CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



187 



eulogy from me can help him, no censure from 

 the gentleman can damage him, and no act or 

 resolution of this House can affect him. But 

 the charge is that he is a murderer, and a do- 

 liluT.ite, willful, guilty, scheming murderer of 

 'thousands of our fellow-citizens.' Why, sir, 

 knowing the character of the honorable gen- 

 tli'iiuin from Maine, his high reputation, when 

 I hoard the charge fall from his lips I thought 

 surely the gentleman had made a recent dis- 

 covery, and I listened for the evidence to jus- 

 tify that charge. lie produced it ; and what 

 is it if To my utter amazement, as the gentle- 

 man from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelley) has well 

 stated, it is nothing on earth but a report* of a 

 committee of this Congress, made when pas- 

 sions were at their height, and it was known 

 to the gentleman and to the whole country 

 eight years ago. 



" Now, I say first in relation to that testi- 

 mony that it is exclusively ex parte. It was 

 taken when the gentleman who is now put 

 upon trial by it before the country was im- 

 prisoned and in chains, without a hearing and 

 without an opportunity to be heard. It was 

 taken by enemies. It was taken in- the midst 

 of fury and rage. If there is anything in An- 

 glo-Saxon law which ought to be considered 

 sacred, it is the high privilege of an English- 

 man not to be condemned until he shall be 

 confronted with the witnesses against him. 

 But that is not all. The testimony produced 

 by the gentleman is not only ex parte, not only 

 exclusively the production of enemies, or at 

 least taken by them and in the midst of passion, 

 but the testimony is mutilated, ingeniously mu- 

 tilated, palpably mutilated, most adroitly muti- 

 lated. Why, sir, one of the main witnesses is 

 Dr. Joseph Jones, a very excellent gentleman, 

 who was called upon to give his testimony in 

 what is called the Wirz trial, and which* is pro- 

 duced before this House and attention called 

 to it by the gentleman. The object of the 

 gentleman was to prove that Mr. Davis knew 

 of these atrocities at Andersonville, and he 

 calls the attention of the House to the report 

 of this committee, and thanks God that it has 

 been taken in time to be put where it can 

 neither be contradicted nor gainsaid, as a per- 

 petual guide to posterity to find out the authors 

 of these crimes. 



"One of the most striking and remarkable 

 pieces of evidence in this whole report is found 

 in the report made by Dr. Jones, a surgeon of 

 fine character, and sent to Andersonville by 

 the Confederate authorities to investigate the 

 condition of that prison. That gentleman made 

 his report, and it is brought into this House. 

 What is it? The first point is as to the knowl- 

 edge of this report going to any of the authori- 

 ties at Richmond. Here is what Dr. Jones says : 



I had just completed the report, which I placed in 

 the hands of the judge-advocate, under orders from 



* Omitted from tho extracts of Mr. Blatne's speech. E0. 

 AaXTAL CTCLOP.SDIA. 



tho Government, when the Confederacy went to 

 pieces. That report never WUK delivered to tin- ur- 

 geon-general, and I wu* unaware that uny one kin'W 

 of ii.i existence until I received order* from tho 

 United States Government to bring it and deliver it 

 to this court in testimony. 



"Now, ho was ordered by the United States 

 Government, the first time this report ever 

 saw the light, to bring it and deliver it on tho 

 trial of Wirz. In accordance with that order 

 he did bring it and deliver it to the judge-ad- 

 vocate-general. And when the report itself, 

 or that which purported to bo the report, was 

 presented to him while he was a witness, he 

 discovered that it was mutilated, and he asked 

 permission to state that fact. Hear what ho 

 says on that subject : 



I beg leave to make a statement to the court. That 

 portion of my report which has been read is only u 

 small part ot the report. The real report contains 

 the excuses which were given by the officers present 

 at Andersonville, which I thought it right to embody 

 with my report. It also contains documents for- 

 warded to Kichmpnd by Dr. White and Dr. Steven- 

 son, and others, in charge of the hospitals. Those 

 documents contained important facts as to the labors 

 of the medical department and their efforts to better 

 the condition of things. 



" All that part of the report is suppressed ; 

 and with that suppression this magnificent re- 

 ceptacle of truth is filed away in the document- 

 room for the information of posterity ! 



u The committee ask him : 



Question. Are your conclusions correctly stated 

 in this extract ? 



Answer. Part of my conclusions are stated not 

 the whole. A portion of my conclusions, and also 

 my recommendations, are not stated. 



Q. Well, touching the subject of exchange? 



A. Yes, sir ; the general difficulties environing the 

 prisoners and their officers. 



Q. What became of your original report? 



A. This is my original report. 



" That is, he had there the extract as far as 

 it went. 

 Q. Did you make this extract yourself? 



" The committee seem to suspect that he was 

 the man that simply made the extract and 

 brought it before the committee. Now, here 

 is his answer : 



I did not. My original report is in the hands of 

 the judge-advocate. I delivered it into his hands 

 immediately upon my arrival in Washington. 



" And this committee of Congress, to which 

 the gentleman refers, absolutely tells ns that this 

 mutilated report was the one introduced in 

 evidence against this man Wirz, and it is the 

 one incorporated in this book. 



"Now, I want to call attention to another 

 extract from that original report a part not 

 included jn this book. There are a great many 

 such omissions ; I have not been able to get all 

 of them. 



" Dr. Jones, in his report, is giving an account 

 of the causes of tho sickness and mortality at 

 Andersonville, and he says, among other things : 



Surrounded by these depressing agents, the post- 

 ponement of tho general exchange of prisoners, nd 



