alent from ten to fifteen thousand Federal prisoners, although the offer was accompanied with the statement of our Agent of Exchange (Judge Ould), showing the monthly mortality at Andersonville, and that we were utterly unable to care for these prisoners as they should be cared for, and that Judge Ould again and again urged compliance with this humane proposal on our part. (6) That the sufferings of Confederates in Northern prisons were terrible, almost beyond description; that they were starved in a land of plenty; that they were allowed to freeze where clothing and fuel were plentiful; that they suffered for hospital stores, medicines and proper attention when sick; that they were shot by sentinels, beaten by officers, and subjected to the most cruel punishments upon the slightest pretexts; that friends at the North were, in many instances, refused the privilege of clothing their nakedness or feeding them when they were starving; and that these outrages were often perpetrated not only with the knowledge, but by the orders of E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War of the United States. And (7) That the sufferings of prisoners on both sides were caused by the failure to carry out the terms of the Cartel for exchange, and for this failure the Federal authorities were alone responsible. These propositions are stated substantially in the language employed by Dr. Jones, and although twenty-five years have since elapsed, they have never been controverted in any essential particular, as far as we have heard or known. Our people owe Dr. Jones a debt of gratitude for this able and effective vindication of their course in this important matter, which they can never repay. As to the treatment of Mr. Davis whilst a prisoner: Captain Charles M. Blackford, of Lynchburg, Va., in an article read before the Virginia Bar Association at its meeting at Old Point, in 1900 (the facts of which article were taken entirely from the official records of the Federal Government), showed in a masterly manner that this treatment was the refinement of cruelty and cowardice on the part of the Federal authorities, and such as should bring the blush of shame to the cheek of every American citizen who was in sympathy with, or a participant in, those acts. Our people owe Captain Blackford a debt of gratitude also for this article. It can be found in the printed reports of the Virginia Bar Association for 1900. Ten thousand copies of it were ordered by the Association to be printed for distribution. As we said in our last report, it will doubtless be asked by some, who have no just conception of the motives which actuate. us in making these reports, Why we gather up and exhibit to the world these records of a bitter strife now ended more than a third of a century? Does it not, they ask, only do harm by keeping alive the smouldering embers of that conflict? We reply to all these enquiries, that such is not our intention or desire. But the four years of that war made a history of the people of the North and of the people of the South, much of which has been written only by historians of the North. In this history, all the blame concerning the war has been laid on the people of the South, and the attempt made to "consign them to infamy." There were two sides to the issues involved in that war, and the historians of the North, with the superior means at their command, have used, and are still using, these means to convince the world that they were right and that we were wrong. They are striving, too, to teach our children that this was the case, and for thirty years their histories were taught in our schools, unchallenged, and in that way the minds of our children were prejudiced and poisoned against the acts and conduct of their parents in regard to that conflict. We therefore feel that we owe it to ourselves and to the memories of those who suffered and died for the cause we fought so hard to maintain, to let our children and the world know the truth as to the causes of that conflict, and how it was conducted. This Camp has, as we have said, done much in that direction; it can do much more; and, in our opinion, no higher or more sacred duty could be imposed on or undertaken by men. There were during the war, and there are now, many brave and true men at the North. There were many such in the Federal armies, and there were many of these who, whilst taking sides with the North on the question of maintaining the Union, were shocked and disgusted at the methods pursued by it to accomplish that result. These have written and spoken about these methods, both of what they thought and of what they knew, and we have only gathered up some of this testimony in support of the justice of our cause, and of the course pursued by us to maintain it. Surely, the North cannot complain if we rest our case upon their testimony. We have done this almost exclusively, both in this and in former reports. The history contained in these reports, then, is not only that made, but also that written by Northern men. As we have said, many of these were brave and true men, and one of them wrote that the acts committed by some of their commanders and comrades were enough to make him "ashamed of the flag that waved over him as he went into battle." Is it surprising that such was the case? It is said that General Hunter had to deprive forty of his commissioned officers of their commands before he could find one to carry into execution his infamous orders. We have drawn this contrast, then, between the way the war was conducted by the North and the way it was conducted by the South, for many good reasons, but especially to show that the Confederate soldiers never made war on defenceless women and children, whilst the Federal soldiers did, and that this was done with the sanction of some of their most noted leaders, some of whom, as we have seen, shared in the fruits of the depredations committed on these defenceless people. In doing this, we believe we have done only what was just to ourselves and our children. It must be remembered, too, that a large number of persons at the North still delight to speak of that war as a "Rebellion" and of us as "Rebels" and "Traitors." We have shown by the testimony of their own people, not only that they rebelled against, but overthrew the Constitution to make war on us, and that when they did go to war, they violated every rule they had laid down for the government of their armies, and waged it with a savage cruelty unknown in the history of civilization. The late commander-in-chief of the British armies has recently written of our great leader, that "in a long and varied life of wandering, I have" (he says) "only met two men whom I prized as being above all the world I have ever known, and the greater of these two was General Lee, America's greatest man, as I understand history." 66 The present Chief Magistrate of this country wrote twelve years ago, that the world has never seen better soldiers than those who followed Lee, and that their leader will undoubtedly rank as, without any exception, the greatest of all great captains that the English-speaking people have brought forth." See Life of Benton, page 38. Is it a matter of surprise, then, that the same hand should have recently written: "I am extremely proud of the fact that one of my uncles was an admiral in the Confederate Navy, and that another fired the last gun fired aboard the Alabama. I think" (he says) "the time has now come when we can, all of us, be proud of the valor shown on both sides in the civil war." If President Roosevelt really believed that his uncles were ever "rebels" and "traitors," would he be "extremely proud" of that fact? Would he be proud to be the nephew of Benedict Arnold? No; and no man at the North who knows anything of the formation of this Government believes for a moment that any Confederate soldier was a "rebel" or "traitor," or that the war on our part was a "Rebellion." Even Goldwin Smith, the harshest and most unjust historian to the South, who has ever written about the war (as demonstrated by our distinguished Past Grand Commander, Captain Cussons), says: "The Southern leaders ought not to have been treated as rebels," for, says he, "Secession was not a rebellion." And so we say the time has come when these intended opprobrious epithets should cease to be used. But whether called "rebels” or not, the Confederate soldier has nothing to be ashamed of. Can the soldiers of the Federal armies read this record and say the same? Yes, our comrades, let them call us "rebels," if they will; we are proud of the title, and with good reason. More than a hundred years ago, when, as Pitt said, "even the chimney sweeps in London streets talked boastingly of their subjects in America,” Rebel was the uniform title of those despised subjects (and as our own eloquent Keily once said): "This sneer was the substitute for argument, which Camden and Chatham met in the Lords, and Burke and Barre in the Commons, as their eloquent voices were raised for justice to the Americans of the last century. Disperse Rebels' was the opening gun at Lexington. 'Rebels' was the sneer of General Gage addressed to the brave lads of Boston Commons. It was the title by which Dunmore attempted to stigmatize the Burgesses of Virginia, and Sir Henry Clinton passionately denounced the patriotic women of New York. At the base of every statue which gratitude has erected to patriotism in America you will find 'Rebel' written. The springing shaft at Bunker Hill, the modest shaft which tells where Warren fell, * * the fortresses which line our coasts, the name of our Country's Capital, the very streets of our cities-all proclaim America's boundless debt to rebels; not only to rebels who, like Hamilton and Warren, gave their first love and service to the young Republic, but rebels who, like Franklin and Washington, broke their oath of allegiance to become rebels." And so we say, let them call us what they may, the justice of our cause precludes fear on our part as to the final verdict of history. We can commit the principles for which we fought; we can confide the story of our deeds; we can consign the heritage of heroism we have bequeathed the world to posterity with the confident expectation of justice at the hands of the coming historian. Yes, truly. "In seeds of laurel in the earth The blossoms of your fame is blown, "The triumphs of might are transient-they pass and are for |