"On arriving in Isle of Wight County, on the 2d of August, we learned of immense supplies of stores being landed at City Point; and for the purpose, by stratagem, of introducing our machine upon the vessels there discharging stores, started for that point. We reached there before day-break on the 9th of August last, having travelled mostly by night, and crawled upon our knees to pass the east picket line. Requesting my companion to remain behind about half a mile, I approached cautiously the wharf, with my machine and powder covered by a small box. Finding the captain had come ashore from a barge then at the wharf, I seized the occasion to hurry forward with my box. Being halted by one of the wharf sentinels, I succeeded in passing him by representing that the captain had ordered me to convey the box on board. Hailing a man from the barge, I put the machine in motion, and gave it in his charge. He carried it aboard. The machine contained about twelve pounds of powder. Rejoining my companion we retired to a safe distance to witness the effect of our effort.
"In about an hour the explosion took place. Its effect was communicated to another barge beyond the one operated upon, and also to a large wharf building containing their stores (enemy's), which was totally destroyed. The scene was terrific, and the effect deafened my companion to an extent from which he has not recovered. My own person was severely shocked, but I am thankful to Providence that we have both escaped without injury. We obtained and enclose slips from the enemy's newspapers, which afford their testimony of the terrible effects of the blow. The enemy estimate the loss of life at fifty-eight killed and one hundred and twenty-six wounded, but we have reason to believe it greatly exceeded that.
"The pecuniary damage we heard estimated at four millions of dollars; but of course we can give you no account of the extent of it exactly. I may be permitted, Captain, here to remark that a party of ladies, it seems, were killed by this explosion. It is saddening to me to realize the fact that the terrible effects of war [he should have added as thus conducted] induce such consequences; but when I remember the ordeal to which our own women have been submitted, and the barbarities of the enemy's crusade against us and them, my feelings are relieved by the reflection that whilst this catastrophe was not intended by us, it amounts only, in the providence of God, to just retribution."
Hear the pious scoundrel salving his conscience with the old cry of "just retribution!"
The following will explain the agency by which boats on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and the United States Hospital at Louisville, Ky., were burned. It is the testimony of Edward Frazier before the Commission:—
"I am a steamboat man, and have been making St. Louis my home for the last nine or ten years. During 1864 I knew of the operations of Tucker, Minor Majors, Thomas L. Clark, and Colonel Barrett, of Missouri, for burning boats carrying government freight, transports, and other vessels on the Ohio and Mississippi and other rivers. These men were in the service of the Confederate Government. I knew of the following steamboats having been burned by the operations of these parties: the 'Imperial,' 'Hiawatha,' the 'Robert Campbell,' the 'Louisville,' the 'Daniel G. Taylor,' and others, besides some in New Orleans that I do not know the names of. The 'Imperial' was one of the largest and finest transports on the western waters. In the case of the burning of the 'Robert Campbell,' which was destroyed in the stream when under way, at Milikin's Bend, twenty-five miles above Vicksburg, there was a considerable loss of life. The agent who destroyed this boat was on board. These boats were all owned by private individuals. The operations of these men were to include government hospitals, store-houses, and everything appertaining to the enemy. A United States hospital at Louisville was burned in June or July of 1864. I do not know who burned it, but a man named Dillingham claimed compensation for it. I was in Richmond from the 20th to the 25th or 26th of August last, when I had an interview with the rebel Secretary of War, the Secretary of State, and Mr. Jefferson Davis. Thomas L. Clark, Dillingham, and myself, called there in connection with the boat burning, and put in claims to Mr. James A. Seddon, the rebel Secretary of War. Mr. Clark introduced me to Mr. Seddon. He told me that he had thrown up that business, that it was now in the hands of Mr. Benjamin. We went to him, and Mr. Benjamin looked at the papers we brought him, and asked me if I knew anything about them. I told him that I did, and that I believed they were all right. He asked me if I was from St. Louis. I told him I was. He then asked Mr. Clark if he knew me to be all right, and he said I had been represented to him by Mr. Majors as being all right. Mr. Benjamin told us all three to call the next day. We did so, when he said he had shown these papers to Jefferson Davis, and he (Benjamin) wanted to know if we would not take thirty thousand dollars and sign receipts in full. We told him we would not. Mr. Benjamin then said that if Dillingham was to claim this in Louisville, he wanted a statement of it. We went back to the hotel, and I wrote the statement myself. It read that Mr. Dillingham had been hired by General Polk, and that he had been sent to Louisville expressly to do that work; namely, to burn the hospital. It was then talked over with Mr. Benjamin, and we made a settlement with him for fifty thousand dollars; thirty-five thousand dollars down in gold, and fifteen thousand dollars on deposits, to be paid in four months, provided the claims proved correct. The money was paid by a draft on Columbia for thirty-four thousand, eight hundred dollars, in gold, and two hundred dollars in gold we got in Richmond. We received the gold on the draft at Columbia. Whilst in Richmond, Mr. Benjamin told me that Mr. Davis wanted to see me. I went in with Mr. Benjamin to see Mr. Davis, and we sat and talked. The conversation first was about what was called the Long Bridge, between Nashville and Chattanooga. Mr. Davis wanted to know what I thought about destroying it. He said they had been thinking of it, and of sending some one to have it done. I told him I knew of the bridge, though I did not, for I had never been there, but did not know what to think about destroying it. He said I had better study it over. Finally I told him I thought it could be done. Mr. Benjamin, I believe it was, first remarked that he would give four hundred thousand dollars if that bridge was destroyed, and asked me if I would take charge of it. I told him I would not unless the passes were taken away from those men that were now down there, and Mr. Davis said it should be done. The conversation then turned on the burning of the steamboats. I told Mr. Davis that I did not think it was any use burning steamboats, and he said no, he was going to have that stopped. The next day I saw an order taking away passes issued on or before the 23d of August. These passes were permits to do this kind of work. I presume Mr. Davis knew that the money I received was for the work that I had done; he knew that I had received money there. Mr. Davis seemed fully aware of what we had done, and he did not condemn it. Mr. Majors and Barrett belonged to an organization known as the 'O. A. K.', or 'Order of American Knights.'" The witness was asked to state, if he thought proper to do so, whether he was also a member of that order; but he declined to say. "I understood" (said the witness) "that Colonel Barrett held the position of adjutant general of this organization, of the Sons of Liberty, for the State of Illinois. I do not know that Majors and Barrett were in Chicago in July last, but Mr. Majors left St. Louis either in June or July, to go to Canada, and I presume went there by way of Chicago."
Here again, we see the moral plane on which Davis and Benjamin worked for the success of the Confederacy. We find them employing and paying agents for burning boats, midstream, regardless of the destruction of the lives of non-combatants, including, most likely, women and children amongst the passengers aboard; burning a hospital filled with sick, wounded, and dying soldiers, who, according to the laws of civilized warfare, are entitled to the sacred protection of even the enemy, whether in or out of their territory and possession. We have now found Davis and his agents in Canada planning and carrying out schemes for assassination or murder by wholesale, by spreading pestilence, poisoning of reservoirs, burning cities, hospitals, and boats on their way loaded with passengers, and by the use of explosives murdering women. Human life, under any imaginable conditions of existence, received no consideration at their hands if its sacrifice held out to them any prospect of advancing their cause.
Another foul plot to murder prisoners of war held in Libby Prison, right under the eyes of Davis and his Cabinet, is detailed as follows by Erastus W. Ross, a witness before the Commission:—
"I was in the service of the rebel government. I was conscripted and detailed as a clerk at Libby Prison, and never served in the army. In March, 1864, General Kilpatrick was making a raid in the direction of Richmond. About that time the prison was mined. I saw the place where I was told the powder was buried under the prison; it was in the middle of the building. The powder was put there secretly in the night. I never saw it, but I saw the fuse. It was put in the office. I was away at my uncle's the night that the powder was put there, and was told of it the next morning by one of the colored men at the prison. There were two sentinels near the place to prevent any person approaching it. The excavation made was about the size of a barrel head, and the earth was thrown up loosely over it. Major Turner, the commandant of the prison, had charge of the fuse. He told me that the powder was there, and that the fuse was to set it off; that it was put there for the security of the prisoners, and if the army got in it was to be set off for the purpose of blowing up the prison and the prisoners. The powder was secretly taken out in May, and the whole building was then shut up. The prisoners had all been sent to Macon, Ga. I suppose the powder was placed there by the authority of General Winder or the Secretary of War. Major Turner said he was acting under the authority of the rebel war department, though I never saw any written orders about it."
John Latouche testified as follows: "I was first lieutenant in Company B, Twenty-fifth Virginia Battalion, C. S. A. I was detailed to post duty in Richmond to regulate the details of the guards of the military prisons there, and in March, 1864, I was on duty at Libby Prison. Major Turner, the keeper of the prison, told me that he was going to see General Winder about the guard. On his return he told me that General Winder himself had been to see the Secretary of War, and that they were going to put powder under the prison. In the morning of the same day the powder was brought. There were two kegs of about twenty-five pounds each, and a box which contained about as much as the kegs. A hole was dug in the centre of the middle basement, and the powder was put down there. The box when put in just came level with the ground, and the place was covered over with gravel. I did not see any fuse to it then. I placed a sentry over this powder so that no accident might occur, and the next day Major Turner, who had charge of the fuse, showed it to us in his office; he showed it to everybody there. It was a long fuse made of gutta-percha, such a one as I had never seen before. In May, I think it was, Major Turner went South, and all of the prisoners were sent out of the Libby building proper to the south; and General Winder sent a note down to the office with directions to take up the powder as privately or as secretly as possible. I forget his exact words. The note was delivered into my hands for the inspector of the prison, to whom I either gave or sent it. I afterward heard Major Turner say that in the event of the raiders coming into Richmond he would have blown up the prison. I understood him to say those were his orders."