Page images
PDF
EPUB

mit them to you. I understand they are written by a local reporter named Field, who was and is indignant because he was excluded from camp. In this connection I would ask if prisoners are allowed to subscribe for and receive by mail loyal newspapers, and if so who pronounces on their loyalty?

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOSEPH H. TUCKER,

Colonel Sixty-ninth Illinois Infantry, Commanding.

[Inclosure No. 1.]

Letter from a rebel prisoner.

CAMP DOUGLAS, ILL., June 25, 1862.

EDITOR OF THE CHICAGO EVENING JOURNAL.

SIR: I noticed in your paper of yesterday a description of the search made at Camp Douglas among the so-called rebel prisoners. Said search was brought about for the purpose of finding concealed arms. It is indeed strange that we could have arms.. We were examined while on our way from Donelson by almost every soldier that passed us and when we arrived the same thing had to be rehearsed. I would like to know what Colonel Tucker and Chicago police call arms. The inspectors in their examination took every pocket-knife that was of any value. I guess cutlery can be had at the police office very cheap for cash. Every one should hurry forward and buy themselves rich. (Secesh knives.) We can spare our knives, but how is it? While we are guarded away from our quarters the inspecting gentry enter, ransack our satchels, pillage our knapsacks. They bear off as trophies the ambrotypes of our dead mothers, sisters and friends. Tobacco, cigars and other little trinkets share the same fate. Great God, are we to suffer everything? We have suffered all the insults and indignities that an ignorant and ill-mannered city rabble could heap upon us. are neither brutes nor heathens that such treatment should be meted out to us. The commanders seem to expect us to stay here. It is not our business to stay; it is their's to keep us. When we undertake to get out and are betrayed we have to carry planks upon our backs marked "escaped prisoners recaptured." Where are there such rules in the military code directing that prisoners of war should be treated in this manner? And the others have to be put upon one-third rations. We never have got full rations and when two-thirds are subtracted almost nothing remains.

We

Chicago papers call us half-starved, forlorn-looking wretches. Bring some of your stylishly dressed nobility within the walls of Camp Douglas, take the money that his friends may send him, discount by half, give him the remainder in white and blue pieces of pasteboard upon the sutlers, put him on one-third rations, and the names given to us would be a very appropriate one for him in a very short time. I send this to give you some idea of the manner in which prisoners of war are treated at Chicago. If you feel so disposed you can publish it; if not it is all right. Newspaper correspondents were stopped out of the camp so that they could do anything they pleased and keep it from the eyes of the world. Give them a hint of this and oblige a prisoner of war. TENNESSEE REBEL.

13 R R-SERIES II, VOL IV

GENERAL Orders, Į
No. 8.

[Inclosure No. 2.]

HEADQUARTERS,

Camp Douglas, July 11, 1862.

The following order is published for the information of all concerned: OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS, Detroit, Mich., July 8, 1862.

By authority of the War Department martial law is hereby declared in and about Camp Douglas, Ill., extending for a space of 100 feet outside and around the chain of sentinels, which space the commanding officer will indicate by a line of stakes, and the area of the ground included within the said line is hereby declared to be under martial law. Any person violating military authority within said line will be subject to punishment by short confinement or trial by court-martial at the discretion of the commanding officer. W. HOFFMAN.

Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners.

The area or ground around this camp included in the order and which is hereby declared to be under martial law has been distinctly marked by a line of stakes. Capt. Hiram R. Enoch, Sixty-seventh Regiment Illinois Infantry, has been appointed provost marshal for the district included in this order.

By order of Joseph H. Tucker, colonel commanding:
A. H. VAN BUREN,
Post Adjutant.

[Inclosure No. 3.]

ANOTHER "MILITARY NECESSITY."

Have the people of Chicago and Illinois heard of the last coup d'état? They would not readily guess it. Suppose we should say that martial law had been proclaimed at Camp Douglas, extending 100 feet beyond the line of sentinels outside the camp, including State street, several private residences, hotels, &c.? "Nonsense! Nonsense!" would be the reply on all sides. Perhaps it would; but nevertheless this thing has been done. In a morning paper we find the following:*

Doubtless those citizens who unfortunately reside within the prescribed limits were surprised this morning to find themselves for the first time in their lives living under martial law. Passengers upon State street opposite the camp will remember that they are within military jurisdiction; that any direct or implied violation of the military code will render them liable to arrest and trial by court-martial, in which a few three months' officers may defy the power of city, county, State or Federal courts and laugh to scorn the writ of habeas corpus. We admonish them to be cautious and to guard well their liberties. This perhaps can be effectually done by vacating the premises. We asked Muggins this morning the object of this extraordinary movement. He grunted, "Military necessity;" leered mischievously with his game eye and went away.

[Inclosure No. 4.]

CAMP DOUGLAS.

The Post declares that the rebel prisoners in Camp Douglas are in a state of insubordination; that early Thursday morning an attack was made by them upon the commandant's headquarters with stones. That there has been a great change in the disposition of the rebel prisoners since Colonel Mulligan commanded Camp Douglas we have long been

* Preceding notice of martial law omitted.

aware. That officer, while he commanded their respect, made himself felt and feared. Under his administration of affairs such a thing as a "showing of teeth" was out of the question. He allowed the prisoners to go the full length of their privileges and promptly and surely punished the slightest infraction or abuse thereof. The present commandant we have every reason to believe is neither respected nor feared by the prisoners. One of his first acts upon assuming command of the camp was a ridiculous search of the prisoners for weapons; a tacit acknowledgment of fear and an implied doubt of his ability to crush a jack-knife rebellion against his authority. We all know how that search resulted, but the public has not been told that even miniatures, lockets, rings, keepsakes and tobacco were confiscated in lieu of mur derous weapons. This action embittered the prisoners and aroused their hostility to an intense degree. To add fuel to the flames petty acts were resorted to, such as prohibiting. peddlers of vegetables, milk, &c., from the camp. Of this last we do not speak complainingly, provided the prisoners are ruled with an iron hand. We believe too much favor has been shown the fat rascals in view of the horrible and brutal treatment bestowed upon our soldiers in Southern prisons. But we do insist that there is a palpable maladministration of affairs at Camp Douglas if there is any dependence to be placed on the assertions of those who claim to know whereof they speak. Eight thousand resolute and well-fed prisoners, smarting under petty grievances and rendered sullen by long confinement, could not in a state of revolt be held by 1,600 raw recruits, no matter how able a commandant they had over them. It would be no slight thing to find this body of desperate men suddenly let loose upon society. The country through which they bent their way would be devastated by pillage, incendiarism rapine and all the horrors which can be imagined. These are the risks, the imminent risks, which stare us in the face. We may dream on yet awhile longer in fancied or affected nonchalance but we shall be awakened with a start by and by.

Col. W. HOFFMAN,

COLUMBUS, OHIO, July 13, 1862.

Commissary-General of Prisoners, Detroit, Mich. COLONEL: In compliance with your instructions I have the honor briefly to report the condition in which I found Camp Chase and the result and progress thus far of my endeavor to patiently and faithfully fulfill the most difficult and delicate task which you could have imposed upon me. If the statement demonstrates that I have gone beyond your special orders and the particular authority delegated to me, I believe it will at the same time appear that whenever I have assumed so to act it has been with the sole desire to fully represent your own views and to impress upon those with whom I came officially in contact the imperative necessity of prompt and energetic action in executing carefully important measures admitting of no delay, while it will at the same time be plain that my intercourse has been with parties clothed with both military and civil power, and yet while vain of its exercise possessing the most astonishing ignorance of the most ordinary practical military functions.

At the earliest moment I procured an interview with Major Darr, to whom I fully and carefully detailed your wishes as I conceive them to exist and received from him particular accounts and statements of matters in his department of which I have memoranda and which

will, together with the official papers left with me by him, be laid before you immediately on my return. I will state here some facts to which in a more general way I shall again refer in reference to what is understood of your position and authority.

Major Darr desired to be informed if you had the entire charge of the prisoners; if the camps were, where used as prison camps, exclusively under your control; if he should release by the orders of brig adier or major-generals, or parole prisoners by the same authority; if those powers could confine prisoners and order their release or parole on their own authority whenever they thought proper; under whose orders he was and whether he could at the camps where prisoners were confined in his (the Mountain) department take the necessary steps to secure their safety, and to furnish them with what was absolutely required. I made the obvious replies to these and many other questions and informed him. that in the exercise of his duties as provost-marshal he was the safety officer of his department; but that after he or the authority commanding the department had made and placed in his keeping military or political prisoners from that instant they were exclusively under your control or the War Department, and that ail measures relative to them must be executed by one of these two authorities. He is very zealous; perhaps too hasty and arbitrary. I have much to communicate to you of him and of the prisoners sent here by him. I have the official records of a number of prisoners sent here by him, seven of which state that the prisoner is charged with "doing nothing." One was taken from the almshouse where he had been nine years; another was a lunatic when arrested and is charged with being a lunatic. Many others have been sent here under equally slight charges whose cases I will soon submit to you, at least copies of their official records as transmitted by him to Camp Chase, for I believe that it cannot be your desire that this camp should be filled to overflowing with political prisoners (made by half depopulating a section of country where the inhabitants are often compelled to expressions of apparent sympathy) arrested on frivolous charges, to be supported by the , General Government and endure a long confinement. I have not expressed to him, however, a shade of any opinion upon this matter, or under any circumstances to others upon similar matters where there has been the possibility of doubt as to your action.

I had an early interview with Governor Tod and laid before him in detail your communications to me, your views and wishes expressed. He explained to me matters which he desired should be considered by you, most of which are briefly expressed in his letter to you, which is inclosed. Conceiving that whatever your decision might be in regard to moving the camp or any portion of it from its present location (it would be probably delayed in execution for several months or until the warm weather is nearly over) I have with the approval of the Governor taken, regardless of any intention to remove, the steps necessary to improve the camp in its present position so far as it relates to sanitary or other obviously necessary measures.

The Governor approves of all and each of the articles contained in your circular as applicable to Camp Chase with the exception of the last and the third from the last. These two relate to visitors to the camp and to the prisoners and to the parole and release of prisoners. To use his own language, he declared that the discretionary power exercised by him in permitting visitors to the camp and to see their friends in confinement had been worth to the Government the expenditure of one hundred tons of powder upon the enemy. The result of the

exercise of this power by the Governor is that at present there are paroled within the limits of this city several prisoners who go where they think proper. They are I believe generally invalids, and that at each of the three prisons there are reception rooms for visitors to converse with and hold interviews with the prisoners, and that an average of about a dozen people with permits from the Governor exercise this privilege daily. Besides this for the benefit of all curious people there is a regular line of omnibuses running daily from the capitol to the camp, past the chain of outer sentinels to the commanding officer's quarters, and any one who desires to spend twenty cents may visit the camp and go where they please except inside the prisons. The consequence of this is that there are always driving about the camp a great number of hacks, carriages and omnibuses laden with idlers and others who everywhere and at every turning infest the camp, inspect everything, interfere with the duty and very much with effective discipline, and infuse into soldiers and officers, the commanding officer not excepted, the same desire for show and the display of authority and indifference to it as would characterize an entirely undisciplined body of men under the immediate gaze of curious civilians anywhere. The commanding officer is vain of his consequential position and the exhi bition of arbitrary authority before citizens; his officers (those few in camp) emulate him, and there follows a general neglect of other duty and a general confusion everywhere. Much of this is due to the presence of visitors in considerable numbers. I represented this to the Governor and to the commanding officer, and yet the prohibition of visitors was violently opposed by both. The object seems to be to make Camp Chase popular. In connection with the matter of your release of prisoners the Governor remarked that authority should be delegated to some one at this point to examine into the cases of and when they thought proper to release prisoners. He said that the commanding officer at the camp should not be a good soldier so much as a lawyer, who should personally examine under oath if necessary the prisoners upon their asserting their innocence. Permit me to say that this has been literally acted upon. Colonel Allison, the present commanding officer, superseding Colonel Moody, is not in any degree a soldier; he is entirely without experience and utterly ignorant of his duties and he is surrounded by the same class of people. But he is a lawyer and a son-in-law of the Lieutenant-Governor.

It was, colonel, in this interview with the Governor that that great difficulty in whose existence I had ever believed but never before seen arose before me in all its colossal proportions, viz, the misunderstanding of the extent of his own authority over the camp and such an exercise of it as would prevent me, without his permission, from establishing your desires unless I came in conflict with him. I did not deem myself at all justified in even suggesting to him in more than the most general terms the fact that you had the entire control of all matters concerning prisoners. This he seemed to understand and I discussed the subject no further, determining to yield to his points as far as he deemed necessary and leave the sequel to one having more authority to act. I consequently have made no further objection to the nonenforcement of articles 9 and 11 beyond specially desiring that all idle visitors who had no friends in either the guard or prison camps be excluded, and the regulations were officially submitted to the commanding officer, Colonel Allison, with that understanding.

I will now state the condition of the prison and camp, the means taken for their improvement and the difficulties in the way of a rigid

« PreviousContinue »