shot if he did. Several were shot just for despatch from Richmond to have the body sent that. there?

Question. What is the cause of your sickness? Answer. Nothing but exposure and the kind of food we had there. I was a tolerably stout man before I got into their hands; after that I was starved nearly to death. •

Daniel Gentis, sworn and examined.
By the Chairman :

Question. What State are you from?
Answer. Indiana.

Question. When did you enlist, and in what company and regiment?

Answer. I enlisted on the sixth of August, 1861, in company I, Second New-York regiment. Question. Where were you taken prisoner? Answer. I was taken prisoner at Stevensville, Virginia; I was there with Colonel Dahlgren, on Kilpatrick's expedition.

Question. Were you taken prisoner at the same time that Colonel Dahlgren was killed? Answer. I was there when he was killed, but I was taken prisoner the next morning.

Question. What do you know about the manner of his death, and the treatment his body received?

Answer. He was shot within a foot and a half or two feet of me. I got wounded that same night. The next morning I was taken prisoner, and as we came along we saw his body, with his clothes all off. He was entirely naked, and he was put into a hole and covered up.

Question. Buried naked in that way? Answer. Yes, sir; no coffin at all. Afterward his body was taken up and carried to a slue and washed off, and then sent off to Richmond. A despatch came from Richmond for his body, and it was sent there.

Question. It has been said they cut off his finger?

Answer. Yes, sir; his little finger was cut off, and his ring taken off.

By Mr. Ödell:

Question. How do you know there was a ring on his finger?

Answer. I saw the fellow who had it, and who said he took it off. When they took his body to a slue and washed it off, they put on it a shirt and drawers, and then put it in a box and sent it to Richmond.

Answer. All the information I got about the despatch was from Dr. Walker, who said they were going to take the body to Richmond, and bury it where no one could find it.

Question. Did Colonel Dahlgren make any speech or read any papers to his command?

Answer. No, sir; not that I ever heard of. They questioned me a great deal about that. The colonel of the Ninth Virginia cavalry questioned me about it. I told him just all I knew about it. I told him I had heard no papers read, nor any thing else.

Question. Did you ever hear any of your fellow-soldiers say they ever heard any such thing at all.

Answer. No, sir; and when I started I had no idea where I was going.

Question. Were you in prison at Richmond? Answer. I was there for four days, but I was at Dr. Walker's pretty nearly a month and a half.

Question. During the four days you were in prison did you see any of our other soldiers in prison there?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. How did they fare?

Answer. We all fared pretty rough on cornbread and beans. Those who were in my ward are here now sick in bed.

Question. How happened it that you fell into the hands of Dr. Walker particularly?

Answer. The way it came about was this: In the morning I asked some officers of the regular regiment for a doctor to dress my wound. One of the doctors there said he could not do it. I spoke to a lieutenant, and asked him to be kind enough to get some dcctor to dress it, and he got this Dr. Walker. The doctor asked me to go to his house, and stay there if I would. I told him " certainly I would go." The colonel of the rebel regiment said that the doctor could take me there, and I staid until Captain Magruder came up there and told Dr. Walker that I had to be sent to Richmond.

Question. Where were you wounded?
Answer. In the knee.

same thing. They therefore confined the rest of their investigation to the testimony of the surgeons in charge, and other persons attending upon the patients.]

[At this point the Committee concluded to examine no more of the patients in the hospital, as most of them were too weak to be examined Question. How far was that from Richmond? without becoming too much exhausted, and beAnswer. It was about forty miles from Rich-cause the testimony of all amounted to about the mond, and about ten miles from West-Point. Question. How were you treated yourself? Answer. I fared first-rate. I staid at the house of a Dr. Walker, of Virginia, and Dr. Walker told me that a private of the Ninth Virginia cavalry took off Colonel Dahlgren's artificial leg, and that General Ewell, I think it was, or some General in the Southern army who had but one leg, gave the private two thousand dollars for it, (confederate currency.) I saw the private who took it, and saw him have the leg. By the Chairman :

Question. How do you know they received a

Surgeon B. A. Van Derkieft, sworn and examined.

By the Chairman :

Question. Are you in the service of the United States; and if so, in what capacity?

Answer. I am a Surgeon of volunteers in the United States service; in charge of Hospital Division Number One, known as the Naval Hos

pital, Annapolis, and have been here since the first of June, 1863.

Question. State what you know in regard to the condition of our exchanged or paroled prisoners who have been brought here, and also your opportunities to know that condition?

Answer. Since I have been here I think that from five to six thousand paroled prisoners have been treated in this hospital as patients. They have generally come here in a very destitute and feeble condition; many of them so low that they die the very day they arrive here.

Question. What is the character of their complaints generally, and what does that character indicate as to the cause?.

Answer. Generally they are suffering from debility and chronic diarrhoea, the result, I have no doubt, of exposure, privations, hardship, and ill-treatment.

Question. In what respect would hardship and ill-treatment superinduce the complaints most prevalent among these paroled prisoners ?

Answer. These men, having been very much exposed, and not having had nourishment enough to sustain their strength, are consequently predisposed to be attacked by such diseases as diarrhoea, fever, scurvy, and all catarrhal affections, which, perhaps, in the beginning are very slight, but, on account of want of necessary care, produce, after a while, a very serious disease. For instance, a man exposed to the cold may have a little bronchitis, or perhaps a little inflammation of the lungs, which, under good treatment, would be easily cured-would be considered of no importance whatever; but being continually exposed, and not having the necessary food, the complaint is transformed, after a time, into a very severe disease.

Question. Is it your opinion, as a physician, that the complaints of our returned prisoners are superinduced by want of proper food, or food of sufficient quantity, and from exposure? Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. What is the general character of the statements our prisoners have made to you in regard to their treatment?

Answer. They complained of want of food, of bad food, and a want of clothing. Very often, though not always, they are robbed, when taken prisoners, of all the good clothes they have on. There is no doubt about that, for men have often arrived here with nothing but their pants and shirts on; no coat, overcoat, no cap, no shoes or stockings, and some of them without having had any opportunities to wash themselves for weeks and months, so that when they arrive here, the scurf on their skin is one eighth of an inch thick; and we have had several cases of men who have been shot for the slightest offence. There is a man now here who at one time put his hand out of the privy, which was nothing but a window in the wall, to steady himself and keep himself from falling, and he was shot, and we have been obliged to amputate his arm since he arrived here. These men complain that they have had no shel

ter. We have men here now who say that for five or six months they have been compelled to lie on the sand. I have no doubt about the correctness of their statements, for the condition of their skins shows the statements to be true. Their joints are calloused, and they have callouses on their backs, and some have even had the bones break through the skin. There is one instance in particular that I would mention. One man died in the hospital there one hour before the transfer of prisoners was made, and, as an act of humanity, the surgeon in charge of the hospital allowed the friends of this man to take him on board the vessel in order to have him buried among his friends. This man was brought here right from the Richmond hospital. He was so much covered with vermin and so dirty that we were not afraid to make the statement that the man had not been washed for six months. Now, as a material circumstance to prove that these men have been badly fed, I will state that we must be very careful in feeding them when they arrive here, for a very light diet is too much for them at first.

Question. You have accompanied us as we have examined some of the patients in the hospital to-day. Do their statements to us, under oath, correspond with the statements which they made when they first arrived here?

Answer. They are quite they same; there is no difference. Every man makes the same statement, and we therefore believe it to be true. All say the same in regard to rations, treatment, exposure, and privations. Once in a while I have found a man who pretended to have been treated very well, but by examining closely I find that such men are not very good Union men.

Question. You say that about six thousand paroled prisoners have come under your supervision and treatment?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. State generally what their condition has been.

Answer. Very bad, indeed. I cannot find terms sufficient to express what their condition was. I cannot state it properly.

Question. You have already stated that, as a general thing, they have been destitute of clothing?

Answer. Yes, sir; dirty, filthy, covered with vermin, dying. At one time we received three hundred and sixty patients in one day, and fourteen died within twelve hours; and there were six bodies of those who had died on board the transport that brought them up here.

Question. What appeared to be the complaint of which they died?

Answer. Very extreme debility, the result of starvation and exposure the same as the very weak man you saw here, [L. H. Parham.]

Question. We have observed some very emaciated men here, perfect skeletons, nothing but skin and bone. În your opinion, as a physician, what has reduced these men to that condition ?

Answer. Nothing but starvation and exposure.

Question. Can you tell the proportion of the men who have died to the number that have lately arrived from Richmond?

suffering from hospital gangrene, which is the result of not having their wounds dressed in time, and having too many crowded in the same We have had men here whose wounds have been so long neglected that they have had maggots in them by the hundred.

Answer. If time is allowed me, I can send the apartment. statement to the Committee.

Question. Do so, if you please.

Answer. I will do so. I will say that some of these men who have stated they were well treated, I have found out to have been very bad to the Union men.

Question. Are those men you have just mentioned as having been well treated an exception to the general rule?

Answer. Yes, sir; a very striking exception. Question. Have you ever been in charge of confederate prisoners?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. State the course of treatment of our authorities toward them.

Answer. We have never made the slightest difference between our own men and confederate prisoners when their sick and wounded have been in our hands.

Question. You have treated both the same? Answer. Yes, sir. When any one of their men, wounded or sick, has been a patient in our hands, we have treated him the same as we do

our own men.

By Mr. Julian :

Question. Have their sick and wounded been kept separate from ours, or have they been kept together?

Acting Assistant Surgeon J. H. Longenecker, sworn and examined.

By Mr. Gooch:

Question. What is your position in the United States service?

Answer. Acting Assistant Surgeon.

Question. How long have you been stationed here?

Answer. Since the twenty-seventh of July, 1863.

Question. Will you state what has been the condition of our paroled prisoners, received here from the rebels, during the time you have been stationed here?

Answer. As a general thing, they have been very much debilitated, emaciated, and suffering from disease, such as diarrhoea, scurvy, lung diseases, etc.

Question. In your opinion, as a physician, by what have these diseases been produced? Answer. By exposure and want of proper food, I think.

Question. Are you able to form any opinion, from the condition of these men, as to the quantity and quality of food which they have re

Answer. From their appearance and condition, I judge the quality must have been very bad, and the quantity very small, not sufficient to preserve the health.

Answer. In Washington they were kept sepa-ceived? rate, but at Antietam, where an hospital was established, in order to have the patients treated where they were injured, the Union and confederate patients were treated together and alike. At Hagerstown almost every body is secesh. Well, the most I can say is, that some of the secesh ladies there came to me and stated that they were very glad to see that we treated their men the same as ours.

Question. It is sometimes said, by the rebel newspapers, at least, that they have given the same rations to our prisoners that they give to their own soldiers. Now, I want to ask you, as a medical man, if it is possible, with the amount of food that our prisoners have had, for men to retain their health and vigor, and perform active service in the field?

Answer. I do not believe that the rebels could fight as well, or make such marches as they have done, upon such small rations as our prisoners have received.

Question. Can the health of men be preserved upon such rations as they have given our prisoners?

Question. We have seen and examined several patients here this morning, who are but mere skeletons. They have stated to us, as you are aware, that their suffering arose wholly from the want of proper food and clothing. In your opinion, as a medical man, are these statements true?

Answer. I believe that these statements are correct. We have had some men who look very well. How they managed to preserve their health I am not able to say; but, as a general thing, the men we receive here are very much debilitated, apparently from exposure, and want of sufficient food to keep up life and health. Question. Are you acquainted with the case of Howard Leedom?

Answer. Yes, sir; I am.

Question. Will you state about that case? Answer. I did not see the patient until recently, when he was placed in my charge. I found Answer. No, sir; it cannot, not only on ac-him with all his toes gone from one foot in consecount of quantity, but quality. I have seen some specimens of their rations brought here by our paroled prisoners, and I know what they are. Question. As a general rule, what is the effect of treating men in that way?

quence of exposure. He has suffered from pneumonia also, produced by exposure, and there have been very many cases of pneumonia here, produced by the same cause, many of whom have died; and we have held post-mortem examinations upon many of them, and found ulcers upon their intestines, some of them being ulcer. areated the whole length of their bowels.

Answer. Just what we hear every day - men dying from starvation and debility. Many of these men mostly all the wounded men

Assistant Surgeon William S. Ely, sworn and off, and make applications to kill the vermin in examined.