e death of Federal prisoners fell below
those of the Confederates four thousand."

Lastly, the Southern Historical Society, Richmond, Va., has recently
published a "Vindication of the Confederacy against the Charge of
Cruelty to Prisoners," which is conclusive on the whole question. It was
compiled by the Secretary of the Society, the Rev. J. Wm. Jones, just
quoted, who concludes with the following summing up of his argument.
"We think that we have established the following points:

"1st. The laws of the Confederate Congress, the orders of the War
Department, the Regulations of the Surgeon General, the action of our
Generals in the field, and the orders of those who had the immediate
charge of the prisoners, all provided that prisoners in the hands of the
Confederates should be kindly treated, supplied with the same rations
which our soldiers had, and cared for, when sick, in hospitals placed on
_precisely the same footing as the hospitals for Confederate soldiers_.

"2d. If these regulations were violated in individual instances, and if
subordinates were sometimes cruel to prisoners, it was without the
knowledge or consent of the Confederate Government, which always took
prompt action on any case reported to them.

"3d. If the prisoners failed to get their full rations, and had those of
inferior quality, the Confederate soldiers suffered in precisely the
same way and to the same extent; and it resulted from that system of
warfare adopted by the Federal authorities, which carried desolation and
ruin to every part of the South they could reach, and which in starving
the Confederates into submission, brought the same evils upon their own
men in Southern prisons.

"4th. The mortality in Southern prisons (fearfully large, although over
three per cent less than the mortality in Northern prisons) resulted
from causes beyond the control of our authorities, from epidemics, etc.,
which might have been avoided or greatly mitigated had not the Federal
Government declared medicines "contraband of war," refused the
proposition of Judge Ould, that each Government should send its own
surgeons with medicines, hospital stores, etc., to minister to soldiers
in prison, declined his proposition to send medicines to its own men in
southern prisons, without being required to allow the Confederates the
same privileges--refused to allow the Confederate Government to buy
medicines for gold, tobacco, or cotton, which it offered to pledge its