Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 2.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[712] captives, was authorized to release from their promise an equal number of its own soldiers who had been set free on parole. It was stipulated that both parties should keep a double register of the prisoners that each surrendered to the other, as well as of those who were released from their parole, with the understanding that the adversary was always to be furnished with a list of the latter by the party thus receiving back combatants into the ranks of its armies. This double register was a necessary safeguard to prove the violations of parole, if any took place, and to establish by exact figures which of the two parties had a surplus over the other. They mutually pledged each other to continue the system of immediate releases on parole and regular exchanges, according to the table of equivalents, whatever might be the result of the comparison of the two registers, by detaining no soldier belonging to the enemy beyond the time absolutely necessary for his return. It was expressly stipulated that the obligation imposed by the parole should inhibit all manner of military service in the interior, no matter under what denomination, and that the prisoners surrendered on those conditions should not be released from this obligation, until the day when their equivalent was actually delivered into the hands of the enemy, according to the forms agreed upon. Additional articles provided that in the armies the commanders-in-chief should alone have the right of treating directly between themselves relative to exchanges and the release of prisoners on parole. Outside of their sphere, the task of regulating these questions was left to two commissioners or special agents, representing the two belligerents, and the delivery of the men on each side was to take place exclusively at one of the following places, the Aikin farm, on the James River, in Virginia, and the city of Vicksburg, on the Mississippi. It was agreed upon that the exchange should not be interrupted, even if the interpretation of the cartel should give rise to discussions.

The two generals who placed their names at the bottom of the only formal convention concluded between the North and the South in the course of this war relied, as we see, upon their mutual good faith to secure to every prisoner the benefit of an immediate release, and to exchange the sufferings of a long captivity for a ten days trip, balancing the amount of debit and credit between