[WhiskeyPapa]

Exchanging prisoners would have saved the lives of many men on both sides but General Grant and Secretary of War Stanton stopped the ongoing exchange because the Southern soldiers reenlisted right back in their units while the Yankee soldiers just went home.

Signing a parole and then taking up arms again is dishonorable, isn't it?

Walt

[rustbucket]

Signing a parole and then taking up arms again is dishonorable, isn't it?

We agree. A few Confederate soldiers did get out of the Yankee prisons by signing the parole, but most didn't and consequently they stayed in prison. Signing paroles was not a condition of the general prisoner exchanges.