THE IMMORTAL SIX HUNDRED
official admission—by the highest officials of the United States that they will not exchange prisoners of war, although the Confederate Government is willing to make exchange, or give up all the sick and wounded Federal prisoners in their hands if the United States will send transports and take them away.
General Grant said it was much cheaper to feed Rebel prisoners than fight them, and the Washington authorities acted upon the suggestion and broke off the exchange of prisoners of war. Mr. Stanton believed it was cheaper to starve Rebel prisoners of war than put guns in their hands. There was nothing in the way to prevent the exchange of prisoners of war except the inhumanity of Edwin M. Stanton, Federal Secretary of War. He did not care for the Union prisoners of war. He hated the Confederate prisoners with a deadly hate. (See War Records, Vol. xxxv, p. 213.)
After this correspondence came the call, by Gen. J. G. Foster, for six hundred
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