Let us follow the preceding statements by the following
TESTIMONY OF THE PRISONERS THEMSELVES.
In reference to the recent discussion in Congress, an editor in Mr. Blaine's own State (Maine) says:
"In all the talk that is being made about Andersonville prison by agitators and politicians who hope to profit by stirring up dead animosities, it is noticeable that no evidence is produced from men who were prisoners at that place. In order to get the views and experiences of an actual prisoner, we called a few days ago upon Mr. John F. Frost, whose business place is a stone's throw from our office. Mr. Frost says:
"'I was orderly of Captain Folger's company, Nineteenth Maine; was made prisoner at Petersburg in June, 1864, and was at Andersonville eleven months, or until the war ended. There was suffering among the men who were sick, from lack of medicines and delicacies, but all had their rations as fully and regularly as did the Confederate guard. Their were times of scarcity, when supply trains were cut off by the Federal forces; and at such times I have known the guard to offer to buy the prisoners' rations, being very short themselves. On these occasions the guards would take a portion of the scanty supplies from the people of the country to feed the prisoners. The Rebels were anxious to effect an exchange and get the prisoners off their hands, but it was reported and believed among the prisoners that the Federal authorities refused. At one time I was with a detail of three thousand prisoners who were marched two hundred miles to the coast to be exchanged, but it was declined by the Federal authorities, as was reported, and we marched back with no enviable feelings. I believe that the larger share of the responsibility for the suffering in that prison belonged to our own Government. Wirz was harsh and cruel to the prisoners, and deserved hanging. But I believe the Confederate authorities did as well as they could for the prisoners in the matter of clothing, provisions and medicines.'
"This, let it be remembered, is not the talk of a designing politician who stayed safely at home, but the testimony of a soldier of good record, from an actual experience of eleven months in Andersonville prison."
The following resolutions were adopted by the prisoners:
[Copy.]
"Resolutions that were adopted by the Federal prisoners who had been confined at Andersonville, and dated Savannah, September 23, 1864" (see United States Sanitary Commission Memoirs, by Professor A. Flint, New York):
* * * "Resolved, That while allowing the Confederate Government all due praise for the attention paid to the prisoners, numbers of our men are consigned to early graves," etc.
