prison, and read to them the written defence, which he made before the court in their behalf. The substance of that paper is thus stated by one of the witnesses, Corporal Pittinger. He, the counsel, contended, being dressed in citizens' clothes, was nothing more than what the Confederate Government itself had authorized, and only what all the guerrillas in the service of the Confederacy did, on all occasions, when it would be of advantage to them to do so; and he recited the instance of General Morgan having dressed his men in the uniform of our soldiers, and passed them off as being from the Eighth Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment, and by that means succeeded in reaching a railroad and destroying it. This instance was mentioned to show that our being in citizens' clothes did not take from us the protection awarded to prisoners of war. The plea went on further to state that we had told the object of our expedition; that it was purely a military one for the destruction of communications, and as such lawful according to the rules of war. This just and unanswerable presentation of the case appears to have produced its appropriate impression. Several members of the court-martial afterwards called on the prisoners, and assured them that from the evidence against them they could not be condemned as spies; that they had come for a certain known object, and not having lingered about, or visited any of their camps, obtaining or seeking information, they could not be convicted. Soon thereafter all the prisoners were removed to Atlanta, Georgia, and they left Knoxville under a belief that their comrades who had been tried either had been or would be acquitted. In the mean time, however, the views entertained and expressed to them by the members of the court were overcome, it may be safely assumed, under the prompting of the re morseless despotism at Richmond. On the 18th of June, after their arrival at Atlanta, where they joined their comrades, from whom they had been separated at Chattanooga, their prison-door was opened, and the death sentence of the seven, who had been tried at Knoxville, was read to them. No time for preparation was allowed them. They were told "to bid their friends farewell, and to be quick about it." They were at once tied and carried out to execution. Among the seven was Private Samuel Robinson, Company G, Thirty-third Ohio Volunteers, who was too ill to walk. He was however pinioned, like the rest, and in this condition was dragged from the floor on which he was lying, to the scaffold. In an hour or more the cavalry escort, which had accompanied them, were seen returning with the cart, but the cart was empty. The tragedy had been consummated. On that evening and the following morning, the prisoners learned from the Provost Marshal and guard that their comrades had died, as all true soldiers of the Republic should die in the presence of its enemies. Among the revolting incidents which they mentioned, in connection with this cowardly butchery, was the fall of two victims from the breaking of the ropes, after they had been some time suspended. On their being restored to consciousness, they begged for an hour in which to pray and prepare for death; but this was refused them. The ropes were readjusted, and the execution at once proceeded. Among those who thus perished was Private Alfred Wilson, Company C, Twenty-First Ohio Volunteers. He was a mechanic from Cincinnati, who, in the exercise of his trade, had travelled much through the States, north and south, and who had a greatness of soul which sympathized with our struggle for national life, and was in . that dark hour filled with joyous convictions of our final triumph. Though surrounded by a scowling crowd impatient for his sacrifice, he did not hesitate, while standing under the gallows, to make them a brief address. He told them that, though they were all wrong, he had no hostile feelings toward the Southern people, believing that not they, but their leaders, were responsible for the rebellion; that he was no spy, as charged, but a soldier regularly detailed for military duty; that he did not regret to die for his country, but only regretted the manner of his death. And he added, for their admonition, that they would yet see the time when the old Union would be restored, and when its flag would wave over them again. And with these words the brave man died. He, like his comrades, calmly met the ignominious doom of a felon, but happily ignominious for him and for them only so far as the martyrdom of the patriot and the hero can be degenerated by the hands of ruffians and traitors. The remaining prisoners, now reduced to fourteen, were kept closely confined, under a special guard, in the jail at Atlanta, until October, when, overhearing a conversation between the jailor and another officer, they learned and were satisfied that it was the purpose of the authorities to hang them, as they had done their companions. This led them to form a plan for their escape, which they carried into execution on the evening of the next day, by seizing the jailor when he opened the door to carry away the bucket in which their supper had been brought. This was followed by the seizure of the seven guards on duty—and, before the alarm was given, eight of the fugitives were beyond the reach of pursuit. It has been since ascertained that six of these succeeded in reaching our lines. Of the fate of the other two nothing is known. The remaining six of the fourteen, consisting of five witnesses who have deposed and Mr. Mason, were recaptured and confined in the barracks until December, when they were removed to Richmond. There they were shut up in a room in Castle Thunder, where they shivered through the winter, without fire, thinly clad, and with but two small blankets, which they had saved with their clothes, to cover the whole party. So they remained until a few days since, when they were exchanged. And thus, at the end of eleven months, terminated their pitiless persecutions in the prisons of the South,-persecutions begun and continued amid indignities and sufferings on their part, and atrocities on the part of their traitorous foes, which illustrate far more faithfully than any human language could express it, the demoniac spirit of a revolt every throb of whose life is a crime against the very race to which we belong. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, J. HOLT, Judge Advocate General, U. S. A. To Hon. E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War. TREATMENT OF UNION PRISONERS AT RICHMOND. BELOW is an official statement, from a Committee of Surgeons liberated from Libby Prison, to the President of the United States. It was prepared on their way from Richmond to Fort Monroe, and presented to the President on their arrival at Washington. STEAMER ADELADE, CHESAPEAKE BAY, At a meeting of the Surgeons of the United States Army and Navy, lately confined in prison in Richmond, Virginia, of which S. P. Ashman, Surgeon Thirty-ninth Ohio Volunteers, was chosen Chairman, and I. McCurdy, Surgeon Eleventh Ohio Volunteers, Secretary, it was Resolved, That a committee of seven be appointed to prepare a report on the condition and treatment of the Federal prisoners in Richmond, Virginia; also its prisons, quality and quantity of the rations, and treatment of our sick and wounded. The following committee was appointed:-Daniel Meeker, Surgeon Seventeenth Ohio Volunteers; O. Q. Herrick, Surgeon Thirty-fourth Illinois Volunteers; W. M. Houston, Surgeon One Hundred and Twenty-second Ohio Volunteers; H. J. Herrick, Surgeon Seventeenth Ohio Volunteers; J. Markum Rice, Surgeon Twentyfourth Massachusetts Volunteers; John T. Luck, Assistant Surgeon United States Navy, and Augustine A. Mann, Assistant Surgeon First Rhode Island Cavalry. The following report was presented by the president of the committee, which was read, received, and adopted unanimously; after which the committee received the thanks of the meeting, and were then discharged. The Committee appointed by the United States Army and Navy Surgeons, recently imprisoned in Richmond, Virginia, to report the past and present condition and treatment of Union prisoners, now held at that place, submit the following facts, derived from personal observation, and the statements of fellow-prisoners, in whose veracity they have implicit confidence. The officers, about one thousand in all, and representing nearly all grades of both branches of the service, are confined in seven rooms of Libby Prison, a building formerly used as a warehouse. Each room is forty-three feet wide, and one hundred and two feet long, affording each prisoner about two hundred and seventy-six cubic feet of air. |