From the National Tribune, 10/15/1903

From a Prisoner’s Diary.

EDITOR NATIONAL TRIBUNE: A comrade some time ago called for word from Dick Turner, or rebel prison fame. I now have before me a diary of a loved comrade who was murdered by rebel brutality in a rebel prison, and in it I find that same Dick Turner, figuring as a robber. The diary shows every day, by date. That he was captured at Weldon Railroad, Aug. 21, 1864; 22d taken to Libby; 23d “taken from Libby into a large brick building across the street from the prison. Dick Turner ordered us into single line and then told us to strip off all of our clothes except shirt, to be searched. He said: ‘If any of you Yanks has watches, “jurly” or U. S. money I’ll take it and return it to yah when yo’ uns ah “pahrolled.’” Then we were made to strip, and Turner, with rebel soldiers behind him, went down the line and searched our clothes, that were piled in front of us, and felt under our arms and around our necks to see if any valuables were concealed there. Whatever could be turned into money was taken as well as money.” The comrade was sent to Belle Isle, the to Salisbury, N. C. There, Dec. 15, ration was reduced to one fourth pint of corn-and-cob meal a day. The list of dead is given daily and it scarcely varied - for instance, the total for the first 15 days of December was 750 - an average of 50 a day. - WM. H. HUFFMAN, Sergeant, Co. D., 100th Pa., East Palestine, O.

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