Henry Clay Dean

“ This murderer is a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and dispenses the gospel to the people.
Through disgust, horror and shame, I cast my pen aside, and sit in amazement, that for crimes like these an angry God has not, by His breath, cursed the earth, and sent it as a floating pandemonium throughout the immensity of space, as a warning to other worlds, if other worlds there be so depraved, corrupted and lost to the charities of life and the mercies of God.
Dr. Gideon S. Bailey, in wealth and character, is one of the finest citizens of the State of Iowa. ”

“ After such loathsome suffering as makes human nature shudder, incarcerated in damp cells without blankets, some with no coats, Mr. Moses adds that "nothing but the preserving hand of God kept us through those trying hours." How much greater was the crime of a Christian people, that the ministry in the peaceful regions were inflaming this horrible work, instead of alleviating the sufferings of the people. ”

“ Waring was removed from Carroll prison to Point Lookout, where the prisoners were detailed to load and unload vessels; were robbed by negroes of the trinkets made in prison; some were shot by negroes, carpet sacks were robbed of clothing, and hospital stewards and sanitary commissions ate the provisions sent to prisoners and soldiers, or extorted exorbitant prices from the person to whom they had been sent.
The negroes offered every manner of indignity to the prisoners. Among other crimes they shot a dying man on his attempt to relieve nature. ”

“ Now we propose to meet this issue—and if we do not show by witnesses, of the most unimpeachable character, that Confederate prisoners were "cruelly treated"—that they were deprived of the same rations that the Union soldiers had—"the same food and the same clothing"—if we do not show that the Federal authorities were themselves guilty of the crimes they charged against us, then we are willing to stand before the bar of history convicted of inability to judge of the weight of evidence. ”

“ During this drunken reign of horrors, innocent people were shot down upon their door sills, called into their gardens upon pretended business, butchered and left lying, that their families might not know their whereabouts until their bodies were decomposed. ”

“ The jolting wagons were driven through street after street, which was abandoned by every human being; women fainting at the awful spectacle, clasping their children more closely to their bosoms, as the murderers, with blood pictured in their countenances, were screaming in hoarse tones the word of command. ”

“ In this horrible place the prisoners ate dogs and rats. The poor fellows tried to get the crumbs that fell from the bread wagons; a great many died of diseases induced by starvation: others starved outright. In the meantime the sutler would sell provisions to the rich Confederates, whilst the poor were driven to starvation. This prison was guarded by negroes for a considerable time. The negroes frequently shot the prisoners down through wantonness, just as they did at Elmira. The officer who led negroes to kill the people of his own race, can sink to no lower depth of degradation. ”

“ For this crime McNeil was promoted by Lincoln to Brigadier-General and kept in office. In all of the history of European wars, Asiatic butcheries, Indian cruelties, and negro atrocities, there can be found no parallel instance in which the murder of men without any of the forms of trial, was accompanied with the rape of the wives of those designated by the lottery of death as the price of the husband's liberty. ”

“ Appreciating your object "to put the truth upon the record," and concurring in your patriotic suggestion that "it is the duty of every American to look to the honor of his country and the preservation of the truth of history," I have felt constrained to respond to the call made in your circular, so far as to acquaint the public, through you, with the following precise, simple, and unexaggerated statement of facts:
When the Capitol of the Confederate States was evacuated, the specie belonging to the Richmond banks was removed, with the archives of the Government, to Washington, Georgia. ”

“ John M. Weiner, formerly Mayor of the city of Saint Louis, was arrested in that city and kept in prison without any charges against him whatever. After the cruel treatment common to Saint Louis prisons, he was transferred to Alton penitentiary, and from there made his escape, and was killed near Springfield, Missouri.
Mrs. Weiner sent for her husband's body for burial in Bellafontaine Cemetery. Whilst his wife and friends were preparing his body for burial, Samuel R. Curtis sent a squad of soldiers, who stole the corpse from his wife, and buried it in a secret place. ”

“ He said that negroes fired into their beds at night; and one was promoted for killing a prisoner, from the ranks to sergeant.
Claiborne Snead, of Augusta, Georgia, writes from Johnson's Island, that prisoners were frequently shot without an excuse; that prisoners having the small-pox were brought to Johnson's Island on purpose to inoculate the rest of the prisoners, and that many died of that disease; a crime for which civilized government visits the most terrible penalties. ”

“ It is to pay for crimes like these, and keep in employment the men who committed them, that created the debt now weighing the people down. It was to pay such monsters, with their tools, that money was refunded by the General Government to the State of Missouri and West Virginia, and the taxes saddled upon the people of the country. ”

“ When money was given to the guards to buy provisions, they would pocket the money. The Indians shamed the whites for this breach of faith and petty theft. In November, 1863, seven escaped prisoners were returned, and subjected to the most cruel torture. They were taken out in the presence of the garrison and tortured with the thumb-screw until they fainted with pain.
In February, 1864, the cruelty became extreme; they beat prisoners with clubs and a leather belt, with a United State buckle at the end of it. They shot prisoners without provocation. ”

“ David Nelson, of Jackson, was shot because his son was in the Confederate army.
Another person named Peters, a mere boy, was shot for having a pistol hidden.
Garland A. Snead, of Augusta, Georgia, said he was taken prisoner at Fisher's Hill, Virginia, September, 1864; sent to Point Lookout, which was in the care of one Brady, who had been an officer of negro cavalry. He was starved for five days, had chronic diarrhœa; was forced to use bad water, the good water being refused them. Men died frequently of sheer neglect. ”

“ When cold weather returned, the beds of each man were searched, and only one blanket left him. The barracks were inferior, and men froze to death in the terrible winter of 1863-4. Prisoners were shot for the most trivial offences. One man's brains were blown out and scattered on the walls, where they remained for many days, for no offence other than looking over the bounds, unconsciously. For other offences, men were tied up by the thumbs just so that their toes might touch the ground, for three hours at a time, until they would turn black in the face. ”

“ This outrage unpunished, gave license for crime, cruelty, outrage and disorder everywhere. It would require the pen of every writer, the paper of every manufacturer, for a year, to recount them; the human imagination sickens in contemplation of them.
In the next year after the McNeil butchery, in the neighboring city of Hannibal, occurred a similar crime, equally monstrous in its details.
J. T. K. Heyward commanded a body of enrolled brigands in Marion county, known as the railroad brigade, who foraged upon the people and plundered the country. ”

“ The dead line rope was stretched as a pretext for shooting those who should even by accident touch it. Taunts, gibes, jeers, and insults of every kind were heaped upon the prisoners. Paul H. Earle, of Alabama, for no offence whatever, was shot at; another time the tent was fired into, and two sleeping soldiers badly wounded, by order of the lieutenant. As it always has been and ever will be, the negroes behaved much better than the white fiends who commanded them. ”

“ It is impossible for human language to portray the horrible criminality of the wicked men who inflicted these tortures upon human beings, and at the same time caused the detention of Northern prisoners in loathsome Southern prisons, through a fiendish love of suffering ”

“ You will inform the inhabitants for ten or fifteen miles around your camp, on all the roads approaching the town upon which the enemy may approach, that they must dash in and give you notice, and upon any one failing to do so, you will burn their houses and shoot the men. ”

“ Bailey was in very feeble health when he was carried down to Saint Louis on the hurricane deck of a steamer. When in Saint Louis, he was placed in Gratiot street prison, where he was subjected to every manner of filth, torture and suffering. ”

“ The victim was an unobtrusive young man, caught up and dragged off as a wild beast to the slaughter, without any further notice than was necessary to prepare to walk from the jail to the scene of murder. ”