Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 30.djvu/96

 88 Southern Historical Society Papers.

pointing out one single instance in which Judge Ould was in error. Notwithstanding all these charges and counter charges, exchanges still went on, and so we find Colonel Ludlow reporting to Secretary Stanton on May 5th, 1863, as follows-

" I have just returned from City Point, and have brought with me all my officers who have been held by the Confederates, and whom I send to City Point to-night. I have made the following declara- tions of exchanges:

(1) "All officers and enlisted men, and all persons, whatever may have been their classification or 'character, who have been delivered at City Point up to the 6th of May, 1863.

(2) ' 'All officers who have been captured and released on parole up to April ist, 1863, wherever they may have been captured." *
 * * Id., p. 559. See also p. 564.

It seems that the Confederate Congress had refused to sustain Mr. Davis, in his suggested retaliatory measures about the treatment of offi- cers to the extent he had recommended, and so exchanges went on with the result as just above reported, up to May 6th, 1863, and with but few, if any, complaints against the Confederates of ill treatment to pris- oners to that time. But how does the case stand, in this respect, at this time, with the Federals ? We have only space here for two quotations to show this, and both of these are from their own wit- nesses, and it would seem that these would offset "Andersonville," "The Libby," or any other place this side of the infernal regions.

On February gth, 1862, Judge Ould wrote Colonel Ludlow:

" I see from your own papers, that some dozen of our men cap- tured at Arkansas Pass were allowed to freeze to death in one night at Camp Douglas. I appeal to our common instincts, against such atrocious inhumanity." Id., p. 257.

We find no denial of this charge. On May loth, 1863, Dr. Wm. H. Van Buren, of New York, on behalf of the United States " San- itary Commission," reported to the Secretary of War the condition of the hospitals of the prisoners at Camp Douglas, near Chicago, and Gratiot street, St. Louis. In this report he incorporates the statements of Drs. Hun and Cogswell, of Albany, N. Y., who had been employed by the Sanitary Commission to inspect hospitals, and Dr. Van Buren commends these gentlemen as men of high character and eminent fitness for the work to which they had been assigned. It is from the statement of these Northern gentlemen