of Maine, praying that steam whistles be placed upon Cape Elizabeth, Matinicus Rock, and Quoddy Head, for the purpose of conveying information to vessels approaching these points in thick and foggy weather; which was referred to the Committee on Commerce.

Mr. SAULSBURY. I present the memorial of William Cornell Jewett, communicating to the Senate of the United States certain facts of which he professes to have knowledge. Of course I have no knowledge of these facts and express no opinion as to the propriety or impropriety of the prayer contained in the memorial. Regarding the right to petition as a sacred one, a right to which every citizen is entitled under the Constitution of the United States, I present the paper as I would any other petition or memorial handed to me which was respectful in its terms. I ask that it be read and lie on the table.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Delaware asks that this paper be read. Is there any objection? The Chair hears none.

The Secretary proceeded to read the memorial, as follows:

To the honorable the Senate and

House of Representatives of the United States: Your memorialist begs leave to present to your honorable body for consideration the fact that the Singleton and Blair missions have signally failed, and there is therefore no hope of peace through negotiation; that it has now become apparent that France, Austria, Spain, and the Pope intend recognizing the confederacy after the reinauguration of President Lincoln; that to that end France and Austria have entered upon a division of the Mexican States with a view to a speedy acquisition of California, and the regulation of power upon this continent, under the policy that has controlled in Europe for the last century; that the issue now between the North and South is independence or extermination, under which banners the people must divide and rally; that it is folly to take any other view of our national position, and likewise folly to talk of the South as now being crushed, from alone "her spirit even more formidable than her arms," from her ability to purchase independence through slavery, and cooperation in extending European rule upon the American continent, and from a late declaration made by General Sherman, "that instead of the South being conquered the war had hardly commenced.”

Your memorialist therefore prays that immediate steps be taken for the recognition of the independence of the confederacy, and with a view to securing those great commercial relations so highly important, and which will inure to the benefit of European Powers unless friendly relations of commerce, and an alliance offensive and defensive is entered into and secured for the benefit of the United States, before such advantages shall have been acquired by European Powers.

To provide against a misconstruction of motive, your memorialist hereby declares before God and man, that he sincerely believes such action indispensable to prevent a war with Europe and to successfully defend, preserve, and perpetuate the American Republic.

Mr. SHERMAN. Is it usual to read petitions at length?

The VICE PRESIDENT. It is not, but the Senator from Delaware asked that this memorial should be read, and the Chair said it would be read if there was no objection; the Chair put the question, and no objection was made.

Mr. JOHNSON. Whose petition is it? The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair does not know. It is one which was presented by the Senator from Delaware.

Mr. SHERMAN. It is not usual to read such papers at length; and I object to its reading. The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair is in

formed that it is signed by a man named William Cornell Jewett.

Mr. SAULSBURY.

having the paper read.

I care nothing about

The VICE PRESIDENT. If there be objection to its reading, it will be for the Senate to determine.

Mr. CONNESS. I object. Mr. SHERMAN. I object, not because I know what it contains, but if we get in the habit of reading petitions, the whole morning hour will be consumed in that way.

The VICE PRESIDENT put the question, and the Senate refused to allow the paper to be read. The memorial was laid on the table.

LEAVE OF ABSENCE TO A SENATOR. Mr. NESMITH. I desire to ask the unanimous consent of the Senate to give my colleague [Mr. HARDING] leave of absence for the remainder of the session.

The motion was agreed to.

REPORTS OF COMMITTEES.

Mr. WILSON, from the Committee on Military Affairs and the Militia, to whom was re

ferred the bill (S. No. 408) in addition to several acts for enrolling and calling out the national forces, and for other purposes, reported it with an amendment.

Mr. FOOT, from the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, to whom was referred the letter of the Secretary of the Interior transmitting a copy of the supplemental report from the chief engineer of the Washington aqueduct showing the condition of the work and the present state of the appropriations authorized and provided for by the act of July 4, 1864, asked to be discharged from its further consideration, and that it be referred to the Committee on the District of Columbia; which was agreed to.

Mr. SHERMAN, from the Committee on Finance, to whom was referred the joint resolution (H. R. No. 141) reducing the duty on printing paper, unsized, used for books and newspapers exclusively, reported it with an amendment.

Mr. FOOT, from the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, to whom was referred the petition of William Hughes praying payment for an improvement of the grounds surrounding Armory square hospital, asked to be discharged from its further consideration; which was agreed to.

Mr. HARRIS, from the Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. No. 184) to facilitate proceedings in admiralty and other judicial proceedings in the port of New York, and for other purposes, reported it with amendments.

BILLS INTRODUCED.

Mr. WILSON asked, and by unanimous consent obtained, leave to introduce a bill (S. No. 419) for the better organization of the pay department of the United States Army; which was read twice by its title, and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs and the Militia.

MESSAGE FROM THE HOUSE.

A message from the House of Representatives, by Mr. LLOYD, Chief Clerk, announced that the House had passed a bill (H. R. No. 574) for the relief of Alexander F. Pratt, in which the concurrence of the Senate was requested.

CONGRESSIONAL DIRECTORY.

Mr. ANTHONY submitted the following resolution; which was considered by unanimous consent, and agreed to:

Resolved, That the Committee on Printing be instructed to inquire into the expediency of ordering a Congressional Directory to be compiled and furnished to Congress in the early part of each session.

PAPERS WITHDRAWN.

On motion of Mr. BUCKALEW, it was

Ordered, That the Committee on Pensions be discharged from the further consideration of the petition of Mrs. Harriet O. Read, and that the petitioner have leave to withdraw her petition and papers.

MESSAGE FROM THE HOUSE.

A message from the House of Representatives, by Mr. LLOYD, Chief Clerk, announced that the House had concurred in the resolution of the Senate in relation to the appointment of a committee to ascertain and report a mode of examining the votes for President and Vice President of the United States, and had appointed Mr. THADDEUS STEVENS of Pennsylvania, Mr. E. B. WASHBURNE of Illinois, Mr. ROBERT MALLORY of Kentucky, Mr. HENRY WINTER DAVIS of Maryland, and Mr. S. S. Cox of Ohio, the committee on the part of the House.

HOUSE BILL REFERRED.

The bill (H. R. No. 574) for the relief of Alexander F. Pratt was read twice by its title, and referred to the Committee on Claims.

COMMITTEE ON CORRUPTIONS.

Mr. WADE. As there seems to be nothing else on hand, I move that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of the unfinished business of Saturday.

Mr. DAVIS. I will ask what is the regular order of business before the Senate?

The VICE PRESIDENT. After the morning business is disposed of, the regular order will be the unfinished business of the morning hour of Saturday, that being the following resolution offered by the Senator himself:

Resolved, That the special rule of the Senate, No. 34,

be amended by adding these words: "A committee for the investigation of the corruptions of the Government in all its departments and offices, to consist of five members,

Mr. DAVIS. I ask leave to offer an amendment to that resolution, which I desire to have read.

The VICE PRESIDENT. If there are no other resolutions to be offered, the next business in order will be the subject which the Chair has just stated; and to that the Senator from Kentucky submits an amendment, which will be read.

The Secretary read the amendment; which was to add to the resolution these words:

Which committee shall be appointed by the Presiding Officer of the Senate. Whenever there is a party political Opposition to the executive administration of the Government in the Chamber, the chairman and majority of the committee shall be selected from the Senators in such Opposition. And said committee shall have power to continue its investigations during the recess of the Senate, to send for persons and papers, and to adjourn from time to time and from day to day.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Upon this resolution the Chair is under the impression that the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. HALE] is entitled to the floor.

Mr. HALE. This subject came before the Senate unexpectedly, and 1, having some suggestions to make upon it, was brought into the menced, I will proceed with what I have to say. debate very unexpectedly; but as I have comI have said that I was utterly opposed to the creation of any more committees on frauds until we had dealt with some of those which had been presented to the consideration of the Senate. I hold in my hand the report of the select committee of the Senate that sat last year, and I will read to you the conclusions to which that committee

came:

"An examination of the evidence has satisfied your committee that the Government has suffered as much by purchases made directly by the chiefs of bureaus as in any other way. This fact is illustrated by the case of the purchase of a crank for the steamer Cambridge, an account of which may be found in the correspondence of Admiral Smith with the Navy agent at Charlestown, where nearly or quite twice as much was demanded by Lazelle, Perkins & Co. for the article furnished as it could have been procured for by the Navy agent in the regular course of business as regulated by law.

"At a time like the present, when taxes are so high, and the burden of the war falls so heavily on the people, they have a right to expect and demand from those intrusted with the disbursement of the public money fidelity, vigilance, and economy.

"In conclusion, your committee submit the following as the result of the examination they have made:

"1. In the matter of contracts for naval supplies last year the Government has been grossly defrauded."

"2. These frauds could not have been perpetrated without aid from those in the employment of Government in the bureaus.

"3. These remarks apply to the Bureau of Steam Engineering, the Bureau of Construction, &c., and the Bureau of Yards and Docks."

Not to be tedious, let me call the attention of the Senate to a single one of these cases, the case of the contracts for oil; and if the Senate will give me their attention for a moment, I think they will see that we have something to do before we raise any more committees to investigate frauds in that Department:

"One of the most remarkable features of these very remarkable transactions is the contracts for sperm oil, under the advertisement of February 13, 1863, at the several navyyards, all made with II. D. Stover, of New York. At the Kittery navy yard there was no contract; at Charlestown the price was $1 65 per gallon. Burnet Forbes was the next lowest bidder, at $1 70 per gallon. At New York the contract was awarded to Stover, at $1 68 per gallon; the next lowest bidder was Burnet Forbes, at $1 70. At Philadelphia it was awarded to Stover, at $2 35. The next lowest bidder was Scofield, at $2 40 per gallon. "At Washington the contract was awarded to Stover, at $2 44 per gallon; the next lowest bidder was W. A. Wheeler, at $2.46.

Thus Mr. Stover took the contract for sperm oil at all the navy-yards at this letting, at prices ranging from $1 65 per gallon to $2 44 per gallon; and in no case does the price of oil as awarded in the contract with Stover fall inore than five cents below the next bidder, and in two of the cases but two cents below, although the prices range from $1 65 to $2 44 per gallon; and what renders this coincidence the more remarkable is, that while several alterations in the prices are made, the one most significant is in the price of sperm oil delivered at New York, the price of which was originally put in at $1.40 per gallon, and subsequently altered to $1 68 per gallon, just two cents below the next bidder. Now, the committee with confidence suggest that it is hardly to be believed that it falls within the range of human sagacity for any man to be able so to gauge his bids for articles to be delivered at different places, differing so widely in amount as these do, as to fall in two instances two cents, and in two others five cents, below the next bidder; and credulity on this subject is still further taxed when it is known that one of these bids, originally $1 40, has been raised to $168, still keeping the bid the lowest by two cents.

"It is worthy of remark that this alteration of the bid in this price of oil, from $1 40 a gallon to $1 68 a gallon, is very adroitly made by a careful erasure of 40, and 68 written over the place, evidently intended to mislead the observer, and done to induce the belief that $1 68 was the original bid; and the same, substantially, is true of very many of the other alterations before mentioned, though some of them appear to have been openly and boldly made. It is difficult to perceive why, if these alterations were honestly made, in good faith, when the bidder had a clear right to make them, there should have been such a manifest intention to mislead or deceive."

These alterations were pointed out by Mr. Smith, of Boston, who has had to suffer for it, I was going to say more than the Government: but they have been both pretty severe sufferers. The pamphlet of Mr. Smith pointing out these gross frauds was furnished to the Secretary of the Navy, and by the Secretary submitted to the several heads of bureaus, and they were asked for an explanation. They took a very substantial way of explanation: they denied the whole thing. Mr. John Lenthall, chief of the Bureau of Construction, said:

"The bids have been examined, as well as the schedule made at the opening, and, to the best of my judgment, there have been no alterations made further than in some cases to change the incorrect amounts from the rectifications made on the margins of the bids; and I do not believe they have been in any way tampered with."

Now, sir, I will give you the testimony of Mr. Lenthall's chief clerk:

"In reply to this opinion of Mr. Lenthall, that there had been no tampering with the bids, it may be remarked that Mr. Farwell, the chief clerk of Mr. Lenthall's bureau, at his examination before the committee in reference to a number of Scofield's bids, and of Lockwood & Collins's, which appeared to the committee on examination to contain so many alterations and erasures in the writing and in the figures as not to be worthy of credit, in that immediate connection testified as follows, namely: I desire to state, in this connection, that I recommended, at the time these bids were opened, that they should be rejected as being defaced and as being uncertain, it being doubtful what the figures meant; but these bids were all referred to the Department, and such of them as were awarded were ordered to be awarded by the Department. Collins's bids are of the same general nature all the way through.' Your committee are inclined to agree in opinion with the clerk rather than the chief; and so far as the appearance of those bids is considered, if they do not exhibit unmistakable evidence of fraudulent tampering, it is difficult to conceive what evidence would establish that fact. Indeed, it may be said generally of these bids exhibited to the committee by this witness that a worse exhibition of papers, for which any credit was claimed, never was made to any tribunal."

What

That is only one of a hundred cases. was the result of this investigation? What was the result of laying these facts before the Senate? The witness through whose instrumentality they were made known, as I mentioned on Saturday, was immediately seized by order of the Navy Department, his store taken possession of, his private papers seized, his wife's desk and private papers taken, and he was sent down to Fort Warren and held there, and denied intercourse with his friends, under a bail of $500,000; and he was to be kept there until he could procure bail for that sum. Indignation beginning to be excited about it, the man guilty of this outrage consented, as I before remarked, to take $480,000 off the bail, and he was let out for $20,000.

I was asked, I think, by the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. DAVIS] if Mr. Smith was arrested for giving this information. Sir, it is impossible for me to scan the motives of men; it is enough for me to deal with my own; but, standing here under all the responsibilities which attach to me, fond as any man of what little reputation belongs to me, careful of my word, I think, as most men, I aver before the Senate, before the country, and before God, that I have not a shadow of doubt that the sole offense for which Mr. Smith was arrested was the evidence that he gave upon this occasion. And in that connection I have a remarkable statement to make in regard to these tribunals. The man who ordered this outrageous arrest, the man who perpetrated this outrage in Boston, compared to which the proceedings of Turkey are civilized and the Inquisition is a tender mercy, being remonstrated with on another occasion against sending these cases to naval and military courts-martial, and being asked why he did not take the ordinary courts, made this remarkable avowal: "Your civil courts are organized to acquit; we organize courts to convict!" If there was some friend of the individual referred to here to deny it, without stirring out of my tracks I would prove, by evidence that would flash conviction on every mind that heard it, that it is true as Holy Writ that this declaration was

made, and not only made but acted upon. I will tell you how it is done, for, as I am upon this thing, I want to expose it.

You know that by the retiring law which we have passed-a law which I always voted against, I am very glad to say; and I am sorry that I did not succeed in defeating it, for it is nothing on earth but a system of favoritism-the Secretary of the Navy is enabled to employ any old men that get to be eighty or ninety years of age, so long as they live, provided they are agreeable and do such service as he requires of them, and to exclude everybody else that does not bask in the sunshine of his favor. These retired officers who have no employment except at the will of the Secretary, are put upon these courts-martial. The members of the court-martial that tried Smith were Captain William K. Latimer, Captain Charles Boarman, Captain John S. Chauncey, Captain Andrew K. Long, Commander Edward W. Carpenter, Commander T. Darrah Shaw, and Commander Thomas M. Brasher. I am not certain, but I believe that every one of them is a retired officer; certainly a large majority of them are on the retired list. These gentlemen, like other retired officers, are anxious for pay, for employment, and if they make themselves acceptable to the Secretary of the Navy they can get it; if they do not, they cannot. The court being thus organized, the Secretary of the Navy appears as prosecutor where the man is prosecuted; and it being known that the Department wants a conviction, there is nothing else for them to do but to convict.

In regard to this case, I want to read a statement for which the honorable Senators from Massachusetts and the whole delegation from that State in the House of Representatives are responsible, for they have signed their names to it:

"The proceedings have seemed to be harsh, vindictive, and unnecessary:

"1. In the character of the arrest of the Messrs. Smith, which was attended by circumstances of severity utterly unjustifiable.

2. In requiring bonds to so large an amount as $500,

000."

I think it was an outrage which deserves the severest condemnation of this Government and of the civilized world. When Aaron Burr was arraigned before Chief Justice Marshall, and the question of bail was raised in some of the preliminary proceedings which finally terminated in an indictment for treason, the bail fixed by the Chief Justice was $10,000. There may have been cases where larger bail has been demanded, but I am not now aware of any. In this case $500,000 bail was demanded.

Now, let me ask if the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States had ordered any man to be incarcerated until he gave bail of $500,000, is there a Senator here who would fail to record a vote for the impeachment of the officer who should order such bail? There may be, but I trust not.

Let me read a little further from this statement. They say these proceedings were still further unjustifiable in these respects:

"3. In the seizure of their books and papers, which are still detained, although regarded by their eminent counsel as important to their defense.

4. In turning into a military offense what is more proper for a civil tribunal, and dragging these defendants

before a court martial.

5. In transferring the proceedings from Boston, where the parties reside and the transactions in question occurred, to Philadelphia, thus increasing greatly the difficulties and the expense of the defense. This will be appreciated when it is understood that the witnesses are very numerous, and chiefly engaged in mercantile business, so that they cannot leave Boston without the neglect of their private interests. "The undersigned, on reviewing these circumstances, which are so inconsistent with the administration of justice in its ordinary forms, have been at a loss to account for the spirit which has been manifested in the prosecution. If they look at the trivial character of most of the specifications against the defendants, they are still more at a loss. It is difficult to account for such elaborate and persistent harshness without yielding to the prevailing belief that other motives than the vindication of justice have entered into this case.

"The undersigned are not strangers to the fact that one of these defendants, in the discharge of what he believed to be his duty as a good citizen, has, by correspondence and by testimony before committees of Congress, been brought into collision with officers of the Navy Department; and there is too much reason to believe that some of these officers have allowed themselves to be governed by personal feelings throughout these strange proceedings."

I think so too. This man brought all the machinery of the Government to bear to crush this witness for the testimony he had given. Read

the evidence, read the charges upon which he was tried, and I have no doubt convicted, so far as the finding of the court is concerned, because they were organized to convict, and I tell you, sir, you will be satisfied, and any Senator with an unbiased mind will be satisfied, that there is not a mercantile house in Boston, in New York, in Philadelphia, or in Baltimore, or anywhere else, doing a large business, that might not be convicted, if tried, upon precisely the character of transactions which are alleged here as fraudulent, and the evidence by which they are sustained.

But, sir, the thing does not stop here; they were not content with that; but, as I said when up before, a roving commission was sent out to Charlestown and Portsmouth to see if something could not be hunted up against the committee that laid these facts before the country. I think before the Senate institute any more committees or commissions to investigate fraud, they should at least vindicate their own body and see to it that those who are unkenneled and whose frauds are exposed shall not with impunity turn upon the Senate and see if they cannot find out something by which to attack them, thus constituting themselves a tribunal over and above the Senate. Sir, you may have as many committees as you choose, but can you expect to have a fair and honest investigation, if, the moment a witness testifies against one of these Departments, he is liable to have his private papers seized, his store shut up, his house taken, himself torn from society and from everything that society is bound to protect, incarcerated in a cell in one of your forts, and there held under a bond, the very enormity of which is calculated to paralyze the public mind, and to deprive him of the benefit which ought to be secured to every citizen, however humble?

But there is another fact in this remarkable case. This evidence has been taken, and what is called the "argument of the judges advocate," which I now hold in my hand, has been published and furnished to every member of Congress at the public expense undoubtedly, and I am told largely elsewhere, by this man. In this matter, which is put here for an argument

Mr. DAVIS. Who was the judge advocate? Mr. HALE. There were a couple of them. The humble individual who now addresses the Senate came under cognizance before this honorable court. My friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. BUCKALEW] is hit a small dab, because in the report on this subject he expressed the hope that the arrest of the accused, upon these charges,

"Following close upon his examination before the committee, will be fully justified upon due investigation and fair trial, and that the proceeding will be relieved from all appearance of persecution or vengeance."

So much for the honorable Senator from Pennsylvania. Then comes in another:

"And in this connection we feel bound to notice the extraordinary conduct of another member of that committee, who, with the evident design of prejudicing the community against the Department, and of influencing your decision in this case, was so imprudent as to make it the subject of a violent attack upon the Department, in a speech made by him at a public political meeting in this city, in which he indulged in terms of severe censure on account of this prosecution, which, under the circumstances, were in the highest degree improper, and altogether unworthy the public position he held."

I am greatly obliged to these gentlemen for their kindness.

"If he had been the retained advocate of the accused he could not have endeavored more earnestly and zealously to defeat the ends of justice by his attempt to prevent a fair and impartial trial of this case upon its inerits. He knew that the accused was then on his trial before this tribunal upon the charge of defrauding the Government, for he was here under summons of this court to testify as a witness." I do not want to characterize that statement any more than to say that it is absolutely untrue; there is not a word of truth in it. I never was before the court as a witness in my life. They did send me a subpena, but before the time fixed for attending I received a telegraphic dispatch from the court saying I need not attend; and they forgot to pay the expense of sending the message, and I had to pay it myself.

"It was, in fact, a contempt of this court, which he knew was sworn to try the accused according to the evidence, and to administer justice according to law."

If that court should ever come together again and should be inclined to pursue this matter of contempt, I will save them all the trouble of evidence. I will avow here that I entertain the most profound contempt, mingled, I trust, with a right

struggle; who first caused our hearts to exult; and what was the result? He was snubbed by the Assistant Secretary, and soon laid upon the

shelf.

The proceedings against Mr. Smith in this case are in singular contrast with the finding of another court-martial in the case of Colonel North. If the same view was taken in that case in organizing the court as in organizing this court, and that is that it was done to convict, I think they must have received an intimation afterward that those who had organized the court had altered their minds.

Mr. President, it is painful to me to have to notice these things; it is painful to me to feel the necessity of it; but I do feel it, and, God helping me, I will not shrink from it. I know it is imprudent, but I am an imprudent man. I do not want to be prudent. I will stand, and I will go out of the Senate as I came into it, the uncompromising foe of wrong and robbery and oppression. I shall have the thieves on my back. have had them there a long time themselves and by proxy. They have hunted me. Let them hunt; and whatever they find let them bring forth. I invite the scrutiny of friends, and I defy the malice of enemies. I scorn them.

Now, sir, there are a great many other things that I have to say not exactly in this immediate connection. I will go on and say a few of them now, and I may take some other occasion to allude to the others. It is useless for me to deny, what is apparent to everybody, that for three years I have been the chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs and this year I am not. There is a reason for it. The reason that has been assigned to me, and it is a satisfactory one, is that I am not "in accord with the Department." Sir, I wish that fact to be recorded. I wish that it may stand where every individual, however high or however low who has the least interest in the reputation of so humble an individual as myself, might know it. I am "not in accord" with them; and I will tell you one of the first things upon which I differed with them. It was in the beginning of this war, when the country was in a condition which we all remember, and which it is useless for me to undertake to delineate at the present time. When I saw the Secretary of the Navy employing his own brother-in-law to purchase ships, paying him a greater compensation than was paid to the President, Vice President, and all the members of the Cabinet combined; when I saw the Secretary of the Navy, without law and against law, putting his hands up to the elbows in the public Treasury and pouring it out without stint upon his brother-in-law, and paying him in a time of dire distress a compensation exceeding that of the President, Vice President, and all the members of the Cabinent combined, I was "not in accord" with him. I said some severe things-no, not severe; not half as severe as I ought to have done; God forgive me for my timidity on that occasion-but I said some things which several gentlemen have done me the honor to repeat once or twice every year since-the honorable Senator from Wisconsin, [Mr. DooLITTLE,] the honorable Senator from Oregon, [Mr. NESMITH, and others. I do not want to repeat them again, but if it were necessary I would repeat them. I have never repented of what I then did. I am glad that I did it.

There are one or two other things in regard to which I am "not in accord" with the Department. Every officer of the Navy up to within a short period who has distinguished himself, who has rendered gallant service to his country, who has illustrated the national fame on the deck of his vessel, has immediately fallen under the ban and displeasure of this administration of the Navy Department. There was Stringham at Hatteras, who let in the first rays of glory in this great

the official correspondence had with him, more than he was. What was that for?

Why, Mr. President, we have a remarkable genius at the head of the Navy Department; I do not mean the head; but I mean the man who allows his friends here to call him "the head," "the actual Secretary." I do not want to say anything about him or his history until he comes upon the stage of the Navy Department. I believe he had been in the Navy before, and had attained to the honorable position of a passed midshipman. He did not go any further. He was subsequently engaged in other employments. But about the time of the siege of Fort Sumter his genius beamed upon the world in one of the most absurd and ridiculous theories for relieving that fort I believe that was ever broached. It was thought at once that a man who had the brains to conceive such an absurd idea must of course be a genius, and we find him next practically first lord of the admiralty dispensing its honors and

its favors.

Pretty soon after he came here it became necessary-I have not the documents before me, but I am speaking of history-in the opinion of the Secretary to build some twenty iron-clads of a certain description. In the Committee on Naval Affairs, of which I was then a member, the subject of the Morgan purchase was brought up; and let me here say once for all, though I do not wish to shirk the reponsibility and I am willing to take all that belongs to me, it was not introduced by me, nor was the attention of the committee called to it by me, nor was the action which the committee took suggested by me; but still being so unfortunate as to be the chairman of the committee, it was hurled at me and I was willing to take it for I concurred in it entirely. We recommended by way of simple rebuke for this gross breach of public trust in the use of the funds of the Department, that the building of these iron-clads should be vested in the President of the United States instead of the Secretary of the Navy. You know the result, sir. We had several glorification speeches here, and we were asked, when Du Pont had covered the land with glory and Stringham had done so many great things, and our gallant sailors were winning such laurels, if that was a time to censure the Secretary of the Navy; and we let it go.

The twenty iron-clads were ordered to be built, and we waited some two years for the building of them. I introduced a resolution at the last session calling the attention of the committee on the conduct of the war to the character of these ironclads; and what was their history? This new genius that we had got into the Department, contemning the wisdom of the chief of the Bureau of Construction, (and I think he was right in that,) undertook to build something upon the sugges tions of his own genius; and I understand, though I do not know, but it is in the resolution of inquiry, that neither the Secretary, nor the head of the Bureau of Construction would assume any responsibility for the mode and manner and fashion in which these iron-clads were constructed. The subject was referred to the committee on the conduct of the war; and I should be glad if that committee would report upon it; but if they will not, let me tell you the result. The iron-clads were beautiful things. I think if they had had a fair chance they would have made more than nine knots an hour, but it would have been nine knots an hour toward the bottom of the sea. [Laughter.] They would not float; they were not worth the iron they were made of.

Well, sir, what then? The resources of genius are astonishing. It was then discovered that iron washtubs like these, taking off the turrets and the guns so that they would float, were just exactly the kind of vessels that Dahlgren wanted to take Charleston with; and so they went to work re| modeling and remodeling. What is the history

of that I do not know, but I apprehend I state it highly favorable to the genius who constructed them if I say that they are worth nearly as much as the old iron would be.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The morning hour having expired, it becomes the duty of the Chair to call up the unfinished business of Saturday.

Mr. HALE. Very well, sir; I will take another opportunity to-morrow to continue my remarks.

Mr. DAVIS. I will ask the consent of the Senate to amend the original proposition by substituting the term "transactions" for "corruptions," transactions" being a rather more parliamentary term.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator can so modify his resolution.

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, the pending question being on the motion of Mr. WILSON to recommit the resolution, together with all the amendments and proposed amendments, to the Committee on Military Affairs and the Militia.

Mr. WADE. Before we proceed further, I should like to have read some depositions that I have taken this morning on the subject of rebel barbarities. I hope to put that question beyond any doubt.

The Secretary read, as follows:

WASHINGTON, January 30, 1865. Mr. Albert D. Richardson sworn and examined. By the CHAIRMAN:

Question. I understand that you are one of the newspaper correspondents who lately escaped from Salisbury, North Carolina. Will you give to the committee a statement of such matters as you may deem important in relation to your experience as a prisoner, and what you have observed in reference to the treatment of our prisoners by the rebel authorities?

Answer. I am a Tribune correspondent, and was captured by the rebels May 3, 1863, at midnight, on a hay boat in the Mississippi river, opposite Vicksburg. After confinement in six different prisons, I was sent to Salisbury, North Carolina, February 3, 1864, and kept there until December 18, when I escaped.

For several months Salisbury was the most endurable rebel prison I had seen. The six hundred inmates exercised in the open air, were comparatively well fed, and kindly treated. But early in October ten thousand regular prisoners of war arrived there, and it immediately changed into a scene of cruelty and horrors. It was densely crowded; rations were cut down and issued very irregularly; friends outside could not even send in a plate of food. The prisoners suffered constantly and often intensely for want of water, bread, and shelter.

Many,

The rebel authorities placed all the prison hospitals under charge of my two journalistic comrades (Messrs. Brown and Davis) and myself. Our positions enabled us to obtain exact and minute information. Those who had to live or die on the prison ration always suffered from hunger. Very frequently one or more divisions of a thousand men would receive no rations for twenty-four hours: sometimes they were without a morsel of food for forty-eight hours. The few who had money would pay from five to twenty dollars, rebel currency, for a little loat of bread. Most prisoners traded the buttons from their blouses for food. though the weather was very inclement and snows frequent, sold coats from their backs and shoes from their feet, yet I was assured, on authority entirely trustworthy, that the great commissary warehouse near the prison was filled with provisions; that the commissary found it difficult to obtain storage for his flour and meal; that, when a subordinate asked the post commandant, Major John H. Gee, "Shall I give the prisoners full rations ?" he replied, "No, God damn them! give them quarter rations." I know, from personal observation, that corn and pork are very abundant in the region about Salisbury.

For several weeks the prisoners had no shelter whatever. They were all thinly clad; thousands were barefooted; not one in twenty had either overcoat or blanket; many hundreds were without shirts, and hundreds were without blouses. At last, one Sibley tent and one "A" tent were furnished to each squad of one hundred. With the closest crowding these sheltered about one half the prisoners. The rest burrowed in the ground, crept under buildings, or shivered through the nights in the open air, upon the frozen, muddy, or snowy soil. If the rebels, at the time of their capture, had not stolen their shelter tents, blankets, clothing, and money, they would have suffered little from cold. If the prison authorities had permitted a few hundred of them, either upon parole or under guard, to cut logs within two miles of the garrison, the prisoners would gladly have But built comfortable and ample barracks in one week. the commandant would never, in a densely wooded region, with the cars which brought it passing by the wall of the prison, even furnish half the fuel which was needed.

The hospitals were in a horrible condition. By erowding the patients thick as they could lie upon the floor they would contain six hundred inmates. They were always full to overflowing, with thousands seeking admission in vain. In the two largest wards, containing jointly about two hundred and fifty patients, there was no fire whatever; the others had small fire places, but were always cold. One ward, which held forty patients, was comparatively well furnished. In the other eight the sick and dying men lay upon the cold and usually naked floor, for the seauty straw

furnished us soon became too filthy and full of vermin for use. The authorities never supplied a single blanket, or quilt, or pillow, or bed for those eight wards. We could not procure even brooms to keep them clean, or cold water to wash the faces of the inmates. Pneumonia, catarrhi, and diarrhea were the prevailing diseases, but they were directly the result of hunger and exposure. More than half who entered the hospitals died in a very few days. The deceased, always without coffins, were loaded in a deadeart, piled upon each other like logs of wood, and so driven out to be thrown into a trench and covered with earth.

The rebel surgeons were generally humane and attentive; they endeavored to improve the shocking condition of the hospitals, but the Salisbury and Richmond authorities both disregarded their complaints and protests.

On November 25 many of the prisoners had been without food for forty-eight hours. Desperate from hunger, without any matured plan, a few of them said, "We may as well die in one way as another; let us break out of this horrible place." Some of them wrested the guns from a relief of fifteen rebél soldiers just entering the yard, killing two who resisted and wounding five or six. Others attempted to open the fence, but they had neither adequate tools nor concert of action. Before they could effect a breach every gun in the garrison was turned upon them; two field-pieces opened with grape and canister, and they dispersed to their quarters. Five minutes from the beginning, the attempt was quelled, and hardly a prisoner was to be seen in the yard. My own quarters were a hundred and fifty yards from the scene of the insurrection; in our vicinity there had been no participation at all in it, and yet for twenty minutes after it was ended the guards upon the fence on each side of us with deliberate aim fired into the tents upon helpless and innocent men. They killed in all fifteen and wounded about sixty, not one tenth of whom had taken part in the attempt, many of whom were ignorant of it until they heard the guns.

Deliberate, cold-blooded murders of peaceable men, where there was no pretense that they were breaking any prison regulation, were very frequent. On October 16, Lieutenant Davis, of the one hundred and fifty-fifth New York infantry, was thus shot dead by a guard who, the day before, had been openly swearing that he would kill some damned Yankee yet." November 6, Luther Conrad, of the forty-fifth Pennsylvania infantry, a delirious patient from one of the hospitals, was similarly murdered. November 30, a chimney in one of the hospitals fell down, crushing several men under it. Orders were immediately given to the guard to let no one approach the building, on the pretext that there might be another insurrection. Two patients from that hospital had not heard the order, and were returning to their quarters, when I saw a sentinel on the fence, within twenty feet of them, without challenging them, raise his piece and fire, killing one and wounding the other. Major Gee, at the time, was standing immediately beside the sentinel, who must have acted under his direct orders. December 16, Moses Smith, of the seventh Maryland (colored) infantry, while standing beside my quarters, searching for scraps of food from the sweepings of the cook house, was shot through the head. There were very many similar murders. I never knew any pretense ever made of investigation, or punishing them. Our lines were never safe for one moment. Any sentinel, at any hour of the day or night, could deliberately shoot down any prisoner, or into any group of prisoners, black or white, and he would not even be taken off his post for it.

Nearly every week an officer came into the prison to recruit for the rebel army. Sometimes he offered bounties; always he promised good clothing and abundant food. Between twelve and eighteen hundred of our men enlisted in two months. I was repeatedly asked by prisoners, Sometimes with tears in their eyes, "What shall I do? Í don't want to starve to death; I am growing weaker daily; if I stay here I shall follow my comrades to the hospital and dead-house; if I enlist, I may live until I can escape." I had charge of the clothing left by the dead, and reissued it to the living. I distributed articles of clothing to more than two thousand prisoners; but when I escaped there were fully five hundred without a shoe or a stocking, and more yet with no garment above the waist, except onc blouse or one shirt. Men came to me frequently, upon whom the rebels when they captured them had left nothing whatever except a light cotton shirt and a pair of light ragged cotton pantaloons.

The books of all the hospitals were kept and the daily consolidated reports made up under my supervision. During the two months between October 18 and December 18, the average number of prisoners was about seven thousand five hundred. The deaths for that period were fully fifteen hundred, or twenty percent. of the whole. I brought away the names of more than twelve hundred of the dead; some of the remainder were never reported; the others I could not procure on the day of my escape without exciting suspicion. As the men grew more and more debilitated, the percentage of deaths increased. I left about six thousand five hundred remaining in the garrison, December 18, and they were dying then at the average rate of twenty-eight a day, or thirteen per cent. a month.

The simple truth is that the rebel authorities are murdering our soldiers at Salisbury by cold and hunger, while they might easily supply them with ample food and fuel. They are doing this systematically, and I believe intentionally, for the purpose of either forcing our Government to an exchange or forcing our prisoners into the rebel army. I will also, with the consent of the committee, lay before them a sworn affidavit I obtained in Louisville, Kentucky, from one of the prisoners at Salisbury, North Carolina, who escaped at the time I did. It is as follows:

I am a mariner by profession, and reside at Mystic River, Connecticut; was master of the bark Texana, captured and burned by the rebels near the mouth of the Mississippi river June 10, 1863; was confined in Richmond, Virginia, until the 20th of July, 1864, when I was sent to the mili tary prison at Salisbury, North Carolina, and kept there until my escape on the 18th of December last. After the transfer of prisoners of war to Salisbury in October last I mingled with them constantly, and was familiar with their treatment in all respects. For a month before my escape

I was ward master of one of the largest hospitals in the prison. The prisoners were in a most pitiable condition. They all, without exception, and at all times, suffered greatly for want of food, the most of them for want of clothing, and a large portion of them for want of shelter. Very few out of the whole number were in good health, and the deaths were very numerous. Mine was called a ward for convalescents. It usually contained from a hundred to a hundred and twenty inmates. The deaths averaged fully six per day, and sometimes reached ten and twelve. The sickness and mortality were directly traceable to hunger, exposure, and cold. I can give no just idea in this brief statement of the horrors of the prison and hospitals and the general treatment of the prisoners. It is barbarous beyond anything I ever before saw or heard of. I believe it is the deliberate intention of the rebel authori ties to leave the prisoners no alternative between freezing and starvation or enlistment in the rebel army. THOMAS E. WOLFE. Subscribed and sworn to before me, this 17th day of January, 1865. J. H. CLEMENT, Justice of the Peace, Jefferson County.

.

WASHINGTON, January 30, 1865.

Mr. Junius Henri Browne sworn and examined. By the CHAIRMAN: Question. I understand that you were a prisoner at Salisbury, North Carolina, and escaped at the same time Mr. Richardson, who has just testified, made his escape. You have heard his testimony. Will you state whether you concur with him in what he has stated, and also give such additional statements as you may deem necessary?

Answer. I concur with Mr. Richardson in all his statements, so far as the facts to which they relate came to my knowledge. In addition to what he has said, I would further state that I am a journalist by profession; have been since the breaking out of the war an Army correspondent of the New York Tribune; was captured in that capacity in the middle of the Mississippi river while running the batteries of Vicksburg on the night of May 3, 1863, our expedition having been destroyed by the rebel siege guns. I was held prisoner some twenty months, having, in that time, been an occupaut of seven southern prisons, the last being the Salisbury, North Carolina, penitentiary, where I was kept with my colaborer, Albert D. Richardson, for almost eleven months, making my escape therefrom in his company on the night of December 18, 1864.

The treatment of our prisoners was bad enough everywhere; but it was so barbarous and inhuman at Salisbury for two months previous to my escape that I regard the exposure thereof a duty I owe to the thousands who still remain there. Early in October, from nine to ten thousand of our enlisted men were sent to Salisbury from Richmond and other points; and as they had been robbed of their clothing and blankets, and received very little food or shelter, the mortality among them became almost imme diately wide-spread and alarming.

Every tenement within the prison limits was converted into a hospital, and I offered my services as medical dispenser and assistant to the rebel surgeons. I soon made daily visits to the sick, who could not obtain admission to the overcrowded hospitals, lying in tents on the ground without covering, and with very seant raiment, and living in holes they had dug in the earth, or under buildings where they had crept for protection from the cold rains, the snow, and the biting winds, and performed such poor service as lay in my limited power. Their condition was distressing in the extreme. They had no means of keeping warm ex cept by fires of very green wood that filled the rude shelters with bitter smoke, and which, added to the carbonic acidized atmosphere from so many breaths, and the emanations from unwholesome and unwashed bodies, packed together like figs, entirely poisoned the air, and destroyed the health

of almost all who inhaled it.

The sickness and mortality in those outside quarters, as well as elsewhere, continually increased, and the marvel was that any one survived. Starved and freezing, with hardly water enough to drink, much less to wash their persons or the scant clothes they wore, the poor fellows haturally and necessarily despaired, and not a few of them were anxious to die to escape from the slow torture of their situation.

I had the best means of knowing; and it is my firmest belief that out of eight or nine thousand prisoners at Salisbury there were not at any time five hundred of them in sound health-an opinion in which all the rebel surgeons to whom I expressed it fully coincided.

The deaths during the last two months I passed at Salisbury ranged from twenty-five to forty-five per day, diarrhea, dysentery, catarrh, pneumonia, and typhoid feverall engendered by scarcity of food, shelter, and raimentbeing the principal diseases. I have no doubt if the prisoners had been properly treated-as prisoners of war in the North are to the best of my knowledge and information treated the mortality in Salisbury would not have been more than one eighth of what it was, a view in which the rebel surgeons with whom I talked fully concurred.

The capacity of the so-called hospitals, nine in number, which were without any of the comforts or concomitants of those institutions, was not to the fullest over five or six hundred patients; and the number of prisoners who ought to have been inmates thereof was at least as many thousand. The hospitals merely afforded some protection from the cold and rain, and furnished rather better rations than were given to the men who were supposed by a transparent fiction to be in good health. Hardly any one would go to the hospitals so long as he could help himself, or induce any one to help him, the daily spectacle of ghastly and hideous corpses going therefrom to the dead-house filling all beholders with horror, and inducing the soldiers to believe that all who entered those filthy and pestiferous tenements were doomed.

The prison limits at Salisbury revealed a scene of wretchedness, squalor, despair, and suffering such as I-accustomed as I am to Army life and the horrors of military hospitals and battle-fields-had never before witnessed. The prison authoritics-especially after the massacre attending

the attempted outbreak of November 25-appeared not only indifferent to the iniserable condition of the men, but to be actuated by a brutality and malignity toward them that I could not reconcile with my ideas of human nature. They permitted the guards to shoot prisoners whenever they pleased, without the least pretext or explanation; and no man's life was safe for a day or an hour. The air was full of pain and pestilence, and all the horrors of imagined hells seemed realized in that most wretched place, of which shall never think without a shudder and an augmented faith in the naturally abhorrent doctrine of total depravity.

Mr. HARLAN. In this connection I ask to have read at the desk an official paper signed by V. Bossieux, lieutenant and acting adjutant in the rebel service, addressed to Sergeant John Wilkin, sergeant in charge of a confederate States military hospital at Belle Isle, Richmond. It is a very brief document. It was handed to me this morning by Colonel Boyd, who is serving on General Schofield's staff, and was handed to him by Lieutenant Robinson, of the thirty-fourth Illinois volunteers, serving on Colonel Mitchell's staff, commanding a brigade in the fourteenth Army corps.

Both of these officers have been a long time prisoners at Richmond, on this island. One of them was appointed by the rebel authorities as superintendent for the distribution of company stores; the other, Lieutenant Robinson, was appointed a clerk at headquarters, and assigned to the duty of filing papers that came in to the superintending sergeant. Of course he was compelled to read the papers in order to make proper indorsements on filing them. Among them he read this one, and deeming it important that something official should come to the notice of the Government here of the spirit that prompted those officers, he sewed it up in the inner lining of his blouse, and in this way preserved it when he made his escape.

The VICE PRESIDENT. If there be no objection, the paper will be read.

Mr. FOSTER. Is it in the handwriting of the man?

Mr. HARLAN. Colonel Boyd knows it to be in the handwriting of the officer who purports to have signed it; there is a memorandum showing it to be such.

The Secretary read, as follows:

BELL ISLAND Nov 15 63 SIR I am happ to inform you that we have sent Moal Hunting 61 Yankees, three shot and one Drowned. those shot and Drowned I dont think Dr Ingraham can take Eny Crdt for, and think they should be Credt to me. the rest Can be Credt to the Dr.

Wee only Planted one from 20 June to 1st Sepr I think wee have been Making up for Lost time Very Respectfully Your Obt Servt

V BOSSIEUX Lt & Act Agt to Sergt Jons WILKIN Sergt in charge C. S. Mil. Hos. Mr. WILKINSON. Mr. President, I have no desire to prolong this debate, or to occupy the time of the Senate in further discussing the merits of this resolution. Much time has already been expended in the argument of the question; and the whole subject of adopting retaliatory measures in order to enforce more humane treatment of our Union soldiers who are held by the rebels as prisoners of war has been so ably treated on both sides that it is idle for me to attempt further to discuss it. If any argument were necessary, the papers which have been read here this morning are enough to satisfy any one of the correctness and the propriety of adopting this proposition. But as I intend to support this resolution, and as it has been assailed with great power and earnestness by many upon this floor for whom I entertain the most profound respect, and with whom I have generally acted on all great measures pertaining to this war, I deem it proper that I should state the reasons which will govern me in the vote I am about to give.

If I understand correctly the argument of those who oppose this measure, it is this: the rebel authorities, they tell us, have treated and are still treating our soldiers held by them as prisoners of war in the most inhuman manner. They have deprived them of sufficient food and clothing to protect them from death; and in consequence of their cruel and inhuman treatment of these brave men more than thirty thousand have already gone to their graves. Then they tell us that this action of the rebels exhibits a refinement of tyranny and barbarism which this great nation cannot adopt or emulate; we are warned against it; we are told that we cannot take a step so directly at variance with every principle of Christianity,

and of international law. But, sir, it appears to me that this whole argument is based upon the assumption that if the Government of the United States act upon the suggestions contained in this resolution we shall be obliged to take thirty thousand of their men out of our prisons and starve them to death, because they have starved thirty thousand of our men to death. If this be so, I can see the force of the argument of honorable Senators against this proposition; but I do not so understand it. I do not understand that this proposition would require the Government of the United States to punish innocent men because wicked men have punished our soldiers, for the mere purpose of retaliation alone; but I suppose this measure of retaliation is adopted, like all other measures of the kind, in order to force these barbarians in the future to treat our men with more kindness and humanity than they have done in the past. I do not suppose that when the Government took Colonel Lee, if you please, and another man, and then informed Jefferson Davis that if he shot the two captains who had been drawn by lot in Richmond, they would be shot, that measure was adopted in any spirit of revenge toward those two perhaps gallant and generous and respectable officers; but it was done for the purpose of preventing a great crime and barbarity on the part of the rebel government, and for that alone; and it had the desired effect. There was no inhumanity in it.

Now, sir, if we adopt this measure we adopt it as an act of self-defense alone, as a great necessity in order to prevent the further barbarity of the rebel government and authorities against our soldiers. Why, sir, the horrid nature of their treatment of our prisoners has been detailed if the testimony read to-day, and if we stand here as we have stood for the last eighteen months while this murder has been going on, while this starvation has been going on, and while our men have been going down to their graves at the rate, in some instances, of four or five thousand a month, in my judgment we are recreant to every duty that we owe to our country and to its brave defenders. At Andersonville alone, in the months of July and August, out of thirty-five thousand prisoners, eight thousand died from starvation and from exposure.

I

Now, I can say to the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. SUMNER] that I do not vote for this resolution for the purpose of starving eight thousand men as a punishment for the starvation of those eight thousand who died in July and August, but I would select out their officers from the rebel prisoners, and I would notify the rebel government thus: "It is for you to determine the question; if you starve our men, remember that you starve your own; and if ours must go down to their graves under this terrible torture, so your men must follow likewise." We do not wish to see these things transpire in our country. The advocates of this proposition urge it in no spirit of vengePan ce toward these men, but simply for the protection of our own friends, our own soldiers. think I can see a marked distinction between the case that is presented by the honorable Senator from Massachusetts and other gentlemen on the other side, a marked distinction between punishing men out of a spirit of revenge and adopting a policy such as this resolution contemplates, of selecting a certain number of men and leaving it for the rebel authorities to determine what shall be the fate of their men as well as of ours. We put them upon the same footing that our men are placed, and we leave the whole question of life or death, the whole question of civilization or barbarity, the whole question of suffering and of death, with the rebel authorities themselves. We propose to say to them: "If you wish to carry out this barbarous and inhuman treatment to our soldiers held by you, we regret it; we have begged of you not to do it; we have tried for a year and a half to induce you to permit us to feed our prisoners; you have refused to do it, and now this issue is left with you.'

suffering? There is no act so terrible that he would not be justified in committing in order to relieve himself from this terrible punishment. And if it is justifiable in an individual to relieve himself from such a condition of things, I ask whether it is not right for a great Government, when thirty thousand of its men have already gone down to their graves under the influences of this cruel and inhuman treatment, to act according to the necessity of the case.

Mr. President, as was said the other day on this floor, the people of the United States owe everything to these men. They are the defenders of this Government. They are the men who have left pleasant homes and sacrificed all the endearments of life in order to defend and uphold this Government. For eighteen months they have been subjected to this terrible brutality of the enemy. They have looked to Congress; they have looked in vain to the executive department of the Government, and their families at home have been looking to the Government for the protection which this resolution contemplates. They know very well that there is power in the Government to release them by force from these prisonhouses. They know very well that we are holding seventy-eight thousand rebel prisoners in our hands who are living in comparative luxury at the North. All this they know, and they think it strange indeed that Congress and the Executive Government will sit by and see these men re||ceiving daily many articles which may be classed among the delicacies of life, while they themselves are in a suffering and starving condition in southern prison-houses. Our prisoners know this; and do you suppose that they will be indifferent while we remain quiet here, and open not our mouths for fear of violating some principle of international law or some refined principle of the Christian religion-not a very common-sense idea of the Christian religion, as the Senator from Iowa [Mr. HARLAN] said the other day; but if from some refined notion of that religion we are to sit here and do nothing while our men starve by the thousand and go down daily to their graves from cruelty and neglect, shall we not be held answerable?

Sir, I do not suppose there is a man here who entertains an unkind feeling toward any of the rebel prisoners in our hands. I do not suppose there is a Christian gentleman in the United States who wishes, for the mere purpose of punishment alone, to inflict this barbarity upon any rebel soldier. I certainly do not; but I say that it is better sometimes that men should be sacrificed than that a great wrong should be permitted, such as is exhibited by the conduct of the rebel authorities toward our prisoners in their hands. As I said before, I support this resolution as a measure of self-defense, as a great measure of necessity; and where necessity exists it overrides all other laws.

Who can read these affidavits, who can read that rebel paper which was handed in by the Senator from lowa, and not think that this necessity is such as to require any act and every act on the part of this Government which may be resorted to in order to stop this cruelty? If I understand correctly the purport of this resolution and its whole intent and meaning, it is, that we shall inform the rebel authorities that from this time onward, henceforth, as long as they treat our men in this way, we will treat their own men in the same way. The issue is with them and not with

us.

We leave it for them to say whether this wholesale starvation and suffering shall go on, or whether it shall terminate at once.

For this reason, Mr. President, I support the resolution.

The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. POMEROY in the chair.) The question is on the motion of the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. WILSON] to recommit the joint resolution, with the various amendments proposed, to the Committee on Military Affairs and the Militia.

Mr. HENDRICKS. On that motion I call for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. RICHARDSON. I have felt very unwill-

As I said before, I regard this as a great necessity; and, sir, there are times in the affairs of men when the necessity of the case requires them to resort to measures which, under other circum-ing to participate in this debate. Gentlemen of stances, would have seemed abhorrent to them. What will an individual not do in such an extremity as this? What would not one of these starved prisoners do to relieve himself from this

great experience and learning have debated the question so fully that it would seem to be unnecessary for me to say anything, but I desire to assign as briefly as I can the reasons for the course

which I shall deem it my duty to take in reference to this question.

That we may avoid all controversy on some points, I state at once that I think the rebels have treated our soldiers who have been prisoners in their hands with great barbarity. That point I do not propose to discuss. Starting from that point, however, I think this is a question over which the military authorities have ample and sufficient power. On turning to the legislation of Congress, I apprehend you will find but a single precedent of retaliation by legislation. Mr. WADE. Two.

Mr. RICHARDSON. When the act of 1799 was passed, we were not at war; armies were not in the field as belligerents though it is true war was threatened and was impending, but it did not occur. In that case, probably, the action of Congress was necessary. But in this case, what power does this action of Congress propose to confer upon the military authorities? None. They have ample power to retaliate wherever the laws of war justify it. General Grant did not hesitate to notify the rebel commander that he would place their prisoners in the front of battle when our prisoners were so placed by them. I apprehend that if you will turn to the precedents you will find that our generals in the field have exercised the power in every instance where they deemed it necessary.

Now, Mr. President, I am one of those who do not believe that it becomes this nation to resort to all the means that may be resorted to by the Power with which we may be at war. We have recently had an Indian war. Indians burn at the stake the prisoners whom they capture. Would this Congress or this country be justified in subjecting prisoners captured from them to the same treatment? Do we not tarnish our reputation and our fame when we resort to the same barbarities that those with whom we are at war practice?

Why not leave this question with our commanders in the field and with the President of the United States? Do Senators say that Congress must necessarily act in this case as it did in 1813? I suppose the pretext under which the action of 1813 was had was that Mr. Madison was opposed to adding to the cruelties of war. While this resolution can confer no additional power on the executive authorities, because all the power that is necessary for the purpose is now in the hands of your commanding generals and your President, the Congress of the United States is called upon to adopt, what? Measures that may place us in a situation subjecting our conduct to the criticism, and the just criticism, of the entire civilized world.

I can see no reason why we should pass this resolution. I know of no good reason that has been assigned. I repeat, the issue is not upon the fact of barbarities having been committed by the rebels; that is out of the question; the fact is too clearly established to be discussed. The question is simply and purely whether we, in this age of the world, will place ourselves upon the ground that we mean to resort to the same barbarities which may be practiced by any people with whom we are at war. While such a resolution can accomplish no good, it may do infinite mischief. It may do great harm and it can have no good result. I apprehend that our commanders in the field and the President of the United States who is Commander-in-Chief, will look into this matter and attend to it better than Congress can.

I am anxious to do anything that may tend to the amelioration of the condition of our prisoners in the hands of the enemy. I cannot tell why it is that prisoners are not exchanged when, as I understand, we have some seventy thousand prisoners in our hands while the enemy has only about thirty thousand of ours. It would be better to give the enemy two to one in the way of exchange. It certainly would be better to urge upon those who have the control of this matter to exchange all men as rapidly as possible, rather than to pass a resolution or an act of Congress that confers no additional power and can do no good. The condition of prisoners of war at all times and under all circumstances is hard. If the enemy does for our soldiers the best that he can do, their fate is a hard one while they are prisoners. The mode of life in the South is different from ours. The soldiers in our service are better fed and cared for than any other soldiers upon the