Page:The Immortal Six Hundred.djvu/83

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THE IMMORTAL SIX HUNDRED


Confederate officers—prisoners of war—to be tortured on Morris Island, S. C, under fire of their own guns, and be starved upon rotten corn meal and pickle at Hilton Head, S. C, and at Fort Pulaski, Ga., by order of the United States Government. It cannot be proven that the Confederate authorities at any time placed Federal prisoners of war under fire or treated them inhumanely; not can General Foster's friends nor Edwin M. Stanton's friends give the least excuse for the brutality of those men. Why the exchange of prisoners was stopped is given in plain terms over Gen. U. S. Grant's signature:

City Point, Va., August 27, 1864, 5 p. m. Secretary of War,

Washington:

Please inform Maj.-Gen. J. G. Foster that in no circumstances will he be allowed to make exchange of prisoners of war. Exchanges simply re-enforce the enemy at once, whilst we do not get the benefit of those received for two or three months and lose the majority entirely. I telegraph this from just


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