Timeline of West Virginia: Civil War and Statehood
Undated
March 1865

LT. J. W. CORE of the 6th West Virginia Cavalry, has just arrived in this city from a ten month's sojourn in southern bastiles [sic], and gives us a counterpart of the treatment asserted to be extended to prisoners at this place, by Capt. Duskey of the rebel army.

During his confinement at Macon, Columlumbia [sic], Charleston, he has witnessed the death of thousands upon thousands of our soldiers by starvation and want of care, and he himself was preserved but by a miracle. Hundreds were shot down by the guards while setting unoffendingly [sic]at the few glimmering embers of the camp fire, and such things as sheds or buildings with bunks, &c, is not known to exist for the federal prisoners in the South. No meat, no coffee, no tea, no bread; but a spare quantity of water mixed with some corn mean, is the only rations issued to our prisoners, and Lt. Core has subsisted during the nineteen months of his confinement on the scanty ration of water and meal, called by the southern chivalry "milk and mush for yankee dogs." Such is the condition of rebel prisons, and such the treatment to our brave sons. And in retaliation we treat their officers and men with civility and kindness, and subsist them with lodgings and rations which the rebel soldier in his army never received, but of which he only dreams of when standing at the last ditch.

Lt. Core is a galiant [sic] and efficient officer, and we hope to hear of his early promotion as a reward for his gallant conduct in the field and the suffering he has endured for his country's cause.

Timeline of West Virginia: Civil War and Statehood: Undated: March 1865