VI. THE THOROUGHFARE CAMPAIGN AND ENCAMPMENT IN THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND.
[There has been considerable said about the mistreatment of volunteer soldiers now in the service of the government, and much of the talk of suffering and want in the camps has been discredited because of its seeming ridiculousness. Americans are not ready to believe that the heads of the departments would permit the brave men to undergo the trials and sufferings that have been so graphically pictured by the newspapers, and the more conservative here put these idle rumors aside as the work of sensation-mongers.
Now a minister of the gospel, a man who is at the front with the soldiers, administering to them spiritual assistance and pointing them, in their dark hours of distress, to a brighter future, has raised his voice, and in words that sink deep into the heart and make the breast of men shudder, he tells us that our boys are being murdered; that the brave sons of Missouri are being cut down like grass before the scythe, through the neglect and tyranny of officers in the army who are supposed to look after their comfort.
Rev. R. T. Kerlin, chaplain of the Third Missouri Regiment, writes from Thoroughfare Gap, Va., to a brother minister at St. Louis, telling him of these things. Dr. Kerlin comes from Clay County, and the people of this city and this State know him.
Dr. Kerlin's letter is published herewith, but he admits that, as horrible as he has pictured the condition of the second division of the Second Army Corps, it is even worse than he has made it appear, and that the officers and men insisted that he make the truth more explicit that aid might be gotten to them by the patriotic people of this State, in whom they have confidence. The chaplain does not place the blame.]—The Kansas City Times.
The last week's itinerary of the second division of the Second Army Corps, General Davis commanding, has been written in curses. The results will be borne forever in the minds, hearts and bodies of 10,000 patriotic citizen-soldiers. Half-fed, wet and muddy, with no change of clothes, a score, on an average, in each company bare-footed, the volunteer soldiers of this division, as they go to their beds of wet straw under their low dog-tents that let the rain through like sieves or as they trudge through the mire of the stubble-field in which we are encamped to-night, can find no language but oaths to express their sense of ill-treatment.
Here is the story: It should be told in justice to these men, who have offered their lives for their country, who represent the best elements of our American citizenship, who are disposed to be manly, honest and long-suffering, it should be told. As their pastor, knowing what hardships they suffer, as well as what commandments they break, I will attempt the narration.