Aug. 10, 1864. |
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[603]
have remembered that a committee of the Christian Commission,1 in 1864, appeared before his lines, and sought access to the prisoners in Richmond and on Belle Isle, to afford them relief, with the understanding that a similar commission would be allowed to go to the prisons of Confederate captives, and that they were not allowed to pass, because the authorities at Richmond dared not let the outside world know, from competent witnesses, the horrible truths such a visit would have discovered.2 He read, all through the year 1864, in the Northern papers, which he received almost daily, the grave charges concerning the treatment of prisoners at Richmond, and also the report of the Committee of the United States Sanitary Commission, published seven months before the end of the war. And any day, while visiting his family in his elegant brick mansion on Franklin Street,3 he might have stepped out upon its upper gallery on the south, and with his. field-glass, looked into the ghastly faces of the starved, blistered, freezing captives on Belle Isle;4 or he might have walked down Cary Street, for the space of eight minutes, and looked into Libby Prison to satisfy himself whether a committee of the “Confederate Congress,” had told the truth or not. He seems not to have considered such inquiries proper to be imposed upon him as a department commander, as general-in-chief, as a man, or as a. Christian.5 His remarkable ignorance concerning the matter, was equaled only by the treachery of his memory, which did not allow him to recollect; whether he ever took an oath of allegiance to the “Southern Confederacy.”
6
What General Lee was so ignorant of, the Confederate authorities, and everybody else were familiar with, as ample testimony shows.
When the starvation plan had accomplished its work, and in all the Confederate prisons, the Union captives were generally no better for service than dead men — an army of forty thousand skeletons-Ould, the rebel Commissioner, proposed to General Butler,
a resumption of an exchange, man for man. The Conspirators knew how well their men had been fed in Northern prisons, and how strong and effective they were for service,7 and they
1 This committee consisted of George H. Stuart, Chairman of the Christian Commission, Bishops Mclvaline, Janes, and Lee; William Adams, D. D., and Norman White, of New York, and Horatio Gates Jones, of Philadelphia.
2 The reply to the application, that came from Richmond, was, “It is not expedient at present.”
3 See page 585.
4 See page 423, volume I.
5 “As regards myself, I never had any control over the prisoners, except those that were captured on the. field of battle. These, it was my business to send to Richmond, to the proper officer, who was then the provost-marshal-general. In regard to their disposition afterward, I had no control. I never gave an order about it. It was entirely in the hands of the War Department.” --Lee's testimony before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. See Report, page 135.
6 “Question. You say that you do not recollect having sworn allegiance and fidelity to the Confederate Government?”
“ Answer. I do not recollect it, nor do I know that it was ever required. I was regularly commissioned in the army of the Confederate States, but I really do not recollect that that oath was required. If it was required, I have no doubt I took it; or if it had been required, I would have taken it.” --Lee's testimony before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. See Report, page 134.7 It was within the province of the Committee of the United States Sanitary Commission to ascertain the condition of the Confederate prisoners in the hands of the Government. This they did, and reported uniform good treatment, ample shelter, and abundant and wholesome food everywhere. The Conspirators, to parry the terrible charge against them, made a counter-charge of great cruelties which their prisoners experienced, and this brought from Lord Wharncliffe, the President of the British Southern Independence Association (see page 45), a proposition to send to the “suffering prisoners in the North, £ 17,000 in gold,” which had been collected for the purpose, from British sympathizers with the rebels. These meddlers were informed by Secretary Seward, that there were no prisoners in the hands of the Government suffering for any thing but the privileges of liberty to fight the Government.
Another member of the British aristocracy, Sir Henry de Hoghton, who, it is said, invested more than $1,700,00 in Confederate bonds, sent to Secretary Seward, what purported to be a petition from the people of the United Kingdom, to the people of the United States, entreating the latter, “in the name of humanity,” to end the war by acknowledging the independence of the Confederacy. Sir Henry's “humanity” seems to have been inspired by his desire to save his money. He was one of the most active of the members of the “Southern Independence Association.”
Scanned printed text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.