed to get an ear of corn from the wagons, but the rest of them were pushed back by the guns of the guard; then we were kept in the streets of Kingston until about nine o'clock, when we had a little pork and three barrels of crackers for about two hundred of us. I got three or four crackers. Then they put us in freight cars that they had carried hogs in, all filthy and dirty, and we were nearly frozen by the time we got to Goldsborough; and near Weldon they camped us in a field all day long, like a spectacle for the people to look at, and when we got to Richmond they put us in a common for a while, and then we were taken to prison. About eleven o'clock that day they brought us some corn-bread. They gave me about three-quarters of a small loaf and a dipper of hard, black beans with worms in them. We were kept there all night. If we went near the window, bullets were fired at us. Two or three hundred men lay on the floor. I was kept between three and four weeks on Belle Isle.
Question. How was it for food there?
Answer. That night they gave us a piece of corn-bread about an inch thick, two or three inches long. Some nights we would have a couple of spoonfuls, maybe, of raw rice or raw beans; other nights they would not give us that. A squad of 100 men of us would have about 20 sticks of wood, and in order to cut that up we would have to pay a man for the use of an axe by giving him a piece of the stick for splitting up the rest. We lay right on the ground in the snow. Twenty of us together would lay with our feet so close to the fire that the soles of our boots would be all drawn, and we would get up in the morning all shivering, and I could not eat what little food I did get.
Question. What is the cause of your sickness?
Answer. Just the food we got there and this exposure. Eating this corn-bread continually gave me the diarrhœa. We would get thirsty and drink that river water. We had little bits of beef sometimes; generally it was tough, more like a piece of India-rubber you would rub pencil-marks out with. What little food we did get was so bad we could not eat it. At first, for five or six days, we could eat it pretty well, but afterwards I could not eat it.
Question. Have you been brought to your present condition by your treatment there?
Answer. Yes, sir; by the want of proper food, and exposure to the cold.
John C. Burcham, sworn and examined.
By Mr. Julian:
Question. Where did you enlist, and in what regiment?
Answer. I enlisted in Indianapolis, in the 75th Indiana regiment, Colonel Robinson.
Question. When were you taken prisoner, and where?
Answer. I was taken prisoner at Chickamauga, on the 20th of September.
Question. Where were you carried then?
Answer. The next day they took us to Atlanta, and then on to Richmond.
Question. What prison were you put in?
Answer. I was on Belle Isle five or six days and nights, and then they put me in a prison over in town.
Question. How did they treat you there?
Answer. Rough, rough, rough.
Question. What did they give you to eat?
Answer. A small bit of bread and a little piece of meat; black beans full of worms. Sometimes meat pretty good, sometimes the meat was so rotten that you could smell it as soon as you got it in the house. We were used rough, I can tell you.
Question. Did they leave you your property?
Answer. They took everything we had before ever we got to Richmond; my hat, blankets, knife. We did not do very well until we got some blankets from our government; afterwards we did better. Before that we slept right on the floor, with nothing over us except a little old blanket one of us had.
Question. What was their manner towards you?
Answer. I call it pretty rough. If a man did not walk just right up to the mark they were down on him, and not a man of us dared to put his head out of the window, for he would be shot if he did. Several were shot just for that.
Question. What is the cause of your sickness?
Answer. Nothing but exposure and the kind of food we had there. I was a tolerably stout man before I got into their hands; after that I was starved nearly to death.
Daniel Gentis, sworn and examined.
By the chairman:
Question. What State are you from?
Answer. Indiana.
Question. When did you enlist, and in what company and regiment?
Answer. I enlisted on the 6th of August, 1861, in company I, 2d New York regiment.
Question. Where were you taken prisoner?
Answer. I was taken prisoner at Stevensville, Virginia; I was there with Colonel Dahlgren, on Kilpatrick's expedition.
Question. Were you taken prisoner at the same time that Colonel Dahlgren was killed?
Answer. I was there when he was killed, but I was taken prisoner the next morning.
Question. What do you know about the manner of his death and the treatment his body received?
Answer. He was shot within a foot and a half or two feet of me. I got wounded that same night. The next morning I was taken prisoner, and as we came along we saw his body, with his clothes all off. He was entirely naked, and he was put into a hole and covered up.
Question. Buried naked in that way?
Answer. Yes, sir; no coffin at all. Afterwards his body was taken up and carried to a slue and washed off, and then sent off to Richmond. A despatch came from Richmond for his body, and it was sent there.
Question. It has been said they cut off his finger?
Answer. Yes, sir; his little finger was cut off, and his ring taken off.
By Mr. Odell:
Question. How do you know there was a ring on his finger?
Answer. I saw the fellow who had it, and who said he took it off. When they took his body to a slue and washed it off they put on it a shirt and drawers, and then put it in a box and sent it to Richmond.
Question. How far was that from Richmond?
Answer. It was about 40 miles from Richmond, and about 10 miles from West Point.
Question. How were you treated yourself?
Answer. I fared first-rate. I staid at the house of a Dr. Walker, of Virginia, and Dr. Walker told me that a private of the 9th Virginia cavalry took off Colonel Dahlgren's artificial leg, and that General Ewell, I think it was, or some general in the southern army who had but one leg, gave the private $2,000 for it, (confederate currency.) I saw the private who took it, and saw him have the leg.
By the chairman:
Question. How do you know they received a despatch from Richmond to have the body sent there?
Answer. All the information I got about the despatch was from Dr. Walker, who said they were going to take the body to Richmond and bury it where no one could find it.
Question. Did Colonel Dahlgren make any speech or read any papers to his command?
Answer. No, sir; not that I ever heard of. They questioned me a great deal about that. The colonel of the 9th Virginia cavalry questioned me about it. I told him just all I knew about it. I told him I had heard no papers read, nor anything else.
Question. Did you ever hear any of your fellow-soldiers say they ever heard any such thing at all?
Answer. No, sir; and when I started I had no idea where I was going.
Question. Were you in prison at Richmond?
Answer. I was there for four days, but I was at Dr. Walker's pretty nearly a month and a half.
Question. During the four days you were in prison did you see any of our other soldiers in prison there?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. How did they fare?
Answer. We all fared pretty rough on corn-bread and beans. Those who were in my ward are here now sick in bed.
Question. How happened it that you fell into the hands of Dr. Walker particularly?
Answer. The way it came about was this: In the morning I asked some officers of the regular regiment for a doctor to dress my wound. One of the doctors there said he could not do it. I spoke to a lieutenant and asked him to be kind enough to get some doctor to dress it, and he got this Dr. Walker. The doctor asked me to go to his house, and stay there if I would. I told him "certainly I would go." The colonel of the rebel regiment said that the doctor could take me there, and I staid until Captain Magruder came up there and told Dr. Walker that I had to be sent to Richmond.
Question. Where were you wounded?
Answer. In the knee.
[At this point the committee concluded to examine no more of the patients in the hospital, as most of them were too weak to be examined without becoming too much exhausted, and because the testimony of all amounted to about the same thing. They therefore confined the rest of their investigation to the testimony of the surgeons in charge, and other persons attending upon the patients.]
Surgeon B. A. Van Derkieft, sworn and examined.
By the chairman:
Question. Are you in the service of the United States; and if so, in what capacity?
Answer. I am a surgeon of volunteers in the United States service; in charge of hospital division No. 1, known as the Naval Hospital, Annapolis, and have been here since the 1st of June, 1863.
Question. State what you know in regard to the condition of our exchanged or paroled prisoners who have been brought here, and also your opportunities to know that condition?
Answer. Since I have been here I think that from five to six thousand paroled prisoners have been treated in this hospital as patients. They have generally come here in a very destitute and feeble condition; many of them so low that they die the very day they arrive here.
Question. What is the character of their complaints generally, and what does that character indicate as to the cause?
Answer. Generally they are suffering from debility and chronic diarrhœa, the result, I have no doubt, of exposure, privations, hardship, and ill treatment.
Question. In what respect would hardship and ill treatment superinduce the complaints most prevalent among these paroled prisoners?
Answer. These men, having been very much exposed, and not having had nourishment enough to sustain their strength, are consequently predisposed to be attacked by such diseases as diarrhœa, fever, scurvy, and all catarrhal affections, which, perhaps, in the beginning are very slight, but, on account of want of necessary care, produce, after a while, a very serious disease. For instance, a man exposed to the cold may have a little bronchitis, or perhaps a little inflammation of the lungs, which, under good treatment, would be easily cured – would be considered of no importance whatever; but being continually exposed, and not having the necessary food, the complaint is transformed, after a time, into a very severe disease.
Question. Is it your opinion, as a physician, that the complaints of our returned prisoners are superinduced by want of proper food, or food of sufficient quantity, and from exposure?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. What is the general character of the statements our prisoners have made to you in regard to their treatment?
Answer. They complained of want of food, of bad food, and a want of clothing. Very often, though not always, they are robbed, when taken prisoners, of all the good clothes they have on. There is no doubt about that, for men have often arrived here with nothing but their pants and shirts on; no coat, overcoat, no cap, no shoes or stockings, and some of them without having had any opportunities to wash themselves for weeks and months, so that when they arrive here, the scurf on their skin is one-eighth of an inch thick; and we have had several cases of men who have been shot for the slightest offence. There is a man now here who at one time put his hand out of the privy, which was nothing but a window in the wall, to steady himself and keep himself from falling, and he was shot, and we have been obliged to amputate his arm since he arrived here. These men complain that they have had no shelter. We have men here now who say that for five or six months they have been compelled to lay on the sand. I have no doubt about the correctness of their statements, for the condition of their skins shows the statements to be true. Their joints are calloused, and they have callouses on their backs, and some have even had the bones break through the skin. There is one instance in particular that I would mention. One man died in the hospital there one hour before the transfer of prisoners was made, and as an act of humanity the surgeon in charge of the hospital allowed the friends of this man to take him on board the vessel in order to have him buried among his friends. This man was brought here right from the Richmond hospital. He was so much covered with vermin and so dirty that we were not afraid to make the statement that the man had not been washed for six months. Now, as a material circumstance to prove that these men have been badly fed, I will state that we must be very careful in feeding them when they arrive here, for a very light diet is too much for them at first.
Question. You have accompanied us as we have examined some of the patients in the hospital to-day. Do their statements to us, under oath, correspond with the statements which they made when they first arrived here?
Answer. They are quite the same; there is no difference. Every man makes the same statement, and we therefore believe it to be true. All say the same in regard to rations, treatment, exposure and privations. Once in a while I have found a man who pretended to have been treated very well, but by examining closely I find that such men are not very good Union men.
Question. You say that about six thousand paroled prisoners have come under your supervision and treatment?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. State generally what their condition has been.
Answer. Very bad, indeed. I cannot find terms sufficient to express what their condition was. I cannot state it properly.
Question. You have already stated that, as a general thing, they have been destitute of clothing.
Answer. Yes, sir; dirty, filthy, covered with vermin, dying. At one time we received three hundred and sixty patients in one day, and fourteen died within twelve hours; and there were six bodies of those who had died on board the transport that brought them up here.
Question. What appeared to be the complaint of which they died?
Answer. Very extreme debility, the result of starvation and exposure – the same as the very weak man you saw here, [L. H. Parham.]
Question. We have observed some very emaciated men here, perfect skeletons, nothing but skin and bone. In your opinion, as a physician, what has reduced these men to that condition?
Answer. Nothing but starvation and exposure.
Question. Can you tell the proportion of the men who have died to the number that have lately arrived from Richmond?
Answer. If time is allowed me I can send the statement to the committee.
Question. Do so, if you please.
Answer. I will do so. I will say that some of these men who have stated they were well treated, I have found out to have been very bad to the Union men.
Question. Are those men you have just mentioned as having been well treated an exception to the general rule?
Answer. Yes, sir; a very striking exception.
Question. Have you ever been in charge of confederate prisoners?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. State the course of treatment of our authorities towards them.
Answer. We have never made the slightest difference between our own men and confederate prisoners when their sick and wounded have been in our hands.
Question. You have treated both the same?
Answer. Yes, sir. When any one of their men, wounded or sick, has been a patient in our hands, we have treated him the same as we do our own men.
By Mr. Julian:
Question. Have their sick and wounded been kept separate from ours, or have they been kept together?
Answer. In Washington they were kept separate, but at Antietam, where an hospital was established, in order to have the patients treated where they were injured, the Union and confederate patients were treated together and alike. At Hagerstown almost everybody is secesh. Well, the most I can say is, that some of the secesh ladies there came to me and stated that they were very glad to see that we had treated their men the same as ours.
Question. It is sometimes said, by the rebel newspapers, at least, that they have given the same rations to our prisoners that they give to their own soldiers. Now, I want to ask you, as a medical man, if it is possible, with the amount of food that our prisoners have had, for men to retain their health and vigor, and perform active service in the field?