Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 1.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[314] our prisoners at Belle Isle and Andersonville, by refusing to exchange soldiers because the Rebels did not recognize the negroes in our service as regular soldiers.

I don't propose to criticise anybody, or to say who was right or who was wrong, but I propose to state the exact facts, because it has been widely charged against me, that in order to rescue the negro soldiers I preferred that 30,000 of our men should starve rather than agree that the negro should not be exchanged.

Whatever I might have thought it best to have done, I am only here to-day to say that I did not do it. The duties of Commissioner of Exchange were put in my hands. I made an arrangement to have an exchange effected — man for man, officer for officer. I communicated my plan to General Streight, of Indiana, who is here to-day, and who had then just escaped from the Libby. I told him how I proposed to get our negro soldiers out of rebel hands.

We had 60,000 or thereabout of their prisoners. They had 30,000 of ours, or thereabout. I don't give the exact numbers, as I quote from memory; but these are the approximate numbers.

I proposed to go on and exchange with the rebels, man for man officer for officer, until I got 30,000 of our men, and then I would still have had 30,000 of theirs left in my hands. And then I proposed to twist these 30,000 until I got the negroes out of the Rebels. [Applause.] I made this arrangement with the Confederate Commissioner. This was on the 1st of April, before we commenced to move on that campaign of 1864, from the Rapid Ann to the James, around Richmond. At that time the Lieutenant-General visited my headquarters, and I told him what I had done. He gave me certain verbal directions. What they were I shall not say, because I have his instructions in writing. But I sent my proposition for exchange to the Government of the United States. It was referred to the Lieutenant-General. He ordered me not to give the Confederates another man in exchange.

I telegraphed back to him in these words:

“Your order shall be obeyed, but I assume you do not mean to interfere with the exchange of the sick and wounded?”

He replied: “Take all the sick and wounded you can get, but don't give them another man.”

You can see that even with sick and wounded men this system would soon cause all exchanges to stop.

It did stop. It stopped right there, in April, 1864, and was not resumed until August, 1864, when Mr. Ould, the Rebel Commissioner, again wrote me: “We will exchange man for man, officer for officer,” and saying nothing about colored troops.

I laid this dispatch before the Lieutenant-General. His answer, in writing, was substantially: “If you give the rebels the 30,000 men whom we hold, it will insure the defeat of General Sherman and endanger our safety here around Richmond.” I wrote an argument, offensively put, to the Confederate Commissioners, so that they could stop all further offers of exchange.