Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/142

 126 Southern Historical Society Papers.

our soldiers had, and cared for when sick in hospitals and placed on precisely the same footing as Confederate soldiers.

(3) If these regulations were violated by subordinates in indi- vidual instances, it was done without the knowledge or consent of the Confederate authorities, which promptly rebuked and punished any case reported.

(4) If prisoners failed to get full rations, or had those of inferior quality, the Confederate soldiers suffered the same privations, and these were the necessary consequences of the mode of carrying on the war on the part of the North, which brought desolation and ruin on the South, and these conditions were necessarily reflected on their prisoners in our hands.

(5) That the mortality in Southern prisons resulted from causes beyond our control, but these could have been greatly alleviated had not medicines been declared by the Federal Government as "con- traband of war," and had not the Federal authorities refused the offer of our Agent of Exchange, the late Judge Ould, that each govern- ment should send its own surgeons and medicines to relieve the suf- ferings of their respective soldiers in prisons refused to accept our offer to let them send medicines, &c. , to relieve their own prisoners, without any such privilege being accorded by them to us refused to allow the Confederate Government to buy. medicines for gold, tobacco, or cotton, &c. , which it offered to pledge its honor should only be used for their prisoners in our hands refused to exchange sick and wounded, and neglected from August to December, 1864, to accede to our Agent's proposition to send transportation to Savan- nah and receive without any equivalent from ten to fifteen thousand Federal prisoners, although the offer was accompanied with the statement of our Agent of Exchange (Judge Ould), showing the monthly mortality at Andersonville, and that we were utterly unable to care for these prisoners as they should be cared for, and that Judge Ould again and again urged compliance with this humane proposal on our part.

(6) That the sufferings of Confederates in Northern prisons were terrible, almost beyond description; that they were starved in aland of plenty; that they were allowed to freeze where clothing and fuel were plentiful; that they suffered for hospital stores, medicines and proper attention when sick; that they were shot by sentinels, beaten by officers, and subjected to the most cruel punishments upon the