Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1899 — Slanderer To Be Punished. [ARTICLE]

Slanderer To Be Punished.

Indications are said to be bright for one Claude McGahan, of Terre Haute, to serve a good term in one of Uncle Sam’s military prisons. He was a member of the 159th Indiana regiment, and when mustered out enlisted in the 161st. He was made company cook but was discharged for keeping filthy quarters. In revenge he wrote from Cnba for publication in, a Terre Haute paper, a scirrilous attack on the 161st, of which the following paragraphs were telegraphed to a Chicago paper: *“1 hope you will have this letter published for the sake of myself and the other boys. This is the worst regiment of the lot of Indiana regiments. I wish I had enlisted in some other or not at all. We have humpbacks and hoboes of every description, and in one company there are thirteen languages spoken. Co. L., of Michigan City, where the state prison is located, has twenty-two ex-con-victs. “We have lost six or seven men since we have been here, and yesterday counted 102 graves in one row. All the men have died of the small-pox.” The matter has been taken up by the officers of the 161st and McGahan will be tried and no doubt properly punished for his vile slanders on one of the finest regiments sent to the Spanish war by any state.