The great military events which stamp'd
out the rebellion drew attention away from the sad drama which
starvation and disease play'd in those gloomy pens in the far recesses
of sombre southern forests."
_From a letter of "Johnny Bouquet," in N. Y. "Tribune," March 27,
'81._
"I visited at Salisbury, N. C., the prison pen or the site of it, from
which nearly 11,000 victims of southern politicians were buried, being
confined in a pen without shelter, exposed to all the elements could
do, to all the disease herding animals together could create, and to
all the starvation and cruelty an incompetent and intense caitiff
government could accomplish. From the conversation and almost from the
recollection of the northern people this place has dropp' d, but not
so in the gossip of the Salisbury people, nearly all of whom say that
the half was never told; that such was the nature of habitual outrage
here that when Federal prisoners escaped the townspeople harbor'd them
in their barns, afraid the vengeance of God would fall on them, to
deliver even their enemies back to such cruelty. Said one old man at
the Boyden House, who join'd in the conversation one evening: 'There
were often men buried out of that prison pen still alive. I have the
testimony of a surgeon that he had seen them pull'd out of the dead
cart with their eyes open and taking notice, but too weak to lift a
finger. There was not the least excuse for such treatment, as the
confederate government had seized every sawmill in the region, and
could just as well have put up shelter for these prisoners as not,
wood being plentiful here.
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