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From the private journal of a Confederate officer high in command, both at Andersonville and other Southern prisons, I glean the annexed facts, the first bearing directly upon the foregoing: "At one time an order came to Camp Lawton to prepare 2,000 men for exchange. The order from Richmond was to select first the wounded, next the oldest prisoners and the sickly, filling up with healthy men according to date. This party went first to Savannah, as arranged, but by some mistake the ships were at Charleston, and the poor wretches had to be taken there; and every one who knew the Southern railroads in those days, and the difficulty or rather impossibility to procure food for such a crowd along the road, will know what those poor fellows suffered. At Charleston they were refused, the commissioner declaring that `he was not going to exchange able bodied men for such miserable specimens of humanity.' (The term used was more brutal). Finding him obdurate, Colonel Ould requested him to take them without exchange. This he refused with a sneering laugh, and the crowd was ordered back. Never did the writer of this witness such woebegone countenances; in which misery and hopelessness were more strongly painted, than shown by those poor fellows on their return. And the curses leveled against the rulers who thus treated the defenders of their country were fearful, although certainly well deserved. As the stockade gate closed upon them the surgeon in charge said to the writer: `Poor fellows! the world has closed upon more than half of them; this disappointment will be their death knell.' His words proved true. Who murdered those men? Let history answer the question."
__________________ "I want to bury myself in a den of books. I want to saturate myself with the elements of which they are made and breathe their atmosphere until I am of it."
--Lew Wallace, 1885
I'm sorry again, Martin, but the piece from William Jones is completely unreliable. Let me show you one example:
"6. But the real cause of the suffering on both sides was the stoppage of the exchange of prisoners, and for this the Federal authorities alone were responsible. The Confederates kept the cartel in good faith. It was broken on the other side.
The Confederates were anxious to exchange man for man. It was the settled policy on the other side not to exchange prisoners. The Confederates offered to exchange sick and wounded. This was refused. In August, 1861, we offered to send home all the Federal sick and wounded without equivalent. The offer was not accepted until the following December, and it was during that period that the greatest mortality occurred. The Federal authorities determined as their war policy not to exchange prisoners, they invented every possible pretext to avoid it, and they at the same time sought to quiet the friends of their prisoners and to 'fire the Northern heart' by most shamelessly charging that the Confederate Government refused to exchange, and by industriously circulating the most malignant stories of 'Rebel barbarities' to helpless veterans of the Union."
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As I've shown with excerpts from the historical record, this statement is completely false. It was the confederates who cheated on the cartel because they put men back into fighting before they were properly exchanged, and they refused to treat black soldiers and their officers as proper POWs. Stated confederate policy was to execute the officers of black regiments on the spot and to enslave black soldiers. That is why the exchanges were halted, and the confederates knew it at the time.
His claim of an August, 1861 offer to send home all Federal sick and wounded with no equivalent does not make sense at all. Bull Run was only fought the previous month. All they needed to do was parole these men and send them on their way. They didn't need the Union to agree to accept them.
I find it significant that the officer whose diary entry is posted is not identified. I've seen this exact thing posted on two pro-confederate websites. It strikes me as propaganda rather than history. I'd feel much better about it if the officer were identified so someone could actually go to his diary and confirm that it actually says that. As it stands, there is no way to verify this information. After all, does it seem logical that the Union officer would refuse to accept men with no strings attached? If the offer were real and he accepted it, he would make a good name for himself as having gotten prisoners released without having to give up any reb prisoners of their own. Whether he cared about the men or not is irrelevant because it was in his interest to accept them if that offer were really made.
__________________ "I want to bury myself in a den of books. I want to saturate myself with the elements of which they are made and breathe their atmosphere until I am of it."
--Lew Wallace, 1885
You can't be serious. Look at this portion: "It was discovered by the savage exponent of the radical war party at the North, that as soon as a Confederate soldier was exchanged for one of their hirelings, the Confederate at once took his place in the ranks of the patriot army, willing and ready to devote his life in the defence of the cause he believed to be just, and of a people he knew to be shamefully outraged. On the contrary, the hireling, the pauper recruit, from some one of the European States, would in the majority of instances, under some subterfuge, sneak to the rear and wait the contingency of a pension for meritorious service. At once the zealous Secretary of War found some pretext for suspending the cartel of exchange of prisoners, and for inaugurating a system of slow and certain death at the Federal prisons that will make the history of Camp Chase, Johnson's Island, Fort Delaware, and other prison pens in the frozen North, a monumental record of Stanton's brutality and the mean, vindictive spirit of his partisans."
That is so completely and utterly false that it boggles the mind that anyone would seriously consider it to be history. Not only does it denigrate Union soldiers, but it also falsifies the reason for the exchanges being halted and it falsifies the record concerning the Union prisons. Would someone please tell me how an overall death rate of 12% in Union prisons is equivalent to "certain death?"
Martin, I'm sorry but I just cannot accept propaganda presented as history. I have too much respect for the soldiers of both sides to sully them in that way.
Martin, as to SR 97, a Senate Resolution is not a law, nor is it policy. It represents the feelings of the Senate at that particular moment and nothing more. In order to become a law, a resolution has to be a Joint Resolution that is signed by the President. That's when it becomes policy. As it stands, SR 97 is interesting in that it represents what the majority of the Senate believed, but one has to connect the dots to show it became policy.
Cash, I find it impossable to debate with you. You have a mind set that any thing the Union did was alright and and anything that comes from South is wrong. You want me to back up what I say but you don't. I give up. Have a good night
Martin
__________________ "I want to bury myself in a den of books. I want to saturate myself with the elements of which they are made and breathe their atmosphere until I am of it."
--Lew Wallace, 1885
I'm sorry you feel that way. If you'll scroll up in this topic you'll see I posted the actual orders from Stanton that ended the exchanges in which he said why he was ending them. I also posted the exact figures for the overall death rate of prisoners along with the source of those figures. I have already backed up everything I've said. I understand it can be frustrating, but the links you posted were to web sites that engage in pure propaganda, and I showed exactly how they did so, again backing up what I was saying. Additionally, I have never said that anything the Union did was all right, nor have I said that anything from the south is wrong. That's simply an ad hominem that I will reject every time. Do you agree that an overall death rate of 12% [more accurately, 12.1%] constitutes "certain death" as that one website claimed? How can that be?
If I may, I suggest delving into actual history books and articles rather than partisan websites. The work of recognized scholars is reviewed by their peers for accuracy, and their reputation depends on their scholarship. Of course, just like in any profession, there are a few bad apples here and there, but overall the work of professional historians will lead you in the right direction, especially when compared with partisan websites.
I have done my research and to the best of my ability I see the numbers indicating right at a 03% difference in the death rate. The higher death rate being of Southerners in northern prisons. The number’s Thea provided are as close as any I have seen.
As to Cash's statement claiming the only proof needed to ascertain that the prisoners of Andersonville far more starved than the troops was look at photos..... I had to laugh actually. I have, with my own eyes seen the effects of disease laying waste a human body. Disease was the biggest killer of the war wasn’t it? In and out of POW camps. Wirz was not actually tried for starving them but murdering them on purpose anyway wasn’t he? In the original indictments J. Davis as well as R. E. Lee were named a co conspirators as well.
But as far as I am concerned he was railroaded. No two ways about it. The treaty Johntson and Sherman signed as well as the lack of jurisdiction made the legitimacy suspect......that is even before the prosecutor himself gave the closing argument for the defense. That’s Yankee justice. Allow the prosecutor to act as the defense as well. How could that be anything other than railroading?
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