steal the clothing off your back; they stole my shirt, the only one I had; they made me take it off.

Some of the men have no clothing except a meal-bag with a hole cut for their head and others for their arms, their clothing

having been all stolen.

We have no shelter whatever from sun, rain, or cold; no covering at night. Full one-half are sick with malignant diarrhea and scurvy, the worst and most loath some kind. There are some 34,672 prisoners

there; from 80 to 145 die daily. We find lying dead all over the camp in the morning. The hospital department is our side the stockade with a few tents, but most of the men are on the ground without bed or shelter. The surgeons, as a general rule, are kind, and do what they can, but they have no medicine and

very little means of doing for the sick.

The petition inclosed was suggested by some of the rebel sergeants who call the roll; they asked why we did not get up a petition to our Government. The authorities gave us the paper, and it was agreed, if we would tell nothing but the truth, it would be forwarded to the rebel Government and thence to Washington, to endeavor to effect a parole. I was one of the committee. I desire to be permitted to go to Washington, together with

the three men, Bates, Higginson, and Noirot, and personally represent the

case to the President. The statement was got up so a stop as the rebel authorities; it does not tell a tithe, no, not a thousandth part of our miseries.

The letter from General Stoneman, Colonels Dorr and Harris on was handed to me by General S. on the night before we started, when in Charleston prison. I hid it in my stock was taken a away and thrown away by the rebels; I took it up again and brought it through, and did not take the letter out until I gave it to Colonel Hall, provost - marshal - general. I didn't know its contents. *

PRESCOTT TRACY.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 19th day of August, 1864, at Hilton Head, S. C.

JAMES F. HALL,

Lieutenant - Colonel and Provost - Marshal - General.

[Inclosure Numbers 4.]

HILTON HEAD, August 19, 1864.

Prescott Tracy, Eighty-second New York Volunteers, a prisoner of war, exchanged at Port Royal Ferry on the 18th instant, states that Captain Wirz, post captain at Andersonville, [who] has charge of the Union prisoners at the C. S. prison, Camp Sumter, Andersonville, Ga., is a brutal monster. When the men come to the camp, worn out and weary, they are kept in the hot sun; and if they attempt to sit down or go a side to relieve the calls of nature he orders them to be shot, and it is often done. His usual language is "You G - d - son of a b - h, stand up in line or I will shoot you down. "

If there are any Germans he takes them to his private office and has conversation with them; I can't tell what about, but we all think it suspicious. The Germans are treated

better than other prisoners. They will not tell us what is said or done in these private

conversations. All the orders for shooting and ill-treating our men in the vile manner it is done come from him. He tells his men that every Yankee they kill is a day less to serve in the army.

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*See p. 616.

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