they go, his memory from the monstrous crimes falsely charged against him. No such charges ever reached me, whilst I was in a position to have made it a duty to investigate them, as those upon which he was tried and executed. He may have committed grave offences, but if so, I never knew it and do not believe it.
After having given my sanction and orders to carry out every suggestion of others, or that occurred to my own mind for the amelioration of the condition of the prisoners as far as we possessed the means, and having issued stringent orders to preserve discipline amongst the guarding troops, and subordination, quiet and good order amongst the prisoners, I went to Macon to confer with General Howell Cobb and General Gideon J. Pillow as to the proper course for me to pursue in the event of our situation in Georgia becoming more precarious, or the chance of communication with the Government at Richmond being entirely cut off, which appeared to be an almost certain event in the very near future. After a full discussion of the situation, there was perfect accord in our views. General Pillow was expecting to receive official notice of his appointment as Commissary of Prisons, in which event he would become my commanding officer. General Cobb commanded the State troops of Georgia, and I was dependent on him for a sufficient force to discharge my duties and hold the prisoners in custody. There was eminent propriety, therefore, in our conferring with each other, and acting harmoniously in whatever course might be adopted. General Pillow took a leading part in the discussion, and in shaping the conclusions to which we came. In the absence of official information or instructions from Richmond, we acted upon what the newspapers announced as a recently established arrangement with General Grant, which was, in effect, that either side might deliver to the other on parole, but without exchange, any prisoners they chose, taking simply a receipt for them. We had no official information of any such agreement from our Government, but it was regarded by us as very probably true, and we decided to act upon it. The difficulty of supplying the prisoners with even a scanty ration of corn meal and bacon was increasing daily. The cotton States had never been a grazing country, and therefore we had few or no animals left there for food, except hogs. These States were not a large wheat producing region, and for that reason we had to depend mainly on corn for bread. Salt was scarce and hard to obtain. Vegetables we had none for army purposes. We were destitute of clothing, and of the materials and machinery to manufacture it in sufficient quantities for our own soldiers and people. And the Federal Government, remaining deaf to all appeals for exchange of prisoners, it was manifest that the incarceration of their captured soldiers could no longer be of any possible advantage to us, since to relieve their sufferings that Government would take no step, if it involved a similar release of our men in their hands. Indeed, it was manifest that they looked upon it as an advantage to them and an injury to us to leave their prisoners
