'"^eU T//E HORRORS 
 
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 TRUE HISTUxt 
 
 JEFFERSON DAVIS ANSWERED. 
 
 THE HORRORS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ANDERSONYILLE PRISON PEN. 
 
 THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 HENRY HERNBAKER, jR. 
 
 AND 
 
 JOHN LYNCH, 
 
 LArE OF THE UNITED STATES VOLUNTEER ARMY, AND FORMERLY 
 
 PRISONERS OF fVAR. 
 
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 "%5^.^0l8jS! 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 Merrihew & Son, Printers, 135 North Third Str/ 
 
 1876. / ^ '^e/o 
 
 
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STATEMENT 
 
 OF 
 
 HENRY HERNBAKER Jr. 
 
 LATE OF THE 107TH REGIMENT, PENN'A VOLS. 
 
 A VERY BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE TREATMENT RE- 
 CEIVED AS A PRISONER OF WAR IN 
 THE HANDS OF THE REBELS. 
 
 I was captured by them at Gettysburg, on the first of July. I 
 belonged to the 107th regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers, under 
 the command of Col. M'Coy. I was taken to Staunton, Virginia, and 
 kept in camp there about one week, and then taken on the cars to 
 Belle Island, at which place there were about eighteen hundred of us 
 together, and we received, from the beginning of our capture, only 
 scant half rations, and of the poorest quality. We were counted as 
 we left the cars at Belle Island, and then marched for the prison, 
 which we found to consist of a high stockade of pine logs, and 
 closely guarded by numerous sentinels. We now heard frightful 
 stories of what they called the dead line, and supposed they were 
 only trying to frighten us, but we afterwards found such talk to be 
 no fiction, but a given reality, for it was certain death for any one, 
 whether ignorantly or not, to even step or reach across it. The 
 rebel sentinels seemed eager for an opportunity to " shoot one of the 
 d — d Yankees." 
 
 Upon entering the stockade, a sight met our eyes that sent our 
 blood chilling to the heart. Before us were forms that had once 
 been active and erect, but now were mere walking skeletons, and 
 covered with filth and vermin too miserable to describe. Many of us, 
 upon beholding the condition of these men, could not help but 
 exclaim, with feelings of intensity and earnestness, — Can this be 
 
hell ! God protect us, for He alone can bring us out of such a place 
 alive. Our condition here was too awful and miserable for me to 
 attempt to describe. We had no shelter provided for us bj the rebel 
 authorities, and were exposed to all kinds of weather. There were ' 
 ten deaths on one side of the camp the first night, and the old 
 prisoners called it being exchanged, as they preferred death to being 
 kept in such a deplorable condition. While here, General Howell 
 Cobb made us a visit, and we thought surely now our condition Avould 
 be improved, or that an exchange would be made, because there were 
 men here who had been prisoners through the previous winter on 
 Belle Island and other places, who were ragged, and some entirely 
 naked, and had become such living skeletons that we thought they 
 ought to be exchanged for the sake of humanity. About this time 
 bome-of the boys tried to make their escape by tunnelling out, but 
 the bloodhounds were put on their tracks, and they were all caught 
 and brought back, some of them terribly maimed and torn by the 
 dogs, ai\d all had received most abusive treatment by their captors. 
 We could hear the yelping of the hounds quite distinctly from our 
 prison. 
 
 The policy of the Confederate authorities respecting us seemed to 
 to be to unfit us as much as possible for future service, and in order 
 to secure this object the more speedily, they now cut down our scant 
 half rations to one-half the usual quantity. Death began to reap a 
 rich harvest, not an hour in the day passed without relieving some of 
 our boys from this miserable place by death. We could receive no 
 letters, nor hear anything from the outside world, only such decep- 
 tions and lies as our guards chose to taunt us with. There were con- 
 tinually new gangs of prisoners added to our number, and they now" 
 posted a notice on our gate-post to the eifect that if any more attempts 
 to escape would be made, they would open on the stockade with grape 
 and canister, and many of us thought that a death of that kind would 
 have been sweet to that we were undergoing. There were near seven 
 hundred more prisoners brought in from Grant's army, and these poor 
 fellows had been robbed of everything in their possession, even their 
 blankets, haversacks and the greater part of their clothing, leaving 
 them utterly unprepared to stand the hardships of such prison life. 
 Great numbers of our men now began to yield to the influence of the 
 horrors about them, until they would relapse into a state of idiocy, 
 and in fact it was as much as any of us could do to preserve the type 
 of intelligent manhood at all. 
 
 Captain Wirz had charge of the prison here, and our rations were 
 getting still worse, as they gave us nothing but a little bit of coarse 
 corn meal and water, not half baked, without salt. Henry Wood- 
 cock, a young man of my company and regiment, died here from 
 starvation. I was now taken to Andersonville, where I remained 
 
< 
 
 about seven months, and the horrors I met with there it is useless for 
 me to attempt to describe. Here is Avhere I lost an old friend and 
 fellow-prisoner, Jacob Rhoads, of Mercersbnrg, Pa., who died from 
 starvation and the inhuman treatment oi the rebels. The sun was 
 scorching hot here, and having nothing to protect us from its burning 
 rays, the whole upper surface of our feet would become blistered, and 
 then would break, leaving the flesh exposed, and, having nothing to 
 dress it or protect it in any way, gangrene would follow, and some 
 would lose their feet, and part of a limb, and death would soon fol- 
 low. And I have seen others die from want of nourishment. The 
 amputations would average as many as six per day, and I saw not a 
 single instance of a recovery from them. Some became the victims 
 of total blindness, occasioned by constant exposure to the heat of the 
 sun and its action on the nervous system. 
 
 In the month of June it rained twenty-one days in succession, and 
 there were fifteen thousand of us in the stockade without any shelter of 
 any kind. In the hospital the poor sick who were too feeble to help 
 themselves, and literally swarming with lice, had their life's blood 
 taken from them in that way. In fact, it is hardly possible to con- 
 ceive a greater accumulation of woes to come upon mortal man than 
 fell to the lot of prisoners at Andersonville. Three thousand died 
 in the month of August, and I have counted one hundred dead bodies 
 in a row, and some of them so decomposed as to fall to pieces upon 
 being removed. There have been as many as one hundred and fifty 
 died in one day, and you can imagine what a foul atmosphere there 
 would be. Day after day I have gone the rounds of the wretched 
 hospitals and looked upon every variety of suffering that the human 
 frame is capable of presenting. I have heard Capt. Wirz swear that 
 he was killing more d — d Yankees with his treatment than they were 
 with powder and lead in the army. While at this place, another old ^ 
 friend of mine, John Gress, of Sylvan, in this county, was shot dead ^ 
 by the rebel guard for reaching under the dead line for a drink of 
 water, and another was shot dead at my feet for reaching under the 
 dead line for a piece of mouldy bread. 
 
 One of our men I saw hung up by the two thumbs for two hours, 
 nearly killing him, for trying to get a little something to eat. I was 
 at this place eight or ten weeks, when I was taken to Savannah, Ga. 
 
 It has always been a wonder to me how any of us did endure all 
 the hardships through which we had to go. Our rations here was 
 raw corn meal, chipped, cob and all. I remained here four weeks 
 and was then taken to Blackshire, and our rations on the way there was 
 corn in the cob, the same as if we had been pigs, but we were glad 
 to get that, for I began to give up all hope of getting home. We 
 were taken next to Florence, S. C, where another old friend, Jacob 
 Divilbiss, of Mercersburg, Penna., died. He could not longer en- 
 
6 
 
 dure these hardships, although he was a young man of extraordinary 
 strength and alacrity before he fell into their hands. I remained at 
 Florence about two months, and I was now becoming so weak that I 
 could scarcely walk. When I first got into their hands I was a man 
 of powerful constitution, and would have weighed 175 pounds. I 
 was now nothing but skin and bones, a mere tottering skeleton, for 
 want of food and human treatment. 
 
 The half of the brutalities and hardships endured by our brave 
 boys while in the hands of the rebels will never be told, because they 
 cannot be fully described with pen and ink. We were now put into 
 the cars and kept running back and forth for four weeks, there being 
 one hundred of us packed in one common cattle car, and we were now 
 as long as three days and three nights without a single morsel to eat, 
 and when we did get a little, it was of the poorest quality, and scarce- 
 ly enough to keep body and soul together. We were taken to Wil- 
 mington and exchanged. 
 
 What I have written is strictly true, and I am willing to testify to 
 it at any time, and there are thousands of living witnesses that can 
 be produced to testify to the truthfulness of this statement. 
 
 Henry Hernbaker, Jr., 
 101th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
STATEMENT 
 
 OP 
 
 JOHN LYNCH, 
 
 LATE COMPANY F, 1:3TH NEW YORK CAVALRY. 
 
 Eleven years have elapsed since Andersonville ceased to exist as"a 
 place of torment for Union prisoners of war. Since that time I have 
 heard many verbal, and read many VFritten statements relative to the 
 treatment of prisoners confined there, but I say emphatically and 
 truthfully, and without fear of contradiction, that these statements 
 failed in every instance to give a full account of that pen of horrors, 
 and consequently the public has but a very faint idea of the miseries and 
 torture of that earthly hell ; although the horrors of that pen are 
 yet, and shall ever be, green in the memory of its survivers, it is 
 with reluctance that I recall to their memory the incidents of such 
 atrocities, and would not now do so had it not been that Mr. Jeffer- 
 son Davis, some time since, had the audacity, hardihood and impu- 
 dence to state that Union prisoners of war, in the hands of the rebels, 
 were treated as well as rebel prisoners in the hands of the National 
 government. Therefore, lest the people should labor under false 
 impressions, created by that statement, I consider it my duty, in jus- 
 tice to the survivers of Andersonville, to give a truthful description 
 of the treatment received by the prisoners of both armies. I do not 
 pretend to say that I am capable of giving a faithful account of the 
 agonies and sufferings of the victims of Andersonville ; it would re- 
 quire the pen of a more graphic writer than myself; but still I con- 
 sider myself capable of giving a truthful statement of the treatment 
 received by the rebel prisoners (north), and the Union prisoners at 
 Andersonville, an account which cannot be refuted by the late pris- 
 oners of war on either side. 
 
 In the first place, when any of the rebels were taken prisoners, 
 they were allowed to retain such articles of clothing, etc., etc., as 
 
they had, and were furnished blankets, and other necessaries when 
 required. They were served with three meals each day ; they were 
 provided with good quarters and tobacco, and when sick they were 
 sent to the hospital and cared for ; in a word, they received the same 
 rations and allowances as the men who guarded them. This they 
 will not, cannot, themselves deny. The truth of it can be testified to 
 by many throughout the land today, who guarded them. Would 
 that we, the survivers of Andersonville, could say that we received 
 the same consideration while in the hands of the rebel authorities. 
 If we could, there would be no occasion for me to-day to brand the 
 statement of JeflFerson Davis as false. 
 
 I had the misfortune to be a prisoner at Andersonville for ten 
 months. On the sixth day of July, 1864, a detachment of my regi- 
 ment was attacked by a party of rebels, far superior in numbers, and 
 we were overpowered and defeated. When the fight was over, fifteen 
 of us found ourselves prisoners, and were ordered to deliver up such 
 money, watches and other valuables as we possessed immediately^ 
 with the alternative of being shot if we refused. We complied with 
 the demand in order to save our lives. From Aldee, Va., where the 
 fight occured, we were taken to Lynchburg, and were there crowded 
 into an old tobacco factory, where we suffered much from hunger, 
 thirst, etc., etc. We were kept there one week, and then started for 
 Andersonville, which place, we were told by the guards, was far su- 
 perior to Lynchburg; in fact they told us it was a blessing, compara- 
 tively speaking, to be sent there. But we found not the blessing, and 
 failed to see the benefits of the change ; we often afterwards had 
 reason to wish ourselves dead, or back in the Lynchburg pen, vile 
 hole as it was. Many, very many, poor fellows received the former 
 wish, after months of suffering and misery which beggars description. 
 When we arrived at Andersonville, we were drawn up in line, and 
 brought to attention by the unceremonious salute, " You Yankee sons 
 of b s, I want you to leave such things us you have got. Un- 
 button yourselves and prepare to be searched." Whatever articles 
 we had managed to conceal from our captors were found, and together 
 with our blankets, were taken from us by Captain Wirz and his 
 Lieutenants, with the promise that those articles would be given back 
 to us when we were exchanged ; but it is unnecessary to state that this 
 promise was never fulfilled. The gates of the pen were opened, and 
 we were driven, like so many cattle, into that pestiferous abode, 
 where so many of our poor boys breathed their last. 
 
 On entering the pen, the sights of misery, agony and torture we 
 beheld filled us with horror ; the forms that were once vigorous and 
 active we now beheld living skeletons, lying on the hot sand, fully 
 exposed to a scorching sun, and writhing in agony from the eifects of 
 burning fever, crying, in their delirium, for relief, but alas ! crying 
 
in vain. Before driving us into the pen they did not give us any 
 caution relative to the rules of the prison, which we were totally 
 ignorant of, and, as a consequence, one of our boys, seeing a green 
 spot between the dead-line and stockade, crept thereto, in order to 
 rest his weary limbs ; but no sooner had he done this than we heard 
 the report of a rifle, and our poor comrade's experience of Ander- 
 sonville was over. I remember one day, in August, 1864, we had a 
 severe rain storm, which washed away the earth, between the dead-line 
 and stockade, so deep that a spring bubbled up, which was, we 
 considered, a God-send ; two of our men stept over in order to get a 
 drink of pure water, but one only came back, the other was shot 
 dead without one word of warning, and when we wished to get any 
 water from that spring, afterwards, we had to tie a tin cup on the 
 €nd of a long pole, and fish over the deadline for it ; which was 
 rather risky business, especially when the guards heard of a rebel 
 defeat. During my time, thirteen or fourteen prisoners were shot 
 over that dead line ; some through ignorance of the danger, others 
 deliberately crossed over in order to put an end to a miserable exist- 
 ence, worse than death. 
 
 This dead line was constructed by pickets, driven in the ground at 
 long intervals, with a strip nailed on top, about twenty feet from the 
 stockade, which was about fifteen or twenty feet high, with sentry 
 boxes on top, at an interval of about thirty yards apart. We had no 
 shelter whatever to protect us from sun or storm ; for this there was 
 no excuse whatever, a pine forest being close at hand which would 
 have afforded ample materials to erect a shed as a protection from 
 the hot sun, if they would only grant us the privilege of going out, 
 under guard, and procuring the material ; this favor we repeatedly 
 begged of them ; but no, they were not so humanely inclined ; because 
 if we had this protection we would not die fast enough to suit them. 
 
 Occasionally some of the prisoners would smuggle in a blanket by 
 some means, which afforded a slight protection from the sun ; others 
 would rip up their shirts and stitch them together, three or four 
 united, which they would put up as a shelter, erecting the tent on a 
 few crutches which some of the guard furnished them when they 
 consented to give in exchange a bone ring or the buttons from oft" 
 their blouses, articles which the guards were anxious to obtain. Even 
 with this, fully 80 per cent, of the prisoners had no protection what- 
 ever from sun or storm. Reader, you can imagine what we had to 
 endure by being exposed to the scorching rays of a Southern sun, 
 severe and frequent rain-storms and heavy dews, all half, and in 
 many cases, entirely naked ; all the time suff'ering keenly from the 
 pangs of hunger, and compelled to drink, or go without water, that 
 which was not fit for washing purposes, because of its filthy condi- 
 dition ; it could not be otherwise than filthy, because the creek was a 
 
10 
 
 sluggish one, and on its sloping banks the water-closet was situated, 
 and its contents mingled with the water we had to drink or go with- 
 out. Imagine a poor sufferer, prostrated on the hot sand, fully exposed 
 to the sun, burning with fever, and calling in feeble tones for a drink 
 of water to cool his parched tongue, receiving this lukewarm filth, and 
 drinking it ravenously in his delirium. 
 
 Rations were issued to us once daily, when it did not rain hard ; 
 when it rained hard, the sand was washed against the gate, which 
 prevented it from being opened, unless the sand was shoveled away. 
 This we would willingly have done, if they would only have fur- 
 nished the shovels to us ; but no, the mules were turned around, and 
 the rations carried back to the commissary. Thus were the poor 
 skeletons, with their hungry, vacant looks and drenched through by 
 rain, doomed to suffer the keen pangs of hunger twenty-four hours 
 longer. When rations were issued, they were in quantity and quali- 
 ty as follows : One day we received nearly a pint of black stock 
 beans, cooked with a good mixture of worms, hulls, husks, etc., etc., 
 nothing else ; next day we were given a small piece of coarse corn 
 bread, poorly baked, with sometimes about two ounces of rotten beef 
 or pork ; the next day we received a half pint of coarse corn-meal» 
 with sometimes a little salt. We were divided into messes of twenty- 
 five each, and notwithstanding we were camped on the edge of a pine 
 forest, all we received for each mess was one cord of wood sticks, of 
 green wood, which we divided the best way we could with a case-knife. 
 Sometimes the wood was so green it would not burn ; other timet^, 
 the fire was put out by the rain. Thus were we often compelled to 
 get along the best way we could with a mixture of corn-meal and 
 water, half raw, to appease partially for a time the keen pangs of 
 hunger. 
 
 General Winder was Commissary-General of the Department, and 
 had under him willing tools in the persons of Captain Wirz, Com- 
 mandant of the Prison, and Messrs. Bowers and Duncan, Quarter- 
 masters. I have seen the latter knock down poor skeletons, who 
 stooped down to pick up a bean or crumb of bread which happened 
 to drop from the wagon. These gentlemen (?) were instrumental in 
 keeping back the rations on wet days, in order that they might be 
 able to sell, to such of the very few prisoners who had money, corn 
 meal at five dollars per quart, Confederate scrip. Letters, with money 
 and photographs enclosed, and boxes with clothing, &c., often came 
 to headquarters, addressed to various prisoners, none of which they 
 ever received ; they were appropriated by the rebels for their own 
 benefit, and they, in coarse and vulgar language, criticized the pho- 
 tographs and the contents of the letters, and then destroyed them. 
 Many, many times I have heard poor boys, when in their last agony, 
 calling the loved names of mother, father, sister, brother, or their 
 
11 
 
 sweethearts. Oh, what relief it would have been to them in their 
 last moments to have had the privilege of pressing to their lips and 
 hearts the photograph of some loved one at home ; but their cruel 
 keepers denied them even this — the most cherished of all asked-for 
 privileges. 
 
 I have seen hundreds of men lying on the hot sand, fully exposed to 
 the rays of a scorching sun, suffering beyond description from fever, 
 scurvy, diarrhoea, &c., crying feebly, in God's name, for some relief, 
 and begging to be dragged down and thrown in the creek, to relieve 
 them of their heart-rending agonies; but their appeals were in vain, 
 so far as the rebels were concerned, and what could we do ? it wa& 
 beyond our power to relieve them. Doctors come daily, apparently 
 more with the view of enjoying the sufferings of their victims than to 
 prescribe for their relief. The following was the invariable routine : 
 " What is the matter w^th you ? " The poor sufferer would tell, in 
 feeble tones, his various ailments. Prescription : " Now, what did 
 you men want to come down here to fight us for ? It serves you 
 right to be in this condition. I reckon when you get home again you 
 will stop there. I can't do anything for you." Then they would 
 walk away, and leave their poor victim in despair, writhing in agony 
 and entreating a merciful God to relieve him of his suffering by tak- 
 ing him to Himself from under the control of monsters so inhuman. 
 Occasionally some of the prisoners contrived, by some means, to go 
 outside the limits of the prison, with the view of escaping ; but in 
 this they were almost always unsuccessful ; for, as soon as they were 
 misEed, mounted men, accompanied by bloodhounds, were dispatched 
 after them. They would quickly overtake the fugitive, who, after 
 being more or less cut and lacerated by those vicious dogs, was 
 brought back and put in the stocks, where they were kept one week, 
 if they did not succumb before to that fiendish torture. The stocks 
 were situated outside the pen, and fully exposed to the sun. Three 
 cases, to my knowledge, died while thus barbarously confined. How 
 could they well escape death — thrown on their back on the hot sand» 
 with their faces fully exposed to the scorching rays of a southern 
 sun ; given but a small piece of corn bread, half raw, with a cup of 
 filthy, lukewarm water once a day, and taunted and abused by their 
 ignorant and brutal guards? Ninety-five per cent, of the prisoners 
 were totally disabled from the effects of scurvy, fever, diarrhoea, and 
 almost eVery other disease that human beings are subject to, result- 
 ing from neglect, starvation, exposure and impure water. For none 
 of these was there any excuse, because close to us was a pine forest, 
 which would have afforded us ample material with which we could 
 have put up a protection from the sun, if not from the storm ; a short 
 distance from the pen there was a running stream of pure water, from 
 which we could, with very little trouble, have been supplied; the sur- 
 
12 
 
 rounding country was rich and fertile, and with provisions in plenty. 
 What, then, was the excuse to be offered for such inhuman neglect ? 
 None whatever. Their object, as they often announced, was to " kill 
 
 more d d Yankees by their treatment than the leaders were killing 
 
 at the front," by knowledge gained at West Point, at the expense of 
 the Government they were seriously endeavouring to destroy, and, in 
 truth, the Government they are now endeavoring to undermine. 
 When a man was half eaten up with gangrene or other disease, he 
 was taken out to a so-called hospital, which was nothing more than 
 an old shed which afforded the sufferer some protection from the sun, 
 but none from the rain ; otherwise the treatment was the same as 
 that received in the pen. Imagine a piece of half-baked corn bread, 
 with a cup of bad water, once a day, as fit food for a poor being suf- 
 fering from fever or other disease ! this, while they mocked our crav- 
 ings by offering to sell us, at very high prices, biscuits, onions, cab- 
 bages and other food, to us luxuries. How many of us were able to 
 buy any of these things ? One, perhaps, of a thousand. But their 
 hatred of us was so intense that it smothered their human feelings, 
 if they had any left, which was very doubtful, because of their 
 heartless treatment of poor beings in their last agonies. People from 
 the surrounding country used to come to visit the " Yankees," and I 
 am sorry to say that they, too, seemed to enjoy rather than sympa- 
 thize with the horrible spectacle before them. 
 
 Reader, you must not be surprised to hear the survivers of Ander- 
 sonville talk over its horrors at any time, because its horrors, in- 
 describable as they are, shall ever be green in their memories. Even 
 I dream occasionally that I am again there, and awake suddenly 
 from my sleep only to thank God that it is a dream. From fifteen 
 to sixty dead bodies were laid daily at the gate, awaiting the dead- 
 wagon, into which they were thrown heads and points, then hauled out 
 and tossed into a trench, two feet deep, and roughly covered over, 
 without ceremony or token of respect. Thus were 13,500 consigned 
 prematurely to their graves in accursed ground, far away from their 
 fair northern homes — far away from the scenes of their childhood — 
 far away from the bosom and tender care of a loving mother, wife, 
 sister or sweetheart, victims of a deliberate inhumanity never before 
 known or practiced by civilized people. Can the blood of those 
 murdered men fail to continue to cry to God on high to pour His 
 vengeance down on the heads of those whose cruelty caused their 
 consignment to early graves ? Can the cemetery at Andersonville 
 fail to remain a lasting monument to the infamy of the authors and 
 prompters of those fiendish barbarities? 
 
 The reader must understand that these are only a few facts ; they 
 are not the full details. If I were to attempt to give the full details 
 separately of the sufferings of cases I have witnessed, it would take a 
 
13 
 
 large volume, and then the idea of the sufferings of those martyrs 
 would be but faint. But the above description is truthful, as far as 
 it goes ; it can be testified to by me at any time, and by hundreds of 
 other men, survivers of Andersonville. 
 
 But, friends of the Union, let us forgive and forget the past ; we, 
 the soldiers, have long ago forgiven the line, rank and file of the ex- 
 Confederate army for the blood they spilt in open conflict, and ex- 
 tend to them cordially the right hand of fellowship, because they 
 fougbt bravely, and they knew not what they did; they were mis- 
 guided and deceived by their leaders. 
 
 But while yet we see in memory the emaciated forms of our mar- 
 tyred comrades, writhing in agony, crying in vain for relief; while 
 yet the wail of agony and anguish resounds in our ears, can we, the 
 survivers of this hell, forgive or forget the leaders who authorized 
 those barbarities ? Can the parents of those murdered men well 
 forgive or ever forget the authors of the inhumanities which caused 
 the consignment of their sons, in the midst of youth and bloom, to 
 early graves ? 
 
 I would not now allude to this subject did I not consider it my 
 duty, in my humble way, to remove any false impression, created 
 a short time ago by Jefferson Davis' false statements. Who were the 
 authors of the above barbarities and the other disasters which sprung 
 from their fanaticism and ambition ? Jefferson Davis and the other 
 Confederate leaders and their friends and associates, the Northern 
 Copperheads. I am no scholar, no writer, and therefore no politician : 
 but I venture to ask the soldiers and friends of the Union, are tbey 
 ready to trust so sacred a trust as the custody of this Union in the 
 hands of those who sought to destroy it, and who pronounced the war 
 a failure, called us Lincoln hirelings, and derided us while fighting 
 for the preservation of the counti-y in its supreme hour of danger. 
 
 Soldiers, the same party are about to come forward to seek your 
 suffrages in the coming contest for the control of the nation. To 
 them let us say ; Gentlemen : our rights are your rights also ; but we 
 have yet reason to look on you with suspicion. Show a little more 
 purity of purpose, a little patriotism and a little more honor and fit- 
 ness, and then we will consider whether you are or not sincere enough 
 to be trusted. 
 
 Soldiers, let not the eloquence of demagogues or the appeals of a 
 scalawag press prevent us from doing our duty ; and our duty is to 
 support the party who are alone capable of upholding and preserving 
 the honor and integrity of this glorious Republic and its free institu- 
 tions. Let the country and the world at large see that we yet hold 
 and cherish in our breasts the principles for which we fought. Let 
 ♦ us do our duty, then, and the oppressed of all nations, as well as the 
 generations of future ages, will bless us forever. The verdict is in 
 
14 
 
 our bands; let us render such an one as will cause the proud eagle 
 from its lofty peak to screech with delight, and the Godess of Liberty 
 on the dome, in its purity and brightness, sparkle with dazzling re- 
 splendence. But fail to do your duty by not supporting the party 
 who all along have proven themselves to be our consistent friends, 
 then indeed will you mock the principles for which we fought — 
 then, indeed, will you mock the maimed forms of our numerous 
 comrades throughout the land, and then, indeed, will you mock the 
 spirits and mortal remains of the martyrs of Belle Island, Salisbury, 
 Florence and Andersonville. 
 
 John Lynch, 
 Co. F, lUh New York Cavalry. 
 
 Z 0XL 98L ex0 
 
 ssaaoNOD jo xauaan 
 
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