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the Police force was disbanded. Many of the most prominent members of the Legislature, on the eve of the meeting of that body, the Mayor of Baltimore, and one the members of Congress for that city, were arrested at midnight, and dragged off to prison. Editors and other private citizens were also among the proscribed. Newspapers were suppressed, and the functions of the State and Municipal authorities usurped or suspended by agents of the Administration. Neither against me nor the vast majority of my fellow prisoners did the officers of the Government ever venture to prefer any specific charge. We were arrested simply for daring to defend our unquestionable rights and to exercise the liberty of free speech. Under these circumstances, it might have been supposed that we would be treated with some regard to our health and comfort. As we were detained, as was frequently admitted by Government officials, only as a precautionary measure, it might have been expected that those who chose to perpetrate so gross a wrong, would at least recognize the right of innocent and honorable men under such circumstances to be considerately or decently dealt with. I do not propose, as I have said, to discuss the enormity of the outrage inflicted on us, or to measure the infamy which will attach to those who were the authors or agents of that wrong. I only wish to show now how men, who were guiltless of any offence whatever, and who had been thrown into prison because of their political opinions, were treated in this age, and in this country. I submit the facts to the public, with the assertion that the fairness and accuracy of my statement cannot be successfully challenged. As I have not intended, in the ensuing pages, to discuss the cases of "political prisoners" generally, but merely to detail, in the form of a personal narrative, my own experiences, I have been compelled to speak mainly of myself. Under these circumstances, this continual reference to my own views and situation has been unavoidable.
Baltimore, December, 1862.
