Opposition to the Halt of Prisoner Exchange

Well, I had to look that one up, but I see it is a retaliatory measure. .

That's probably one of a half dozen non-legal Latin words or phrases I remember from taking at least two years of the required language in a Catholic High School. I had a difficult enough time when I had to take an Old English class and read and recite **** like Beowulf and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
 
That's probably one of a half dozen non-legal Latin words or phrases I remember from taking at least two years of the required language in a Catholic High School. I had a difficult enough time when I had to take an Old English class and read and recite **** like Beowulf and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
:laugh: I don't envy you Ye Olde English class!
 
Butler has quite a take on the exchanges:

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.

Benjamin Butler, Autobiography & Reminiscences, 1892, pg 604-5

Sourced from Wikiquote
 
It seems the topic was covered well... I will add this... Here is like a timeline leading up to the ending of the exchange program...

The prison exchange system, codified on July 22, 1862 by the Dix Hill Cartel, called for equal exchanges of all soldiers captured, and these soldiers could return to their units. The balance remaining after equal exchanges were to be paroled, and not to take up arms again until they were formally exchanged. Then in September of 1862, President Lincoln called for the enlistment of black soldiers into the Union Armies as part of the preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. In December 1862, President Davis responded by issuing a proclamation that neither captured black soldiers nor their white officers would be subject to exchange. In January 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation became official and the United States began the active recruitment of black soldiers. The Lieber Codes, also known as General Order 100, were issued in April 1863 and stipulated that the United States government expected all prisoners to be treated equally, regardless of color. In May of 1863, the Confederate Congress passed a joint resolution that formalized Davis' proclamation that black soldiers taken prisoner would not be exchanged. In mid-July 1863 this became a reality, as several prisoners from the 54thMassachusetts were not exchanged with the rest of the white soldiers who participated in the assault on Fort Wagner. On July 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued General Order 252, which effectively suspended the Dix-Hill Cartel until the Confederate forces agreed to treat black prisoners the same as white prisoners. The Confederate forces declined to do so at that time, and large scale prisoner exchanges largely ceased by August 1863, resulting in a dramatic increase in the prison populations on both sides.

It was the Confederacy, not Grant that scuddled the prisoner exchange program... Here is Grant's famous quote that history has to burden him with for causing the program to be ended which we see is false now...

"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 we hold, when 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." – General Ulysses S. Grant, August 18, 1864.

This quote from General Grant is often cited as evidence that he stopped prisoner exchanges and that he did it because of the callous arithmetic of the war – calculating that by stopping exchanges the Union armies could simply outlast the Confederates. His statement is so ingrained into the common interpretation of Civil War prisons that it was engraved on the Wirz Monument in the town of Andersonville. However, the prisoner exchange issue was far more complicated, and the timeline of exchanges does not support the notion that Grant stopped the prisoner exchange.

We can blame for not restarting the program later...

Although Grant was not responsible for the cessation of the Dix-Hill Cartel, he does bear a portion of the responsibility for the failure to resume the exchange. The United States government's policy was to halt the cartel until the Confederacy agreed to include black prisoners. When the Confederacy finally agreed to do so after more than a year, Grant failed to fulfill the Union's end of the agreement by refusing to fully resume the Dix-Hill Cartel as it existed in 1862-1863.

Here is the link to the story...

https://www.nps.gov/ande/learn/historyculture/grant-and-the-prisoner-exchange.htm
 
Butler has quite a take on the exchanges:

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.

Benjamin Butler, Autobiography & Reminiscences, 1892, pg 604-5

Sourced from Wikiquote
I am very glad you added this. Thank you. It's often the interpretation we put on things that makes the difference, meaning there is always great cause for reasoned debate.
 
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