Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/204

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The above documents seem to us to show beyond all controversy that whatever suffering existed at Andersonville (and it is freely admitted that the suffering was terrible), resulted from causes which were beyond the control of the Confederate Government, and were directly due to the cold-blooded, cruel policy of the Federal authorities, which not only refused to exchange prisoners, but rejected every overture to mitigate their sufferings.  The Federal Government has had possession of the Confederate archives for now nearly eleven years. The Confederate leaders and their friends have been denied all access to those archives, while partisans on the other side have ransacked them at will in eager search for every sentence which could be garbled out of its connection to prove the charges made, with reckless disregard of the truth, against the "Rebel crew." It is fair to presume that those records contain no stronger proof of "Rebel cruelty to prisoners" than has already been brought to light, while some of us are fondly hoping