"The expedition thus failed from causes which reflected neither upon the genius by which it was planned, nor upon the intrepidity and discretion of those engaged in executing it. But for the accident of meeting these trains,--which could not have been anticipated,--the movement would have been a complete success, and the whole aspect of the war in the South and the Southwest would have been at once changed. The expedition itself, in the daring of its conception, had the wildness of a romance; while in the gigantic and overwhelming results which it sought, and was likely to accomplish, it was absolutely sublime. "The twenty-two captives, when secured, were thrust into the negro jail of Chattanooga. They occupied a single room, half under ground, and but thirteen feet square, so that there was not space enough for them all to lie down together, and a part of them were, in consequence, obliged to sleep sitting and leaning against the walls. The only entrance was through a trap-door in the ceiling, that was raised twice a day to let down their scanty meals, which were lowered in a bucket. They had no other light or ventilation than that which came through two small, triple-grated windows. They were covered with swarming vermin, and the heat was so oppressive that they were often obliged to strip themselves entirely of their clothes to bear it. Add to this, they were all handcuffed, and, with trace-chains secured around their necks by padlocks, were fastened to each other in companies of twos and threes. Their food, which was doled out to them twice a day, consisted of a little flour wet with water and baked in the form of bread, and spoiled pickled beef. They had no opportunity of procuring supplies from the outside, nor had they any means of doing so,--their pockets having been rifled of their last cent by the Confederate authorities, prominent among whom was a rebel officer wearing the uniform of a major. No part of the money thus basely taken was ever returned." [The report narrates the continued sufferings of the adventurers in prison substantially as they are given in the preceding pages, and concludes:] "So they remained until a few days since, when they were exchanged; and thus, at the end of eleven months, terminated their pitiless persecutions in the prisons of the South,--persecutions begun and continued amid indignities and sufferings on their part, and atrocities on the part of their traitorous foes, which illustrate far more faithfully than any human language could express it the demoniac spirit of a revolt, every throb of whose life is a crime against the very race to which we belong. "Very respectfully, your obedient servant, "J. HOLT, "_Judge-Advocate-General_. "HON. EDWIN M. STANTON, "_Secretary of War_." No. II. A SOUTHERN ESTIMATE. The following extracts from an editorial published in the Atlanta _Southern Confederacy_ of April 15, 1862, will serve to show the intense excitement of the hour: