Answer. We have received 105.
Question. When did you receive them?
Answer. Two weeks ago last Tuesday. On the 19th of April.
Question. Will you state the condition those prisoners were in when they were received here?
Answer. They were all very emaciated men, as you have seen here to-day, only more so than they appear to be now. They were very emaciated and feeble, suffering chiefly from diarrhœa, many of them having, in connexion with that, bronchial and similar affections. From the testimony given to me by these men I have no doubt their condition was the result of exposure and—I was about to say starvation; but it was, perhaps, hardly starvation, for they had something to eat; but I will say, a deficient supply of food and of a proper kind of food; and when I say "exposure," perhaps that would not be sufficiently definite. All with whom I have conversed have stated that those who were on Belle Isle were kept there even as late as December with nothing to protect them but such little clothing as was left them by their captors; with no blankets, no overcoats, no tents, nothing to cover them, nothing to protect them; and that their sleeping-place was the ground—the sand.
Question. What would you, as a physician of experience, aside from the statements of these returned prisoners, say was the cause of their condition?
Answer. I should judge it was as they have stated. Diarrhœa is a very common form of disease among them, and from all the circumstances I have every reason to believe that it is owing to exposure and the want of proper nourishment. Some of them tell me that they received nothing but two small pieces of corn-bread a day. Some of them suppose (how true that may be I do not know) that that bread was made of corn ground with the cobs. I have not seen any of it to examine it.
Question. How many have died of the number you have received here?
Answer. Already twenty-nine have died, and you have seen one who is now dying; and five were received here dead, who died on their way from Fortress Monroe to Baltimore.
Question. How many of them were capable of walking into the hospital?