Page:The Immortal Six Hundred.djvu/45

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THE IMMORTAL SIX HUNDRED


This is the statement of the Federal Assistant Secretary of War during the war, and he knew whereof he wrote. He was the man who ordered General Miles to put shackles on President Davis, and, as a fact, did hate Mr. Davis and all things Southern. Yet he did tell the truth, and is most conclusive, and puts the blame for the hardships of the Union soldiers in Southern prisons where it belongs, and clearly points out the guilty party.

When we add to this the pregnant fact that the report of the Federal Secretary of war, Mr. Stanton, dated July 19, 1866, shows that of the Federal prisoners of war confined in the military prisons of the South, only 22,576 died, whilst of Confederate prisoners of war confined in Northern prisons, 26,436 died; the report of the Federal Surgeon-general Barnes, published after the war, showing that the whole number of Federal prisoners captured and held in the South during the war was 270,000, while the whole


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