Hard to Believe, But…
After millenniums of savage butchery, more “civilized” armies faced each other on the most favorable empty grounds they could find and they became battlefields, far from villages and towns and private citizens. If a belligerent was vanquished, the surrender was honorable, and the subdued officers were usually treated with respect for having fought bravely.
To that extent, both soldiers and officers, if captured (whether in battle or surrender), were periodically exchanged. Or ransomed.
When General Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington at Yorktown, once the salient terms were effected, a magnanimous GW invited his opposing leadership staff to an elegant dinner. After all, officers were gentlemen.
…Even To the American Civil War…
This was a brothers’ war. Families were torn apart blue and gray, and long time friendships were severed. But the exchange standard applied.
When General Ulysses S. Grant rose to prominence at Fort Donelson, along the Cumberland River, he faced an old West Point pal. Now a CSA general, Simon Bolivar Buckner had known USG for two decades. They had been good friends. Despite Grant’s own eponymous “Unconditional Surrender” message, the two adversaries had a cordial half-hour reunion, once their business had been completed.
Remembering Buckner’s assistance years earlier when USG was down on his luck, General Grant offered “his purse,” since he knew Buckner would be taken prisoner of war. Buckner was aware of his situation-to-be, but was a man of means, and declined the well meant offer.
But the point to remember was that Buckner was indeed taken prisoner of war, but later exchanged – and even reassigned to fight again another day – for the Confederate Army. It was customary.
A Long and Deadly War of Numbers
Two years of vicious fighting took place between Grant’s Ft. Donelson victory and his promotion to General of the Army. Thousands upon thousands of Blue/Gray soldiers fought and died. Many languished in prison camps, hoping and waiting for exchange.
Ulysses Grant had grown to understand the arithmetic. The North outnumbered the South in population by more than 3 to 1. In financial wealth, perhaps 4 to 1. Union troops could be supplied and replaced far more easily than the Confederates.
By 1864, desertion in both both armies had become a problem that could not be overlooked. Some soldiers were homesick. Some were scared. Some were battle scarred and drained. Some received pleading letters from their families. They were needed at home. Many young fellows slipped away, usually in twos and threes, to return to their loved ones.
In the South, it was crucial. The deaths, casualties and desertions could not be replaced.
Grant’s Decision
Both General Grant and President Lincoln had concluded that the war had become one of attrition: Which army could outlast the other.
In the Union Army, with an influx of immigrants and most importantly, the huge numbers of free Blacks and ex-slaves who had enlisted, replacements were available. And it was not only men and munitions, but an almost limitless ability to sustain them with food, medicines, horses and forage, and the essentials of human survival. The South could not match that, and the blockades preventing those essentials had tightened the noose to strangulation point.
To insure that trained soldiers could not be re-recruited by the Confederate Army, on August 18, 1864, as a military necessity, Grant ordered that no prisoners of war would be exchanged.
“It is hard on our men held in Southern prisons not to exchange them, but it is humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our battles… If we commence a system of exchange which liberates all prisoners taken, we will have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated. If we hold those caught they amount to no more than dead men. At this particular time to release all rebel prisoners North would insure Sherman’s defeat and would compromise our safety here.” – Gen. USG
The Back Story
While General Grant’s order to halt prisoner exchange always receives the most publicity, earlier incidents had occurred that presaged that grim order. In late 1862, President Lincoln had made his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation public, opening the door to recruiting free Blacks, runaway slaves and “contraband” into the Union Army – as soldiers, not merely teamsters and ditch diggers.
To Confederates, it rubbed salt into their perceived wounds. In April, 1864, at Ft. Pillow in Tennessee, a Confederate victory, U.S. Colored Troops (as they were called) were given “no quarter.” This meant that no Black Union soldiers were taken as prisoners-of-war. They were either killed, or sold back into slavery. Confederates were twice as vicious facing Black soldiers as they were with other damnyankees. The North was horrified by the blatant brutality.
Lincoln knew that, but fine lines needed to be tacitly addressed. Making an already horrific war vengeful or retaliatory could not be allowed. He tried valiantly for three years to make the primary purpose “saving the Union,” and knew that by shifting the purpose to one of emancipation, a large part of the Union Army could collapse. Northerners may not have approved of slavery, but many were totally opposed to fighting – or dying, to prevent it.
Meanwhile, in spring, 1863, as he was slogging his way through Vicksburg, General Grant learned first hand to appreciate the value of Black soldiers. They had fought valiantly and successfully in supporting roles at both Port Hudson and Milikens Bend. With honor.
They had earned the public respect of USG.
Sources:
Boller, Paul F., Jr. – Presidential Anecdotes, Oxford University Press, 1981
Chernow, Ron – Grant – Penguin Press, 2017
White, Ronald C. – American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant – Random House, 2016
https://www.nps.gov/pete/learn/historyculture/city-point.htm
https://www.nps.gov/ande/learn/historyculture/grant-and-the-prisoner-exchange.htm
https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/fort-pillow-massacre
Presidential History Blog 
My 82d Ohio was one of those soldiers languishing at Andersonville—for a sample of his experience see https://www.clevelandcivilwarroundtable.com/andersonvilles-whirlpool-of-death/
The United States ended prisoner exchanges by order of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton in the fall of 1863, before Grant was promoted. There were two reasons for this. First, the rebels refused to exchange African American soldiers they captured. Second, the rebels had declared men Grant had captured and paroled at Vicksburg as being exchanged when such was not the case. Henry Halleck transmitted this order in October of 1863:
HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,
Washington, October 26, 1863.
Major-General BANKS, New Orleans:
GENERAL: Your dispatches of October 16 and 17 are received.
In regard to our prisoners of war held by the enemy, I submit the following brief explanation of the difficulties in effecting any exchanges on account of the utter disregard of the cartel by the rebel authorities.
The enemy commenced the violation of this solemn agreement by refusing to deliver and exchange certain classes of officers and men, and as soon as they had in their possession a large number of their own, paroled by General Grant at Vicksburg and yourself at Port Hudson, they entirely ceased delivering ours as required by the cartel, but placed them in close confinement. They then proceeded to declare all of their own paroled prisoners “duly exchanged” without any equivalents delivered to us. In this way they have been able to return to duty in the field a much larger number of men than if they had made regular exchanges. This was a most shameless violation of the cartel and the general laws of war.
To now exchange the rebel prisoners in our hands for ours in the possession of the rebels would be to admit the legal exchange of the rebel prisoners already returned to duty.
Generals Hitchcock and Meredith have been doing their best to arrange this difficulty and to renew the system of exchanges established by the cartel, but it is almost useless to expect any justice or honesty from a rebel, who is described by Shakespeare “upon whom do swarm the multiplying villainies of nature.”
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
H. W. HALLECK,
General-in-Chief.
[OR Series II Vol VI p. 419]
In November 1863, Stanton transmitted this message to Benjamin Butler at Fort Monroe:
WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, November 17, 1863.
Major-General BUTLER, Fort Monroe:
The whole subject of exchange of prisoners is under direction of Major-General Hitchcock, to whom, as commissioner of exchange, that branch of the service has been committed. He will be glad to have any idea or suggestion you may be pleased to furnish, but there should be no interference without his assent. It is known that the rebels will exchange man for man and officer for officer, except blacks and officers in command of black troops. These they absolutely refuse to exchange. This is the point on which the whole matter hinges. Exchanging man for man and officer for officer, with the exception the rebels make, is a substantial abandonment of the colored troops and their officers to their fate, and would be a shameful dishonor to the Government bound to protect them. When they agree to exchange all alike there will be no difficulty.
EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.
[OR Ser II Vol 6 p. 528]
In December, Stanton sent this to President Abraham Lincoln:
WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington City, December 5, 1863.
Mr. PRESIDENT:
A general summary of the military operations of the past year is furnished by the report of the General-in-Chief, herewith submitted. In the operations that have been alluded to, prisoners of war to the number of about 13,000 have fallen into the hands of the enemy and are now held by them. From the commencement of the rebellion until the War Department came into my charge there was no cartel or formal exchange of prisoners; but at an early period afterward a just and reasonable cartel was made between Major-General Dix and the rebel General Hill, which, until recently, was faithfully acted upon by both parties. Exchanges under that cartel are now stopped, mainly for the following reasons: First. At Vicksburg over 30,000 rebel prisoners fell into our hands, and over 5,000 more at Port Hudson. These prisoners were paroled and suffered to return to their homes until exchanged pursuant to the terms of the cartel. But the rebel agent, in violation of the cartel, declared the Vicksburg prisoners exchanged; and, without being exchanged, the Port Hudson prisoners he, without just cause, and in open violation of the cartel, declared released from their parole. These prisoners were returned to their ranks, and a portion of them were found fighting at Chattanooga and again captured. For this breach of faith, unexampled in civilized warfare, the only apology or excuse was that an equal number of prisoners had been captured by the enemy. But, on calling for specifications in regard to these alleged prisoners, it was found that a considerable number represented as prisoners were not soldiers, but were non-combatants–citizens of towns and villages, farmers, travelers, and others in civil life, not captured in battle, but taken at their homes, on their farms, or on the highway, by John Morgan and other rebel raiders, who put them under a sham parole. To balance these men against rebel soldiers taken on the field would be relieving the enemy from the pressure of war and enable him to protract the contest to indefinite duration. Second. When the Government commenced organizing colored troops the rebel leader, Davis, by solemn and official proclamation, announced that the colored troops and their white officers, if captured, would not be recognized as prisoners of war, but would be given up for punishment by the State authorities. These proceedings of the rebel authorities were met by the earnest remonstrance and protest of this Government, without effect. The offers by our commissioner to exchange man for man and officer for officer, or to receive and provide for our own soldiers, under the solemn guarantee that they should not go into the field until duly exchanged, were rejected. In the meantime well-authenticated statements show that our troops held as prisoners of war were deprived of shelter, clothing, and food, and some have perished from exposure and famine. This savage barbarity could only have been practiced in the hope that this Government would be compelled, by sympathy for the suffering endured by our troops, to yield to the proposition of exchanging all the prisoners of war on both sides, paroling the excess not actually exchanged; the effect of which operation would be to enable the rebels to put into the field a new army 40,000 strong, forcing the paroled prisoners into the ranks without exchange, as was done with those paroled at Vicksburg and Port Hudson, and also to leave in the hands of the rebels the colored soldiers and officers, who are not regarded by them as prisoners of war, and therefore not entitled to the benefit of the proposed exchange. The facts and correspondence relating to this subject are detailed in the accompanying report of Major-General Hitchcock, commissioner of exchanges. As the matter now stands, we have over 40,000 prisoners of war, ready at any moment to be exchanged, man for man and officer for officer, to the number held by the rebels. These number about 13,000, who are now supplied with food and raiment by this Government and by our benevolent and charitable associations and individuals. Two prisoners, Captains Sawyer and Flinn, held by the rebels, are sentenced to death, by way of a pretended retaliation for two prisoners tried and shot as spies by command of Major-General Burnside. Two rebel officers have been designated and are held as hostages for them. The rebel prisoners of war in our possession have heretofore been treated with the utmost humanity and tenderness consistent with security. They have had good quarters, full rations, clothing when needed, and the same hospital treatment received by our own soldiers. Indulgence of friendly visits and supplies was formerly permitted, but they have been cut off since the barbarity practiced against our prisoners became known to the Government. If it should become necessary for the protection of our men, strict retaliation will be resorted to. But while the rebel authorities suffer this Government to feed and clothe our troops held as prisoners we shall be content to continue to their prisoners in our hands the humane treatment they have uniformly enjoyed.
Respectfully submitted.
EDWIN M. STANTON,Secretary of War.
[OR Ser II Vol 6 pp. 647-649]