228 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



It has been so in this war ; we have tried it al- 

 iv.-uly successfully. There was a time when 

 the enemy took our officers and placed them as 

 a kind of protection against our assault on 

 their fortifications. They placed our officers 

 within the range of our guns, hoping thereby 

 to protect themselves against our assaults. In 

 order to prevent that we were compelled to re- 

 taliate in kind, and we selected a like number 

 of their officers and placed them in like jeopar- 

 dy ; and the moment they saw that we sternly 

 intended to do that, they did not persist in 

 their barbarous course any longer ; when they 

 found that we were inexorable upon that sub- 

 ject, and that we would place their officers in 

 like jeopardy, the effect was very soon mani- 

 fest ; our officers were immediately released 

 from their position, and the rebels sought to 

 make peace upon that subject. So they would 

 upon this. 



"Sir, I have no doubt, on investigation of 

 this subject, that it is a deliberate purpose of 

 theirs to destroy every prisoner that comes into 

 their hands. They do not intend that he shall 

 be returned to us in such a condition that he 

 can ever again take the field. Their inhuman 

 treatment is probably owing more to this con- 

 sideration than to mere feelings of malice. It 

 is a system of savage policy, and it has had a 

 most powerful effect on our army. Of the 

 thousands of prisoners we have had in their 

 hands, scarcely one of them is ever returned to 

 ns in such a condition that he can take the field 

 again ; while on the other side the prisoners 

 that come into our possession are treated pre- 

 cisely the same as our own soldiers are, and 

 they go back refreshed, recuperated, and ready 

 to take the field against us, every man of them. 

 I have no doubt that a prompt and stern resort 

 to this measure of retaliation will have as bene- 

 ficial an effect as the measure to which I have 

 referred had in the case to which it was applied. 



"I have always understood that there was 

 something in the way of the fair exchange of 

 prisoners, and I have never been able exactly 

 to understand what it was. It may be that the 

 Government here is greatly to blame. The 

 Senator says there are no reasons against it. I 

 do not know that there are, but I have always 

 supposed that there was reason " 



Mr. Hendricks said : " I did not express any 

 opinion myself upon that question, but I read 

 the statement of the fact, delivered under very 

 responsible circumstances, that exchanges could 

 have been made for months past upon terms 

 consistent with the usages of nations." 



Mr. Howard, of Michigan, explained : " There 

 was referred to the Committee on Military Af- 

 fairs a resolution which was presented by the 

 honorable Senator from Ohio (Mr. Wade), also 

 a memorial which was presented by the honor- 

 able Senator from Indiana (Mr. Lane); the 

 Committee on Military Affairs took these meas- 

 ures into consideration, and instructed me to 

 report a joint resolution to the Senate, which I 

 did. It is this joint resolution." 



Mr. Harlan, of Iowa, urged the resolution, 

 saying: " The rebels are no longer able to meet 

 us in the open field. Then* armed soldiers fight 

 us now almost exclusively behind their works 

 and in strong fortifications. Military men tell 

 us that it requires at least four men outside to 

 take one inside of a fort. We have been ex- 

 pressing our thanks as a Congress to the com- 

 manders of the army and navy who have taken 

 a fort containing a garrison of about twenty- 

 three hundred men. The navy, I think, floated 

 between six and seven hundred heavy guns; 

 there was an army landed, we are told, of 

 something like eight thousand men ; it required 

 the united strength of this immense naval power 

 and eight thousand troops to take a fort defend- 

 ed by but twenty-three hundred men. Now the 

 Senator from Indiana demands that we shall 

 exchange a rebel prisoner held by us for each 

 one of the prisoners of ours held by them. 

 Suppose they hold thirty thousand Union pris- 

 oners of war, and we exchange for them at 

 once thirty thousand rebel soldiers. These 

 thirty thousand rebel soldiers will be thrown 

 into strong works like Fort Fisher, and then 

 you will be compelled to marshal an army of 

 one hundred and twenty thousand strong to be 

 able to meet that thirty thousand sent there by 

 you. The thirty thousand Union soldiers you 

 receive, and ninety thousand additional troops 

 will be required to recapture them. 



" This is the present condition of the contest. 

 The rebellion has been so far suppressed that 

 they are no longer able to meet us in the open 

 field ; they are now ensconced behind the strong- 

 est works that human skill and energy can pro- 

 duce; we are the assailing party ; we are com- 

 pelled to fight them in those works, and to 

 capture those garrisons by assault, or the tedi- 

 ous process of a siege in order to secure com- 

 plete success. I think, therefore, it is very 

 doubtful whether we are damaged by the refusal 

 of the rebels to make a fair exchange ; an ex- 

 change man for man will make the rebels rela- 

 tively stronger. It is therefore doubtful, to say 

 the least, whether a far-seeing, sagacious hu- 

 manity would not induce this Government to 

 refuse to exchange prisoners from this time 

 forward. If this course should be adopted, 

 then of course if the rebels treat Union troops 

 held by them as prisoners of war with premedi- 

 tated cruelty and inhumanity, it will furnish a 

 just occasion for retaliation." 



Mr. Sumner, of Massachusetts, moved to 

 strike out all after the resolving clause, and in- 

 sert the following : 

 That retaliation is harsh always, even in the sim- 



Elest cases, ancLjs permissible only where, in the 

 rst place, it mayreasonably be expected to effect 

 its object, and where, in the second place, it is con- 

 sistent with the usages of civilized society; and thut, 

 in the absence of these essential conditions, it is a 

 useless barbarism, having no other end than ven- 

 geance, which is forbidden alike to nations and to 

 men. 



And be itfurtJier resolved, That the treatment of our 

 officers and soldiers in rebel prisons is cruel, BV 

 and heart-rending, beyond all precedent; that it is 





