The Life of Jefferson Davis

by Frank H. Alfriend

In February, 1862, negotiations occurred between the two governments, with a view to the arrangement of a system of exchange. In these negotiations Generals Howell Cobb and Wool represented their respective Governments. The result was a cartel, by which prisoners of either side should be paroled within ten days after their capture, and delivered on the frontier of their own country. A point of difference was, however, raised, as to a provision requiring each party to pay the expense of transporting their prisoners to the frontier. This difference General Wool reported to the Federal Government, which refused to pay these expenses. At a second interview, March 1st, 1862, this action of the Federal authorities being made known to General Cobb, the latter immediately conceded the point, and proposed to make the cartel conform in all its features to the wishes of General Wool. The latter declined any arrangement, declaring “that his Government had changed his instructions,” and abruptly terminated the negotiations.

The explanation of this conduct was apparent. While the negotiations between Generals Wool and Cobb were pending, Fort Donelson had fallen, reversing the previous state of things, and giving the North an excess of prisoners. These prisoners, instead of being sent South on parole, were carried into the interior of the North, and treated with severity and indignity. Repudiating this agreement, just as soon as it was ascertained that their captures at Donelson placed the South at disadvantage, the Federal authorities foreshadowed that “consistently perfidious conduct,” which President Davis declared to be characteristic of their entire course upon the subject.

It was impossible to bring the Federal Government to any arrangement, until the fortune of war again placed the Confederates in possession of the larger number of prisoners. An immediate consequence of the Confederate successes in the summer of 1862, was the indication of a more accommodating spirit by the enemy. Negotiations between General D. H. Hill, on behalf of the Confederate authorities, and General John A. Dix, on behalf of his Government, resulted in the adoption of a new cartel of a completely satisfactory and humane character. Under this cartel, which continued in operation for twelve months, the Confederate authorities restored to the enemy many thousands of prisoners in excess of those whom they held for exchange, and encampments of the surplus paroled prisoners were established in the United States, where the men were able to receive the comforts and solace of constant communication with their homes and families. In July, 1863, the fortune of war again favored the enemy, and they were enabled to exchange for duty the men previously delivered to them, against those captured and paroled at Vicksburg and Port Hudson. The prisoners taken at Gettysburg, however, remained in their hands, and should have been at once returned to the Confederate lines on parole, to await exchange. Instead of executing a duty imposed by the plainest dictates of justice and good faith, pretexts were instantly sought for holding them in permanent captivity. General orders rapidly succeeded each other from the bureau at Washington, placing new constructions on an agreement which had given rise to no dispute while the Confederates retained the advantage in the number of prisoners. With a disregard of honorable obligations, almost unexampled, the Federal authorities did not hesitate, in addition to retaining the prisoners captured by them, to declare null the paroles given by the prisoners captured by the Confederates in the same series of engagements, and liberated on condition of not again serving until exchanged. They then openly insisted on treating the paroles given by their own soldiers as invalid, and those of Confederate soldiers, given under precisely similar circumstances, as binding. A succession of similar unjust pretensions was maintained in a correspondence tediously prolonged, and every device employed, to cover the disregard of an obligation, which, between belligerent nations, is only to be enforced by a sense of honor.

We have not space sufficient for even a sketch of the protracted correspondence, which ensued between the commissioners of exchange, respecting the suspension of the cartel. In its progress Commissioner Ould triumphantly vindicated the action of the Confederate Government, in every instance meeting in an unanswerable manner, the counter-charges of the Federal authorities. The South can require no better record of its honorable and humane conduct, than is furnished by this correspondence. The Confederate Government was singularly fortunate in the selection of Mr. Ould, who unites to a most honorable and amiable character, an intellect of unusual vigor and astuteness, as was abundantly shown in his conclusive demonstrations of the perfidious conduct of the authorities at Washington.

For twelve months after the date of the cartel (that is, until after the battle of Gettysburg), the Confederates held a considerable excess of prisoners. It has never been alleged, amid all the calumny which has assailed the South, that during this period, the Federal prisoners (unless held on serious charges), were not promptly delivered. Commissioner Ould several times urged the Federal authorities to send increased transportation for their prisoners. On the other hand, numbers of Confederate officers and soldiers were kept in irons and dungeons, in many instances without even having charges preferred against them.

On the 26th July, 1863, Commissioner Ould said in a letter to the Federal Agent of Exchange: “Now that our official connection is being terminated, I say to you in the fear of God—and I appeal to him for the truth of the declaration—that there has been no single moment, from the time we were first brought together in connection with the matter of exchange, to the present hour, during which there has not been an open and notorious violation of the cartel, by your authorities. Officers and men, numbering over hundreds, have been, during your whole connection with the cartel, kept in cruel confinement, sometimes in irons, or doomed to cells, without charges or trial.... The last phase of the enormity, however, exceeds all others. Although you have many thousands of our soldiers now in confinement in your prisons, and especially in that horrible hold of death, Fort Delaware, you have not, for several weeks, sent us any prisoners.... For the first two or three times some sort of an excuse was attempted. None is given at this present arrival. I do not mean to be offensive when I say that effrontery could not give one.”

In reply to these and similar charges by Commissioner Ould, which he, in repeated instances, substantiated by naming the Confederate officers and soldiers thus shamefully treated, the enemy retorted with a charge of similar treatment of Federal prisoners. Yet the prison records of the Confederacy, in no instance, show the detention of prisoners while the cartel was in operation, unless held under grave charges. Commissioner Ould, in his letter of August 1, 1863, effectually silenced this replication. Said he: “You have claimed and exercised the right to retain officers and men indefinitely, not only upon charges actually preferred, but upon mere suspicion. You have now in custody officers who were in confinement when the cartel was framed, and who have since been declared exchanged. Some of them have been tried, but most of them have languished in prison all the weary time without trial or charges. I stand prepared to prove these assertions. This course was pursued, too, in the face not only of notice, but of protest. Do you deny to us the right to detain officers and men for trial upon grave charges, while you claim the right to keep in confinement any who may be the object of your suspicion or special enmity?”

The paroles issued after capture were respected by both parties, until, about the middle of 1863, the Federal authorities declared void the paroles of thousands of their soldiers, who had been sent North by the Confederate Government. At that time, it is noteworthy, the Federal Government had no lists of paroled prisoners to be charged against the Confederacy. The latter had previously discharged all its obligations from its large excess of prisoners, leaving still a large balance in their favor unsatisfied. In this condition of affairs, Commissioner Ould was notified that “exchanges will be confined to such equivalents as are held in confinement on either side.” After such a display of perfidy, no surprise should be occasioned by the subsequent action of the Federal authorities. This announcement, in unmistakable phraseology, meant simply that, as the Confederates had returned equivalents for all paroles held against them, and the Federals held no paroles to be charged against the Confederacy, hereafter no exchange would be made except for men actually in captivity. In other words, having received all the benefits which they could from the observance of the cartel, the Federal Government openly repudiated it, the moment that its operation would favor their antagonists. Commissioner Ould promptly declined the perfidious proposition of the enemy, which would have continued thousands of Confederate soldiers in prison, after their Government had returned all prisoners in their possession, and yet held the paroles of Federal soldiers, largely exceeding in number the Confederate soldiers held captive by the enemy. Subsequently the Federal officers and soldiers, in violation of their paroles, and without being declared exchanged, were ordered back to their commands. Commissioner Ould then very properly declared exchanged an equal number of Confederate officers and men, who had been paroled by the enemy at Vicksburg.

With these transactions ended all exchanges under that provision of the cartel which provided the delivery of prisoners within ten days. All subsequent deliveries of prisoners were made by special agreement. The facts which we have stated, showing the suspension of the cartel to have been occasioned by the bad faith of the Federal Government, are upon record, and can not be disputed. They are accessible to every Northern reader, who may feel disposed to satisfy his judgment, by facts, rather than to foster prejudices based upon the most monstrous falsehoods, ever invented in the interest of fanaticism and hate. The suspension of the cartel was the direct cause of those terrible sufferings which were afterwards endured by the true men of both sides. It led directly to the hardships, the exposure, and hunger of Andersonville, the cruelties of Camp Douglas, the freezing of Confederate soldiers upon the bleak shores of the Northern lakes, and those countless woes which are endured by the occupants of military prisons, even when conducted upon the most humane system. Having been guilty of a shameful violation of faith, the Federal Government persisted in a policy, which was not only cruel to the South, but brought upon the brave men who were fighting its battles, the sufferings which the North has falsely pictured with every conceivable feature of horror and atrocity.

Until the end of the war, the Confederate Government continued its efforts to secure the renewed operations of the cartel—a policy which humanity to its own defenders demanded. Why it was not renewed, the motives which dictated a policy which occasioned an almost unexampled degree of human suffering, is a question abundantly answered in the testimony here adduced, the most conclusive portions of which comes from Northern sources.