That was the question propounded to him. His answer was: "Answer. There never has been any such reason as that. That has been a reason for making exchanges. I will confess that if our men who are prisoners in the South were really well taken care of, suffering nothing except a little privation of liberty, then, in a military point of view, it would not be good policy for us to exchange, because every man they get back is forced right into the army once, while that is not the case with our pris. oners when we receive them; in fact, the half of our returned prisoners will never go into the army again, and none of them will until after they have had a furlough of thirty or sixty days. Still, the fact of their suffering as they do is a reason for making this exchange as rapidly as possible. t "Q. And never has been a reason for not making the exchange? "A. It never has. Exchanges having been suspended by reason of disagreement on the part of agents of exchange on both sides before I came into command of the armies of the United States; and it then being near the opening of the spring campaign I did not deem it advisable or just to the men who had to fight our battles to re-enforce the enemy with thirty or forty thousand disciplined troops at that time. An immediate resumption of exchanges would have had that effect without giving us corresponding benefits. The suffering said to exist among our prisoners South was a powerful argument against the course pursued, and so I felt it." I There is no disputing the fact that, with the knowledge that his prisoners were suffering in the South, he insisted that the exchange should not be renewed, because it would increase the military power of the enemy. Now that may have been a good military reason. do not quote it for the purpose of reflecting upon General Grant in the slightest. I am giving the facts of history. * * * I give you the facts, and I have given you General Grant's interpretation of those facts. Let the world judge. * * * * * * * * Against whom does the charge lie, if there are to be accusations of any, for the horrors of Anderson, ille? Mr. BRIGHT. What was the percentage of deaths in the prisons? Mr. HILL. I have already given it. I have proved also that, with all the horrors at Andersonville, * * *greater sufferings occurred in the prisons where Confederate soldiers were confined, and that the percentage of death was 3 per cent. greater among Confederate troops in Federal hands than among Federal soldiers held by the Confederates. And I need not state the contrast between the needy Confederacy and the abundance of Federal supplies and resources. * * Sir, if any man will reflect a moment he will see that there was reason why the Confederate government should desire exchange of prisoners. It was scarce of food, pinched for clothing, closed up with a blockade of its ports; it needed troops; its ranks were thinning. Now, Mr. Speaker, it is proper that I should read one or two sentences from the man who has been arraigned as the v lest murderer in history. After the battles around Richmond, in which McClellan was defeated, some ten thousand prisoners fell into the hands of the Confederacy. Victory had perched upon its standard, and the rejoicing naturally following victory was heard in the ranks of the Confederate army. Mr. Davis went out to make a gratulatory speech. Now, gentlemen of the House, gentlemen of the other side, if you are willing to do justice, let me simply call your attention to the words of this man * * * * * * * * that then fell from his lips in the hour of victory. Speaking to the soldiers, he said: "You are fighting for all that is dearest to man, and though opposed to a foe who disregards many of the usages of civilized war, your humanity to the wounded and the prisoners was a fit and crowning glory of your valor." * The gentleman from Maine yesterday introduced the Richmond Examiner as a witness in his behalf. Now, it is a rule of law that a man cannot impeach his own witness. It is true that the Examiner hated Mr. Davis with a cordial hatred. The gentleman could not have introduced the testimony of perhaps a bitterer foe to Mr. Davis. Why did it hate him? Here are its reasons: The chivalry and humanity of Jefferson Davis will inevitably ruin the Confederacy." That is your witness, and the witness is worthy of your cause. *** That is not all. In the same paper it says: "The enemy have gone from one unmanly cruelty to another. Encouraged by their impunity till they are now and have for some time been inflicting on the people of this country the worst horrors of barbarous and uncivilized war." Yet in spite of all this the Examiner alleged "Mr. Davis in his dealing with the enemy was as gentle as a sucking dove." * * * * * * * I do no doubt that I am the bearer of unweland his party. He says that there are Confedcome messages to the gentleman from Maine erates in this body, and that they are going to combine with a few from the North for the purpose of controlling this Government. If one were to listen to the gentlemen on the other side he would be in doubt whether they rejoiced more when the South left the Union, or regretted most when the South came back to the Union that their fathers helped to form, and to which they will forever hereafter contribute as much of patriotic ardor, of noble devotion, and of willing sacrifice as the constituents of the gentleman from Maine. O, Mr. Speaker, why cannot gentlemen on the other side rise to the height of this great argument of patriotism? Is the bosom of the country always to be torn with this miserable sectional debate whenever a Presidential election is pending? To that great debate of half a century before secession there were left no adjourned questions. The victory of the North was absolute; and God knows the submission of the South was complete. But, sir, we have recovered from the humiliation of defeat, and we come here among you and we ask you to give us the greetings accorded to brothers by brothers. Sir, my message is this: There are no Confederates in this House; there are now no Confederates anywhere; there are no Confederate schemes, ambitions, hopes, desires, or purposes here. But the South is here, and here she intends to remain. [Enthusiastic applause.] Go on and pass your qualifying acts, trample upon the Constitution you have sworn to support, abnegate the pledges of your fathers, incite rage upon our people, and multiply your infidelities until they shall be like the stars of heaven or the sands of the seashore, without number; but know this, for all your iniquities the South will never again seek a remedy in the madness of another secession. [Continued applause.] We are here; we are in the house of our fathers, our brothers are our companions, and we are at home to stay, thank God. [Much applause.] 1ལྷ3: fanaticism that never kept a pledge nor obeyed a law. The South did seek to leave the association of those who, she believed, would not keep fidelity to their covenants; the South sought to go to herself; but, so far from having lost our fidelity to the Constitution which our fathers made, when we sought to go, we hugged that Constitution to our bosoms and carried it with us. * * * * * * Sir, we did the Union one great wrong. The Union never wronged the South; but we of the South did to the Union one great wrong; and we come, as far as we can, to repair it. We wronged the Union grievously when we AMNESTY-MR. HILL, GEORGIA. MR. GARFIELD: Mr. SPEAKER, no gentleman on this floor can regret more sincerely than I do the course that the debate has taken, especially that portion which occurred yesterday. To one who reads the report of that discussion it would be difficult to discover THE REAL QUESTION AT ISSUE A gentleman on the other side of the House, a few days ago, introduced a proposition in the form of a bill to grant amnesty to the remaining persons who are not yet relieved of their political disabilities under the Constitution. That is a plain proposition for practical legislation. It is a very imand to learn from the RECORD itself the scope portant proposition. It is a proposition to and character of the pending measure. I re- finish and complete forever the work of exegret that neither the speech of the gentleman cuting one of the great clauses of the Confrom New York [Mr. Cox] nor that of the stitution of our country. When that bill gentleman from Georgia [Mr. HILL] has yet shall have become a law, a large portion of appeared in the RECORD. I should prefer to the fourteenth amendment will have ceased quote from the full report, but, replying to be an operative clause of the Constitution. now, I must quote them as their speeches Whenever so great and important a matter appeared in the public journals of yesterday is proposed a deliberative body should bring and to-day. But they are here, and can to its consideration the fullest and most correct any inaccuracy of quotation. Any one who reads their speeches would not suspect that they were debating a simple proposition to relieve some citizens of political and legal disabilities incurred during the late war. For example, had I been a casual reader and not a listener, I should say that the chief proposition yesterday was an arraignment of the administration of this Government during the last fifteen years. If I had been called upon to pick out those declarations in the speech of the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. HILL] which embody the topic of debate, I should have said they were these: The history of the last fifteen years is yet fresh in the minds of the world. It is useless to speak of the grace and magnanimity of the Republican party. With the master enslaved, with intelligence disfranchised, with society disordered, with States subverted, with Legislatures dispersed, people cannot afford to talk of grace and magnanimity. If that is grace and magnanimity, I pray God to spare the country in the future from such virtues. I should say that the propositions and arguments arrayed around that paragraph were the center and circumference of his theme. Let me then in a few words try to recall the House to the actual topic of this debate. serious examination. But what was proposed in this case? Not to deliberate, not to amend, not even to refer to a committee for the ordinary consideration given even to a proposition to repeal the tax on matches. No reference to anybody; but a member of the House, of his own motion and at his own discretion, proposes to launch that proposition into the House, refusing the privilege of amendment and the right to debate, except as it might come from his courtesy, and pass it, declaring, as he does so, the time has come to do justice to an oppressed people. Under circumstances like these, Mr. Speaker, a large number of gentlemen on this floor felt they had a right, under the rules of the House and in the forum of justice and fair dealing, an undoubted right to deliberate on the proposition; that it should be Every open for amendment and debate. expression on this side of the House showed that we were earnestly in favor of so closing this last act in the drama of war so far as it relates to disabilities; that it should be closed forever CLOSED IN GOOD FAITH and with good feeling. We deeply regretted that the attempt was made to cut us off from deliberation and amendment, and we therefore threw ourselves back upon our rights; and it is by virtue of those rights that we debate this question to-day. The gentleman from Maine [Mr. BLAINE] offered a criticism on the bill. He suggested that there were two points in which it ought to be changed. One was that the seven hundred and fifty persons who are still forbidden to hold office under the Constitution should have free and absolute amnesty whenever they declare by taking the oath of allegiance in open court that they want it; that, like God's mercy and perfect pardon, amnesty should be granted by asking for it. It was suggested that we should follow the rule that we have followed hitherto in all cases similarly situated. That was the first point. Another point was suggested, that there is one person, and only one, who ought to be excepted from the operation of the proposed law. Now that may have been wise or it may have been unwise, as a matter of statesmanship, but it was a question deserving debate, deliberation, and answer. Leaving out of sight for the moment the question of slavery, which evoked so much passion, and which was the producing cause The proposition of the gentleman from of the late war, there were still two opposing Pennsylvania [Mr. RANDALL] is an affirma- political theories which met in conflict. tive one, and should be supported by affirma- Most of the Southern statesmen believed tive reasons. If we allege any reason against, that their first obedience was due to their we ought to be answered. Two allegations State. We believed that the allegiance of have been made: first, that there ought to an American citizen was due to the National be an oath of allegiance before a court; and, Government, not by the way of a State Capisecond, that one man ought to be excepted. tal, but in a direct line from his own heart How have these propositions been met? to the Government of the Union. Now, How have these suggestions been answered? that question was submitted to the dreadful The first response was a speech full of bril- arbitrament of war, to the court of last reliant wit and personalities. It was like jok-sort-a court from which there is no appeal, ing at a funeral to joke on such an occasion. They have been answered, in the second place, by the speech of yesterday, which arraigns not the Republican party alone, but arraigns twenty-five millions of people, arraigns the history of the Republic for fifteen years, arraigns everything that is glorious in its record and high and worthy in its achievement. I was deeply pained that such an arraignment should have been made on such a subject. If the gentleman had confined himself to a reply to the argument which had been offered to show why the exception should be made, it would have been a response pertinent to the subject-matter in controversy. While I occupy the attention of the House, I shall endeavor to confine myself to the question and to the speech of the gentleman from Georgia, [Mr. HILL.] Let me say in the outset that, so far as I am personally concerned, I have never voted against any proposition to grant amnesty to any human being who has asked for it at the bar of the House. Furthermore, I appeal to gentlemen on the other side who have been and to which all other powers must bow. In such a case, a regard to the condition of Union soldiers who have until within a few days been prisoners of war at Richmond, and would respectfully request that your committee immediately proceed to Annapolis to take testimony there tion of those who have been returned from and examine with their own eyes the condirebel captivity. The enormity of the crime for the last several months is not known or realized by our people, and cannot but fill with horror the civilized world when the facts are fully revealed. There appears to have been a deliberate system of savage and barbarous treatment and starvation, the result of which will be that few, if any, of the prisoners that have been in their hands during the past winter will ever again be in a condition to render any service or even to enjoy life. Your obedient servant, I do not object to Jefferson Davis because, he was a conspicuous leader. Whatever we may believe theologically, I do not believe in the doctrine of vicarious atonement in politics. Jefferson Davis was no more guilty for taking up arms than any other man who went into the rebellion with equal intelli-committed by the rebels toward our prisoners gence. But this is the question: In the high court of war did he practice according to its well-known laws-the laws of nations? Did he, in appealing to war, obey the laws of war; or did he so violate those laws that justice to those who suffered at his hands demands that he be not permitted to come back to his old privileges in the Union? That is the whole question; and it is as plain and fair a question for deliberation as was ever debated in this House. Now, I wish we could discuss it without any passion-without passionate thoughts, such as we heard yesterday. The words were eloquent, for the gentleman from Georgia well knows how to utter passionate thoughts with all the grace and eloquence of speech. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. HON. B. F. WADE, Chairman of Joint Committee on Conduct of the War. mittee of the two Houses, known as the On the receipt of this letter a joint comCommittee on the Conduct of the War, was sent to Annapolis, to hold their sessions in the presence of the thousands of returned prisoners who had just been landed, and as the result of their deliberations, and after What answer has been made to the allega- taking testimony on the spot from officers tions of the gentleman from Maine to the reaand men who had just returned, they resons he offered why a full amnesty should ported not only their opinions, but the tesnot be offered to Jefferson Davis? The gen- timony in full, in the volume which I hold tleman from Georgia denies, and so also ap-in my hand. That committee was composed of parently did the gentleman from New York. [Mr Gox,] the authenticity of THE CHARGES OF ATROCITIES AT ANDERSONVILLE. REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS, and its report is unanimous. The Democrats members of the Senate and House. One of on the committee were among the foremost them was Mr. Odell, of New York, a gentleman not now living, who was one of the best men that party has had on the door of this House since I have been a member. Another was Senator Harding, of Oregon. That committee made an elaborate report, from which I will read a few paragraphs: The gentleman from New York [Mr. Cox] spoke of the committee from whose report the gentleman from Maine [Mr. BLAINE] read as a "humbug committee. The gentleman from Georgia [Mr. HILL] spoke of it as an ex parte and partisan committee-a committee that wrote and reported out of its fury and rage. Now, Mr. Speaker, I am unwilling that this case shall turn upon the mere anthority of a committee, however high; but I want to say now, without arguing the merits, that whether the charge was just or unjust, it was a charge made by the Government of the United States. I mean to placement which has resulted in reducing many the responsibility of the charges on the high ground of the authority of the Government, which no self-respecting man can call trivial and unworthy of his serious attention. On the 4th day of May, 1864, the Secretary of War, speaking by the authority of the executive department of the National Government, addressed a communication to a committee of Congress, which I will read. It is found in a volume of reports of committees of the first session of the Thirtyeighth Congress, volume 1, 1863-64, and is as follows: WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON CITY, May 4, 1864. SIR: I have the honor to submit to you a report made to this Department by Colonel Hoffman, Commissary General of Prisoners, in doubt a determination on the part of the rebel The evidence proves beyond all manner of authorities, deliberately and persistently practiced for a long time past, to subject those of our soldiers who have been so unfortunate as to fall in their hands to a system of treat con of those who have survived and been It will be observed from the testimony that all the witnesses who testify upon that point state that the treatment they received while, turn to the Wirz trial, and read from it only confined at Columbia, South Carolina, Dalton, such authorities as the gentleman from Georgia, and other places, was far more humane than that they received at Richmond, Georgia recognizes where the authorities of the so-called Confederacy were congregated, and where the power existed, had the inclination not been want; ing, to reform those abuses and secure to the prisoners they held some treatment that would bear a public comparison to that accorded by our authorities to the prisoners in our custody. Your committee, therefore, are constrained to say that they can hardly avoid the conclusion expressed by so many of our released soldiers, that the inbuman practices herein referred to are the result of a determination on the part of the rebel authorities to reduce our soldiers in their power by privation of food and clothing and by exposure to such a condition that those who may survive shall never recover so as to be able to render any effective service in the field. I am not now discussing the merits of the charge at all, but am showing that such is, and for twelve years has continued to be, the authoritative official charge of the executive department of the Government and of á joint committee of the two Houses. So much for the responsible character of the charge. To this I should add that this charge is believed to be true by a great majority of the people whom we represent on this floor. I now inquire is this charge true? The gentleman from Georgia denies generally the charge that atrocities were practiced upon our prisoners at Andersonville. He makes a general denial, and asserts that Mr. Davis did observe THE HUMANE RULES OF MODERN WARFARE. As a proof, he quotes the general order issued by the President of the Confederate Government under which the prison was to be established, an order providing that it should be located on healthy ground, where there was an abundance of good water, and trees for healthful and grateful shade. That is a perfect answer so far as it goes. But I ask how that order was executed? To whose hands was committed the work of building the Andersonville prison? To the hands of General Winder, an intimate and favorite friend of Mr. Davis, And who was General Winder? He was a man of whom the Richmond Examiner used these words the day he took his departure from Richmond to assume command of the proposed prison: Thank God that Richmond is at last rid of old Winder. God have mercy upon those to whom he has been sent! He was, as the testimony in the Wirz trial shows, the special and intimate friend of Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, by whom he was detailed on this business, and detailed with such a send-off as I have read you from a paper of his own city warmly in the interest of the rebel cause. What next? How did General Winder execute the order after he went there? I OFFICERS OF THE REBEL ARMY. The gentleman stated yesterday that there was nothing in this book connecting the head of the Confederate Government with the Andersonville atrocities. Before I am through we will see. On the 5th day of January, 1864, a report was made by D. T. Chandler, a lieutenant colonel of the Confederate army. This report was offered in evidence in the Wirz trial, and Colonel Chandler was himself a witness at that trial, and swears that the report is genuine. I quote from page 224: ANDERSON, January 5, 1864. tions of the 25th ultimo, carefully inspected COLONEL: Having, in obedience to instructhe prison for Federal prisoners of war and post at this place, I respectfully submit the following report: The Federal prisoners of war are confined within a stockade fifteen feet high, of roughly hewn pine logs about eight inches in diameter, cluding the recent extension, an area of five inserted five feet into the ground, inclosing, inhundred and forty by two hundred and sixty yards. A railing round the inside of the stockade, and about twenty feet from it, constitutes the "dead line," beyond which the prisoners are not allowed to pass, and about three inclosure are so marshy as to be at present and one-fourth acres near the center of the unfit for occupation, reducing the available present area to about twenty-three and onehalf acres, which gives somewhat less than six square feet to each prisoner. Even this is being constantly reduced by the additions to their number. A small stream passing from west to east through the inclosure, at about one hundred and fifty yards from its southern limit, furnishes the only water for washing accessible to the prisoners. Some regimen of the guard, the bakery, and the cook house, being placed on the rising grounds bordering the stream before it enters the prison, render the water nearly unfit for use before it reaches the prisoners. D. T. CHANDLER, Assistant Adjutant and Inspector General. Colonel R. H. CHILTON, Assistant Adjutant and Inspector General. * * * Here is an official exhibit of the manner in which the officer detailed by Jeff. Davis chose the place for health, with "running water, and agreeable shade." He chose a piece of forest-ground that had a miasmatic marsh in the heart of it and a small stream running through it; but the troops stationed outside of the stockade were allowed to defile its pure water before it could reach the stockade; and then, as if in the very refinement of cruelty, as if to make a mockery of the order quoted by the gentleman from Georgia, he detailed men "TO CUT DOWN EVERY TREE AND SHRUB in the inclosure, leaving not a green leaf to show where the forest had been. And subsequently, when the burning sun of July was pouring down its fiery heat upon the heads of these men, with but six square feet of ground to a man, a piteous |