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Prisoner Exchange

Mike

Well-known member
All we ever hear in regard to POW camps during Lincoln's illegal and unconstitutional war is Andersonville. Andersonville was their fault and Grant said so because he flat refused General Lee's offer to just come get their men, "for pity's sake". Not even trade, just come and get their men. Grant said NO.
They don't talk about Camp Douglas, Elmira, Point Lookout or any other of the hellholes they put our men in. All they talk about is Andersonville, and Andersonville was THEIR fault. They admitted it over and over, but you don't know that because all anyone ever does is repeat lies they were taught by the victors. People are educated in lies and they teach lies. And the country is coming apart at the seams because of lies. Aren't you sick of lies? We are too.
Here is an excerpt from a book written by a Federal soldier who spent time at Andersonville. His own words:

"The report was brought to us by the incoming
prisoners that the authorities had about shut down
on exchanging prisoners. "Who enter here leave
hope behind" was now fully exemplified. As yet
it was only a surmise, but a few weeks later, or
about the first of August, we heard the cold-blooded
and atrocious excuse from Edward M.
Stanton, that exchange of prisoners was at an end.
"We will not exchange able-bodied men for skeletons,"
and "We do not propose to reinforce the
rebel army by exchanging prisoners."
Ah, now it was a certainty. We realized that
we were forsaken by our Government. The war
office at Washington preferred to let us die rather
than exchange us !
The refusal upon the part of our Government
to exchange prisoners was now an assured fact."
THE TRUE STORY OF ANDERSONVILLE
PRISON
A DEFENSE OF MAJOR HENRY WIRZ
JAMES MADISON PAGE
2d Lieutenant Company A, Sixth Michigan Cavalry
1908
 

TexasBred

Well-known member
Myth: Grant Stopped the Prisoner Exchange

"It is hard on our men held in Southern prisons not to exchange them, but it is humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our battles. Every man we hold, when released on parole or otherwise, becomes an active soldier against us at once either directly or indirectly. If we commence a system of exchange which liberates all prisoners taken, we will have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated. If we hold those caught they amount to no more than dead men. At this particular time to release all rebel prisoners North would insure Sherman's defeat and would compromise our safety here." – General Ulysses S. Grant, August 18, 1864.

This quote from General Grant is often cited as evidence that he stopped prisoner exchanges and that he did it because of the callous arithmetic of the war – calculating that by stopping exchanges the Union armies could simply outlast the Confederates. His statement is so ingrained into the common interpretation of Civil War prisons that it was engraved on the Wirz Monument in the town of Andersonville. However, the prisoner exchange issue was far more complicated, and the timeline of exchanges does not support the notion that Grant stopped the prisoner exchange.

The prison exchange system, codified on July 22, 1862 by the Dix Hill Cartel, called for equal exchanges of all soldiers captured, and these soldiers could return to their units. The balance remaining after equal exchanges were to be paroled, and not to take up arms again until they were formally exchanged. Then in September of 1862, President Lincoln called for the enlistment of black soldiers into the Union Armies as part of the preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. In December 1862, President Davis responded by issuing a proclamation that neither captured black soldiers nor their white officers would be subject to exchange. In January 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation became official and the United States began the active recruitment of black soldiers. The Lieber Codes, also known as General Order 100, were issued in April 1863 and stipulated that the United States government expected all prisoners to be treated equally, regardless of color. In May of 1863, the Confederate Congress passed a joint resolution that formalized Davis' proclamation that black soldiers taken prisoner would not be exchanged. In mid-July 1863 this became a reality, as several prisoners from the 54th Massachusetts were not exchanged with the rest of the white soldiers who participated in the assault on Fort Wagner. On July 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued General Order 252, which effectively suspended the Dix-Hill Cartel until the Confederate forces agreed to treat black prisoners the same as white prisoners. The Confederate forces declined to do so at that time, and large scale prisoner exchanges largely ceased by August 1863, resulting in a dramatic increase in the prison populations on both sides.

Part of the issue with attributing this breakdown in the exchange to General Grant is that when it occurred, in the summer of 1863, Grant was an army commander in the west and would have had little influence in the matter. He was not promoted to command of all Union armies until the spring of 1864, well after the exchanges had stopped and prisoners had begun arriving at Andersonville. Thus the breakdown occurred not because of Grant but because of politicians on both sides who were unwilling to compromise their policies.

Grant's statement was made in a different context. In the late summer of 1864, a year after the Dix-Hill Cartel was suspended, Confederate officials approached Union General Benjamin Butler about resuming the cartel and exchanges, including black prisoners. Butler, the Union Commissioner of Exchange, contacted Grant for guidance on the issue. Grant responded on August 18, 1864 with his now famous statement. In their conversation, Grant informed Butler that he approved an equal exchange of soldier for soldier, but did not approve a full resumption of the Dix-Hill Cartel. His issue was with the cartel's stipulation that the balance after equal exchanges were to be paroled and sent home to await formal exchange. By August 1864, Confederate prisoners far outnumbered Union prisoners, so a resumption of the cartel would release thousands more Confederates. Grant also felt that once released, Confederate prisoners would likely violate their paroles and rejoin their units. Many of the Union prisoners, on the other hand, had already fulfilled their enlistments and would likely go home. An agreement for resuming prisoner exchanges would not be reached until the winter of 1864-1865.

Grant was not in command when the exchanges stopped in the summer of 1863. When he made his famous statement the following year, there were already more than 30,000 prisoners at Andersonville. The photographs taken of Andersonville Prison were taken just a few days before Grant wrote his letter. In that letter, Grant made it clear that he would support equal prisoner-for-prisoner exchange but not the full resumption of the Dix-Hill Cartel.

Even if exchanges were resumed in late August 1864, Andersonville would still be the deadliest prison of the war with some 8,000 dead by that time. It is therefore inaccurate to attribute the breakdown of the prisoner exchange and all of the sufferings of prisoners of war to a callous military directive by General Ulysses S. Grant.
 

Mike

Well-known member
During the early stages of the American Civil War the federal government refused to negotiate the exchange of prisoners as it did not recognize the Confederacy as a nation. In July, 1862, General John Dix of the Union Army and General D. H. Hill met and agreed an exchange. They decided that the rate of exchange was one general for every 60 enlisted men, a colonel for 15, a lieutenant for 4 and a sergeant for 2.

In 1863 General Henry Halleck became the Union representative involved in the exchange of prisoners. Under pressure from Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War, these exchanges became less frequent. When Ulysses S. Grant became overall commander of the Union Army in March, 1864, he brought an end to exchanges. He told General Benjamin F. Butler that "He said that I would agree with him that by the exchange of prisoners we get no men fit to go into our army, and every soldier we gave the Confederates went immediately into theirs, so that the exchange was virtually so much aid to them and none to us."



American Civil War Encyclopedia

The decision of Ulysses S. Grant obviously increased the suffering of prisoners held by both sides but his defenders argued that this policy helped to reduce the length of the war. Grant's policy was also partly responsible for the disaster at Andersonville. The Confederate Army was so burdened with Union prisoners that by November, 1864, they began to send them back to the North without gaining anything in exchange.

After the conflict came to an end the War Department published figures to show that of the 200,000 members of the Confederate Army captured, over 26,500 died in captivity. Of the 260,526 prisoners that the Confederates took, 22,526 members of the Union Army died. This indicated that 13% of Confederate prisoners died compared to 8 per cent of Federal prisoners.




By John Simkin ([email protected]) © September 1997 (updated August 2014).

▲ Main Article ▲
Primary Sources
(1) Benjamin F. Butler met Ulysses S. Grant for the first time in April, 1864.
Lieutenant-General Grant visited Fortress Monroe on the 1st April. To him the state of the negotiations as to exchange of prisoners was communicated, and most emphatic verbal directions were received from the lieutenant-general not to take any steps by which another able-bodied man should be exchanged until further orders from him.

He then explained to me his views upon these matters. He said that I would agree with him that by the exchange of prisoners we get no men fit to go into our army, and every soldier we gave the Confederates went immediately into theirs, so that the exchange was virtually so much aid to them and none to us. For we gave them well men who went directly into their ranks and we had but few others, as the returns showed. Yet we received none from them substantially but disabled men, and by our laws and regulations they were to be allowed to go home and recuperate, which few of them did, and fewer still came back to our armies.

Now, the coming campaign was to be decided by the strength of the opposing forces, for the contest would all centre upon the Army of the Potomac and its immediate adjuncts. His proposition was to make an aggressive fight upon Lee, trusting to the superiority of numbers and to the practical impossibility of Lee getting any considerable reinforcements to keep up his army. We had twenty-six thousand Confederate prisoners, and if they were exchanged it would give the Confederates a corps, larger than any in Lee's army, of disciplined veterans better able to stand the hardships of a campaign and more capable than any other. To continue exchanging upon parole the prisoners captured on one side and the other, especially if we captured more prisoners than they did, would at least add from thirty to perhaps fifty per cent to Lee's capability for resistance.

(2) Robert E. Lee was cross-examined by Jacob Howard, the senator from Michigan, as a Congressional committee held on 17th February, 1866. Howard questioned Lee about what happened at Andersonville Prison Camp.
I suppose they suffered from want of ability on the part of the Confederate States to supply them with their wants. At the very beginning of the war there was suffering of prisoners on both sides, but as far as I could I did everything in my power to establish the cartel (of prisoner exchange) as agreed upon. I made several efforts to exchange the prisons after the cartel was suspended. I offered to General Grant, around Richmond, that we should ourselves exchange all the prisoners in our hands. I offered to send to City Point all the prisoners in Virginia and North Carolina over which my command extended, provided they returned an equal number of mine, man for man. I reported this to the War Department, and received an answer that they could place at my command all the prisoners at the South if the proposition was accepted. I heard nothing more on the subject.
 

TexasBred

Well-known member
BOTTOM LINE


Confederate apologists blame Lincoln and Grant for insisting that black prisoners be exchanged “the same as white soldiers.” Robert E. Lee said, “negroes belonging to our citizens are not considered subjects of exchange.” The impasse caused the surge of prisoners in 1864 that necessitated the building of Camp Sumter.
 

Mike

Well-known member
By the winter of 1863-64 the Confederacy was near the last of its resources and manpower. Knowing this, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant refused to continue the prisoner-exchange agreement that had been in operation during most of the war. This action cut down on the number of Confederate soldiers Grant's army would have to face in the coming campaign, but it also meant death to a great number of Union prisoners who would otherwise have been exchanged.


https://www.mycivilwar.com/pow/ga-andersonville.html
 

TexasBred

Well-known member
By the winter of 1863-64 the Confederacy was near the last of its resources and manpower. Knowing this, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant refused to continue the prisoner-exchange agreement that had been in operation during most of the war. This action cut down on the number of Confederate soldiers Grant's army would have to face in the coming campaign, but it also meant death to a great number of Union prisoners who would otherwise have been exchanged.


Lee refused to include blacks in the exchanges. that was why they ended. Mike whether the claims you quote or true we'll never know will we. All were eventually and Lee nor any of the other confederate officers and soldiers were ever tried for treason much thanks to U.S. Grant:

Following the end of Civil War hostilities in 1865, there were many in the North who wanted the civil and military officials of the Confederacy to stand trial for treason. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln further flamed the desire of many to take vengeance upon the South and its leaders, particularly Gen. Robert E. Lee.

The New York Times was a leading proponent for treason charges against Lee, writing in a June 4, 1865 editorial: “He has ‘levied war against the United States’ more strenuously than any other man in the land, and thereby has been specially guilty of the crime of treason, as defined in the Constitution of the United States,” and “whether Gen. Lee should be hung not, is a minor question.”


President Andrew Johnson was another advocate of harsh treatment for Lee and his generals, but he was soon to learn his views were in direct contrast to those of the North’s war hero, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. The Appomattox terms of surrender offered and signed by Grant included the clause “…each officer and man will be allowed to return to his home, not to be disturbed by United States Authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside.” Grant had wanted peace and included this line to ensure there would be no future reprisals against the Confederates.

But on June 7, 1865, U.S. District Judge John C. Underwood in Norfolk, Virginia, handed down treason indictments against Lee, James Longstreet, Jubal Early, and others stating the terms of parole agreed upon with Lee were “a mere military arrangement, and can have no influence upon civil rights or the status of the persons interested.” When Lee, who was preparing to apply for amnesty, became aware of the indictments, he wrote Grant asking if the Appomattox terms were still in effect.

After reading Lee’s letter, Grant forwarded his own views to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton on June 16, 1865:

In my opinion the officers and men paroled at Appomattox Court-House, and since, upon the same terms given to Lee, cannot be tried for treason so long as they observe the terms of their parole. This is my understanding. Good faith, as well as true policy, dictates that we should observe the conditions of that convention. Bad faith on the part of the Government, or a construction of that convention subjecting the officers to trial for treason, would produce a feeling of insecurity in the minds of all the paroled officers and men. If so disposed they might even regard such an infraction of terms by the Government as an entire release from all obligations on their part. I will state further that the terms granted by me met with the hearty approval of the President at the time, and of the country generally. The action of Judge Underwood, in Norfolk, has already had an injurious effect, and I would ask that he be ordered to quash all indictments found against paroled prisoners of war, and to desist from further prosecution of them.

Grant also visited personally with President Johnson to discuss the situation, but was dismayed to find that Johnson fully intended to let the proceedings continue. Grant insisted the Appomattox terms be honored. Johnson asked when the men could be tried. “Never,” Grant responded, “unless they violate their paroles.”

Andrew Johnson, however, was just as stubborn as Grant and told the general he wouldn’t interfere with the prosecution. Grant too refused to back down, telling the President he would resign his commission if the surrender terms were not honored. Johnson realized he had lost; the public would never support him over the far-more popular Grant. Word was sent to the U.S. District Attorney in Norfolk to drop the proceedings.


Grant then responded to Lee’s letter. Copying his comments to Stanton in the reply, he wrote on June 20, 1865: “This opinion, I am informed, is substantially the same as that entertained by the Government.” Lee was safe from trial, but Grant never told him how far he had gone to protect him.
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