Deposition of GEORGE W. EDWARDS, Acting Assistant Surgeon U. S. A.
I was stationed at this hospital when the rebel prisoners arrived, about the middle of July, 1863. They were placed in tents and pavilions, which had just been vacated by. Union soldiers to make room for them. The dimension of the tents were twenty-eight feet by fifteen feet; the pavilions were one hundred and ninety-six feet in length, twenty-three feet in breadth, and twelve feet in height to the plate; not sealed over, and with numerous ventilators on the ridges. The tents were arranged to contain ten patients each, the pavilions to contain eighty; the number of patients never exceeded these numbers in either.
The prisoners had not been robbed by our men, as most of them had money, some had gold, greenbacks, and Confederate paper.
They were in rags, barefooted and bareheaded when they came, were frightfully filthy, and covered with vermin. Within three or four hours after their arrival, they had all been stripped of their rags, washed, and after being supplied with clean linen, placed in clean and well-aired beds.
Full suits of clothing, consisting of coats, pants, drawers, shirts, shoes and stockings, were subsequently issued to them by the United States Quartermaster. To distinguish them from our own soldiers, the buttons and six inches of the skirt of the coat were cut off.
Those who remained during the cold weather were abundantly supplied with fuel and warm clothing, and none required medical or surgical treatment in consequence of exposure to the cold; none were frozen to death.
They were allowed to go fishing or clamming, as they pleased, when they first came, till several escaped, when a line of sentinels was placed around the island upon the beach, inside of which they enjoyed all the privileges allowed to the Federal patients in the hospital.
None of the rebels were ever shot at, wounded or killed in any way while upon the island.
They receive medical and surgical treatment in all respects equal to that of Union soldiers. Nine-tenths of them were suffering from wounds. The mortality was not large, most of the deaths occurring from the severity of the wounds. They received the same rations and diet as our own patients.
The paper hereto attached, marked (A,)* formed the Diet Table during the time which the rebel prisoners were on the island. They had an abundance of good drinking water, with ice, an unlimited supply for bathing, plenty of soap, towels, combs, &c., &c., for their own comfort and cleanliness.
When the prisoners were removed, they were in excellent bodily condition, though many had not entirely recovered from their wounds; the majority of the prisoners left the island during the month of October, 1863. At one time there were about two thousand five hundred rebel prisoners upon the island.
I have been upon the medical staff of this hospital since its opening, in May, 1862, and it has been occupied by Union patients, both prior and subsequent to its occupation by rebel prisoners.
G. W. EDWARDS.
Sworn to before me,
WARREN WEBSTER,
Assistant Surgeon U. S. A., in charge of Hospital.
* The paper (A) here referred to, is the “DIET TABLE FOR GENERAL HOSPITALS, UNITED STATES ARMY.”