in the field and men to wield them.  A great problem now presented itself to the Confederate authorities for solution, but who could cut the Gordion knot?  The South had taken during the war two hundred and seventy thousand prisoners, as against two hundred and twenty-two thousand taken by the Federals, leaving in excess to the credit of the South near fifty thousand.  For a time several feeble attempts had been made for an equitable exchange of prisoners, but this did not suit the policy of the North.  Men at the North were no object, and to guard this great swarm of prisoners in the South it took an army out of the field, and the great number of Southern soldiers in Northern prisons took quite another army from the service.  In addition to the difficulty of supplying our own army and people with the necessities of life, we were put to the strain of feeding one hundred thousand or more of Federal prisoners.  Every inducement was offered the North to grant some cortel of exchange or some method agreed upon to alienate the sufferings of these unfortunates confined in the prison pens in the North and South.  The North was offered the privilege of feeding and clothing their own prisoners, to furnish medical aid and assistance to their sick.  But this was rejected in the face of the overwhelming sentiments of the fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers of those who were suffering and dying like flies in the Southern pens.  Thousands and thousands of petitions were circulated, with strings of signatures from all classes in the Union, urging Congress to come in some way to the relief of their people.  But a deaf ear was turned to all entreaties, this being a war measure, and no suffering could be too great when the good of the service required it.  Taking it from a military point of view, this was the better policy, shocking as it was to humanity.

At one time it was considered in the Confederate Congress the propriety of turning loose and sending home as early as practicable these thousands of prisoners, trusting alone to their honor the observance of the parole.  It was thought by the majority that the indiscriminate mingling and mixing of these fanatical agitators with the peaceable slaves in the country might incite insurrection and a bloody social war break out should the prisoners be released at the prison pens.  Under all the varying circumstances the South was still busily engaged in mobilizing these prisoners in certain quarters, to protect them as far as possible from liberation by raiding parties.  At Andersonville, Ga., there were twenty-two thousand; at Florence, S.C., two thousand; Salisbury, N.C., ten thousand; several hundred in Columbia, and detached numbers scattered along at various points on the railroads, at such places where convenient quarters could be secured and properly guarded.  Quite a large number were at Bell Isle, on the James River, as well as at the Liby Prison, in Richmond.  These prisoners were sometimes guarded by the State militia and disabled