It
should be remembered that Grant, with the approval of Lincoln, refused
to exchange prisoners of war to ease their suffering as both engaged in a
war of attrition against Americans in the South. They knew that their
released prisoners would return home and fight no more; the released
Southerner, though weak and emaciated, returned to the ranks.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Cold, Cruel and Diabolical Enemy
“I
began, now, to find that the Yankee masters, mates, and sailors rather
liked being paroled [after their ships were captured]; they would
sometimes remind us of it, if they thought we were in danger of
forgetting it. It saved them from being conscripted [upon their return
home], unless the enemy was willing first to exchange them; and nothing
went so hard with the enemy than to exchange a prisoner.
With
cold-blooded cruelty, the enemy had already counted his chances of
success, as based upon the relative numbers of the two combatants, and
found that, by killing a given number of our prisoners by long
confinement – the same number as being killed by us, by the same process
– he could beat us!
In
pursuance of this diabolical policy, he threw every possible obstacle
in the way of exchanges, and toward the latter part of the war put a
stop to them nearly entirely. Our prisons were crowded with his captured
soldiers. We were hard pressed for provisions, and found it difficult
to feed them, and we were even destitute of medicines and hospital
stores, owing to the barbarous nature of the war that was being made
upon us.
Not
even a bottle of quinine or an ounce of calomel was allowed to cross
the border, if the enemy could prevent it. With a full knowledge of
these facts, he permitted his soldiers to sigh and weep away their lives
in hopeless captivity – coolly “calculating,” that one Confederate life
was worth, when weighed in the balance of final success, from three to
four lives of his own men!
The
enemy, since the war, has become alarmed at the atrocity of his
conduct, and at the judgment which posterity will likely pass upon it,
and has set himself at work, to falsify history, with his usual
disregard for truth. Committees have been raised, in the Federal
Congress, composed if unscrupulous partisans, whose sole object it was,
to prepare the false material, with which to mislead the future
historian.
Fortunately
for the Southern people, there is one little record which it is
impossible to obliterate. More men perished in Northern prisons, where
food and medicines were abundant, than in Southern prisons, where they
were deficient – and this, too, though the South held the greater number
of prisoners.”
(Memories of Service Afloat, Raphael Semmes, LSU Press, 1996/original 1868, pp. 266-267)
And thus the pattern of behavior of our Federal Government was born. And last until this very day.
ReplyDeleteYup.
DeleteProject Gutenburg has this book by the good Admiral. The book opens with a devastating refutation of Yankee arguments re: States rights vs. Federal gov't. Lincoln was preceded in his traitorous acts by Daniel Webster and the "friendly" state of Massachusetts.
ReplyDeleteRay in Georgia
A paragraph from Chapter IV: The facts of history are too stubborn, and refuse to be bent to conform to the new doctrines. We see it emblazoned on every page of American history for forty years, that the Constitution was a compact between the States; that the Federal Government was created, by, and for the benefit of the States, and possessed and could possess no other power than such as was conferred upon it by the States; that the States reserved to themselves all the powers not granted, and that they took especial pains to guard their sovereignty, in terms, by an amendment to the Constitution, lest, by possibility, their intentions in the formation of the new government, should be misconstrued.
ReplyDeleteIn the course of time this government is perverted from its original design. Instead of remaining the faithful and impartial agent of all the States, a faction obtains control of it, in the interests of some of them, and turns it, as an engine of oppression, against the others. These latter, after long and patient suffering, after having exhausted all their means of defence, within the Union, withdraw from the agent the powers which they had conferred upon him, form a new Confederacy, and desire “to be let alone.” And what is the consequence? They are denounced as rebels and traitors, armies are equipped, and fleets provided, and a war of subjugation is waged against them.
Ray in GA
Excellent. Thanks.
Delete