The Cleveland Leader

Horrible Affair at New Orleans.

The New Orleans Delta gives the following particulars of the alleged torturing to death of a Union soldier by his officers:

Patrick Griffin, private in the 6th Massachusetts Battery, slipped from his horse while on parade, complaining that he was sick. The officers claim that he was drunk.

A squad of soldiers went after Griffin, and took him to the camp by order of Captain E. K. Russell, commanding the battery. He was tied up by the thumbs to a post, and because he did not keep still was gagged. The Lieutenant of the battery stated that he was kept thus for two hours and a half, until two and a half o'clock, P. M., and that one hour and a quarter after being taken down, at 3:45, P. M., he died. We saw him in his coffin next Tuesday morning, when he was fast decomposing. His neck was greatly swollen, and blood was oozing from his mouth and nostrils. The case was reported to General Andrews, Chief of General Canby's staff, who immediately ordered a medical investigation of the corpse. Two or three Surgeons examined the body, and reported that he died from habitual intemperance. The gag used was of hard cypress seven or eight inches long, and where it came in Griffin's mouth was gnawed to the depth of half an inch. It was deeply stained with blood. The examining surgeons say that, had it not been placed loosely in his mouth, he could not have chewed the gag in the manner he did. General Sherman is investigating the matter. Griffin was enlisted in Lowell, Massachusetts. He has a mother, and has been in the battery more than three years. His officers state that he was constantly drunk and running away from camp. He yesterday received a list of forty or fifty names of men belonging to the battery who desired to be summoned as witnesses in behalf of what they termed the murder. A statement of the case was sent to Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, and another to the press.