LIBBY PRISON AT RICHMOND.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 87, 30 December 1864, Page 3

LIBBY PRISON AT RICHMOND.

The HTcioxorJc Bieralti gives tho following description of the treatment of, the Federal prisoners %■ the Confederates : — "The rooms are. one hundred feet by forty. In six of these .- 1,200- United States officers, of all grades, from the brigadier down', were confined for months. This was the almost incredible space allowed them in which to cook, eat, -wash, sleep, and take exercise. Ten feet by two claimed by each man for all the' purposes of living ! At one time they were not allowed benches, or stools, or even to fold their blankets and sit upon them, but forced to huddle "like slaves in the middle passage ;" at another only allowed to make stools out of the barrels and' boxes they received from the North ; at all times overrun with vermin, in spite of constant ablutions, no clean • blankets being ever issued by the rebels-; and lying down at night, according to liibby phrase, " wormed and dovetailed together like fish in a basket." There were two stoves- and seventy-five windows, all broken, and iv winter the cold was intense. Every prisoner had a cough from the damp or cold. It was among the rules that no pri? soner should go within three feet of. the window, a rulo extremely difficult to ob- ' serve in the crowded prisons of the South. Often, by accident or- unconseientiously, 1 an officer would go near a window; and be instantly shot at. In the Pemberton building, near by as many as fourteen shots were fired in a single day, and very' frequently a prisoner fell killed or woundeck It became a matter of sport to "kill a Yankee." Once. the guard caught a sight of Lieutenant Hammond's hat°through a boarded enclosure .where there were no windows, and came within an inch of murdering him. Major Turner,, the keeper of Lib by, .remarked, " T.he boys are in want of practice." The sentry said, "ho had made abet he would ]t[\l a ' Yankee beforo ho came off guard." Almost every prisoner -had'such an incident to' tell." Throughout the Southern prison system it' is a regular sport to kill Yankees. The guards were never ' reproved for their willingness to commit murder. Tho daily ration in the officer'*s quarters in Libby prison ' was a small loaf of bread; about the size of a man's fist, made of Indian flour, but of variable quality. It weighed a little over half-a-pound. Witli it was "given a piece of beef, weighing two ounces. " I would gladly," said an officer, " have preferred 'the horse-feed in my father's stable." •The corn bread began to be of the roughest and coarsest description. Portions of the cob and husk were often found ground in with the meal. The crust was so thick and hard that the prisoners called it iron-clad. To render the bread eatable they grated it, and made mush .out of it, but the crust they could not grate. Now and then, after long intervals, often of many weeks, a little meat was given them, perhaps two or three mouthfols. , At a later period they received a pint of black peas, with some vinegar, every week. The peas were often full of worms' or maggots in a chrysalis state, which, when they made soup, floated on the surface. ' ' ' THE VALUE OF GOLD IN AMERICA. Mr. Sala, the New York correspondent of the Daily Telegraph has sent over the following graphic and interesting letter : — In obedience to tho downward^ dispensation, gold, as ' I have told you/ has gone down to begin with, and at the same time brought down a ' legion • of speculators. There was a report yesterday that Mobile had surrendered at discretion.. There was another rumor that- commissioners had arrived and been received at AVashington to treat on the peace- with-separate Stated base. Both, thes.e rumors were presumably' bogus; but the public, already elated with the Shenandoah successes, eagerly . caught at them. G-old went thundering down, by five and by ten per cent, at a time. The ' permanent fall of gold from its inflated and : factitious premium would •be of course a great national benefit, and would ,in the end conduce "to the comfort of a sorely, pinched population. and the rehabilitation of a thoroughly demoralised trade ; it remains to be seen whether this thorough and wholesale declension in price is not as artificial and substantial* a revulsion as' the unnatural bolstering up of tho rate which preceded it. The golden mean has has yet to be found. It js just probable! that ere the end of the week, • gold may ; sink to a hundred and seventy,'or even to; a hundred and fifty ; but I have heard of a heavy bet made yesterday,' in the full tide of decline, by oneof the most acute" business men of New York, -that it would reach three hundred- , before it touched a | hundred and forty, and if I made bets I should feel inclined to back him. At "Washington the fall in the "money market' seems to have been productive of a feeling very nearly akin to consternation. ' It is generally and vaguely felt that the diminution of the premium, and "the consequent enhancement in the value of the greenback, is clue to the increased confidence felt by the Northern community in the success „of their caxise ; but it is likewise ascribed to tho fact that immense quantities of currency — seventy-three millions of dollars, it is said — have • been lately withdrawn to pay the armies in the field, while the heavy payments for taxes have also had their- effect in reducing the amount of greenbacks afloat.- Notice is also taken of the fact that the Government laid in the major portion ■ of . its military supplies in August last, when gold 'was at two fifty, and more, and prices were at the highest point. Tne contractors and shoddy people have thus made rather a big thing out of the Treasury by supplying them with- pork, \ beef, colfee, sugar, beans, and forage at a^ \ famine tariff, and those. who,, havje, been' wise enough not to part with their certificates of indebtedness at a ruinous discount, or have .banked their greenbacks, or invested them in the purchase of diamonds or real estate,"may rub their hands over the fall in gold. A. very different i fate, however, has overtaken those 'who

have to „ speculate with'" their capital, and who haVe - large' stocks ;of goods "on hand, y^her collapse of the gold bubble has produced awful confusion in " the street." Moderate importers, dealers who have been^buying'.on'aM/ margin" 'at the high rates of July, and August, find themselves called uppn^to " plank down" the amount of their indebtedness, while the- price of the produce 1 which they are compelled to turn, into cash is depreciated to from eighty to one hundred per cent. The .consequence was, that thq,vProduce Exchange was all day yesterday a scene of the direst havoc and ruin ; that the speculators were smashing right and left, and will continue, it may be surmised, so, to smash for- many days to come. The public at large meanwhile-- :llio honest, non-speculating, cash-paying public — do not, derive one cent , profit , from the fall. The retail shopkeepers plead "ilucfq (ion," and say they must" dispose of thd stork they have on . hand before they can aiako 'any difference in their prices. Coyrose lately to three dollars a pair. "< -^y were ab a dollar and eighty cents wVbtt i came here ; but they are far more likely to advance than to recede in their q\ . tations.'" For things to return to anythi ■ like rational and normal prices, anoll' financial crash, and one far different frc. the bulls' and bears' tempest-in-a-teapo!-of' Wall-street, must take '.place.