The Nashville Daily Union

Mutilated Dead.

We have on several occasions called attention to the fact that numbers of our gallant slain on the battle field of Chickamauga were left unburied by the brutal and barbarous rebel Bragg, whilst some of the bodies were disgustingly mutilated. Below we republish from the Cincinnati Commercial a letter on the subject, which cannot be too often brought before the public. Copperhead and rebel sympathizing newspapers maintain a significant silence touching these rebel barbarities; whilst they seek every occasion to snarl and snap at Mr. Lincoln, and every Union leader who may happen to do or say something indicating a determination to punish rebels as they deserve:

CHATTANOOGA, Dec. 2, 1863.

The stories so often published of the mutilation of our dead by the rebels have usually been looked upon as gross exaggerations, invented by correspondents for the purpose of keeping up the hatred of the people of the North against our common enemy, and inspiring them with the determination of exterminating them. I confess that I was loth to believe the tales of horror. But I am no longer skeptical; when I have the testimony of the rebel journals confirming the stories, my faith is strengthened.

A few weeks ago, the Chattanooga Marietta Rebel, referring to the field of Chickamauga, admitted that some of the heads of our soldiers lay grinning on stumps severed from their bodies, and to-day, officers, whose word will be taken anywhere in this department, bring the news that, on visiting the field on Saturday, a number of heads were displayed on stumps and poles, while the mutilated bodies lay on the ground, partially devoured by birds of prey, hogs and dogs!

A large proportion of our dead, left on the field, were found unburied, and their bones bleaching in the sun and rain. General Gross' brigade, of the 4th Army Corps, were yesterday engaged in giving interment to the slain. The sight is described as sickening in the extreme. Trunks of the slain, minus arms and legs, naked bodies, but decayod, bones, the flesh from which had been devoured by hogs, (probably, weeks since, turned into commissary stores for feeding the rebel army,) arms in one place, legs in another, partially covered, lay about the ground, while the vultures and carrion birds held high carnival over the feast of dead men, and the smell was so intense that men of the strongest nerves closed their eyes upon the scene in disgust.

After the battle of Chickamauga, Gen. Rosecrans asked permission to bury our dead, Bragg refused the request, and promised that they should have decent burial. And this is the way it has been done! The bodies of our fathers, husbands and sons, fighting in a high and holy cause, left to bleach upon the field where they so nobly fell, while their heads are hung upon poles, to gratify the depraved tastes of these Southern hell-hounds who boast of their chivalry.