We beg leave to suggest some facts bearing upon the question of exchange, which we would urge upon this consideration. Is it not consistent with the national honor, without waiving the claim that the negro soldiers shall be treated as prisoners of war, to effect an exchange of the white soldiers? The two classes are treated differently by the enemy. The whites are confined in such prisons as Libby and Andersonville, starved and treated with a barbarism unknown to civilized nations. The blacks, on the contrary, are seldom imprisoned. They are distributed among the citizens, or employed on government works. Under these circumstances they receive enough to eat, and are worked no harder than they have been accustomed to be. They are neither starved nor killed off by the pestilence in the dungeons of Richmond and Charleston. It is true they are again made slaves; but their slavery is freedom and happiness compared with the cruel existence imposed upon our gallant men. They are not bereft of hope, as are the white soldiers, dying by piecemeal. Their chances of escape are tenfold greater than those of the white soldiers, and their condition, in all its lights, is tolerable in comparison with that of the prisoners of war now languishing in the dens and pens of secession.
While, therefore, believing the claims of our government, in matters of exchange, to be just, we are profoundly impressed with the conviction that the circumstances of the two classes of soldiers are so widely different that the government can honorably consent to an exchange, waiving for a time the established principle justly claimed to be applicable in the case. Let thirty-five thousand suffering, starving, and enlisted men aid this appeal. By prompt and decided action in their behalf, thirty-five thousand heroes will be made happy. For the eighteen hundred commissioned officers now prisoners we urge nothing. Although desirous of returning to our duty, we can bear imprisonment with more fortitude if the enlisted men, whose sufferings we know to be intolerable, were restored to liberty and life.
XVI.
The threatening manœuvres of Sherman alone caused the rebel authorities to diminish the number of inmates of this stockade, and thereby lessen the dangers of recapture, and remove the temptation to the United States authorities to make an effort for their rescue. It has been stated that the rebels were anxious to exchange prisoners, man for man, and that the obstructions were caused by the Federal authorities, and that Mr. Stanton, in particular, was responsible for the stoppage of exchange and the consequent death of so many thousands of our fellow-citizens detained in the rebel prisons.
General Hitchcock, the United States commissioner of exchange, however, denies most emphatically that Mr. Stanton was any way responsible for the refusal to make exchanges, man for man, officer for officer, according to grade, and he makes the following statement: “At no instance within my knowledge did Mr. Stanton refuse to acquiesce in any proposition looking to that result. There is not in my office, nor have I ever seen such a proposition from a rebel commissioner or the rebel authorities. Nor have I any reason to believe that any such proposition was ever made by Judge Ould, or any of his superiors, except in a letter from Judge Ould addressed to Major Mulford, which fell into the hands of Major-General Butler. This is true, emphatically, as a protection against the accusations levelled at Mr. Stanton. * * * * * Mr. Stanton has not only been willing, but anxious to make exchanges referred to, as I have abundant means of showing by indisputable documents, the aim and purpose of Judge Ould was to draw from us all of the rebel prisoners held in exchange for white troops of the United States held as prisoners in the South, persistently refusing to exchange colored troops to a very late date; when, to carry a special purpose, he receded so far as to agree to exchange free colored men, leaving the general principle where it was on his side against the just claims of a large body of colored prisoners held in the South.”
XVII.
The following letter from General Butler to the rebel commissioner of exchange will throw some light upon the subject, and give an idea as to whom the blame of non-exchange and non-intercourse belongs:—
Letter of Major-General Butler, United States Commissioner of Exchange, to Colonel Ould, the Confederate Commissioner.
Headquarters Department of Virginia and North
Carolina, in the Field, August, 1864.
Hon. Robert Ould, Commissioner of Exchange.