"On the 21st of May, 1861, it was enacted by the Congress of the Confederate States of America: That all prisoners of war taken, whether on land or sea, during the pending hostilities with the United States, shall be transferred by the captors, from time to time, and as often as convenient to the Department of War; and it shall be the duty of the Secretary of War, with the approval of the President, to issue such instructions to the Quartermaster-general and his subordinates, as shall provide for the safe custody and sustenance of prisoners of war; and the rations furnished prisoners of war shall be the same, in quantity and quality, as those furnished to enlisted men in the army of the Confederacy.'

"By act of February 17th, 1864, the QuartermasterGeneral was relieved of his duty, and the CommissaryGeneral of Subsistence was ordered to provide for the subsistence of prisoners of war.

"According to general order, No. 159, Adjutant and Inspector-General's office, C. S. A., Hospitals for prisoners of war are placed on the same footing as other Confederate State hospitals, in all respects, and will be managed accordingly.

"The Federal prisoners were removed to Southwestern Georgia in the early part of 1864, not only to secure a place of confinement more remote than Richmond and other large towns, from the operations of the United States forces, but also to secure a more abundant and easy supply of food.

"As far as my experience extends, no prisoner, who had been reared upon wheat bread and who was held in captivity for any length of time, could retain his health and escape either scurvy or diarrhoea, if confined to the Confederate ration, issued to the soldiers in the field, of unbolted corn and bacon.

"The large armies of the Confederacy suffered more than once from scurvy; and, as the war progressed, secondary hæmorrhage and hospital gangrene increased to a great extent from the deteriorated condition of the blood, dependent upon the prolonged use of salt meat; and but for the active supplies received from home and from the various benevolent State Institutions, scurvy, diarrhoea, and dysentery would have committed still greater ravages.

"It was believed by the citizens of the Southern States, that the Confederate authorities earnestly desired to ef

fect a continuous and speedy exchange of prisoners of war in their hands, on the ground that the retention of these soldiers in captivity was a great calamity, not only entailing a heavy expenditure of the scanty means of subsistence, already insufficient to support their suffering, half-starved, half-clad, unpaid armies struggling in the field with overwhelming numbers and embarrassing their imperfect and dilapidated lines of communication; but also as depriving them of the services of a veteran army fully equal to one-third the numbers actually engaged in the field; and the history of subsequent events has shown that the retention in captivity of the Confederate prisoners was one of the efficient causes of the final overthrow of the Confederate government.

"Without at all attempting to justify the abuses which have been alleged against those directly engaged in keeping the Federal prisoners, it is my honest belief that, if the exhausted condition of the Confederate government,' with its bankrupt currency, with its retreating and constantly diminishing armies, with the apparent impossibility of filling up vacancies, and of gathering a guard of sufficient strength to allow of the proper enlargement of the military prisons, (and with a country torn and bleeding along all its borders, with its starving women and children and old men fleeing from the desolating march of contending armies, crowding the dilapidated and over-burdened railroad lines, and adding to the distress and consuming the poor charities of those in the interior who were harrassed by the loss of sons and brothers and husbands, and by the fearful visions of starvation and undefined misery,) could be fully realized, much of the suffering of the Federal prisoners would be attributed to causes connected with the distressed condition of the Southern States."

Whether this earnest appeal for his distressed and afflicted countrymen, issued by a prisoner of war, issued to that infamous court which was seeking to crucify the Southern people and degrade their cause in the eyes of the civilized world, and bring their most distinguished men to the halter, (through the trial of the commandant of the military prison at Andersonville,) effected any result may best be determined by the following statement which closes the preface of the report of Dr. Jones:

"In the trial of the Commandant of the Interior of the Confederate States military prison of Andersonville, by the United States military court in the capitol at Washington, only those portions of my report were used in the prosecution by the Judge Advocate, which related to the diseases and sufferings of the Federal prisoners. In the extracts read before the court whilst I occupied the witness stand, every thing relating to the distressed condition of the Southern States, and to the difficulties under which the medical officers labored in the discharge of their duties, as well as the inspection reports appended, was suppressed."

"When upon the witness stand, after hearing the extracts read from my report, I was compelled, by a sense of justice to my suffering fellow-countrymen, to state that I had appeared before that military tribunal in obedience to the demands of a power from which there was no appeal, and that my report contained other matter relating to the straightened condition of the Confederate government, as well as the Inspection reports, which demonstrated clearly that the medical officers in charge of the sick and wounded Federal prisoners, had made efforts to alleviate their sufferings.

"These reasons have led me to desire to place all the facts before the public, who have already had access to certain selected facts."-pp. 480-482.

In the body of the report, we find various facts recorded which sustain the earnest appeal of Dr. Jones, in behalf of his suffering fellow-citizens, when he stood alone, a paroled prisoner of war, in the hands of his captors and surrounded with bayonets.

Thus in the first chapter which gives the results of his investigations upon the medical topography and climate of Camp Sumpter, Andersonville, Ga., and of the country in the immediate vicinity, Dr. Jones thus states the general conclusions:

"In conclusion, as far as my physical and pathological investigations extended, I was compelled to believe that the diseases which proved so fatal to the Federal prisoners confined at Andersonville, Georgia, were due to causes other than those connected with the soil, water

and climate. The heat of this climate may have promoted the rapid decomposition of the filth which, in violation of all hygienic laws, was allowed to accumulate in the stockade and hospital grounds; and also, in itself, the heat may have proved a cause of debility; but still the fearful mortality could not properly be referred to this condition of climate, or to all the other elements of climate combined.

"No blame can be attached to the Confederate authorities for the collection of Federal prisoners at this elevated and healthy locality, which was more salubrious than one half of the territory of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana."-p. 500.

In the second chapter, in which a minute description is given of the Confederate States military prison and hospital at Andersonville, we find the following important observation bearing upon the subject now under consideration :

"The duties of the Confederate soldiers, acting as guards, are limited chiefly to the occupation of the boxes or lookouts, ranged around the stockade at regular intervals, and manning the batteries at the angles of the stockade.

"Even judicial matters, pertaining to themselves, as the detection and punishment of such crimes as thefts and murder, are abandoned to the prisoners themselves.

"A startling instance of this occurred in the month of July, when the Federals tried, condemned and hanged six of their own number, who had been convicted of stealing and of robbing and murdering their fellow-prisoners.

"They were all hanged upon the same day, upon gallows constructed by the Federal prisoners within the stockade for this especial purpose.

"The condemned were guarded by their fellow-prisoners, armed with sharpened stakes, the points of which had been hardened in the fire, and with large clubs. Thousands of the prisoners gathered around to witness the executions which they had decreed.

"The Confederate authorities did not interfere at all in these proceedings.

"In this collection of men from all parts of the civil-` ized world, every phase of human character was represented the stronger preyed upon the weaker; and even

the sick, who were unable to defend themselves, were robbed of their scanty suppplies of food and clothing. Dark stories were afloat of men, both sick and well, who were murdered at nights, strangled to death by their comrades, for scanty supplies of clothing or money. I heard a sick and wounded Federal prisoner accuse his nurse, a fellow-prisoner, of the United States army, of having stealthily, during his sleep, inoculated his wounded arm with gangrene, that he might destroy his life and fall heir to his clothing.

"The excuse given for the absence of Confederate guards and police within the enclosure of the stockade, was the insufficiency of men capable of performing military duty. At the time of the establishment, and during the existence, of the military prison, at Andersonville, the Confederate government was sorely pressed on every side; the best States were being overrun and desolated; and, with all the forces that could be gathered from all quarters, the main armies are still largely outnumbered, and are being steadily pressed back, leaving a desolated and ruined country. It is with difficulty that the Confederate government can spare, at the present time of trouble and distress and disaster, between two and three thousand reserves, composed of old men and boys (many of whom are wholly unfit to perform even guard duty), to guard this large number of prisoners, which they have ever been anxious to exchange, and which the Confederate authorities believe to be forced upon their hands by the persistent action of the United States government.

"Similar excuses are given for the crowded condition of the stockade. Thus it is affirmed that the gigantic operations, as well as the sudden and formidable raids of the United States forces, in Virginia, around Richmond, and in Northwestern Georgia, have compelled the sudden and continuous removal of prisoners of war to a place of safety."

"The military operations of the United States have reduced the railroad system of the Confederate States east of the Mississippi, practically to one long and uncertain lipe. The utmost capacity of the railroads of the Southern Confederacy, which are now in a most deplorable condition, is taxed with the transportation of troops, sick and wounded soldiers, prisoners of war, and provisions for the armies in the field. Notwithstanding the utmost exertions of the Confederate authorities, the