Recollections and Letters of Lee [100]
"R. E. Lee."
The following is Mr. Saunders' account of the interview:
"On only one subject would he take at any length about his own conduct, and that was with reference to the treatment of the Federal prisoners who had fallen into his hands. He seemed to feel deeply the backhanded stigma cast upon him by his having been included by name in the first indictment framed against Wirz, though he was afterward omitted from the new charges. He explained to me the circumstances under which he had arranged with McClellan for the exchange of prisoners; how he had, after the battles of Manassas, Fredericksburg, and (I think) Chancellorsville, sent all the wounded over to the enemy on the engagement of their generals to parole them. He also told me that on several occasions his commissary generals had come to him after a battle and represented that he had not rations enough both for prisoners and the army when the former had to be sent several days' march to their place of confinement, and he had always given orders that the wants of the prisoners should be first attended to, as from their position they could not save themselves from starvation by foraging or otherwise, as the army could when in straits for provisions. The General also explained how every effort had always been made by the Confederates to do away with the necessity of retaining prisoners by offering every facility for exchange, till at last, when all exchange was refused, they found themselves with 30,000 prisoners for whom they were quite unable to do as much as they wished in the way of food. He stated, furthermore, that many of their hardships arose from the necessity of constantly changing the prisons to prevent recapture. With the management of the prisons he assured me he had no more to do than I had, and did not even know that Wirz was in charge of Andersonville prison (at least, I think he asserted this) till after the war was over. I could quite sympathise with him in his feeling of pain under which his generous nature evidently suffered that the authorities at Washington should have included him and others similarly circumstanced in this charge of cruelty at the time that letters written by himself (General Lee), taken in Richmond when captured, complaining that the troops in his army had actually been for days together on several occasions without an ounce of meat, were in possession of the military authorities.
"When discussing the state of feeling in England with regard to the war, he assured me that it had all along given him the greatest pleasure to feel that the Southern cause had the sympathies of so many in the 'old country,' to which he looked as a second home; but, in answer to my questions, he replied that he had never expected us to give them material aid, and added that he thought all governments were right in studying only the interests of their own people and in not going to war for an 'idea' when they had no distinct cause of quarrel.
"On the subject of slavery, he assured me that he had always been in favour of the emancipation of the negroes, and that in Virginia the feeling had been strongly inclining in the same direction, till the ill-judged enthusiasm (accounting to rancour) of the abolitionists in the North had turned the southern tide of feeling in the other direction. In Virginia, about thirty years ago, an ordinance for the emancipation of the slaves had been rejected by only a small majority, and every one fully expected at the next convention it would have been carried, but for the above cause. He went on to say that there was scarcely a Virginian new who was not glad that the subject had been definitely settled, though nearly all regretted that they had not been wise enough to do it themselves the first year of the war. Allusion was made by him to a conversation he had with a distinguished contryman of mine. He had been visiting a large slave plantation (Shirley) on the James River. The Englishman had told him that the working population were better cared for there than in any country he had ever
The following is Mr. Saunders' account of the interview:
"On only one subject would he take at any length about his own conduct, and that was with reference to the treatment of the Federal prisoners who had fallen into his hands. He seemed to feel deeply the backhanded stigma cast upon him by his having been included by name in the first indictment framed against Wirz, though he was afterward omitted from the new charges. He explained to me the circumstances under which he had arranged with McClellan for the exchange of prisoners; how he had, after the battles of Manassas, Fredericksburg, and (I think) Chancellorsville, sent all the wounded over to the enemy on the engagement of their generals to parole them. He also told me that on several occasions his commissary generals had come to him after a battle and represented that he had not rations enough both for prisoners and the army when the former had to be sent several days' march to their place of confinement, and he had always given orders that the wants of the prisoners should be first attended to, as from their position they could not save themselves from starvation by foraging or otherwise, as the army could when in straits for provisions. The General also explained how every effort had always been made by the Confederates to do away with the necessity of retaining prisoners by offering every facility for exchange, till at last, when all exchange was refused, they found themselves with 30,000 prisoners for whom they were quite unable to do as much as they wished in the way of food. He stated, furthermore, that many of their hardships arose from the necessity of constantly changing the prisons to prevent recapture. With the management of the prisons he assured me he had no more to do than I had, and did not even know that Wirz was in charge of Andersonville prison (at least, I think he asserted this) till after the war was over. I could quite sympathise with him in his feeling of pain under which his generous nature evidently suffered that the authorities at Washington should have included him and others similarly circumstanced in this charge of cruelty at the time that letters written by himself (General Lee), taken in Richmond when captured, complaining that the troops in his army had actually been for days together on several occasions without an ounce of meat, were in possession of the military authorities.
"When discussing the state of feeling in England with regard to the war, he assured me that it had all along given him the greatest pleasure to feel that the Southern cause had the sympathies of so many in the 'old country,' to which he looked as a second home; but, in answer to my questions, he replied that he had never expected us to give them material aid, and added that he thought all governments were right in studying only the interests of their own people and in not going to war for an 'idea' when they had no distinct cause of quarrel.
"On the subject of slavery, he assured me that he had always been in favour of the emancipation of the negroes, and that in Virginia the feeling had been strongly inclining in the same direction, till the ill-judged enthusiasm (accounting to rancour) of the abolitionists in the North had turned the southern tide of feeling in the other direction. In Virginia, about thirty years ago, an ordinance for the emancipation of the slaves had been rejected by only a small majority, and every one fully expected at the next convention it would have been carried, but for the above cause. He went on to say that there was scarcely a Virginian new who was not glad that the subject had been definitely settled, though nearly all regretted that they had not been wise enough to do it themselves the first year of the war. Allusion was made by him to a conversation he had with a distinguished contryman of mine. He had been visiting a large slave plantation (Shirley) on the James River. The Englishman had told him that the working population were better cared for there than in any country he had ever