In The Fair- Green Are The Round Buildings Intended For Show Cattle And Agricultural Implements, But Now Given Up To Cavalry Horses And Parrott Guns.

But Benton Barracks are outside the fair-green.

Here on an open space, some half mile in length, two long rows of wooden sheds have been built, opposite to each other, and behind them are other sheds used for stabling and cooking places. Those in front are divided, not into separate huts, but into chambers capable of containing nearly two hundred men each. They were surrounded on the inside by great wooden trays, in three tiers - and on each tray four men were supposed to sleep. I went into one or two while the crowd of soldiers was in them, but found it inexpedient to stay there long. The stench of those places was foul beyond description. Never in my life before had I been in a place so horrid to the eyes and nose as Benton Barracks. The path along the front outside was deep in mud. The whole space between the two rows of sheds was one field of mud, so slippery that the foot could not stand. Inside and outside every spot was deep in mud. The soldiers were mud-stained from foot to sole. These volunteer soldiers are in their nature dirty, as must be all men brought together in numerous bodies without special appliances for cleanliness, or control and discipline as to their personal habits. But the dirt of the men in the Benton Barracks surpassed any dirt that I had hitherto seen. Nor could it have been otherwise with them. They were surrounded by a sea of mud, and the foul hovels in which they were made to sleep and live were fetid with stench and reeking with filth. I had at this time been joined by another Englishman, and we went through this place together. When we inquired as to the health of the men, we heard the saddest tales - of three hundred men gone out of one regiment, of whole companies that had perished, of hospitals crowded with fevered patients. Measles had been the great scourge of the soldiers here - as it had also been in the army of the Potomac. I shall not soon forget my visits to Benton Barracks. It may be that our own soldiers were as badly treated in the Crimea; or that French soldiers were treated worse in their march into Russia. It may be that dirt and wretchedness, disease and listless idleness, a descent from manhood to habits lower than those of the beasts, are necessary in warfare. I have sometimes thought that it is so; but I am no military critic, and will not say. This I say - that the degradation of men to the state in which I saw the American soldiers in Benton Barracks is disgraceful to humanity.

General Halleck was at this time commanding in Missouri, and was himself stationed at St. Louis; but his active measures against the rebels were going on to the right and to the left.

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