Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 1.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

Iii.

When it was ascertained that exchanges could not be made, either on the basis of the cartel, or officer for officer and man for man, I was instructed by the Confederate authorities to offer to the United States Government their sick and wounded without requiring any equivalents. Accordingly, in the summer of 1864, I did offer to deliver from ten to fifteen thousand of the sick and wounded at the mouth of the Savannah river, without requiring any equivalents, assuring at the same time the agent of the United States, General Mulford, that if the number for which he might send transportation could not readily be made up from sick and wounded, I would supply the difference with well men. Although this offer was made in the summer of 1864, transportation was not sent to the Savannah river until about the middle or last of November, and then I delivered as many prisoners as could be transported — some thirteen thousand in number — amongst whom were more than five thousand well men.

More than once I urged the mortality at Andersonville as a reason for haste on the part of the United States authorities. I know, personally, that it was the purpose of the Confederate Government to send off from all its prisons all the sick and wounded, and to continue [129] to do the same, from time to time, without requiring any equivalents for them. It was because the sick and wounded at points distant from Georgia could not be brought to Savannah within a reasonable time that the five thousand well men were substituted.

Although the terms of my offer did not require the Federal authorities to deliver any for the ten or fifteen thousand which I promised, yet some three thousand sick and wounded were delivered by them at the mouth of the Savannah river. I call upon every Federal and Confederate officer and man who saw the cargo of living death, and who is familiar with the character of the deliveries made by the Confederate authorities, to bear witness that none such was ever made by the latter, even when the very sick and desperately wounded alone were requested. For, on two occasions at least, such were specially asked for, and particular request was made for those who were so desperately sick that it would be doubtful whether they would survive a removal a few miles down James river. Accordingly, the hospitals were searched for the worst cases, and after they were delivered they were taken to Annapolis, and there photographed as specimen prisoners. The photographs at Annapolis were terrible indeed; but the misery they portrayed was surpassed at Savannah.

The original rolls showed that some thirty-five hundred had started from Northern prisons, and that death had reduced the number during the transit to about three thousand. The mortality amongst those who were delivered alive during the following three months was equally frightful.

But why was there this delay between the summer and November in sending transportation for sick and wounded, for whom no equivalents were asked? Were Union prisoners made to suffer in order to aid the photographs “in firing the popular heart of the North?”