BOOK SEVENTH.

“Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto.”—Terence.

“Since no man has a natural right over his fellow-creature, and since force produces no right, conventions then remain as the base for all legitimate authority among men.”—Rousseau.

I.

“War,” exclaims the author of the “Social Contract,” “is not exactly a relation of man to man, but a relation of state to state, in which the individuals are enemies only by accident, and not as men, neither even as citizens, but as soldiers,—not exactly as members of the country, but as its defenders. In fine, every state can have as enemies only other states, and not men, on account of the interference of things of diverse natures, which cannot fix any true relation.

“This principle is even conformed to maxims established in all times, and to the constant practice of all civilized people. The declarations of war are more as warnings to the powers than to their subjects. The stranger—either king, or individual, or people—who seizes, kills, or detains the subjects, without declaring the war to the ruler, is not an enemy, he is a brigand.

“Even in open war, a just ruler seizes property in an enemy’s country, all that which belongs to the public; but he respects the person and the property of the individual; he respects the rights upon which his own are founded.

“The intent of the war being the destruction of the hostile state, we have the right to kill the defenders so often as they have arms in their hands; but as soon as they lay them down, and surrender, ceasing to be enemies, or instruments of the enemy, they become again simply men, and we have no longer a right to their lives. Sometimes we may destroy a state without killing a single one of its members; but war does not confer any right which is not necessary to its end.

“These principles are not those of Grotius: they are not founded upon the authorities of poets: but they are derived from the nature of things, and are founded upon reason. With regard to the right of conquest, it has no other foundation than the law of the most force. If war does not give to the conqueror the right to massacre the vanquished people, that right, which he has not, does not establish that to enslave. We have no more right to kill an enemy than to make him a slave. The right to enslave does not then come from the right to kill. This is then an unjust exchange, to compel him to purchase life at the price of liberty, upon which we have no right.

“In establishing the right of life and death upon the right of slavery, and the right to enslave upon the right of life and death, is it not clear that we fall into a wicked circle?”

II.

Says Mirabeau, in his beautiful essay on “Despotism,” “We can destroy the life of a man for a frightful crime; but that is not to appropriate my existence when it is forced from me. Consider, upon this subject, how absurd is the opinion of the pretended philosophers who have established force as title; who have set up a right of conquest, and recognized to the conquerors the legitimate power to grant life or put to death.

“It is not true that the right of life and death, exercised by a man upon another man, has ever been anything else than an act of frenzy; for your enemy reduced to slavery can be yet useful to you, provided you preserve his life,—and this is less than the right that he has upon you, and the relation which binds you together; but the massacre of a man is nothing more than to dishonor and disgust humanity, * * * the right of life and death, * * * and what other has the Creator to exercise over our existence?

“From man to man the rights then are always respective. Personal propriety cannot surrender itself, liberty cannot alienate itself. This first gift of nature is imprescriptible; and men, even in their delirium, cannot renounce it.”

III.

“Opinion makes the law.” If human laws are uncertain and contradictory, it is not the fault of nature, since man has invented or discovered rules in the science of physics which are constant and invariable, like those of geometry and chemistry.

Whatever renders the laws of society invariable, inoperative, is due to the inherent weakness of their basis, and not to the eternal principles of truth and justice. All human laws must be founded on that fundamental and immutable law of nature, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” This precept of divine origin is the great balance of the human mind; and it is the secret spring of the progress of nations, as well as the social development of individuals: for without this principle the world would be nothing but a vast arena, in which all classes of people would be arrayed against each other in deadly conflict; impelled by the force of passion and appetite, error and prejudice would soon banish the influence of truth and reason. The weaker families would soon be consumed by the stronger in the wars of avarice and religion.

“The laws of nature,” writes M. Regis, “are the dictates of right reason, which teach every man how he is to use his natural right; and the laws of nations are the dictates, in like manner, of right reason, which teach every state how to act and behave themselves toward others.”

“As God,” says Blackstone, “when he created matter, and endowed it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that motion, so when he created man, and endued him with free will to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature whereby that free will is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws.”

This law of nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding all over the globe, in all countries and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid, derive all their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.

Human laws originate in the wisdom of man, and are designed to regulate their behavior to one another, and are enforced by human authority and worldly sanctions.

The fear of punishment and revenge are not strong enough to control the lusts and passions of men.

The true idea and comprehension of the majesty and mercy of the law is infused by the spirit of philosophy.

IV.

“The existence of states,” says Montesquieu, “is like that of man, and the first have the right to make war for their proper preservation; the latter have the right to kill in the case of natural defence. In the case of natural defence I have the right to kill, since my life is my own, as the life of him who attacks me belongs to himself. * * * From the right of war follows that of conquest, which is the consequence: it ought then to follow the spirit. * * * It is clear when the conquest is made, the conqueror has no longer the right to kill, since he is no longer in the position of natural defence, or for his proper preservation.

“That which has made them think thus (right to kill), is that they have believed that the conqueror had the right to destroy society, whence they have concluded that they had that to destroy the men who composed it, which is a false consequence extracted from a false principle. Because the society should perish, it does not follow that the men who form it ought also to perish. Society is a union of men, and not men: the citizen can perish and the man remain. From the right to kill in conquest, politics have derived the right to enslave; but the consequence is as badly founded as the principle.”

There are certain rules that arise from the principle of self-preservation, and form what Wolff calls “the voluntary law of nations.” “Hence it follows that all nations have a right to repel by force what openly violates the law of the society which nature has established among them, or that directly attacks the welfare and safety of that society. At the same time care must be taken not to extend this law to the prejudice of the liberty of nations.”

V.

The right of jurisdiction belongs only to those societies which have united for the purpose of maintaining the natural rights of each individual.

The ablest writers have maintained that society has not the right of life and death, and whoever arrogates that power commits a “divine lèse majesté.” “The object, the interest, and the function of all government are, then, to maintain the harmony of society established upon the moral relations of justice, and upon the physical order that no human power can change, and to protect all those who compose that society.” Louis XI., that Tiberius of France, caused to be put to death more than four thousand persons, and nearly all without process of law.

We see passionate men defending palpable errors with fanaticism and metaphysical temerity, as though they were divine dogmas. Thus Slavery would legalize frightful tyranny, and declare permanent proscriptions, with the same ease that it consigned thousands to starvation. “If liberty,” says the author of the “Essai sur le Despotisme,” “is the first of resorts for man, Slavery must alter all the sentiments, blunt all the sensations, and denaturalize them; stifle all talent, blend all shades, corrupt all the orders of state, and scatter discord, the germ of anarchy and revolutions. Man is only wicked when a superstitious institution or a tyrannical government gives the example of ferocity, and supplies him with fear for motive and cupidity for passion. But it is necessary to distinguish with men the character acquired from natural inclination: we are, of all beings, the most susceptible of modifications, and above all, of extreme passions. An enslaved people are always vile: they can be wicked and cruel, because they are irritable, gloomy, and ignorant; and when, although instruction will not be the only rampart of liberty against tyranny, it will always be the first safeguard of man against man; but the slave is a mutilated man.”

Every writer will admit this whose pen is not enslaved by fear, or rendered venal by interest.

VI.

The right of making prisoners of war, and depriving them of their liberty, and of the power and opportunity of farther resistance, is undoubted, for it is founded on the principles of security and self-defence. But when the soldier has laid down his arms, and submitted to the will of the conqueror, the right of taking his life ceases, unless he should forfeit the right himself by some new crime; and the savage errors of antiquity, in putting prisoners to death, have long been renounced by civilized nations.

Among the European states prisoners of war are seldom ill-treated; and when the number of prisoners is so great as not to be fed, or kept with safety, it has been the custom to parole them, either for a certain length of time, or for the war. All authorities agree that they cannot be made slaves, although under certain circumstances they may be set at labor on the public fortifications and works.

Prisoners of war are retained to prevent their returning to the field of conflict, and there are times when they may be detained and refused all ransom, when, for instance, it is obvious that the parole will not be regarded by the opposing commanders, and when their exchange would throw a preponderance of weight into the ranks of the antagonist. It would have been very dangerous for the Czar Peter the Great to have exchanged his Swedish prisoners for an equal number of unequal Russians; but whilst retained they were treated with kindness.

VII.

The rebel policy and system towards the Federal prisoners, along the entire line, without exception, from Virginia to Texas, was one of stupendous atrocity. It was one of the most inhuman and monstrous that hate and tyranny ever invented. It was no less derogatory to human character than defiant to the principles of Christianity; but Christianity was unknown there. The gods of worship were the deities of the dark ages, and the fancied garlands of flowers that decorated their statues were nothing more than wreaths of cyprus leaves. This stockade was the epitome and concentration of all earthly misery, to which the Bastile and the Inquisition offer but feeble comparisons, as prototypes, as models, as ideas, for the destruction of human life.

In this we recognize the perversion of the natural sentiments after two centuries of crime, the defiance of all honorable law, “the barbarism of slavery.”

What can we, in extenuation, ascribe to recklessness, what to ignorance? “There is,” says the eloquent Rousseau, “a brutal and ferocious ignorance, which springs from a bad heart and a false spirit. A criminal ignorance, which extends itself even to the duties of humanity; which multiplies vices, which degrades reason, debases the soul, and renders man like the beasts.”

These men destroyed the strength, the lives of thousands, by stealthy means, and excused their consciences by the reflections of perverted nature: as Timour said to his victims, “It is you who assassinate your own souls!”

VIII.

It has been the custom, among European nations, to treat prisoners of war liberally, and the expenses of maintaining them are paid by both sides at the close of the war.

The British Parliament voted, in 1780, to pay forty thousand pounds sterling to disinfect and improve the prison where the Spanish prisoners were confined, and where a fatal fever had declared itself. And there are many instances where European powers have acted kindly and humanely towards those who had fallen into their power from hazard of battle. War was declared against states, and not against the individual subjects of those states.

At all times, kindness to the unfortunate, and hospitality to strangers, has always been considered as a virtue of the first rank among people whose manners are simple, and who, uncontaminated by vices of a false and frivolous civilization, exhibit the natural qualities of the human race. Even among the darkness of the middle ages kindness was compulsory, and hospitality enforced by statute, and whoever denied succor to misery was liable to punishment. “Quicunque hospiti venienti lectum aut focum negaverit trium solidorum in latione mulctetur.” (Leg. Burgund., tit. 38, § I.)

The laws of the Slavi ordained that the movables of an inhospitable person should be confiscated, and his house burned.

IX.

In comparison with these humane provisions, how terribly contrasted are the modes of treatment as practised by the rebel authorities upon the Federal soldiers! “Let us hoist the black flag, and kill every prisoner,” said one of the cabinet officers. “I will sell my wheat,” said another cabinet officer, “to my fellow-citizens, at exorbitant prices.” “My God,” said a poor woman, “how can I pay such prices! I have seven children? What shall I do?” “I do not know, madam,” was the brutal answer, “unless you eat them.”

When such sentiments prevailed at Richmond, what could be expected in kindness by those who were looked upon with hatred and as worthy of death?

In the revolutionary times of 1776 there was no brutal treatment of prisoners of war by Americans. Washington was extremely solicitous that no act of barbarity should stain the sanctity of the cause. In a letter of May 11, 1776, Washington wrote to the President of Congress, recommending that measures be adopted to secure for prisoners of war the most humane treatment; and again to the Massachusetts Committee, February 6, 1776, he wrote, recommending that captives should be treated with humanity and kindness. The Continental Congress passed a resolution in 1776 that all taken with arms be treated as prisoners of war, but with humanity, and allowed the same rations as the troops in the service of the United States.

X.

The United States Government adopted the following rules in 1863 for the guidance of our armies, and published them in General Order, No. 100, April 24:—

11. The law of war not only disclaims all cruelty and bad faith concerning engagements concluded with the enemy during the war, but also the breaking of stipulations solemnly contracted by the belligerents in time of peace, and avowedly intended to remain in force in case of war between the contracting powers.

It disclaims all extortions and other transactions for individual gain; all acts of private revenge, or connivance at such acts.

Offences to the contrary shall be severely punished, and especially so if committed by officers.

14. Military necessity, as understood by modern civilized nations, consists in the necessity of those measures which are indispensable for securing the ends of war, and which are lawful according to the modern law and usages of war.

15. Military necessity admits of all direct destruction of life or limb of armed enemies, and of other persons whose destruction is incidentally unavoidable in the armed contests of the war; it allows of the capturing of every armed enemy, and every enemy of importance to the hostile government, or of peculiar danger to the captor; it allows of all destruction of property, and obstruction of the ways and channels of traffic, travel, or communication, and of all withholding of sustenance or means of life from the enemy; of the appropriation of whatever an enemy’s country affords necessary for the safety and subsistence of the army, and of such deception as does not involve the breaking of good faith, either positively pledged regarding agreements entered into during the war, or supposed by the modern law of war to exist. Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another and to God.

16. Military necessity does not admit of cruelty,—that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or revenge,—nor of maiming or wounding, except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit of the use of poison in any way, nor of the wanton devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but disdains acts of perfidy; and, in general, military necessity does not include any act of hostility which renders the return to peace unnecessarily difficult.

27. The law of war can no more wholly dispense with retaliation than can the law of nations, of which it is a branch; yet civilized nations acknowledge retaliation as the sternest feature of war. A reckless enemy often leaves to his opponents no other means of securing himself against the repetition of barbarous outrage.

28. Retaliation will, therefore, never be resorted to as a measure of mere revenge, but only as a means of protective retribution, and cautiously and unavoidably; that is to say, retaliation shall only be resorted to after careful inquiry into the real occurrence and the character of the misdeeds that may demand retribution.

33. It is no longer considered lawful—on the contrary it is held to be a serious breach of the law of war—to force the subjects of the enemy into the service of the victorious government, except the latter should proclaim, after a fair and complete conquest of the hostile country or district, that it is resolved to keep the country, district, or place permanently as its own, and make it a portion of its own country.

49. A prisoner of war is a public enemy, armed or attached to the hostile army for active aid, who has fallen into the hands of the captor, either fighting or wounded, on the field or in the hospital, by individual surrender or by capitulation.

52. No belligerent has the right to declare that he will treat every captured man in arms, of a levy en masse, as a brigand or bandit. * * *

56. A prisoner of war is subject to no punishment for being a public enemy, nor is any revenge wreaked upon him by the intentional infliction of any suffering, or disgrace by cruel imprisonment, want of food, by mutilation, death, or any other barbarity.

57. So soon as a man is armed by a sovereign government, and takes the soldier’s oath of fidelity, he is a belligerent; his killing, wounding, or other warlike acts are no individual crime or offence. * * *

67. The law of nations allows every sovereign government to make war upon another sovereign state, and therefore admits of no rules or laws different from those of regular warfare regarding the treatment of prisoners of war, although they may belong to the army of a government which the captor may consider as a wanton and unjust assailant.

The use of poison in any manner, be it to poison wells, or food, or arms, is wholly excluded from modern warfare. He that uses it puts himself out of the pale of the laws and usages of war.

71. Whoever intentionally inflicts additional wounds on an enemy already wholly disabled, or kills such an enemy, or who orders or encourages soldiers to do so, shall suffer death if duly convicted, whether he belongs to the army of the United States, or is an enemy captured after having committed his misdeed.

72. Money and other valuables on the person of a prisoner, such as watches or jewelry, as well as extra clothing, are regarded by the American army as the private property of the prisoners, and the appropriation of such valuables or money is considered dishonorable, and is prohibited.

74. A prisoner of war, being a public enemy, is the prisoner of the government and not of the captor. No ransom can be paid by a prisoner of war to his individual captor or to any officer in command. The government alone releases captives, according to rules prescribed by itself.

75. Prisoners of war are subject to confinement or imprisonment, such as may be deemed necessary on account of safety, but they are to be subjected to no other intentional suffering or indignity. The confinement and mode of treating a prisoner may be varied during his captivity, according to the demands of safety.

76. Prisoners of war shall be fed upon plain and wholesome food whenever practicable, and treated with humanity. They may be required to work for the benefit of the captor’s government, according to their rank and condition.

77. A prisoner of war who escapes, may be shot or otherwise killed in his flight, but neither death nor any other punishment shall be inflicted upon him, simply for his attempt to escape, which the law of war does not consider a crime. Stricter means of security shall be used after an unsuccessful attempt at escape. * * *

109. The exchange of prisoners of war is an act of convenience to both belligerents. If no general cartel has been concluded it cannot be demanded by either of them. No belligerent is obliged to exchange prisoners of war. A cartel is voidable as soon as either party has violated it.

119. Prisoners of war may be released from captivity by exchange and under certain circumstances, also by parole.

120. The term parole designates the pledge of individual good faith and honor to do, or to omit doing, certain acts after he who gives his parole shall have been dismissed wholly or partially from the power of the captor.

121. The pledge of the parole is always an individual but not a private act.

133. No prisoner of war can be forced by the hostile government to parole himself, and no government is obliged to parole prisoners of war, or to parole all captured officers, if it paroles any. As the pledging of the parole is an individual act, so is paroling, on the other hand, an act of choice on the part of the belligerent.

XI.

From the evidence obtained from different sources, and from the results, it may be properly reasoned that there was a secret and fixed intent on the part of the cabal at Richmond to weaken the Federal armies by destroying the prisoners by starvation and exposure.

The open robbery of all the captives, the neglect of the commissariat when there was no excuse, the refusal to remedy atrocious evils, all betray malice and design. That intrepid and humane officer, Colonel Chandler, made complaint of this prison, in his Inspection Report, as early as July 5, 1864, when he uses the following language: “No shelter whatever, nor materials for constructing any, had been provided by the prison authorities, and the ground being entirely bare of trees, none is within reach of the prisoners; nor has it been possible, from the overcrowded state of the enclosure, to arrange the camp with any system. Each man has been permitted to protect himself as best he can, by stretching his blanket, or whatever he may have about him, on such sticks as he can procure. Of other shelter there has been none. There is no medical attendance within the stockade. Many (twenty yesterday) are carted out daily who have died from unknown causes, and whom the medical officers have never seen. The dead are hauled out by the wagon-load, and buried without coffins, their hands, in many instances, being first mutilated with an axe in the removal of any finger-rings they may have. Raw rations have to be issued to a very large portion, who are entirely unprovided with proper utensils, and furnished so limited a supply of fuel they are compelled to dig with their hands in the filthy marsh before mentioned for roots, &c. No soap or clothing have ever been issued. After inquiry, the writer is confident that, with slight exertions, green corn and other anti-scorbutics could readily be obtained. The present hospital arrangements were only intended for the accommodation of ten thousand men, and are totally insufficient, both in character and extent, for the present need,—the number of prisoners being now more than three times as great. The number of cases requiring medical treatment is in an increased ratio. It is impossible to state the number of sick, many dying within the stockade whom the medical officers have never seen or heard of till their remains are brought out for interment.”

Later reports were made by this inspector, and they were forwarded to the rebel executive, indorsed by the assistant-secretary of war, Campbell, that this condition was a reproach to the Confederates as a nation. But not the least notice was taken of these startling and heart-rending revelations, in which Winder was denounced as a murderer from the statements made by Winder himself. The wretch and the system of treatment were denounced by Stephens of South Carolina, by Foote of Tennessee; yet no response was obtained from the secretary of war, or from the executive, Davis. When Breckenridge became secretary of war, shortly before the downfall of the rebellion, the brave Chandler demanded that some notice, some action, should be taken on the reports he had submitted months before, or he would resign his commission; for his honor and humanity were involved.

What action was taken, if any there was, is not known to the writer. The thanks of the South, the kind wishes of all who honor the warm and generous impulses of our better nature, are due to the noble Chandler, who had the courage, the temerity, to expose the suffering condition at Andersonville, and to denounce the authors again and again at the peril of his life.

It is known to the writer that Surgeons Bemis and Fluellen, of the rebel army medical staff, inspected the condition of the prison, and protested against the cruel management.

One of the chief medical officers of the rebel army of the South informed the author that the medical men at this prison were without any influence whatever; and although the prison was within his department for a time, he had no more voice or influence in its management than the man in the moon; and that everything relating to the prison was controlled and devised by the authorities at Richmond.

The refusal or the neglect of the rebel authorities, to whom these reports were submitted, to take notice of or remedy the exposed evils, is a tacit acknowledgment and approval of the system at work.

XII.

Northrop, the rebel commissary-general, whom Foote denounced in the rebel Congress as a monster, and incompetent, urged the secretary of war, Seddon, to reduce the rations to gruel and bread, in retaliation for alleged abuses to the rebel prisoners in our hands. Seddon declined to do it openly, on account of the technicalities of the law; but Northrop took the measure quietly into his own hands, and withheld meat so often and so long from the prisoners near Richmond as to call forth a yell of remonstrance from even the inhuman Winder.

When the prisoners at Belle Isle—numbering from eight to thirteen thousand—were deprived of meat,—from the incompetency or the wilfulness of the commissary-general,—for a fortnight at a time, the secretary of war refused to allow compassionate parties to buy cattle in the neighborhood of the city, and bring them to the prison, stating that Northrop had informed him that the prisoners fared as well as the soldiers.

And in pursuance of this diabolical plan of starvation, orders were given, in December, by the rebel war department, that no more supplies should be received from the United States for the prisoners, for which no apology or reason was ever given.

Winder was denounced by members of Congress; but Davis tools no notice, because he was his personal friend. Seddon took sides with Northrop, and would not allow Captain Warner to buy cattle for the prisoners around Richmond, as he offered to do, and relieve their sufferings.

The postmaster-general wanted to kill the prisoners taken in raiding; and Seddon, the secretary of war, stated that he was always in favor of fighting under the black flag.

When Chandler made his report, Cobb was writing that all was going on well at the prison. Colonel Persons, who was the first commander, and relieved by Winder, applied for an injunction against the prison as a nuisance. No compassion, humanity, or decency was observed in the demand for the process: it was simply a nuisance, and dangerous to the health of the surrounding region. No plea was made that thousands were being murdered there.

XIII.

It is known, and proved beyond “cavil of a doubt,” that the prisoners were robbed of all articles of value, even hats, coats, blankets, and shoes, and that no attempt was made to restore them, or to supply any deficiency that arose from this rapacious dishonesty.

In striking contrast with this “barbarism of slavery,” notice the treatment in our own prisons, where all needful clothing and blankets were issued to the rebel prisoners, whenever their circumstances required it; and during the period of rebellion, a vast quantity of coats, blankets, stockings, shirts, and drawers were supplied by the quartermaster’s department. Thirty-five thousand articles of clothing were issued in eight months to the rebel prisoners at Fort Delaware alone. Of the many thousand rebel wounded and sick prisoners in our hands, who have been under the observation of the writer during the war, all, without exception, were treated with kindness, and the wants of all supplied in the same manner as with our men.

In the Dartmoor prison, the British allowed to each of our men a hammock, a blanket, a horse rug, and a bed containing four pounds of flocks; and every eighteen months one woollen cap, one yellow jacket, one pair of pantaloons, and one waistcoat of the same material as allowed to the British army; and also, every nine months, one pair of shoes, and one shirt. The prison was inspected by the chief surgeon of England, and whenever complaint was made by the prisoners, the admiralty sent officers of high rank to investigate the causes of complaint. The officers of the prison hulks in England behaved generally with kindness and humanity to our men, as is shown by the records of the captivity.

But even this treatment, humane as it appears when compared with the rebel system, was less generous than that bestowed by the Algerine pirates upon our sailors captured by them. The captives in Algiers received good and abundant vegetable food, and were lodged in airy places.

XIV.

This system of barbarity of the rebels towards their prisoners having become known to the United States government, efforts were made to ameliorate the condition of the suffering men, but without avail.

Measures of retaliation were entertained by Congress, in hopes of effecting a change by the clamors from the rebel prisoners themselves, and the following resolutions were introduced by Mr. Wade, of Ohio, but they were not adopted:—

Joint Resolution, advising Retaliation for the Cruel Treatment of Prisoners by the Insurgents.

Whereas, It has come to the knowledge of Congress that great numbers of our soldiers, who have fallen as prisoners of war into the hands of the insurgents, have been subjected to treatment unexampled for cruelty in the history of civilized war, and finding its parallels only in the conduct of savage tribes; a treatment resulting in the death of multitudes by the slow but designed process of starvation, and by mortal diseases occasioned by insufficient and unhealthy food, by wanton exposure of their persons to the inclemency of the weather, and by deliberate assassination of unoffending men; and the murder, in cold blood, of prisoners after surrender; and, whereas a continuance of these barbarities, in contempt of the laws of war, and in disregard of the remonstrances of the national authorities, has presented to us the alternative of suffering our brave soldiers thus to be destroyed, or to apply the principle of retaliation for their protection: Therefore,

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That, in the judgment of Congress, it has become justifiable and necessary that the President should, in order to prevent the continuance and recurrence of such barbarities, and to insure the observance by the insurgents of the laws of civilized war, resort at once to measures of retaliation. That, in our opinion, such retaliation ought to be inflicted upon the insurgent officers now in our hands, or hereafter to fall into our hands, as prisoners; that such officers ought to be subjected to like treatment practised towards our officers or soldiers in the hands of the insurgents, in respect to quantity and quality of food, clothing, fuel, medicine, medical attendance, personal exposure, or other mode of dealing with them; that, with a view to the same ends, the insurgent prisoners in our hands ought to be placed under the control and in the keeping of officers and men who have themselves been prisoners in the hands of the insurgents, and have thus acquired a knowledge of their mode of treating Union prisoners; that explicit instructions ought to be given to the forces having the charge of such insurgent prisoners, requiring them to carry out strictly and promptly the principles of this resolution in every case, until the President, having received satisfactory information of the abandonment by the insurgents of such barbarous practices, shall revoke or modify said instructions. Congress do not, however, intend by this resolution to limit or restrict the power of the President to the modes or principles of retaliation herein mentioned, but only to advise a resort to them as demanded by the occasion.

Mr. Sumner offered the following Resolutions as a substitute for the Resolution of the Committee:—

Resolved, That retaliation is harsh always, even in the simplest cases, and is permissible only where, in the first place, it may reasonably be expected to effect its object, and where, in the second place, it is consistent with the usages of civilized society; and that, in the absence of these essential conditions, it is a useless barbarism, having no other end than vengeance, which is forbidden alike to nations and to men.

Resolved, That the treatment of our officers and soldiers in rebel prisons is cruel, savage, and heart-rending beyond all precedent; that it is shocking to morals; that it is an offence against human nature itself; that it adds new guilt to the great crime of the rebellion, and constitutes an example from which history will turn with sorrow and disgust.

Resolved, That any attempted imitation of rebel barbarism in the treatment of prisoners would be plainly impracticable, on account of its inconsistency with the prevailing sentiments of humanity among us; that it would be injurious at home, for it would barbarize the whole community; that it would be utterly useless, for it could not affect the cruel authors of the revolting conduct which we seek to overcome; that it would be immoral, inasmuch as it proceeded from vengeance alone; that it could have no other result than to degrade the national character and the national name, and to bring down upon our country the reprobation of history; and that, being thus impracticable, useless, immoral, and degrading, it must be rejected as a measure of retaliation, precisely as the barbarism of roasting or eating prisoners is always rejected by civilized powers.

Resolved, That the United States, filled with grief and sympathy for cherished citizens, who, as officers and soldiers, have become the victims of Heaven-defying outrage, hereby declare their solemn determination to put an end to this great iniquity by putting an end to the rebellion of which it is the natural fruit; that to secure this humane and righteous consummation, they pledge anew their best energies and all the resources of the whole people, and they call upon all to bear witness that, in this necessary warfare with barbarism, they renounce all vengeance and every evil example, and plant themselves firmly on the sacred landmarks of Christian civilization, under the protection of that God who is present with every prisoner, and enables heroic souls to suffer for their country.

XV.

The pathetic letter, which was composed by the suffering and dying men at Andersonville, and addressed to the President in August, 1864, and forwarded by the prisoners who were sent to Charleston, led to renewed efforts on the part of the United States government; but no notice was taken by the rebel authorities of the plea in behalf of humanity. The following letter is said to be the one sent to the President:—

The Memorial of the Union Prisoners confined at Andersonville, Georgia, to the President of the United States.

Confederate States Prison, Charleston, S. C., Aug., 1864.

To the President of the United States:

The condition of the enlisted men belonging to the Union armies, now prisoners to the Confederate rebel forces, is such that it becomes our duty, and the duty of every commissioned officer, to make known the facts in the case to the government of the United States, and to use every honorable effort to secure a general exchange of prisoners, thereby relieving thousands of our comrades from the horror now surrounding them.

For some time past there has been a concentration of prisoners from all parts of the rebel territory to the State of Georgia—the commissioned officers being confined at Macon, and the enlisted men at Andersonville.

Recent movements of the Union armies under General Sherman have compelled the removal of prisoners to other points, and it is now understood that they will be removed to Savannah, Georgia, and Columbus and Charleston, South Carolina. But no change of this kind holds out any prospect of relief to our poor men. Indeed, as the localities selected are far more unhealthy, there must be an increase rather than a diminution of suffering.

Colonel Hill, provost-marshal general Confederate States army, at Atlanta, stated to one of the undersigned that there were thirty-five thousand prisoners at Andersonville, and by all accounts from the United States soldiers who have been confined there, the number is not overstated by him. These thirty-five thousand are confined in a field of some thirty acres, enclosed by a board fence, heavily guarded. About one third have various kinds of indifferent shelter, but upwards of thirty thousand are wholly without shelter, or even shade of any kind, and are exposed to the storms and rains which are of almost daily occurrence, the cold dews of the night, and the more terrible effects of the sun striking with almost tropical fierceness upon their unprotected heads. This mass of men jostle and crowd each other up and down the limits of their enclosure in storms or sun, and others lie down upon the pitiless earth at night with no other covering than the clothing upon their backs, few of them having even a blanket.

Upon entering the prison every man is deliberately stripped of money and other property, and as no clothing or blankets are ever supplied to their prisoners by the rebel authorities, the condition of the apparel of the soldiers, just from an active campaign, can be easily imagined. Thousands are without pants or coats, and hundreds without even a pair of drawers to cover their nakedness.

To these men, as indeed to all prisoners, there are issued three quarters of a pound of bread or meal, and one eighth of a pound of meat, per day. This is the entire ration, and upon it the prisoner must live or die. The meal is often unsifted and sour, and the meat such as in the North is consigned to the soap-maker. Such are the rations upon which Union soldiers are fed by the rebel authorities, and by which they are barely holding on to life. But to starvation, and exposure to sun and storm, add the sickness which prevails to a most alarming and terrible extent. On an average, one hundred die daily. It is impossible that any Union soldiers should know all the facts pertaining to this terrible mortality, as they are not paraded by the rebel authorities. Such statement as the following, made by —— ——, speaks eloquent testimony. Said he, “Of twelve of us who were captured, six died, four are in the hospital, and I never expect to see them again. There are but two of us left.”

In 1862, at Montgomery, Alabama, under far more favorable circumstances, the prisoners being protected by sheds, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred were sick from diarrhœa and chills out of seven hundred. The same percentage would give seven thousand sick at Andersonville.

It needs no comment, no efforts at word-painting, to make such a picture stand out boldly in most horrible colors.

Nor is this all. Among the ill-fated of the many who have suffered amputation in consequence of injuries received before capture, sent from rebel hospitals before their wounds were healed, there are eloquent witnesses of the barbarities of which they are victims. If to these facts is added this, that nothing more demoralizes soldiers and develops the evil passions of man than starvation, the terrible condition of Union prisoners at Andersonville can be readily imagined. They are fast losing hope and becoming utterly reckless of life.

Numbers, crazed by their sufferings, wander about in a state of idiocy; others deliberately cross the “dead line,” and are remorselessly shot down.

In behalf of these men we most earnestly appeal to the President of the United States. Few of them have been captured, except in the front of battle, in the deadly encounter, and only when overpowered by numbers. They constitute as gallant a portion of our armies as carry our banners anywhere. If released, they would soon return to again do vigorous battle for our cause. We are told that the only obstacle in the way of exchange is the status of enlisted negroes captured from our armies, the United States claiming that the cartel covers all who serve under its flag, and the Confederate States refusing to consider the colored soldiers, heretofore slaves, as prisoners of war.

We beg leave to suggest some facts bearing upon the question of exchange, which we would urge upon this consideration. Is it not consistent with the national honor, without waiving the claim that the negro soldiers shall be treated as prisoners of war, to effect an exchange of the white soldiers? The two classes are treated differently by the enemy. The whites are confined in such prisons as Libby and Andersonville, starved and treated with a barbarism unknown to civilized nations. The blacks, on the contrary, are seldom imprisoned. They are distributed among the citizens, or employed on government works. Under these circumstances they receive enough to eat, and are worked no harder than they have been accustomed to be. They are neither starved nor killed off by the pestilence in the dungeons of Richmond and Charleston. It is true they are again made slaves; but their slavery is freedom and happiness compared with the cruel existence imposed upon our gallant men. They are not bereft of hope, as are the white soldiers, dying by piecemeal. Their chances of escape are tenfold greater than those of the white soldiers, and their condition, in all its lights, is tolerable in comparison with that of the prisoners of war now languishing in the dens and pens of secession.

While, therefore, believing the claims of our government, in matters of exchange, to be just, we are profoundly impressed with the conviction that the circumstances of the two classes of soldiers are so widely different that the government can honorably consent to an exchange, waiving for a time the established principle justly claimed to be applicable in the case. Let thirty-five thousand suffering, starving, and enlisted men aid this appeal. By prompt and decided action in their behalf, thirty-five thousand heroes will be made happy. For the eighteen hundred commissioned officers now prisoners we urge nothing. Although desirous of returning to our duty, we can bear imprisonment with more fortitude if the enlisted men, whose sufferings we know to be intolerable, were restored to liberty and life.

XVI.

The threatening manœuvres of Sherman alone caused the rebel authorities to diminish the number of inmates of this stockade, and thereby lessen the dangers of recapture, and remove the temptation to the United States authorities to make an effort for their rescue. It has been stated that the rebels were anxious to exchange prisoners, man for man, and that the obstructions were caused by the Federal authorities, and that Mr. Stanton, in particular, was responsible for the stoppage of exchange and the consequent death of so many thousands of our fellow-citizens detained in the rebel prisons.

General Hitchcock, the United States commissioner of exchange, however, denies most emphatically that Mr. Stanton was any way responsible for the refusal to make exchanges, man for man, officer for officer, according to grade, and he makes the following statement: “At no instance within my knowledge did Mr. Stanton refuse to acquiesce in any proposition looking to that result. There is not in my office, nor have I ever seen such a proposition from a rebel commissioner or the rebel authorities. Nor have I any reason to believe that any such proposition was ever made by Judge Ould, or any of his superiors, except in a letter from Judge Ould addressed to Major Mulford, which fell into the hands of Major-General Butler. This is true, emphatically, as a protection against the accusations levelled at Mr. Stanton. * * * * * Mr. Stanton has not only been willing, but anxious to make exchanges referred to, as I have abundant means of showing by indisputable documents, the aim and purpose of Judge Ould was to draw from us all of the rebel prisoners held in exchange for white troops of the United States held as prisoners in the South, persistently refusing to exchange colored troops to a very late date; when, to carry a special purpose, he receded so far as to agree to exchange free colored men, leaving the general principle where it was on his side against the just claims of a large body of colored prisoners held in the South.”

XVII.

The following letter from General Butler to the rebel commissioner of exchange will throw some light upon the subject, and give an idea as to whom the blame of non-exchange and non-intercourse belongs:—

Letter of Major-General Butler, United States Commissioner of Exchange, to Colonel Ould, the Confederate Commissioner.

Headquarters Department of Virginia and North Carolina, in the Field, August, 1864.

Hon. Robert Ould, Commissioner of Exchange.

Sir: Your note to Major Mulford, assistant agent of exchange, under date of 10th 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 1863-4, 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 United States 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 now say 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 United States army, whether colored or otherwise, and the officers commanding them, man for man, officer for officer?

At the interview which was held between yourself and the agent of exchange on the part of the United States at Fortress 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 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 nought 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, or 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 unchanged 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 misunderstand 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 contemporaneously 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 the 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 and municipal law.

Looking upon these men only as property upon your theory of property in them, we do not see 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 where one belligerent gets into full possession 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 possessions. 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 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 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, then the jus disponendi, the right of disposing of that property, vests in the United States.

Now, the United States have disposed of the property which they have acquired by capture in slaves taken by them, i.e., by emancipating them, and declaring them 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 acquired 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 already 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 United States 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 privilege 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 captor merely.

Do the Confederate authorities claim the right to reduce to a state of slavery free men, 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 free men 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 postliminii, or that principle of the law of nations which inhabilitates 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 on national law, is applicable simply to immovable property, and that, too, only after complete resubjugation 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 to the case of slaves; but for two thousand 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 to be 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 ground 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 admitted 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 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 five thousand dollars 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 tend to a speedy resumption of the negotiations in 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, Benjamin F. Butler, Major-General and Commissioner of Exchange.

XVIII.

The wretched “material” exchanged for healthy rebel soldiers called forth a note of joy from the rebel commissioner, Ould. The exchanged Federal soldiers were half-naked, “living skeletons,” covered with filth and vermin; and nearly all of them were unfit for service or labor, and most of them physically ruined for the remainder of their lives. The flag-of-truce boats of the different parties presented terrible contrasts. On the one were to be seen feeble, emaciated, ragged, filthy, and dying men from the rebel prisons; whilst on the other were the rebels returning from our prisons, well clad in our uniforms, strong and healthy from the abundance of food. We returned men who had been well treated, and who were then ready to take the field again; whilst we received in turn abused and decrepit soldiers, who were so much reduced and weakened that few, comparatively, ever again returned to service. Along the entire line of prison stockades, from Belle Isle in Virginia to Prison Tyler in Texas, the same story is told of fiendish cruelty.

More than thirty thousand of our soldiers have undoubtedly perished during, or in consequence of the barbarities of their prison life in the South. To ascertain the precise number will be a difficult task, for many of the returned prisoners have died since they have left the service; but when we consider the number of prisons, and the long period of occupation, we think that the estimate of thirty thousand is not too high.

XIX.

When General Stoneman made his attempt to rescue the prisoners, Winder issued the order No. 13, which stamps the brute with infamy beyond redemption. In this order, which has been preserved, Winder commanded the officers in charge of the artillery to open their batteries, loaded with grape-shot, as soon as the Federals approached within seven miles, and to continue the slaughter until every prisoner was exterminated. Similar threats were made all along the line of the prison stockades in North Carolina and in Virginia. “Was the prison mined,” said Colonel Farnsworth to Turner, the jailer of Libby Prison, “when General Kilpatrick approached Richmond to attempt to rescue the prisoners?” “Yes,” was the brutal reply; “and I would have blown you all to Hades before I would have suffered you to be rescued.” Twelve hundred men blown into atoms at one explosion! Thirty thousand men to be torn into shreds by the iron bullets of the cannon! Contrast the orders of these chivalric men with that of Aboukere, the chief of a reputed barbarous horde of Bedouins of the desert:—

“Warriors of Islam! attend a moment, and listen well to the precepts which I am about to promulge to you for observation in times of war. Fight with bravery and loyalty. Never use artifice or perfidy towards your enemies. Do not mutilate the fallen. Do not slay the aged, nor the children, nor the women. You will find upon your route men living in solitude, in meditation, in the adoration of God: do them no injury, give them no offence.”

In which are the evidences the most positive of a fraternal religion and an advanced civilization?

XX.

Even women and young girls came from distances to view the spectacle. They climbed the parapets of the earthworks, and gloated and made merry over the scene of suffering. They threw crusts of bread over the palisades to see the starving wretches struggle for the morsel of life.

They even reviled the condition of the dying. This surpasses the ferocity, the depravity, the wickedness of gladiatorial times. “The fury of women when once excited,” says the French historian, “soon rises to profanation and excess.” When the love of humanity vanishes from our breasts, it is the death of nature.

There were, however, a few noble exceptions to those strange acts of delight in cruelty; and the deeds of kindness of a few women in other parts of the South shine with increased brilliancy from the terrible contrast.

XXI.

Several of the papers of the South openly and unhesitatingly approved of the methods of their prison depletion, and gloated over the fearful destitution and mortality.

The Macon “Telegraph and Confederate,” only the day before the surrender of the city to the Federal forces, justified the atrocities at Andersonville; and the Richmond “Examiner” exclaimed, “Let the Yankee prisoners be put where the cold weather and scant fare will thin them out in accordance with the laws of nature.” There were, however, noble exceptions to the general exhibition of ferocity; and several officers of the rebel army did declare that the condition of affairs at Andersonville was a “reproach to them as a nation.”

The author, who served for five years in the Federal armies of Virginia, of the South, and the South-west, and whose opportunities for observation and inquiry were extensive, does not believe General Lee to be implicated in these outrages. It is true that Lee might have openly and boldly protested against the barbarities, and gained thereby the admiration and the blessing of mankind; but he knew full well that the remonstrance would have fallen upon the cold ear of the implacable executive with no more effect and weight than when the snow-flake falls upon the Alps.

The Virginian struggled to hold his own against the selfish and jealous ambition of the remorseless Mississippian.

To have participated in the revolting cabal of cruelty, there was required the baseness of political intrigue, and to this depth the soldier never sank.

XXII.

To charge an entire people with barbarity, because its rulers sanction crime, and a vile and venal press applaud the motives and the deeds, should not be maintained without long deliberation. “History has the right of suspecting without evidence, but never of accusing without proof.” The rank and file of the rebel army were drawn from the classes of poor whites, who were essentially rural in their populations, and who possessed some trace of the morals and the natural sentiments of generosity that belong to people who cultivate the earth. Although their instincts were modified by the contact of slave labor, they never sank so low in the social scale—to that level of the vile populace of the Roman or medieval times, when the crimes of the emperors were applauded. These men on the battle-field exhibited feelings of humanity; and it was only under the direction of their leaders that they became unkind and ferocious.

It was the leaders who were responsible for the crimes of the sedition; and what of humanity could be expected from men degenerated in blood? What of noble intelligence could be looked for from mental faculties long since degraded? What evidence of a Christian spirit could be hoped for from men who had openly perverted or denied all the divine precepts, upon which revolve the well-being of the human race? “If we had triumphed,” says one of its apostles, at this late day of forgiveness and repentance—“if we had triumphed, I should have favored stripping them naked. Pardon! They might have appealed for pardon, but I would have seen them damned before I would have granted it!”

When Suwarrow forced his way by the sword into the heart of Poland, dividing the realm, devastating the land, and destroying multitudes of people, he offered blasphemous thanks to Heaven for victories obtained over men fighting in the sacred cause of liberty, and for all the human heart holds dear.

XXIII.

To judge correctly of the magnitudes of these immolations, these crimes, history must wait for a calmer period, when prejudice shall have relaxed its hold upon the understanding, and when time shall have rolled up its accumulated materials of accusation and denial, of proof and exoneration. At present we can form some idea of their designs, and the degree of the implacability of their souls, from the evidence already placed before us, as we measure inaccessible heights by the awful shadows which they project.

Pity appears to have been with them only a vain, fleeting emotion, if the soul was disturbed at all; and whenever an act of humanity was displayed, there seems to have been the secret motive of gain at work. In defining the natural sentiments of pity, they would have declared them the illusions of the imagination.

The brutalizing scenes of Slavery had modified and affected their natural feelings, as the gladiatorial combats and exposures of the Christians to the attacks of infuriated wild beasts had inspired the vile populace of Rome with the love of blood and cruelty.

When these men, with sonorous rhetoric, proclaimed themselves as the guiding minds of the republic, the patrons, the judges of the correct ideas and principles of civilization,—when they arrogated to themselves the appearance of the wisdom of Lacedæmon with the politeness of Athens,—they forgot or despised those cardinal virtues of society, “justice and truth—these are the first duties of man; humanity, country—these his first affections.”

XXIV.

“I fear,” writes the rebel War Clerk, observing from his secure position in the war office, “I fear this government in future times will be denounced as a cabal of bandits and outlaws, making and executing the most despotic decrees.”

Whether this system of the reduction of prisoners was devised by the executive, or his immediate advisers, time may reveal. But of this we may remain positive, that the crime belongs to that little faction of Breckinridge Democrats who ruled the Confederacy as they pleased, and of which Davis was the recognized leader. Wirz was only the De Vargas and Winder the Alva of the arranged system. Neither is there any doubt that the power of affording relief was clearly within the control of the executive. This power was not withheld from want of audacity, for the man who dared place in power, in spite of remonstrance, men who jeopardized the existence of the Confederacy, and who openly disgraced its honor, certainly had sufficient courage to perform a common act of humanity, and relieve the sufferings of tortured prisoners, if such had been his inclination.

No; there was a system, and “systems are brutal forces.” “What are your laws and theories,” said Danton, brutally, to Gensonné, “when the only law is to triumph, and the sole theory for the nation is the theory of existence.”—“Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality. This, too, we find confirmed by matter of fact. How many hopeful heirs-apparent to grand empires, when in possession of them, have become such monsters of lust and cruelty as are a reproach to human nature!”—“Ambition brings to men dissimulation, perfidy, the art of feigning the language and sentiments which lay at the bottom of the heart; of measuring their hate and their friendship only by their interests and circumstances; and above all, the perfidious science of composing their features, rather than correct and govern their principles.”

The wills of bad men are their laws, and brute strength their logic.

XXV.

It is only distance in time that separates and distinguishes the Caligulas of history, the early, medieval, and present periods. History exhibits the first as the undisguised monster of atrocity. The last, overshadowed by the mantle of the law, stands but partially revealed.

To the perverted imaginations of the first the senate presented no force of resistance. To the petulant asperity, the abuse of power of the last, the doubtful liberties of the people imposed certain restrictions, which led to the resort of narrow and malignant minds—secrecy and concealment.

Nature had not cast him in the mould of those statesmen who sacrifice all personal feelings for the public good, and who willingly yield up their lives to advance the noble work of true civilization. Obstinacy with him was firmness; cunning, depth; resistance to humane feelings, resolution. Envy, hatred, murmurs, were braved with inflexible determination when pursuing his plans of favoritism, or defending his tools of oppression and cruelty against the voice of nature and outraged liberty.

There are some men who appear to be destined for the instruction of the world, as the abettors and satellites of despotism, who cannot or who do not recognize the difference between interest or conscience; who desire to debase mankind, that they may appear above the common level of humanity, conscious of their incapability of lifting themselves up by virtue and by nobility of action.

This man was the incarnation of the spirit of Slavery; he could have exclaimed, with Barnave, “Perish the colonies rather than a principle.” This man was, for the time being, the entire incorporation of the sedition—its principles, its passions, its impulses, its cruelties.

“There are abysses which we dare not sound, and characters we desire not to fathom, for fear of finding in them too great darkness, too much horror.”

This man, so calm, so dignified, so wise in his exterior, could not find sufficient generosity in his soul, although the representative of five millions of men, to say to these armies of suffering prisoners, * * * indignus Cæsaris iræ—unworthy of the anger of Cæsar.

XXVI.

What have the wretches to offer in atonement for these outrages upon nature, these violations of the spirit and majesty of the law, from which they now claim protection?

Will the blood of these living monsters expiate the martyrdom of the host of dead heroes? No!

Will it give ease or bring congratulation to the broken and aching hearts who yet revere the memory of the thirty thousand victims? Never!

The divine spirit of liberty would protest against the defilement of her sacred altars with the foul blood of such filthy and depraved sacrifices.

Let the gates of the prison open, and these men stand forth to the full gaze of offended mankind, assassins and murderers as they are.

Vengeance does not belong to the human race.

There are times in the history of men when human invectives are without force. “There are deeds of which no men are judges, and which mount, without appeal, direct to the tribunal of God.”