seven points upon which the House of Representatives and the Senate disagreed. One of those points was the payment by the House of Representatives of twenty per cent. extra compensation to their employés for the last session. The House have agreed to every other amendment of the Senate but the one striking out that provision for the payment of the employés. I will give a little history of the matter, so that the Senate may understand it.

At the last session the House passed a resolution paying their employésenty per cent. more than the regular salary for that session. This they could not do because it was in the face and eyes of the law of 1858, which provided that neither of the two Houses should pay to their employés any gratuity of that kind out of its contingent fund. When the matter came to the Comp troller of the Treasury he refused to allow it, and so it could not be paid and was not paid. When the deficiency bill came before the House they inserted in it a provision that that gratuity, if you call it so, it was not a deficiency certainly, should be authorized and legalized by law; that is, that the Senate should agree to it. The Senate struck out that provision, and would not agree that the House should pay this twenty per cent, out of its contingent fund. We had one committee of conference and they did not agree upon it. We had another committee of conference, and found that we could agree to everything else, but came to the conclusion that we could not agree to this. It then went back to the House. The House have agreed to all our amendments with the exception of the one striking out the provision allowing them to pay their employés twenty per cent. extra, and on that they have adhered. They choose that this deficiency bill shall fail unless they can force the Senate to agree to what is contrary to law. We decided it by a vote of 37 to 1 the other day, and I move now that the Senate adhere to its amendment, and let the bill fail rather than the Senate should be forced to do what is contrary to law by such a process as this.

The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. FooT.) The Secretary will read the action of the House upon the bill before the question is taken upon the pending motion.

The Secretary read, as follows:

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
January 25, 1865.

Resolved, That the House recede from their disagreement to the amendments of the Senate to the bill of the House No. 620, to supply deficiencies in the appropriations for the service of the fiscal year ending the 30th of June, 1865, numbered one, two, six, seven, and eight.

Resolved, That the House adhere to their disagreement to the amendment of the Senate to the said bill numbered four, which proposes to strike out all on page 4 from line twenty-two to line eight on page 5, inclusive, in the following words:

To enable the Clerk of the House of Representatives to execute the resolutions of the House of July 4, 1864, direeting payment of additional compensation to its officers, clerks, and other employés, and to the House reporters for the Congressional Globe, a sum sufficient for that purpose, being $37,991 40, is hereby appropriated out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, and the same is hereby added to the contingent fund of the House of Representatives; but no payment shall be made under this provision to any other persons than the clerks, officers, and other employés of the House, and the reporters for the Congressional Globe.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate amended the House bill by striking out the words which have just been read. The House of Representatives disagreed to that amendment. Upon the first committee of conference the committee divided and disagreed in reference to that amendment and were discharged. A new committee of conference was appointed, and that committee disagreed as to this amendment. The House have receded from their disagreement to all the other amendments of the Senate and adhered to their disagreement to this amendment. The Senator from New Hampshire, as chairman of the com-mittee of conference, now moves that the Senate adhere to this amendment, and upon that question the yeas and nays have been ordered.

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted yeas 38, nays 1; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Buckalew, Clark, ColJamer, Conness, Cowan, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Farwell, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Harding, Harlan, Harris, Henderson, Hendricks, Bicks, Howard, Howe, Johnson, Lane of Indiana, Morgan, Morrill, Pomeroy, Powell, Ramsey, Richardson, Riddle, Saulsbury, Sprague, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, and Wright-38.

NAY-Mr. Carlile-1.

ABSENT-Messrs. Chandler, Hale, Lane of Kansas, McDougall, Nesmith, Sherman, Van Winkle, Wilkinson, Wil

ley, and Wilson-10.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to adhere prevails, and the bill fails upon the disagreement between the two Houses.

RETALIATION ON REBEL PRISONERS.

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, resumed the consideration of the joint resolution (S. R. No. 97) advising retaliation for the cruel treatment of prisoners by the insurgents.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, if I have been successful in presenting the grounds upon which the committee arrived at the opinion that the time for measures of retaliation had come, and have carried forward Senators to concur in the arguin justifying the committee further in any sugges ment so far, I think I shall have little difficulty tions it may have made as to the modes of that retaliation. With this specific understanding in advance, that it was not intended to limit or restrict the action of the executive department of the Government to any suggestions that have been made, it was yet deemed proper by the committee that they should make those suggestions, end to be accomplished. Now what is the clause because they struck them as favorable toward the to which exception is taken? After affirming the doctrine of retaliation, the resolution goes on to

say:

"That such officers ought to be subjected to like treatment practiced toward our officers or soldiers in the hands of the insurgents, in respect to quantity and quality of food, clothing, fuel, medicine, medical attendance, personal exposure, or other mode of dealing with them."

likelihood that it would result in such infliction upon their prisoners up to the point of starvation or anything like it. That is all clap-trap. At least it cannot be thrown out with any propriety as a reflection against the committee, for their conviction, witnessed by the very introduction of this resolution that it would be efficacious to stop these barbarous practices of the enemy, is also conclusive against their having to be carried out to their extremity by ourselves. But do not let us indicate a point beyond which we dare follow, and say if you go on with your barbarism beyond that point you may be cruel with impunity inas much as I will not retaliate.

I do not think, therefore, that anything can be established against the justice of this resolution by depicting the inhumanity of the course of the rebel authorities. On the contrary, every argument which is presented showing it to be in contrast with the usages of civilized war goes the more conclusively to demonstrate the necessity of our taking such action here and now as will put a period to it summarily. We have seen by the results of retaliation in other instances that the surest and the swiftest mode of terminating such outrages is to give notice that we will retaliate like for like, even unto death. What then shall commend us to a sickly sentimentality in this instance and in presence of so dire a continuing outrage?

Mr. President, let me say, therefore, that while I believe I am naturally as humane as other Sen. ators, while I claim to be as much influenced by the moral sentiment of the community at large and by those general principles which obtain among civilized people, I cannot in this matter, and with the facts that are so fully evidenced, hesitate to recommend that that very measure shall be adopted which now presents itself as the only one which in my estimation will produce the desired result of stopping the present treatment of our prisoners in the South. If Senators could show me any other mode that would produce the result more speedily, if they could show me any other mode that had not been tried, and failed, if they could show any feasible resort that would result in putting a period to these barbarities, I should be exceeding glad to adopt it; but I say, that having been forced to the doctrine of retaliation as we now are, having predicated it upon the ground that a necessity has arrived for putting it in force, you have no right to shrink and cry horror at the modes of doing it and say those commissioned to give practical effect to your views are acting with inhumanity in recommending its most common application of like for like. Is it not inhuman to place one of the enemy's soldiers before your breastworks when they are firing upon it? So does the measure suggested by the committee partake of great harshness. Can you, however, draw the lines of inhumanity so that they will exclude the one and include the other? Clearly not. Therefore, such fact itself is evidence conclusive that that mode of reasoning cannot apply to the case; that in accepting the doctrine you accept its consequences, and you justify your resort and at last justify your own humanand death, but in the broad fact that it will stop such barbarous cruelties on their part and neces

And for that purpose, and in view of getting at appreciative justice in the case, it is submitted that those of our prisoners who have been in their hands shall be, as far as practicable, made their custodians. Now I ask Senators to put the question to themselves, where is the difference in principle between setting apart soldiers of theirs with the notification that they will be shot on the morrow if the putting our captured soldiers in front of their breastworks is not desisted from, or taking soldiers of theirs and placing them in such positions that they will be exposed to their own artillery in retaliation for like treatment on their part of our soldiers-where is the difference in principle between those measures-both of which, recollect, accomplished the desired result, and taking their prisoners, and saying, "We will subject you to the same treatment, in regard to diet and food, that you subject ours, and if you persist in systematically subjecting our men to such inhuman cruelties, remember you will cause the same to be visited on your own officers. You have the option. It rests with you." For one, I do not see the distinction; and for one, I am free to say that, so far as the question of humanity is involved, so far as any barbarism goes to the root of the question, the more inhuman and the more barbarous the treatment is, the greater the necessity for adopting the retaliation in order to make it cease. I say that the more you pile up the epithets in denunciation of this course, the more you accumulate the reasons why you should resort to the ultimate measure that will produce a stoppage|ity, not in narrow technical modes of punishment of it in the face of the failure of all others to do 80. At least such is the manner in which it strikes my own mind. If it be true that our sol-sarily preclude it on yours. diers are being systematically and intentionally starved to death, then I say that the call of this whole country is imperative upon us to give notice that we will resort to retaliation even in kind if it will produce the desired result and stop this process of destruction.

Nor can I understand the objection which is taken to this procedure by those Senators especially who proclaim that our soldiers in southern prisons are not being treated with inhumanity, who declare here that all this common sentiment of the country which has come to them by the skeletons who have returned from those prisons, and who have testified around all the firesides in the land, is a living lie; that these confederates are treating them with humanity, with kindness, with consideration, and with full and abundant living, and that they are not guilty of the gross barbarities charged. When that declaration is set

What shall we say to the rebels-If you are inhuman up to a certain point we will retaliate in order to make you cense, but if you go beyond that point then we shall stop; you may do so with impunity, we will not resort to the only mode that will bring you to a sense of your barbarism? Is that the doctrine Senators would advance? Must we offer them a premium on cruelty to our pris-forth by Senators, they deprive themselves of any oners in our squeamishness and sensitiveness about the modes of retaliation and the measure of retaliation? Shall we say we are more sensitive about our own conventional modes of putting to the death, if it should ever come to that, which it never would, than we are about the starving, dying thousands of our soldiers being executed slowly in southern prisons? But that is the most extreme view that can be taken, and there is no

retort upon this measure as a measure of inhumanity; they answer their own argument; they cut themselves off criminating others. If there is no such treatment going on there, if these evidences are all fallacious, if it is not true, how is it going to be an act of inhumanity to put their soldiers on the same rations? Facts will govern the case; notice will precede it; all the charities will guard the execution. How, then, can it

prove a measure of cruelty if there is no cruelty to measure it out by? The answer is conclusive, and cannot be gainsaid.

Mr. President, so far as the joint resolution is concerned, I am not wedded to the suggestion which is contained in the body of it. I am perfectly content that that matter should be left to the discrimination of the executive branch of the Government. I am not insisting that we shall set out here and now all the modes by which retaliation shall be exercised; but in one point I would be very glad if the resolution were somewhat stronger than it is. I would be better satisfied if this resolution, instead of being simply suggestive, were mandatory upon the Executive of the United States. I should be rejoiced if this Senate here to-day would take upon itself the responsibility to pass a joint resolution notifying the President of the United States that the time for putting a period to the suffering of our starving soldiers in the rebel prisons had come, and requiring it of him as a duty that he should apply the principle of retaliation. In that respect 1 should like to see the resolution more emphatic than it has been reported by the committee. 1 simply state that, however, as my own sentiment, not as the sentiment of the committee, for 1 believe that view was not concurred in when it was presented there.

to strike out all of the resolution after the word "retaliation," in the seventh line, in the following words:

That in our opinion such retaliation ought to be inflicted upon the insurgent officers now in our hands, or hereafter to fall into our hands as prisoners; that such officers ought to be subjected to like treatment practiced toward our officers or soldiers in the hands of the insurgents, in respect to quantity and quality of food, clothing, fuel, medicine, medical attendance, personal exposure, or other mode of dealing with them; that with a view to the same ends, the insurgent prisoners in our hands ought to be placed under the control and in the keeping of officers and men who have themselves been prisoners in the hands of the insurgents, and have thus acquired a knowledge of their mode of treating Union prisoners; that explicit instructions ought to be given to the forces having the charge of such insurgent prisoners, requiring them to carry out strictly and promptly the principles of this resolution in every case, until the President, having received satisfactory information of the abandonment by the insurgents of such barba rous practices, shall revoke or modify said instructions. Congress do not, however, intend by this resolution to limit or restrict the power of the President to the modes or principles of retaliation herein mentioned, but only to advise a resort to them as demanded by the occasion.

And to insert in lieu thereof:

That the executive and military authorities of the United States are hereby directed to retaliate upon the prisoners of the enemy in such manner and kind as shall be effective in deterring him from the perpetration in future of cruel and barbarous treatment of our soldiers.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The immediate question now before the Senate is on the amendment moved by the Senator from Massachusetts, the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, [Mr. WILSON,] to the amendment moved by his colleague [Mr. SUMNER.] That is the question now pending.

Mr. WADE. I will barely say that I shall move the proposition which has been read as an amendment at the proper time. I want to make this resolution mandatory upon the Executive.

Mr. HOWARD. Where does the Senator from Ohio propose that his amendment shall come

in?

Mr. WADE. After the word "retaliation" in the seventh line.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will inquire of the Senator from Ohio if his proposition is a proposition to amend the original resolution by way of perfecting it before the question is taken on the motion to strike out? Mr. WADE. Certainly.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. If that be so, it is in order now, and must be considered prior to the amendment moved by the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. President, in concluding what I have to say, permit me to add one other remark, and that is in reply to some allusions which have been made by Senators to those Christian principles, which should govern us in the conduct of our affairs. My colleague, I believe, presented the argument, and if I mistake not the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. SUMNER] presented the proposition. Sir, I profess myself to be a Christian. I trust that I am as much actuated by such sentiments as any other Senator. I certainly hold myself amenable to the full force of all such arguments, and would be loth to cast any reflection upon any doubt that might arise in the most sensitive conscience; but I do not see the application in this instance of the moralities which the Senators have invoked, and I cannot understand how, unless they are carried up to the point of nonresistance altogether, you can make them obtain in a state of war. I do not see how you can apply specialties of the moral law designed to govern the individual relations of men in civil society to the treatment of prisoners, to the punishments of State, to the conduct of armies, to all the exigencies of a general state of war; and I, therefore, must confess very frankly that I do not feel the force of that portion of the argument, or that portion of the proposition which has been presented in this body which indicates that in all this matter we must return good for evil; that where our own prisoners are inhumanly butchered and mal-broad, comprehensive, imposing. It is difficult treated, we must make it the text for exceeding excellent treatment on our side; that we must reciprocate, but we must reciprocate with increased tenderness and care; for, sir-and the argument with me is conclusive-if you are to apply it at all, it will obliterate your state of war; it will disturb your armies, and reduce you to the attitude of submission and non-resistance; a doctrine in which I do not concur in any sense. I believe, sir, that the doctrine of self-defense takes precedence of many of those tenets which otherwise are of binding force, and resting firm in that faith I propose to apply its principles here and

now.

Mr. FOSTER obtained the floor.

Mr. WADE. Before the Senator proceeds I have an amendment that I intend to offer to this resolution.

Mr. FOSTER. I will give way to the Senator from Ohio to enable him to offer his amendment.

Mr. WADE. I propose to strike out all of the resolution after the word "retaliation," in the seventh line, leaving the preceding portion and the preamble to stand as they are, and insert what I send to the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. It will be read for the information of the Senate, it not being in order now to consider it.

Mr. WADE. I do not ask for its present consideration. I only ask that it be read for infor

mation.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. It will be read as an amendment to be offered when in order. The Secretary read the amendment; which was

Mr. WADE. Then I offer it now.

Mr. FOSTER. Mr. President, it ought, perhaps, to be no matter of surprise that upon a question involving the application of the doctrine of retaliation to prisoners of war there should be a difference of opinion. It is a great question;

to make up one's own opinion, at least I find some difficulty in coming to a precise and definite conclusion as to the course we should adopt. That we should differ, therefore, among ourselves is to be expected, and I am not surprised at it.

But, sir, I am surprised that any gentleman in this Chamber, or any intelligent man in this country, should now express a doubt whether our pris- || oners in the hands of the rebels from the first day of the war have not been treated inhumanly, barbarously, cruelly, and that this treatment continues to the present time. I am astonished, astonished beyond measure, especially that an honorable Senator so intelligent, so well-informed as the honorable Senator from Indiana [Mr. HENDRICKS] should express a doubt, as he did yesterday, upon this subject.

Indeed, I understood him to go further, and to assert that from knowledge obtained by him of prisoners who had returned home from rebel prisons, he believed that the general treatment of our prisoners was good; and he referred to an officer, to a Captain Flynn, to whose good character he gave his own sanction, to corroborate his own statement. This man, having been a prisoner in Libby prison, at Richmond, for a considerable time, bore witness, as the honorable Senator from Indiana stated, to the good treatment of the prisoners in that prison. I certainly cannot deny that this man had the means of knowledge, and if the honorable Senator from Indiana affirms him to be a respectable man, and that he makes this statement, so far as that officer is concerned, far be it from me to deny or to con

tradict it; but, sir, I know men, and many of them, as respectable as Captain Flynn, let him be ever so respectable, who were confined in that prison for months, whose treatment, as well as that of their fellow-prisoners, was such as would disgrace savages.

The honorable Senator from Michigan [Mr. HOWARD] yesterday read from the report of a committee appointed by the Sanitary Commission; and the honorable Senator from Indiana, I will not say sneered at the document, but intimated that it was om no official source, and that testimony from such a quarter was scarcely worthy of credit. Sir, we all know that the gentlemen composing that committee are among the most respectable men in our land. It is true they were not members of Congress; they were not politicians; and there may be those in the country who think that their qualifications to perform this duty correctly were none the less for those reasons. They were intelligent, educated men; they were men of high moral and intellectual character, some of them I know personally; and the country knows them all. Those men have brought forward a mass of testimony upon this subject which it seems to me would convince the most skeptical.

One of the officers whose testimony they took, I think his name was mentioned by the honorable Senator from Michigan yesterday, Lieutenant Colonel Farnsworth, is a man whom I know intimately. He is a native of my own town, and was born next door to my own residence. [ have known him from his cradle. He was an officer in our Connecticut cavalry, and served in the valley of the Shenandoah, a brave, dashing officer; no man more gallant, and he is a man whose word is entirely reliable. He gives his testimony in that report, and from personal conversations with him I know that the treatment of the prisoners in the Libby prison while he was an inmate was as I have before described it, disgraceful; it would disgrace savages.

The honorable Senator from Missouri who has just taken his seat [Mr. BROWN] alluded to the report of the committee on the conduct of the war. That certainly is not obnoxious to the charge made against the document read by the honorable Senator from Michigan. That document, which comes from a committee of our own body, at the head of which is the honorable Senator from Ohio, [Mr. WADE,] has also testimony upon this subject, conclusive, as it seems to me, to the mind of every intelligent man who reads it. And lest there should be those who would not believe what is stated there, it being almost too horrible to be credited, the portraits of the men who were subjected to this treatment-not portraits painted from fancy, but photographs taken from life, taken of men in the agonies of death-are added to attest the correctness of the fact that our prisoners were treated in the way I have described.

Sir, it is too late to make a question in regard to the manner in which our prisoners have been and are treated. Who of us does not get letters daily, or almost daily, in regard to our soldiers who come home famished, diseased, and perishing, from starvation and i!l treatment, or whose remains are brought home for burial? I have one on my desk at this moment, written only a few days ago, on the 17th of January, 1865, from a neighbor of mine, a gentleman of the highest respectability. He says:

"On Friday of last week we buried Herbert Beckwith from our church. He was starved and frozen in a rebel prison, brought to Annapolis on the 24th of December very low, rallied a little at the sight of our flag and from knowing that he was under the protection of his Government, but died from actual starvation on the 30th. If there is any power at Washington which can by any possibility release our starving men from the fiendish grasp of the enemy, they would only require to look upon the dead face of such a one as Beckwith in order to act with all their might."

This young man was a near neighbor of mine; I think under twenty years of age. He went into the service for the defense of his country as full of life and hope as any young man, served faithfully, was taken prisoner, and this is now his history.

Nor, Mr. President, is this treatment confined to any one locality. It was only the last week that I conversed with an officer of the seventh Connecticut volunteers who had but just escaped from Richland jail in Columbia, South Carolina. He succeeded, after several previous attempts,

which failed, in finally making his escape. He made an attempt at escape in the early part of November. He, with two other officers, passed down the Congaree river in a very small boat, large enough to contain two persons, but not large enough to float three in safety. As they would be observed from the shore during the day, they had to lay up their boat to the bank, and conceal it, and pass down the river during the night. On a very dark, foggy night, following the 8th of November, the day of our presidential election, the boat struck a snag in the middle of the river, and upset near a railroad bridge, where the water was between twenty and thirty feet deep, and running rapidly. After struggling a long while, and until they had nearly perished, they finally succeeded in getting up the bank to the shore, but in such a worn-out condition that they were unable to stand. They were soon retaken by some rebel soldiers who were guarding the bridge, and sent back to Columbia.

This officer succeeded in again escaping in the latter part of December, I think on the 24th, and this time there were thirteen others with him. They procured, through the kindness of some negroes upon the river, a flat-boat large enough to carry fifty cords of wood, and upon that boat they made their way down the river again by night, laying by by day, provision being supplied by the kind blacks upon the shore, every one of whom always offered them whatever they had. My friend had a considerable amount of confederate money with him which he paid liberally to the negroes, they, by the way, saying they would give all they had to these Yankee officers, bidding "God bless them," and saying to them that if they could do it they would put wings on them that they might fly. That was the expression of one of the negroes: "God bless you, massa, I would put wings on you if I could, and you should fly home to your wife and children."

It was under these circumstances that they went down the river, and this time succeeded in getting to its mouth at the ocean, the Congaree being one of the branches of the Santee, which flows into the ocean near Georgetown, about fifty miles above Charleston, South Carolina. Here they signalized a gunboat which lay off shore, and they were taken on board in a pitiable condition, having been obliged to live for some days upon raw sweet potatoes, not daring to make a fire for fear they should be discovered.

I inquired of this officer, Captain Dennis, as to the treatment, so far as provisions were concerned, of these men at Richland while he was there and when he came away, and he gave me the ration. He said that five days' rations were now given out to them at once, and the ration for five days was five pints of Indian meal, a few pinches of salt, and occasionally-not uniformly, but occasionally-a small quantity of sorghum, which was little more than dirty molasses and water, the water predominating.

This was the whole ration for five days, and it amounts to one pint of Indian meal, a little salt, and possibly a little sorghum per day. No means were furnished for cooking it; no utensils, nothing at all but the bare pint of Indian meal with a little salt, and possibly a little of this sorghum; this alone to sustain life from day to day. Mr. President, will any man say that this is not inhuman, barbarous, shocking to humanity? It may keep men alive for a short time; but we all know that a man confined to such a diet after no very long period of time must either lose his health and impair his constitution or perish. It is impossible that human life should be sustained and that a man should be comfortable for any length of time on a diet so meager as that.

These and other facts to which I might allude, and which I presume all intelligent men of the country know as well as I do, make me wonder why anybody should entertain a doubt as to how our prisoners are treated. If such testimony does not satisfy them, they would hardly be persuaded though one rose from the dead.

This Captain Dennis, I can assure the Senate, is a most trustworthy and reliable man.

He was

a captain in the seventh Connecticut, a brave regiment worthy of their leader; and when I tell you that their leader was General Alfred H. Terry, that it was his old regiment, the Senate will understand me. After General Terry ceased to command it it was commanded by a man whose name

men to begin with, and Commodore Rodgers discharged ten of the men thus taken from the Guer

man held at Halifax was exchanged and discharged, and then the two whom we held were also discharged.

is not unknown in this war, General Joseph Hawley. I say that Captain Dennis was a man worthy to be the peer of men like General Terry and Gen-riere, holding two. Before the war was over, the eral Hawley; and when he states facts of this kind every man may believe, and, indeed, may know, so far as we can know from human statement, that what he says is true. He was in six different prisons; the treatment varied, but it was best at Charleston, and as that locality has much to answer for it ought to be known, that they may have the credit for it.

So much, Mr. President, for the point whether our men are well or ill treated; but the question is, what shall we do? What shall be done so that this treatment may be changed? It is a question not without its difficulties; and although, as I suggested in the outset, it is not strange that there should be differences of opinion upon it, yet our differences so far as they have been developed here are by no means so great as at first they would seem to be. While on one side the doctrine of retaliation is insisted upon, is it denied on the other? No, Mr. President. I do not understand that anybody here has undertaken to assert that retaliation, to a certain extent, is not just and proper in time of war.

Mr. President, I believe in retaliation to that extent certainly. I believe in retaliation to this extent, that if the rebels take our prisoners and shoot or hang them we should take their prisoners and shoot or hang them; but if they take our prisoners and torture them by scalping them or in any other mode practiced by savages and not by civilized nations, I do not think we should adopt the same practice, and I do not understand that any man here claims that we can or ought to do that.

I do not understand the honorable Senator from Ohio, who is very frank and very decided on this subject, to claim that any such practice as that should be resorted to by any means. He agrees with the honorable Senator from Pennsylvania on that point, I believe. As I before suggested, when we come to put a distinct case, the difference is much less than when we are talking about an abstract principle which we do not apply to a particular case. The honorable Senator from Ohio says, "I believe in this doctrine of retaliation, like for like; as they treat our men, so will we treat theirs." The honorable Senator from Pennsylvania says, "No, I do not believe in that." And when he asks the honorable Senator from Ohio "Would you scalp a man because the enemy scalps one of our men?" the latter answers, "No." There is not, then, a difference in the applica

But as to how far this principle shall go there is a difference, at first a wide difference. On the one side it is asserted that the retaliation should be like for like; that is, whatever our enemy does to our prisoners in his hands, we should do, and do in the same way, to his prisoners in our hands. All cannot agree to that, and indeed I have hardly heard anybody assert that the doctrine to that extent is to be justified. If any Senator does assert it, when he comes to the practical question|tion of the principle, although there is a difference he shrinks from applying the test. When it is asked, "If the enemy scalp or burn a prisoner, shall we scalp or burn a prisoner whom we take from him?" everybody says no; nobody advocates that. If the rebels when they take our men prisoners sell them into slavery, shall we, when we take their men prisoners, sell them into slavery? I do not understand that anybody argues for that. What, then, is the difference between those who assert that retaliation is a proper mode of proceeding, and those who assert that it is not? Simply this, that certain persons will go to one extent in applying the principle of like for like; certain others will go a little further, but all will stop at some point.

There is no question but that by the laws and practices of nations retaliation within certain limits is now recognized. It was practiced by us in former wars. It was practiced in the revolutionary war. It was practiced in the war of 1812. I remember a particular case. Commodore Hull, in the Constitution, captured the British frigate Guerriere and brought in the prisoners whom he captured on board that ship. A number of our men were at that time held as prisoners by the British at Halifax. They had been all, I think, but six discharged, exchanged in a cartel; and six were held, who they claimed were British subjects, although taken fighting in our Navy, and they claimed the right to hold them and hang them as traitors to the British flag.

Mr. COLLAMER. They claimed that they were deserters from the British navy.

Mr. FOSTER. Yes, as my friend from Ver mont suggests, the British claimed that those men were deserters from the British navy, and that as deserters and traitors to their flag they were to be hanged under the rules of war. The prisoners of the British frigate Guerriere were placed in a cartel and put under the charge of an officer, and as he was sailing out of the harbor of Boston he met the frigate President, Commodore Rodgers, cóming in, and Commodore Rodgers stopped this cartel, gave to her commanding officer this information from Halifax that the British were holding || back six sailors under these circumstances whom

they threatened to hang and would not exchange; then directed the officer in charge of the cartel to muster all the crew of the Guerriere who were on board, and as he passed along the line of those prisoners to select twelve of the finest and most athletic men of the lot and take them on board the President as he was going into Boston, and should hold those twelve men as hostages whom he would hang if the British admiral hung the six sailors in Halifax. Then the cartel went on.

When the British admiral at Halifax heard of this state of things, he discharged five of those

on the general principle, and so, as I believe, in regard to every practical question that has been put here, there has been an agreement even between those who seem to differ most widely, unless it be on the single question of starving a man to death, and I have not heard anybody as yet avow the belief that it was right or just to put a man in prison and starve him to death, even although the rebels have done it and it may be are doing it.

It is urged, as I understand it, that the threat will be available, and that if we say we will do this thing it will work out the deliverance of our soldiers. If saying so will do it without our performing this deed of cruelty, I am for saying it; but I am not in favor of starving a man to death because the rebels starve our prisoners to death. Even in view of such letters as those I have read, showing such treatment to young men who were born, have lived, and grown up near my own house, I cannot agree to take a young man from South Carolina or anywhere else, and starve him to death in the same manner by way of retaliation. I can no more do that than I can vote to sell him into slavery, or to scalp him, or commit any atrocity on his remains after he is dead, which, as I suppose, has been done by the enemy more than once. As I suppose and believe, on what I think is good evidence, though I do not know the fact personally, even our dead who have fallen like brave men on the battle-field have been mutilated, their bones have been taken and used as ornaments, trophies of the prowess of the southern chivalry over the northern Yankee.

Sir, human nature shrinks back from retaliation of that description. And we are not, as compared with these rebels, standing on equal ground with them on this subject. We are a nation. We have a history. It is true we have not been a nation for centuries, but we have been a nation for many years, and I for one, as an American citizen, am proud of the history of the United States of America. I am not for doing anything which shall tarnish the fair fame and the glory of this nation either in peace or in war.

Who are our opponents? They have never yet been admitted into the family of nations, and trust in God never will be. They are unworthy of a seat in a congress of nations. In any place where nations are recognized they are not, and ought not to be, and will not be recognized. They are a band of insurgents, robbers, traitors, malefactors on land, pirates on the deep; and because such men descend to what would disgrace savages in the treatment of prisoners, not disgracing any national name, for they have no national name to disgrace, shall we, who are citizens of the United States of America, each man feel

ing that he has a part of the national honor and character to sustain, do that which disgraces them? No, Mr. President; no, no, no.

I would go as far, I trust, as the honorable Senator from Ohio to relieve our men; but I believe that if that Senator and myself were set to guard prisoners under an order that they should be kept on such rations that they would starve and perish, the honorable Senator from Ohio, quite as soon as I, would from his own pocket take his last crust or his last morsel rather than see a fellow-being perish with hunger. I know he would. The generosity of his own heart would compel it.

The honorable Senator from Indiana who is near me [Mr. LANE] made a mistake, if he will allow me to say so, in suggesting that if this policy were adopted and carried out the soldiers and officers who had been in southern prisons, and had been subjected to this treatment, should be the men set to guard the prisoners and carry into effect these orders. These men having felt the awful pangs, which none but he who feels knows, of dying by hunger and starvation, would not inflict even upon one who had inflicted it upon them the same torture. They might blow his brains out with a musket, or run him through with a bayonet, but they would never starve him to death and stand by looking on. Much less would such a man do it to one who had been taken in fair fight-fair, I mean, so far as the fight itself was concerned, not fair in the fact that the man was properly engaged in it-who had surrendered, dropped his weapons, and given himseif up to the mercy of his captors as a prisoner of war.

The honorable Senator from Indiana has himself been a soldier, and a brave one, before he was a Senator. He would not do this thing, I am sure he never would. He must get some other guard around these men than brave soldiers who have served in battle and suffered in prison. The brave are always generous. The pirates and robbers who do these deeds are not brave men. Even those men who have suffered tell us over and over again that occasionaly some brave man who had fought against them, perhaps in the field, has surreptitiously, and in danger sometimes of being punished, slipped a loaf of bread or a piece of meat into the hands of these starving men. It is impossible but that nature will finally assert her dominion in the minds of men who have a heart; and brave men have a heart that can always be appealed to.

Now, Mr. President, in regard to these propositions that are before the Senate, I esteem the one introduced by the honorable Senator from Massachusetts, the chairman of the Committee on Militery Affairs, [Mr. WILSON,] as the one which is the most likely to work out a practical result. I am for that which is the most practicable, believing that the great object which we have in view is to relieve these men. I know it is the object of the honorable Senator from Ohio [Mr. WADE] and the honorable Senator from Indiana, [Mr. LANE.] I am sure it is. It is a principle of humanity which moves those Senators to the course they advocate, and I respect them for it. I go with them as it regards the result to be obtained, but I am compelled to differ from them in regard to the means to be used.

The proposition of the honorable Senator from Massachusetts, the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, it seems to me will be the most practically beneficial to our men; meantime, certainly, the Executive can, as I suggested, and it is his duty, take all means which he can take lawfully, constitutionally, properly to ameliorate the condition of those men if he cannot secure their exchange, which is his first duty. If this proposition shall succeed, it will succeed sooner than any other, because it can be the soonest made available. The other process of course would be one comparatively slow, for we have in the first place to give notice to the rebel authorities that unless they change their course we shall retaliate. That is contemplated. It may be that I am wrong in saying that notice is to be given.

Mr. COLLAMER. It is not contemplated in the resolution.

Mr. FOSTER. It may not be in the resolution, but of course it would be understood that the rebels should at some period, and that very early, understand that we have adopted this plan,

or it would be of no use. Every one would say that it is certainly of no use to adopt a policy of starving men by way of retaliation unless we let them know it. That would be mere wantonness. We are, then, to let them know it.

Mr. JOHNSON. But to starve first, according to the resolution.

Mr. FOSTER. I hardly believe that is what the honorable gentlemen who advocate the resolution intend; I do not so understand them. I do not understand that anybody would advocate the shutting up of a given number of prisoners here, and going immediately to commence the process of starvation. I suppose that is not meant, but, as I suggested, the meaning is that they shall have reasonable notice of this intention; and that we shall proceed then promptly and energetically with this mode of retaliation in order to relieve our men. That will take time. It will take time to ascertain whether they have changed their policy, and meanwhile our prisoners are suffering.

We can send, or at least make the proposition to send, to Richmond in order to ascertain whether steps may not be taken to relieve our prisoners from this terrible suffering. If it can be done, and done at once, the object is accomplished. If it is refused, and nothing can be done in that way, then the course which the gentlemen propose is certainly open to us, and it seems to me we shall lose very little by the short delay of making this attempt first. I am therefore for the proposition of the honorable Senator from Massachusetts

who heads the Military Committee. He is not now in his seat, and I can therefore say, and it is but a proper tribute to him to state, that, being connected as he is with our military affairs, he knows, I will not say better than the rest of us, but he knows, I confess, better than I, what will be most likely to effect the object we have in view.

Mr. HENDRICKS. Before the Senator from Connecticut closes his remarks I wish to correct him in one respect. He did me the honor to refer to the argument that I presented to the Senate on this subject yesterday evening. I know the Senator would not designedly misrepresent what I said, for there is no person within these walls, or outside of these walls, who, I think, would be more frank in the statement of the position occupied by one with whom he does not agree than the Senator from Connecticut. But he evidently did misunderstand my remarks on the subject to which he alluded in the commencement of his speech. I understood him to say that I had assumed that there were not cruelties inflicted on our soldiers in southern prisons. Sir, I did not say that; I did not wish to be so understood. The Senator from Michigan [Mr. HOWARD] asked me a very pointed question, and in reply I said-I read from the Globe, as taken by the reporter, without my having seen it from the time I spoke until it appeared in print

"The Senator asks whether he understands that I have said that our own prisoners were treated as well as their guards. I did not say so. He has read testimony here taken by a commission in respect to Libby prison. I have given the statement of an honest man who was a prisoner there for months, a part of the time in a dungeon, selected by lot to be shot. When he came home he made this statement to his neighbors. I have no doubt that there have been cruelties inflicted on the Union prisoners in southern prisons, and that is one reason why I want them brought home; but I do not believe that it has gone to the extent reported in the country."

That is my judgment. I have no doubt there were cruelties very shocking indeed, but not to the extent as reported in the country. I further said:

"I do not believe, upon the information I have on the subject, that it is at all to the extent stated in the pamphlet from which the Senator read to-day."

This is the substance of what I said on the subject. I do not doubt now, I will repeat, that there have been cruelties, not justified by the usages of Christian warfare, inflicted on our prisoners in the South. That is a reason, and a very strong reason, governing me in demanding that an honorable exchange shall be made, and that they shall be brought home.

Mr. FOSTER. I certainly did not, as the honorable Senator does me the justice to state, intend to misrepresent him. I did understand him as I stated. Perhaps I was wrong in so understanding him; of course I was wrong if he disavows it; but when he spoke of the testimony borne by Captain Flinn in regard to the treatment, I think he said that Captain Flinn represented his treat

ment at Libby to have been good, so far as provisions were concerned, and that he was as well provided as the soldiers of the rebel army, or something like that.

Mr. HENDRICKS. I will read what I said about that.

Mr. FOSTER. While the honorable Senator is looking for the paragraph I will say another word. It is certainly not my desire to place the Senator in any false position. If I understood him, as I certainly did, after his explanation, incorrectly, I am most happy in making the correction. Indeed it pained me for a moment to think that a Senator so intelligent as the honorable Senator is should have such an impression. I was wrong in it, and I am glad of it.

Mr. HENDRICKS. This is what I said of Captain Flinn:

"I took a great deal of interest in his case. He was my personal friend. He wrote to me that he thought an exchange could be secured. I saw the President at once, and the President, a kind-hearted man, made the order on the part of this Government, and Captain Flinn was exchanged; and when he returned to his neighbors he told them that the prisoners were as well provided as the men who guarded them. I take his word on that subject while he was there as equal to the word of any man."

This as I was informed by his neighbors with whom he conversed immediately on his return. Of course that is confined to Libby prison. I suppose Captain Flinn knew nothing about any other.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. President, I presume every Senator concedes the principles of retaliation. The principles and spirit of the speech of the hon. orable Senator from Connecticut [Mr. FOSTER] in the main concur with mine. I make no essential difference with him. But, sir, it is just as well settled by the laws of nations and by the uniform usages of nations, that retaliation has its limitations, as that the principle of retaliation exists. The laws of war have been very much ameliorated in the last five or six hundred years, and the law of retaliation as a part of the laws of war has been progressing toward the same ame lioration. The question is not what retaliation was in the time of Edward III and of the Black Prince, nor what it was two hundred years ago. The question is, what is the law of retaliation in the present age of Christian civilization? I will read from two American authorities that treat upon the subject of retaliation. One of them I believe was read by the honorable Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. SUMNER] yesterday. Kent

says:

"Cruelty to prisoners and barbarous destruction of private property will provoke the enemy to severe retaliation upon the innocent. Retaliation is said by Rutherforth (Inst. 2, c. 9) not to be a justifiable cause for putting inuocent prisoners or hostages to death; for no individual is chargeable, by the law of nations, with the guilt of a personal crime merely because the community of which he is a member is guilty. He is only responsible as a member of the State in his property for reparation in damages for the acts of others; and it is on this principle that, by the law of nations, private property may be taken and appropriated in war. Retaliation, to be just, ought to be confined to the guilty individuals who may have committed some enormous violation of public law."-Kent's Commentaries, part 1, page 93.

In a note to the same page I find this:

"In the case of the Marquis De Somerueles, (Stewart's Vice Admiralty Reports, 482.) the enlightened judge of the vice admiralty court at Halifax restored to the Academy of Arts, in Philadelphia, a case of Italian paintings and prints, captured by a British vessel in the war of 1812, on their passage to the United States; and he did it in conformity to the law of nations, as practiced by all civilized countries,' and because the arts and sciences are admitted to form an exception to the severe rights of warfare.' Works of art and taste, as in painting and sculpture, have, by the modern law of nations, been held sacred in war, and not deemed lawful spoils of conquest. When Frederick II of Prussia took possession of Dresden, as conqueror, in 1753, he respected the valuable picture gallery, cabinets, and museums of that capital, as not falling within the rights of a conqueror. But Bonaparte, in 1796, compelled the Italian States and princes, including the Pope, to surrender their choicest pictures and works of art, to be transported to Paris. The chef d'œuvres of art of the Dutch and Flemish schools, and in Prussia, were acquired by France in the same violent way. This proceeding is severely condemned by distinguished historians, as an abuse of the power of conquest, and a species of military contribution contrary to the usages of modern civilized warfare. (Alison's History of Europe, vol. 3, p. 42. Sir Walter Scott's Life of Napoleon, vol. 3, pp. 58-68.)"

I will now read a short paragraph from Professor Woolsey, an American writer on international law, from the State of the honorable Senator from Connecticut:

"That retaliation in war is sometimes admissible all agree. Thus if one belligerent treats prisoners of waf