No. I.
EXTRACTS FROM THE REPORT OF JUDGE-ADVOCATE-GENERAL HOLT TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
"Judge-Advocate-General's Office,
"March 27, 1863.
"Sir,—I have the honor to transmit for your consideration the accompanying depositions of Sergeant William Pittenger, Company G, Second Regiment, Ohio Volunteers; Private Jacob Parrot, Company K, Thirty-third Regiment, Ohio Volunteers; Private Robert Buffum, Company H, Twenty-first Ohio Volunteers; Corporal William Reddick, Company B, Thirty-third Regiment, Ohio Volunteers; and Private William Bensinger, Company G, Twenty-first Regiment, Ohio Volunteers; taken at this office on the 25th instant, in accordance with your written instructions; from which the following facts will appear:
"These non-commissioned officers and privates belonged to an expedition set on foot in April, 1862, at the suggestion of Mr. J. J. Andrews, a citizen of Kentucky, who led it, and under the authority and direction of General O. M. Mitchel, the object of which was to destroy the communications on the Georgia State Railroad between Atlanta and Chattanooga.
"The mode of operation proposed was to reach a point on the road where they could seize a locomotive and train of cars, and then dash back in the direction of Chattanooga, cutting the telegraph wires and burning the bridges behind them as they advanced, until they reached their own lines. The expedition consisted of twenty-four men, who, with the exception of its leader, Mr. Andrews, and another citizen of Kentucky,—who acted on the occasion as the substitute of a soldier,—had been selected from the different companies for their known courage and discretion. They were informed that the movement was to be a secret one, and they doubtless comprehended something of its perils, but Mr. Andrews and Mr. Reddick alone seem to have known anything of its precise direction or object. They, however, voluntarily engaged in it, and made their way, in parties of two or three, in citizen's dress, and carrying only their side-arms, to Chattanooga, the point of rendezvous agreed upon, where twenty-two out of the twenty-four arrived safely. Here they took passage, without attracting observation, for Marietta, which they reached at twelve o'clock on the night of the 11th of April. On the following morning they took the cars back again towards Chattanooga, and at a place called Big Shanty, while the engineer and passengers were breakfasting, they detached the locomotive and three box-cars from the train and started at full speed for Chattanooga. They were now upon the field of the operations proposed by the expedition, but suddenly encountered unforeseen obstacles. According to the schedule of the road, of which Mr. Andrews had possessed himself, they should have met but a single train on that day, whereas they met three, two of them being engaged on extraordinary service. About an hour was lost in waiting to allow these trains to pass, which enabled their pursuers to press closely upon them. They removed rails, threw out obstructions on the road, and attained, when in motion, a speed of sixty miles an hour; but the time lost could not be regained. After having run about one hundred miles they found their supply of wood, water, and oil exhausted, while the rebel locomotive which had been chasing them was in sight. Under these circumstances they had no alternative but to abandon their cars and fly to the woods, which they did, under the orders of Mr. Andrews, each one endeavoring to save himself as best he might.
"The expedition thus failed from causes which reflected neither upon the genius by which it was planned, nor upon the intrepidity and discretion of those engaged in executing it. But for the accident of meeting these trains,—which could not have been anticipated,—the movement would have been a complete success, and the whole aspect of the war in the South and the Southwest would have been at once changed. The expedition itself, in the daring of its conception, had the wildness of a romance; while in the gigantic and overwhelming results which it sought, and was likely to accomplish, it was absolutely sublime.
"The twenty-two captives, when secured, were thrust into the negro jail of Chattanooga. They occupied a single room, half under ground, and but thirteen feet square, so that there was not space enough for them all to lie down together, and a part of them were, in consequence, obliged to sleep sitting and leaning against the walls. The only entrance was through a trap-door in the ceiling, that was raised twice a day to let down their scanty meals, which were lowered in a bucket. They had no other light or ventilation than that which came through two small, triple-grated windows. They were covered with swarming vermin, and the heat was so oppressive that they were often obliged to strip themselves entirely of their clothes to bear it. Add to this, they were all handcuffed, and, with trace-chains secured around their necks by padlocks, were fastened to each other in companies of twos and threes. Their food, which was doled out to them twice a day, consisted of a little flour wet with water and baked in the form of bread, and spoiled pickled beef. They had no opportunity of procuring supplies from the outside, nor had they any means of doing so,—their pockets having been rifled of their last cent by the Confederate authorities, prominent among whom was a rebel officer wearing the uniform of a major. No part of the money thus basely taken was ever returned."
[The report narrates the continued sufferings of the adventurers in prison substantially as they are given in the preceding pages, and concludes:]
"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.
"Hon. Edwin M. Stanton,
"Secretary of War."