may puzzle some to
understand how a relatively small band of political desperados in each
State could accomplish such a momentous wrong; that they did do it, no
one conversant with our history will deny, and that they--insignificant
as they were in numbers, in abilities, in character, in everything save
capacity and indomitable energy in mischief--could achieve such gigantic
wrongs in direct opposition to the better sense of their communities is a
fearful demonstration of the defects of the constitution of Southern
society.

Men capable of doing all that the Secession leaders were guilty of--both
before and during the war--were quite capable of revengefully destroying
twenty-five thousand of their enemies by the most hideous means at their
command. That they did so set about destroying their enemies, wilfully,
maliciously, and with malice prepense and aforethought, is susceptible of
proof as conclusive as that which in a criminal court sends murderers to
the gallows.

Let us examine some of these proofs:

1. The terrible mortality at Andersonville and elsewhere was a matter of
as much notoriety throughout the Southern Confederacy as the military
operations of Lee and Johnson. No intelligent man--much less the Rebel
leaders--was ignorant of it nor of its calamitous proportions.

2. Had the Rebel leaders within a reasonable time after this matter
became notorious made some show of inquiring into and alleviating the
deadly misery, there might be some excuse for them on the ground of lack
of information, and the plea that they did as well as they could would
have some validity. But this state of affairs was allowed to continue
over a year--in fact until the downfall of the Confederacy--without a
hand being raised to mitigate the horrors of those places--without even
an inquiry being made as to whether they were mitigable or not. Still
worse: every month saw the horrors thicken, and the condition of the
prisoners become more wretched.

The suffering in May, 1864, was more terrible than in April; June showed
a frightful increase over May, while words fail to paint the horrors of
July and August, and so the wretchedness waxed until the end, in April,
1865.

3. The main causes of suffering and death were so obviously preventible
that the Rebel leaders could not have been ignorant of the ease with
which a remedy could be applied. These main causes were three in number:

a. Improper and insufficient food.
b. U