Since the close of the Civil War our government has unstintedly employed ability and money in compiling and publishing an exhaustive exhibit of the Union and Confederate records. These statistics and memoranda afford to the later historian abundant and reliable data, and upon his calm verdict we may rely for the substantial truth. The holding of prisoners during our civil war was a matter of large concern. The number of Union soldiers captured was 211,411; paroled on the field, 16,669; died in captivity, 30,218. These last figures are defective. Of twelve Confederate prisons the "death registers" of five are only partial and thousands of the emaciated men passed away soon after release. The number of Confederate soldiers captured was 462,635; paroled on the field 257,769; died in captivity 25,976. The percentage of deaths among the imprisoned Confederates, it will be seen, was far less than among the Union prisoners. The number of enlistments in the Union army was 2,898,304; in the Confederate army from 1,239,000 to 1,400,000. The estimated cost of war to the North was $5,000,000,000, and to the South $3,000,000,000. (The above figures are taken from a "History of the United States," by James Ford Rhodes, LL.D., Litt.D., who quotes from General F. C. Ainsworth, Chief of the Record and Pension Office.) "We raise our father's banner that it may bring back better blessings than those of old; ... that it may say to the sword, 'Return to thy sheath,' and to the plow and sickle, 'Go forth.' That it may heal all jealousies, unite all policies, inspire a new national life, com-pact our strength, ennoble our national ambitions, and make this people great and strong, not for aggression and quarrelsomeness, but for the peace of the world, giving to us the glorious prerogative of leading all nations to juster laws, to more humane policies, to sincerer friendship, to rational, instituted civil liberty, and to universal Christian brotherhood."--Address of H. W. Beecher at Fort Sumpter flag raising, April 15, 1865. APPENDIX B. RESPONSIBILITY FOR PRISON TREATMENT. It is difficult, even after the lapse of years not a few, to consider dispassionately the treatment accorded by the Confederacy to her prisoners. War had fanned to a flame the fire of sectional animosity, and a spirit of retaliation was awakened. It is true the South was comparatively a poor country, and the hand of war had stripped her bare. The mighty armies of both sides carried on their vast operations on southern soil; the one as an army of defense, the other as an army of invasion. In the movements of strategy and battle, many combatants were taken prisoners; these were sent to the rear for safe keeping and maintenance. With practically unlimited resources this additional burden was scarcely felt at the North.