HANGING OF UNION CAPTIVES. WE have had occasion to speak repeatedly of the treatment of Union men in Tennessee by the rebel forces. All that we have said of the inhumanity practised towards them is confirmed by the following extract from the Richmond Dispatch. According to the Dispatch a band of Unionists, styled tories by the Dispatch, about seventy in number, under the command of one Taylor, were attacked by a body of rebels under Colonel Folk, in Johnson county, East Tennessee, January 23d, 1863. The Dispatch, in describing the affair, says: "The tory cavalry and infantry were parading in a field near the Fish Springs; Colonel Folk ordered his men to swim the river and charge them. The tories, seeing this, abandoned their horses and took shelter upon the summit of a large ridge. Folk's men were then dismounted, and charged up the ridge, completely dispersing the tories. All of their horses were captured. Four of the tories were killed, and a number wounded and captured. The captured were immediately hung, by order of Colonel Folk." MASSACRE OF NEGRO SOLDIERS. HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF THE JAMES, In the Field, October 12th, 1864. GENERAL: I have the honor to forward the report of Colonel Draper, Thirty-sixth United States Colored Troops, commanding brigade, as to the information furnished by Lieutenant Veirs, who was wounded and captured at Fort Gilmer, in charge of the Twentyninth. Lieutenant Veirs has been paroled or exchanged, and has gone to Annapolis, so he can be examined upon the matter by the Judge Advocate General. Please forward the report to the Hon. Secretary of War, for investigation, and instruction as to how I shall act in the premises. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, B. F. BUTLER, U. S. Grant, Lieut.-General U. S. A. FIELD-HOSPITAL, ARMY OF THE JAMES, Major: I have the honor to transmit herewith a communication from Major William H. Hart, Thirty-sixth United States Colored Troops, in which he reports the statement made to him by Lieutenant Veirs, Fifth U. S. Colored Troops, concerning the murder of colored soldiers by the men of the Fifteenth Georgia, after the repulse of Brigadier-General Foster's troops at Fort Gilmer. Lieutenant Veirs's regiment, the Fifth U. S. Colored Troops, supported a brigade of General Foster's division in the assault on Fort Gilmer, on the 29th ultimo. Lieutenant Veirs was wounded and captured-was exchanged and made his statement to Major Hart, on board the steamer City of New York, on Sunday, October 9th. Major Hart is reliable and accurate, and his report of the conversation is without doubt correct. Lieutenant Veirs is now, probably, in the hospital at Fort Monroe. I remain, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, ALONZO G. DRAPER, Colonel Thirty-sixth U. S. Colored Troops. Major R. S. Davis, A. A. G., Department of Virginia and North Carolina. CAMP THIRTY-SIXTH U. S. COLORED TROOPS, Army of the James, in the Field, October 12th, 1864. Colonel: The following is a correct statement of the conversation held by me with Lieutenant Veirs, Fifth U. S. Colored Troops, who was wounded and taken prisoner in the assault on Fort Gilmer on the afternoon of the 29th ultimo. I saw Lieutenant Veirs on board the City of New York, at Riker's Landing, on her last trip down the river, October 9th. He stated to me, that after the assaulting party had retired, the rebel soldiers (who he afterwards learned belonged to the Fifteenth Georgia regiment) came out of the fort and bayoneted all the colored soldiers who were so badly wounded that they could not walk. They also flourished their bayonets over him, called him the vilest names they could utter, and would probably have killed him on the spot, had not the officers of these men come to his rescue. They (the officers) ordered the men to desist, and had Veirs conveyed inside the fort, where he was again subjected to the vilest insults, from the lips of a Confederate naval officer. This officer admitted, however, that the "d--d niggers fought like devils!" I remain, Colonel, very respectfully, W. H. HART, Major Thirty-sixth U. S. Colored Troops. Col. A. G. Hart, Thirty-sixth U. S. Colored Troops, Field Hospital, Eighteenth Army Corps. DEVILISH TORTURE. ON or about the 3d of September, 1863, a party of rebel fiends visited the house of a well-known Union man (whose name we refrain from mentioning from obvious reasons), in Jamestown, Russell county, Kentucky. Rushing into the house, they arrested him and his wife, and, after some private consultation, took them out of the house and carried them to a place where they knew they were beyond pursuit. The fiends then threw the woman down upon the ground, and compelled a negro who was with them to hold her down. The negro protested, and declared he would not do it, when a pistol was presented to his head and held there until he consented to do it; and then the brutes actually violated her, compelling her husband to stand up and look at them while they committed their devilish work. She plead and begged them to kill her before they thus treated her, but they only cursed her, and told her that she deserved more, and ought to consider herself lucky in getting off so easy for being a d-d Unionist. They then released her and her husband, to go home and mourn over the wrongs that were inflicted upon them, for no other reason than that they loved their country and would not desert it.* MURDER OF CARTER FOSTER. IN the latter part of the summer of 1863, a party of rebels made a raid into the neighborhood of Conyersville, * Captain J. D. Hale, of Kentucky. Kentucky, and after robbing the Unionists of the country, and committing numerous other depredations, they went to the house of a man named Carter Foster, whom they arrested, and after calling him a d-d Unionist, and heaping every species of abuse upon him, they told him that it was their intention to kill him. He begged and plead with them not to take his life, and said that he had always been quiet and attended to his own business, and had said nothing to injure them or their cause. "You are a d-d Lincolnite," said they, "and that is enough; besides, it is our business to rid Kentucky of such men." They then drew their pistols and brutally shot him; after the body fell, the fiends actually kicked the corpse. This is but one of the many atrocious murders committed by this same band upon the unprotected Unionists of Kentucky. At one time it was worth a man's life to be even suspected of being a Unionist.* THE DOCTRINE OF STATE RIGHTS PRACTICALLY REPUDIATED BY THE REBEL AUTHORITIES. ONE of the principal grounds on which it has been attempted to justify the rebellion, is the mischievous doctrine of State rights; yet, this doctrine, which they profess to hold so sacred, for which they claim they have taken up arms, and submitted to the greatest sufferings, has been uniformly disregarded in practice by the rebels in the pursuit of their fiendish purposes. Maryland, and Kentucky, and Missouri, they have sought to force into the rebellion. Several of the seceded *J. P. Dunlap, R. Pollard, and others. |