WASHINGTON, D. C., _March 15, 1870_.
MY DEAR SIR: It would not become me to express an opinion upon any of
the legal questions involved in the Georgia bill now before the Senate,
but I respectfully call your attention to the following "statements" of
facts. I certainly am not surprised that Honorable gentlemen whom I
greatly esteem, should express their belief that the outrages committed
upon the Freedmen and Union men in Georgia have been greatly exaggerated
in the statements that have been presented to Congress and the country.
I know that to persons and communities not intimately acquainted with
the state of society, and the civilization developed by the institution
of slavery, they seem absolutely incredible. Allow me to say, from my
personal knowledge, and profoundly conscious of my responsibility to God
and to history, that the statements that have been given to the public
in regard to outrages in Georgia come far short of the real facts in the
case. Permit me to add that I went to Andersonville, Ga., to labor as a
pastor and teacher of the Freedmen, _without pay_, as I had labored
during the war in the service of the _Christian Commission_; that I had
nothing at all to do with the political affairs of the State; that I did
not know, and, so far as I am aware, I did not see or speak to any man
who held a civil office in the State, except the magistrate at
Andersonville; that a few days after my arrival there I performed the
first religious services, and participated in the first public honors
that were ever rendered to the 13,716 "brave boys" who sleep there, by
decorating the cemetery with procession, prayer, and solemn hymns to
God, as described in Appendix A.
My time and labors were sacredly given to the Freedmen. In addition to
the usual Sabbath services I visited them in their cabins around the
stockades, and in the vicinity of the cemetery, reading the Bible to
them, and talking and praying with them. It was in the prosecution of
these labors that I saw and heard more of sufferings and horrible
outrages inflicted upon the Freedmen than I saw and heard of as
inflicted upon slaves in any five years of constant horseback travel in
the South before the war, when I visited thousands of plantations as
agent of the American Tract society, the American Bible Society, and as
President of Cumberland College, Princeton, Kentucky. As illustrations
of the sufferings of these oppressed, outraged people, and of their
utter helplessness and want of protection from the State or Federal
courts, I give a few of the "statements" that I wrote down from their
own lips. I know these men, and have entire confidence in their
"statements."