FACILITIES GIVEN TO THE AUTHOR.

587

near him. We all remounted as quickly as possible, each obeying the injunction, "Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once," and were soon out of range of the battery, when the firing ceased. The Confederates had doubtless heard of the return of Butler from Fort Fisher, and, mistaking our little party of five for the General and his staff, gave this salute with shotted guns.

We returned to General Butler's head-quarters at twilight, where we found George D. Prentice, editor of the Louisville Journal, who had just come through the lines from Richmond. With him and Captain Clarke, of Butler's staff, we journeyed the next day on horseback to Aiken's Landing, crossed the James on a pontoon bridge, rode to Bermuda Hundred, and then went up the Appomattox to Point of Rocks in the Ocean Queen, which the general placed at our disposal. There we mounted to the summit of the signal-tower delineated on page 547, and viewed the marvelous lines of intrenchments in that vicinity; and saw plainly the church-spires at Richmond and Petersburg. We passed that night on the barge of the United States Sanitary Commission, at City Point, and the next morning went down to Fortress Monroe, bearing an order from General Butler for a tug to take us to Norfolk. We spent New Year's day in that city, and then went homeward by way of Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

1965.

April. 16.

Soon after the news of the evacuation of Richmond reached us, early in April, we started for that city, and were in Baltimore on the night when the President was murdered. There we were detained until Sunday afternoon,' in consequence of an order from the Govern ment, prohibiting all public conveyances entering into or departing from Baltimore, because search was a-making for the assassin. Admiral Porter was among the blockaded there. We should not have been permitted then to pass southward, had not the writer possessed special passes and letters from the heads of the War and Navy departments, and a note from the late President, requesting commanders of each service to give him facility for observation,' for no passes were issued from the War Department for many days after the assassination. We went down the Chesapeake to Fortress Monroe on Sunday night, where we met the gallant Captain Ainsworth, who took us in his tug to the double-turreted monitor Monadnoc, to

The following are copies of the letters alluded to:

"WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON CITY, December 6, 1864. "Permission is given to Mr. Benson J. Lossing to visit the various battle-fields of the present war, so far as they are within our lines, and to make all drawings that he may require, of the same, for historical purposes. He will be allowed to take with him, as assistants, F. J. Dreer and Edwin Greble. This permission is subject to the approval of the generals commanding in the various Departments, where the battle-fields, which he desires to exa:nine, may be situated.

"By order of the Secretary of War.

"C. A. DANA, Assistant Secretary of War." To this the following was subjoined:"I shall be obliged for Mr. Lossing to have every facility consistent with the public service.

To the Commanding Officers of the Navy:

"A. LINCOLN." "NAVY DEPARTMENT, December 6, 1864.

"Benson J. Lossing, Esq., who is engaged upon a history of the present Rebellion, is about to visit the various places connected with the different battles, accompanied by F. J. Dreer, Esq., and Edwin Greble, Esq., and has requested a general letter of introduction to naval commanders, which is hereby given, to facilitate him in any investigations which Mr. Lossing may consider essential in preparing his work. The usual courtesies, not interfering with the public service, may be extended to them.

"GIDEON WELLES, Secretary of the Navy."

2 See page 497.

588

VISIT TO RICHMOND AND PETERSBURG.

visit Rear-Admiral Radford. We found him in another vessel, when he gave an order for a tug to take us to City Point, but finding better accommodations on a transport, we went up the river in that ship. We arrived at head

April 18, 1865.

quarters at evening, and the next morning' went up to Richmond in the mail steamer Trumpet, thridding our way among nests of torpedoes, indicated by the floats and flags placed there by Cap

tain Chandler.'

We found the ruins of Richmond yet smoking. In that city we remained several days, gathering up materials for history, the recipient of kind attentions from General Ord (who was in command there), and other officers. We visited and sketched the Capitol, Libby Prison, Castle Thunder, Belle Isle, and other places of interest connected with the Civil War, delineated on preceding pages of this work; also the fortifications in the immediate vicinity of the city. Then we went to Petersburg, by railway, where General Hartsuff was in command, with his head-quarters in the elegant Bolling mansion, which had been sadly shattered by the passage of a shell from the Union batteries. There we enjoyed the kind hospitalities of the general and his wife. He furnished us with horses, and an intelligent orderly as guide, and with these we rode over the marvelous net-work of fortifications, fresh from the hands of the builders, which enveloped Petersburg on the southern side of the Appomattox. From that shattered city we went, by railway, to City Point, and thence to Washington in a Government steamer, by way of the James and Potomac rivers.

1 See page 561.

DISPOSITION OF PRISONERS OF WAR.

589

CHAPTER XXII.

PRISONERS.-BENEVOLENT OPERATIONS DURING THE WAR.-READJUSTMENT OF NA TIONAL AFFAIRS.-CONCLUSION.

IN THE downfall of the Confederacy, the prisoners were all set free, and the captive insurgents, who had been generously treated, comfortably housed, and abundantly fed, at all times and in all places, while in the custody of the National authorities, were sent to their homes at the expense of their ever kind Government. Gladly would the writer testify to like generous treatment, comfortable shelter, and wholesome and abundant food, accorded to the Union prisprisoners by the Confederate authorities. Alas! the truth revealed by thousands of sufferers, and the admissions of the Confederates themselves, compel a widely different record-a record which presents one of the darkest chapters in the history of human iniquity. Gladly would he omit the record, for it relates to the wickedness of some of his countrymen, but duty and honor require him, in making a chronicle of the Rebellion and Civil War, to tell the whole truth, and conceal nothing, so that posterity may be able to form a correct judgment of that Rebellion and Civil War.

Soon after actual hostilities began, and prisoners were taken by both parties in the conflict, the important question arose, Can the Government exchange prisoners with rebels against its authority, without thereby tacitly conceding belligerent rights to the insurgents, and, as a consequence, practically acknowledging the Confederate Government, so called, at Richmond, as a Government in fact? Humanity took precedence of policy in the Cabinet councils, and an arrangement was made for the exchange of prisoners. A commissioner was appointed by each party for the purpose. Colonel W. H. Ludlow was chosen for the service by the Government, and the Conspirators appointed Robert Ould to perform like duties. The former had his headquarters at Fortress Monroe, and the latter had his at Richmond. Prisoners were sent in boats to and from each place. Aiken's Landing and its vicinity, on the James River, finally became a sort of neutral ground, where the exchanges took place. The operations of exchange were facilitated by the Government, as much as possible, because of accounts which came, from the beginning of the war, like a flood, concerning the cruel treatment accorded to the Union prisoners in the hands of the insurgents, at Richmond and elsewhere. The business of exchange went regularly on until it was violently interrupted by Jefferson Davis, at near the close of 1862, when he issued an extraordinary proclamation, glowing with

Dec. 23,

1862.

the fiery anger with which he was moved: That anger was kindled chiefly

590

THE SAVAGISM OF THE CONSPIRATORS.

because the Government had chosen to use the loyal negroes for military purposes, as the Conspirators had done, but ostensibly because the National Commander at New Orleans had punished a low gambler for overt acts of treason, and accepted the highly immoral conduct of certain women "of the better sort," in that city, as fair evidence that they belonged to an immoral class of the community. In that proclamation there was a tone of savagism, which made the rulers of other lands pause in their willingness to admit, by recognition as such, the "Confederacy" into the family of civilized nations. In it, Davis outlawed a major-general of the National army, and commander of a military department, speaking of him as "a felon, deserving of capital punishment," and ordered that he should not be "treated simply as a public enemy of the Confederate States of America, but as an outlaw, and common enemy of mankind; and that in the event of his capture, the officer in command of the capturing force do cause him to be immediately executed by hanging." He also ordered the same treatment for commanding officers. serving under the outlawed general, and further directed that all negro soldiers who might be taken prisoners, and all commissioned officers serving in company with them, who should be captured, should be handed over to State governments for execution, the negroes as insurgent slaves, the white officers as inciters of servile insurrection.3

Jan. 12, 1863.

This savage position of the insurgent Chief made the Government pause and consider. It was morally bound to afford equal protection to all its citizen soldiers, irrespective of color. The proclamation produced wide-spread indignation throughout the country, and when, in January," Davis, in a "message to the Confederate "Congress," announced his determination to deliver all officers of the National army commanding negro troops, captured after that date, to the respective State authorities to be hung, and to treat those troops as rebels against their masters, Congress took up the matter, and a joint resolution was offered providing for retaliation for any cruel treatment of Union prisoners, of whatever grade or hue. But in this, as in the matter of exchange, Humanity took precedence of Policy, and the National Executive and legislature were governed by the ethics involved in the following words of Charles Sumner, who opposed the measure, in the Senate: "I believe that this body will not undertake, in this age of Christian light, under any inducement, under any provocation, to counsel the Executive Government to enter into any such competition with barbarism. The thing is impossible; it cannot be entertained; we cannot be cruel, or barbarous, or savage, because the rebels, whom we are now meetign in warfare, are cruel, barbarous, and savage! We cannot imitate that detested example."

It was the proclamation and the "message" of Davis that first seriously interrupted the exchange of prisoners, these being followed by the refusal of Ould, the Confederate Commissioner, under the instructions of his Chief, to con

1 See pages 350 and 351, volume II.

* General Butler, the officer alluded to, was a political friend of Davis's, until the latter became an open enemy of the Government. In the winter of 1860-61, Butler was in Washington, and told Davis and his traitorous companions. that if they attempted to break up the Union, they would find him (Butler) fighting to preserve the Union. They rebelled, and he fought them as rebels. Former political friendship intensified Davis's hatred of Butler. The animus of his proclamation was the low spirit of partisan malignity.

See note 4, page 35i, volume II.

PERFIDY OF THE CONSPIRATORS.

591

sider captive negro soldiers as prisoners of war. In many instances no quarter was given them in battle or afterward; and the black flag was carried against the white officers commanding them, of whom several were hung without even the form of a trial. With such a high hand did the Conspirators exercise their horrid rule at that time, and so utterly perfidious was their conduct in the matter of paroled prisoners, as in the case of Grant's captives at Vicksburg and Banks's at Port Hudson, already mentioned,' that justice interposed between humanity and policy, and demanded a cessation of all exchanges until the Conspirators should act in accordance with the common usages of civilized nations. When in August, 1863, General Merideth, who had succeeded Colonel Ludlow as Commissioner, demanded that negro troops and their officers should be treated as other prisoners of war and exchanged, Robert Ould replied, "We will die in the last ditch before giving up the right to send slaves back to slavery." And the Richmond Enquirer, speaking the sentiments of the Conspirators, said, on the 24th of August, 1863: "This day Mr. Commissioner Ould meets for the first time the new Federal Commissioner, a certain General Merideth, to confer upon the terms of the cartel, and endeavor to settle the principles of exchange for the future. It is scarcely possible to hope that any conclusion satisfactory to both sides can be arrived at in this conference. The Federal Government has planted itself insolently upon the demand that our runaway negroes, when taken in arms against their masters, shall be treated as prisoners of war, and shall be exchanged against white men. Confederates have borne and forborne much to mitigate the atrocities of war; but this is a thing which the temper of the country cannot endure. Our Government has issued an order as to the treatment of revolted negroes when captured. Certain captured negroes, under that order, have been imprisoned at Charleston to await the disposition of the State Government."

1 See page 131.

2 Letter of General S. A. Merideth, Ludlow's successor as Commissioner, to the editor of the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, August 25, 1868. General Merideth in his official communication to Robert Ould, the Confederate Commissioner, on the 29th of October, 1863, said, in relation to the interruption of the exchange of prisoners: The history of this matter, as I understand it, is briefly this: While my predecessor, on duty at this place, was here, in discharge of the duties now committed to me, you at one time made a declaration of exchange embracing no great number of prisoners of war, not in accordance with the requirements of the cartel and you invited Colonel Ludlow, my predecessor, to make a corresponding declaration of equivalents. Such a declaration was made by Colonel Ludlow, doubtless without anticipating the magnitude of the evil which appears now as the result of that departure from the cartel first inaugurated by yourself. Subsequently to my coming on duty here, the events of the war threw upon your hands a large body of paroled officers and men (over 30,000) captured by General Grant at Vicksburg, and not long afterward some 6,000 or more captured by General Banks at Port Hudson. Suddenly, and without any proper conference or understanding with me, and but a few days prior to the important events at Chickamauga, as if for the express purpose of increasing the force of General. Bragg against General Rosecrans, you gave me notice that, on the next day after the date of that notice, you would declare exchanged a large portion of the troops which had been captured by General Grant."

Further, in relation to the conduct of the Confederates, in this matter, General Merideth says, in his letter of the 25th of August, 1868: "Another cause of the suspension of the cartel was its constant violation by the rebels, in making illegal declarations of exchange, for the purpose of putting men into the field, and there is no doubt, whatever, that all prisoners paroled by the United States authorities were immediately returned to active duty in the rebel army. Many officers and men captured at Vicksburg were in the battle of Chickamauga. [See page 131.] Thus the rebels were making use of our well-conducted prisons as recruiting depots for their army. Another insuperable obstacle to returning exchanges, was in the matter of paroles. Mr. Ould had some 18,000 or 20,000 which he claimed as valid. Most, if not all of these paroles were taken by guerrillas, bushwhackers, and detached commands in the West. No possession was ever had, no delivery was ever made, and no rolls were ever furnished. On the capture of a town by a rebel cavalry raid, the command remained long enough to take the parole of unarmed citizens there, and then decamped, leaving the paroled men behind, and forwarding the paroles to Richmond. And the rebels had the assurance to require the United States Government to exchange prisoners legitimately captured in battle for such paroles as these.”