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

[302] agreed to by this Government if the intention to change the war into a system of indiscriminate murder and robbery had been known to it; and whereas a just regard to humanity forbids that the repression of crime which this Government is thus compelled to enforce should be unnecessarily extended to retaliation on the enlisted men in the army of the United States, who may be the unwilling instruments of the savage cruelty of their commanders, so long as there is hope that the excesses of the enemy may be checked or prevented by retribution on the commissioned officers, who have the power to avoid guilty action, by refusing service under a Government which seeks their aid in the perpetration of such infamous barbarities:

VII. Therefore, it is ordered that Major-General Pope, Brigadier-General Steinwehr, and all commissioned officers serving under their respective commands, be and they are hereby expressly and specially declared to be not entitled to be considered as soldiers, and therefore not entitled to the benefit of the cartel for the parole of future prisoners of war. Ordered, further, that in the event of the capture of Major-General Pope or Brigadier-General Steinwehr, or of any commissioned officers serving under them, the captive so taken shall be held in close confinement so long as the orders aforesaid shall continue in force and unrepealed by the competent military authorities of the United States; and that in the event of the murder of any unarmed citizen or inhabitant of this Confederacy by virtue or under pretext of any of the orders hereinbefore recited, whether with or without trial, whether under pretence of such citizen being a spy or hostage, or any other pretence, it shall be the duty of the Commanding General of the forces of this Confederacy to cause immediately to be hung, out of the commissioned officers, prisoners as aforesaid, a number equal to the number of our own citizens thus murdered by the enemy.

By order.

S. Cooper, Adjutant and Inspector General.

Now here was a fine opportunity for the authorities at Washington to stop the cartel and charge the “Rebels” with bad faith. They would doubtless have done so had we not held the excess of prisoners; but they simply indulged in a little high rhetoric, continued the cartel, and caused Pope to cease his high-handed outrages. And so the cartel continued until July, 1863--the Federal authorities frequently violating its provisions, and the Confederates carrying them out to the letter.

The Report of Judge Ould, our Commissioner of Exchange, of December, 1863, and the accompanying documents, fully sustain this allegation, and we regret that our space will not allow us to give these documents in full.