Charles Anderson Dana

“ Davis' letter is infinitely superior and infinitely more creditable to him, both as a statesman and a man, than anything that has recently fallen from such antagonists and critics of his as Mr. Blaine. ”

“ While, in his opinion, the prisoners in our hands were well fed, and were in better condition than when they were captured, our prisoners in the South were ill fed, and would be restored to us too much exhausted by famine and disease to form a fair set-off against the comparative vigorous men who would be given in exchange. "It is hard on our men held in Southern prisons," said Grant in an official communication, "not to exchange them; but it is humane to those left in the ranks to fight our battles. ”

“ Davis that while they had 60,000 more prisoners of ours than we had of theirs, the number of Confederates who died in our prisons exceeded by 6,000 the whole number of Union soldiers who died in Southern prisons, though not entirely conclusive, since our men were generally better fed and in better health than theirs, still furnishes a strong support to the position that, upon the whole, our men were not used with greater severity or subjected to greater privations than were inevitable in the nature of the case. ”