The wrongs, indignities, and privations suffered by our soldiers would move me to consent to anything to procure their exchange, except to barter away the honor and faith of the government of the United States, which has been so solemnly pledged to the colored soldiers in its ranks. Consistently with national faith and justice we cannot relinquish this position. With your authorities it is a question of property merely. It seems to address itself to you in this form: Will you suffer your soldier, captured in fighting your battles, to be in confinement for months rather than release him by giving for him that which you call a piece of property, and which we are willing to accept as a man? You certainly appear to place less value upon your soldier than you do upon your negro. I assure you, much as we of the North are accused of loving property, our citizens would have no difficulty in yielding up any piece of property they have in exchange for one of their brothers or sons languishing in your prisons. Certainly there could be no doubt that they would do so, were that piece of property less in value than five thousand dollars in Confederate money, which is believed to be the price of an able-bodied negro in the insurrectionary States. Trusting that I may receive such a reply to the questions propounded in this note as will tend to a speedy resumption of the negotiations in a full exchange of all prisoners, and a delivery of them to their respective authorities, I have the honor to be, Very respectfully, Your obedient servant, BENJAMIN F. BUTLER, _Major-General and Commissioner of Exchange_. XVIII. The wretched "material" exchanged for healthy rebel soldiers called forth a note of joy from the rebel commissioner, Ould. The exchanged Federal soldiers were half-naked, "living skeletons," covered with filth and vermin; and nearly all of them were unfit for service or labor, and most of them physically ruined for the remainder of their lives. The flag-of-truce boats of the different parties presented terrible contrasts. On the one were to be seen feeble, emaciated, ragged, filthy, and dying men from the rebel prisons; whilst on the other were the rebels returning from our prisons, well clad in our uniforms, strong and healthy from the abundance of food. We returned men who had been well treated, and who were then ready to take the field again; whilst we received in turn abused and decrepit soldiers, who were so much reduced and weakened that few, comparatively, ever again returned to service. Along the entire line of prison stockades, from Belle Isle in Virginia to Prison Tyler in Texas, the same story is told of fiendish cruelty.