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CHAPTER XXVI. TREATMENT OF PRISONERS, WOUNDED AND DEAD.
IT was from the close of this campaign that the difficulties in regard to the exchange of prisoners, and the consequent complaints about the maltreatment of those in our hands, dated. The fall of Vicksburg simultaneously with the battle of Gettysburg, gave to the enemy the excess of prisoners, which had hitherto been on our side, and he now began to discover that we would be more damaged by a cessation in the exchange than he would:--our men when they came back would go into our army for the war, and we had no means of supplying their places while they remained prisoners. Many of his prisoners in our hands had but limited terms to serve out, and the places of those whose terms were longer could be readily supplied by new drafts, while his high bounties, national, state and local, opened to him the whole civilized world as a recruiting ground. He had no inducement, therefore, to continue the exchange as a matter of policy affecting the strength of his army, while a failure to do so would very much cripple us, by detaining from our army the men held as prisoners, by imposing on our already overtaxed resources the support of the prisoners themselves, as well as the diminution of the strength of our army by the detail of a force to guard them. While we were in Pennsylvania, President Lincoln had issued an order, declaring that no paroles given, unless at some of the places specified for the exchange of prisoners in the cartel which had been adopted, or in cases of stipulation to that effect by a commanding officer in surrendering his forces, would be recognized. I think the date of that order was the 1st of July, and it was evidently intended to embarrass us while in Pennsylvania, with the guarding and sustenance of such prisoners as should fall into our hands. This order found us in possession of more than 6,000 prisoners taken on the 1st at Gettysburg. About 3,000 of them were paroled, but their paroles were not recognized and they subsequently returned to the army without being exchanged, including some officers who solemnly pledged their honor to surrender themselves as prisoners in the event their paroles were not recognized by their government. The rest declined to give paroles because of the order before mentioned, and they were carried to Virginia and held in custody. In addition to our willingness to parole these men, General Lee proposed to make an exchange of prisoners after the battle, but it was declined. Now if the prisoners brought off by us from Gettysburg subsequently suffered in prison, who was responsible for that suffering? The order in regard to the recognition of paroles was in violation of the well recognized principles of modern warfare. In the most ancient times, a captive taken in battle was held to have forfeited his life to his captors and it was always taken. After a time this was changed, and from motives of humanity the prisoner's life was spared and he became by the laws of war, even among the most civilized nations, the slave of his captor-- his enslavement being justified on the ground that it was a boon to him to spare his life at the expense of his liberty. The justice of this rule is recognized in Holy Writ itself, and the rule continued to prevail long after the commencement of the Christian era. In the age of chivalry a modification of the rule prevailed, and a prisoner was allowed to ransom himself, when he could raise the means of doing so. In more modern times the system of paroles was adopted, and the prisoner was allowed to go at large upon pledging his honor not to take up arms against his captors until regularly exchanged, the penalty of a forfeiture of his parole being death if again captured. This is a contract between the prisoner and his captors, which his government is bound to respect in the interests of humanity, by the recognition of all civilized nations. It is not necessary for him to receive the permission of his government or his leader to give his parole. When he is a captive, he is beyond the power and protection of either and has a right to stipulate for his individual safety against the penalties of death, slavery, or imprisonment by neutralizing his services for the time being. If his contract is not respected by his government, what must be the consequence? When two nations or parties are at war, the object of each is to destroy the physical power of the other, in order to obtain peace, or accomplish the object for which the war is undertaken. If one party is so situated that it cannot hold, or cannot support its prisoners, and the other will neither exchange nor recognize the validity of paroles, is it to be expected that the prisoners shall be turned loose to return again to augment the force of the antagonistic party, and thus perhaps insure the destruction of that party liberating them? The very principle which justifies killing in battle, that is the universal principle of self-preservation, will justify the taking of no prisoners or the destruction of all those that may be taken, if they can be neutralized in no other way. It was on this principle that the great Napoleon, in his Egyptian campaign, killed a number of prisoners whom he did not have the means of feeding, and who would not recognize the validity of a parole. If he turned them loose they would have gone immediately into the ranks of his opponents, if he kept them he would have had to take the food from the mouths of his own soldiers to feed them, and the only way of getting rid of them was by killing them. It is true a clamor was raised by his enemies, whose interest it was to make him appear as a barbarian devoid of humanity, but now that the feelings of that day have subsided, impartial men do not doubt the conformity of the act to the principles of war. So when Mr. Lincoln's order appeared, if the safety of General Lee's army, or the success of his campaign had been jeopardized by the necessity of feeding and guarding the prisoners in our hands, he would have been justified in putting them to death, and the responsibility for the act would have rested on the shoulders of the man who issued the inhuman order. So too the latter was responsible for all the sufferings to which those prisoners who were carried off were afterwards subjected, if they suffered. The alleged reason for stopping the exchange was the fact that the Confederate Government would not parole or exchange negro slaves belonging to Southern citizens who were captured in the Federal ranks. But it cannot be doubted that this was the mere pretext and not the real reason. That is to be found in the belief existing on the part of the Federal authorities that the failure to exchange would cripple us. The constitution of the United States, then unchanged in any respect, recognized the right of property in slaves, and guaranteed the return of such as should flee from service. The constitution of the Confederate States contained the same guaranty, and the institution of slavery was recognized by the laws and constitutions of all the States composing the Confederacy, from which States alone the Confederate Government derived its delegated powers. That government was bound to respect the laws of the States and the rights of the citizens under those laws, and to protect them. Granting, for the sake of the argument, that the United States may have had the right to employ as soldiers the captured or fugitive slaves, as it had to take into its armies deserters from ours, still it took them subject to all the rights of the owners and of the Confederate Government, in the event of their recapture, just as deserters taken in arms in the opposite camp were liable to all the penalties for their crime without any infraction of the rules of war. Many of the slaves put into the ranks of the Federal Army were put there by force, but whether their service was enforced or voluntary, the Confederate Government would have been recreant to its trust, and grossly neglectful of its rights and interests, to have allowed so large a proportion of its own population to be used by its enemy for the purpose of strengthening his armies, by recognizing the claim set up on the part of these slaves to the benefit of the rules of war. Most nations have denied the right of its citizens even to expatriate themselves, so as to be competent to serve in the ranks of its enemies. None permit that expatriation to take place after the commencement of hostilities, and it would be the blindest folly to do so. In the case of the recaptured slaves, our government did not propose to punish the slaves themselves, though those that had voluntarily entered the enemy's service had justly forfeited their lives, but merely returned them to their owners, to the great gratification of the negroes themselves in most cases. It was a case in which the Federal Government had no rights whatever, any more than it could have had in the case of deserters. The claim therefore set up to have these slaves treated as other soldiers taken in battle was without the slightest foundation in the principles of international law, or the rules of civilized war; and the cessation of the exchange on that pretence was a most atrocious act of cruelty to its own prisoners by the Federal Government. A great clamor was raised on this specious pretext in order to reconcile the soldiers and the people of the North to the discontinuance of the exchange, and blind their eyes as to the real reason. Not denying the right of the Federal Government to refuse to exchange prisoners, if it was its interest to do so, and the war could not be terminated favorably to itself in any other way, still it had no right to violate the faith pledged to the exchange by the cartel; and least of all did it have the right to deprive its own soldiers in our hands of the right to release themselves from prison by giving their paroles. If it thought proper not only to adopt the extreme harsh measure of non-exchange from motives of policy, but to go further and adopt a new rule upon the subject of paroles, then it had no right whatever to complain of any measures of harshness towards its prisoners which the necessities or the interests of our government and our army rendered necessary. So much for the question of rights; and now for the facts as to the actual treatment which the prisoners in our hands received. I think I can safely deny that they were ever subjected to any maltreatment, suffering, or neglect, which it was in our power to avoid. We did not resort to the extreme measures which perhaps the laws of war and our own necessities would have justified, but the prisoners were treated with all the humanity possible under the circumstances in which we were placed. Doubtless there may have been rare individual acts of maltreatment, but until human nature is a very different thing from what it is, there can be no body of men in which there are not some who act unjustly and oppressively. Such is the case everywhere over the world, in the church, in government, in society, and in all the relations which men bear to each other, it has been the case, and will continue to be the case until the end of all things that some will do wrong, and we of the South cannot claim an exemption from the common lot. What I maintain is that no harsh treatment to the prisoners was authorized or tolerated, and if there were individual cases of the kind they were exceedingly rare. The condition of a prisoner is by no means a desirable one under any circumstances, and he who is captured in war must expect to suffer inconveniences. The soldiers of the Federal Army were supplied with an abundance of everything necessary for their comfort and even luxury, to which many of them, including some officers, had never been accustomed before, and to which but few of them perhaps, except those who enriched themselves by the plunder of our people, returned again after the war. No army that ever took the field was so well supplied in all that was necessary, and much that was superfluous. The easy communication always kept up with the positions of that army by railway and steamboat supplied it abundantly not only with ample and comfortable clothing of every kind and the government ration of everything, but with most of the delicacies incident to city life. They had not only bread, meat, vegetables, coffee and sugar in abundance, but the enormous horde of sutlers following the army supplied it with wines, liquors, fruits, oysters, canned meats and in fact everything that could be desired; and which high pay and high bounties enabled both officers and men to purchase. When such men, therefore, fell into our hands and were subjected to the scanty fare to which Confederate soldiers were reduced, it was very natural for them to complain of their treatment. Our ports were blockaded and we were cut off from the commerce of the world. The enemy made not only provisions, but medicines, contraband of war. He had devastated the portions of our country to which he had penetrated, destroying crops and farming utensils, and burning barns, mills, factories of cloth and stuffs of all kinds, and tanneries, and in fact committing every possible waste and devastation which could cripple our army or pinch the non-combatants who remained at home. Coffee, tea and sugar had disappeared early in 1862 as a part of the ration to our men, and if there was any at all, it was to be found in rare quantities and at the most enormous prices. The scanty supplies of provisions to which our own. men were reduced can hardly be conceived of by one who was not present to know the actual state of the case. On the night after the second victory at Manassas, thousands of our men lay down to rest without having had a mouthful to eat all day. I was then in command of a brigade, and I was very well content, after the fight at Ox Hill or Chantilly, to make my supper on two very small ears of green corn, which I roasted in the ashes. On the next day and for a day or two afterwards, all that I had to eat was a piece of cold boiled fresh beef without either salt or bread, which I carried in a haversack. This was the strait to which a Brigadier General was reduced in our army. I have many a time on the march, while a division and corps commander, been glad to get a hard cracker and a very small piece of uncooked bacon for my dinner, and I have been often thankful on the road to a soldier for a biscuit from his haversack which he himself had baked, after mixing up the flour on an India rubber cloth, which he had secured on some battlefield. When our money became so depreciated as to be worth only from five to ten cents on the dollar, many of the company officers we |
