"I have this day been witness to one of the most brutal acts of wanton inhumanity ever perpetrated in the annals of history. Not content was this government in revenging themselves in the death of those unfortunate and perhaps misguided men, and which, it may even be said, was brought upon themselves; but these Spanish authorities deserve to be most severely chastised for their exceedingly reprehensible conduct in permitting the desecration, as they have done, of the senseless clay of our brave countrymen. This morning forty Americans, four Irish, one Scotch, one Italian, one Philippine Islander, two Habaneros and two Germans or Hungarians, were shot at 11 o'clock; after which the troops were ordered to retire and some hundreds of the violent rabble, hired for the purpose commenced mutilating the dead bodies. Oh! the very remembrance of the sight is frightful. "I never saw men--and could scarcely have supposed it possible--conduct themselves at such an awful moment with the fortitude these men displayed under such trying circumstances. They were shot, six at a time, i.e., twelve men were brought to the place of execution, six made to kneel down and receive the fire of the soldiers, after which the remaining six were made to walk around their dead comrades and kneel opposite to them, when they were also shot. They died bravely, those gallant and unfortunate young gentlemen. When the moment of execution came, many, Colonel Crittenden and Captain Victor Kerr among them, refused to kneel with their backs to the executioners. 'No,' said the chivalrous Crittenden, 'an American kneels only to his God, and always faces his enemy!' They stood up, faced their executioners, were shot down and their brains then knocked out by clubbed muskets. After being stripped and their bodies mutilated, they were shoved, six or seven together, bound as they were, into hearses, which were used last year for cholera cases. No coffins were allowed them.