In most cases the released prisoner felt it was not medicine he wanted, but the kindly nursing of mother or wife, and nourishing food. So no doctor was called, at least for some months after reaching home. In the instances where the doctor was called, not infrequently he cannot now be found, cannot swear that the soldier had any particular disease for the first six months after reaching home, as he was a mere skeleton from starvation, and it required months of careful nursing before he had vitality enough for a disease to manifest itself.
Then again in many cases the poor victim has never suffered from any particular disease, but rather from a combination of numerous ills, the sequence of a wrecked constitution commonly termed by physicians, “General Debility.” But the commissioner refuses to grant a pension on disease save where the proof is clear and positive of the contracting of a particular disease while in the service, of its existence at date of final discharge, and of its continuous existence from year to year for each and every year, to present date.
In most cases it is impossible for a prison survivor to furnish any such proof, and hence his application is promptly rejected. Besides these, there are hundreds of other obstacles in the way of the surviving prisoner of war who applies for a pension. One thing is, he is called upon to prove by comrades who were in prison with him, the origin and nature of his disease, and his condition prior to and at the time of his release. This is generally impossible, as he was likely to have but few comrades in prison with whom he was on intimate terms, and these, if not now dead, cannot be found, they are men without sufficient knowledge of anatomy and physiology, and not one out of a hundred could conscientiously swear to the origin and diagnosis of the applicant’s disease. Is it not ridiculous for the government to insist upon such preposterous evidence? Which, if produced in due form, is a rule drawn up by the applicant’s physican, and sworn to by the witness—“cum grano salis,”—and in most cases amounts to perjury for charity’s sake.
Hence, it will be seen the difficulties surrounding the prison survivor who is disabled and compelled to apply for a pension are so numerous and insurmountable as to shut out a very large majority of the most needy and deserving cases from the benefits of the general pension laws entirely.
We claim, therefore, that as an act of equal justice to these men, as compared with other soldiers, there ought to be a law passed admitting them to pensions on record or other proof of confinement in a confederate prison for a prescribed length of time—such as Bill 4495—introduced by the Hon. J. Warren Keifer, M. C., of Ohio provides for. And if this bill is to benefit these poor sufferers any, it must be passed speedily, as those who yet remain will, at best, survive but a few years longer.
This measure is not asked as a pencuniary compensation for the personal losses these men sustained, as silver and gold cannot be weighed as the price for untold sufferings, but it is asked that they may be partly relieved from abject want, and their sufferings alleviated to some extent by providing them with the necessaries of life, for nearly all of them are extremely poor, consequent on the wreck of their physical and mental powers.
LIST OF THE DEAD
The following are those who died and were buried at Andersonville, with full name, Co., Regt., date of death and No. of grave in the Cemetery at that place, alphabetically arranged by States. The No. before each name is the same as marked at the head of the graves. The list will be found to be very accurate.