Page:The Immortal Six Hundred.djvu/43

   The question is asked in all honesty, because this suspension of the cartel by the United States Government was the cause of the suffering of the Union prisoners of war in the South.

Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and Gen. H. W. Halleck are responsible for the suffering of Union prisoners of war in the South, and not President Davis nor the Confederate Government. Mr. Charles A. Dana, the Assistant Federal Secretary of War, in an editorial in his paper, the New York "Sun," said in commenting on a letter President Davis wrote to Mr. James Lyons in reply to some strictures Mr. Blaine had made upon the question of prisoners of war:

"This letter shows clearly, we think, that the Confederate authorities, and especially Mr. Davis, ought not to be held responsible for the terrible privations, sufferings and injuries which our men had to endure while they were kept in Confederate military prisons. The fact is unquestionable, that while the Confederates desired to exchange prisoners, to send our men home, and to get back