Murder of Union Soldiers

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1867 Excerpt: ....TESTIMONY. Washington, January 20, 1867. Testimony of Major General DANIEL E. SICKLES. By the Chairman: Q You are in charge of the department of the south? A. Yes, sir; comprising the States of South Carolina and North Carolina. Q. How long have you been in charge of it? A. I was assigned to the department of South Carolina in November, 1865; that department was merged in the department of the Carolinas in May, 1866; about a month afterwards the name of the department was changed to the department of the south. It still remains so. Q. Did you organize the military commission by which Crawford Kevs and others were tried? A. I did, by an order from my headquarters. A copy of the order is, doubtless, with the record. I think that I convened the military commission some time in January, 1866, about a year ago. Q. State the circumstances under which that commission was convened. A. The offence was committed under the administration of my immediate predecessor, General Gillmore, in October, 1865. It was a case to which General Gillmore called my attention as one of great atrocity, and one which the interests of the service, in his opinion, required to be very thoroughly investigated; though the parties had been arrested, he had not obtained sufficient evidence to warrant putting them on trial. Q. You found them already arrested? A. Yes, sir. I took some further steps to get all the testimony that was possible. The delay was unavoidable, on account of the great difficulty in obtaining information in the neighborhood of this occurrence as to the parties, or anything about the matter. It is only by dint of great perseverance that we can ever get information in such cases. In many cases we are obliged to discharge the parties from utter inability to obtain informat...