"By your laws all men eligible for service are _ipso facto_ soldiers, and a very good one it is; and, if needed for civil duty, they are simply detailed soldiers. We found in Atlanta about a thousand of these fellows, and I am satisfied they are fit subjects of exchange; and if you will release an equal number of our poor fellows at Andersonville I will gather these together and send them as prisoners. They seem to have been detailed for railroad and shop duty, and I do not ask for them an equal number of my trained soldiers, but will take men belonging to any part of the United States Army subject to your control.
"We hold a good many of your men styled 'deserters,' who are really stragglers, and would be a good offset to such of our stragglers and foragers as your cavalry picked up of our men; but I am constrained to give these men, though sorely against the grain, the benefit of their character, pretended or real."
"Your refusal to receive, in exchange, your soldiers belonging to 'regiments whose times are out, and who have been discharged,' discloses a fixed purpose on the part of your Government to doom to hopeless captivity those prisoners whose term of service have expired, or will soon expire.
"My offer to exchange the prisoners captured during the campaign precludes an intention on my part in the delivery to discriminate between your prisoners, as all would have been delivered; and even had it been intended, this discrimination between your men, whose term of service had and had not expired, would have been impossible, and could not have been effected, as I had no reliable means of ascertaining what portion of your men were entitled to their discharge.
"Your avowal that this class of your soldiers will not be exchanged, but will be rewarded by the sufferings and privations incident to military imprisonment because their boldness and courage subjected them to capture, although their terms of service has nearly expired, is deeply regretted by me, as I have the earnest desire of my Government to release from prolonged confinement the large number of prisoners held by both parties."
An exchange of about two thousand prisoners was, however effected. During the truce, four hundred and forty-six families were sent South. These comprised 705 adults, 860 children, and 79 servants, and each family took on the average, 1651 pounds of furniture and other personal effects.