The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 2

by Jefferson Davis

"On the subject of exchange, however, I differ from General Hitchcock. It is hard on our men held in Southern prisons not to exchange them, but it is humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our battles. Every man released on parole, or otherwise, becomes an active soldier against us at once, either directly or indirectly. If we commence a system of exchange, which liberates all prisoners taken, we will have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated. If we hold those caught, they amount to no more than dead men. At this particular time to release all rebel prisoners North would insure Sherman's defeat, and would compromise our safety here."

We now proposed to the Government of the United States to exchange the prisoners respectively held, officer for officer and man for man. We had previously declined this proposal, and insisted on the terms of the cartel, which required the delivery of the excess on either side on parole. At the same time we sent a statement of the mortality prevailing among the prisoners at Andersonville.

As no answer had been received relative to this proposal, a communication was sent, on August 22, 1864, to Major-General E. A. Hitchcock, United States commissioner of exchange, containing the same proposal which had been before delivered to the assistant commissioner, and a request was made for its acceptance.

No answer was received to either of these letters, and on August 31st the assistant commissioner stated that he had no communication on the subject from the United States Government, and that he was not authorized to make an answer.

This offer, which would have released every soldier of the United States confined in our prisons, was not even noticed. Indeed, the United States Government had, at that time, a large excess of prisoners, and the effect of the proposal, if carried out, would have been to release all the prisoners belonging to it, while a large number of ours would have remained in prison awaiting the chances of the capture of their equivalents.

Thus, having ascertained that exchanges could not be made, either on the basis of the cartel, or officer for officer and man for man, we offered to the United States Government their sick and wounded without requiring any equivalents. On these terms, we agreed to deliver from ten to fifteen thousand at the mouth of the Savannah River; and we further added that, if the number for which transportation might be sent could not be readily made up from sick and wounded, the difference should be supplied with well men. Although the offer was made in the summer, the transportation did not arrive until November. And as the sick and wounded were at points distant from Georgia, and could not be brought to Savannah within a reasonable time, five thousand well men were substituted. In return, some three thousand sick and wounded were delivered to us at the same place. The original rolls showed that some thirty-five hundred had started from Northern prisons, and that death had reduced the number during the passage to about three thousand.

On two occasions we were specially asked to send the very sick and desperately wounded prisoners, and a particular request was made for men who were so seriously sick that it was doubtful whether they would survive a removal a few miles down James River. Accordingly, some of the worst cases, contrary to the judgment of our surgeons, but in compliance with the piteous appeals of the sick prisoners, were sent away, and after being delivered they were taken to Annapolis, Maryland, and there photographed as specimen prisoners. The photographs at Annapolis were terrible indeed, but the misery they portrayed was surpassed by some of those we received in exchange at Savannah. Why was there this delay between the summer and November in sending vessels for the transportation of sick and wounded, for whom no equivalents were asked? Were Federal prisoners left to suffer, and afterward photographed "to aid in firing the popular heart of the North"?

In the summer of 1864, in consequence of certain information communicated to our commissioner, Mr. Ould, by the Surgeon-General of the Confederate States, as to the deficiency of medicines. Mr. Ould offered to make purchases of medicines from the United States authorities, to be used exclusively for the relief of the Union prisoners. He offered to pay gold, cotton, or tobacco for them, and even two or three prices if required. At the same time he gave assurances that the medicines would be used exclusively for the treatment of Union prisoners; and moreover agreed, on behalf of the Confederate States, if it were insisted on, that such medicines might be brought into the Confederate lines by the United States surgeons, and dispensed by them. Incredible as it may appear, it is, nevertheless, strictly true that no reply was ever received to this offer.

One final effort was now made to obtain an exchange. This consisted in my sending a delegation from the prisoners at Andersonville to plead their cause before the authorities at Washington. It was of no avail. President Lincoln refused to see them. They were made to understand that the interests of the Government of the United States required that they should return to prison and remain there. They carried back the sad tidings that their Government held out no hope of their release.

"We have a letter from the wife of the chairman of that delegation (now dead) in which she says that her husband always said that he was more contemptuously treated by Secretary of War Stanton than he ever was at Andersonville." [114]