Tuesday, May 1, 2012

The Rebel Prisoners At Indianapolis


Of the sick prisoners at the Military prison and hospitals of this City, the greater proportion are Mississippians.  Though some of the Tennesseans and Kentuckians are quite ill, their maladies are not so deep seated as those of the 1st, 4th and 26th Mississippi prisoners.  These regiments were at Fort Henry, and at the time of the attack made upon it by Commodore Foote, they retreated so rapidly that they left behind most of their baggage, including many articles of clothing much needed for their comfort.  On arriving at Fort Donelson they were (thinly clad as they were,) put to work immediately upon the fortifications, and were compelled to labor upon the trenches constantly.  During the siege of the Fort they lay in the ditches and rifle pits, day and night.  Such exposure would produce disease in the ranks of the most able-bodies soldiers, but when incurred by men of feeble constitutions, the seeds of disease are so firmly planted that no medical skill can remove them.  Of the latter class are those now in the hospitals.  Many are under eighteen years of age, and the large majority are persons of feeble constitution.  They receive the best medical treatment, and the nursing care of female attendants; but in many cases the best of attention cannot save them from the grasp of death.

A death occurred on Sunday night which still further proves the wickedness of the causeless rebellion.  A man named Lloyd, whose mother, now a very old woman, lives in Washington, went South upon business.  While in Mississippi he was, though a strong Union man, impressed into the rebel service.  No opportunity offered to escape or he would have gladly availed himself of it.  He was taken prisoner at Donelson, and brought here with the others.  While at the hospital he freely conversed with many ladies and gentlemen, and related the facts as we have stated, and upon his dying lips he protested that he was a Union man forced to take up arms against the country that he would gladly have defended against its enemies. – {Indianapolis Journal.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 8, 1862, p. 2

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