Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/519

Rh basis. Going with this authority Mr. Stephens reached Newport News, and there asked permission to proceed to Washington, but upon the reference of his mission to the authorities at the Federal capital the reply was returned: &quot;The request is inadmissible. The customary agents and channels are adequate for all needful military communications and conferences between the United States forces and the insurgents.&quot; Thus at the moment when Lee had been repulsed at Gettysburg and was now recrossing the Potomac a mere technical objection was again raised and an opportunity for an important conference between Mr. Stephens and Mr. Lincoln was thrust aside. Contemporaneous, too, with this mission of the Vice-President new orders were issued from Washington relating to the cartel, and a new section was added to former general orders which produced still further embarrassments.

The disposition of negroes captured in battle still further disturbed the regular process of exchange, there being on the side of the Confederates an outstanding menace, which was met on the side of the Federals by the firm declaration that &quot;the law of nations and the usages and customs of war as carried on by civilized powers permit no distinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war as public enemies. In this singular course of the questions involved in the treatment of white prisoners of the same country it came to pass that the condition of the negro brought about the concession by the North at last, which should have been made at the outset of the struggle, and produced an appeal to the laws of public war which the South had made in vain. A record of that year recites that not a single instance has occurred of a negro soldier or a commissioned officer of a negro regiment being exchanged or recognized as a prisoner of war. On the other hand no instance has come to light of the execution by the Confederate authorities of the death penalty upon prisoners of this class.