Elmira, Lincoln's Orders

[8thvacav]

FIGURES OF SECRETARY STANTON.

Yet after all that has been said on this subject, the stubborn fact remains that over three per cent more Confederates perished in Northern prisons than of Federal prisoners in Southern prisons. The figures to prove this statement have been several times given in this discussion, but they are so significant that we give them again in the form in which they were presented by Honorable B. H. Hill in his masterly reply to Mr. Blaine.
Mr. Hill said:
"Now, will the gentleman believe testimony from the dead? The Bible says, `The tree is known by its fruits.' And, after all, what is the test of suffering of these prisoners North and South? The test is the result. Now, I call the attention of gentlemen to this fact, that the report of Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War -- you will believe him, will you not? -- on the 19th of July, 1866 -- send to the library and get it -- exhibits the fact that of the Federal prisoners in Confederate hands during the war, only 22,576 died, while of the Confederate prisoners in Federal hands 26,436 died. And Surgeon General Barnes reports in an official report -- I suppose you will believe him -- that in round numbers the Confederate prisoners in Federal hands amounted to 220,000, while the Federal prisoners in Confederate hands amounted to 270,000. Out of the 270,000 in Confederate hands 22,000 died, while of the 220,000 Confederates in Federal hands over 26,000 died. The ratio is this:
More than twelve per cent of the Confederates in Federal hands died, and less than nine per cent. of the Federals in Confederate hands died. What is the logic of these facts according to the gentleman from Maine? I scorn to charge murder upon the officials of Northern prisons, as the gentleman has done upon Confederate prison officials. I labor to demonstrate that such miseries are inevitable in prison life, no matter how humane the regulations."
An effort has since been made by the Radical press to discredit these figures, and it has been charged that "Jeff. Davis manufactured them for Hill's use." But with ample time to prepare his rejoinder, and all of the authorities at hand, Mr. Blaine did not dare to deny them. He fully admitted their truth, and only endeavored to weaken their force by the following explanation, of which we give him the full benefit:
"Now, in regard to the relative number of prisoners that died in the North and the South respectively, the gentleman undertook to show that a great many more prisoners died in the hands of the Union authorities than in the hands of the Rebels. I have had conversations with surgeons of the army about that, and they say that there were a large number of deaths of Rebel prisoners, but that during the latter period of the war they came into our hands very much exhausted, ill clad, ill fed, diseased, so that they died in our prisons of diseases that they brought with them. And one eminent surgeon said, without wishing at all to be quoted in this debate, that the. question was not only what was the condition of the prisoners when they came to us, but what it was when they were sent back. Our men were taken in full health and strength. They came back wasted and worn -- mere skeletons. The Rebel prisoners, in large numbers, were, when taken, emaciated and reduced; and General Grant says that at the time such superhuman efforts were made for exchange there were 90,000 men that would have reenforced the Confederate armies the next day, prisoners in our hands who were in good health and ready for fight. This consideration sheds a great deal of light on what the gentleman states."
The substance of this extract is that Mr. Blaine does not deny the greater mortality of our prisoners in Northern prisons, but accounts for it on the supposition that our men were so much "exhausted, so ill clad, ill fed and diseased," that they "died of diseases that they brought with them."
Now, if this explanation were true it would contain a fatal stab to Mr. Blaine's whole argument to prove Confederate cruelty to prisoners. If our own soldiers were so ill clad and ill fed as to render them exhausted, and so diseased that when taken prisoners they died like sheep, despite the tender nursing and kind, watchful care which (according to Mr Blaine) they received at the hands of their captors, how could a Government which had not the means of making better provision for its own soldiers provide any better than we did for the thousands of prisoners which were captured by these emaciated skeletons? And what shall we say of General Grant and his splendid army of two hundred thousand hale, hearty, well equipped men, who, in the campaign of 1864, were beaten on every field by forty thousand of these "emaciated and reduced" creatures, until, after losing over a third of their men, they were compelled to skulk behind their fortifications at Petersburg, and absolutely refused "the open field and fair fight," which Lee and his "ragamuffins" offered them at every point from the Wilderness to Petersburg?
But, of course, the whole thing is absurd. Our men were on half rations, and in rags, it is true; but a healthier, hardier set of fellows never marched or fought, and they died in Northern prisons (as we shall hereafter show) because of inexcusably harsh treatment.
These official figures of Mr. Stanton and Surgeon General Barnes tell the whole story, and nail to the counter the base slander against the Confederate Government.

[cash]

Hello, Martin,

The first part of the posting is from a Joint Committee Report to the Confederate Congress. It does not reflect an accurate picture of history, but instead was produced to put the confederate position in the best light.

Here's what I mean:

In the first paragraph, it says, "But the question forces itself upon us why have these sufferings been so long continued? Why have not the prisoners of war been exchanged, and thus some of the darkest pages of history spared to the world? In the answer to this question must be found the test of responsibility for all the sufferings, sickness and heartbroken sorrow that have visited more than eighty thousand prisoners within the past two years. On this question, your committee can only say that the Confederate authorities have always desired a prompt and fair exchange of prisoners. Even before the establishment of a cartel they urged such exchange, but could never effect it by agreement, until the large preponderance of prisoners in our hands made it the interest of the Federal authorities to consent to the cartel of July 22d, 1863."

I'm sorry to say this is completely false.

Here is what Edwin M Stanton wrote concerning the exchanges:

"WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, November 17, 1863.
Major-General BUTLER, Fort Monroe:
The whole subject of exchange of prisoners is under direction of Major-General Hitchcock, to whom, as commissioner of exchange, that branch of the service has been committed. He will be glad to have any idea or suggestion you may be pleased to furnish, but there should be no interference without his assent. It is known that the rebels will exchange man for man and officer for officer, except blacks and officers in command of black troops. These they absolutely refuse to exchange. This is the point on which the whole matter hinges. Exchanging man for man and officer for officer, with the exception the rebels make, is a substantial abandonment of the colored troops and their officers to their fate, and would be a shameful dishonor to the Government bound to protect them. When they agree to exchange all alike there will be no difficulty.
EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War."
[OR Ser II Vol 6 p. 528]

Whoever copied it made an error, because the Dix-Hill Cartel was dated July 22, 1862, not 1863. They claim the Union enticed slaves off the plantations in the South to arm them and send them against the confederates. Wasn't it the position of the confederates that the slaves were happy being slaves? If so, how could they be enticed to leave and to fight against their masters? Also, it was by the Emancipation Proclamation, in effect 1 Jan 1863, that black soldiers were enlisted in the Union Army. That was not shortly after the cartel was established.

The excerpt goes on to claim, "Benjamin F. Butler has declared that in April, 1864, the Federal Lieutenant-General Grant forbade him "to deliver to the rebels a single able-bodied man."

This is the letter Grant sent:

"HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES,
In the Field, Culpeper Court-House, April 17, 1864.
Maj. Gen. B. F. BUTLER, Comdg. Dept. of Virginia and N. Carolina,
Fortress Monroe, Va.:
GENERAL:
Your report of negotiations with Mr. Ould, C. S. agent, touching the exchange of prisoners, has been referred to me by the Secretary of War with directions to furnish you such instructions on the subject as I may deem proper. After a careful examination of your report the only points on which I deem instructions necessary are: First. Touching the validity of the paroles of the prisoners captured at Vicksburg and Port Hudson. Second. The status of colored prisoners. As to the first, no arrangement for the exchange of prisoners will be acceded to that does not fully recognize the validity of these paroles and provide for the release to us of a sufficient number of prisoners now held by the Confederate authorities to cancel any balance that may be in our favor by virtue of these paroles. Until there is released to us a sufficient number of officers and men as were captured and paroled at Vicksburg and Port Hudson not another Confederate prisoner of war will be paroled or exchanged. As to the second, no distinction whatever will be made in the exchange between white and colored prisoners; the only question being, were they at the time of their capture in the military service of the United States. If they were the same terms as to treatment while prisoners and conditions of release and exchange must be exacted and had in the case of colored soldiers as of white soldiers. Non-acquiescence by the Confederate authorities in both or either of these propositions will be regarded as a refusal on their part to agree to the further exchange of prisoners, and will be so treated by us.
I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
U.S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General."
[OR Ser II, Vol 7, pp. 62-63]

Note that it directly contradicts the claim as to why the exchanges were not continued.

[cash]

This is the letter sent by Butler to Ould, the confederate commissioner of exchanges:

HDQRS. DEPT. OF VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA,
In the Field, August [27], 1864.
Hon. ROBERT OULD, Commissioner for Exchange:
SIR: Your note to Major Mulford, assistant agent of exchange, under date of 10th of August, has been referred to me.
You therein state that Major Mulford has several times proposed to exchange prisoners respectively held by the two belligerents, officer for officer, and man for man, and that "the offer has also been made by other officials having charge of matters connected with the exchange of prisoners," and that "this proposal has been heretofore declined by the Confederate authorities;" that you now consent to the above proposition, and agree to deliver to you (Major Mulford) the prisoners held in captivity by the Confederate authorities, provided you agree to deliver an equal number of officers and men. As equal numbers are delivered from time to time they will be declared exchanged. This proposal is made with the understanding that the officers and men on both sides who have been longest in captivity will be first delivered, where it is practicable.
From a slight ambiguity in your phraseology, but more, perhaps, from the antecedent action of your authorities, and because of your acceptance of it, I am in doubt whether you have stated the proposition with entire accuracy.
It is true, a proposition was made both by Major Mulford and myself, as agent of exchange, to exchange all prisoners of war taken by either belligerent party, man for man, officer for officer, of equal rank, or their equivalents. It was made by me as early as the first of the winter of 1863-64, and has not been accepted. In May last I forwarded to you a note desiring to know whether the Confederate authorities intended to treat colored soldiers of the U.S. Army as prisoners of war. To that inquiry no answer has yet been made. To avoid all possible misapprehension or mistake hereafter as to your offer now, will you say now whether you mean by "prisoners held in captivity" colored men, duly enrolled and mustered into the service of the United States, who have been captured by the Confederate forces, and if your authorities are willing to exchange all soldiers so mustered into the U.S. Army, whether colored or otherwise, and the officers commanding them, man for man, officer for officer?
At an interview which was held between yourself and the agent of exchange on the part of the United States, at Fort Monroe, in March last, you will do me the favor to remember the principal discussion turned upon this very point, you, on behalf of the Confederate Government, claiming the right to hold all negroes who had heretofore been slaves and not emancipated by their masters, enrolled and mustered into the service of the United States, when captured by your forces, not as prisoners of war, but, upon capture, to be turned over to <ar120_688> their supposed masters or claimants, whoever they might be, to be held by them as slaves.
By the advertisements in your newspapers, calling upon masters to come forward and claim these men so captured, I suppose that your authorities still adhere to that claim; that is to say, that whenever a colored soldier of the United States is captured by you, upon whom any claim can be made by any person residing within the States now in insurrection, such soldier is not to be treated as a prisoner of war, but is to be turned over to his supposed owner or claimant, and put at such labor or service as that owner or claimant may choose; and the officers in command of such soldiers, in the language of a supposed act of the Confederate States, are to be turned over to the Governors of States, upon requisitions, for the purpose of being punished by the laws of such States for acts done in war in the armies of the United States.
You must be aware that there is still a proclamation by Jefferson Davis, claiming to be Chief Executive of the Confederate States, declaring in substance that all officers of colored troops mustered into the service of the United States were not to be treated as prisoners of war, but were to be turned over for punishment to the Governors of States.
I am reciting these public acts from memory, and will be pardoned for not giving the exact words, although I believe I do not vary the substance and effect. These declarations on the part of those whom you represent yet remain unrepealed, unannulled, unrevoked, and must therefore be still supposed to be authoritative. By your acceptance of our proposition, is the Government of the United States to understand that these several claims, enactments, and proclaimed declarations are to be given up, set aside, revoked, and held for naught by the Confederate authorities, and that you are ready and willing to exchange, man for man, those colored soldiers of the United States, duly mustered and enrolled as such, who have heretofore been claimed as slaves by the Confederate States, as well as white soldiers?
If this be so, and you are so willing to exchange these colored men claimed as slaves, and you will so officially inform the Government of the United States, then, as I am instructed, a principal difficulty in effecting exchanges will be removed.
As I informed you personally, in my judgment, it is neither consistent with the policy, dignity, nor honor of the United States, upon any consideration, to allow those who, by our laws solemnly enacted, are made soldiers of the Union, and who have been duly enlisted, enrolled, and mustered as such soldiers--who have borne arms in behalf of this country, and who have been captured while fighting in vindication of the rights of that country--not to be treated as prisoners of war, and remain unexchanged and in the service of those who claim them as masters; and I cannot believe that the Government of the United States will ever be found to consent to so gross a wrong.
Pardon me if I misunderstood you in supposing that your acceptance of our proposition does not in good faith mean to include all the soldiers of the Union, and that you still intend, if your acceptance is agreed to, to hold the colored soldiers of the Union unexchanged, and at labor or service, because I am informed that very lately, almost cotemporaneously with this offer on your part to exchange prisoners, and which seems to include all prisoners of war, the Confederate authorities have made a declaration that the negroes heretofore held to service by owners in the States of Delaware, Maryland, and Missouri, are to be treated as prisoners of war when captured in arms in the service of the United States. Such declaration, that a part of the colored soldiers of the United States were to be prisoners of war, would seem most strongly to imply that others were not to be so treated; or, in other words, that colored men from the insurrectionary States are to be held to labor and returned to their masters, if captured by the Confederate forces while duly enrolled and mustered into and actually in the armies of the United States.
In the view which the Government of the United States takes of the claim made by you to the persons and services of these negroes, it is not to be supported upon any principle of national or municipal law.
Looking upon these men only as property, upon your theory of property in them, we do not sec how this claim can be made: certainly not how it can be yielded. It is believed to be a well-settled rule of public international law, and a custom and part of the laws of war, that the capture of movable property vests the title to that property in the captor, and therefore, when one belligerent gets into full possession of property belonging to the subjects or citizens of the other belligerent, the owner of that property is at once divested of his title, which rests in the belligerent government capturing and holding such possession. Upon this rule of international law all civilized nations have acted, and by it both belligerents have dealt with all property, save slaves, taken from each other during the present war.
If the Confederate forces capture a number of horses from the United States, the animals are immediately claimed to be, and, as we understand it, become the property of the Confederate authorities.
If the United States capture any movable property in the rebellion, by our regulations and laws, in conformity with the international law and the laws of war, such property is turned over to our Government as its property. Therefore: if we obtain possession of that species of property known to the laws of the insurrectionary States as slaves, why should there be any doubt that that property, like any other, vests in the United States?
If the property in the slave does so vest, the jus disponendi, the right of disposing of that property, rests in the United States.
Now, the United States have disposed of the property which they have acquired by capture in slaves taken by them, by giving that right of property to the man himself, to the slave--i.e., by emancipating him and declaring him free forever; so that if we have not mistaken the principles of international law and the laws of war, we have no slaves in the armies of the United States. All are free men, being made so in such manner as we have chosen to dispose of our property in them which we acquire by capture.
Slaves being captured by us, and the right of property in them thereby vested in us, that right of property has been disposed of by us by manumitting them, as has always been the acknowledged right of the owner to do to his slave. The manner in which we dispose of our property while it is in our possession certainly cannot be questioned by you.
Nor is the case altered if the property is not actually captured in battle, but comes either voluntarily or involuntarily from the belligerent owner into the possession of the other belligerent. I take it no one would doubt the right of the United States to a drove of Confederate mules, or a herd of Confederate cattle, which should wander or rush across the Confederate lines into the lines of the U.S. Army. So it seems to me, treating the negro as property merely, if that piece of property passes the Confederate lines and comes into the lines of the United States, that property is as much lost to its owner in the Confederate States as would be the mule or ox, the property of the resident of the Confederate States, which should fall into our hands.
If, therefore, the principles of international law and the laws of war used in this discussion are correctly stated, then it would seem that the deduction logically flows therefrom, in natural sequence, that the Confederate States can have no claim upon the negro soldiers captured by them from the armies of the United States, because of the former ownership of them by their citizens or subjects, and only claim such as result, under the laws of war, from their capture merely.
Do the Confederate authorities claim the right to reduce to a state of slavery freemen, prisoners of war, captured by them? This claim our fathers fought against under Bainbridge and Decatur when set up by the Barbary powers on the northern shore of Africa, about the year 1800, and in 1864 their children will hardly yield it upon their own soil.
This point I will not pursue further, because I understand you to repudiate the idea that you will reduce freemen to slaves because of capture in war, and that you base the claim of the Confederate authorities to re-enslave our negro soldiers when captured by you upon the jus postlimini, or that principle of the law of nations which rehabilitates the former owner with his property taken by an enemy when such property is recovered by the forces of his own country. Or, in other words, you claim that, by the laws of nations and of war, when property of the subjects of one belligerent power captured by the forces of the other belligerent is recaptured by the armies of the former owner, then such property is to be restored to its prior possessor, as if it had never been captured; and therefore under this principle your authorities propose to restore to their masters the slaves which heretofore belonged to them which you may capture from us.
But this postliminary right under which you claim to act, as understood and defined by all writers of national law, is applicable simply to immovable property, and that, too, only after the complete subjugation of that portion of the country in which the property is situated upon which this right fastens itself. By the laws and customs of war this right has never been applied to movable property.
True it is, I believe, that the Romans attempted to apply it in the case of slaves, but for 2,000 years no other nation has attempted to set up this right as ground for treating slaves differently from other property.
But the Romans even refused to re-enslave men captured from opposing belligerents in a civil war, such as ours unhappily is.
Consistently, then, with any principle of the law of nations, treating slaves as property merely, it would seem impossible for the Government of the United States to permit the negroes in their ranks to be re-enslaved when captured, or treated otherwise than as prisoners of war.
I have forborne, sir, in this discussion to argue the question upon any other or different grounds of right than those adopted by your authorities in claiming the negro as property, because I understand that your fabric of opposition to the Government of the United States has the right of property in man as its corner stone. Of course it would not be profitable in settling a question of exchange of prisoners of war to attempt to argue the question of abandonment of the very corner stone of their attempted political edifice. Therefore I have omitted all the considerations which should apply to the negro soldier as a man, and dealt with him upon the Confederate theory of property only.
I unite with you most cordially, sir, in desiring a speedy settlement of all these questions, in view of the great suffering endured by our prisoners in the hands of your authorities, of which you so feelingly speak. Let me ask, in view of that suffering, why you have delayed eight months to answer a proposition which, by now accepting, you admit to be right, just, and humane, allowing that suffering to continue so long? One cannot help thinking, even at the risk of being deemed uncharitable, that the benevolent sympathies of the Confederate authorities have been lately stirred by the depleted condition of their armies, and a desire to get into the field, to affect the present campaign, the hale, hearty, and well-fed prisoners held by the United States, in exchange for the half-starved, sick, emaciated, and unserviceable soldiers of the United States now languishing in your prisons. The events of this war, if we did not know it before, have taught us that it is not the Northern portion of the American people alone who know how to drive sharp bargains.
The wrongs, indignities, and privations suffered by our soldiers would move me to consent to anything to procure their exchange, except to barter away the honor and faith of the Government of the United States, which has been so solemnly pledged to the colored soldiers in its ranks.
Consistently with national faith and justice we cannot relinquish this position. With your authorities it is a question of property merely. It seems to address itself to you in this form: Will you suffer your soldier, captured in fighting your battles, to be in confinement for months rather than release him by giving for him that which you call a piece of property, and which we are willing to accept as a man?
You certainly appear to place less value upon your soldier than you do upon your negro. I assure you, much as we of the North are accused of loving property, our citizens would have no difficulty in yielding up any piece of property they have in exchange for one of their brothers or sons languishing in your prisons. Certainly there could be no doubt that they would do so were that piece of property less in value than $5,000 in Confederate money, which is believed to be the price of an able-bodied negro in the insurrectionary States.
Trusting that I may receive such a reply to the questions propounded in this note as will lead to a speedy resumption of the negotiations for a full exchange of all prisoners and a delivery of them to their respective authorities,
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
BENJ. F. BUTLER,
Major-General and Commissioner for Exchange.

[OR Series II, Vol VII, pp. 687-691]


I could go on with the other problems, but I think this illustrates how unreliable it is.

Regards,
Cash

[thea_447]

The simple facts remain:
The Union had medicines and food to give their prisoners and chose when or if to give them.

The Confederates did not have that luxury but did the best they could with what they had.

The Confederates tried to exchange, and then tried to give back their Union prisoners so they wouldn't suffer needlessly. The Union chose not to accept them because in doing so they might have to release Confederate prisoners whom they felt would come back and fight them again. The Confederates also tried to simply give back prisoners without receiving any prisoner exchange and this too was rejected. And at one point the North used the race card simply to justify not taking back these prisoners and allowing some of the Confederates to be returned.

It's apparent that lines have been drawn on this thread and neither side is going to give in. I know that I will stand by my sources just as I'm sure the other posters on this thread will stand by theirs.

We could go on ad infinitum with more sources but the fact remains that we all have our opinions about the treatment of the prisoners and who was more at fault.

Your servant,sirs,

[8thvacav]

That's just what I was thinking Thea. Well said.
Martin

[unionblue]

Thea,

The sad fact is, opinions are not facts. Cash has pointed out some historical facts and documents. They can be checked and verified. Opinions can not. No matter how unpleasant those facts may appear, they can be checked. Opinions cannot be checked, only cherished and clung too. It is history that teaches us to hope.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

Neil,

Sigh......To me the sad fact is that is increasingly obvious is that only northern points of view and northern documentation is considered “facts” but Southern points of view and documentation is merely opinion or fabrications. You can check facts to confirm that Cash's information is not as clear cut as you pretend it is. But only if you want to.

I'm not going to get into it on this topic but I will say that much of what Cash presented can be documented as untrue or at very least, in doubt. But I guess that is of no consequence. Only one side to this story I suppose.

For instance, there is much documentation at the Academic Affairs Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill evidencing that indeed Union generals had been forbidden "to deliver to the rebels a single able-bodied man." (Or check on the OR series 2 Vol VIII page 349 the inquiry stating it was over Butler's signature. But I'm sure the great noble Butler would NEVER say such a thing, I'm foolish for even mentioning it.......but..oh wait....he actually tells of this incident in his book...Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler
Page 592
“Lieutenant-General Grant visited Fortress Monroe on the 1st April. To him the state of the negotiations as to exchange of prisoners was communicated, and most emphatic verbal directions were received from the lieutenant-general not to take any steps by which another able-bodied man should be exchanged until further orders from him.

He then explained to me his views upon these matters. He said that I would agree with him that by the exchange of prisoners we get no men fit to go into our army, and every soldier we gave the Confederates went immediately into theirs, so that the exchange was virtually so much aid to them and none to us. For we gave them well men who went directly into their ranks and we had but few others, as the returns showed. Yet we received none from them substantially but disabled men, and by our laws and regulations they were to be allowed to go home and recuperate, which few of them did, and fewer still came back to our armies.

Now, the coming campaign was to be decided by the strength of the opposing forces, for the contest would all centre upon the Army of the Potomac and its immediate adjuncts. His proposition was to make an aggressive fight upon Lee, trusting to the superiority of numbers and to the practical impossibility of Lee getting any considerable reinforcements to keep up his army. We had twenty-six thousand Confederate prisoners, and if they were exchanged it would give the Confederates a corps, larger than any in Lee's army, of disciplined veterans better able to stand the hardships of a campaign and more capable than any other. To continue exchanging upon parole the prisoners captured on one side and the other, especially if we captured more prisoners than they did, would at least add from thirty to perhaps fifty per cent to Lee's capability for resistance. “....oh. but I posted it so it must be partisan information and Butler's other comments are the only ones germaine)That was the Confederate point of view and evidence at the time. In fact, the argument over prisoners of war went on for 50 years after the war.

Wirz was convicted and executed. In reference to his trial, evidence that stands un-refuted that the trial was a sham, a mockery of justice. The prosecutor even gave the defense’s closing arguments. No Union Commandant was ever brought to justice. The Union had no excuse in any way to starve prisoners to death. Torture, death and starvation where the norm in Union prisons. No justice there. In the South, citizens starved. Especially in Georgia.

One reason the facts assume a higher percentage of Union soldiers died in captivity than Confederates is the very simple fact that a very large percentage of Confederates listed as prisoners of war came in April of 65. If you remove the Confederates captured in the last 6 weeks of warfare the numbers change drastically. To the point that the ones rewriting history cannot even fudge. But..that is what winners get to do. After all, the self righteous are always right.

As Always,
YMOS
tommy




(Message edited by aphillbilly on May 17, 2004)

[unionblue]

Tommy,

Cash has pointed out SOME historical facts and documents. Martin has presented some documents charged with emotion and written with a bias or slant after the war, in my opinion. Thea has stated her opinions and has given some documentation from the Southern Historical Society, which, in my opinion, is an organization with an agenda, even though it be a historical one.

Who gave the order to stop prisoner exchanges? Did Southern soldiers violate their parole and report right back to their units to fight? Were black soldiers not exchanged but given back to their owners? Were white officers in charge of black regiments exchanged or were they given up to the States for charges and trial?

I will admit to facts and have in the past. I will not be swayed by opinion or partisan rhetoric no matter if it is Northern or Southern in its source. I am stubborn and remain so.

Everyone has an opinion, but can you give it up in the face of fact, historical or otherwise? I hope so, because it is history that teaches me to hope.

YMOS,
Unionblue

(Message edited by Unionblue on May 17, 2004)

Neil,
You may wish to read the re-edit. There it is, Proof in Butler's own words countering Cash's rebuttal regarding ""to deliver to the rebels a single able-bodied man." The claim was made by the Confederate inquiry as well as by Butler 30 years later.
That is not my opinion nor my so called partisan rhetoric.
As to the insult towards the Southern Historical Society...sigh...guess you are proof positive of opinions blinding one to the facts. The SHSP has been proven time and again to be a remarkably accurate (given the circumstances)and invaluble period resource. As James Robertson stated "they contain some inaccuracies as well as expected bias; yet no other single source contains more good material on life in the fighting forces of the South"

YMOS
tommy









(Message edited by aphillbilly on May 17, 2004)

[cash]

Hello, Thea,

I'm afraid your timetable is off. As the despatch from Edwin Stanton dated November of 1863 which I posted shows, the exchanges were ended in 1863 because of the rebels' not treating blacks as proper POWs. That's not a postwar interpretation, it's not something that was done after confederates tried to make exchanges. It was the actual despatch from Stanton that suspended the exchanges. I don't honestly see how anyone can claim, after seeing that despatch, that it wasn't until later, in 1864, that the Federals referred to black soldiers as the reason for not exchanging prisoners.

I've seen the allegation that confederates tried to return prisoners with no exchange before, but I've never seen anyone substantiate it with primary source material. If you know of any primary source material that substantiates that claim I would dearly love to see it and would appreciate it, because it simply makes no sense to me that a Union officer would refuse to accept Union soldiers who were prisoners of the confederacy without having to, in turn, give up confederate soldiers who were prisoners of the Union. It seems to me that it would be a huge feather in everyone's cap to get prisoners back without having to give prisoners up, so please forgive me for not believing it without substantiation.

As to medicines and food, can you point me to the guarantee that any medicine or food given to the confederates would go solely to the prisoners and not be siphoned off for the use of confederate troops? Besides, isn't it the responsibility of the detaining power to care for the prisoners it is detaining? If they didn't have the ability to care for these men, then they should have given the men their paroles on the battlefield and let them go.

Now, please don't infer from my comments that I give the Federals a pass on their treatment of POWs, or that I believe the confederates deliberately mistreated their prisoners. I do not believe the confederates deliberately mistreated their prisoners at all. I think the program was mismanaged due to the incompetence of John Winder, not due to any deliberate design. The Federals mistakenly believed the confederates were deliberately starving their prisoners, so in retaliation they cut back on the rations given in their prisons to the confederates they held. I agree with Bruce Catton's assessment, that the mistreatment of prisoners on both sides was due to human error.

Regards,
Cash