Page updated 05/25/2006
William Bensinger was duly sworn and examined as follows:
By the Judge Advocate:
Question. Will you state your position in the service?
Answer. I am a private in Co. G, 25th Ohio Infantry.
Question. In what part of the State did you enlist, and when, and for how long a time?
Answer. I enlisted in Hancock County, Ohio, on the 21st of August, 1861, for three years.
Question. Were you a member of this secret expedition sent out by Gen. Mitchell?
Answer. Yes, Sir.
Question. Under what circumstances did you become a member of it?
Answer. The day before we started my captain called me one side and told me that he wanted me to report to the colonel the next morning. I asked him if he knew what the colonel wanted with me. He said he supposed it was for a secret expedition, but he could not tell me what. I told him I would go, and reported to the colonel as ordered. The colonel gave me a pass and directed me to report to Mr. Andrews at Shelbyville, at a hotel there. The colonel told me I was to obey the orders of Mr. Andrews, and also told me to procure citizen's clothes, which I did. I went to Shelbyville and reported there, and on the evening of the 7th of April we left. Four of us arrived at Marietta about 4 o'clock in the afternoon on the 11th of April. As I learned afterward, the rest got there some time in the night. The next morning we took the train back, paying our fare to Big Shanty; and while they were at breakfast there we seized the train.
Question. You have heard the statements of the witnesses who have testified here in regard to the subsequent events of the expedition, and the facts connected with their confinement in the prisons of the South until you were exchanged at Richmond?
Answer. Yes, Sir.
Question. Do you consider these statements correct, and in accordance with your recollections of the facts?
Answer. I do; for I have had personal knowledge of them, and have been with these witnesses throughout the period of their confinement.
Question. Where was Gen. Mitchell's headquarters at the time this expedition set out?
Answer. It was close by the town of Shelbyville, Tennessee, and just across the river-probably forty rods from the town.
Question. Are you acquainted with Sergt. E. A. Mason of Company K, 21st Ohio regiment?
Answer. Yes, Sir.
Question. Was he with you as a member of the expedition, and with you during your confinement in the South?
Answer. He was.
Question. Where is he, and why is he not here with you to-day?
Answer. He is in the city, but confined to his room, on account of sickness.
WILLIAM BENSINGER,
Company G, 21st Ohio volunteers.
Ohio boys in Dixie: the adventures of twenty-two scouts sent by Gen. O. M. Mitchell to destroy a railroad; with a narrative of their barbarous treatment by the Rebels and Judge Holt's report, New York: Miller & Mathews,1863
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05/25/2006