Judge Ould says that he does not remember ever to have written such a letter, and we have searched his letter-book (in which he was accustomed to have all his letters copied) in vain for the slightest trace of it. We might simply demand the production of the original letter. But Judge Ould thinks it possible that in one of his many contests with Confederate quartermasters in the interest of Federal prisoners, he may have complained that transportation was not promptly furnished the prisoners—that the parties complained of made explanations to the effect that they could not furnish the transportation at the time without seriously interfering with feeding the Confederate army, and that he may have made on the papers some such endorsement, referring to some special set of circumstances. The reference could not be to the general question of feeding the prisoners, for with that Judge Ould had nothing to do; and he defies the production of all of the papers in his department to show that he was ever otherwise than humane to prisoners.
We have thus given the other side the full benefit of about all they have been able in eleven years to garble from the Confederate records.
FIGURES OF SECRETARY STANTON.
Yet after all that has been said on this subject, the stubborn fact remains that over three per cent. more Confederates perished in Northern prisons than of Federal prisoners in Southern prisons. The figures to prove this statement have been several times given in this discussion, but they are so significant that we give them again in the form in which they were presented by Honorable B. H. Hill in his masterly reply to Mr. Blaine. Mr. Hill said:
"Now, will the gentleman believe testimony from the dead? The Bible says, 'The tree is known by its fruits.' And, after all, what is the test of suffering of these prisoners, North and South? The test is the result. Now, I call the attention of gentlemen to this fact, that the report of Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War—you will believe him will you not?—on the 19th of July, 1866—send to the library and get it—exhibits the fact that of the Federal prisoners in Confederate hands during the war, only 22,576 died, while of the Confederate prisoners in Federal hands 26,436 died. And Surgeon-General Barnes reports in an official report—I suppose you will believe him—that in round numbers the Confederate prisoners in Federal hands amounted to 220,000, while the Federal prisoners in Confederate hands amounted to 270,000. Out of the 270,000 in Confederate hands 22,000 died, while of the 220,000 Confederates in Federal hands over 26,000 died. The ratio is this: More than twelve
