Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1884 — A HORRIBLE STORY. [ARTICLE]

A HORRIBLE STORY.

The Suffering! of the Greely Party in the Frozen North bat Half Told, The Flesh of the Dead Eagerly Devoured by the Famishing Survivors. [New York special.] Written documents now in possession of the Navy Department at Washington add to the record of miserable human suffering, already published in connection with the finding of the Greely relief expedition, the most shocking stories of inhumanity and cannibalism. All the facto ha ve been in the possession of Secretary Chandler for nearly three weeks, but so closely have they been guarded, and so strictly have the naval officers and sailors maintained the silence imposed on them, that not even an inkling of the true and horrible condition of affairs has yet reached the public ear. The sufferings and privations of the men in their hut during the long bitter winter of 1884 have not half been told. It has been published that after game gave out early in February they lived principally on seal skins, lichens and shrimps. As a matter of fact they were kept alive on human flesh. When the rescuing party discovered the survivors, the first duty was to look to the two men who were insensible from cold and privation, even to the point of death. One of them, a German, was wild and delirious. “Oh,” he shrieked, as the sailors took hold of him to lift him tenderly, “don’t let them shoot me, as they did poor Henry. Must I be killed and eaten, as Henry was? Don’t let them do it. Don’t do it.*

The sailors were horrified, but at once reported the man’s words to Commander Schley, when the horrible reality was brought out before an investigating committee. Commander Schley instructed two or three gentlemen, among whom was Dr, Ames, the surgeon of the Bear, to make a careful examination and put their conclusions in writing. This was done, and the reports in the hands of the Navy Department. Lieut. Greely was decidedly averse to having the bodies of the buried dead disturbed, but the bodies were dug from their graves. Most of the blankets contained nothing but heaps of white bones, many of them picked clean. By inquiries Commander Schley discovered many of the seventeen men, who are said to have perished from starvation, had been eaten by their famishing comrades. It was the one last resort. It is reported that the only men who escaped the knife were three or four who died of scurvy. The amputated limbs of the men who afterward perished were eagerly devoured as food. Whether the four bodies that were swept out to sea and never recovered would have added further evidence to this story of horrible cannibalism cannot be learned now, though the papers in the possession of the Navy Department give all the particulars as told by the survivors. Charles B. Henry’s death was particularly tragic. Driven to despair by his frightful hunger, Henry saw an opportunity to steal a little more than his share of rations, and he made the attempt. He was found out and shot for his crime. In the pnblished official report, the death of this man is set down as having occurred on June 6. When the body was found his hands and face, though shrunken, were intact and recognizable, but nearly everywhere else the skin had been stripped from him, and the flesh picked from the bones. Even his heart and lungs were eaten by his comrades. The body was in this condition when it was interred last Saturday. The letter his friend, Mr. Robert S. Oberfelder. of Sidney, Neb., is daily looking for, will probably never come to light.