Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[585] consultation with the Secretary of War, I proposed retaliation by placing the rebel officers held by us in a condition identical, as nearly as possible, as to shelter, clothing, fuel, and food, with that of our soldiers at Richmond, with notice to the Confederate authorities that any alleviation of the condition of our men, duly certified to us, would at once be followed by a corresponding difference in favor of their prisoners in our hands. The Secretary of War, feeling deeply the hardships of our captured soldiers, approved of the suggestion,

Gen. J. W. Shaffer.

and gave me permission to carry the plan into execution. This I proposed to do by placing Confederate officers to the number of some three thousand, either upon Hatteras Bank or at Sewall's Point near Fortress Munroe, both of which were nearly isothermal with Richmond in climate, and there treating them with scrupulous exactness to the same shelter, clothing, and fare which our men received, furnishing them while thus faring, with plenty of pens and paper, and every facility for communicating with the Confederacy. The effect could not be doubted. While I was engaged in preparing a proper encampment, the subject was referred by the Secretary of War to the general-in-chief of the army, Halleck, and my plan was abandoned.¹

Learning unofficially that the Confederates were anxious to exchange the prisoners actually held in custody by us, and were willing to give man for man and officer for officer so held, except colored soldiers, I proposed to the Secretary of War the plan of so exchanging until we had exhausted all our prisoners held by the rebels, and as we should then have a surplus of some ten thousand, to hold these as hostages for our colored troops, of whom the rebels held only hundreds, and to retaliate upon this surplus such wrongs