Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/533

Rh his government on the subject. An offer which would have released within ten days every Northern soldier in the Confederate prisons, but at the same time have left a large number of Southern soldiers in Northern prisons because the excess was then on the Federal side, was not even noticed.

In January, 1864, and even before that date it was feared by the Confederate authorities that prisoners of war on both sides would be held in captivity without the benefits of exchange. Colonel Ould, the Confederate agent of exchange, therefore wrote, January 24, 1864, officially to General Hitchcock, the Federal agent of exchange, a formal proposal to have surgeons appointed by both governments to take charge in the prisons of the health and comfort of the prisoners. The surgeons were also to act as commissaries with power to receive and distribute money, food, clothing and medicines. But even this very humane offer was not answered, although its acceptance would have alleviated the sufferings and saved the lives of thousands of brave men. In the summer of 1864, Colonel Ould was instructed by Mr. Davis to offer to deliver all sick and wounded prisoners with out any exchange whatever, and accordingly he did offer to send ten or fifteen thousand to the mouth of the Savannah river without requiring any equivalents, but the acceptance of this noble proposal was delayed for months. Finally, about the last of the year, vessels were sent to receive this free offering, and Ould turned over as many as could be transported some thirteen thousand among whom were over five thousand well men. In return the Federal agent sent in at the mouth of the Savannah river about 3,000 sick and wounded Confederates from Northern prisons.

During this same summer the deficiency in medical supplies became so embarrassing that the Confederate administration offered to buy from the Uuited States, payable in gold, cotton or tobacco, these needed medi-