difficulties of transportation which the Confederates encountered the last year of the war, upon this question of properly providing for their prisoners. Any one who will even glance through the papers on the "Resources of the Confederacy" which we have published, will see how the breaking down of the railroads and the utter inadequacy of transportation put our armies on starvation rations even when there were enough in the depots to supply them; and, of course, the supplies for the prisoners were cut down in the same way.
But we might safely rest this whole question of the relative treatment of prisoners North and South on the official figures of Secretary Stanton and Surgeon-General Barnes, which were thus presented by Hon. B. H. Hill in his masterly reply to Mr. Blaine:
"Now, will the gentleman believe testimony from the dead? The Bible says, 'The tree is known by its fruits.' And, after all, what is the test of suffering of these prisoners North and South? The test is the result. Now, I call the attention of gentlemen to this fact, that the report of Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War—you will believe him, will you not?—on the 19th July, 1866—send to the Library and get it—exhibits the fact that of the Federal prisoners in Confederate hands during the war, only 22,576 died, while of the Confederate prisoners in Federal hands 26,436 died. And Surgeon-General Barnes reports in an official report—I suppose you will believe him—that in round numbers the Confederate prisoners in Federal hands amounted to 220,000, while the Federal prisoners in Confederate hands amounted to 270,000. Out of the 270,000 in Confederate hands 22,000 died, while of the 220,000 Confederates in Federal hands over 26,000 died. The ratio is this: more than twelve per cent. of the Confederates in Federal hands died, and less than nine per cent. of the Federals in Confederate hands died. What is the logic of these facts according to the gentleman from Maine? I scorn to charge murder upon the officials of Northern prisons, as the gentleman has done upon Confederate prison officials. I labor to demonstrate that such miseries are inevitable in prison life, no matter how humane the regulations."
These figures (compiled not by Confederates, but by those who had no love for "Rebels"—compiled from documents to which we are denied all access—compiled in the regular course of official duty, and with scarcely a thought of the tale they would tell when collated and compared) are an end to the controversy so far as showing that if the Confederates were cruel to prisoners, it does not lie in the mouths of the United States authorities, or their apologists, to condemn them. Let them first purge themselves of the charge before they try
