account of the interview:

"On only one subject would he talk at any length about his own conduct,
and that was with reference to the treatment of the Federal prisoners
who had fallen into his hands. He seemed to feel deeply the backhanded
stigma cast upon him by his having been included by name in the first
indictment framed against Wirz, though he was afterward omitted from
the new charges. He explained to me the circumstances under which he
had arranged with McClellan for the exchange of prisoners; how he had,
after the battles of Manassas, Fredericksburg, and (I think)
Chancellorsville, sent all the wounded over to the enemy on the
engagement of their generals to parole them. He also told me that on
several occasions his commissary generals had come to him after a
battle and represented that he had not rations enough both for
prisoners and the army when the former had to be sent several days'
march to their place of confinement, and he had always given orders
that the wants of the prisoners should be first attended to, as from
their position they could not save themselves from starvation by
foraging or otherwise, as the army could when in straits for
provisions. The General also explained how every effort had always
been made by the Confederates to do away with the necessity of
retaining prisoners by offering every facility for exchange, till at
last, when all exchange was refused, they found themselves with 30,000
prisoners for whom they were quite unable to do as much as they wished
in the way of food. He stated, furthermore, that many of their
hardships arose from the necessity of constantly changing the prisons
to prevent recapture. With the management of the prisons he assured me
he had no more to do than I had, and did not even know that Wirz was in
charge of Andersonville prison (at least, I think he asserted this)
till after the war was over. I could quite sympathise with him in his
feeling of pain under which his generous nature evidently suffered that
the authorities at Washington should have included him and others
similarly circumstanced in this charge of cruelty at the time that
letters written by himself (General Lee), taken in Richmond when
captured, complaining that the troops in his army had actually been for
days together on several occasions without an ounce of meat, were in
possession of the military authorities.

"When discussing the state of feeling in England with regard to the
war, h