Northrop, the rebel commissary-general, whom Foote denounced in the rebel
Congress as a monster, and incompetent, urged the secretary of war,
Seddon, to reduce the rations to gruel and bread, in retaliation for
alleged abuses to the rebel prisoners in our hands. Seddon declined to do
it openly, on account of the technicalities of the law; but Northrop took
the measure quietly into his own hands, and withheld meat so often and so
long from the prisoners near Richmond as to call forth a yell of
remonstrance from even the inhuman Winder.
When the prisoners at Belle Isle--numbering from eight to thirteen
thousand--were deprived of meat,--from the incompetency or the wilfulness
of the commissary-general,--for a fortnight at a time, the secretary of
war refused to allow compassionate parties to buy cattle in the
neighborhood of the city, and bring them to the prison, stating that
Northrop had informed him that the prisoners fared as well as the
soldiers.
And in pursuance of this diabolical plan of starvation, orders were given,
in December, by the rebel war department, that no more supplies should be
received from the United States for the prisoners, for which no apology or
reason was ever given.
Winder was denounced by members of Congress; but Davis tools no notice,
because he was his personal friend. Seddon took sides with Northrop, and
would not allow Captain Warner to buy cattle for the prisoners around
Richmond, as he offered to do, and relieve their sufferings.
The postmaster-general wanted to kill the prisoners taken in raiding; and
Seddon, the secretary of war, stated that he was always in favor of
fighting under the black flag.
When Chandler made his report, Cobb was writing that all was going on well
at the prison. Colonel Persons, who was the first commander, and relieved
by Winder, applied for an injunction against the prison as a nuisance. No
compassion, humanity, or decency was observed in the demand for the
process: it was simply a nuisance, and dangerous to the health of the
surrounding region. No plea was made that thousands were being murdered
there.