the artillery, refused to surrender until he was disabled by three sabre and two gun-shot wounds, and faint from loss of blood.

When Sherman saw the Federal flag raised upon Fort McAllister, he seized a slip of paper, and telegraphed to Washington: "I regard Savannah as already gained." The possession of the fort opened Ossabaw Sound, effected communication with Dahlgren's fleet, and indeed made the capture of Savannah, where Hardee appeared to be shut up with ten or twelve thousand men, but a question of time. But it was Sherman's hope to capture Hardee's army with the city; and movements were made to close up all avenues of escape, Sherman's army stretching from the Savannah to the Ogeechee River, while Foster's troops covered the railroad to Charleston. It was intended to place a division to operate with Foster by way of Broad River; but while Sherman's flank movement was in process of operation, Hardee outwitted him, and on the night following the enemy's demand for the surrender of the city, the Confederates had evacuated it, and were on the Carolina shore.

The evacuation was a complete surprise to Sherman. On the night of the 28th December, Hardee opened a fierce bombardment, expending his ammunition without stint. After dark, he threw his men on rafts and steamboats across the river to the South Carolina shore. The night was dark, with a fierce gust of wind deadening the sounds of the wagons and the tramp of the troops. As morning broke, the attention of the enemy was excited at last by unusual sounds, and his pickets were advanced on the extreme left of the line. Meeting no opposition, they pushed still further, crawled through the abatis, floundered through dikes and ditches, scaled the first line of works, and found it deserted. All the ordnance stores and supplies which Hardee could not transport, had been destroyed before the evacuation; he had burned the ship-yard and sunk two ironclads; but all the rest of the uninjured city fell into the hands of the enemy.

Sherman announced his success in a characteristic despatch. He wrote to President Lincoln: "I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." And thus ended the story of the march to the sea. In his official report of his achievements, Gen. Sherman wrote: "We have consumed the corn and fodder in the region of country thirty miles on either side of a line from Atlanta to Savannah, as also the sweet potatoes, cattle, hogs, sheep, and poultry, and have carried away more than ten thousand horses and mules, as well as a countless number of their slaves. I estimate the damage done to the State of Georgia and its military resources at one hundred millions of dollars; at least twenty millions of which has inured to our advantage, and the remainder is simple waste and destruction."

CHARACTER OF GEN. SHERMAN.

615

The North exhibited its characteristic measure of greatness by taking Sherman's "march from the mountains to the seas" as the greatest military exploit of modern times. It fitted the Northern idea of magnitude. It was, of course, "the Great March," as everything the North admired, from a patent-machine to an army, was "the great." But it is difficult for a sober historian to find in the easy marches of Sherman through Georgia, any great military merit, or to discover in the excessively vulgar character of this commander any of the elements of the hero. Where there is nothing to oppose an army, the mere accomplishment of distances is no great wonder or glory. From the time Sherman left Gaylesville to the day he encountered the lines around Savannah, he never had a thousand men on his front to dispute his advance; he had nothing to threaten his rear beyond a few bodies of Confederate horse; he moved through a country so full of supplies that his own commissariat was scarcely taxed to subsist his army; he himself telegraphed to Washington: "Our march was most agreeable," and compared it to "a pleasure-trip." And yet this pleasant excursion the North insisted upon amplifying as a great military exploit, to be compared with Napoleon's march to Moscow, and other splendid adventures of invasion, while the chief excursionist was raised to the dignity of a hero.

Sherman is an example of the reputation achieved in the North by intrepid charlatanism and self-assertion. He had elements of Northern popularity outside of the severe circle of military accomplishments. His swagger was almost irresistible; he wrote slang phrases in his official despatches; his style was a flash Fourth-of-July tangled oratory, that never fails to bring down the applause of a Northern mob. It is the office of history to reduce the reputations of the gazette. The man who is now known in Northern newspapers as a hero of the war and luminary of the military age will scarcely be known in future and just history, further than as the man who depopulated and destroyed Atlanta, essayed a new code of cruelty in war, marched so many miles, achieved much bad notoriety, and ended with a professional fame mediocre and insignificant, holding a place no longer conspicuous in the permanent records of the times.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS, AND THEIR TREATMENT IN CAPTIVITY. EXCEEDING INTEREST OF THE SUBJECT.-SLIGHT ACCOUNT OF PRISONERS IN THE EARLY PERIODS OF THE WAR. -MR. BOYCE'S PROPOSITION. THE WOOL-COBB NEGOTIATION. THE FORT DONELSON CAPTURES.—BAD FAITH OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. THE CARTEL OF 1862.—CHARACTER OF COMMISSIONER OULD.-HIS HUMANE AND ZEALOUS SERVICES.-SHAMEFUL VIOLATION OF THE CARTEL BY THE FEDERAL AUTHORITIES.-SOLEMN PROTEST OF COMMISSIONER OULD.-COUNTER-CHARGE OF THE FEDERALS.-IT IS DISPROVED BY COMMISSIONER OULD. -CASE OF STREIGHT.-THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DEOLARES PAROLES VOID.-COMMISSIONER OULD DENOUNCES THE CHEAT.-HIS RETALIATION WITH RESPECT TO THE VICKSBURG PRISONERS.-HE WAIVES THE CARTEL, AND MAKES A NEW PROPOSITION.—HE SENDS TO WASHINGTON LISTS OF MORTALITY IN THE ANDERSONVILLE PRISON.-THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOES NOT REPLY.-ITS PERSISTENT AND INHUMAN SILENCE.-EXPLANATION OF IT. THE WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT RESOLVED TO MAKE A CASE OF REBEL BARBARITY."—THE SITE, ARRANGEMENTS AND DISCIPLINE OF THE ANDERSONVILLE PRISON.— EXPLANATION OF THE SUFFERING AND MORTALITY THERE.-EXTRAORDINARY PROPOSITION OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT TO RELEASE WITHOUT EQUIVALENTS AND WITHOUT FORMALITY ALL SICK AND WOUNDED FEDERAL PRISONERS.-SECRETARY STANTON DEAF TO THE CRY OF THE SUFFERERS.-HIS GREAT GUILT.-EXCHANGES RESUMED UNDER GEN. GRANT'S AUTHORITY.-REPORT OF THE JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE CONFEDERATE CONGRESS, APPOINTED TO INVESTIGATE THE CONDITION AND TREATMENT OF PRISONERS OF WAR.-NORTHERN PUBLICATIONS ON THIS SUBJECT.-REFUTATION OF RAWHEAD-AND-BLOODY-BONES STORIES.-HUMANITY OF THE CONFEDERATE AUTHORITIES.A TERRIBLE RECORD OF FEDERAL CRUELTIES.-BARBAROUS PUNISHMENT IN NORTHERN PRISONS.--LAST HUMANE PROPOSITION OF COMMISSIONER OULD.-HIS LETTER TO GEN. GRANT.-A COMPLETE RECORD OF JUSTICE AND HUMANITY ON THE PART OF THE CONFEDERATES.

THE exchange of prisoners taken during the war; their treatment in their places of confinement North and South; the incidents of the cartel, altogether, constitute so large and interesting a subject that we have reserved its treatment for a separate chapter. On the exposition of this intricate matter depends much of the good name of the Confederates and the contrary title of the enemy; and it may be remarked that no subject which tended to keep alive a feeling of bitterness and animosity between the

THE WOOL-COBB NEGOTIATION.

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Northern and Southern people was more effective than recrimination about the cartel, and the alleged cruelty to prisoners of war on both sides. The exposition we propose to make is mainly by a chain of records, extending through the war, thus best securing authenticity of statement, and combining these documents in a unity of narrative, so as to place before the reader a complete view and a severe analysis of the whole subject.

In the first periods of the war, and with the prospect of its early termi nation, but little account was taken of prisoners captured on either side. Indeed, some time elapsed at Washington before any lists were kept of these captures; and after the first remarkable battle of the war, that of Manassas, in 1861, it was actually proposed (by Mr. Boyce of South Carolina), in the Provisional Congress at Richmond, to send back the Federal prisoners taken on that field without any formality whatever. The Fort Donelson capture, however, appeared to have developed for the first time the value and interest of the exchange question, and was the occasion of remarkable perfidy on the part of the Washington authorities.

Just previous to these important captures, Gen. Wool, on the Federal side, had declared, in a letter dated the 13th February, 1862: "I am alone clothed with full power, for the purpose of arranging for the exchange of prisoners," and had invited a conference on the subject. Gen. Howell Cobb, on the part of the Confederacy, was appointed to negotiate with him; and the two officers decided upon a cartel by which prisoners taken on either side should be paroled within ten days after their capture, and delivered on the frontier of their own country. The only point of tenacious difference between them was as to a provision requiring each party to pay the expense of transporting their prisoners to the frontier; and this point Gen. Wool promised to refer to the decision of his Government. At a second interview on the 1st March, Gen. Wool declared that his Government would not consent to pay these expenses; when Gen. Cobb promptly gave up the point, leaving the cartel free from all of Gen. Wool's objections, and just what he had proposed in his letter of the 13th February. Upon this, Gen. Wool informed Gen. Cobb that "his Government had changed his instructions," and abruptly broke off the negotiation. The occasion of this bad faith and dishonour on the part of the enemy was, that in the interval they had taken several thousand prisoners at Fort Donelson, which reversed the former state of things, and gave them a surplus of prisoners, who, instead of being returned on parole, were carried into the interiour, and incarcerated with every circumstance of indignity.

In the second year of the war a distinct understanding was obtained on the subject of the exchange of prisoners of war, and the following cartel was respectively signed and duly executed on the part of the two Governments. This important instrument of war invites a close examination of the reader, and is copied in full:

HAXALL'S LANDING, ON JAMES RIVER, July 22, 1862.

The undersigned, having been commissioned by the authorities they respectively represent, to make arrangements for a general exchange of prisoners of war, have agreed to the following articles:

ARTICLE I. It is hereby agreed and stipulated, that all prisoners of war held by either party, including those taken on private armed vessels, known as privateers, shall be exchanged upon the conditions and terms following:

Prisoners to be exchanged, man for man and officer for officer; privateers to be placed upon the footing of officers and men of the navy.

Men and officers of lower grades, may be exchanged for officers of a higher grade, and men and officers of different services may be exchanged according to the following scale of equivalents.

A general-commanding-in-chief, or an admiral, shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank or for sixty privates or common seamen.

A flag officer or major-general shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank or for forty privates or common seamen.

A commodore, carrying a broad pennant, or a brigadier-general shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank or twenty privates or common seamen.

A captain in the navy or a colonel shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank or for fifteen privates or common seamen.

A lieutenant-colonel, or commander in the navy, shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank or for ten privates or common seamen.

A lieutenant-commander or a major shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank or eight privates or common seamen.

A lieutenant or a master in the navy or a captain in the army or marines shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank or six privates or common seamen.

Master's mates in the navy, or lieutenants or ensigns in the army, shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank or four privates or common seamen.

Midshipmen, warrant officers in the navy, masters of merchant vessels and commanders of privateers, shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank or three privates or common seamen; second captains, lieutenants, or mates of merchant vessels or privateers, and all petty officers in the navy, and all non-commissioned officers in the army or marines, shall be severally exchanged for persons of equal rank or for two privates or common seamen; and private soldiers or common seamen, shall be exchanged for each other, man for man.

ARTICLE II. Local, State, civil, and militia rank held by persons not in actual military service, will not be recognized; the basis of exchange being the grade actually held in the naval and military service of the respective parties.

ARTICLE III. If citizens held by either party on charges of disloyalty for any alleged civil offence are exchanged, it shall only be for citizens. Captured sutlers, teamsters, and all civilians in the actual service of either party to be exchanged for persons in similar position.

ARTICLE IV. All prisoners of war to be discharged on parole in ten days after their capture, and the prisoners now held and those hereafter taken to be transported to the points mutually agreed upon, at the expense of the capturing party. The surplus prisoners, not exchanged, shall not be permitted to take up arms again, nor to serve as military police, or constabulary force in any fort, garrison, or field work, held by either of the respective parties, nor as guards of prisoners, deposit, or stores, nor to discharge any duty usually performed by soldiers, until exchanged under the provisions of this