O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME X/1 [S# 10]

APRIL 7-12, 1862.— Raid on Confederate line of communications between Chattanooga, Tenn., and Marietta, Ga.
No. 1. -- Report of the Judge-Advocate-General U. S. Army.

<ar10_634> the martyrdom of the patriot and hero can be degraded by the hands of ruffians and traitors.

The remaining prisoners, now reduced to 14, were kept closely confined under special guard in the jail at Atlanta until October, when, overhearing a conversation between the jailer and another officer, they became satisfied that it was the purpose of the authorities to hang them as they had done their companions. This led them to form a plan for their escape, which they carried into execution on the evening of the next day, by seizing the jailer when he opened the door to carry away the bucket in which their supper had been brought. This was followed by the seizure also of the 7 guards on duty, and before the alarm was given 8 of the fugitives were beyond reach of pursuit It has been since ascertained that 6 of these, after long and painful wanderings, succeeded in reaching our lines. Of the fate of the other 2 nothing is known. The remaining 6 of the 14, consisting of the 5 witnesses who have deposed and Mr. Mason, were recaptured and confined in the barracks until December, when they were removed to Richmond. There they were shut up in a room in Castle Thunder, where they shivered through the winter, without fire, thinly clad, and with but two small blankets, which they had saved with their clothes, to cover the whole party. So they remained until a few days since, when they were exchanged; and thus, at the end of eleven months, terminated their pitiless persecutions in the prisons of the South— persecutions begun and continued amid indignities and sufferings on their part and atrocities on the part of their traitorous foes which illustrate far more faithfully than any human language could express it the demoniac spirit of a revolt, every throb of whose life is a crime against the very race to which we belong.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J.HOLT,
Judge. Advocate- General.

Hon. E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

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