Your affectionate son,
John H. Aughey.
To David and Elizabeth Aughey,
Amsterdam, Jefferson Co., Ohio.
The following letter was written to the Hon. William H. Seward in behalf of the Union men in prison and within the rebel lines.
Central Military Prison, Tupelo,
Ittawamba Co., Mississippi, July 11th, 1862.
Hon. William H. Seward:
Dear Sir—A large number of citizens of Mississippi, holding Union sentiments, and who recognise no such military usurpation as the so-called Confederate States of America, are confined in a filthy prison, swarming with vermin, and are famishing from hunger—a sufficient quantity of food not being furnished us. We are separated from our families, and suffered to hold no communication with them. We are compelled, under a strong guard, to perform the most menial services, and are insulted on every occasion by the officers and guards of the prison. The nights are very cool; we are furnished with no bedding, and are compelled to lie down on the floor of our dungeon, where sleep seldom visits us, until exhausted nature can hold out no longer; then our slumbers are broken, restless, and of short duration. Our property is confiscated, and our families left destitute of the necessaries of life; all that they have, yea, all their living, being seized upon by the Confederates, and converted to their own use. Heavy fetters are placed upon our limbs, and daily some of us are led to the scaffold, or to death by shooting. Many of us are forced into the army, instant death being the penalty in case of refusal; thus constraining us to bear arms against our country, to become the executioners of our friends and brethren, or to fall ourselves by their hands.
These evils are intolerable, and we ask protection, through you, from the United States Government. The Federal Government may not be able to release us, but we ask the protection which the Federal prisoner receives. Were his life taken, swift retribution would be visited upon the rebels by a just retaliation—a rebel prisoner would suffer death for every Federal prisoner whom they destroyed. Let this rule hold good in the case of Union men who are citizens of the South. The loyal Mississippian deserves protection as much as the loyal native of Massachusetts. We ask, also, that our confiscated property be restored to us, or, in case of our death, to our families. If it be destroyed, let reparation be demanded from the rebels, or the property of known and avowed secessionists sequestered to that use.
Before this letter reaches its destination, the majority of us will have ceased to be. The writer has been informed by the officers that “his chances for living long are very slender;” that he has confessed enough to cause him to lose his life, and the Judge Advocate has specified Tuesday, the 15th inst., as the day of his execution. We have, therefore, little hope that we, individually, can receive any benefit from this petition, though you regard it favourably, and consent to its suggestions; but our families, who have been so cruelly robbed of all their substance, may, in after time, receive remuneration for their great losses. And if citizens of avowed secession proclivities, who are within the Federal lines, are arrested and held as hostages for the safety of Union men who are and may be hereafter incarcerated in the prison in Tupelo and elsewhere, the rebels will not dare put another Union man to death.
Hoping that you will deem it proper to take the matters presented in our petition under advisement, we remain, with high considerations of respect and esteem, your oppressed and imprisoned fellow-citizens,
John H. Aughey,
Benjamin Clarke,
John Robinson,
and thirty-seven others.