as arranged, but by some mistake the ships were at Charleston, and the poor wretches had to be taken there; and every one who knew the Southern railroads in those days, and the difficulty, or rather impossibility, to procure food for such a crowd along the road, will know what those poor fellows suffered. At Charleston they were refused, the commissioner declaring that 'he was not going to exchange able-bodied men for such miserable specimens of humanity.' (The term used was more brutal.) Finding him obdurate, Colonel Ould requested him to take them without exchange. This he refused with a sneering laugh, and the crowd was ordered back. Never did the writer of this witness such woe-begone countenances, in which misery and hopelessness were more strongly painted, than shown by those poor fellows on their return. And the curses leveled against the rulers who thus treated the defenders of their country were fearful, although certainly well deserved. As the stockade gate closed upon them the surgeon in charge said to the writer: 'Poor fellows! the world has closed upon more than half of them; this disappointment will be their death-knell.' His words proved true. Who murdered those men? Let history answer the question."
CLOTHING FOR PRISONERS.
Again I extract from the aforesaid journal: "The Northerners talk so much of the cruelty of the South to the Federal prisoners. At one time the unfortunate prisoners were almost without clothing, indeed some had hardly as much as common decency required. The South could not provide them, not being able to clothe their own men. An application was made to Seward. The reply was that 'the Federal Government did not supply clothing to prisoners of war.' Luckily for the poor fellows, a society in New York took the matter in hand, and several bales of clothing and cases of shoes were forwarded to Richmond, and divided, in proportion to numbers, among the prisons."
CRUELTY TO PRISONERS.
A great deal has been said of the cruelty to the prisoners inside the stockade. This so-called cruelty was inflicted by their own men. In every prison a police with a chief, all from the prisoners, was appointed to keep order, see to the enforcement of the regulations, and inquire into all offences, reporting through their chief to the Commandant. The punishments, such as were used in the Federal army, were ordered to be inflicted by these men, and some were of such a barbarous nature that they were prohibited with disgust by the Confederate officers, who substituted milder and more humane ones; and yet the former were in common practice in the Federal armies, as testified by all the prisoners.
BLOODHOUNDS.
Among the numerous lies invented by Northerners, and actually still believed by some parties to this day, was the story that the
