“These deeds of murder and cruelty closed when night came on, only to be renewed the next morning, when the demons carefully sought among the dead lying about in all directions for any other wounded yet alive; and those they found were deliberately shot. Scores of the dead and wounded were found there the day after the massacre by the men from some of our gunboats, who were permitted to go on shore, and collect the wounded, and bury the dead.
“The rebels themselves had made a pretence of burying a great many of their victims; but they had merely thrown them, without the least regard to care or decency, in the trenches and ditches about the fort, or little hollows and ravines on the hillside, covering them but partially with earth. Portions of heads and faces were found protruding through the earth in every direction; and even when your Committee visited the spot, two weeks afterwards, although parties of men had been sent on shore from time to time to bury the bodies unburied, and re-bury the others, and were even then engaged in the same work, we found the evidences of the murder and cruelty still most painfully apparent.
“We saw bodies still unburied, at some distance from the fort, of some sick men who had been met fleeing from the hospital, and beaten down and brutally murdered, and their bodies left where they had fallen. We could still see the faces and hands and feet of men, white and black, protruding out of the ground, whose graves had not been reached by those engaged in re-interring the victims of the massacre; and, although a great deal of rain had fallen within the preceding two weeks, the ground, more especially on the side and at the foot of the bluff where most of the murders had been committed, was still discolored by the blood of our brave but unfortunate soldiers; and the logs and trees showed but too plainly the evidences of the atrocities perpetrated.
“Many other instances of equally, atrocious cruelty might be mentioned; but your Committee feel compelled to refrain from giving here more of the heart-sickening details, and refer to the statements contained in the voluminous testimony herewith submitted. These statements were obtained by them from eye-witnesses and sufferers. Many of them as they were examined by your Committee were lying upon beds of pain and suffering; some so feeble that their lips could with difficulty frame the words by which they endeavored to convey some idea of the cruelties which had been inflicted on them, and which they had seen inflicted on others.”
When the murderers returned, the day after the capture, to renew their fiendish work upon the wounded and dying, they found a young and beautiful mulatto woman searching among the dead for the body of her husband. She was the daughter of a wealthy and influential rebel residing at Columbus. With her husband, this woman was living near the fort when our forces occupied it, and joined the Union men to assist in holding the place. Going from body to body with all the earnestness with which love could inspire an affectionate heart, she at last found the object of her search. He was not dead; but both legs were broken. The wife had succeeded in getting him out from among the piles of dead, and was bathing his face, and giving him water to drink from a pool near by, which had been replenished by the rain that fell a few hours before. At this moment she was seen by the murderous band; and the cry was at once raised, “Kill the wench, kill her!” The next moment the sharp crack of a musket was heard, and the angel of mercy fell a corpse on the body of her wounded husband, who was soon after knocked in the head by the butt-end of the same weapon. Though these revolting murders were done under the immediate eye of Gen. Chalmers, the whole was planned and carried out by Gen. Forrest whose inhumanity has never been surpassed in the history of civilized or even barbarous warfare.
CHAPTER XXXII—INJUSTICE TO COLORED TROOPS.
The Pay of the Men.—Government refuses to keep its Promise.—Efforts of Gov. Andrew to have Justice done.—Complaint of the Men. —Mutiny.—Military Murder.—Everlasting Shame.
When the War Department commenced recruiting colored men as soldiers in Massachusetts, New Orleans, and Hilton Head, it was done with the promise that these men should receive the same pay, clothing, and treatment that white soldiers did. The same was promised at Camp William Penn, at Philadelphia. After several regiments had been raised and put in the field, the War Department decided to pay them but ten dollars per month, without clothing. The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteers, and the Fifty-fifth, were both in South Carolina when this decision was made; yet the Government held on to the men who had thus been obtained under false pretences. Dissatisfaction showed itself as soon as this was known among the colored troops. Still the blacks performed their duty, hoping that Congress would see that justice was done to them. The men refused to receive less than was their just due when the paymaster came round, as the following will show:—