mond. The statement is, palpably, exaggerated and highly colored, and bears the impress of prejudice and great effort for effect. Almost every illustration adduced in the article will apply to Fort Delaware, and to these may be added instances of individual cruelty and oppression, which would put to shame the unscrupulous statements of this writer, who claims to have been a Federal chaplain.
It has not been uncommon here for our half-clothed, half-fed Confederates at the barracks to be ordered about in the coarsest and roughest manner by their inferiors, and to be knocked on the head with sticks, or to be stuck with bayonets, for the slightest offences; and, sometimes (for no crime whatever), men have been shot at or cruelly murdered by sentinels, who bore malice, and justified themselves upon the plea that they were trying to prevent escapes. Sick men have been kept at the barracks until perfectly emaciated from diarrhœa, without the necessary sick vessels, and have been obliged to stagger, through the quarters, to the out-house on the bank of the river, with filth streaming upon their legs; and then, unable to help themselves, they have fallen upon the pathway, and have been found dead in the morning—victims of cruel neglect. Barefooted, bareheaded and ragged men, tottering with disease, have been left to suffer long for the necessary clothing or medicines, which might have been abundantly supplied; men scarcely convalescent have been made to walk from one end of the Island to the other in changing hospitals, thus bringing on a relapse in almost every case, and have died in a few days thereafter. Physicians, in contract service, have gone daily into the hospitals, saturated with liquor, and without looking at the tongue or feeling the pulse, have tantalized the poor sufferers with the prescription, "Oh, you must eat! You must eat!" and without either furnishing them with medicine or meat, have left them to die. Sick men, on entering the hospitals, have been denuded of their clothing, and when getting a little better, have been forced to walk over damp floors in their stocking-feet and drawers to the water closet, at a remote end of the building—thus exposing themselves to cold and the danger of a relapse. Men have been dismissed from the hospitals to go to Point Lookout without hat, shoes or blanket; hundreds have been exposed to the danger of contracting the small-pox from coffins filled with loathsome bodies, left for hours together on the wharf, whilst prisoners have been embarking for exchange; the dispensary has remained not only for days, but for weeks together, without some of the most important and common medicines; prisoners have been "bucked and gagged" for the most trivial offences; and the very dead have been robbed of their last shirts, placed in rough coffins, perfectly naked, and then hurried into shallow, unmarked graves.
Much of all this cruelty and inhumanity may not have been designed by those highest in authority, and had they known it, might not have received their sanction, but it has occurred under their administration, and they are, to a greater or less extent, accountable for it all. Were full details given in relation to these matters, they
