REPORT OF GENERAL E. A. ON THE SUBJECT OF EXCHANGE. WASHINGTON CITY, D. C., November 22, 1865. SIR: I have the honor to submit the following statement, as my general report for the current year, on the subject of the exchange of prisoners of war; in doing which I find it necessary to revert to some facts of a precedent date in order that the subject may be the better understood. At an early period of the rebellion, a cartel for the exchange of prisoners was agreed upon in conformity with the authority of the President, as communicated to General Dix by the Secretary of War in the following despatch, which contains on its face an important limitation, carefully guarding against any recognition of the rebel government, the object having expressly in view the humane purpose of extending relief to prisoners of war: 66 "WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington City, July 12, 1862. "The President directs me to say that he authorizes you to negotiate a general exchange of prisoners with the enemy. "You will take immediate measures for that purpose, observing proper caution against any recognition of the rebel government, and confining the negotiations to the subject of exchange. The cartel between the United States and Great Britain has been considered a proper regulation as to the relative exchange value of prisoners. "EDWIN M. STANTON, "Major General JOHN A. DIX, Fortress Monroe." The agreement, signed by General Dix on the part of the government, and General Hill on the part of the rebels, was duly announced in public orders by authority dated War Department, Adjutant General's Office, Washington, September 25, 1862, a copy of which is hereunto annexed. So long as the cartel for the exchange of prisoners was respected in the south, it was faithfully observed by the government, and there is no doubt that its faithful execution would have been continued by the government until the end of the war, unless properly revoked by competent authority, if the rebel authorities had not most distinctly violated its terms, under circumstances, indeed, of great aggravation. The first indication on the part of the rebels of a disposition to disregard the cartel became public through a message by Jefferson Davis to the rebel congress, in which, after alluding to the proclamation of the President announcing emancipation, he makes use of the following language: "I shall, unless in your wisdom you deem some other course more expedient, deliver to the several State authorities all commissioned officers of the United States that may hereafter be captured by our forces in any of the States embraced in the proclamation, that they may be dealt with in accordance with the laws of those States providing for the punishment of criminals engaged in exciting servile insurrection." This announcement of Mr. Davis was made January 12, 1863, and received the modified approval of the rebel congress, as shown in the following sections of an act approved May 1, 1863, to wit: "SEC. 4. That every white person, being a commissioned officer, or acting as such, who, during the present war, shall command negroes or mulattoes in arms against the Confederate States, or who shall arm, train, organize or prepare negroes or mulattoes for military service against the Confederate States, or who shall voluntarily aid negroes or mulattoes in any military enterprise, attack or conflict in such service, shall be deemed as inciting servile insurrection, and shall, if captured, be put to death, or be otherwise punished at the discretion of the court. "SEC. 5. Every person, being a commissioned officer or acting as such in the service of the enemy, who shall during the present war excite, attempt to exeite, or cause to be excited, a servile insurrection, or who shall incite, or cause to be incited, a slave to rebel, shall, if captured, be put to death, or be otherwise punished at the discretion of the court." "SEC. 7. All negroes and mulattoes who shall be engaged in war or be taken in arms against the Confederate States, or shall give aid or comfort to the enemies of the Confederate States, shall, when captured in the Confederate States, be delivered to the authorities of the State or States in which they shall be captured, to be dealt with according to the present or future laws of such State or States." When the message just referred to became known to the President, he saw at once the necessity of meeting it, and gave instructions to retain such rebel officers as might be captured, in order to be in a position to check the rebel government and restrain the execution of its avowed purpose, in violation of the cartel. This proceeding, initiated by the rebel government in violation of the cartel, ultimated in the cessation of exchanges, which, as the history of the matter shows, became unavoidable, and was entirely due to the rebel government. Coincident with the proceedings with regard to the exchange of prisoners of war, the rebels inaugurated a system of seizing unoffending citizens of the United States and subjecting them to maltreatment, in various ways, in order to effect a particular object, which became apparent when a demand was made for their release. For this purpose quite a number of citizens of Pennsylvania were carried into captivity by General Lee, when he penetrated into that State in 1863. When a demand was made for the release of this class of prisoners, it was met by a most positive declaration that no citizen prisoner in rebel hands should be released unless the government would enter into an agreement with the rebel authorities not to arrest any one on account of his opinions or on account of his sympathy with the rebel cause; and this declaration was repeated again and again by the rebel authorities whenever the government demanded the release or exchange of said citizen prisoners. It will require but the slightest glance at this subject to convince any one of the utter impossibility of acquiescing in the demand of the rebel authorities, as a pre-requisite to the release of the citizens thus held in bondage. Such an agreement on the part of the United States would have been a virtual acknowledgment of the independence of the rebel government, and would have fore closed all proceedings of the United States against all persons whomsoever engaged in the crime of treason and rebellion. It was absolutely impossible to acquiesce in the demand of the South on that point, and this is the reason why this class of prisoners was beyond the reach of the government, except through the power of its armies, which finally settled the entire question by putting an end to the rebellion itself. At the commencement of the cessation of exchanges the rebels held a few prisoners of war over and above the number of rebels held by the government, but the capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson threw the balance largely the other way; and, as the prisoners captured by General Grant and General Banks were left in the south on parole, the rebel authorities determined to make use of them, not merely in violation of the cartel, but in open contempt of the laws of war. They first ordered that body of men to be assembled at a place called Enterprise, in Mississippi, on pretence of facilitating measures for their supplies, but in reality with the distinct purpose, as we are now compelled to believe, of throwing them into the rebel ranks to meet the anticipated conflict which, it was seen, was near at hand in East Tennessee, and which accordingly took place at the memorable battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga; in which battles many of the captured prisoners paroled in the south by Generals Grant and Banks took part, without having been duly exchanged, although the rebel authorities made an ex parte declaration of exchange in their favor without proper authority, which was protested against by the United States. It must be understood that the rebels might at any time have resumed the system of exchange agreed upon in the cartel by receding from the assumed right of disposing of captured Union officers as required in the act passed by the rebel Congress, before alluded to, and agreeing to the exchange of colored troops; but they would never agree to acknowledge the right of colored troops to treatment due to prisoners of war; and, as the government of the United States had exercised the right of employing colored troops as a part of the force against the rebels, their claim to such protection as the government could give was one which did not admit of discussion. When the rebels discovered that the suspension of exchanges was cperating against them, they resorted to the horrible expedient of subjecting the prisoners they held to starvation and exposure to the elements, without the protection of quarters or tents, after first robbing them of their money and most of their clothing, and without regard to seasons or their inclemencies, in the hope of forcing the government into a system of exchanges which should have the effect, not only of leaving in their hands all of the colored prisoners they had taken, but of throwing into their ranks the entire body of prisoners held by the federal power, then greatly in excess over the prisoners held by the rebels. This fact is proved by the declarations of the Richmond papers, at the time when a few exchanges were made, that the rebel agent, Colonel Ould, had not sent over the lines the number of prisoners equivalent to those received, but only a proportionate number, the ratio being determined by Colonel Ould, in view of the number of prisoners held in the south against those held in the north the claim to hold in reserve the colored prisoners in the south having never been abandoned. This fact was further established by the official records of the commissary general of prisoners, by which it appeared that, after sending several boat-loads of exchanged prisoners each way, the rebels were constantly falling in debt. Upon observing this fact, and noticing the publications in Richmond, I called upon the commissary general of prisoners for a tabular statement of the result, and the statement showed an indebtedness in our favor of over five hundred men; which statement was handed to the Secretary of War, who thereupon directed an order to General Grant to assume the entire control of the matter of exchanges, with authority to give such orders as he might think proper on the subject. General Grant at once reverted to first principles, and directed that Colonel Ould, or the rebel authorities, should be notified that colored troops should be treated as prisoners of war when captured; and, as the rebels were not willing to accede to this requirement, no further exchanges were made. Upon the receipt at the War Department of the first intelligence of the inhuman treatment to which our prisoners were subjected at Richmond, the Secretary of War, without a moment's hesitation, gave instructions to our agent of exchange, at Fortress Monroe, to send forward supplies from the public stores for their relief, and large quantities of provisions and clothing were accordingly sent for distribution among the prisoners, and every possible effort was made to afford that sort of relief, even at the hazard of large portions of the supplies being wasted, or, what was worse, misappropriated to the benefit of our enemies, who, it soon appeared, made use of these supplies for their own advantage, leaving our prisoners still to suffer. But even this did not destroy the hope of the Secretary that some portion of the supplies would, at least, be permitted to reach its destination, and the orders to send that relief were left in force until the rebels themselves, shamed, perhaps, by the scandalous state of things, then likely to become historical, refused to receive any further supplies through the agents of the government. In the mean time the sympathies of friends in the north were naturally awakened, and large quantities of supplies of all kinds were sent to Fortress Monroe, whence they were forwarded for the relief of the prisoners at Richmond; but the moment they passed beyond the control of our agents they fell into the hands of the most unprincipled and shameless scoundrels that ever disgraced humanity. It is in proof that large quantities of supplies furnished by the benevolence of the North for the relief of suffering humanity in southern prisons, were piled up in sight of the objects for whose relief those supplies were sent, but beyond the line of the prison guards; and while the prisoners were thus in sight of their own boxes, they were not only forbidden to touch them, but compelled to witness depredations upon them by the guards themselves, who feasted upon their contents, leaving the victims of war a prey to that merciless barbarism which will make one of the darkest pages in the history of a rebellion which will itself remain an astonishment to all posterity for its almost causeless existence. Many have supposed that it was in the power of the government to afford relief to the prisoners in the south by a resort to retaliatory treatment of rebel prisoners in the north. It is difficult to meet a suggestion of this kind by an appeal to the instincts of civilized humanity, because the mere suggestion supposes the absence of those instincts, and implies a willingness to see the public sentiment degraded into barbarism, which would have put the nation itself on the footing of savages, whose only excuse for their barbarity is their ignorance and their exclusion from the civilized world. The day must come when every true American will be proud of the reflection that the government was strong enough to crush the rebellion without losing the smallest element of its humanity or its dignity, and stand before the world unimpeached in its true honor and glory. It may be observed that no one imagined, prospectively, the horrors which came to light at Andersonville, the full enormity of which only became known at the close of the military events which ended the war. Had they been known when at their worst, the government would have had the choice of but three measures: first, the rebel prisoners might have been sent south, we to receive in return such white prisoners as they might have held, leaving the colored troops to their fate; second, a resort to retaliatory measures; or, lastly, for the country to wage the war with increased zeal to bring it to a legitimate end. No man can doubt which of these plans the northern people would have approved, if submitted to them, and the government only assumed to represent the people in the question. It ought to be mentioned here, as a beautiful illustration of the moral sublime, that among the many memorials, some of them very numerously signed, which reached the War Department, praying for relief to federal prisoners suffering in the south, in nearly all of them there was an express protest against a resort to retaliation. And what was the real effect of the barbarity upon the prisoners in the south? Certainly, it was most deplorable and shocking upon individuals for the time being; but no one whose moral eyes are open can fail to see that it became in many ways a signal step, under the guidance of Providence, for bringing the rebel cause to destruction. It strengthened the feeling in the north in favor of warlike and determined measures against rebellion; it sent thousands into the army who took the field resolutely determined to punish the authors of a great crime against humanity. The enemy might almost literally have felt that it is "a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God." An erroneous opinion appears to have been circulated, more or less widely, with regard to the number of colored federal troops who fell into the hands of the enemy, which makes it important to state that the actual number thus exposed to injurious treatment was very much greater than has been commonly supposed. This will sufficiently appear from the fact that, on the 21st of January, 1865. Lieutenant O. O. Poppleton, adjutant of the 111th United States colored infantry, addressed a letter, dated at Nashville, Tennessee, to Major General Butler, in the following words, to wit: "I have the honor to enclose herewith a copy of a Mobile paper (rebel) containing, over the signature of D. H. Maury, major general Confederate States. army, the names of five hundred and sixty-nine (569) soldiers belonging to the 106th, 110th, and 111th regiments of United States colored infantry, who were taken prisoners by a force of the enemy, under Major General N. B. Forrest, at Athens and Sulphur Branch Trestle, Alabama, on the 24th and 25th of September, 1864, and placed at work on the defences of Mobile, Alabama, by order of the rebel authorities. Lieutenant William T. Lewis, adjutant 110th United States colored infantry, has a paper of later date than this, containing the names of nearly three hundred (300) more soldiers of the same command, also at work on the defences of Mobile." This is an official report from the adjutant of the 111th regiment colored infantry, showing that there were then, in January, 1865, at work on the fortifications about Mobile five hundred and sixty-nine (569) colored soldiers belonging to three regiments only; and a reference is made to another paper as being at that time in the hands of another officer, an adjutant also of one of those regiments, embracing the names of "nearly three hundred (300) more soldiers of the same command," making in all over eight hundred (800) colored soldiers of the United States army at work, under rebel officers, on the fortifications around Mobile alone. When the government determined to employ colored troops in its armies, the principle was recognized that they were entitled to protection; and, accordingly, it was claimed that the class of troops referred to should receive such treatment from the enemy as was due to other troops employed in the defence of the government. The assertion of this principle did not depend upon the number of colored troops who might at any one time be in the hands of the enemy. Every consideration of honor and humanity required the assertion of this principle as due to the troops employed in the service of the government; and, accordingly, in various communications, when the subject required it, the government agents connected with the duties of the exchange of prisoners invariably set forward the principle. But this did not prevent the exchange of prisoners, man for man and officer for officer. The difficulty on this subject was due, first, to the message of Mr. Davis to the rebel congress, aiready referred to, declaring his purpose to deliver to southern State authorities such white Union officers as might be captured, for trial under State laws unknown alike to the laws of Congress |