from Arlington. Lee never publicly responded to this charge, but privately told a friend "There is not a word of truth in it . . . No servant, soldier, or citizen, that was ever employed by me can with truth charge me with bad treatment.” Foner writes that "Lee's code of gentlemanly conduct did not seem to apply to blacks" during the War, as he did not stop his soldiers from kidnapping free black farmers and selling them into slavery. Princeton University historian James M. McPherson noted that Lee initially rejected a prisoner exchange between the Confederacy and the Union when the Union demanded that black Union soldiers be included. Lee did not accept the swap until a few months before the Confederacy's surrender. He also called the Emancipation Proclamation "a savage and brutal policy...which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death." As the war dragged on and Lee's losses mounted, he eventually advocated enlisting slaves in the Confederate army in exchange for freedom. However, he came to this position with great reluctance. In an 1865 letter to his friend Andrew Hunter, he wrote "Considering the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country, I would deprecate any sudden disturbance of that relation unless it be necessary to avert a greater calamity to both. I should therefore prefer to rely upon our white population to preserve the ratio between our forces and those of the enemy, which experience has shown to be safe. But in view of the preparations of our enemies, it is our duty to provide for continued war and not for a battle or a campaign, and I fear that we cannot accomplish this without overtaxing the capacity of our white population." After the War, Lee told a congressional committee that blacks were "not disposed to work" and did not possess the intellectual capacity to vote and participate in politics. Lee also said to the committee that he hoped that Virginia could "get rid of them," referring to blacks. While not politically active, Lee defended Lincoln's successor Andrew Johnson's approach to Reconstruction, which according to Foner, "abandoned the former slaves to the mercy of governments controlled by their former owners." According to Foner,