THE CONVERSION BY THE REBELS OF THE BONES OF SLAUGHTERED UNION MEN INTO PERSONAL ORNAMENTS. MUCH has been said on this topic, and much needs to be said. The theory is so hideous and revolting, so opposed to all true refinement, and so indicative of a barbarous state of society, that men are slow to believe it, and many sympathizers with the rebellion absolutely deny that it has been done. Surely, it is one of the last things to be expected of a people claiming to be highminded and chivalrous. But that it has been done, in numerous instances, is a well-established fact. To the evidence already furnished by these pages, we add the following special Order (152) of Major-General Butler. SPECIAL ORDER (152).—John W. Andrews exhibited a cross, the emblem of the sufferings of our Blessed Saviour, fashioned for a personal ornament, which he said was made from the bones of a Yankee soldier and having shown this, too, without rebuke, in the Louisiana Club, which claims to be composed of chivalric gentlemen, : It is therefore Ordered, that for this desecration of the dead, he be confined at hard labor, for two years, on the fortifications at Ship Island; and that he be allowed no verbal or written communication to or with any one, except through these headquarters. B. F. BUTLER, Major-General Commanding.* *Rebellion Record, Vol. V. BARBARITY OF GENERAL FORREST. HEADQUARTERS, FIRST DIVISION, FOURTH ARMY CORPS, Department of the Cumberland, Blue Springs, Tenn., Apr. 21, 1864. THE late massacre at Fort Pillow, by Forrest, seems to have filled the community with indignation and surprise. To those in the front of our armies, who know Forrest, there is nothing at all astonishing in his conduct at Fort Pillow. I know that this very much respected Confederate hero has, upon former occasions, condescended to become his own executioner. To show the style of man Jeff Davis and the Confederacy delight to honor, I will relate the following, which was stated to me last summer by a rebel citizen of Middle Tennessee, a man of high standing in his community, who had it from his nephew, an officer serving under Forrest. About the middle of the summer of 1862, Forrest surprised the post of Murfreesboro', commanded by Brigadier-General T. T. Crittenden, of Indiana. The garrison was composed mostly of the Ninth Michigan and Second Minnesota Infantry, and the Seventh Pennsylvania Cavalry. After some little fighting, the troops were surrounded. A mulatto man, who was servant to one of the officers of the Union forces, was brought to Forrest on horseback. The latter inquired of him, with many oaths, "What he was doing there?" The mulatto answered, that he was a free man, and came out as a servant to an officer, naming the man. Forrest, who was on horseback, deliberately put his hand to his holster; drew his pistol, and blew the man's brains out. The rebel officer stated that the mulatto man came from Pennsylvania; and the same officer denounced the act as one of cold-blooded murder, and declared he would never again serve under Forrest. This murdered man was not a soldier, and, indeed, the occurrence took place before the United States Government determined to arm negroes. Of the truth of this there is not a shadow of doubt, and it can be established any day by living witnesses. Your obedient servant, D. L. STANLEY, Major-General. UNIONISTS OF ARKANSAS. THE persecutions of the Unionists of Arkansas are nearly if not quite equal to those practised upon the Unionists of East Tennessee. The rebels, after driving all the Union men out of the country or hanging them, fell upon the innocent women and children, torturing them in every way that fiends could devise; they even went so far as to steal the provisions from them, and after burning their houses, and laying waste their lands, compelled them to leave the State without means, barefooted and half clad. The following is a letter from General Fisk, asking the steamboat-men and others to aid one of these poor refugees in reaching her friends: HEADQUARTERS, DISTRICT OF S. E. MISSOURI, To Railroad Agents, Steamboat-men, and others whom it may concern. The bearer of this note, Mrs. Maria Sharkley, has been robbed of all her possessions, and driven from her home in Arkansas. She is especially commended to the sympathy of charitable people, as one upon whom kindness and Christian benevolence would not be wasted, and any favor conferred, will truly be worthily bestowed, as well as thankfully appreciated. She is a refugee from the terrors of the murderous rebels who invest the northern portion of her native State, and is of the most devoted loyalty. W. T. CLARK, C. B. FISK, Brigadier-General Com'g. Lieutenant and A. D. C. MURDER OF TWO UNIONISTS IN ARKANSAS. IN the month of October, 1863, two Union citizens, named Joseph Birchfield and Joseph Pound, of Arkansas, were brutally murdered by a party of Confederate soldiers, belonging to Marmaduke's command, in the following manner :— Stealing upon their victims while they were at home, they arrested them and took them a short distance, at the same time ordering their families to follow; in the mean time telling their prisoners that it was their intention to murder them, and they must prepare themselves for death, as they had but little time to live. The families of the doomed men pleaded and begged for the lives of their husbands and fathers, but to no avail. The villains had come to murder, and nothing but blood would satisfy them. The fiends then actually made the families of the two unfortunate men stand up and look on asthey proceeded to murder their innocent friends and kept them there until they had finished the job, when they sought new fields for crime; and left the distressed and weeping families to bury their murdered husbands and fathers. The same cruelties were practised upon numerous other Union families in the immediate neighborhood, and their crimes were that they loved the old Government and its flag better than they did the Confederacy. These actions were committed by Confederate soldiers, and sanctioned by their commanders.* BARBARITY OF JOHN LETCHER. THE following is a letter from the arch-traitor, John Letcher, Governor of Virginia, to a Unionist named Fitzgerald, who was arrested upon suspicion, and confined in one of the loathsome dens, called prisons, in Richmond. The letter will fully show how corrupted and dead to all sense of justice and humanity the minds of the leaders of the rebellion are; they think death is none too good for a man who is even suspected of being a Union man. We give the letter, and leave our readers to judge for themselves: EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, RICHMOND, VA., Mr. William Fitzgerald-Sir: I was aware before the receipt of your letter yesterday, that you were still in prison, and I can assure you that it shall be no fault of mine if you do not remain so during your natural life. When I promised to intercede in your behalf, I believed * Mr. Ward, of Arkansas. |