[Andersonville<br> Volume 4 by John McElroy]@TWC D-Link book
Andersonville
Volume 4

CHAPTER LXXXII
15/17

If you have any political prisoners whom you can send off safely to keep her company, I would like you to send her.
Two hundred and odd more political prisoners are on their way.
I would be more full in my communication if I had time.

Yours truly, ROBERT OULD, Commissioner of Exchange.
To Brigadier general John H.Winder.
But, supposing that our Government, for good military reasons, or for no reason at all, declined to exchange prisoners, what possible excuse is that for slaughtering them by exquisite tortures?
Every Government has ap unquestioned right to decline exchanging when its military policy suggests such a course; and such declination conveys no right whatever to the enemy to slay those prisoners, either outright with the edge of the sword, or more slowly by inhuman treatment.

The Rebels' attempts to justify their conduct, by the claim that our Government refused to accede to their wishes in a certain respect, is too preposterous to be made or listened to by intelligent men.
The whole affair is simply inexcusable, and stands out a foul blot on the memory of every Rebel in high place in the Confederate Government.
"Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord, and by Him must this great crime be avenged, if it ever is avenged.

It certainly transcends all human power.
I have seen little indication of any Divine interposition to mete out, at least on this earth, adequate punishment to those who were the principal agents in that iniquity.

Howell Cobb died as peacefully in his bed as any Christian in the land, and with as few apparent twinges of remorse as if he had spent his life in good deeds and prayer.


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