That we of the Confederate States should dare to resort to arms for the preservation of our rights, and to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” was regarded as most improbable by the Government of the United States. The true character and intentions of that Government were clearly exposed in the treatment of the question of the exchange of prisoners. Their aspirations for dominion and sovereignty, through the Government of the Union, had become so deep-seated as to cause that Government, at its first step, to assume the haughtiness and imperiousness of an absolute sovereign. The term “loyal,” or its opposite, has no signification except as applied to the sovereign of an empire or kingdom. To say, therefore, that the agent of the sovereign people, the representative of the system they have organized to conduct their common affairs, composed the real sovereign, and that loyalty or disloyalty was of signification or relation to that sovereign alone, was an error that led straight to the subversion of all popular Government, and the establishment of the monarchial or consolidated form. The Government of the United States, said President Lincoln (in his proclamation calling for 75,000 men), is now the sovereign here, and loyalty consists in the maintenance of that sovereignty against its foes. The sovereignty of the people and of the several and distinct States, in his mind, was only a weakness and an enthusiasm of the fathers. The States and the people thereof had become consolidated into a National Union. “I appeal,” he said, “to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union.”
The Confederate States not only refused to aid this effort, but took up arms to defeat the consummation of such a monstrous usurpation. It was evident that, if no efforts for a rescue were made, the time would come when the rights of all the States might be denied, and the hope of mankind in constitutional freedom be forever lost. This was usurpation. This lay at the foundation of the war. Every subsequent act tended palpably to supremacy for the Federal Government, the subjugation of the States, and the submission of the people.
That we dared to draw our swords to vindicate the rights and sovereignty of the people, and to resist and deny all sovereignty as inherently existing in the Government of the United States, was adjudged an infamous crime, and we were denounced as “rebels.” It was asserted that those of us “who were captured should be hung as rebels taken in the act.” Crushing the corner-stone of the Union, the independence of the States, the Federal Government assumed toward us a position of haughty arrogance, refusing to recognize us otherwise than as insurrectionists and “rebels,” who resisted and denied its usurped sovereignty, and who were entitled to no amelioration from the punishment of death except such as might proceed only from the promptings of mercy.
In April, 1861, I issued a proclamation offering to grant letters of marque and reprisal to seamen. Two days afterward President Lincoln issued a counter-proclamation, declaring that, “if any person, under the pretended authority of said States, or under any other pretence, should molest a vessel of the United States, or the persons or cargo on board of her, such person shall be held amenable to the laws of the United States for the prevention and punishment of piracy,” which was death.
Some small vessels obtained these letters of marque, and were captured. The crews were the first prisoners that fell into the hands of the enemy. They were imprisoned, and held for trial as pirates.
As soon as the treatment of these prisoners was known in Richmond, as early as July 6, 1861, I sent a special messenger to President Lincoln, with a communication in which, after quoting the uncontradicted statements that had been published respecting these prisoners, I announced the policy of the Confederate Government in case the threats made against them were carried out. I said:
“It is the desire of this Government so to conduct the war now existing as to mitigate its horrors as far as may be possible, and, with this intent, its treatment of the prisoners captured by its forces has been marked by the greatest humanity and leniency consistent with public obligation. Some have been permitted to return home on parole, others to remain at large, under similar conditions, within this Confederacy, and all have been furnished with rations for their subsistence, such as are allowed to our own troops. It is only since the news has been received of the treatment of the prisoners taken on the Savannah that I have been compelled to withdraw these indulgences, and to hold the prisoners taken by us in strict confinement.
“A just regard to humanity and to the honor of this Government now requires me to state explicitly that, painful as will be the necessity, this Government will deal out to the prisoners held by it the same treatment and the same fate as shall be experienced by those captured on the Savannah; and, if driven to the terrible necessity of retaliation by your execution of any of the officers or crew of the Savannah, that retaliation will be extended so far as shall be requisite to secure the abandonment of a practice unknown to the warfare of civilized man, and so barbarous as to disgrace the nation which shall be guilty of inaugurating it. With this view, and because it may not have reached you, I now renew the proposition made to the commander of the blockading squadron, to exchange for the prisoners taken on the Savannah an equal number of those now held by us, according to rank.”
The bearer of this communication, Colonel Thomas Taylor, was denied an audience, and was obliged to content himself with a verbal reply from General Scott that President Lincoln had received the communication and would reply in writing. No letter ever came. We were therefore compelled to select by lot from among the prisoners in our hands a number to whom we proposed to mete out the same fate which might await the crew of the Savannah.
These measures of retaliation arrested the cruel and illegal purposes of the enemy.
Meanwhile (in May, 1861) the Confederate Congress had passed an act directing the transfer of all prisoners of war to the War Department by their captors, and enacting that the rations to be furnished to prisoners “shall be the same in quantity and quality as those furnished to enlisted men in the army of the Confederacy.”
This law was embodied in orders issued from the Department and from the headquarters in the field, and no order was ever issued in conflict with its humane provisions.
Nevertheless, the Government of the United States stubbornly refused all consideration of the question of exchange of prisoners, or to accept any interchange of courtesy. An exchange was occasionally made by the various commanders in the field, under the paltry pretence that the Federal Government knew nothing of it. We released numbers at different points on parole, and the matter was compromised in various ways. On September 3d an exchange was made by General Pillow and Colonel Wallace of the United States Army. On October 23d a similar exchange was made between General McClernand and General Polk. Subsequently, in November, General Grant offered to surrender to General Polk certain wounded men and invalids unconditionally. On November 1st General Frémont made an agreement with General Price, in Missouri, by which certain persons named were authorized to negotiate for the exchange of any persons who might be taken prisoners of war, upon a plan previously arranged. General Hunter succeeded him, and he repudiated Frémont’s agreement.
A proposition was made in the Confederate Congress to return without any formality whatever the Federal prisoners captured at Manassas. But for the difficulty in reference to the crew of the Savannah it would doubtless have prevailed.
But the determination of the Federal Government not to meet us on an equal footing was shaken by the clamor of the Northern people for a restoration of their friends, and both Houses of Congress united in a request that the President should take immediate steps for a general exchange. The President, however, instead of complying with the request, appointed two respectable commissioners to visit the prisoners we held, and provide for their comfort at the expense of the United States. The commissioners arrived at Norfolk, Va., but were not allowed to proceed any farther. A readiness to negotiate for a general exchange was manifested on our part, and our proposals were agreed to by them, and subsequently approved at Washington. Soon afterward an arrangement was made between General Howell Cobb, on our part, and General Wool, the commander at Fortress Monroe, by which the prisoners on both sides were to be exchanged, man for man, the officers to be assimilated as to rank. The privateersmen were to be exchanged on the footing of prisoners of war. Any surplus remaining on either side were to be released; and during the continuance of hostilities prisoners on either side were to be paroled.
The exchange proceeded, and about 300 in excess had been delivered by us when it was discovered that not one of our privateersmen had been released, and that our men taken prisoners at Fort Donelson, instead of being paroled, had been sent into the interior. Some of the hostages we held for our privateers had gone forward, but the remainder were retained. Being informed of this state of affairs I recommended to Congress that all of our men who had been paroled by the United States Government should be released from the obligations of their parole, so as to bear arms in our defence, in consequence of this breach of good faith on the part of that Government.
The only unadjusted point between Generals Cobb and Wool was that the latter was unwilling that each party should agree to pay the expenses of transporting their prisoners to the frontier, and this he promised to refer to his Government. At a second interview General Wool said that his Government would not consent to pay these expenses, and thereupon General Cobb agreed to the terms proposed by the other side. General Wool now stated that his Government had changed his instructions. Thus the negotiations were abruptly broken off, and the matter was left where it was before.
After these negotiations had begun, the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson had given to the United States a considerable preponderance in the number of prisoners held by them, and they immediately returned to their original purpose of unequal treatment.
A suspension of exchanges for some months followed. Finally, a storm of indignation beginning to arise among the Northern people at the conduct of their Government, it was forced to yield its absurd pretensions, and on July 22, 1862, a cartel for the exchange of prisoners was executed. The exchanges were immediately renewed, and by the middle of August most of the officers of rank on either side who had been for any long period in captivity were released.