of the prison camp on Belle Isle in June, 1862, to the 10th of February, 1865, more than twenty thousand prisoners had been at various times there received, and yet that the whole number of deaths during this time was only one hundred and sixty-four. And this is confirmed by the Federal Colonel Sanderson, who states that the average number of deaths per month on Belle Isle was "from two to five, more frequently the lesser number." The sick were promptly removed from the island to the hospitals in the city.
CHARACTER OF THE NORTHERN WITNESSES.
Doubtless the "Sanitary Commission" have been to some extent led astray by their own witnesses, whose character has been portrayed by General Neal Dow, and also by the editor of the New York Times, who, in his issue of January 6th, 1865, describes the material for recruiting the Federal armies as "wretched vagabonds, of depraved morals, decrepit in body, without courage, self respect or conscience. They are dirty, disorderly, thievish and incapable."
CRUELTY TO CONFEDERATE PRISONERS AT THE NORTH.
In reviewing the charges of cruelty, harshness and starvation to prisoners, made by the North, your committee have taken testimony as to the treatment of our own officers and soldiers in the hands of the enemy. It gives us no pleasure to be compelled to speak of suffering inflicted upon our gallant men; but the self-laudatory style in which the "Sanitary Commission" have spoken of their prisons, makes it proper that the truth should be presented. Your committee gladly acknowledge that in many cases our prisoners experienced kind and considerate treatment; but we are equally assured that in nearly all the prison stations of the North—at Point Lookout, Fort McHenry, Fort Delaware, Johnson's Island, Elmira, Camp Chase, Camp Douglas, Alton, Camp Morton, the Ohio Penitentiary, and the prisons of St. Louis, Missouri our men have suffered from insufficient food, and have been subjected to ignominious, cruel and barbarous practices, of which there is no parallel in anything that has occurred in the South. The witnesses who were at Point Lookout, Fort Delaware, Camp Morton, and Camp Douglas testify that they have often seen our men picking up the scraps and refuse thrown out from the kitchens with which to appease their hunger. Dr. Herrington proves that at Fort Delaware unwholesome bread and water produced diarrhœa in numberless cases among our prisoners, and that "their sufferings were greatly aggravated by the regulation of the camp which forbade more than twenty men at a time, at night, to go to the sinks. I have seen as many as five hundred men in a row waiting their time. The consequence was that they were obliged to use the places where they were. This produced great want of cleanliness, and aggravated the disease." Our men were compelled to labor in unloading Federal vessels and in putting up buildings for Federal officers, and if they refused, were driven to the work with clubs."
