Jones was unshaken by the stern words of the Union general and fired back a letter chastising Foster and the Federal armies for their conduct throughout the war. He complained at length that the Confederate authorities had not been notified, or given time to evacuate the city, before the bombardment began the previous August. He closed his dispatch to the enemy commander with the furious words: ‘Under the foregoing statement of facts, I cannot but regard the desultory firing on this city which you dignify by the name bombardment, from its commencement to this hour, as antichristian, inhuman, and utterly indefensible by any law, human or divine.’ Clearly Jones was in no mood to be chastised by the Yankees, nor was he prone to any sympathy for the captive Union officers he was exposing to danger.

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In late June, the war of words began to match the war of guns, as Jones and Foster fired verbal salvos back and forth across Charleston Harbor. Both generals were under pressure to end the siege, but since they were losing troops to the front in Virginia, the stalemate dragged on and the prisoners stayed put.

The captives themselves became involved in the ongoing rhetoric when the five Federal generals among them–Truman Seymour (another Fort Sumter veteran), Henry Wessells, Eliakim P. Scammon, Charles A. Heckman and Alexander Shaler–wrote to Foster requesting an exchange and asking that the Union provide the Confederate prisoners with ‘kindness and courtesy.’ Scammon also requested permission from Jones to be released so he might go north to reason with the U.S. War Department to allow the two groups of prisoners to be exchanged. But the Confederate commander politely refused the request: ‘General, your note of yesterday was handed to me today. I am sorry to hear that your health is so bad, and I would gladly do anything in my power to contribute to your relief, but I have no authority to permit you to leave the Confederate States and go north for the purpose of effecting an exchange. Your government does not grant that privilege to our officers held as prisoners of war, but has, [it] seems to me thrown obstacles in the way of fair exchange.’

Jones was dismayed at the fact that as of April 1863 the Federal government refused to continue the practice of exchanging prisoners. Prior to that date, a formal policy had existed that prescribed how prisoner exchanges were to take place. The new hard-line policy was designed to prevent soldiers from returning to the ranks of the Southern armies, as the Federal Army concluded that the Confederates received the greater benefit from the practice. It also, however, caused a rapid swelling of the numbers of men in Northern and Southern prisons.

President Abraham Lincoln became aware of the situation in Charleston and gave permission to Foster to make an exception to War Department policy and begin making arrangements for an exchange. Thus, on August 3, an agreement was worked out for the 100 officers.

Just when it seemed that the prisoner dispute had been resolved, things took a turn that would place even more captives in harm’s way. Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s campaign in Georgia was getting a bit too close to the overcrowded Southern prison camp at Andersonville, and the Confederate government began to send hundreds of Federal prisoners to Charleston for safekeeping. Jones objected to the situation, arguing to no avail that it was ‘inconvenient and unsafe.’

Upon their arrival in Charleston, most of the Federals were confined to the city jail, a massive octagonal fortress guarded by a 40-foot tower. It was located on Magazine Street, in the southeast part of the city, directly in the line of fire from the mortars across the harbor.

Before long, the inmates included nearly 600 officers, more than 300 enlisted men both black and white, as well as local criminals and deserters from both sides. All were jammed into A-frame tents set up in the courtyard. An officer inmate described the yard as ‘A dirty filthy place unfit for human beings to live in.’ Another Federal, Lieutenant Louis Fortescue, wrote of the ‘intolerable heat’ that he endured in the cramped courtyard, which did not have a’single shade tree.’

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