Lincoln took the ground, very properly, that all of the nation’s soldiers must be treated alike and must be protected by a uniform policy.  Until the coloured troops should be included in the exchange, “there can,” said Lincoln, “be no exchanging of prisoners.”  This decision, while sound, just, and necessary, brought, naturally, a good deal of dissatisfaction to the men in prison and to their friends at home.  When I reached Libby in October, I found there men who had been prisoners for six or seven months and who (as far as they lived to get out) were to be prisoners for five months more.  Through the winter of 1864-65, the illness and mortality in the Virginia prisons of Libby and Danville were very severe.  It was in fact a stupid barbarity on the part of the Confederate authorities to keep any prisoners in Richmond during that last winter of the War.  It was not easy to secure by the two lines of road (one of which was continually being cut by our troops) sufficient supplies for Lee’s army.  It was difficult to bring from the granaries farther south, in addition to the supplies required for the army, food for the inhabitants of the town.  It was inevitable under the circumstances that the prisoners should be neglected and that in addition to the deaths from cold (the blankets, the overcoats, and the shoes had been taken from the prisoners because they were needed by the rebel troops) there should be further deaths from starvation.

It was not unnatural that under such conditions the prisoners should have ground not only for bitter indignation with the prison authorities, but for discontent with their own administration.  One may in fact be surprised that starving and dying men should have retained any assured spirit of loyalty.  When the vote for President came to be counted, we found that we had elected Lincoln by more than three to one.  The soldiers felt that Lincoln was the man behind the guns.  The prison votes, naturally enough, reached no ballot boxes and my individual ballot in any case would not have been legal as I was at the time but twenty years of age.  I can but feel, however, that this vote of the prisoners was typical and important, and I have no doubt it was so recognised when later the report of the voting reached Washington.

In December, 1864, occurred one of the too-frequent cabals on the part of certain members of the Cabinet.  Pressure was brought to bear upon Lincoln to get rid of Seward.  Lincoln’s reply made clear that he proposed to remain President.  He says to the member reporting for himself and his associates the protest against Seward:  “I propose to be the sole judge as to the dismissal or appointment of the members of my Cabinet.”  Lincoln could more than once have secured peace within the Cabinet and a smoother working of the administrative machinery if he had been willing to replace the typical and idiosyncratic men whom he had associated with himself in the government by more commonplace citizens, who