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.

---

[630] ameliorating the condition of the unhappy prisoners held in captivity. They are designed to inflame the evil passions of the North; to keep up the war spirit among their own people; to represent the South as acting under the dominion of a spirit of cruelty, inhumanity, and interested malice, and thus to vilify her people in the eyes of all on whom these publications can work. They are justly characterized by the Hon. James Mi. Mason as belonging to that class of literature called the “sensational” --a style of writing prevalent for many years at the North, and which, beginning with the writers of newspaper narratives and cheap fiction, has gradually extended itself, until it is now the favoured mode adopted by medical professors, judges of courts, and reverend clergymen, and is even chosen as the proper style for a report by a committee of their Congress.

Nothing can better illustrate the truth of this view than the “Report no. 67,” and its appendages. It is accompanied by eight pictures, or photographs, alleged to represent United States prisoners of war, returned from Richmond, in a sad state of emaciation and suffering. Concerning these cases, your committee will have other remarks, to be presently submitted. They are only alluded to now to show that this report does really belong to the “sensational” class of literature, and that, prima facie, it is open to the same criticism to which the yellow-covered novels, the “narratives of noted highwaymen,” and the “awful beacons” of the Northern book-stalls should be subjected.

The intent and spirit of this report may be gathered from the following extract: “The evidence proves, beyond all manner of doubt, a determination on the part of the rebel authorities, deliberately and persistently practised, for a long time past, to subject those of our soldiers who have been so unfortunate as to fall into their hands, to a system of treatment which has resulted in reducing many of those who have survived and been permitted to return to us, to a condition, both physically and mentally, which no language we can use, can adequately describe.” --Report, p. 1. And they give also a letter from Edwin M. Stanton, the Northern Secretary of War, from which the following is an extract: “The enormity of the crime committed by the rebels towards our prisoners for the last several months is not known or realized by our people, and cannot but fill with horrour the civilized world, when the facts are fully revealed. There appears to have been a deliberate system of savage and barbarous treatment and starvation, the result of which will be that few (if any) of the prisoners that have been in their hands during the past winter, will ever again be in a condition to render any service or ever to enjoy life.” --Report, p. 4. And the Sanitary Commission, in their pamphlet, after picturing many scenes of privations and suffering, and bringing many charges of cruelty against the Confederate authorities, declare as follows:--“The conclusion is unavoidable, therefore, that these privations and sufferings have been designedly inflicted by the military and other authorities of the rebel Government, and could not have been due to causes which such authorities could not control.” --p. 95.

After examining these publications, your committee approached the subject with an earnest desire to ascertain the truth. If their investigation should result in ascertaining that these charges (or any of them) were true, the committee desired, as far as might be in their power, and as far as they could influence the Congress, to remove the evils complained of, and to conform to the most humane spirit of civilization: and if these charges were unfounded and false, they deemed it as a sacred duty, without delay, to present to the Confederate Congress and people, and to the public eye of the enlightened world, a vindication of their country, and to relieve her authorities from the injurious slanders brought against her by her enemies. With these views, we have taken a considerable amount of testimony bearing on the subject. We have sought to obtain witnesses whose position or duties made them familiar with the facts testified to, and whose characters