Photographs.
Nothing can better illustrate the truth of this view than the “Report no. 67,” and its appendages.
It is accompanied by eight
pictures or
photographs, alleged to represent
United States prisoners of war returned from
Richmond in a sad state of emaciation and suffering.
Concerning these cases your committee will have other remarks, to be presently submitted.
They are only alluded to now to show that this report does really belong to the “sensational” class of literature, and that,
prima facie, it is open to the same criticism to which the yellow covered novels, the “narratives of noted highwaymen,” and the “awful beacons” of the
Northern book stalls should be subjected.
The intent and spirit of this report may be gathered from the following extract: “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
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those of our soldiers who have been so unfortunate as to fall into 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.”
(Report, p. 1.) And they give also a letter from
Edwin M. Stanton, the
Northern Secretary of War, from which the following is an extract: “The enormity of the crime committed by the
Rebels towards our prisoners for the last several months is not known or realized by our people, and cannot but fill with horror the civilized world when the facts are fully revealed.
There appears to have been a deliberate system of savage and barbarous treatment and starvation, the result of which will be that few (if any) of the prisoners that have been in their hands during the past winter will ever again be in a condition to render any service, or even to enjoy life.”
(Report, p. 4.) And the Sanitary Commission, in their pamphlet, after picturing many scenes of privation and suffering, and bringing many charges of cruelty against the
Confederate authorities, declare as follows: “The conclusion is unavoidable, therefore, that these privations and sufferings have been designedly inflicted by the military and other authorities of the
Rebel Government, and could not have been due to causes which such authorities could not control.”
(X. 95.)
