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 The officers, veracity they have implicit confidence. 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. The rooms have unplastered walls, partitions, and ceilings, but few of the windows are glazed, being open either to the full sweep of cold winds, or closed with boards or canvas, rendering the rooms dark and cheerless. One of the rooms is used exclusively as a kitchen and dining-room, while portions of others are necessarily devoted to the same purpose, and all of them are scantily furnished, and medium-sized cook-stoves supplied the prison. The officers have to do their own cooking, and the supply of wood for this purpose is often insufficient, and occasionally, for half a day, none at all is sent in. A privy and sink render foul and disgusting one end of each room, polluting, at times, the air of the entire apartment. None are permitted to leave this building of accumulated and accumulating horrors, till borne to the hospital, or happily exchanged. The enlisted men are confined in various places. At the time the surgeons left Richmond, there were about six thousand three hundred soldiers held on Belle Island, on James River, near the city, and about four thousand. soldiers, and fifty sailors and marines, in buildings similar to, and in the immediate vicinity of, Libby. In the buildings, the condition of the men is about the same as that of the officers in Libby, only they are much more crowded. The condition of those on the Island is much worse.. An insufficient number of tents is furnished to protect them from the cold and rain, and no blankets or any other bedding have been given them by the rebels. Only one surgeon is assigned to Belle Island, and he makes but one visit a day, during which he does not enter the enclosure where the men are kept, to see those too sick to walk, but attends to those only who are able to come to him. When the neglected men are sent to the hospital, it is often too late. None of the privates in the prisons about "Libby" are furnished with bedding of any kind. A member of this committee received a letter from a man belonging to the same command, and confined in the building opposite Libby, worded thus: "Doctor, we beg of you to try and get us something, either clothes or blankets, to keep us We have no fire in the building to warm us; have nothing either to lie on or cover us, and suffer greatly from cold." warm. In Libby, stoves for heating purposes have recently been put up in some of the rooms, but no fuel has yet been given to render them useful. At one time the rations issued consisted of about threefourths of a pound of wheat bread, one-fourth of a pound of fresh beef, and two ounces of beans, and a small quantity of vinegar and salt for each prisoner per day. Subsequently, the same quantity of corn bread, made of unsifted meal, and rice instead of beans, was issued; or, in lieu of half rice, two or three sweet potatoes, and quite often, more particularly during the past two weeks, absolutely nothing, except three-fourths of a pound of corn bread, has been issued to each prisoner to satisfy the gnawings of hunger for twenty-four hours. On the 10th of this month, the men on Belle Island did not get a morsel of anything to eat until four o'clock P. M. The Committee unanimously agree that the rations furnished our prisoners by rebel authorities at Richmond are not sufficient to prevent the prisoners from suffering from hunger, and thus becoming debilitated and very susceptible to disease. Some of the committee have seen men brought from Belle Island to the prisoners' hospital literally starving to death; and a United States officer of |