WILLIAM BALL.

For the Prosecution.-May 25.

do not know, but they did not seem to care. A committee from the prisoners was sent to Captain Wirz, who was in command of the I enlisted in the service of the United interior of the prison, in respect to this, and States in April, 1862, and was captured by he said he did not care a damn whether the the enemy on the 7th of May, 1864. I was water ran through the garbage or not, or a prisoner of war at Andersonville, Georgia, whether we got any or none. eleven months and twenty-three days. At When we first went there, there were on an the time I was there, there were about thirty-average as many as six or eight of the prisontwo thousand prisoners. The treatment of ers shot every day. If a man would stick the prisoners was poor indeed; they were his nose half a foot over the line, he would turned into a swamp, with no shelter what- be shot. It was said the rebel soldiers were ever, and were stripped of all their clothing, rewarded with thirty days' furlough for shootblankets, hats, caps, shoes, money, and what-ing a Yankee; and I never heard of their ever they had. Where we were confined wantonness in shooting our soldiers being rethere was no shelter and no trees, although buked by the rebel authorities. there were plenty of pine woods about there. The encampment was nothing but an open swamp, with a hill on each side.

The treatment of the prisoners in the hospital was very poor. All they would give them was pitch-pine pills; pitch-pine pills for diarrhea, and pitch-pine pills for the scurvy, the head-ache, or anything else. These pills were made out of the pitch that runs out of the trees there, and a little vinegar. They got no medicine. Medicines, it was said, were sent there by the Confederate Government, but they were sold by the doctor in charge for greenbacks.

Every morning, about nine or ten o'clock, they would bring a wagon on the ground, with corn-meal and some bacon. Of the corn-meal, which was ground up, cobs and all, and was full of stones and one thing and another, they gave each man half a pint, and two ounces of bacon, which was all alive, rancid, and rotten, and a half spoonful of salt. This was to last us twenty-four hours. Once in a while The money that was taken from the prisonwe would get hold of a good piece of bacon, ers was never returned to them-not a cent of but that was not often. The provisions served it. When I was captured, they took my shoes out to us were of such a character that no man would eat them unless he was in a starving condition; and from the amount and character of the food served out, it would not be possible to sustain human life for any length of time.

The effect of this treatment upon the health of the prisoners was very bad; it killed them off rapidly. The deaths averaged from sixty to a hundred a day; and one day one hundred and thirty-three died. These deaths were caused principally by starvation. There was some remonstrance addressed to the rebel authorities by the prisoners in regard to their treatment; but they said they did the best they could for them, and they did not care a damn whether the Yankees died or not.

off, and I walked bare-foot on the pike from near Waterford to Gordonsville, and then they took my money and clothes. I had nothing but a pair of drawers and shirt for nine months in Andersonville. I lay there for this whole nine months in the open field without a bit of shelter; and there were thousands in the same fix. The men would die there in the morning, and by night nobody could go within fifty feet of them. They had to be put into the wagons with long wooden pitch-forks, when they were carried off and put into the trenches.

Colonel Gibbs was in command of the post, and Captain Wirz was in command of the interior of the prison. Clothing that was sent to Andersonville by our Government, I remember Howell Cobb visiting Ander-consisting of blankets, pants, socks, and other sonville some time in February. He is the things, Wirz took himself, and put into his man who was formerly the Secretary of the own house, and sold. Treasury. He made some very bitter remarks, in a speech to the rebels, in reference to our prisoners. As to our treatment, he said that was the best that could be done for us; but if the authorities liked to do better they probably could, but they did not seem to care much about it. I remember he made some reference in his speech to a plan on hand to burn and plunder Northern cities.

Up to March 24th, when I left Andersonville, 16,725 of the prisoners had died; that was the number I took from the books myself, and there were at that time about 1,500 not able to be moved. It was the rations they got that brought on their sickness, and when they got sick they could not eat the stuff served out, and, of course, they starved. to medical treatment, there was nothing at all of any benefit.

CHARLES SWEENEY.

For the Prosecution.-May 26.

As

The heat in the open sun was very intense, and the water was very poor indeed. You could get water by digging down half a foot. There was a place a little way above into which they threw all the dirt and garbage that came from Andersonville, and the water My present home is in the State of New we were obliged to drink ran through all this York. I was a private in the United States filth. Whether this was designed or not, I service, and was captured by the rebels twice

The first time I was taken prisoner, I was confined two months and ten days at Libby; the second time I was a prisoner fifteen months, of which I spent two months in Belle Isle hospital, near Richmond; about six months at Andersonville, in Georgia; and the rest of the time at Savannah.

At Belle Isle I had less than half a pound of bread a day, and once in a while got a litthe rice soup. For about six weeks I do not believe I had a piece of meat as big as my two fingers When I went to the hospital, the bread was a little better, but there was very little meat. They pretty nearly starved me. For about four or five months after I got to Andersonville they gave me a pretty good ration of the kind it was. I had all I wanted to eat of corn-meal, but the bacon was pretty strong. After August they began to cut down our ration, and our allowance was very

short.

of March. He preached up to the guard the
way the war was going on.
The guards
around there were only old men and boys
that never knew any thing. He said to them,
"You see this big graveyard; all those in the
stockade will be in the graveyard before long."
He expected we were all going to be starved
to death, if we were held long enough. He
said they would all perish before they would
come back to the Union again. He also said
they would hang Old Abe if they caught
him, as he supposed Old Abe would hang
him if he caught him.

JAMES YOUNG.

For the Prosecution.-May 26.

I was a prisoner of war nine months and two days. I was confined in Andersonville, Ga., and Charleston and Florence, S. C. At Andersonville the greater portion of the Old Captain Wirz told the guard that they rations were cooked, but in a very inferior must shoot every Yankee caught with his way-corn-bread and mush, boiled rice and hand or his head over the dead-line; and boiled bacon. The ration of bread for the that for every man shot the guard would get a furlough of thirty days; so they used to kill our men as though they were

brutes.

day was about four inches long, three wide, and two thick; with that we got about two or three ounces of boiled pork. The effect of this stinted diet upon the health of the men I had a brother at Andersonville, who was was very injurious; they were wasting and, very sick and dying. For about eight days, dying all the time. The number of deaths to my knowledge, he had nothing to eat. He for August, I understood, was three thousand could not eat their corn-meal, and what they and forty-four. We were exposed to the sun, gave him, for it was not fit for a dog to eat.without any shelter, though there was woodI had a little money that I used to gather land all around us. The stockade, where we about the camp, and I bought a few biscuits were was chopped out of it but we were all for him, but I could not get enough to feed exposed. The heat during the day was ex him on long, and he lay in his tent and treme, but the nights were cool. starved. I went to the doctor and told him my brother was dying, and asked him to see him; but he said, "No, I can not do it." Before he died, my brother said, "Keep good courage; stick to your Government; never take an oath to that Government." I told him I would, and I have done it.

The water was very poor; it was infected by the garbage and filth through which it ran.

At Florence I heard some hard threats made against the "Yanks," as they called us. Our cavalry were raiding, destroying their country, they said, and they would I made my escape; but after I got over starve us, they said, in retaliation. We re the stockade, they caught me, took me back, ceived worse treatment at Florence than at and gagged me for six hours. It was very Andersonville, and got less rations. The cold, and when I got up I could hardly walk, amount of food was not sufficient to sustain and I was sick in the hospital; but in the life for any long period of time. Men that month of June I was able to be up, and I were destitute of any little means of their thought I would try again to make my es- own, or had no watches or trinkets that they cape and get to Stoneman, who was making could sell, kept running down till they died. a raid, I heard. I got out of the hospital, I had some money, and I bought some extra and traveled that night in the swamps and provisions, and kept my health tolerably mud, clear up to my neck, and made four good.

miles. The pickets, however, caught me, At Charleston I was imprisoned about three and took me back to Captain Winder. He weeks. We were treated very well there, told them to put me in the stockade, with a with the exception of the shooting of our ball and chain; and at Wirz's head-quarters men inside the inclosure by the guards; that I was put in the stockade all day in the hot occurred often, and seemed to be encouraged en, with my arms stretched out. The sun by the officers. I never knew of a man being affected me so much that the next day I was rebuked or punished for such shooting. At eek, and for six days I could neither eat nor Andersonville the general report in camp was drink any thing. It is God only who has let that the rebel authorities offered their men a me live this long. thirty days' furlough for every "Yank" they would shoot inside of the stockade.

General Cobb came there on the 4th day

LIEUTENANT J. L. RIPPLE.

For the Prosecution.—June 10.

panied and had charge of us that the torpedo was buried there. It was always spoken of as the torpedo. The place that had been dug I entered the United States service, in the out was about six feet in diameter. The Thirty-Ninth Illinois, as a private, on the ground was a little raised, as if the dirt had 28th of October, 1861. I was a prisoner of been dug out and put back again. It was war for six months at Andersonville, Ga. The directly under the center of the prison. Rebel character of the food furnished to the pris- officers and others told us that the prison had oners was poor, and the quantity very small. been mined on account of Colonel DahlWe got only half a pint of corn-meal daily, gren's raid, and that if we succeeded in get and from two to four ounces of meat. The ting into the city, they would blow up the result was the prisoners died in large num-prisoners rather than liberate them.

bers, occasioned, without doubt, in many cases, by starvation and the horrible treatment they received.

ERASTUS W. Ross.

For the Prosecution.-May 25.

I was in the service of the rebel Govern

I heard rebel officers approve of the kind of treatment we received; they said it was good enough for us. I remember Captain ment; I was conscripted and detailed as a Wirz saying, on the 1st of July, "It is good clerk at the Libby Prison, and never served enough for you; I wish you'd all die." The in the army. location of the camp at Andersonville, and In March, 1864, General Kilpatrick was the arrangements to which the prisoners were making a raid in the direction of Richmond. subjected, seemed to show that the Confed- About that time the prison was mined. I erate authorities intended the infliction of all saw the place where I was told the powder possible suffering, short of putting the men was buried under the prison; it was in the to death. At Millen it was somewhat better. middle of the building. The powder was put A pack of blood-hounds was kept at An- there secretly in the night; I never saw it, dersonville, and I heard some of the men but I saw the fuse; it was kept in the office who went after them say that some of the safe. I was away at my uncle's the night prisoners who had escaped were pursued and the powder was placed there, and was told of torn by the blood-hounds. it the next morning by one of the colored While at Andersonville I knew Quarter- men at the prison. There were two sentinels master Hume. I heard him say, previous to near the place to prevent any person's the election, that if Mr. Lincoln were re-approaching it. The excavation made was elected, he would not live to be inaugurated. He said that a party North would attend to him, and to Mr. Seward also. I also heard a lieutenant, who was in charge of the guard, say something to the same effect.

MINING OF LIBBY PRISON.

LIEUTENANT REUBEN BARTLEY.
For the Prosecution.-May 22.

I have been in the United States service

since 1862, and since August the 3d have been in the signal corps. I was confined in Libby Prison from the 3d of March to the 16th of July, 1864, and at other prisons until the 10th of December, 1864.

about the size of a barrel-head, and the earth was thrown up loosely over it. Major Tur ner, the commandant of the prison, had charge of the fuse. He told me that the powder was there, and that the fuse was to set it off; that it was put there for the security of the prisoners, and if the army got in, it was to be set off for the purpose of blowing up the prison and the prisoners.

The powder was secretly taken out in May, and the whole building was then shut up. The prisoners had all been sent to Macon, Georgia.

the authority of General Winder, or the I suppose the powder was placed there by Secretary of War. Major Turner said he was acting under the authority of the rebel War Department, though I never saw any

written orders about it.

JOHN LATOUche.

For the Prosecution.-May 25.

On being taken to Libby, we were informed, when taken into the hall, that the place had been mined. The next morning we were taken into a dungeon in the cellar part of the building. In going to the door of the dungeon, I was First Lieutenant in Company B. we had to go round a place where there was Twenty-fifth Virginia Battalion, C. S. A. I fresh dirt in the center of the cellar. The was detailed to post duty in Richmond, to guard would allow no person to pass over it regulate the details of the guards of the or near it. On inquiring why, we were told military prisons there, and in March, 1864, that that was the place where the torpedo I was on duty at Libby Prison. Major had been placed. It remained there while Turner, the keeper of the prison, told me he we were in the dungeon, and for some time was going to see General Winder about the after we were taken up stairs. guard. On his return he told me that General

I learned also from the officers who accom-Winder himself had been to see the Secretary

of War, and that they were going to put The requisition, having been read, was put in evidence.] powder under the prison. In the evening of The "$10,000" underneath the $25,000, the same day, the powder was brought. is the purchase money in gold of $25,000 There were two kegs, of about twenty-five worth of United States funds. pounds each, and a box which contained, I At Mr. Thompson's request, the name of suppose, about as much as the two kegs. A Benjamin Wood was erased, (the pen just hole was dug in the center of the middle being struck through it,) and my name, as basement, and the powder was put down an officer of the bank, written immediately there. The box, when put in, just came beneath it, that the draft might be negotiable level with the ground, and the place was without putting any other name to it. covered over with gravel. I did not see any I have in my hand, it having been obfuse to it then. I placed a sentry over this tained from the cashier of the City Bank in powder, so that no accident might occur; New York, the original draft for the $25,000, and the next day Major Turner, who had for which that requisition was made by Mr. charge of the fuse, showed it to us in his Thompson, in the name of Benjamin Wood. office; he showed it to everybody there. It It reads:

was a long fuse, made of gutta-percha; such a one as I had never seen before.

$25,000.

THE ONTARIO BANK.
MONTREAL, 10TH AUGUST, 1864.

No. 1,329.

At three days' sight, please pay to the order of D. S.

branch.

U. S. INTER. REV.
2 cts.
BANK CHECK.

To the Cashier,
City Bank,
New York.

H.Y. STANUS,
Manager

In May, I think it was, Major Turner went South, and all the prisoners were sent Eastwood, in current funds, twenty-five thousand dollars, out of the Libby building proper to the value received, and charge the same to account of this South; and General Winder sent a note down to the office, with directions to take up the powder as privately or as secretly as possible; I forget the exact word. The note was delivered into my hands for the inspector of the prison, to whom I either gave or sent it. I afterward heard Major Turner say that, in the event of the raiders coming into Richmond, he would have blown up the place. I understood him to say that those were his orders.

THE BEN. WOOD DRAFT.

DANIEL S. EASTWOOD.

For the Prosecution.-June 16.

I am assistant manager of the Montreal branch of the Ontario Bank, Canada. I was officially acquainted with Jacob Thomp son, formerly of Mississippi, who has for some time been sojourning in Canada, and have knowledge of his account with our bank, a copy of which was presented to this Commission by Mr. Campbell, our assistant

teller.

INDORSED:

Pay to the Hon. Benj. Wood, Esq.,
or Order.

D. S. EASTWOOD,

B. WOOD.

[The draft, having been read, was put in evidence.] I found this draft in the hands of the payee of the City Bank, in New York, and I understand from the cashier it has been paid.

Mr. Thompson was frequently in the habit of drawing moneys in the name of an officer of the bank, so as to conceal the person for whom it was really intended. A good deal of Thompson's exchange was drawn in that way, so that there is no indication, except from the bank or the locality on which the bill was drawn, to show where Large use was to be made of the funds. amounts were drawn for, at his instance, on the banks of New York, but we were not acquainted with the use they were put to.

The Benjamin Wood, to whom the draft was made payable, is, I believe, the member of Congress, and the owner of the New York News.

[Jacob Thompson's bank account, already in evidence,

was handed to the witness.]

The moneys to Mr. Thompson's credit accrued from the negotiation of bills of exchange, drawn by the Secretary of the Treasury of the so-called Confederate States, This is a copy of Jacob Thompson's on Frazier, Trenholm & Co., of Liverpool banking account with us, as testified to by They were understood to be the financial Robert Anson Campbell. I see in the acagents of the Confederate States at Liverpool, count, entries of funds that were used for and the face of the bills, I believe, bore that the purpose of exchange on New York and inscription. Among the dispositions made also on London. The item, $180,000, on the from that fund, by Jacob Thompson, was 6th of April, 1865, was issued in deposit $25,000, paid in accordance with the follow- receipts, which may be used anywhere. ing requisition:

John Wilkes Booth purchased a bill of exchange at our bank, about the beginning of October, and made a deposit at the same time, which remains undrawn to this day. I do not know of his having been in our bank but once. John H. Surratt's name I never heard mentioned.

Cross-examined by MR. AIKEN.

our bank in favor of James Watson Wallace,
I do not remember any drafts cashed at
Richard Montgomery, or James B. Merritt.
I have no recollection of the names.

GEORGE WILKES.

For the Prosecution.-June 16.

I have heard, has been recently managed
Richmond Enquirer.
by John Mitchell, late editor or assistant
editor of the Richmond Examiner and the

ABRAM D. RUSSEL

For the Prosecution.-June 16.

I am City Judge for the City of New York,

I am acquainted with Benjamin Wood of judge of the highest criminal court in the

New York, and am familiar with his handwriting.

[The $25,000 draft was here handed to the witness.]

State. I am acquainted with Benjamin Wood of the City of New York, and also with his handwriting.

[The bill of exchange was here handed to the witness.] The indorsement on this bill of exchange

The signature at the back of that bill of exchange I should take to be his. At the date of this bill Benjamin Wood was a mem- is in the handwriting of Benjamin Wood. I ber of Congress of the United States. He have no doubt it is his. He was at that time was editor and proprietor of the New York member of Congress of the United States and News; so he told me himself. The paper, editor and proprietor of the New York News

DEFENSE.

TESTIMONY TO IMPEACH H.
STEINACKER, MAY 30.

VON

[EDWARD JOHNSON Was called as a witness for the defense on the part of Mary E. Surratt. On appearing on the stand, General Howe said:]

|witness a man of this character, who has openly violated the obligation of his oath, and his faith as an officer, and to administer the oath to him and present his testimony, is but an insult to the Commission, and an outrage upon the administration of justice. I move, therefore, that this man, Edward Johnson, be ejected from the Court as an incompetent witness on account of his notorious infamy, on the grounds I have stated.

Mr. President: It is well known to me, and to very many of the officers of the army, that Edward Johnson, the person who is now introduced as a witness, was educated at the National Military Academy at the Government expense, and that, since that time, for General EKIN. I rise, sir, to second the years he held a commission in the army of the motion, and I am glad the question is now United States. It is well known in the army presented to the Commission. I regard the that it is a condition precedent to receiving gentleman clearly incompetent as a witness. a commission, that the officer shall take the That one who has been educated, nourished, oath of allegiance and fidelity to the Gov-and protected by the Government, and, in ernment. In 1861 it became my duty as direct violation of his oath, has taken up an officer to fire upon a rebel party, of arms against the Government, should present which this man was a member, and that himself as a witness before this Commission, party fired upon, struck down, and killed I regard as the hight of impertinence, and loyal men that were in the service of the I trust, therefore, that the motion will be Government. Since that time, it is notori- adopted without a moment's hesitation. ous to all the officers of the army that the Mr. AIKEN. I was not aware that the fact man who is introduced here as a witness, of a person's having borne arms against the has openly borne arms against the United United States disqualified him from becomStates, except when he has been a prisoner ing a witness in a court of justice; and, there in the hands of the Government. He is fore, it can not be charged upon me, that I brought here now as a witness to testify be- designed any insult to the Commission in infore this Commission, and he comes with troducing General Johnson as a witness his hands red with the blood of his loyal here. It will be recollected that Mr. Jett countrymen, shed by him or by his assist- who has also borne arms against the Govance, in violation of his solemn oath as a ernment, was introduced here as an imporman, and his faith as an officer. I submit tant witness by the prosecution; and he, acto this Commission that he stands in the eye cording to his own statement, had never of the law as an incompetent witness, because taken the oath of allegiance, and his testihe is notoriously infamous. To offer as a mony, at that time, was not ojected to.