230 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



sion the evidence of this barbarous treatment, 

 or of its persistent continuance, which is as- 

 serted on the part of the honorable Senator 

 from Ohio, or I think he would have corrected 

 it already by retaliation. I would be glad to 

 know if this evidence is in the possession of this 

 body ; if they have it, whether they have com- 

 municated it to the President, whether he is 

 cognizant of it, whether the commander-in- 

 chief of our armies under him is cognizant of 

 it, whether the several commanders are cogni- 

 zant of it, whether they stand by with folded 

 arms and see our men tortured by a slow death 

 in this way without doing something in order 

 to prevent it. As I have said, I have no dispo- 

 sition to quarrel with the Executive in any 

 thing which he does do, provided it is consist- 

 ent with the humanity of the age. I am will- 

 ing that he shall resort to any mode of retali- 

 ation which he deems proper, provided it be 

 such a mode as will not disgrace our own officers 

 and soldiers in the execution of his plan." 



Mr. Howard, of Michigan, in reply, said : " It 

 is unnecessary to argue this question of the right 

 of retaliation. It has ever existed since the com- 

 mencement of civilized society. It is as old a 

 practice as war itself, and so long ago as you 

 read of hostages in ancient history, so long is it 

 since the principle and practice of retaliation 

 have been observed between nations at war. 



"But, sir, the question arises more particu- 

 larly whether the Senate have before them evi- 

 dence sufficient to justify us in resorting to the 

 principle of retaliation. Judging from some 

 remarks that fell from the Senator from Penn- 

 sylvania, I was led to suppose that he was still 

 in doubt upon the question whether the provo- 

 cations given us by the rebels have been of such 

 a character as to justify the measure. On this 

 subject I beg to lay before the Senate and be- 

 fore the country a few extracts from a document 

 I now hold in my hand. It is a report made by 

 a committee appointed by the United States 

 Sanitary Commission at New York, on the 19th 

 of May, 1864. 



" Sir, the barbarities committed upon our men 

 at Andersonville are absolutely indescribable. 

 Human language is impotent to bring home to 

 the heart and the soul of a man the horrors of 

 those scenes. Artists have been compelled to 

 resort to something more expressive than human 

 language, and painting and engraving have been 

 called in to aid in conveying to the mind the 

 full idea of the brutalities practised by the rebel 

 authorities upon our soldiers. Out of those 

 thirty-five thousand, I presume not more than 

 one-half, if as many, still survive to tell the tale 

 of their sufferings; and the testimony is as clear 

 as the noonday sun that these barbarities were 

 deliberately practised upon our men fur the 

 double purpose of crippling and reducing our 

 armed force and of striking terror into the 

 Northern population in order to prevent enlist- 

 ments. There does not remain ground for a 

 doubt that the rebel government designedly re- 

 wrted to the slow process of torture and death 



by starvation, and to freezing and starving 

 united, operating minute by minute, hour by 

 hour, day by day, week by week, and month 

 by month, until the man became a living skele- 

 ton and an idiot, no longer able to recognize 

 his wife, his children, or his friends; no longer 

 of any value either to himself or his country ; 

 and this for the purpose of weakening our mili- 

 tary arm and deterring our people from prose- 

 cuting the war. 



Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana, said: "But the 

 Senator from Iowa (Mr. Harlan) and even, 

 with the high respect I entertain for that Sen- 

 ator, I am glad that no other Senator has 

 adopted his sentiments on this subject has 

 said to the Senate, in the course of this debate, 

 that it was right for the Administration thus 

 for months to have refused to exchange prison- 

 ers when it might have been done. "Why so? 

 For the reason that we can better afford to 

 leave men in prison than they ; that we have 

 more men ; that we may bring additional hun- 

 dreds of thousands into the field and not fee. 

 the burden very much, because our population 

 is so large, while the South is exhausted in its 

 fighting force. That is the argument of the 

 Senator." 



Mr. Harlan: "Is the Senator professing to 

 quote from my remarks ?" 



Mr. Hendricks: "No, sir; I am not. I am 

 attempting to give the argument of the Senator. 

 If he prefers that I should read his words, of 

 course I can do so. His argument went fur- 

 ther. He said that we were now fighting the 

 enemy within works ; and that one man to the 

 enemy was worth three or four to us. I think 

 I give the argument of the Senator correctly. 

 The whole of it amounts to just this : that we 

 can afford, in a military point of view, to leave 

 1 our soldiers suffering in Southern prisons, dy- 

 ing under the influence of a Southern climate, 

 and under Southern diseases, as well as (if I 

 may admit the fact) by starvation : that we can 

 afford to do this, and make in a military point 

 of view, and therefore we will do it. 



" Again, the Senator said that the term of 

 service of the greater portion of these prisoners 

 of ours in Southern prisons has now expired, 

 and that if we bring them home again, we 

 simply lose that number of men, and send to 

 the South men who are yet bound to do mil- 

 itary service to the Southern government, and 

 therefore they would make in the swap. These 

 considerations I could understand in the ex- 

 change of property between man and man, but 

 when the appeal comes to us in the name of 

 humanity on behalf of our suffering friends in 

 the South, I cannot appreciate the sentiment 

 of the Senatorfrorn Iowa. "We are not bound 

 to exchange prisoners. "We are not bound by 

 the laws and usages of war to parole prisoners 

 It is not a question between us and the bel 

 ligerents opposed to us whether we shall ex 

 change prisoners. The South as a belligeren 

 cannot demand it of us as a right. 



'The question is between us and the men 



