May 9, 1864.--_Ordered_, That the report, with the accompanying
evidence, be printed in connexion with the report of the committee in
relation to the Fort Pillow massacre, and that twenty thousand
additional copies be printed for the use of the Senate.
* * * * *
Mr. Wade submitted the following
REPORT.
_The Joint Committee on the Conduct and Expenditures of the War
submitted the following report, with the accompanying testimony._
On the 4th instant your committee received a communication of that date
from the Secretary of War, enclosing the report of Colonel Hoffman,
commissary general of prisoners, dated May 3, calling the attention of
the committee to the condition of returned Union prisoners, with the
request that the committee would immediately proceed to Annapolis and
examine with their own eyes the condition of those who have been
returned from rebel captivity. The committee resolved that they would
comply with the request of the Secretary of War on the first
opportunity. The 5th of May was devoted by the committee to concluding
their labors upon the investigation of the Fort Pillow massacre. On the
6th of May, however, the committee proceeded to Annapolis and Baltimore,
and examined the condition of our returned soldiers, and took the
testimony of several of them, together with the testimony of surgeons
and other persons in attendance upon the hospitals. That testimony, with
the communication of the Secretary of War, and the report of Colonel
Hoffman, is herewith transmitted.
The evidence proves, beyond all manner of doubt, a determination on the
part of the rebel authorities, deliberately and persistently practiced
for a long time past, to subject those of our soldiers who have been so
unfortunate as to fall in their hands to a system of treatment which has
resulted in reducing many of those who have survived and been permitted
to return to us to a condition, both physically and mentally, which no
language we can use can adequately describe. Though nearly all the
patients now in the Naval Academy hospital at Annapolis, and in the West
hospital, in Baltimore, have been under the kindest and most intelligent
treatment for about three weeks past, and many of them for a greater
length of time, still they present literally the appearance of living
skeletons, many of them being nothing but skin and bone; some of them
are maimed for life, having been frozen while exposed to the inclemency
of the winter season on Belle Isle, being compelled to lie on the bare
ground, without tents or blankets, some of them without overcoats or
even coats, with but little fire to mitigate the severity of the winds
and storms to which they were exposed.
The testimony shows that the general practice of their captors was to
rob them, as soon as they were taken prisoners, of all their money,
valuables blankets, and good clothing, for which they received nothing
in exchange except, perhaps, some old worn-out rebel clothing hardly
better than none at all. Upon their arrival at Richmond they have been
confined, without blankets or other covering, in buildings without
fire, or upon Belle Isle with, in many cases, no shelter, and in others
with nothing but old discarded army tents, so injured by rents and holes
as to present but little barrier to the wind and storms; on several
occasions, the witnesses say, they have arisen in the morning from their
resting-places upon the bare earth, and found several of their comrades
frozen to death during the night, and that many others would have met
the same fate had they not walked rapidly back and forth, during the
hours which should have been devoted to sleep, for the purpose of
retaining sufficient warmth to preserve life.
In respect to the food furnished to our men by the rebel authorities,
the testimony proves that the ration of each man was totally
insufficient in quantity to preserve the health of a child, even had it
been of proper quality, which it was not. It consisted usually, at the
most, of two small pieces of corn-bread, made in many instances, as the
witnesses state, of corn and cobs ground together, and badly prepared
and cooked, of, at times, about two ounces of meat, usually of poor
quality, and unfit to be eaten, and occasionally a few black worm-eaten
beans, or something of that kind. Many of our men were compelled to sell
to their guards, and others, for what price they could get, such
clothing and blankets as they were permitted to receive of that
forwarded for their use by our government, in order to obtain additional
food sufficient to sustain life; thus, by endeavoring to avoid one
privation, reducing themselves to the same destitute condition in
respect to clothing and covering that they were in before they received
any from our government. When they became sick and diseased in
consequence of this exposure and privation, and were admitted into the
hospitals, their treatment was little, if any, improved as to food,
though they, doubtless, suffered less from exposure to cold than before.
Their food still remained insufficient in quantity and altogether unfit
in quality. Their diseases and wounds did not receive the treatment
which the commonest dictates of humanity would have prompted. One
witness, whom your committee examined, who had lost all the toes of one
foot from being frozen while on Belle Isle, states that for days at a
time his wounds were not dressed, and that they had not been dressed for
four days when he was taken from the hospital and carried on the
flag-of-truce boat for Fortress Monroe.
In reference to the condition to which our men were reduced by cold and
hunger, your committee would call the attention to the following
extracts from the testimony.
One witness testifies: