Reports of the Committee on the Conduct of the War

Sworn to and subscribed before me this 30th day of April, 1864, at Fort Pickering, Memphis, Tennessee.

MALCOM F. SMITH,

1st Lieutenant and Adjutant 6th U.S. Heavy Artillery, (colored.)

A true copy.

J. H. ODLIN,

Captain and A. A. G.

Statement of James Lewis, private, company C, 6th United States heavy artillery, (colored.)

I, James Lewis, private, company C, 6th United States heavy artillery, (colored,) would, on oath, state the following: I was in the battle fought at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, on the 12th day of April, A. D. 1864. The engagement commenced early in the morning and lasted until three o'clock p. m. same day, at which time the enemy carried the fort. The United States troops took refuge under the bank of the river. The officers all being killed or wounded, the men raised the white flag and surrendered, but the rebels kept on firing until most all the men were shot down. I was wounded and knocked down with the but of a musket and left for dead, after being robbed, and they cut the buttons off my jacket. I saw two women shot by the river bank and their bodies thrown into the river after the place was taken. I saw Frank Meek, company B, 6th United States heavy artillery, (colored,) shot after he had surrendered.

his

JAMES + LEWIS.

mark.

Sworn to and subscribed before me this 30th day of April, 1864, at Fort Pickering, Memphis, Tennessee.

MALCOM F. SMITH,

1st Lieutenant and Adjutant 6th U. S. Heavy Artillery, (colored.)

A true copy.

J. H. ODLIN,

Captain and A. A. G.

[This evidence was received after the regular edition was printed.]

P. S. Since the report of the committee was prepared for the press, the following letter from the surgeon in charge of the returned prisoners was received by the chairman of the committee:

West's Buildings Hospital,

Baltimore, Md., May 24, 1864.

Dear Sir: I have the honor to enclose the photograph of John Breinig, with the desired information written upon it. I am very sorry your committee could not have seen these cases when first received. No one, from these pictures, can form a true estimate of their condition then. Not one in ten was able to stand alone; some of them so covered and eaten by vermin that they nearly resembled cases of small-pox, and so emaciated that they were really living skeletons, and hardly that, as the result shows, forty out of one hundred and four having died up to this date.

If there has been anything so horrible, so fiendish, as this wholesale starvation, in the history of this satanic rebellion, I have failed to note it. Better the massacres at Lawrence, Fort Pillow, and Plymouth than to be thus starved to death by inches, through long and weary months. I wish I had possessed the power to compel all the northern sympathizers with this rebellion to come in and look upon the work of the chivalrous sons of the hospitable and sunny south when these skeletons were first received here. A rebel colonel, a prisoner here, who stood with sad face looking on as they were received, finally shook his head and walked away, apparently ashamed that he held any relations to men who could be guilty of such deeds.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

A. CHAPEL.

Hon. B. F. Wade,

Chairman of Committee on the Conduct of the War, Senate U. S.