Union Brigadier-General T. Seymour:
(Regarding the exchange of prisoners after being sent to visit Andersonville
and other Southern Prisons)
"The Southern authorities are exceedingly desirous of an immediate change of prisoners. Their urgency is unbounded, but it is the poorest policy for our Government to deliver to them 40,000 prisoners better fed and clothed than ever before in their lives, in good condition for the field, while the United States received in return an equal number of men worn out with privations and neglect, barely able to walk and drawing their last breath, and unfit to take the field as soldiers. It is much wiser to leave the prisoners where they are."
|
Text by Jon Rice.