their own Governments, and that they shall have full liberty at any and all times, through the agents of exchange, to make reports not only of their own acts, but of any matters relating to the welfare of prisoners.
Respectfully, your obedient servant,
Robert Ould,
To this communication no reply of any kind was ever made. I need not state how much suffering would have been prevented if this offer had been met in the spirit in which it was dictated. In addition, the world would have had truthful accounts of the treatment of prisoners on both sides by officers of character, and thus much of that misrepresentation which has flooded the country would never have been poured forth. The jury-box in the case of Wirz would have had different witnesses, with a different story. It will be borne in mind that nearly all of the suffering endured by Federal prisoners happened after January, 1864. The acceptance of the proposition made by me, on behalf of the Confederate Government, would not only have furnished to the sick medicines and physicians, but to the well an abundance of food and clothing from the ample stores of the United States.
The good faith of the Confederate Government in making this offer cannot be successfully questioned; for food and clothing (without the surgeons) were sent in 1865, and were allowed to be distributed by Federal officers to Federal prisoners.
Why could not the more humane proposal of January, 1864, have been accepted?
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. Accordingty, 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 be readily 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 con-
