Page:The Immortal Six Hundred.djvu/20

 PREFACE

exchange and why he wanted exchanges stopped. Read H. W. Halleck's, General, U. S. A., order to stop all exchanges of prisoners of war, and we think this alone should convince those who slander Mr. Davis and the Confederate authorities just where the responsibility rests. It was the inhuman orders to stop exchanges, issued by the Washington authorities that made both Union and Confederate prisoners of war suffer. The Confederate authorities had no say in these orders. Read D. A. M. Clark's, U. S. A., report on Northern Military prisons. Read General J. G. Foster's, U. S. A., authority to place Confederate prisoners of war on Morris Island, S. C, under fire of their own guns shelling that Island. Read what General Scammell, et al, U. S. officers confined in Charleston, S. C, prisoners of war, tell General Foster of their treatment, and the letter is official. And when you read these proofs, honestly say who was guilty of inhumanity to helpless prisoners of war.

All we ask is that the truth shall be told. If the truth shows the South or Confederate authorities to have been guilty of cruelty to prisoners of war, then they should be held up to the scorn of the civilized world. We cannot change the Record now, it must stand. And we say without the least fear of contradiction, that the Confederate Government never by order, fed Union