atment they received while prisoners from their enemies;
and the physicians in charge of them, the men best fitted by
their profession and experience to express an opinion upon
the subject, all say that they have no doubt that the
statements of their patients are entirely correct.

"It will be observed from the testimony, that all the
witnesses who testify upon that point state that the
treatment they received while confined at Columbia, South
Carolina, Dalton, Georgia, and other places, was far more
humane than that they received at Richmond, where the
authorities of the so-called confederacy were congregated,
and where the power existed, had the inclination not been
wanting, to reform those abuses and secure to the prisoners
they held some treatment that would bear a public comparison
to that accorded by our authorities to the prisoners in our
custody. Your committee, therefore, are constrained to say
that they can hardly avoid the conclusion, expressed by so
many of our released soldiers, that the inhuman practices
herein referred to are the result of a determination on the
part of the rebel authorities to reduce our soldiers in
their power, by privation of food and clothing, and by
exposure, to such a condition that those who may survive
shall never recover so as to be able to render any effective
service in the field. And your committee accordingly ask
that this report, with the accompanying testimony be printed
with the report and testimony [which was accordingly done]
in relation to the massacre of Fort Pillow, the one being,
in their opinion, no less than the other, the result of a
predetermined policy. As regards the assertions of some of
the rebel newspapers, that our prisoners have received at
their hands the same treatment that their own soldiers in
the field have received, they are evidently but the most
glaring and unblushing falsehoods. No one can for a moment
be deceived by such statements, who will reflect that our
soldiers, who, when taken prisoners, have been stout,
healthy men, in the prime and vigor of life, yet have died
by hundreds under the treatment they have received, although
required to perform no duties of the camp or the march;
while the rebel soldiers are able to make long and rapid
marches, and