Now you worshippers of the drunken sociopath railroad lawyer lincoln can be even prouder of your 'hero'.
Letter written by Federal Chaplain and Surgeons, dated Dec 29th 1862, Helena, Arkansas:
General, The undersigned Chaplains and Surgeons of the army of the Eastern District of Arkansas would respectfully call your attention to the Statements and Suggestions following. The Contrabands within our lines are experiencing hardships oppression & neglect the removal of which calls loudly for the intervention of authority. We daily see & deplore the evil and leave it to your wisdom to devise a remedy. In a great degree the contrabands are left entirely to the mercy and rapacity of the unprincipled part of our army (excepting only the limited jurisdiction of Capt. Richmond) with no person clothed with specific authority to look after & protect them.
Among the list of grievances we mention these:
Some who have been paid by individuals for cotton or for labor have been waylaid by soldiers, robbed, and in several instances fired upon, as well as robbed, and in no case that we can now recall have the plunderers been brought to justice--
The wives of some have been molested by soldiers to gratify their licentious lust, and their husbands murdered in endeavering to defend them, and yet the guilty parties, though known, were not arrested. Some who have wives and families are required to work on the Fortifications, or to unload Government Stores, and receive only their meals at the Public table, while their families, whatever provision is intended for them, are, as a matter of fact, left in a helpless & starving condition.
Many of the contrabands have been employed, & received in numerous instances, from officers & privates, only counterfeit money or nothing at all for their services. One man was employed as a teamster by the Government & he died in the service (the government indebted to him nearly fifty dollars) leaving an orphan child eight years old, & there is no apparent provision made to draw the money, or to care for the orphaned child.
The negro hospital here has become notorious for filth, neglect, mortality & brutal whipping, so that the contrabands have lost all hope of kind treatment there, & would almost as soon go to their graves as to their hospital. These grievances reported to us by persons in whom we have confidence, & some of which we known to be true, are but a few of the many wrongs of which they complain---For the sake of humanity, for the sake of Christianity, for the good name of our army, for the honor of our country, cannot something be done to prevent this oppression & stop its demoralizing influences upon the Soldiers themselves?...
--Samuel Sawyer, Pearl P. Ingall, J.G. Forman
"My cattle at home are better cared for than these unfortunate persons."
--Col. Frank S. Nickerson, U.S. Army (describing condition of southern blacks in the care of Federal Army)
"Contrabandism at Fortress Monroe is but another name for one of the worst forms of practical oppression--government slavery. Old Pharaoh slavery was government slavery and Uncle Sam's slavery is a counterpart..."
"Masters who are owners or who have been brought up with their slaves [have an interest in them]; but what do government officers generally care how they treat these poor waifs, who have been cast upon their heartless protection..."
"But most of the slaves are compelled to work for government for a miserable pittance. Up to town months ago they had worked for nothing but quarters and rations. Since that time they have been partially supplied with clothing--costing on an average $4 per man. And in many instances they have received one or two dollars a month cash for the past two months..."
"Yet, under the direction of Quarter Master Tallmadge, Sergeant Smith has lately reduced the rations, given out, in Camp Hamilton, to the families of these laborers and to the disabled, from 500 to 60. And some of the men, not willing to see if their families suffer, have withdrawn from government service. And the Sergeant has been putting them in the Guard-house,
whipping and forcing them back into the government gang. In some instances these slaves have been knocked down senseless with shovels and clubs."
"But I have just begun to trace the long catalogue of enormities, committed in the name of the Union, freedom and justice under the Stars and Stripes.
Yours with great respect, Lewis C. Lockwood"
A letter from Chaplain Fisk, dated the 14th inst., to the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, presents some facts which are new. He says: “ There are between Memphis and Natchez not less than fifty thousand blacks, from among whom have been called all the able bodied men for the military service. Thirty-five thousand of these, viz: those in camps between Helena and Natchez, are furnished the shelter of old tents and subsistence of cheap rations by the Government, but are in all other things in extreme destitution. Their clothing in perhaps the case of a fourth of this number is but one single worn and scanty garment Many children are wrapped night and day in tattered blankets as their sole apparel. But few of all these people have had any change of raiment since, in mid summer or earlier, they came from the abandoned plantations of their masters.
“ Multitudes of them have no beds of bedding” the clayey earth the resting place of women and babes through these stormy winter months. They live of necessity in extreme filthiness, and are afflicted with all fataled seases. Medical attendance and supplies are very inadequate. They cannot during the winter, be disposed to labor and self-support, and compensated labor cannot be procured for them in the camps. They cannot, in their present condition, survive the winter. It is my conviction that, unrelieved, the half of them will perish before the spring. Last winter, during the months of February, March, and April, I buried, at Memphis alone, out of an average of four thousand, twelve hundred of these people, or twelve a day. One day we buried thirty-five. Those who have been gathered into camp this summer are quite as destitute as those who were on our hands last winter.”
The Daily Dispatch: April 27, 1864. Richmond Dispatch. 2 pages. by Cowardin & Hammersley. Richmond. April 27, 1864. microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mi : Proquest. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant provided support for entering this text.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2006.05.1051:article=8
How the end of slavery led to starvation and death for millions of black Americans
Downs has collected numerous shocking accounts of the lives of freed slaves. He came across accounts of deplorable conditions in hospitals and refugee camps, where doctors often had racist theories about how black Americans reacted to disease. Things were so bad that one military official in Tennessee in 1865 wrote that former slaves were: "dying by scores “ that sometimes 30 per day die and are carried out by wagonloads without coffins, and thrown promiscuously, like brutes, into a trench".
So bad were the health problems suffered by freed slaves, and so high the death rates, that some observers of the time even wondered if they would all die out. One white religious leader in 1863 expected black Americans to vanish. "Like his brother the Indian of the forest, he must melt away and disappear forever from the midst of us," the man wrote.
https://books.google.com/books?id=5...page&q=contraband camp mortality rate&f=false
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Civil War By William L. Barney
As in any Civil War encampment, disease was rampant and sanitary standards abysmal. Compounding the medical problems was the weakened state of many of the refugees when they arrived. As noted by John Eaton, a Union military chaplain in Mississippi, the refugees from slavery encompassed "every stage of disease or decrpitude [and were] often nearly naked, with flesh torn by the terrible experiences of their escapes." Northern benevolent societies contributed emergency food and military supplies, but the care provided remained inadequate. The mortality rate in the contraband camps hovered around 26% during the war.
https://books.google.com/books?id=1...page&q=contraband camp mortality rate&f=false
Southern Families at War : Loyalty and Conflict in the Civil War South ... edited by Women's History Catherine Clinton Historian of Southern History, and the American Civil War
Lucy Chase letter, 7 February, 1 April 1863, Swint, Dear Ones at Home, 42, 59.
Conditions in contraband camps only accelerated the high infant mortality rates of black children during the antebellum period. According to Wilma King, the chidren of slave mothers "died at rates twice that of their white cohorts,"
https://books.google.com/books?id=y...page&q=contraband camp mortality rate&f=false
Intensely Human: The Health of the Black Soldier in the American Civil War By Margaret Humphreys
In late 1863 the president of the Western Sanitary Commisson, James E. Yeatman, issued an appeal for funds to help the freedmen throughout the Mississippi Valley. He composed a pamphlet that reported on their condition with sympathy, although one might suspect some bias on his part in making their condition appear as needy and worthy as possible. Still, he had the following to say about conditions at You's Point, Louisiana, a site near Vicksburg. The camp housed about 2,100 people, and was under the command of D.L. Jones of the 9th Louisiana Corps D'Afrique. "There appears to be more squalid misery and destitution here than in any place I have visited. The sickness and deaths were most frightful. During the summer from thirty to fifty died in a day, and some days as many as seventy-five." Others put the mortality rate in contraband camps in the Mississippi Valley at 25 percent....
https://books.google.com/books?id=y...page&q=contraband camp mortality rate&f=false
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Civil War
Map showing camps and work farms:
http://www.nps.gov/hdp/exhibits/african/images/ContrabandData_110128.jpg
Letter written by Federal Chaplain and Surgeons, dated Dec 29th 1862, Helena, Arkansas:
General, The undersigned Chaplains and Surgeons of the army of the Eastern District of Arkansas would respectfully call your attention to the Statements and Suggestions following. The Contrabands within our lines are experiencing hardships oppression & neglect the removal of which calls loudly for the intervention of authority. We daily see & deplore the evil and leave it to your wisdom to devise a remedy. In a great degree the contrabands are left entirely to the mercy and rapacity of the unprincipled part of our army (excepting only the limited jurisdiction of Capt. Richmond) with no person clothed with specific authority to look after & protect them.
Among the list of grievances we mention these:
Some who have been paid by individuals for cotton or for labor have been waylaid by soldiers, robbed, and in several instances fired upon, as well as robbed, and in no case that we can now recall have the plunderers been brought to justice--
The wives of some have been molested by soldiers to gratify their licentious lust, and their husbands murdered in endeavering to defend them, and yet the guilty parties, though known, were not arrested. Some who have wives and families are required to work on the Fortifications, or to unload Government Stores, and receive only their meals at the Public table, while their families, whatever provision is intended for them, are, as a matter of fact, left in a helpless & starving condition.
Many of the contrabands have been employed, & received in numerous instances, from officers & privates, only counterfeit money or nothing at all for their services. One man was employed as a teamster by the Government & he died in the service (the government indebted to him nearly fifty dollars) leaving an orphan child eight years old, & there is no apparent provision made to draw the money, or to care for the orphaned child.
The negro hospital here has become notorious for filth, neglect, mortality & brutal whipping, so that the contrabands have lost all hope of kind treatment there, & would almost as soon go to their graves as to their hospital. These grievances reported to us by persons in whom we have confidence, & some of which we known to be true, are but a few of the many wrongs of which they complain---For the sake of humanity, for the sake of Christianity, for the good name of our army, for the honor of our country, cannot something be done to prevent this oppression & stop its demoralizing influences upon the Soldiers themselves?...
--Samuel Sawyer, Pearl P. Ingall, J.G. Forman
"My cattle at home are better cared for than these unfortunate persons."
--Col. Frank S. Nickerson, U.S. Army (describing condition of southern blacks in the care of Federal Army)
"Contrabandism at Fortress Monroe is but another name for one of the worst forms of practical oppression--government slavery. Old Pharaoh slavery was government slavery and Uncle Sam's slavery is a counterpart..."
"Masters who are owners or who have been brought up with their slaves [have an interest in them]; but what do government officers generally care how they treat these poor waifs, who have been cast upon their heartless protection..."
"But most of the slaves are compelled to work for government for a miserable pittance. Up to town months ago they had worked for nothing but quarters and rations. Since that time they have been partially supplied with clothing--costing on an average $4 per man. And in many instances they have received one or two dollars a month cash for the past two months..."
"Yet, under the direction of Quarter Master Tallmadge, Sergeant Smith has lately reduced the rations, given out, in Camp Hamilton, to the families of these laborers and to the disabled, from 500 to 60. And some of the men, not willing to see if their families suffer, have withdrawn from government service. And the Sergeant has been putting them in the Guard-house,
whipping and forcing them back into the government gang. In some instances these slaves have been knocked down senseless with shovels and clubs."
"But I have just begun to trace the long catalogue of enormities, committed in the name of the Union, freedom and justice under the Stars and Stripes.
Yours with great respect, Lewis C. Lockwood"
A letter from Chaplain Fisk, dated the 14th inst., to the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, presents some facts which are new. He says: “ There are between Memphis and Natchez not less than fifty thousand blacks, from among whom have been called all the able bodied men for the military service. Thirty-five thousand of these, viz: those in camps between Helena and Natchez, are furnished the shelter of old tents and subsistence of cheap rations by the Government, but are in all other things in extreme destitution. Their clothing in perhaps the case of a fourth of this number is but one single worn and scanty garment Many children are wrapped night and day in tattered blankets as their sole apparel. But few of all these people have had any change of raiment since, in mid summer or earlier, they came from the abandoned plantations of their masters.
“ Multitudes of them have no beds of bedding” the clayey earth the resting place of women and babes through these stormy winter months. They live of necessity in extreme filthiness, and are afflicted with all fataled seases. Medical attendance and supplies are very inadequate. They cannot during the winter, be disposed to labor and self-support, and compensated labor cannot be procured for them in the camps. They cannot, in their present condition, survive the winter. It is my conviction that, unrelieved, the half of them will perish before the spring. Last winter, during the months of February, March, and April, I buried, at Memphis alone, out of an average of four thousand, twelve hundred of these people, or twelve a day. One day we buried thirty-five. Those who have been gathered into camp this summer are quite as destitute as those who were on our hands last winter.”
The Daily Dispatch: April 27, 1864. Richmond Dispatch. 2 pages. by Cowardin & Hammersley. Richmond. April 27, 1864. microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mi : Proquest. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant provided support for entering this text.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2006.05.1051:article=8
How the end of slavery led to starvation and death for millions of black Americans
Downs has collected numerous shocking accounts of the lives of freed slaves. He came across accounts of deplorable conditions in hospitals and refugee camps, where doctors often had racist theories about how black Americans reacted to disease. Things were so bad that one military official in Tennessee in 1865 wrote that former slaves were: "dying by scores “ that sometimes 30 per day die and are carried out by wagonloads without coffins, and thrown promiscuously, like brutes, into a trench".
So bad were the health problems suffered by freed slaves, and so high the death rates, that some observers of the time even wondered if they would all die out. One white religious leader in 1863 expected black Americans to vanish. "Like his brother the Indian of the forest, he must melt away and disappear forever from the midst of us," the man wrote.
https://books.google.com/books?id=5...page&q=contraband camp mortality rate&f=false
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Civil War By William L. Barney
As in any Civil War encampment, disease was rampant and sanitary standards abysmal. Compounding the medical problems was the weakened state of many of the refugees when they arrived. As noted by John Eaton, a Union military chaplain in Mississippi, the refugees from slavery encompassed "every stage of disease or decrpitude [and were] often nearly naked, with flesh torn by the terrible experiences of their escapes." Northern benevolent societies contributed emergency food and military supplies, but the care provided remained inadequate. The mortality rate in the contraband camps hovered around 26% during the war.
https://books.google.com/books?id=1...page&q=contraband camp mortality rate&f=false
Southern Families at War : Loyalty and Conflict in the Civil War South ... edited by Women's History Catherine Clinton Historian of Southern History, and the American Civil War
Lucy Chase letter, 7 February, 1 April 1863, Swint, Dear Ones at Home, 42, 59.
Conditions in contraband camps only accelerated the high infant mortality rates of black children during the antebellum period. According to Wilma King, the chidren of slave mothers "died at rates twice that of their white cohorts,"
https://books.google.com/books?id=y...page&q=contraband camp mortality rate&f=false
Intensely Human: The Health of the Black Soldier in the American Civil War By Margaret Humphreys
In late 1863 the president of the Western Sanitary Commisson, James E. Yeatman, issued an appeal for funds to help the freedmen throughout the Mississippi Valley. He composed a pamphlet that reported on their condition with sympathy, although one might suspect some bias on his part in making their condition appear as needy and worthy as possible. Still, he had the following to say about conditions at You's Point, Louisiana, a site near Vicksburg. The camp housed about 2,100 people, and was under the command of D.L. Jones of the 9th Louisiana Corps D'Afrique. "There appears to be more squalid misery and destitution here than in any place I have visited. The sickness and deaths were most frightful. During the summer from thirty to fifty died in a day, and some days as many as seventy-five." Others put the mortality rate in contraband camps in the Mississippi Valley at 25 percent....
https://books.google.com/books?id=y...page&q=contraband camp mortality rate&f=false
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Civil War
Map showing camps and work farms:
http://www.nps.gov/hdp/exhibits/african/images/ContrabandData_110128.jpg
