| Hdqrs. Second Division, Twenty-third Army Corps |
| Salisbury, N. C., June 1, 1865 |
| |
| Lieyt. Col. Theodore Cox |
| Assistant Adjutant-General, Hdqrs. Twenty-third Army
Corps |
| |
| Colonel, |
| I
have taken pains since occupying this place to make such inquiries
as would fix the responsibility of the ill-management of the prison
at this point. Public suspicion and the reports of the citizens
indicated Maj. Abe Myers (a Jew) and Maj. Mason Morfit,
quartermaster, as the guilty parties. Myers was at once paroled not
to leave this town, and a search was made for Morfit, which resulted
in his arrest about a week ago in an adjoining county. Since his
arrival here he has satisfied me and my officers that during his
short administration he did the best he could under the orders he
received, and that the suffering of the prisoners caused by any lack
of quartermaster's supplies is not to be laid to his negligence or
inhumanity, but to the indisposition of the rebel Government to fill
his requisitions. Myers was a poor man when the war began. He has
during the war, so far as can be learned from many honest and
observing citizens, spent $75,000 or $80,000 on his estate,
supported two or three families (including his own), and accumulated
some ready money. He claims to have done the best he could for the
prisoners, but the fact remains that he fattened while they starved,
and that he made money out of the commissary department; whether by
stealing from the rebel garrison or from prisoners I am unable to
show. It will be difficult to prove anything against him. The main
instrument of the rebel Government here was Maj. John H. Gee, of a
Florida regiment. He, by all accounts, was barbarous, brutal, and
avaricious. Numberless citizens have testified that he on very many
occasions absolutely refused to allow them to provide rations for
the starving prisoners, and that they were compelled to smuggle in
food and money in defiance of his rules and guards. He went away to
Florida in January or February. The only other post officer on whom
any blame can be laid, so far as I know, is Capt. J. M. Goodman,
assistant quartermaster, who was several times reported to his
Government for inefficiency, and who, according to such evidence as
we can get, showed both inability and negligence in providing
clothing and lumber for the prison. Men who have been here during
the use of this place as a prison post say that it was owing more to
the lack of shelter and of clothing than to lack of food that the
Federal soldiers died here. We have in our hands a copy of an order
dated "Headquarters Prisons East of the Mississippi, December
20, 1864," stating that as orders have been received from the
War Department to remove the prison from Salisbury, no more building
or repairs will be undertaken, and no expense incurred not
absolutely necessary. Gee is in Florida and Goodman in New Orleans.
|
| I
am, colonel, very respectfully, &c.,
|
| J. A. Cooper |
| Brigadier-General |
|