New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1865-02-03

oners are nearly all fa- in the interior. With the
utmost endeavors, BY tclegraphing to and fro and
stimulating negligent agents, it requires from
twenty-fv to forty days to send little package
from Richmond to Salisbury by express. The
Winter would be long past before blanket or a
pound Of food could reach the prisoners, and at the
present rate Of mortality and enlistment IN the
Rebel army, how many would be left
Probably some of the supplies will reach the
prisoners. II is morally certain that large portion
of them will 90 to repenish the Impoverished
Ouartermaster and Commissary Departments Oh
the Rebel army. No religious bigot in the days OF
the Inouisition was ever more true to the inJunc-
ton "No faith with heretics" than they are to the
principle of mo faith with Yankees "hy'
have known our Government, month after month,
continue to send By its truceboats tuns ana tuhs Oh
valuable private boxes for prisoners, WINE the
Rebels, not satisfied with their usual practice Oh
stealing portion under the rose, upon sonie i'''
lous pretext or other openly conilscang c''i!
pound of Them At the same time, as / am assurcu'
the returning trllcc-boats were loaded down Win
boxcs sent 70 Rebel prisoners from their friends IN
the South. and our own express lines crowded win
supplies from their symathizers IN the Norlh' Anu
can only regard the recent announcement tha' we
NAV send private boxes 10 friends and relatives IN
the South as a cruel delusion. One box IN SIX or
ten may reach its destination; but the rest VIII sup
NV officers and hangers-on in Richmond and
thieves along the Southern railroads generally, win
coffee and sugar at no expense whatever, unless
the LEOPARD has changed his spots since the 18Th Of
December.
There il proposition before Congress TO place
the Rebels we hold sunder the charge OF returned
prisoners from the South. Returned prisoners
means anybody. There must be at least fifty thou
sand of them in orr military service. Men might
be selected from them to command our military
prisons, who would treat the inmates with even
more lenitv than il now extended to them. Then
we should get the credit both abroad and from the
Rebels. OF retalia.ing without any real retaliation
Or officers might be selected who would be guilty
Of the same undiscriminatng crueltcs that are now
practiced upon our own soldiers-who would starve,
and freeze and shoot in cold blood. That would be
precisely one Of the really inhuman and unchrstan
things which we cannot afford 10 do.
I have witnessed during the war good many
scenes which have thrilled my heart but since that
daywhen heard the bells in Mobile ring iubilantly,
and the cannon thunder forth the JOY Of Treason at
the fall of Sumter. the best thing hsve seen was
in the West upon steamboats, conveying the
wounded from the field of Shiloh to Northern hos
pitfalls Their long cabins were crowded with cots,
where Rebel and Union soldiers were lying side by
side. receiving the same comforts and the same
10 Lodi rf
and ST. Louis, with untiring patience, were wash
ing wounds, combing matted locks, cooling feyercd
brows filing the places OF absent mothers and Sis
ters even to their words Of sympathy and kindness
They performed the most grateful and the most re-
pulsive duties Of the hospital for friend and foe
alike. They forgot that The Rebels were eneInies,
and remembered that they were sufferers. How
rloriouslv il contrasted with the treatment received
bv our prisoners in the South!
60 In that faiT Jay,
When peace its smiling on our hills more"
what shall we look back 10 with more
pleasure than TO the labors Of those blessed
women? / have no fears that VIC can treat
our prisoners in gcnerai-especally the private
soldiors-toc kindly. l have no fears that ii will
do any harm even to investigate the condition Of
our military prisons, 10 correct abuses and punish
crueltes, if any exist. And there seems TO be
some law OF nature by which corrupt and cruel
men often gravitate into positions of authority
about prisons the world over.
But where is the remedy we SEEK ] believe
there are two and only two adequate ones. The first
Is an immediate general excharge-no, an exchange
Al the usual rate Of official business, which will
leave half OF our prisoners TO die before il reaches
theI-but one which shall return to US all the
salisbury sufferers within two weeks, and every
prisoner in the South within Il month.
The Other is an immediate special retaliation,
not upon the Rebel private soldiers. They belong
70 TIE middle and poorer classes of the South, who
were never specially hostile 10 Us; who are falling
Of more ard more rapidly from the support Of the
war who arc our only sure and trustworthy peace
makers Retaliation upon them would bcunayaillng
as wei rs undeservcd. The Richmond authorities
care nothing for them, except as they represent
muskos, and often treat them almost as bafDarously
as they do orr prisoners.
The Rebel officers are our effective material.
Hurt them ard Richmond shricks. Almost 20 d
man, they belong 10 that class which brought on
the war, which controls the war, and which, in
spite Of all the white-wnged messengers between
Bangor and Oregon, will continue the war just as
long as they can keep any considerable armies i'll
the field. Submission, for them, means criermina-
HoI-no: a. mem but as the controlling political
and social Power of the South. They will
fight now just as earnestly as cyer-not with
their old, confident expectation Of carly and
complete success, but with "a logged, desperate
AIcav bcr-ke hope that, as in the past, so in tho
future, at the hour of their EXTREMIST need, some