"The Released prisoners of war are now coming up from the southern prisons. I have seen a number of them. The sight is worse than any sight of battle-fields, or any collection of wounded, even the bloodiest. There was, (as a sample,) one large boat load, of several hundreds, brought about the 25th, to Annapolis; and out of the whole number only three individuals were able to walk from the boat. The rest were carried ashore and laid down in one place or another. Can those be menthose little livid brown, ash-streakd, monkey-looking dwarfs?are they really not mummied, dwindled corpses? They lay there, most of them, quite still, but with a horrible look in their eyes and skinny lips (often with not enough flesh on the lips to cover their teeth.) Probably no more appalling sight was ever seen on this earth. (There are deeds, crimes, that may be forgiven; but this is not among them. It steeps its perpetrators in blackest, escapeless, endless damnation. Over 50,000 have been compelld to die the death of starvationreader, did you ever try to realize what starvation actually is?in those prisonsand in a land of plenty.) An indescribable meanness, tyranny, aggravating course of insults, almost incrediblewas evidently the rule of treatment through all the southern military prisons. The dead there are not to be pitied as much as some of the living that come from thereif they can be calld livingmany of them are mentally imbecile, and will never recuperate." -Walt Whitman
Hey RB, let's not make excuses for these war-time atrocities by blaming politicians on either side. These men were still under the care of the Reb army, regardless. -btw I'd say the same thing regarding the notorious Union prison camps that Chief Leaky Sphincter is bound to bring up.