ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND,
_May 6, 1864_.
Howard Leedom, sworn and examined:
By the chairman:
Question. To what company and regiment have you belonged?
Answer. Company G, 52d New York.
Question. How long have you been in the service?
Answer. About seven months.
Question. What is your age?
Answer. Seventeen.
Question. When and where were you taken prisoner?
Answer. At a place called Orange Grove, I think, back of
Chancellorsville.
Question. How long ago?
Answer. In November last.
Question. Where were you then carried?
Answer. Right to Richmond.
Question. In what prison were you placed?
Answer. I was put on Belle Isle first, and then I got sick and was taken
to the hospital.
Question. Describe how you were treated there, and the cause of your
sickness.
Answer. They did not treat me very kindly. I froze my feet on the
island.
Question. How came they to be frozen?
Answer. When they took me prisoner they got away the good shoes I had
on, and gave me an old pair of shoes, all cut and split open; and when I
was on the island, I had just an old tent to lie under.
Question. Did you not have some blankets to put over you?
Answer. No, sir. They took away my blanket, and everything else--my
shoes--even a pair of buckskin gloves I had.
Question. Did they give you anything in place of them?
Answer. No, sir; only that pair of shoes I said.
Question. You had stockings?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. What kind of a tent did you have?
Answer. The tent was not very good; the rain beat right through it.
Question. How badly were your feet frozen?
Answer. Well, my toes are all off one of my feet now. [The surgeon
accompanying the committee here took the dressings off the witness's
feet, and exhibited them to the committee. The stumps of the toes were
just healing.]
Question. What did they give you to eat?
Answer. They gave us corn-bread, and once in a while a little piece of
meat.
Question. How often did they give you meat?
Answer. Maybe once a day; maybe once a week--just as they happened to
have it.
Question. Did you get enough to eat, such as it was?
Answer. No, sir; I did not even get enough corn-bread.
Question. How long were you on the island?
Answer. I was on the island only a month, and in the hospital three
months.
Question. How long is it since you were exchanged?
Answer. I came here on the 24th of March.
Question. There were others there with you on the island?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. How did they fare?
Answer. The same as I did; we all fared alike.
Question. Were any others frozen?
Answer. Yes, sir; plenty of them frozen to death.
Question. Frozen to death?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. Were their blankets taken away like yours?
Answer. Yes, sir; they had to lie out in the open ditch. They did not
have as good over them as I had.
Question. Did not they have a tent to sleep under?
Answer. No, sir; no tent at all. There was an embankment thrown up, so
as to keep them inside like, and they had to lie right down in the ditch
there.
Question. With nothing over them?
Answer. If some of them had their blanket, they put that over them; but
they had no tent, or anything of that kind.
Question. Nothing to keep off the rain and snow?
Answer. No, sir; nothing at all.
Question. Are you certain that any of them froze to death there?
Answer. Yes, sir, I am.
Question. State about the treatment you received after your feet were
frozen, when you were in the hospital.
Answer. Sometimes my feet were dressed there every day; sometimes I went
three or four days without dressing--just whether their nurses happened
to be busy or not. When I was exchanged, I had not been dressed for four
or five days.
Question. Were any of the confederate sick in the hospital with you?
Answer. Not that I know of.
Question. Do you know how they treated their own soldiers that were in
the hospital?
Answer. I do not. I suppose they treated them better than they did us,
though.
Question. Was your food any better in the hospital than on the island?
Answer. It was when we first went there, but when I came away it was no
better.
* * * * *
Washington Collins, sworn and examined.
By Mr. Gooch:
Question. To what company and regiment do you belong?
Answer. Company A, 5th Kentucky infantry regiment.
Question. Where were you taken prisoner?
Answer. I was taken prisoner at the battle of Chickamauga.
Question. Where were you then carried?
Answer. From there to Richmond, as straight through as they could get us
through.
Question. State how you were treated after you were taken prisoner.
Answer. We were treated very rough. The eatables we got on the way from
the battle-field to Richmond were mouldy crackers, such as you would
never try to eat, with one or two exceptions, when we got a little light
bread.
Question. Where were you confined at Richmond?
Answer. We were put in tobacco factories, and kept there without
clothing or blankets, until our government sent us blankets and
clothing, and some provisions.
Question. Were the clothing and blankets which you had when taken
prisoners taken from you?
Answer. Yes, sir; our blankets were pretty much all taken from us.
Question. Did you suffer from cold?
Answer. Yes, sir, severely.
Question. Was your money taken from you?
Answer. Those of us that had money, had it pretty much all taken away,
or scared out of us.
Question. What kind of food had you after you reached Richmond?
Answer. We got, I should judge, about six ounces of light bread, and in
the afternoon about two spoonfuls of black beans--worm-eaten beans.
Question. Was that all you had for the day?
Answer. I think we got, once a day, about two ounces of meat.
Question. What was the character of the meat and bread?
Answer. The character of the meat was pretty tolerably rough. I cannot
exactly describe it. I never did eat any beef like some of it; and the
first dose of medicine I took since I was in the army, was when I was
put in the hospital at Danville. About six or seven weeks ago, before
that, I was always a hearty, healthy man.
Question. Have you had any disease or sickness except that occasioned by
want of proper food and clothing?
Answer. No, sir; I think not. (The surgeon here remarked, "His disease
is the result of starvation, privation, and exposure.")
Question. When were you exchanged?
Answer. We left the 1st of May, I think. I have more of a life-like
feeling about me now than I had when I left Richmond.
Question. Do you think you are in a better condition now?
Answer. Yes, sir; I know I am. The authorities did not think it safe for
me to start; but I told them if I was going to die, I would rather die
on the Chesapeake than die there.
Question. After you grew so very sick, was your food improved any?
Answer. Very little. The last food I received was light diet. When I
left the hospital to go on board the flag-of-truce boat, I received
about a gill of what they call soup, though in fact it was just nothing;
I should say it was only a little starch and water; and then I got a
little piece of corn-bread, about that large, (measuring on his fingers
about two inches square,) and we got a piece of meat, once a day, about
the same size.
Question. Were the other men treated as you were, so far as you know?
Answer. Yes, sir. I wish to speak of one thing. After this food was
issued out, what was called the ward-master would go round in the
evening with a little mush made of meal, and give some of us a
table-spoonful of it. Say there were 60 or 80 patients, and there would
be 6 or 8, maybe 10, of those patients would get a little spoonful of
this mush; and then he would come round a little while afterwards and
pour a table-spoonful of molasses over it; and just as likely as not, in
a few minutes after that he would come round with some vinegar and pour
a spoonful of vinegar over that.
Question. Why did he do that?
Answer. He said that was the way it was issued to him.
Question. Did he give any reason for mixing it altogether in that way?
Answer. No, sir; and there were a great many of our own men who treated
us as bad as the secesh, because those there acting as nurses, if there
was any little delicacy for the sick; would just gobble it up.
Question. Were all of our men suffering for want of food?
Answer. Yes, sir, all of them. In the winter time these secesh got so
they would haul up loads of cabbages, all full of lice, and throw them
raw into the room for us to eat.
* * * * *
Charles Gallagher, sworn and examined.
By Mr. Odell:
Question. Where are you from?
Answer. From Guernsey county, Ohio.
Question. To what regiment do you belong?
Answer. 40th Ohio.
Question. How long have you been in the service?
Answer. Pretty nearly three years.
Question. Where were you taken prisoner?
Answer. At Chickamauga.
Question. When?
Answer. On the 22d of last September.
Question. State what happened then to you.
Answer. When they took me prisoner they took me right on to Richmond,
kept me there awhile, then sent me to Danville and kept me there awhile.
I got sick at Danville and was put in the hospital, and then they sent
me back to Richmond and paroled me and sent me here.
Question. How did they treat you while you were a prisoner?
Answer. Pretty bad. They gave us corn-bread, and not very much of it;
and we had to lie right down on the floor, without any blankets, until a
long while about Christmas. We had just to lie as thick on the floor as
we could get.
Question. How were you treated when you were taken sick?
Answer. A little better. We then had a sort of bed to lie on.
Question. Did you have all the food you wanted?
Answer. No, sir.
Question. What kind of food did you get?
Answer. Corn-bread, a little piece of meat, sometimes a little
rice-soup, and sometimes a few beans.
Question. How often did you get meat?
Answer. Along through the winter we got a little bit of fresh beef,
(perhaps once a day,) and then from about March a little pork.
Question. What was the matter with you when you went to the hospital?
Answer. I got a cough which settled on me, and I had pain in my breast.
Question. Were there any other prisoners at Danville?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. Did they suffer at all from want?
Answer. They were pretty hungry.
Question. Did you complain to the authorities that you did not get food
enough?
Answer. No, sir; it would not have made any difference. They said there
that we got every ounce that was allowed to us.
Question. Did you make your wants known to any one?
Answer. Yes, sir; but they would not give us any more. They would come
in and give you a half a loaf of bread, and tell you that was your day's
rations; you could take that or nothing.
By the chairman:
Question. Did they give you as much as their own soldiers for rations?
Answer. No, sir; their own soldiers got a great deal more.
By Mr. Odell:
Question. What was your treatment aside from your supply of food? Was it
kind?
Answer. No, sir. They just came in and shoved us round; finally, they
run us all up from one floor to the second floor, and only let one go
down at a time. When he got back they let another go down.
* * * * *
Isaiah G. Booker, sworn and examined.
By Mr. Harding:
Question. How old are you?
Answer. Twenty-one on the 13th of this month.
Question. Where did you enlist?
Answer. Bath, Maine.
Question. How long were you in the army before you were taken prisoner?
Answer. I enlisted on the 5th of September, 1861, and was taken prisoner
last July.
Question. Where were you taken prisoner?
Answer. On Morris island, Charleston, South Carolina.
Question. Where were you then sent?
Answer. I was sent to Columbia, South Carolina, where we were kept about
two months, and then we were sent to Richmond, put on Belle Isle, and
staid there the remainder of the time.
Question. How were you treated at Columbia?
Answer. I was treated a great deal better there than I was at Belle
Isle. We got meat twice a day, rice once, and Indian bread once. We got
very near as much as we wanted to eat.
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 diarrhoea 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
small-pox 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.
* * * * *