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 OF THE 
 
 University of North Carolina 
 
 This book was presented by the family 
 of the late 
 
 KEMP PLUMMER BATTLE, '49 
 
 President of the University of North Carolina 
 from 1876 to yO 
 
 1/O970.T -GlSo'3 
 
' wium.piiuauilJCBii m 
 
 &s ^ILJLIAM JOWES* 
 
 OFFICIAL REPORT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 History Committee 
 
 OP THE 
 
 GRAND CAMP, C. V., 
 
 Department of Virginia. 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. GEO. L. CHRISTIAN, Chairman. 
 
 Read at Wytheville, Va., October 23rd, 1902, and 
 
 Published by Order of the Grand 
 
 Camp of Virginia. 
 
 On the Treatment and Exchange 
 of Prisoners. 
 
 HISTORY COMMITTEE: 
 
 Geo. L. Christian, Chairman; R. T. Barton, Carter R. Bis- 
 hop, R. A. Brock, Rev B. D. Tucker, John W. Daniel, James 
 Mann, R. S. B. Smith, T. H. Edwards, W. H. Hurkamp, John 
 W. Fulton, M. W. Hazelwood, Micajah Woods, Charles M. 
 Blackford. 
 
 PRESS OF B. D. SMITH & BROS., PULASKI, VA. 
 
OFFICIAL REPORT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 History Committee of the Grand Camp C. V. 
 
 DEPARTMENT OK VIRGINIA. 
 
 October 23kd, 1902. 
 
 To the Grand Gamp of Confederate Veterans of Virginia: 
 
 Your History Committee again returns its thanks to you, 
 and the public, for the very cordial way in which you have 
 shown your appreciation of its labors, as contained in its last 
 three reports. It may iuterest you to know, that whilst these 
 reports have been published and scattered broadcast over this 
 land, no attempt has been made to controvert or deny any prin- 
 ciple contended for, or fact asserted, in any of them, so far as 
 we have heard. We think we can, therefore, justly claim that 
 these things have been established : 
 
 1st. That the South did not go to war to maintain, or to per- 
 petuate, the institution of slavery. 
 
 2nd. The right of secession (the real issue of the war), and 
 that this right was first asserted at the North, and as clearly recog- 
 nized there as at the South. 
 
 3rd. That the North, and not the South, ivas the aggressor in 
 bringing on the war. 
 
 4-th. That on the part of the South the war was conducted 
 according to the principles of civilized warfare, whilst on the part 
 of the North it was conducted in the most inhuman and barbarous 
 manner. 
 
 The last of the above named was the subject of our last re- 
 port, in which we drew a contrast between the way the^war was 
 conducted on our part, and the way it was conducted by our 
 quondam enemies, which, we think, was -greatly to the credit of 
 the South. The subject of this report, the 
 
" Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners," 
 
 is really a continuation and further discussion of the contrast 
 begun in that report and a necessary sequel to that discussion. 
 The further treatment of this subject becomes most important 
 too, from the fact that our people know very little about the 
 true state of the case, whilst both during and since the war, the 
 people of the North, with the superior means at their command, 
 have denounced and maligned the South and its leaders as mur- 
 derers and assassins, and illustrated these charges by the alleged 
 inhuman and barbarous way in which they treated their prison- 
 ers during the late war: e. g., the late James G. Blaine, of Maine, 
 said on the floor of the United States Congress in 1876 : 
 
 u Mr. Davis was the author, knowingly, deliberate- 
 ly, guiltily and wilfully of the gigantic murder and 
 crime at Andersonville, and I here before God, meas- 
 uring my words, knowing their full extent and import, 
 declare, that neither the deeds of the Duke of Alva in 
 the Low Countries, nor the massacre of Saint Bartholo- 
 mew, nor the thumb-screws and engines of torture of 
 the Spanish Inquisition, begin to compare in atrocity 
 with the hideous crimes of Andersonville ; " 
 
 and he quoted and endorsed a report of a committee of the 
 Federal Congress made during the war, in which they say: 
 
 "No pen can describe, no painter sketch, no imagi- 
 nation comprehend, its fearful and unutterable iniquity. 
 It would seem that the concentrated madness of earth 
 and hell had found its final lodgment in the breasts of 
 those who had inaugurated the rebellion, and controlled 
 the policy of the Confederate Government, and that the 
 prison at Andersonville had been selected for the most 
 terrible human sacrifice which the world had ever seen." 
 
 It is true that the statement made by Mr. Blaine was denied, 
 and its falsity fully shown by both Mr. Davis and Senator Hill, 
 of Georgia; and the report of the Committee of the Federal 
 Congress, and an equally slanderous and partisan publication 
 entitled . " Narration of Sufferings in Bebel Military Prisons" 
 (with hideous looking skeleton illustrations of alleged victims), 
 issued by the United States Sanitary Commission in 1864, were 
 fully answered by a counter report of a committee of the Con- 
 federate Congress. And it is also true that in 1876, the Bev N 
 
John Wm. Jones, D. D., who was then editing the Southern 
 Historical Society Papers, made a full and masterly investigation 
 and report on this subject, vindicating the South and its leaders 
 from these aspersions (for which work, as said in our last report, 
 the Southern people owe Dr. Jones a lasting debt of gratitude). 
 (The letter of Mr. Davis, the report of the Committee of the 
 Confederate Congress, with other valuable material collected by 
 Dr. Jones, are all published in the first volume of the Southern 
 Historical Papers, and also in a separate volume. ) But whilst 
 these publications were most satisfactory to us at the time, they, 
 necessarily, did not contain the contemporaneous correspondence 
 in reference to the exchange and treatment of prisoners, con- 
 tained in the publication known as "Kebellion Official Beoords," 
 published by the Federal Government since that time — a corre- 
 spondence invaluable, as it makes the representatives of the two 
 Governments, at the time, tell, in their own way, the true story 
 of these events. It is from these letters and other contemporane- 
 ous orders and papers, that we propose to show ivhich side was 
 responsible for Anderson ville, Salisbury, "The Libby," and 
 u Belle Isle," in the South, and for Camp Douglas, Gratiot 
 Street, Fort Delaware, Johnson's Island, Elmira, Point Lookout, 
 and other like places in the North. In doing this we do not 
 think it either necessary or proper to revive the tales of horror 
 and misery contained in many of the personal recitals of the 
 captives on either side, such as are collected in the works of Dr. 
 Jones, the "Sanitary Commission," and others. Many of these 
 are simply heart-sickening and disgusting; and, making allow- 
 ances for all exaggerations necessarily incident to the surround- 
 ings of the writers, there is enough in them to convince any 
 candid reader that there were cruelties and abuses inflicted on 
 helpless prisoners, by petty officers and guards, that should 
 never have been inflicted, and which we hope the higher officers 
 of neither Government would have permitted or tolerated for a 
 moment. 
 
 But what we are concerned about is, to show by these 
 " official records " that neither Mr. Davis, nor any Department 
 or representative of the Confederate Government, was responsible 
 for the establishment of these prisons, and the sufferings therein, 
 as heretofore charged by our enemies, and that the Federal Govern- 
 ment, through Edwin M. Stanton, II. W. Balleck and U. S, Grant 
 
as its representative actors, ivas directly and solely responsible for 
 the establishment of these places, and consequently for all the suffer- 
 ings and death which occurred therein. 
 
 The reports and correspondence relative to the exchange 
 and treatment of prisoners fill four of the large volumes of the 
 "Rebellion Records," and whilst we have striven to tell the full 
 story, or, rather, to omit nothing essential to the truth, it is 
 simply impossible, within the limits of this report, to do more 
 than call attention to some of the most important and salient 
 features of the correspondence, etc., and only to an extent 
 necessary to disclose the real conditions at the several dates 
 referred to. This is all that we have attempted to do, but we 
 have tried to do this faithfully. 
 
 The Policy of the Confederate Government as Shown 
 by Acts of Congress, etc. 
 
 To show the declared purpose and policy of the Confederate 
 Government towards the prisoners of war from the beginning : 
 As early as May 21st, 1861, two months before the first battle of 
 Manassas, the Confederate Congress passed an act providing 
 that — 
 
 u All prisoners of war taken, whether on land or at 
 sea, d uring the pending hostilities with the United States, 
 shall be transferred by the captors from time to time, 
 and as often as convenient, to the Department of War; 
 and it shall be the duty of the Secretary of War, with 
 the approval of the President, to issue such instructions 
 to the Quartermaster-General, and his subordinates, as 
 shall provide for the safe custody and sustenance of 
 prisoners of war; and that rations furnished 'prisoners of 
 war shall be the same in quantity and quality as those 
 furnished to enlisted men in the Army of the Confederacy." 
 
 By an Act of February, 1864, the Quartermaster- General 
 was relieved of this duty, and the Commisary-General of Sub- 
 sistence was ordered to provide for the sustenance of prisoners 
 of war, and according to General Orders No. 159, Adjutant 
 Inspector General's Office, it was provided that " Hospitals for 
 prisoners of war are placed on the same footing as other Confederate 
 States Hospitals in all respects, and will be managed accordingly J '' 
 
General Lee's Orders. 
 
 General Lee, in his testimony before the Reconstruction 
 Committee of Congress, says of the treatment of prisoners on 
 the field : 
 
 "The orders always were, that the whole field should 
 be treated alike. Parties were sent out to take the 
 Federal wounded, as well as the Confederate, and the 
 surgeons were told to treat the one as they did the other. 
 These orders given by me were respected on every field." 
 
 And there is nothing in all the records, so far as we can 
 find, which indicates that any Department of the Confederate 
 Government, or any representative of any such Department, 
 failed to carry out these provisions of the law, and these orders, 
 as far as they were able to do so. Of course, there were times 
 when, by reason of insufficient transportation, and insufficient 
 supplies of food and clothing of all kinds, it was simply impos- 
 sible to get proper supplies and in sufficient quantities to prevent 
 great suffering among the prisoners in Southern prisons. But 
 this was equally true of the Confederate soldiers in the field, and 
 the assertion on page 68 of the before-referred-to publication by 
 the Northern Sanitary Commission, headed by Dr. Valentine 
 Mott, shows its partisanry and worthlessness as history, when it 
 charges the Confederate authorities with "deliberately withhold- 
 ing necessary food from their prisoners of war, and furnishing 
 them with what was indigestible and loathsome, when their own 
 army was abundantly supplied with good and wholesome food; " 
 * * * "of depriving their prisoners of their own cloth- 
 ing, and also of withholding the issue of sufficient to keep them 
 warm when the soldiers of their own army were well equipped 
 and well protected from exposure to the wet and cold." The 
 world now knows, that at the very time when these false charges 
 were being formulated, the Confederate soldiers in the field were 
 almost naked and starving, and that nearly ninety per cent, of 
 the rest of their equipment had been captured from their 
 enemy in battle. 
 
 Exchange of Prisoners. 
 
 From the very beginning, the Confederate authorities were 
 anxious to make an arrangement for the exchange of prisoners, 
 
6 
 
 • and indeed that the war should be conducted in all of its features 
 on the highest and most humane plane known to civilized nations. 
 To that end Mr. Davis wrote Mr. Lincoln on July 6th, 1861, as 
 follows : 
 
 "It is the desire of this Government so to conduct the 
 war now existing, as to mitigate its horrors as far as 
 may be possible; and with this intent, its treatment of the 
 prisoners captured by its forces has been marked by 
 the greatest humanity and leniency consistent with pub- 
 lic obligation. Some have been permitted to return 
 home on parole, others to remain at large under similar 
 conditions, within this Confederacy, and all have been 
 furnished with rations for their subsistence, such as are 
 allowed to our own troops." 
 
 This letter was sent to Washington by a special messenger 
 (Col. Taylor); but he was refused an audience with Mr. Lincoln, 
 and was forced to content himself with a verbal reply from 
 General Scott to the effect that the letter had been delivered to 
 Mr. Lincoln, and that he would reply to it in writing a,s soon as 
 possible. But no answer ever came. 
 
 For nearly a year after the war began, although many pris- 
 oners were captured and released on parole, on both sides, the 
 Federal authorities refused to enter into any arrangement for the 
 exchange of prisoners, taking the absurd position that they 
 would not treat with "rebels" in any way which would recog- 
 nize them as "belligerents." The English government had 
 already recognized us as "belligerents" as early as May, 1861. 
 As the Earl of Derby tersely said in the House of Lords : 
 
 "The Northern states could not claim the rights of 
 belligerents for themselves, and, on the other hand, deal 
 with other parties, not as belligerents, but as rebels." 
 
 After awhile the pressure on the Federal authorities by 
 friends of the prisoners was so great that they were induced to 
 agree to a cartel for the exchange of prisoners on the very basis 
 offered by the Confederates in the beginning. These negotia- 
 tions were commenced on the 14th of February, 1862, Gen. John 
 E. Wool representing the Federals and Gen. Howell Cobb the 
 Confederates, the only unsettled point at that time being that 
 General Wool was unwilling that each party should agree to pay 
 the expenses of transporting their prisoners to the frontier; and 
 
this he promised to refer to his Government. At a second inter- 
 view on March 1st, 1862, General Wool informed General Cobb 
 that his Government would not consent to pay these expenses, 
 and thereupon General Cobb promptly receded from this demand 
 and agreed to accept the terms offered by General Wool. Gene- 
 ral Wool had stated in the beginning that he alone toas clothed 
 with full power to effect this arrangement, but he now stated that 
 his Government " had changed his instructions." And so these 
 negotiations were broken off, and matters left as before they 
 were begun. 
 
 The real reason for this change was that in the meantime the 
 capture of Forts Henry and Donaldson had given the Federals 
 a preponderance in the number of prisoners. Soon, however, 
 Jackson's valley campaign, the battles around Eichmond, and 
 other Confederate successes, gave the Confederates the prepon- 
 derance, and this change of conditions induced the Federals to 
 consent to terms, to which the Confederates had always been 
 ready to accede. 
 
 And so on July 22nd, 1862, Gen. John A. Dix, representing 
 the Federals, and Gen. D. H. Hill, the Confederates, at Haxall's 
 Landing, on James river, in Charles City county, entered into 
 the cartel which thereafter formed the basis for the exchange of 
 prisoners during the rest of the war whenever it was allowed by 
 the Federals to be in operation. Article four of this cartel pro- 
 vided as follows : 
 
 " All prisoners of war, to be discharged on parole, in 
 ten days after the capture, and the prisoners now held 
 and those hereafter taken, to be transferred to the points 
 mutually agreed upon, at the expense of the capturing 
 party. ' ' 
 
 Article six provided that — 
 
 "The stipulations and provisions above mentioned 
 are to be of binding obligation during the continuance 
 of the war, it matters not which party may have the 
 surplus of prisoners." * * * * " That all prison- 
 ers, of whatever arm of the service, are to be exchanged 
 or paroled in ten days from the time of their capture, 
 if it be practicable to transfer them to their own lines 
 in that time; if not, as soon thereafter as practicable." 
 
 Article nine provided that — 
 
"In case any misunderstanding shall arise in regard 
 to any clause or stipulation in the foregoing articles, it 
 is mutually agreed, that such misunderstanding shall 
 not iuterrupt the release of prisoners on parole, as 
 herein provided; but shall be made the subject of friend- 
 ly explanation, in order that the object of this agree- 
 ment may neither be defeated nor postponed." 
 
 It is readily seen that both General Dix and General Hill 
 acted with the utmost good faith in the formation of this cartel, 
 with a common purpose in view, to the carrying out of which 
 each pledged the good faith of his Government; and in Article 
 9 they made ample provision to prevent any cessation in the 
 work of exchanging promptly all prisoners captured during the 
 war. And we now propose to show that this would have been 
 the case but for the bad faith and bad conduct of the represent- 
 atives of the Federal Government. 
 
 As was contemplated by the cartel, each of the two Govern- 
 ments appointed its Commissioners of Exchange to carry it into 
 execution. On the part of the Federals, Major General E. A. 
 Hitchcock was appointed, with two assistants, Col. Wm. H. 
 Ludlow, and Captain (afterward Brigadier-General) John E. 
 Mulford, as assistants. On the part of the Confederates, the late 
 Judge Robert Ould, of the Richmond (Va.) Bar, was the sole 
 representative. The writer had the privilege of knowing both 
 General Mulford and Judge Ould well, and, in his opinion, no 
 better selections could have been made by their respective Gov- 
 ernments. Judge Ould was a mau of splendid judicial bearing, 
 singular honesty of purpose and kindness of heart, with capacity 
 both in speaking and in writing, to represent his Government 
 with unsurpassed ability. General Mulford was a man of fair 
 abilities, and of great kindness of heart. Of General Hitchcock 
 and Colonel Ludlow, he can only speak from what they disclose 
 of their characteristics in their letters. General Hitchcock ex- 
 hibits a profound distrust of what he terms the " rebel " authori- 
 ties in all of his letters, and frequently displays a temper and 
 impatience, seemingly, not warranted by the surrounding cir- 
 cumstances. Colonel Ludlow, at times, exhibits great fairness; 
 at other times, manifests unfairness, but always displays shrewd- 
 ness and ability. 
 
 There is abundant evidence in these records to show that 
 the true reason why Mr. Lincoln did not reply to Mr. Davis' let- 
 
ter of July 6th, 1861, hereinbefore quoted, was that he and the 
 other authorities at Washington did not intend from the 
 beginning to conduct the war, in any of its features, according 
 to the recognized principles of civilized warfare, although they 
 had adopted the rules of Dr. Leiber apparently for this purpose, 
 as the law to govern the conduct of their armies in the field. As 
 conclusive evidence of this, it was shown in our last report that 
 on the very day of the date of the cartel, the Federal Secretary 
 of War, by order of Mr. Lincoln, issued an order to the Military 
 Commanders in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, 
 Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, directing 
 them to seize and use any property belonging to citizens of the 
 Confederacy which might be " necessary or convenient for their 
 several commands," without making any provision for compen- 
 sation therefor. About the same time, and, doubtless, by the 
 same authority, Generals Pope and Steinwehr issued their infam- 
 ous orders, also referred to in our last report. All of these orders 
 were so contrary to all the rules of civilized warfare, and espe- 
 cially to those adopted by the Federal authorities themselves, 
 that on August 1st, 1862 (just ten. days from the date of the 
 cartel), the Confederate authorities were driven to the necessity 
 of issuing an order declaring, among other things, that Pope 
 and Steinwehr and the commissioned officers of their commands, 
 11 had chosen for themselves (to use General Lee's words) the 
 position of robbers and murderers, and not that of public enemies, 
 entitled, if captured, to be treated as prisoners of war,." Later 
 on, in the fall of that year, came the barbarous orders and con- 
 duct of Generals Milroy, Butler and Hunter, which led to the 
 proclamations of outlawry against these officers, and directing 
 that they and their commissioned officers should not be treated, 
 if captured, as prisoners of war, and, therefore, should not be 
 exchanged, but kept in confinement. 
 
 In September, 1862, Mr. Lincoln's emancipation proclama- 
 tion was issued, to take effect January 1st following, which 
 caused Mr. Davis to issue another proclamation on December 
 23rd, 1862, directing that any Federal officer who should be 
 arrested whilst either enrolling, or in command of negroes, who 
 were slaves, should be turned over to the authorities of the sev- 
 eral states in which the offenses were committed, and punished 
 for the crime of inciting servile insurrection. These several 
 
10 
 
 proclamations of Mr. Davis created considerable uneasiness 
 among the Federal authorities, and furnished the very pretext 
 for whicli they were doubtless longing, for either violating, or 
 suspending, the terms of the cartel. And so on January 16th, 
 1863, we find Colonel Ludlow writing to his superior, General 
 Hitchcock, as follows : 
 
 11 1 have the honor to enclose to you a copy of the 
 Eicnmond L'nquirer, containing Jeff. Davis' message. 
 His determination, avowed in most irsolent terms, to 
 deliver to the several state authorities all commissioned 
 officers of the United States that may hereafter be cap- 
 tured, will, I think, be persevered in. You will remem- 
 ber that after the proclamation of Jeff. Davis, of Dec. 
 23rd, 1862, I urgently advised another interview (the 
 last one I had with Mr. Ould, and in which very 
 important exchanges were declared). I then did so 
 anticipating that the cartel might be broken, and wish- 
 ing to make sure of the discharge from their parole of 
 10,000 of our men. This was effected, and in a manner 
 so advantageous to our Government that we gained in 
 the count of 20,000 exchanged, about 7,000 men. I had 
 almost equally good success in the exchange declared on 
 November 11th, 1862. If an open rupture should now 
 occur, in the execution of the cartel, we are well pre- 
 pared for it. I am endeavoring to get away from the 
 Confederate prisons all our officers captured previously 
 to the date of the message of Jeff. Davis (the 12th 
 instant), with what success I shall know early next 
 week." 
 
 (See Series II., Vol. V., Eeb., Eec. Serial 118, p. 181.) 
 
 This transaction, of which we find Col. Ludlow thus boast- 
 ing to his superior, will surely be sufficient to establish his repu- 
 tation for shrewdness as a trader, or exchanger. So flagrant had 
 been the violations of the cartel and the abuses committed by 
 the Federals in pretending to carry it out, (some of which are 
 confessed, as we have just seen, by Col. Ludlow), that on Janu- 
 ary 17th, 1863, Judge Ould w r rote Col. Ludlow, complaining in 
 the strongest terms, and stating that if he (Col. Ludlow) had 
 any Confederate officer in his possession, or on parole, he would 
 be exchanged for his equivalent. But that beyond that, he 
 would not, and could not, parole commissioned officers then, in 
 his possession, but would continue to parole non-commis&\0ined N 
 officers and privates. He said : 
 
11 
 
 "This course has been forced on the Confederate 
 Government, not only by the refusal of the authorities 
 of the United States to respond to the repeated applica- 
 tions of this Government in relation to the execution of 
 Munford, but by their persistence in retaining Confede- 
 rate officers who were entitled to parole and exchange. ' ' 
 
 He said: 
 
 "You have now, of captures that are by no means 
 recent, many officers of the Confederate service, who 
 are retained in your military prisons East and West. 
 Applications have been made for the release of same 
 without success, and others have been kept in confine- 
 ment so long as to justify the conclusion that you refuse 
 both to parole and exchange." Id., pp. 186-7. 
 
 Judge Ould then called Col. Ludlow's attention to several 
 instances of these abuses and mistakes, and asked that they be 
 corrected. In his letter of January 25th, 1863, he says : 
 
 "If any injustice has been done to you by our agree- 
 ment, about reducing officers to privates, or in any 
 other subject matter, I will promptl y redress it." * * 
 "There must be many officers in your and our pos- 
 session who, by our agreement, made at the last 
 interview, were declared exchanged. Such certainly 
 ought to be mutually delivered up. The excess is on 
 our side, but I will stand it because I have agreed to it. 
 E must, however, insist upon the immediate delivery of 
 such of our officers as are included in the agreement." 
 P. 213. 
 
 On December 30th, 1862, the following order was issued by 
 Gen. H. W. Halleck, signing himself as "Gen'1-in-Chief : " 
 
 "No officers, prisoners of war, will be released on 
 parole till further orders." Id., p. 248. 
 
 This, he said, was done in consequence of the course then 
 being pursued by the Confederate authorities. But notwith- 
 standing this order, and this action of the Confederate authori- 
 ties here complained of, exchanges seem to have gone on, the 
 Commissioner on either side constantly complaining that his 
 adversary had broken the cartel. And on April 11th, 1863, we 
 find Judge Ould again writing Colonel Ludlow, saying : 
 
 "I am very much surprised at your refusal to deliver 
 officers for those of your own, who have been captured, 
 paroled and released by us since the date of the procla- 
 
12 
 
 Hiation and message of President Davis. The refusal 
 is not only a flagrant breach of the cartel, but can be 
 supported on no rule of reciprocity or equity." * * 
 ' ' You have charged us with breaking the cartel. With 
 what sort of justice can that allegation be supported, 
 when you delivered only a few days ago over ninety 
 officers, most of whom had been forced to languish and 
 suffer in prison for months before we were compelled, 
 by that and other reasons, to issue the retaliatory order 
 of which you complain ? Those ninety-odd are not half 
 of those whom you unjustly held in prison. On the 
 other hand, I defy you to name the ease of one who is 
 confined by us, whom our Government has declared ex- 
 changed. Is it your idea that we are to be bound by 
 every strictness of the cartel, while you are at liberty 
 to violate it for months, and that, too, not only in a few 
 cases, but hundreds'?" * * * " If captivity, priva- 
 tion and misery are to be the fate of officers on both 
 sides hereafter, let God judge between us. I have 
 struggled in this matter as if it had been a matter of 
 life and death to me. I am heart-sick at the termina- 
 tion, but I have no self reproaches." Id., p. 469. 
 
 In Ludlow's reply to this letter, he simply says Judge Ould 
 was mistaken in his charges and complaints, but he did not suc- 
 ceed in pointing out one single instance in which Judge Ould 
 was in error. 
 
 Notwithstanding all these charges and counter charges, ex- 
 changes still went on, and so we find Colonel Ludlow reporting 
 to Secretary Stanton on May 5th, 1863, as follows : 
 
 "I have just returned from City Point, and have 
 brought with me all my officers who have been held by 
 the Confederates, and whom I send to City Point to- 
 night. I have made the following declarations of ex- 
 changes: 
 
 (1) "All officers and enlisted men, and all persons, 
 whatever may have been their classification or char- 
 acter, who have been delivered at City Point up to the 
 6th of May, 1863. 
 
 (2) ''All officers who have been captured and re- 
 leased on parole up to April 1st, 1863, wherever they 
 may have been captured." * * * Id., p. 559. 
 See, also, p. 564. 
 
 It seems that the Confederate Congress had refused to sus- 
 tain Mr. Davis, in his suggested retaliatory measures about the 
 treatment of officers to the extent he had recommended, and so, 
 
13 
 
 exchanges went on with the result as just above reported, up to 
 May 6th, 1863, and with but few, if any, complaints against the 
 Confederates of ill treatment to prisoners to that time. But how 
 does the case stand, iu this respect, at this time, with the Fed- 
 erals? We have only space here for two quotations to show this, 
 and both of these are from their own witnesses, and it would 
 seem that these would offset "Anderson ville, " "The Libby," or 
 any other place this side of the infernal regions. 
 
 On February 9th, 1862, Judge Ould wrote Col. Ludlow: 
 
 "I see from your own papers, that some dozen of our 
 men captured at Arkansas Pass were allowed to freeze 
 to death in one night at Camp Douglas. I appeal to 
 our common instincts, against such atrocious inhu- 
 manity." Id., p. 257. 
 
 We find no denial of this charge. On May 10th, 1863, Dr. 
 Wm. H. Van Buren, of New York, on behalf of the United 
 States "Sanitary Commission," reported to the Secretary of 
 War the condition of the hospitals of the prisoners at Camp 
 Douglas, near Chicago, and Gratiot street, St. Louis. In this 
 report he incorporates the statements of Drs. Hun and Cogswell, 
 of Albany, 1ST. Y., who had been employed by the Sanitary Com- 
 mission to inspect hospitals, and Dr. Van Buren commends these 
 gentlemen as men of high character and eminent fitness for the 
 work to which they had been assigned. It is from the statement 
 of these Northern gentlemen that we quote. They caption their 
 report from Albany April 5th, 1863, and say, among other 
 things, as follows: 
 
 "In our experience, we have never witnessed so 
 painful a spectacle as that presented by these wretched 
 inmates; without change of clothing, covered with ver- 
 min, they lie in cots, without mattresses, or with 
 mattresses furnished by private charity, without sheets 
 or bedding of any kind, except blankets, often in rags; 
 in wards reeking with filth and foul air. The stench is 
 most offensive. We carefully avoid all exaggeration of 
 statement, but we give some facts which speak for them- 
 selves. From January 27th, 1863, when the prisoners 
 (in number about 3,800) arrived at Camp Douglas, to 
 February 18th, the day of our visit, 385 patients have 
 been admitted to the hospitals, of whom 130 have died. 
 This mortality of 33 per cent, does not express the 
 whole truth, for of the 148 patients then remaining in 
 
14 
 
 the hospital a large number must have since died. 
 Besides this, 130 prisoners have died in barracks, not 
 having been able to gain admission even to the misera- 
 ble accommodations of the hospital, and at the time of 
 our visit 150 persons were sick in barracks waiting for 
 room in hospital. Thus it will be seen that 260 out of 
 the 3,800 prisoners had died in twenty-one days, a rate 
 of mortality which, if continued, would secure their 
 total extermination in about 320 days." 
 
 Then they go on to describe the conditions at St. Louis, 
 showing them to be even worse than at Chicago, aud after stating 
 that the conditions of these prisons are " discreditable to a 
 Christian people," they add : 
 
 "It surely is not the intention of our Government to 
 place these prisoners in a position which will secure 
 their extermination by pestilence in less than a year.'-' 
 See, also, report of U. S. Surgeon A. M. Clark, Series 
 IL, Vol. VI., p. 371. See, also, Id., p. 113. 
 
 Is it not a little surprising, that when the representatives of 
 this same "Sanitary Commission" published their savage and 
 partisan report in September, 1864, as to the way their 
 prisoners were being treated in Southern prisons, which report 
 they had adorned with pictures of skeletons alleged to have come 
 from our prison hospitals, they did not make some allusion to 
 the condition of things as found by them in their own hospitals'? 
 
 But as further evidence of violations of the cartel, it will 
 be seen that on May 13th, 1863, Judge Ould wrote to Col. Lud- 
 low again calling his attention the "large number of our officers 
 captured long since and still held by them"; threatened retalia- 
 tion if the unjust and harsh course then pursued by the Federals 
 towards our officers was persevered in; and concluded as follows : 
 
 "Nothing is now left as to those whom our protests 
 have failed to release, but to resort to retaliation. The 
 Confederate Government is anxious to avoid a resort to 
 that harsh measure. In its name I make a final appeal 
 for that justice to our imprisoned officers and men tohich 
 your own agreements hove declared to be their due." 
 Id., p. 607. 
 
 Again, on the next day, he wrote, naming several of Mosby's 
 men who had been carried to the Old Capitol prison. He then 
 said : 
 
15 
 
 "They are retained under the allegation that they are 
 bushwhackers and guerillas. Mosby's command is in 
 the Confederate service, in every sense of the term. 
 He is regularly commissioned, and his force is as 
 strictly Confederate as any in our army. Why is this 
 done? This day 1 have cleaned every prison in my 
 control as far as I know. If there is any detention 
 anywhere, let me know and I will rectify it. I am 
 compelled to, complain of this thing in almost every 
 communication. You will not deem me passionate when 
 I assure you it will not be endured any longer. If 
 these men are not delivered, a stern retaliation will be 
 made immediately." Id., p. 632. 
 
 And again on the 22nd of May, 1863, he wrote, saying : 
 
 "You are well aware, that for the last six months I 
 have been presenting to you lists of Confederate officers 
 and soldiers and Confederate citizens, who have de- 
 tained by your authorities in their prisons. Some of 
 these, on my remonstance, have been released and sent 
 to us, but by far the greater number remain in cap- 
 tivity." 
 
 He then tells Colonel Ludlow, that he is satisfied that he (Ludlow) 
 has tried to have these prisoners released, but without avail, 
 and then tells him again that the Confederates were compelled 
 to notify him that they must resort to retaliation ; but telling 
 him further that he will be notified of each case in which this 
 course is pursued. 
 
 On the same day he wrote another letter calling Ludlow's 
 attention to the report that Captains McGraw and Corbin had 
 been tried and sentenced to be shot for recruiting for the Con- 
 federates in Kentucky, and saying that if these men were 
 executed the Confederate authorities had selected two captains 
 for execution in retaliation; and he concludes this letter with 
 this significant language : 
 
 "In view of the awful vortex into which things are 
 plunging, I give you notice, that in the event of the ex- 
 ecution of these persons, retaliation to an equal extent 
 at least, will be visited upon your own officers, and if 
 that is found ineffectual the number will be increased. 
 The Great Ruler of Nations must judge who is respon- 
 sible for the initiation of this chapter of horrors." 
 Id., p. 690-1. 
 
 In a letter of January 5th, 1863, Judge Ould wrote : 
 
16 
 
 "Nothing is nearer my heart than to prevent on either 
 side a resort to retaliation. Even if made necessary by 
 course of events, it is much to be deplored. These are 
 not only my own personal views, but those of my 
 Government." 
 
 It is almost unnecessary to say that, of course, these com- 
 plaints and threats and appeals, would not have been made, at 
 the time, and in the manner they were made, had not just cause 
 existed therefor, and that the Federal authorities were solely 
 responsible for the condition of affairs then existing. (See another 
 letter of the same date on the same page as to political prisoners. ) 
 
 This being the condition of things, on May 25th, 1863, the 
 following order was issued by the Federals: 
 
 "War Department, Washington, D C, May 25, 18o3. 
 
 "General Scliofield: 
 
 u 1$q Confederate officer will be paroled or exchanged 
 till further orders. They will be kept in close confine- 
 ment, and be strongly guarded. Those already paroled 
 will be confined. 
 
 "H. W. Halleck, 
 
 General-in-Chief. ' ' 
 
 And similar orders were sent to all commanders of Federal 
 forces throughout the country. Id., p. 696. See, also, pp. 
 706-7, 722. 
 
 It is surely unnecessary then, after reading these letters, and 
 this order, to say which side was responsible for violations of 
 the cartel while it remained in operation, and for the suspension 
 of its operations, as well as for the first maltreatment of prisoners. 
 
 With the exception of exchanges in individual cases, this 
 suspension of the cartel continued. So that, on July 2nd, 1863, 
 Mr. Davis addressed a letter to Mr. Lincoln (which we have 
 never seen before), in which he said, among other things, after 
 referring to the differences that had arisen between the Commis- 
 sioners in carrying out the cartel, and the hardships incurred by 
 reason of its suspension— as follows: 
 
 "I believe I have just ground of complaint against 
 the officers and forces under your command, for breach of 
 trust of the cartel, and being myself ready to execute it 
 at all times, and in good faith, I am not justified in 
 doubting the existence of the same disposition on your 
 part. In addition to this matter, I have to complain 
 
17 
 
 of the conduct of your officers and troops in many parts 
 of the country, who violate all the rules of war by 
 carrying on hostilities, not only against armed foes, but 
 against non-combatants, aged men, women and children, 
 while others not only seize such property as is required 
 for the use of your troops, but destroy all private pro- 
 perty within their reach, even agricultural implements, 
 and openly avow the purpose of seeking to subdue the 
 population of the districts where they are operating by 
 starvation that must result from the destruction of 
 standing crops and agricultural tools. Still again 
 
 others of your officers in different districts have recently 
 taken the lives of prisoners who fell into their power, 
 and justify their act by asserting a right to treat as 
 spies the military officers aud enlisted men under my 
 command who may penetrate into States recognized by 
 us as our allies in the warfare now waged against the 
 United States, but claimed by the latter as having re- 
 fused to engage in such warfare. I have therefore on 
 different occasions been forced to make complaints of 
 these outrages, and to ask from you, that you either 
 avow or disclaim having authorized them, and have 
 failed to obtain such answer as the usages of civilized 
 warfare require to be given in such cases. These 
 usages justify and indeed require redress by retaliation 
 as the proper means of repressing such cruelties as are 
 not permitted in warfare between Christian peoples. I 
 have notwithstanding refrained from the exercise of 
 such retaliation because of its obvious tendency to lead 
 to war of indiscriminate massacre on both sides, which 
 would be a spectacle so shocking to humanity, and so 
 disgraceful to the age in which we live, and the religion 
 we profess, that I cannot contemplate it without a feel- 
 ing of horror that I am disinclined to doubt you would 
 share. With the view then of making our last solemn 
 attempt to avert such calamities, and to attest my earn- 
 est desire to prevent them, if possible, I have selected 
 the bearer of this letter, the Hon. Alexander H. Steph- 
 ens, as a Military Commissioner, to proceed to your 
 headquarters, under flag of truce, there to confer and 
 agree on the subjects above mentioned; and I do hereby 
 authorize the said Alexander H. Stephens to arrange and 
 settle all differences and disputes, which have arisen, or 
 may arise in the execution of the cartel for exchange of 
 prisoners of war, heretofore agreed on between our re- 
 spective land and naval forces; also to prevent further 
 misunderstandings, as to the terms of said cartel, and 
 finally to enter into such arrangement and understand- 
 
18 
 
 ing about the mode of carrying on hostilities between 
 the belligerents as shall confine the severities of the war 
 within such limits as are rightfully imposed, not only 
 by modern civilization, but by our common Christian- 
 ity." Eeb. Bee., Series II. , Vol. VI., p. 75-6. 
 
 On the 4th of July, 1863, Mr. Stephens, accompanied by 
 Judge Ould, took the foregoing and proceeded down the James 
 river under flag of truce, for the purpose of delivering the letter 
 and of conferring with Mr. Lincoln. They were stopped by the 
 blockading squadron, under the command of Acting Rear Ad- 
 miral S. P. Lee, near Newport News, and Mr. Stephens then 
 communicated to Admiral Lee the nature of his mission. This 
 communication to Admiral Lee was reported to the Secretary of 
 the Navy, Mr. Gideon Wells, and by the latter to the Secretary 
 of War, Mr. Edwin M. Stanton. After Mr. Stephens had been 
 kept for two days awaiting a reply, he was informed that the 
 Secretary of War refused to permit him to proceed further on 
 the ground, that "the customary agents and channels are con- 
 sidered adequate for all needful communications and confer- 
 ences." See Mr. Stephens' report, Id., p. 94. 
 
 Between the date of Mr. Davis' letter and the 6th of July, 
 when the refusal came to allow Mr. Stephens to proceed further 
 on his attempted mission of mercy and j ustice, Gettysburg had 
 been fought, and Vicksburg had fallen, and these disasters to 
 the Confederates had not only made the Federals arrogant, but 
 had also given them for the first time since the cartel a prepon- 
 derance of prisoners, and hence from that time forward, their 
 interest and their policy was to throw every obstacle possible in 
 the way of the further exchanges of prisoners. 
 
 The foregoing letter of Mr. Davis exhibits the loftiest states- 
 manship and Christian character, and should inspire us with a 
 new desire to do honor to his memory, as well as fill us with 
 pride that we had as our civil leader, one so noble, so humane, 
 so just, and so true. 
 
 It is interesting to us to know that Mr. Davis and General 
 Lee were in full accord in their views on the question of retaliat- 
 ing on prisoners for offences committed by others. On the 13th 
 of July, 1864, Mr. Seddon, the Confederate Secretary of War, 
 wrote to General Lee calling his attention to the murder of two 
 citizens, in the Valley of Virginia, by General Hunter's orders, 
 
10 
 
 oi' by his command, suggesting that some course of retaliation 
 should be put in operation to prevent further atrocities of the 
 kind, and asking General Lee "what measure of punishment or 
 retaliation should be adopted"?" (Id., p. 164.) To this inquiry 
 General Lee replied as follows: 
 
 "I have on several occasions expressed to the Depart- 
 ment my views as to the system of retaliation, and re- 
 volting as are the circumstances attending the murder 
 of the citizens above mentioned, I can see nothing to 
 distinguish them from other outrages of a like charac- 
 ter that have from time to time been brought to the 
 attention of the Government. As I have said before, 
 if the guilty parties could be taken, either the officer 
 who commands, or the soldier who executes such atroc- 
 ities, I should not hesitate to advise the infliction of the 
 extreme punishment they deserve, but I cannot think 
 it right or politic, to make the innocent, after they 
 have surrendered as prisoners of ivar, suffer for the 
 guilty.'''' * * * 
 
 On this letter, Mr. Davis makes this endorsement : 
 
 1 'The views of General Lee I regard as just and ap- 
 propriate." 
 
 Contrast this letter and this endorsement with the treatment 
 accorded by General Sherman to prisoners, as detailed by him 
 on page 194, Vol. 2, of his Memoirs, and you will see the differ- 
 ence between the conduct of a Christian and a savage. 
 
 But we must proceed with the subject of the exchange 
 of prisoners: Some time in the summer of 1863, Gen. S. A. 
 Meredith was appointed a Federal Commissioner of Exchange, 
 and in September Judge Ould attempted to open negotiations 
 with him, for a resumption of the cartel. To this attempt by 
 letter no reply was received. He renewed these efforts on Octo- 
 ber 20th, 1863, saying— 
 
 ' 'I now propose that all officers and men on both sides 
 be released in conformity with the provisions of the 
 cartel, the excess on one side or the other, to be on 
 parole. Will you accept tins'? I have no expectation 
 of an answer, but perhaps you may give one. If it 
 does come, I hope it will be soon." Id., p. 401. 
 
 But nothing was accomplished by both of these efforts. 
 Some time in November or December, 1863, Gen. B. F. Butler 
 
20 
 
 was appointed the Federal Commissioner of Exchange. It will 
 be remembered that this man had been outlawed by the Confed- 
 erate authorities prior to this time and it was openly charged, 
 and generally believed, that this appointment was made solely 
 to make communication between the belligerents the more diffi- 
 cult by embarrassing the Confederates, and consequently to 
 throw this additional obstacle in the way of further exchange of 
 prisoners. 
 
 Immediately on taking charge, General Butler says he saw 
 Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War, and suggested that the Confed- 
 erate prisoners in their hands, should be sheltered, fed, clad and 
 otherwise treated as Federal prisoners were being treated by us; 
 and this suggestion, he says, Mr. Stanton at once assented to. 
 (See Butler's Book, p. 585.) In other words, he says, in effect, 
 that because the Confederates, in their exhaustion and poverty, 
 could not adequately supply the needs of their men in our prisons, 
 therefore, he and the Federal Secretary of War thought it right as 
 an act of revenge and retaliation, to withhold these comforts and 
 supplies from our men in their prisons when they had adequate 
 means of all kinds to supply the needs of these men. Surely 
 comment on this statement is unnecessary. 
 
 After Mr. Lincoln's emancipation proclamation went into 
 effect, as we have said, on January 1st, 1863, the Federals en- 
 rolled a large number of slaves in their armies. This greatly 
 embarrassed, as well as exasperated, the Confederates. We 
 have heretofore stated the stand proposed by Mr. Davis, and 
 recommended by him to the Confederate Congress, to turn over 
 the officers of these colored troops to the State authorities in 
 which any of them might be captured, to be tried in the courts 
 of such State for the crime of inciting servile insurrection, and 
 that Congress refused to sustain him fully in that recommenda- 
 tion. The question then arose as to exchanging Negro prisoners. 
 The Federal authorities contended that where slaves were cap- 
 tured by them, or when they deserted and came to them and 
 enlisted in their armies, they thereby became free, and should 
 be placed on the same footing with their white soldiers, in 
 respect to exchanges, as well as in all other respects. The Con- 
 federates, on the contrary, contended that whatever might be the 
 effect on the status of the slave by going to the Federals and 
 enlisting in their armies; yet should they be recaptured by the 
 
21 
 
 Confederates, that restored them to their former status as slaves, 
 and they should then be returned to their masters or put to 
 work by the Confederates, and their masters compensated for 
 their labor. In those cases where the masters did not reside in 
 the Confederacy, or could not be ascertained, such Negroes were 
 to be exchanged as other prisoners. 
 
 The letter from General Lee to General Grant, stating the 
 Confederate position on this subject, is a masterpiece, whether 
 considered from a legal, historical or statesmanlike point of 
 view. See Series II., Vol. VII., Serial No. 120, p. 1010. Gen- 
 eral Grant in his reply, seeing that he could not answer the 
 arguments of General Lee, contents himself with saying on this 
 point: — 
 
 "I have nothing to do with the discussion of the slav- 
 ery question; therefore decline answering the arguments 
 adduced to show the right to return to former owners, 
 such Negroes as are captured from our army." Id., p. 
 1018. 
 
 But to return to General Butler. He says he soon learned 
 that the Confederates were anxious to exchange the prisoners 
 held by them, and so he proposed to the Secretary of War "the 
 plan of so exchanging until we had exhausted all our prisoners 
 held by the Bebels, and as we should then have a surplus of 
 some ten thousand to hold them as hostages for our colored 
 troops, of which the Rebels held only hundreds, and to retaliate 
 on this surpnls, such wrongs as the Rebels might perpetrate on 
 our soldiers." (See Butler's Book, p. 585.) 
 
 At first Judge Ould refused to treat with General Butler at 
 all, but in order to resume the cartel, which he was anxious to 
 do, this position was soon abandoned, and so on the 30th of 
 March, 1864, he, by appointment, conferred with General But- 
 ler on the subject of resuming the exchange. As the result of 
 this interview, General Butler wrote the Secretary of War, that 
 with the exception of the question about the exchange of 
 Negroes, "all other points of difference were substantially agreed 
 upon, so that the exchange might go on readily and smoothly, man 
 for man and officer for officer of equal rank, and officers for their 
 equivalents in privates, as settled by the cartel." (Butler's 
 Book, p. 590.) Judge Ould left General Butler on 'the 31st of 
 March, with the understanding that Butler would confer with 
 
22 
 
 his Govei'imient about the points discussed, and then confer 
 further with him. 
 
 "In the meantime the exchanges of sick and wounded 
 and special exchanges were to go on." 
 
 On the first day of April, 1864, General U. S. Grant ap- 
 peared on the scene, and General Butler says: 
 
 "To him the state of the negotiations as to exchange 
 was communicated, and most emphatic verbal directions 
 were received from the Lieutenant General not to take 
 any steps by which another able bodud man should be 
 exchanged until further orders from 7m?v." Butler's 
 Book, p. 592. 
 
 And the reason assigned by General Grant for this course 
 was that, the exchange of prisoners would so strengthen General 
 Lee's army as to greatly prolong the war, and therefore it ivas 
 better that the prisoners then in confinement should remain so, no 
 matter what sufferings toould be entailed thereby. "I said," says 
 General Butler, "I doubted whether, if we stopped exchanging 
 man for man, simply on the ground that our soldiers were more 
 useful to us in Eebel prisons than they would be in our lines, 
 however true that might be, or speciously stated to thf 1 country, 
 the proposition could not be sustained against the clamor that 
 would at once arise against the administration." * * * Id., 
 p. 594. And he adds : — 
 
 '' These instructions in the then state of negotiations, 
 rendered any further exchanges impossible and retalia- 
 tion useless." 
 
 This condition of affairs, for which, as we have seen, Gen- 
 eral Grant was solely responsible, continued, with little change, 
 till the latter part of January, 1865. It was during this inter- 
 val of nearly a year that the greatest sufferings and mortality 
 occurred. Finally the clamor was so great for a renewal of the 
 cartel that General Grant consented, and from that date exchanges 
 continued to the end of the war, although when a large number 
 of prisoners were sent to General Schofield, at Wilmington, on 
 February 21st, 1865, he refused to received them. Vol. VIIL, 
 p. 286. 
 
 On the 10th of January, 1864, in view of the large numbers 
 of prisoners then held on both sides, and the sufferings conse- 
 
23 
 
 quently engendered thereby, Judge Ould addressed a letter to 
 Major (afterwards General) Mulford proposing to deliver all 
 prisoners held by us for an equivalent held by the Federals. 
 But to this letter no reply was ever made. On the 22nd of 
 August he wrote making the same offer to General Hitchcock, 
 but received no reply to this letter either. And so on the 31st 
 of August, 1864, Judge Ould published a statement setting forth 
 in detail the efforts made by the Confederate authorities to carry 
 out the cartel in good faith, stating how it had been violated 
 from time to time, and finally suspended, solely by the bad faith 
 and bad conduct of the Federals. 
 
 On the 1st of October, 1864, General Lee proposed to Gen- 
 eral Grant to renew the cartel, but no agreement could be 
 reached on the subject, and so on the 6th of October, 1864, 
 Judge Ould addressed a letter to General Mulford and proposed, 
 in view of the probabilities of the long confinement of prisoners 
 on both sides, ' 'that some measures be adopted for the relief of 
 such as are held by either party. To that end, I propose," says 
 he, "that each Government shall have the privilege of forward- 
 ing for the use and comfort of such of its prisoners as are held 
 by the other, necessary articles of food and clothing." * * * 
 P. 930. 
 
 Whilst this proposition was finally accepted by the Fed- 
 erals, it took a whole month to get their consent to it. General 
 Mulford' s reply is dated November 6th, 1864. As early in that 
 year as January 24th, Judge Ould had written General Hitch- 
 cock, proposing that the prisoners on each side be attended by 
 their own surgeons, and that these surgeons should "act as Com- 
 missaries, with power to receive and distribute such contribu- 
 tions of money, food, clothing, and medicines as may be forwarded 
 for the relief of prisoners. I further propose," (says he), "that 
 these surgeons be detailed by their own Governments, and that 
 they shall have full liberty at any and all times, through the 
 agents of exchange, to make reports, not only of their own acts, 
 but of any matters relating to the welfare of prisoners." 
 
 To this very important and humane letter, Judge Ould says, 
 "No reply was ever made." 1 S. H. S. Papers, 128. If its 
 terms had been accepted by the Federals (and nothing could 
 have been fairer), what sufferings would have been prevented 
 and how many lives would have been saved 1 ? But, as we now 
 
24 
 
 know, General Grant did not wish to keep these men from dying 
 in our prisons. On the contrary, he preferred that the Confed- 
 erates should be burdened with caring for them when living and 
 charged with their death should they die, and in this way he 
 would continue to "fire the Northern heart" against us. On the 
 same principle, and for the same reason, he not only refused to 
 agree to let us purchase medicine and other necessary supplies 
 for these sick prisoners, but refused for months to receive from 
 ten to fifteen thousand, which we offered to deliver up without 
 receiving any equivalent in return. But above all these, he did 
 not wish them exchanged, because of the recruits which would 
 thereby come to General Lee's army. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact, as shown by our last report, it 
 was by General Grant's orders that General Sheridan devastated 
 the Valley of Virginia as he did, yet his considerate treatment 
 of General Lee and his men at Appomattox and his fidelity to 
 General Lee's parole there given, after the war, have caused us 
 to think kindly of him and to place him in a different class from 
 that in which we have placed Stanton, Halleck, Sherm'an, Sher- 
 idan, Pope, Butler, Hunter, Milroy, and other Federal officers, 
 who took such delight in treating us with such wicked and 
 wanton brutality during the war. But as has been recently said 
 of him, by a distinguished Northern writer, who was an officer 
 in his army and therefore knew him better than we did, General 
 Grant was "of coarse moral as well as physical fibre" ; and 
 nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the cruel and heart- 
 less way in which he treated his own as well as our prisoners. 
 He was so vindictive and cruel that on February 7th, 1865, he 
 refused to make any arrangement with Judge Ould whereby our 
 prisoners could receive contributions of assistance from friends 
 at the North. (Vol. VEIL, p. 140.) And as we have just seen, 
 he preferred that his own men should die in our prisons, rather 
 than to relieve them, when we offered to deliver them to him 
 without any equivalent in return, because of the great mortality 
 at Andersonville, which we were unable to avert, and of which 
 he was fully apprised. 
 
 At the expense of being tedious then, we have thought it 
 right to give in much detail the facts in relation to the forma- 
 tion and operation of the cartel, for the exchange of prisoners, 
 and to show clearly from the records, why this cartel was sus- 
 
25 
 
 pended, and who was responsible therefor. And we have done 
 
 so, becavse this conduct ivas the true cause of substantially all 
 the sufferings and deaths which came to the prisoners on both 
 sides during the roar. That we have shown that the Federal 
 Government, with Edwin M. Stanton, H. W. Halleck and U. 
 S. Grant as its representatives, is solely responsible, we think 
 cannot be denied, and that history will so attest. 
 
 Mr. Charles A. Dana, the Federal Assistant Secretary of 
 War, in an editorial in the New York Sun, commenting on the 
 letter of Mr. Davis to Mr. James Lyons, written in reference to 
 the strictures of Mr. Blaine, referred to in the early part of this 
 report, said as follows : 
 
 "This letter shows clearly, we think, that the Confed- 
 erate authorities, and especially Mr. Davis, ought not 
 to be held responsible for the terrible privations, suf- 
 ferings and injuries which our men had to endure while 
 they were kept in Confederate military prisons. The 
 fact is unquestionable, that while the Confederates 
 desired to exchange prisoners, to send our men home, 
 and to get back their own, General Grant steadily and 
 strenuously resisted such an exchange." * * * 
 
 " 'It is hard on our men held in Southern prisons,' 
 said Grant, in an official communication, mot to ex- 
 change them; but it is humane to those left iu the ranks 
 to fight our battles. If we commence a system of 
 exchanges which liberates all prisoners taken, we will 
 have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated. 
 If we hold those caught they are no more than dead 
 men.' * * * 
 
 "This evidence [says Dana] must be taken as con- 
 clusive. It proves that it was not the Confederate 
 authorities who insisted on keeping our prisoners in 
 distress, want and disease, but the commander of our 
 own armies.'' '' * * * "Moreover [says 
 
 he] there is no evidence whatever, that it was prac- 
 ticable for the Confederate authorities to feed our pris- 
 oners any better than they were fed, or to give them 
 any better care and attention than they received. The 
 food was insufficient, the care and attention were in- 
 sufficient, no doubt, and yet the condition of our 
 prisoners was not worse than that of the Confederate 
 soldiers in the field, except in so far as the condition of 
 those in prison must of necessity be worse than that of 
 men who are free and active outside." 
 
26 
 
 This is the statement, as we have said, of the Federal Assist- 
 ant Secretary of War, during the war, and, of course, he knew 
 whereof he wrote. He was the man by whose authority General 
 Miles put the shackles upon Mr. Davis, when he was in prison 
 at Fortress Monroe, and was therefore prejudiced in the highest 
 degree against Mr. Davis and the Confederate authorities gener- 
 ally. And his statement must be taken as conclusive of this 
 ivhole question. 
 
 When we add to this the pregnant fact that the report of 
 the Federal Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, dated July 19, 1866, 
 shows that of the Federal prisoners in Confederate prisons only 
 22,576 died; whilbt of the Confederate prisoners in Federal 
 prisons 26,436 died, and the report of the Federal Surgeon Gen- 
 eral Barnes, published after the war, showing that the whole 
 number of Federal prisoners captured and confined in Southern 
 prisons during the war was, in round numbers, 270,000 while 
 the whole number of Confederate prisoners captured and con- 
 fined in Northern prisons was, in like round numbers, 220,000. 
 From these two reports it will be seen that whilst there were 50, 000. 
 more prisoners in Southern than in Northern prisons, during the 
 war, the deaths were four thousand less. The per centum of 
 deaths in Southern prisons being under nine, while the per centum 
 of deaths in Northern prisons was over twelve. 
 
 We think it useless to prolong this discussion, and feel con- 
 fident that we can safely submit our conduct on this, as on every 
 other point involved in the war, to the j udgment of posterity 
 and the impartial historian, and can justly apply to the Southern 
 Confederacy the language of Philip Stanhope Wormsley, of 
 Oxford University, England, in the dedication of his translation 
 of Homer's Iliad to General Eobert E. Lee, "the most stainless 
 of earthly commanders, and, except in fortune, the greatest." 
 
 ' 'Thy Troy is fallen, thy dear land 
 Is mared beneath the spoiler's heel; 
 I cannot trust my trembling hand 
 To write the things I feel. 
 
 "Ah realm of tombs: but let her bear 
 This blazon to the end of time 
 No nation rose so white and fair 
 None fell so pure of crime." 
 
27 
 
 HISTORIES NOW USED IN OUR SCHOOLS. 
 
 We have but little to add to what was said in our former 
 reports concerning the histories now being taught in our schools, 
 except to express our sincere regret that the State Board of 
 Education, after first excluding it, reversed its action, and put 
 on the list of histories to be used in our public schools, the work 
 entitled "Our Country," by Messrs. Cooper, Estill & Lemon. 
 And with the profoundest respect for each member of the Board, 
 we think they committed an unintentional mistake. 
 
 We understand the Board based its later action on the 
 ground, that the edition of this work, published in 1901, con- 
 tained important amendments, as well as omissions, not found 
 in that of 1896, which was, in our opinion, so justly criticised 
 and condemned by the late Dr. Hunter McGuire and Bev. S. 
 Taylor Martin, D. D., in their reports to this camp in 1899. 
 Whilst it is true that this latest edition has been freed from 
 many of the objections then urged against the former edition, 
 and it is apparent that the authors have profited by these crit- 
 icisms, and tried to adapt this "new issue" to the sentiments 
 which gave them birth; yet there are such fundamental objec- 
 tions to this work still that should, in our opinion, have excluded 
 it from our schools forever. In the first place we call attention 
 to the fact, that the new edition does not show on the cover, or 
 elsewhere, that it is a new edition at all. It is bound and 
 labeled just as the former was; the preface in the new edition is 
 dated in 1895, and is the same as that in the old; so that if the 
 publishers were so disposed, they could easily palm off on the 
 unwary teacher or child the old for the new edition. 
 
 But we have other objections to the book of a much more 
 serious character. The first is, that the authors are the same in 
 both editions, and authors who could state the causes of the war, 
 as stated in the first edition at Section 52 1 , and then state them 
 (when objected to) as in Section 520 in the new edition, are not, 
 in our opinion, such historians as we should allow to write the 
 history for our children, it matters not if they are Southern 
 writers. This smacks too much of the methods said to be pur- 
 sued by the G. A. B. of "making history to order." As Dr. 
 Martin wrote of the first edition, so think we of this. He said: 
 
28 
 
 "The book is a feeble production. The controlling 
 idea is evidently the production of a history that would 
 be acceptable to both North and South." 
 
 To accomplish such a task is (as it should be) an impossibil- 
 ity. But we condemn this work more for what it fails to say 
 about the causes of the war, than for any inaccuracies we have 
 noticed in what it does say on that and other subjects. Its text 
 is on the order of those who say, "we thought we were right," 
 rather than that "we were right." We did know we were right 
 then, and we do know it now; and we are entitled to have this 
 told to our children. 
 
 Writers at the North are almost daily saying to the world, 
 that the Southern States had the right to secede. Even Goldwin 
 Smith, the most learned and able, as well as the most prejudiced 
 historian against the South, who has written about the war, said 
 in the Atlantic Monthly of this year: 
 
 "Few who have looked into the history, can doubt 
 that the Union originally was, and was generally taken 
 by the parties to it to be, a compact, dissoluble, per- 
 haps most of them would have said, at pleasure, dis- 
 soluble certainly on breach of the articles of the Union." 
 
 And that liberal and cultured statesman and writer, Mr. 
 Charles Francis Adams, of Boston, in an address delivered by 
 him in June last in Chicago, (whist as we understand him, not 
 conceding the right of secession to exist in 1861), said, quoting 
 from Donn Piet's Life of Gen. George H. Thomas, as follows: 
 
 "Today no impartial student of our constitutional 
 history can doubt for a moment, that each state ratified 
 the form of government submitted in the firm belief 
 that at any time it could withdraw therefrom." 
 
 With our quondam enemies thus telling the world that we 
 had the right to do what we tried to do, and only asked to be 
 let alone, and when we know that when we did go to war, we 
 only went to repel a ruthless invasion of our homes and firesides, 
 our case could not be made stronger. And we have the right, 
 therefore, to insist that our children shall be told the truth about it, 
 and we should be content with nothing less. 
 
 Dr. Jones, in his history, says: 
 
 "The seceding States not only had a perfect right to 
 withdraw from the Union, but they had amply sufficient 
 
29 
 
 cause for doing so, and that the war made upon them 
 by the North was utterly unjustifiable, oppressive and 
 cruel, and that the South could honorably have pur- 
 sued no other course, than to resist force with force, 
 and make her great struggle for constitutional freedom." 
 
 Is there any doubt in the mind of any Southerner that this 
 is the truth? If not, then let it be so told to our children. We 
 suffered and did and dared enough to entitle us to have this 
 done, and that we were unsuccessful makes it the more import- 
 ant that it should be done. A successful cause will take care of 
 itself; an unsuccessful one must rest only on its inherent merits, 
 and if it can't do this, then those who supported it were rebels 
 and traitors. We feel then that we can't do better than to repeat 
 here what we said in our report of 1900, on the importance of 
 the trust committed to our hands. We then said: 
 
 "Appomattox was not a judicial forum: it was only 
 a battlefield, a test of physical force, where the starv- 
 ing remnant of the Army of Northern Virginia, 
 "wearied with victory," surrendered to "overwhelm- 
 ing numbers and resources." We make no appeal from 
 that judgment, on the issue of force. But when we 
 see the victors in that contest, meeting year by year, 
 and using the superior means at their command, to pub- 
 lish to the world that they were right and that we were 
 ivrong in that contest, saying that we were "rebels" 
 and "traitors," in defeuding our homes and firesides 
 against their cruel invasion, that we had no legal right 
 to withdraw from the Union, when we only asked to be 
 let alone, and that we brought on that war: we say, 
 when these, and other wicked and false charges are 
 brought against us from year to year, and the attempt 
 is systematically made to teach our children that these 
 things are true, and therefore, that we do not deserve 
 their sympathy and respect because of our alleged 
 wicked and unjustifiable course in that war and in 
 bringing it on — then it becomes our duty, not only to 
 ourselves and our children, but to the thousands of 
 brave men and women who gave their lives a "free-will 
 offering," in defence of the principles for which we 
 fought, to vindicate the justice of our cause, and to do 
 this we have to appeal only to the bar of truth and of 
 justice." 
 
 Bespectfully submitted, 
 
 Geo. L. Christian, Chairman, 
 
Photomount 
 
 Pamphlet 
 
 Binder 
 
 Gaylord Bros. 
 
 Makers 
 
 Syracuse, N. Y. 
 
 PAT. JAN 21, 1908 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00032721797 
 
 FOR USE ONLY IN 
 THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION