The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-11 00:00:00

The Treatment of Federal Prisoners.

The following letter has been addressed to the
editor of the Times :
Sir,—l find on arrival in England that public
attention is directed afresh to the accusation made
by the Federal authorities that prisoners of war
were cruelly treated by the Confederates—not merely
in exceptional cases by subordinate officials, but sys-
tematically, and in conformity with a policy delibe-
rately adopted by President Davis, General Lee,
and Mr. Seddon. As a member of the Cabinet of
President Davis from the date of his first inaugura-
tion under the Provisional Constitution to the final
overthrow of the Confederate Government by force
of arms, as a personal friend whose relations with
Jefferson Davis have been of the most intimate and
confidential nature, I feel it imperatively to be my
duty to request your insertion of this letter in vin-
dication of honourable men, who, less fortunate
than myself, are now held in close confinement by
their enemies, and are unable to utter an indignant
word in self-defence.
A very material fact in relation to this charge of
cruelty was omitted in the recent letter from your
late "Richmond Correspondent," who was probably
not aware of it, but which I can attest froni personal
knowledge. During the difficulties which prevented
the exchange of prisoners of war, cases arose which
appealed so strongly to humanity that it was impos-
sible for the most obdurate to remain insensible. The
Federal authorities, therefore, empowered Col. Mul-
ford, their Commissioner of Exchange, to consent to
a mutual delivery of such sick and disabled prisoners
as were incapable of performing military service. To
this class was the exchange of prisoners rigorously
restricted. Colonel Ould, the Confederate Com-
missioner of Exchange (who has recently been
honourably acquitted by the Federals themselves of
the same false charge of cruelty to prisoners), made
to the President, to the Secretary of War, and to
myself repeated complaints that prisoners on both
sides were frequently delivered in a condition so
prostrate as to render death certain from exposure
during the transit between James River and Wash-
ington or Annapolis. Efforts were made in vain to
check this evil. In spite of surgeons' certificates
that they were too ill for removal without imminent
danger, sick men on both sides, wearied by long
confinement, fearful that the exchange would again
be interrupted, longing for the sight of home and
friends, would either insist on their ability to endure
the journey, or, professing that recovery was hope-
less, would piteously implore to be allowed to see
their families before death. The lifeless bodies of
numbers of Confederates shipped from the North
under these circumstances were delivered to us at
City Point, and the like results attended the de-
livery from our side. Rigid care was taken by the
authorities of the United States to exclude from the
exchange all cases of slight illness, in accordance
with their avowed policy of preventing our armies
from being recruited by returned prisoners, this being
our only resource for filling our thinned ranks, while
they were able to procure unlimited recruits from
this side of the Atlantic. From the class just men-
tioned the most emaciated specimens were chosen by
our enemies, and exhibited as conclusive evidence
that we exercised habitual cruelty towards prisoners
of war. The most wretched and desperate cases were
even made the originals for " photographs which
cannot lie," and the revolting pictures of human
infirmil y thus procured were affixed as embellish-
ments to sensational reports manipulated by Con-
gressional Committees and Sanitary Commissions.
It is not my purpose to examine in detail the
question whether on us or on the Federals rests the
responsibility of interrupting the exchange of pri-
soners, and thus producing a mass of human misery
and anguish of which few examples can be found in
history. The published correspondence of the Com-
missioners of Exchange and certain revelations
made by Federal officials in public speeches and in
newspaper articles will be sufficient to satisfy on this
point the few who take the pains to ascertain the
truth ; but in response to the allegations imputed
in the latest news from America to General Hitch-
cock, that " for the delays in exchanging and the
consequent sufferings of ehc prisoners the fault
rested entirely with the Confederates," I would
recall the ronowing 'acts :
The first effort to establish a cartel of exchange
was made by the Confederates when I was tempo-
rarily in charge of the War-office at Richmond, to-
wards the close of the Provisional Government.
Gen. Howell Cobb on our part, and Gen. Wool on
the part of the United States, agreed on a cartel
which was submitted to their respective Governments
for approval. In my instructions to Gen. Cobb he
was specially directed to propose that after exhaust-
ing exchanges the party having surplus prisoners in
possession should allow them to go home on parole
till the other belligerent should succeed in captur-
ing an equivalent number for exchange. When this
proposal was made by us we held a larger number
of prisoners than were in the hands of the enemy.
It was accpted by Gen. Wool as one of the terms of
the cartel, but, unfortunately, some successes of our
enemies intervened before ratification by their Go-
vernment. They obtained, in their turn, an excess
of prisoners, and at once refused to ratify the cartel.
In the ensuing year, while Gen. Randolph was Sec-
retary of War, the Confederates were a second time
in possession of an excess of prisoners, and succeeded
in negotiating a cartel under which they liberated
many thousands of prisoners on parole without any
present equivalent, thus securing in advance the
liberation of a like number of their own soldiers that
might afterwards fall into the enemies' hands. This
cartel remained for many months in operation. No
check nor difficulty occurred as long as we made a
majority of captures.

In July, 1863, the fortune of war became very
adverse to the Confederacy. The battle of Gettys-
burg checked the advance of General Lee on the
Federal capital, while almost simultaneously the
fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson gave to our
enemies a large preponderance in the number of
prisoners. The authorities at Washington imme-
diately issued general orders refusing to receive
from General Lee the prisoners held by him until
they should bo reduced to possession in Virginia,
thus subjugating their own men to the terrible suf-
ferings glanced at by Colonel Fremantle in order
to embarrass General Lee's movements. They fur-
ther refused to restore to us the excess of prisoners
held by them, after having received for nearly or
quite a year the benefit of the special provision of
the cartel when it operated in their favour, and
during the entire war they never once consented to
a delivery to us of any prisoners in excess of the
number for which we were prepared to return an
immediate equivalent.
It requires no sagacity to perceive that every mo-
tive of interest as well as of humanity operated
to induce us to facilitate the exchange of pri-
soners, and to submit even to unjust and unequal
terms in order to recover soldiers whom we could
replace from no other source. On the other hand,
interest and humanity were at war in their influence
on the Federal officials. Others must judge of the
humanity and justice of the policy which consigned
hundreds of thousands of wretched men to capti-
vity apparently hopeless, but I can testify unhesi-
tatingly to its sagacity and efficacy, and to the
pitiless sternness with which it was executed. In-
deed, this refusal to exchange was, one of the moss
fatal blows dealt us during the war, and contributed
to our overthrow more perhaps than any other
single measure. I write not to make complaint of
it, but simply to protest against the attempt of the
Federals so to divide the consequences of their own
conduct as to throw on us the odium attached to a
cruelty plainly injurious to us, obviously beneficial
to themselves.

The sense of duty which prompts this letter would
be but imperfectly satisfied were I to withhold at
this juncture the testimony which none so well as
myself can offer in relation to the charge of in-
humanity made against President Davis. For the
four

years during which I have been one of his most
trusted advisers, the recipient of his confidence, the
sharer to the best of my abilities in his labours and
responsibilities, I have learnt to know him better
perhaps than he is known by any other living man.
Neither in private conversation nor in Cabinet
Council have I ever heard him utter one unworthy
thought, one ungenerous sentiment. On repeated
occasions when the savage atrocities of such men