The North stopped prisoner exchange. The North -- that part of the old union that was headed by Lincoln. This resulted in the need for both sides to house large numbers of prisoners. Prisons became overcrowded; disease easily spread; conditions became bad for prisoners on both sides. Some guards were cruel; some were kind -- on both sides.
From northerner Walt Whitman in the New York Times, Dec 1864:
In my opinion, the Secretary has taken and obstinately held a position of cold-blooded policy, (that is, he thinks it policy) in this matter, more cruel than anything done by the secessionists. ... In my opinion, the anguish and death of these ten to fifteen thousand American young men, with all the added and incalculable sorrow, long drawn out, amid families at home, rests mainly on the heads of members of our own Government...
And then there was "Beast" Butler, Federal Commissioner or Agent of Exchange, admitting his part in the affair.
In case the Confederate authorities should yield to the argument...and formally notify me that their slaves captured in our uniform would be exchanged as other soldiers were, and that they were ready to return to us all our prisoners at Andersonville and elsewhere in exchange for theirs, I had determined, with the consent of the lieutenant-general [Grant], as a last resort, in order to prevent exchange, to demand that the outlawry against me should be formally reversed and apologized for before I would further negotiate the exchange of prisoners.
It may be remarked here that the rebels were willing enough to exchange prisoners at this time, man for man, were we to permit it to be done.
As I remember, Confederate Agent of Exchange,Judge Robert Ould offered to release 10,000 to 15,000 Union prisoners, thousands of them well and able and not sick, primarily from Andersonville in the summer of 1864 with no requirement for the release of any Confederate prisoners by the North. The North eventually agreed, and the release finally took place in Savannah in late November 1864. Ould's offer, like his offer to buy medicines for Union prisoners was made before the large number of deaths at Andersonville.
So yes, I primarily blame Lincoln for the fate of prisoners on both sides.
Of course you will, because as much as you accuse me of being biased for Lincoln, your bias against him is as bad or worse.
The North stopped prisoner exchange. The North -- that part of the old union that was headed by Lincoln.
Indeed they did. And why? Why were talks on exchanges going along smoothly until July of 1862? Could it possibly be because that was when Davis issued his first "execute on sight" order against certain Union officers if taken prisoner? And when Davis celebrated Christmas by ordering Ben Butler and Union officers serving in black regiments to be executed, and their men sold to slavery, then paroles were halted. And rightly so. Why reward a regime that refuses to treat your soldiers as prisoners of war? And in the end that was always the sticking point. And it was government policy:
"JUNE 13, 1864.
I am happy to hear the authority sent you will relieve from embarrassment in the further organization of the reserves.
In any special cases your applications, as they always do, will have much weight with me.
I send copy of my report,* which will explain my views about Butler and the exchange of prisoners through him. On the two points as to which you comment I agree with you entirely. I doubt, however, whether the exchange of negroes at all for our soldiers would be tolerated. As to the white officers serving with negro troops, we ought never to be inconvenienced with such prisoners.
J. A. S."
J.A.S. was James Seddon, the secretary of war. Link
So how was the Union supposed to act, rustbucket? Was it supposed to take what it could get, accept the exchange of white soldiers and ignore what was being done to black soldiers and their white officers? And how do you deal with a regime where murdering officers of black regiments was apparently the official policy of the war department? Should the Union just have shrugged it off and justified it by saying it got officers of white regiments back? And do you place the blame for this on Lincoln, too?
It may be remarked here that the rebels were willing enough to exchange prisoners at this time, man for man, were we to permit it to be done.
Let's look at this, shall we. Specifically Butler's letter to Ould dated August 27, 1864 Lnk. In it Butler clearly references the confederate refusal to treat captured black Union soldiers as prisoners as the sole sticking point in the exchange process. And it continued to be a sticking point because Ould refused to respond to Butler's request for clarification.
So continue to spin it, rustbucket. Yes, the Union refused to exchange prisoners because, and only because, the confederate government refused to treat certain of it's prisoners as soldiers. Had the Union agreed to exchange all confederate prisoners except those from South Carolina, and instead had them executed as traitors would you be so quick to call for Davis to exchange those he could and write of the South Carolinians?
Ould's offer, like his offer to buy medicines for Union prisoners was made before the large number of deaths at Andersonville.
Let's look at confederate reports on Andersonville. This one, made by D.T. Chandler, speaks volumes. Link
On housing: "No shelter whatever, nor materials for constructing any, has been provided by the prison authorities, and the ground being entirely bare of trees, none is within reach of the prisoners, nor has it been possible, form the overcrowded state of the inclosure, to arrange the camp with any system."
On medical care: "There is no medical attendance furnished within the stockade."
On treatment of those Union prisoners who died: "The dead are hauled out daily the wagon load and buried without coffins, their hands in many instances being first mutilated with an ax in the removal of any finger rings they may have."
Health condition: "The sanitary condition of the prisoners is as wretched as can be, the principal causes of morality being scurvy and chronic diarrhea, the percentage of the former being disproportionately large among those brought from Belle Isle. Nothing seems to have been done, and but little, if any effort, made to arrest it by procuring proper food."
On rations: "The ration is one-third pound of bacon and one pound and a quarter unbolted corn-meal with fresh beef at rare intervals, and occasionally rice. When to be obtained-very seldom-a small quantity of molasses is substituted for the meat ration. A little weak vinegar, unfit for use, has sometimes been issued. The arrangements for cooking and baking have been wholly inadequate, and though additions are now being completed it will still be impossible to cook for the whole number of prisoners. Raw rations have to be issued to a very large proportion who are entirely unprovided with proper utensils and furnished so limited a supply of fuel they are completed to dig with their hands in the fifty marsh before mentioned for roots, &c."
In conclusion: "The condition of the prison at Andersonville is a reproach to us as a nation. The Engineer and Ordnance Departments were applied to for implements, authorized their issue, and I so telegraphed General Winder. Colonel Chandler's recommendation are concurred in."
Yet nothing was done, rustbucket. Deliberately. Perhaps the Union should have exchanged those that they could if for no other reason than to save them from such deliberate mistreatment. Maybe they could have sent medicine, and it might even have made it to the prisoners, but what medicine is there for starvation? For scurvey? For exposure? All that could have been provided by the confederates, who instead found it better policy to allow the prisoners to die off in wagon loads. Maybe the Lincoln government could have prevented it. But the Union did take the position that it was all soldiers or none, and those in Andersonville and other rebel hell-holes paid the price for confederate policy. In more ways than one.
These prisoners were put immediately in front of a Union battery that the South had been shelling. Shells falling short landed among the prisoners.
Some of these prisoners died of starvation in US hands. They were fed less than prisoners at Andersonville.