Who will say that Nature and Liberty were the genii who directed the labors of the leaders of the Rebellion?
Soil, climate, hereditary traditions, and customs of society, give to a people the fierceness and gentleness of character, as well as the perfection of mind and body. This fatal Stockade, with the silent mound of earth which contains its harvest of death, is a fair and just exponent of the bigoted and selfish policy that struck down the Flag of the Republic; of that cruel and unearthly spirit which has despised all the “attachments with which God has formed the chain of human sympathies,” and which, without a tear of remorse, has strewn the Atlantic Ocean with a broad pathway of human bones!
APPENDIX.
NOTES.
Since the close of the war, and since the time when the sketch of the graveyard was taken, Colonel Moore, of the U. S. Quartermaster’s Department, has been to Andersonville, under orders from the Secretary of War, and arranged the cemetery in a very acceptable manner. All of the stakes were removed, and neat head-boards placed instead, with the names of the dead properly painted in black letters. The ground has been cleared up by this efficient officer, and the cemetery carefully laid out into walks, adorned with flowers and trees. Colonel Moore, in his report to the Quartermaster-General, writes the following account:—
“The dead were found buried in trenches, on a site selected by the rebels, about three hundred yards from the stockade. The trenches varied in length from fifty to one hundred and fifty yards. The bodies in the trenches were from two to three feet below the surface, and in several instances, where the rain had washed away the earth, but a few inches. Additional earth was, however, thrown upon the graves, making them of still greater depth. So close were they buried, without coffins, or the ordinary clothing to cover their nakedness, that not more than twelve inches were allowed to each man. Indeed, the little tablets marking their resting-places, measuring hardly ten inches in width, almost touch each other. United States soldiers, while prisoners at Andersonville, had been detailed to inter their companions; and by a simple stake at the head of each grave, which bore a number corresponding with a similarly numbered name upon the Andersonville hospital record, I was enabled to identify, and mark with a neat tablet, similar to those in the cemeteries at Washington, the number, name, rank, regiment, company, and date of death of twelve thousand four hundred and sixty-one graves; there being but four hundred and fifty-one that bore the sad inscription, ‘Unknown U. S. Soldier.’”
Extract from letters of the rebel Senator Foote, dated Montreal, June 21, 1865.
“Touching the Congressional report referred to, I have this to say: A month or two anterior to the date of said report, I learned from a government officer of respectability, that the prisoners of war then confined in and about Richmond were suffering severely from want of provisions. He told me, further, that it was manifest to him that a systematic scheme was on foot for subjecting these unfortunate men to starvation; that the Commissary-General, Mr. Northrup (a most wicked and heartless wretch), had addressed a communication to Mr. Seddon, the Secretary of War, proposing to withhold meat altogether from military prisoners then in custody, and to give them nothing but bread and vegetables; and that Mr. Seddon had indorsed the document containing this communication affirmatively. I learned, further, that by calling upon Major Ould, the commissioner for exchange of prisoners, I would be able to obtain further information upon the subject. I went to Major Ould immediately, and obtained the desired information. Being utterly unwilling to countenance such barbarity for a moment,—regarding, indeed, the honor of the whole South as concerned in the affair,—I proceeded without delay to the hall of the House of Representatives, called the attention of that strangely constituted body to the subject, and insisted upon an immediate committee of investigation.”