Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

[621] notorious violation of the cartel, by your authorities. Officers and men, numbering over hundreds, have been, during your whole connection with the cartel, kept in cruel confinement, sometimes in irons, or doomed to cells, without charges or trial. They are in prison now, unless God, in His mercy, has released them. In our parting moments, let me do you the justice to say that I do not believe it is so much your fault as that of your authorities. Nay, more, I believe your removal from your position has been owing to the personal efforts you have made for a faithful observance, not only of the cartel, but of humanity, in the conduct of the war.

Again and again have I importuned you to tell me of one officer or man now held in confinement by us, who was declared exchanged. You have, to those appeals, furnished one, Spencer Kellog. For him I have searched in vain. On the other hand, I appeal to your own records for the cases where your reports have shown that our officers and men have been held for long months and even years in violation of the cartel and our agreements. The last phase of the enormity, however, exceeds all others. Although you have many thousands of our soldiers now in confinement in your prisons, and especially in that horrible hold of death Fort Delaware, you have not, for several weeks, sent us any prisoners During those weeks you have despatched Capt. Mulford with the steamer New York to City Point, three or four times, without any prisoners. For the first two or three times some sort of an excuse was attempted. None is given at this present arrival. I do not mean to be offensive when I say that effrontery could not give one. I ask you with no purpose of disrespect, what can you think of this covert attempt to secure the delivery of all your prisoners in our hands, without the release of those of ours who are languishing in hopeless misery in your prisons and dungeons?

It is a fact beyond all controversy that officers and soldiers of the Confederacy entitled to delivery and exchange, were kept in confinement, in defiance of the cartel, some under charges, and some without. Many of these officers and soldiers were in confinement at the time of the adoption of the cartel, and continued to be so kept for months and years afterwards. In a few instances Commissioner Ould succeeded by persistent pressure in securing their release. In other cases, when from returned prisoners he would learn their place of confinement, and state it to the Federal agent, there would either be a denial of the fact that the party was confined there, or he would be removed to some other prison. Many of these prisoners were actually declared exchanged by the Federal Agent of Exchange, but yet still kept in prison, and all the others were entitled to doe livery for exchange under the terms of the cartel.

To the serious allegation of a retention of prisoners in spite of the cartel and all the obligations of good faith, the Federal Government never attempted anything but a paltry counter-charge of the weakest and most