Indiana State sentinel. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1863-09-07

be Reached.
This day Mr.. Commissioner OnId meets Cor the
first ime the new, General Commissiopler "a Ger
tain Gen. Meredith. to confer on the terms OF the
cartel. aud endeavor TO settle the principles of
exchange forthe fulure. y II is ~scarcel, possible
to hope that any co,selusiou satisfactory to both
sides can be arrived at in this conference. The
Federal Gevernment has planted itself insolcntly
upon the demand that our runaway negroes. when
taken in arms against their masters. shall be
treated as prisoners OF war, aud shall beer
changed against white men. Ccnfederates have
borne and forbOrne much to mitigate the atroci
ties Of war; but this is a thing which the temper
OF the country cannot endure. Our Government
has issued an order as to the treatment OF re-
yolted negroes when captured. Certain captured
negroes, under that order, have been imprisoned
at Charleston to await the disposal OF the Stare
Government. Thereupon the Yankee War De
partment sent forth this letter to their Secretary
Of the Navy:
WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON CITY,1
August 8, 1863.
Sm: Your letter Of the Sd inst, calling the at
tention of this department to the cases Of Grin II
Brown, VIM. II johnson and m. Wilson. three
colored men captared on the gunboat Isaac
Smith, has received consideration This depart
ment has directed that three rebel prisoners of
South Carolina, If there be any such in our pos
session, and If not, three others. be confined in
close custody and held rs hostages for Brown,
johnson and Wilson, and that the fact be com
municated to the authorities at Richmond.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant
EDWIN NJ. STANTON.
e Secretary of War.
The Hon. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Nary:
Thus issue is joined. We take il to be quite
impossible that our Government will weld one
jot on this vital point; but the first demand Of
the new Federal Commissioner will be that we at
once consent to put the negroes on the footing of
our own troops, and value them against each
other. nan for man. and grade for grade. That
being refused. as it must be, the conference, no
doubt. will be broken off: and there is an end of
the cartel, and of all exchange of prisoners
This attempted outrage by the Yankee Gov
eminent is the first fruit of their temporary luck
in holding an excess of prisoners. 1t was sorely
against their will at first that they consented to
any cartel at all and regarded Confederate prison
ers in any.other light than thatof captured male
f,ctors due 10 the penitentiary or The gallows.
With spiteful rage they found themselves com
PEELED to provide for the safety of their own great
multitude Of prisoners in our hands. by an ar
raugement for exchange, which we might have
been sure would have been observed only so long
as they thought they would suffer more than we
for want of such an arrangement. They avail
themselves Of the first opportunity to assert their
original theory, namely, that we are rebels and
criminals having no rights. All the rights are
on the side of what they call 1.-THE law" they are
suppressing an Instruction, they say. in their
own country; and all means are legimate. Thus
they not only adopt the utterly barbarous expedi
ent of exciting servile insurrection, but they in
form us that il these revolted negroes are restored
to their masters. they will putal equal number of
Confederate citizens to hard labor. Ii is not
merely the ~insolent pretension of a regular gov
ernment affecting to deal with "rebels, but il is
a deadly stab which they are aiming at our in
situations themselves, because they know, if we
were insane enough to Weld this point, to treat
black men as the equals of white. and insureent
slaves as equivalen. 10 our brave soldiers. the
very foundation of slavery would be fatally
wounded.
The pretension to treat us no longer as bellig-
erents, but as malefactors-tO deal with us not
by the usages of civilized warfare, but by the
rules of criminal Jurisprudence, is a fact which
we have now to look full IN the face, and to meet
as best we can. The theory Is very well expoun-
ded by a passage which we find in the old letter
Of an Ohio correspondent to the New York Tri-
bune, describing the unmanly outrages perpetra-
ted upon our gallant Gen. Morgan and his Off
GERS. The writer says:
"shove and wash and clothe a General like a general
c0nv1cu IL you explain mat II Is john due, OF a horse
thief. they are so angry that they tell you it 8 just what
the Federal Government has been doing all through.
When you point out that a Government can do some
things which private bodies can't-as n sheriff can take
lawfully what a burglar can not-they tell you those who
know that they can do IL safely,l that one is iust as much
a Gevernment as the other; that one is aGovernment and
the other is not, and so on"
Just so-here is the principle stripped naked.
The enemy has a right 10 take horses and every
thing else in our country; we, il We retaliate, are
horse thieves. Milroy, and Butler. and Banks
are agents of the lawful Government; but Lee
is a private person, merely stealing. They are
the constituted authorities; we are lawless per
sons evading or resisting the sherifrs officers.
Their prisoners in our hands are entitled TO re-
81 ectful usage; ours captured by them are entitled
TO nothing but condign punishment for their
crimes. If they yielded for a time to our supe
rior force, and agreed to exchange on equal
terms, it was still under protest, and with the
firm resolution TO make US suffer for it ten-fold
the moment they should have the advantage
On the same principle. also. the forbearance of
Gen. Lee inPennsylvania was received as a mat
ter of right; for the criminal at large had no title
to retaliate upon the officers of justice; and the
enemy looked upon that chivalrOus forbearance
with sincere pleasure, not so much because their
people we're spared as because ours were degreed
by it. Our RETAINING from retaliating the desc
lation which they bad visited upon our country,
had at least the appearance OF accepting, on our
part, the character Of criminals which it is their
policy TO impose upon US.
Under-these circumstances, what hope is there
Of the arrangement of the cartel upon a footing
of equality? Will Lincoln's government re-
nounce that audacious pretension to treat us as
criminalsf Or will it, after deliberately enlisting
our runaway negroes into its military service.
consent to give them up to he dealt with by our
State laws as insurgents? We know very well
what these questions all tend to. We have long
perceived that the time is at hand when no more
prisoners will be taken. Our people and our
troops are entitled. at the hands Of their governs
ment, TO such protection as a government can
afford them. Our soldiers entered the Confeder
ate service as the soldiers of a regular govern
ment, and they cannot afford to meet the enemy
10 tire character of malefactors. If there is TO be
no exchange on equal terms, better there should
be no exchange at all-better that the enemy
should understand there will be no quarter asked
nor given: and then at last there will be equality.
We await with impotence the result of the
conference between the two Exchange Commits
sioners, but strongly aDprehend that the occupa-
ton Of those gentlemen is almost gone.
Our Army Correspondence-From
CAMP Won TRKLvE. BELLFoNrE. ALA.}