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were now willing and anxious, in order to secure the advantages which their cruelty for a year had given them, to have their hale soldiers back.
That such was the relative condition of the respective prisoners--Union skeletons and Confederate men in full vigor — Ould exultingly declared, in a letter to General Winder, from City Point, where exchange had been resumed, in which he said: “The arrangement I have made, works largely in our favor.
We get rid of a set of miserable wretches, and receive some of the best material I ever saw.”
On account of this state of things, General Grant hesitated to resume exchange.1 Finally, at the middle of autumn, arrangements for special exchanges were made, and Lieutenant-Colonel Mulford went with vessels to Savannah, after about 12,000 Union prisoners from Andersonville and elsewhere.
They were brought to Annapolis, in Maryland, and in them the writer saw the horrible workings of the barbarity of the Conspirators.2
The records of the War Department show that, during the struggle, 220,000 Confederate soldiers were captured, of whom 26,436 died of wounds or diseases, during their captivity, while of 126,940 Union soldiers captured, nearly 22,576 died while prisoners.
This shows that of the Union prisoners, 17.6 per cent. died in the hands of the Confederates, while only a little more than 11 per cent. of the Confederate prisoners died in the hands of the Government.3
The arrangements of the Government for the care of its sick and wounded soldiers, were extensive and complete.
When the war closed there were no less than two hundred and four General Hospitals, fully equipped, with a
1 General Grant said
Aug. 18, 1864. |
2 The writer, under the kind direction of Dr. Vanderkieft, the Post Surgeon, visited the tents and hospital wards at Annapolis, containing some of these prisoners, soon after their arrival. They were then somewhat recruited by wholesome food, and a sea voyage, but exhibited a sight most shocking. The testimony of all with whom the author conversed, was corroborative of the statements made in this chapter. Many died at Annapolis. In the little chapel, there were from two to fifteen coffins each day, with the remains of the dead who received the honors of religious funeral rites. We followed a procession from that little chapel out to the soldiers' cemetery, where the graves already numbered thousands. That cemetery was in sight of the old State-House, wherein Washington resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental armies, when the independence of his country was achieved. These soldiers died in defense of the great Republic, the offspring of that independence.
3 Facts found here and there, bearing upon this subject, seem to show that these figures concerning Union prisoners are too low, and that their number during the war was about 185,000, and the number of deaths, in captivity, about 87,000. The mortality among negro soldiers, under every circumstance, was greater than among the white soldiers. The records show, that of 180,000 negro soldiers, 29,298 died, or nearly one in six. Under the title of “Roll of honor,” the Quartermaster-General has published a series of little volumes, containing the names, as far as they could be ascertained, of all the soldiers buried in the National and other cemeteries in all parts of the Republic.
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