Chapter IV: Preface (4)

A few miles from Front Royal we met a carriage going toward Luray. In it was a young man in Confederate uniform and two young ladies. Barnes spoke to them and one immediately recognized him. She was Miss Belle Ford, a cousin to Miss Antonia Ford, who was arrested and confined in the Old Capitol Prison after Mosby’s raid into Fairfax Court House and capture of General Stoughton, charged with giving Mosby information which led to the raid and capture.[K] After leaving them we proceeded about another mile, when we were halted by a patrol of Confederate Cavalry, who demanded to know where we were from, where we were going, etc. One of them said he had seen the Yankees at Middletown--cavalry, infantry and artillery--and cautioned us about stopping at Front Royal. Our road ran a great distance along the Shenandoah River. On the one side we had the river banks, and on the other towering rocks and rugged mountains. In some places there was a gradual slope, while in others they rose perpendicular, forming a complete wall, but without its uniformity--massive and broken, showing occasionally large fissures which, viewed from the ground, resembled windows.

On reaching Front Royal we went to the hotel. There are two in town, but only one occupied. Here a very nice supper was set out for us, but I was content with a dish of boiled milk. There were but two beds in the house, and as there were six of us we slept three in a bed.

_Thursday, April 23._--Good breakfast this morning. It was raining very hard when we started on toward Markham. Our route led us down the old Manassas Railroad. The track had been torn up, the sleepers and all woodwork burnt, the rails bent and in many cases twisted around the trunks of trees. The road in some places was so muddy we sunk five or six inches at every step, and in other places we were slipping over sharp broken stones. Finding the road so bad, our clothing completely saturated with rain, and there being no appearance of the rain ceasing, we halted by the roadside at an old deserted shanty, which had at one time been occupied by workmen on the railroad. We gathered some wood, built a fire and tried to make ourselves as comfortable as possible. We bought seven pounds of flour from an old Irishman living near by, but could get neither meat nor eggs. The man baked us some bread and with it brought us a pot of coffee. At night slept on a bunch of wet straw thrown on the floor of the shanty--that is, on the place where the flooring should be, but in this instance it was dirt, the same as outside, except that it was sheltered from the rain.

_Friday, April 24._--Still raining. Made another start, but stopped at Mr. Lee’s, about a mile from our last halting place, and got breakfast. We then struck out through rain and mud, our boots soaking wet and our clothes hanging limp. Stopped at Bush Thompson’s and bought some apple brandy. Passed through Markham and on to Piedmont (now called Delaplane). We crossed Goose Creek three times: first, on charred logs, the remains of what was once the railroad bridge; second, on a fallen tree, and, third, on a bridge similar to the first. The burnt logs, broken and bent down, looked as if ready to give way under our weight in crossing. From Piedmont took the road to Upperville, where we arrived early in the evening. Barnes and Ratcliffe went to the house of a friend near town. Philip Lee, Thomas Lee, Wrenn and myself went to Lunchford’s, where we got a very poor supper, no fire, and sat until bedtime shivering in our wet boots and clothes.

_Saturday, April 25._--On opening my valise to get out dry clothes, I was surprised to find that the water had leaked in and everything in it was soaked with water. I was compelled to put on wet socks and underclothes.

As there were men wearing Confederate uniforms (either deserters or
absent from their commands without leave), roaming about the country,
claiming to belong to Mosby’s command, the men were furnished with
certificates of this kind.]

There was a meeting of Mosby’s men in Upperville on this day and they were coming in town singly and in small squads from different directions. I saw Mosby and made myself known to him and my purpose in coming to Virginia. He said he would furnish me a horse, and told me to come to the next meeting of the command.

I met a number of men who had been prisoners in the Old Capitol with me. I was introduced to William Ayre and rode with him to the home of his brother George S. Ayre, at Ayreshire, who had been a room-mate with me in the Old Capitol Prison. He welcomed me to his home and told me to make his house my headquarters. When I got my horse and equipments I was ready to enter upon my career as a Partisan Ranger.

INMATES OF ROOM NO. 16, DURING MY TERM OF IMPRISONMENT

[The Missourians named were held here awaiting transportation South for exchange.]

Adreon, George S., Baltimore.

Armand, William, Louisiana.

Ayre, George S., Loudoun County, Virginia.

Barnes, John H., Fairfax County, Virginia.

Barrett, Boyd.

Bennett, .........., Maryland.

Brawner, Redmond F., Prince William County, Virginia.

Carr, John, Fauquier County, Virginia.

Carter, H. Fitzhugh, Fauquier County, Virginia.

Chandler, .........., Missouri. (From Camp Chase.)

Clift, .........., Missouri. (From Camp Chase.)

Comastri, Marco, Italy. Arrested coming from the South.

Davis, ..........

Delano, Philemon.

Dula, Lowring, Missouri.

Eorio, Pietro, Brusnengo, Piemonte, Italia.

Ewell, James, Accomac County, Virginia.

Fitzgerald, Edward.

Flaherty, John, Baltimore.

Flaherty, Peter, Baltimore.

Ford, John.

Gardner, ..........

George, ..........

Goldsmith, John M., St. Mary’s County, Md.

Green, .........., Missouri. (From Camp Chase.)

Hagan, .........., Missouri. (From Camp Chase.)

Hammett, George.

Hertzog, .......... (From Camp Chase.)

Holbrook, Thomas H., Baltimore.

Hollenbaugh, William T., Pennsylvania.

Hoyle, George, Maryland.

Hunter, John B., Virginia. (Held as a Hostage.)

Hurst, Thomas, Baltimore.

Jenkins, ..........

Johnson, James, Clarke County, Virginia.

Keleher, John, Baltimore.

Kerfoot, James F., Clarke County, Virginia.

Key, J., Maryland.

King, Aaron J.

Lackey, .........., Missouri. (From Camp Chase.)

Lewis, Aaron.

Littlepage, William T., Baltimore.

Love, Henry, Dumfries, Virginia.

Love, Llewellyn, Dumfries, Virginia.

Marchland, Judge. (From Camp Chase.)

Martin, .......... (From Camp Chase.)

Minor, Fairfax, Virginia.

Mitchell, Captain, Baltimore.

Mitchell, Lieutenant Hugh.

Montgomery, ..........

Mount, Stephen R., Loudoun County, Virginia.

O’Brien, Edward H., Maryland. (First Md. Regiment.)

Pentz, John, Baltimore.

Perry, William McK., Missouri. (From Camp Chase.)

Phillips, Captain Thomas. (Captured running the blockade
into Wilmington, N. C.)

Phillips, Captain Wesley, Baltimore. (Captain of schooner
carrying stores to the Army of the Potomac.)

Purcell, Volney, Loudoun County, Virginia.

Randolph, .........., Virginia.

Reilly, ..........

Richardson, George, Fairfax County, Virginia.

Rinaldi, Raphael, Italy. (Arrested coming from the South.)

Russell, .........., Baltimore.

Short, .........., Virginia.

Simmons, Albert, Baltimore.

Smith, John C.

Spence, William A., Westmoreland County, Virginia.

Stant, James, Accomac County, Virginia.

Storm, R. B., Baltimore.

Tansell, James, Washington, D. C.

Taylor, George, Accomac County, Virginia.

Taylor, James, Accomac County, Virginia.

Taylor, John W., Accomac County, Virginia.

Taylor, Samuel, Accomac County, Virginia.

Thornton, Frank, Baltimore.

Thornton, William.

Ward, Charles.

Ward, Walter W., Baltimore. (Stuart’s Horse Artillery.)

Weiler, Emanuel, Richmond, Virginia.

Williams, Augustus, Vienna, Virginia.

Williams, W. F., Maryland.

Williamson, James J., Washington, D. C.

Wright, J.

TREATMENT OF PRISONERS OF WAR

Hon. Jefferson Davis, in a letter written from Beauvoir, December, 1888, said:

“Nearly a quarter of a century has elapsed since war between the
States ceased. Has the prejudice fed on the passions of that period
ceased with the physical strife? Shall it descend from sire to
son, hardened by its transmission? Or shall it be destroyed by the
full development of the truth, the exposure of the guilty, and the
vindication of the innocent?”

In the North a general impression was produced, and exists to a certain extent even at this late day, that Northern prisoners incarcerated in Southern prisons during the war, were brutally treated, starved, frozen, neglected and inhumanly treated in sickness, and even murdered, and that this was done in accordance with a wilful and deliberate plan, inaugurated by the Confederate Government and carried out by its officers and soldiers. And no other subject has tended more to keep alive a bitter and hostile feeling between the sections.

It is not so much among soldiers who fought through the war that the intenseness of this feeling is shown as among those whose fighting has been done since the war. In most cases it is the result of prejudice or through ignorance of the real facts.

The Confederate authorities made every effort possible to alleviate the sufferings of prisoners in Southern prisons. Finding it impossible to effect exchange man for man, and aware of their inability to properly care for the sick and wounded, they offered to deliver to the United States authorities the sick and wounded without insisting on the delivery of any equivalent in return. It was nearly four months after this offer was made by the Confederate authorities before it was accepted by the United States authorities, who had been informed of the frightful mortality among their soldiers in Southern prisons and urged to send speedy transportation to take them away.

Robert Ould, Confederate Agent of Exchange, offered to purchase medicines from the United States authorities, to be used exclusively for the relief of United States prisoners--to pay in gold, cotton or tobacco--two or three prices even--such medicines to be brought into the Confederate lines and dispensed by United States surgeons.

The following letter will show the persistent efforts made by the Confederate authorities for the relief of prisoners in their hands:

Confederate States of America,
War Department, Richmond, Va., Jan. 24, 1864.

Major-General E. A. HITCHCOCK,
_Agent of Exchange_.

Sir:--In view of the present difficulties attending the exchange and
release of prisoners, I propose that all such on each side shall be
attended by a proper number of their own surgeons, who, under rules
to be established, shall be permitted to take charge of their health
and comfort.

I also propose that these surgeons shall act as commissaries,
with power to receive and distribute such contributions of money,
food, clothing and medicines as may be forwarded for the relief of
prisoners. I further propose that these surgeons be selected by
their own governments, and that they shall have full liberty at any
and all times, through the agents of exchange, to make reports not
only of their own acts, but of any matters relating to the welfare of
the prisoners.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,
RO. OULD, _Agent of Exchange_.

Could anything be fairer and more humane than this proposal?

In a letter to the editor of the _National Intelligencer_, dated August 17, 1868, Robert Ould says:

“The cartel of exchange bears date July 22, 1862. The fourth article
provided that all prisoners of war should be discharged on parole in
ten days after capture. From the date of the cartel until the summer
of 1863, the Confederate authorities had the excess of prisoners.
During that interval deliveries were made as fast as the Federal
Government furnished transportation.... As long as the Confederate
Government had the excess of prisoners matters went on smoothly
enough; but as soon as the posture of affairs in that respect was
changed the cartel could no longer be observed.

“More than once I urged the mortality at Andersonville as a reason
for haste on the part of the United States authorities. I know
personally it was the purpose of the Confederate Government to send
off from its prisons all the sick and wounded, and to continue to do
the same from time to time, without requiring any equivalents.”

The War Department at Washington, on July 3, 1863, issued General Order No. 209, which states that “it is understood captured officers and men and sick and wounded in hospitals have been paroled and released,” and concludes: “Any officer or soldier who gives such parole will be returned to duty without exchange, and, moreover, will be punished for disobedience to orders.”

General J. A. Early, commenting on this order, said: “But for that
order all the prisoners captured by us at Gettysburg, amounting to
fully six thousand, would have been paroled, and, in fact, the proper
staff officers were proceeding to parole them, and had actually
paroled and released a large number of them, when news came of the
order referred to. Why did Mr. Stanton object to the paroling of
those prisoners? And why did he prefer that they should be confined
in prisons in the South--‘prison pens,’ as Northern Republicans
are pleased to call them.... If any of the prisoners brought
from Gettysburg, or subsequently captured, lost their lives at
Andersonville, or any other Southern prison, is it not palpable that
the responsibility for their deaths rested on Edwin M. Stanton?”

The fact is, the authorities at Washington were willing to allow their soldiers to languish and die in Southern prisons rather than consent to exchange. Would rather have them kept and starved that they might make capital out of it. When they consented to receive the sick and wounded, they did it--not for the purpose of ameliorating their sufferings, but that they might take the worst looking of the sick and starved prisoners and make an exhibition of their pictures to arouse a feeling of resentment among the Northern people, cover up their own infamy and place the South in a false light before the powers of the world.

In August, 1864, Brigadier-Generals Wessells and Seymour were sent South to look into the condition and treatment of Union prisoners. From a report of General Seymour to Colonel Hoffman, Commissary-General of Prisoners, Washington, D. C., I take the following extract, which proves how little the United States authorities were concerned on account of the sufferings of their soldiers who were held as prisoners of war:

“The Southern authorities are exceedingly desirous of an exchange
of prisoners. General Wessells and myself had an interview with
General Ripley at Charleston, S. C., on this point. Their urgency is
unbounded, but we asserted that it was the poorest possible policy
for our Government to deliver to them 40,000 prisoners, better fed
and clothed than ever before in their lives, in good condition for
the field, while the United States receives in return an equal number
of men worn out with privations and neglect, barely able to walk,
often drawing their last breath, and utterly unfit to take the field
as soldiers.”

Major-General Ben Butler, referring to the frustration of his efforts, while in command at Fortress Monroe, to bring about an exchange of prisoners, says in his book:

“His (Grant’s) proposition was to make an aggressive fight upon
Lee, trusting to the superiority of numbers and to the practical
impossibility of Lee getting any considerable reinforcements to keep
up his army. We had 26,000 Confederate prisoners, and if they were
exchanged it would give the Confederates a corps larger than any
in Lee’s army, of disciplined veterans, better able to stand the
hardships of a campaign and more capable than any other,” etc.

At the last session of the Confederate Congress a joint committee of the two Houses was appointed to take up and investigate the “Condition and Treatment of Prisoners of War.” This committee took a vast amount of testimony--sworn depositions of witnesses--surgeons, officers and soldiers, private citizens and Federal prisoners.

The object of this was to correct the unjust statements and misrepresentations which were circulated, and to remove false impressions and unfounded prejudices--to present to the world “a vindication of their country and relieve her authorities from the injurious slanders brought against her by her enemies.”

From the extremely lengthy Report of this committee I give here a few extracts:

“This Report is rendered especially important by reason of persistent
efforts lately made by the Government of the United States and by
associations and individuals connected or co-operating with it,
to asperse the honor of the Confederate authorities and to charge
them with deliberate and wilful cruelty to prisoners of war. Two
publications have been issued at the North within the past year and
have been circulated not only in the United States but in some parts
of the South and in Europe. One of these is the Report of the joint
select committee of the Northern Congress on the Conduct of the
War, known as ‘Report No. 67.’ It is accompanied by eight pictures
or photographs alleged to represent United States prisoners of war
returned from Richmond in a sad state of emaciation and suffering.

“The intent and spirit of this report may be gathered from the
following extract: ‘The evidence proves beyond all manner of doubt,
a determination on the part of the rebel authorities, deliberately
and persistently practised for a long time past, to subject those
of our soldiers who have been so unfortunate as to fall into their
hands to a system of treatment which has resulted in reducing many
of those who have survived and been permitted to return to us to a
condition both physically and mentally which no language we can use
can adequately describe.’--Rep. p. 1.

“The other (Report) purports to be a ‘Narrative of the Privations and
Sufferings of United States Officers and Soldiers while Prisoners of
War,’ and is issued as a Report of a Commission of Inquiry appointed
by the United States Sanitary Commission.

“The disingenuous attempt is made in both these publications to
produce the impression that these sick and emaciated men were fair
representatives of the general state of the prisoners held by the
South, and that all their prisoners were being rapidly reduced to the
same state by starvation and cruelty, and by neglect, ill-treatment
and denial of proper food, stimulants and medicines in the
Confederate hospitals. The facts are simply these:

“The Federal authorities, in violation of the cartel, having for
a long time refused exchange of prisoners, finally consented to a
partial exchange of the sick and wounded on both sides. Accordingly
a number of such prisoners were sent from the hospitals in Richmond.
General directions had been given that none should be sent, except
those who might be expected to endure the removal and passage with
safety to their lives; but in some cases the surgeons were induced
to depart from this rule by the entreaties of some officers and men
in the last stages of emaciation, suffering not only with excessive
debility, but with ‘nostalgia,’ or home-sickness, whose cases were
regarded as desperate, who could not live if they remained, and might
possibly improve if carried home. Thus it happened that some very
sick and emaciated men were carried to Annapolis, but their illness
was not the result of ill-treatment or neglect. Such cases might
be found in any large hospital North or South. They might even be
found in private families, where the sufferer would be surrounded by
every comfort that love could bestow. Yet these are the cases which,
with hideous violation of decency, the Northern Committee have
paraded in pictures and photographs. They have taken their own sick
and enfeebled soldiers, have stripped them naked; have exposed them
before a daguerrean apparatus, have pictured every shrunken limb and
muscle, and all for the purpose, not of relieving their sufferings,
but of bringing a false and slanderous charge against the South.

“A candid reader of these publications will not fail to discover
that, whether the statements they make be true or not, their spirit
is not adapted to promote a better feeling between the hostile
powers. They are not intended for the humane purpose of ameliorating
the condition of the unhappy prisoners held in captivity. They are
designed to inflame the evil passions of the North; to keep up the
war spirit among their own people; to represent the South as acting
under the dominion of a spirit of cruelty, inhumanity and interested
malice, and thus to vilify her people in the eyes of all on whom
these publications can work.

“But even now enough is known to vindicate the South, and to furnish
an overwhelming answer to all complaints on the part of the United
States Government or people, that their prisoners were stinted in
food or supplies. Their own savage warfare has wrought the evil. They
have blockaded our ports; have excluded from us food, clothing and
medicines; have even declared medicines contraband of war, and have
repeatedly destroyed the contents of drug stores, and the supplies of
private physicians in the country; have ravaged our country, burned
our houses and destroyed growing crops and farming implements. One
of their officers--(General Sheridan)--has boasted in his official
report that in the Shenandoah Valley alone he burned 2,000 barns
filled with wheat and corn; that he burned all the mills in the whole
tract of country, destroyed all the factories of cloth, and killed or
drove off every animal, even to the poultry, that could contribute
to human sustenance. These desolations have been repeated again and
again in different parts of the South. Thousands of our families
have been driven from their homes, as helpless and destitute
refugees. Our enemies have destroyed our railroads and other means
of transportation, by which food could be supplied from abundant
districts to those without it. While thus desolating our country in
violation of the usages of civilized warfare, they have refused to
exchange prisoners; have forced us to keep 50,000 of their men in
captivity, and yet have attempted to attribute to us the sufferings
and privations caused by their own acts.”

The report also contains a great amount of testimony concerning the cruel treatment of Confederate prisoners in Northern prisons.

Pollard, in his history of the “Lost Cause,” after reciting the extraordinary efforts made by the Confederate authorities to relieve the sufferings at Andersonville, says:

“Who was responsible for the sufferings of the sick and wounded
prisoners at Andersonville, from August to December, 1864? The
world will ask with amazement if it was possible that thousands of
prisoners were left to die in inadequate places of confinement,
merely to make a case against the South--merely for romance! The
simple fact gives the clue to the whole story of the deception and
inhuman cruelty of the authorities at Washington with reference to
their prisoners of war--the key to a chapter of horrors that even the
hardy hand of history shakes to unlock. To blacken the reputation of
an honorable enemy; to make a false appeal to the sensibilities of
the world; to gratify an inhuman revenge, Mr. Stanton, the saturnine
and malignant Secretary of War at Washington, did not hesitate to
doom to death thousands of his countrymen, and then to smear their
sentinels with accusing blood.”

ABOUT DEAD-LINES

Much has been written and spoken of the “dead-lines” in Southern prisons. One would suppose they were unknown in Northern prisons. The fact is, they were as common at the North as in the South. There was not a Northern prison-camp but had its “dead-line,” and at all these prisons men were shot at and many killed _for passing over them_. And there was no reason to complain of this, for the lines were plainly marked, and it was known that anyone attempting to cross them would be shot. So, any man--no matter whether North or South--killed in violating this regulation did not deserve any sympathy.

Even in the Old Capitol Prison guards with loaded guns were stationed around the prison, within and without, and any prisoner attempting to escape, or overstepping the bounds, was liable to be shot. Two men, at least, were killed there--Wharton and Stewart, as described in my Prison Diary, page 36. And this in the city of Washington, a fortified city, within the Union lines, surrounded by camps, with thousands of soldiers, and the prisoners confined in a walled prison-house heavily guarded.

MAJOR HENRY WIRZ, C. S. A.

_The True History of the Wirz Case._

I was living in Washington at the time Captain Wirz underwent the travesty of a trial--a farce which ended in a tragedy.

I frequently met and conversed with Louis Schade, his counsel, and his associate, Judge Hughes. I also met and conversed with witnesses on the trial.

Rev. Father Boyle and Father Wiget, who attended Wirz during his imprisonment and ministered to him in his last moments on the scaffold, were both warm personal friends of mine--Father Wiget particularly. I not only regarded him as a spiritual father, as he was, but with all the respect and affection which a devoted son would have for a kind, loving father. Had I any doubts in the matter of the guilt or innocence of Wirz, I would take the word of either of these good and true men before that of the whole tribe of hired perjurers who testified against him.

There are many persons at the present day who know nothing as to the truth or falsity of the record of events which took place during and immediately after the Civil War, except what they have heard or perhaps read in histories written in the heat of passion, with prejudice and malice, and their minds are often poisoned and their judgments warped by the misrepresentations and sensational stories invented at the time to exasperate the people of the North.

Major Henry Wirz was a native of Switzerland. He came to this country, and in 1861 was a physician practising his profession in Western Louisiana.

He entered the Confederate Army at the beginning of the war, was wounded--his right arm shattered by a ball, so that he remained a cripple permanently. As his right arm was powerless he did not have the physical ability to ill-treat prisoners as some of the witnesses testified at his trial. Even if this charge had been true, that he exercised undue severity toward some of the prisoners, he might have been justified in so doing, when their fellow-prisoners were compelled to hang a half a dozen in self-defense.

In 1862 he was promoted to the rank of Captain “for bravery on the field of battle,” and to that of Major a few months before the close of the war.

He was an impulsive man--some said he was rough in his manner. This apparent roughness in persons of foreign birth sometimes proceeds from difference in language and their mode of expression, which may only need a little prejudice or ill-will to distort into something offensive. But that he was a man kind at heart is shown by his earnest endeavors to relieve the sufferings of the prisoners under his charge.

In the Official Records of the Rebellion, published by the United States Government, will be found letters of Wirz to Captain R. D. Chapman, Acting Adjutant of Post, and Colonel D. S. Chandler, Assistant Adjutant and Inspector-General, showing his efforts to better the condition of the prisoners, both with regard to rations and hygiene.

In the Southern Historical Society Papers is a letter from General John D. Imboden, written in 1876, from which the following extracts are taken:

“I have already alluded to Captain Wirz’s recommendation to put up
more shelter. I ordered it, and thereafter, daily, a hundred or more
prisoners were paroled and set to work in the neighboring forest. In
the course of a fortnight comfortable log-houses, with floors and
good chimneys--for which the prisoners made and burnt the brick--were
erected for twelve or fifteen hundred men.

“This same man (Captain Wirz) who was tried and hung as a murderer,
warmly urged the establishment of a tannery and shoemaker’s shop,
informing me that there were many men among the prisoners skilled in
these trades, and that some of them knew a process of very rapidly
converting hides into tolerably good leather. There were thousands
of hides at Andersonville from the young cattle butchered during the
previous summer and fall, whilst the country yet contained such
animals. A few weeks later many of the barefooted prisoners were
supplied with rough, but comfortable shoes. Another suggestion came
from the medical staff of the post, that I ordered to be at once put
into practice: It was to brew corn beer for those suffering from
scorbutic taint. Captain Wirz entered warmly into this enterprise.
I mention these facts to show that he was not the monster he was
afterward represented to be, when his blood was called for by
infuriated fanaticism. I would have proved these facts _if I had
been permitted to testify on his trial, after I was summoned before
the Court by the United States_, and have substantiated them by the
records of the prison and of my own headquarters.”

When the Federal troops were sent to Georgia Major Wirz was placed under guard and taken to the Old Capitol Prison, in Washington, D. C., where he remained from the 10th of May, 1865, until November 10th, 1865, when he was hung.

For three weary months he was kept a close prisoner, and then he was taken before a Military Commission for trial (?).

In the case of Major Wirz the usual course of procedure was reversed--he was first condemned, then tried, and finally executed. Yet this was not the final act, for the malignity of his persecutors followed him even after death. When Father Boyle and others sought to give the body of Wirz Christian burial in consecrated ground the request was denied and the body deposited beside those executed for the assassination of President Lincoln, in the yard of the old arsenal.

The regard for law and justice which usually governs in a Civil Court had no holding in the proceedings of a Military Commission, where the decisions of the Court were rendered in accordance with the opinions of the Judge Advocate, who admitted or rejected testimony as he thought it affected the case. Consequently persons whose testimony was considered vital for the defense, were not allowed to testify, while witnesses for the prosecution were permitted to give their evidence, no matter how inconsistent or manifestly false it was.

In a letter dated August 17th, 1868, to the _National Intelligencer_, Robert Ould, who was Confederate States Agent of Exchange, says:

“I was named by poor Wirz as a witness in his behalf. The summons
was issued by Chipman, the Judge Advocate of the Military Court. I
obeyed the summons and was in attendance upon the court for some ten
days.... Early in the morning of the day on which I expected to give
my testimony I received a note from Chipman requiring me to surrender
my subpoena. I refused, as it was my protection in Washington....
I engaged, however, to appear before the court and did so the same
morning. The Judge Advocate endorsed on my subpoena these words: ‘The
within subpoena is hereby revoked; the person named is discharged
from further attendance.’ I have got the curious document before me
now, signed with the name of ‘N. P. Chipman, Colonel,’ etc. I intend
to keep it, if I can, as the evidence of the first case _in any court
of any sort_, where a witness who was summoned _for the defense_ was
dismissed _by the prosecution_.”

Rev. Father Whelan, of Savannah, Ga., a venerable Catholic priest, who had been in the habit of visiting and ministering to the prisoners at Andersonville, went to Washington, as a witness. He was asked by the prosecuting attorney what he knew, and after telling his observations at the prison, he was told he was not wanted and could go home.

In an old diary of mine, I find this entry:

“A man named Marini was in the store to-day. He was called as a
witness in the Wirz case. He had been a prisoner at Andersonville.
He said many of the witnesses had sworn falsely. Some swore he had
been bitten by bloodhounds. This he said was false; that he had shown
them his person to prove there were no marks of wounds. ‘If I had
been torn by the dogs as they swore I had,’ said he, ‘would there not
have been at least some scars to show it?’ He said that at the time
some of the witnesses swore Wirz had shot prisoners, Wirz was not at
Andersonville, but was absent from the post for about four weeks on
surgeon’s certificate, suffering from gangrene; that the accounts
of the prisoners being killed by Wirz were false. Marini was in the
employ of the United States Government as a spy during the war. He
said that one of the witnesses swore he had been sick during the
whole time he was at Andersonville. ‘So he should have been,’ said
Marini; ‘he didn’t wash himself the whole time he was there; he was
too lazy.’”

The star witness for the prosecution was the Marquis De la Baume, who claimed to be a grand nephew of Lafayette. He testified to the “individual killing” or murder “committed by Wirz.” Before the conclusion of the trial he was, _on the recommendation of the members of the Military Commission_, appointed to a clerkship in the Interior Department at Washington. He was afterward recognized as a deserter from the Seventh New York Regiment, and his name was plain Felix Oeser. When this fact became known he was dismissed from his office, a few weeks after the execution of Wirz. There was no further need of his services.

Another witness against Wirz was John Rainbow. In September, 1894, he was sentenced in Union County (N. J.) Court to one year in State Prison for stealing a watch. A petition, signed by Grand Army men, was presented to the court and this sentence was revoked and he was committed to the county jail for six months.

In the charges upon which Wirz was condemned and hung were thirteen specifications of men said to have been murdered by him, but though all the most minute details were given, it is a singular fact that there is not given the _name_ of any one of these persons--in every instance mentioned, it is “name unknown.”

In the first specification Wirz was charged with conspiring with Jefferson Davis, James A. Seddon, Howell Cobb, and others, named and unnamed, “to injure and impair the health and destroy the lives,” etc., “of soldiers in the service of the United States.” On this charge Wirz was declared guilty and hanged. Why were none of the other conspirators punished? Did he conspire alone?

Had the case been brought in any Civil Court--no matter where--it would have been thrown out of court.

What must have been the agony of this poor victim, sitting in the courtroom, day after day, and week after week, listening to the recital of the horrible tales, describing him as a fiend incarnate, by wretches who were swearing his life away. He looked in vain upon the faces around for a glance of pity, but on all sides he met the glaring eyes of men thirsting for his blood.

Foiled in their efforts to incriminate Jefferson Davis, his cruel and vindictive persecutors determined to wreck their vengeance upon Wirz, poor and friendless, whom they had in their power, and who had rejected their proposal to purchase his life by swearing falsely against Jefferson Davis.

Major Richard B. Winder, M.D., and dean of the Baltimore Dental College, was a prisoner in the Old Capitol, Washington, at the time of Wirz’s imprisonment and execution. A statement of his in regard to an occurrence which took place the evening before Wirz was executed has been extensively published, but an extract from it will not be out of place here:

“A night or two before Wirz’s execution--early in the evening, I saw
several male individuals (looking like gentlemen) pass into Wirz’s
cell. I was naturally on the _qui vive_ to know the meaning of this
unusual visitation, and was hoping and expecting too that it might be
a reprieve--for even at that time I was not prepared to believe that
so foul a judicial murder would be perpetrated. I think--indeed, I am
quite certain--there were three of them. Wirz came to his door, which
was immediately opposite mine, and I gave him a look of inquiry,
which was at once understood. He said: ‘These men have just offered
me my liberty if I will testify against Mr. Davis, and criminate him
with the charges against the Andersonville Prison. I told them that I
could not do this, as I neither knew Mr. Davis personally, officially
or socially, but if they expected with the offer of my miserable
life to purchase me to treason and treachery to the South they had
undervalued me.’”

In reply to a letter of inquiry from Hon. Jefferson Davis, Rev. Father Boyle wrote:

“On the evening before the day of the execution of Major Wirz a man
visited me, on the part of a cabinet officer, to inform me that Major
Wirz would be pardoned if he would implicate Jefferson Davis in the
cruelties at Andersonville. No names were given by this emissary,
and, upon my refusing to take any action in the matter, he went to
Mr. Louis Schade, counsel for Major Wirz, with the same purpose and
with a like result.

Pastor of St. Peter’s R. C. Church, Washington, D. C.]

“When I visited Major Wirz the next morning he told me that the same
proposal had been made to him and had been rejected with scorn. The
Major was very indignant, and said that while he was innocent of the
charges for which he was about to suffer death, he would not purchase
his liberty by perjury and a crime such as was made the condition of
his freedom.

“I attended the major to the scaffold, and he died in the peace of
God and praying for his enemies. I know that he was indeed innocent
of all the cruel charges on which his life was sworn away, and I
was edified by the Christian spirit in which he submitted to his
persecutors.

“Yours very truly,
F. E. BOYLE.”

Wirz spent the greater part of the night before his execution in writing, but slept for a few hours before daylight and awoke cheerful and refreshed. He was calm and self-possessed and had left nothing undone. His own books, as well as those borrowed, were all neatly done up and left for delivery to the proper parties. His diary was completed up to the last day.

He felt keenly the abuse that was heaped upon him. As he bade farewell to his old associate, Captain R. H. Winder, he said:

... “Promise me, if you live, to do all in your power to wipe out
this awful stain upon my character. Make my name and character stand
as bright before the world as it did when you first knew me. Promise
me you will do something to assist my wife.”

Winder turned his face away to hide his tears, as he replied: “Captain, I will.”

One of the daily newspapers, after relating this parting with Winder, said:

“Wirz passed on down the stairs, out between the files of men facing
outward, up to the scaffold, showing something in his face and step
which in a better man might have passed for heroism.”

How contemptible! His courage and fortitude shone out in spite of the infamous position in which his enemies sought to place him, but even the eyes blinded by prejudice and the callous hearts around him could not fail to note, though they could not appreciate, the lofty spirit of the man.

From the little room in the third story, designated “No. 9--Wirz, H., Captain C. S. A.,” he was marched to the scaffold, erected in one corner of the prison yard. Here he took a seat on a small stool, immediately under the gaping noose swaying over him. A soldier stood at shoulder arms on either corner of the platform, and four companies, one each from the 195th and 214th Pennsylvania, and two from the 9th Regiment of Hancock’s Corps, formed a hollow square around the scaffold. Fathers Boyle and Wiget never left his side until the last moment. Indeed, when the noose was adjusted his face wore a smile and he was still talking to Father Boyle.

For eighteen minutes he was compelled to sit and listen to the reading of the findings and sentence--the enumeration of the crimes with which he was charged, while on the housetops and in the branches of the trees in the Capitol grounds men and boys crowded, all eager to witness the ghastly spectacle; and their inhuman shouts, and brutal jests about the “dead-line,” pendant above him, could be heard by Wirz, who sat apparently calm and unmoved, save when amid the groans and outcries, a voice called out “Hang the scoundrel.” As this reached his ears he turned quickly, with a defiant look in the direction from which the sound proceeded, then, giving a cool glance on the surroundings, he resumed his self-command, giving his undivided attention to his spiritual advisers.

At the close of the reading Major Russell asked Wirz if he wished to say anything to the public before the execution. He replied: “I have nothing to say, only that I am innocent, and will die like a man, my hopes being in the future. I go before my God, the Almighty God, and he will judge between me and you.” At twenty minutes to eleven o’clock Sylvester Ballon kicked away the prop and Henry Wirz passed from life to the dark valley of the shadow of death.

I saw Father Wiget a few hours after the execution. He, with Father Boyle, had stood with Wirz on the scaffold--had clasped his hand just as he was about to be launched into eternity. He had been with him through the mockery of a trial, and when I saw him his breast was filled with emotion. He said: “Oh! he was a brave man!” He had stood by him as the rabble thirsting for his blood, like the cruel Jews, cried out “Crucify him! Crucify him!” and he knew the man was innocent of the crimes imputed to him. “He was a brave man”--the good old priest could say no more; his heart was touched, and his feelings too deep for mere words. Between what is felt and what is expressed there is often an immeasurable distance. It is impossible at times to give expression in words to the most touching--to the most beautiful emotions of the heart.

In Wirz’s letters to his wife there is an amount of pathos--a bitter, yet mournful wailing. The soft notes which he touches with trembling fingers will strike a sympathetic chord in hearts not utterly lost to all sense of tenderness or humanity.

A letter written by his wife just after she had learned of the termination of her husband’s trial would in itself show how false and malicious were the assertions of sensational newspapers that there was no kindly feeling between them. After speaking of her distress at the necessity of leaving him at that critical moment, and telling him not to despair--that all would come out right--she speaks of their past happiness, and cannot believe the authorities will tear them apart; that if the members of the court only knew how much they suffered, a pardon would be granted him. The letter concludes as follows:

“Dear husband, bear up bravely, whatever your fate may be. If I could
but see you for one short hour I should be much comforted. I cannot
describe to you on paper the distress of my mind. May angels watch
and protect you from all harm, is the constant prayer of your loving
wife.”

In Wirz’s last letter to his wife and children are the sad, soft breathings from a bosom filled with the warmest affection and anxious solicitude for their welfare:

“Old Capitol Prison,
Washington, D. C., Nov. 10, 1865.

“My dearest Wife and Children: When these lines reach you the hand
who wrote them will be stiff and cold. In a few hours from now I
shall be dead. Oh, if I could express myself as I wish, if I could
tell you what I have suffered when I thought about you and the
children! I must leave you without the means to live, to the miseries
of a cold cruel world. Lise, do not grieve, do not despair; we will
meet again in a better world. Console yourself, think as I do--that
I die innocent. Who knows better than you that all these tales of
cruelties and murders are infamous lies, and why should I not say it?
A great many do call me hard-hearted, because I tell them that I am
not guilty, that I have nothing to confess. Oh, think for a moment
how the thought that I must suffer and die innocent must sustain me
in the last terrible hour; that when I shall stand before my Maker
I can say, ‘Lord, of these things you know I am not guilty. I have
sinned often and rebelled against Thee, oh, let my unmerited death be
an atonement.’ Lise, I die reconciled. I die, I hope, as a Christian.
This is His holy will that I should die, and therefore let us say
with Christ, ‘Thy will, O Lord, be done.’

“I hardly know what to say. Oh, let me beg you, do not give way to
despair. Think that I am gone to my Father, to your Father, to the
Father of all, and that there I hope to meet you. Live for the dear
children. Oh, do take good care of Cora. Kiss her for me. Kiss Susan
and Cornelia, and tell them to live so that we may meet again in the
heaven above the skies: tell them that my last thoughts, my last
prayer shall be for them.”

Then follow some words of advice with regard to the schooling of the children, and to the future life, etc., of the family, and he concludes by saying:

“God bless you all and protect you. God give you what you stand
in need of, and grant that you all so live that when you die you
can say, Lord, Thou callest me, here I am. And now, farewell wife,
children, all, I will and must close, farewell, farewell; God be with
us.

“Your unfortunate husband and father,
H. WIRZ.”

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY OF MAJOR WIRZ

From the diary kept by Wirz while in prison during the progress of the trial, I make a few extracts, yet enough to show the manhood, the nobility of the man:

“Old Capitol Prison, Oct. 1, 1865.

“Everything is quiet around me. No sound but the measured steps of the sentinel in the corridor can be heard. The man who is sitting in my room is nodding in his chair. Poor, short-sighted mortals that we all are! This man is here to watch me, to prevent any attempt I might make to take my own life. My life--what is it worth to anyone except myself and my poor family, that they should be so anxious? I think I understand it very well, they are afraid I might cheat them and the public at large from having their revenge, and giving, at the same time, the masses the benefit of seeing a man hanged. If this is all, they are welcome. I have no desire to live; perhaps there never was a more willing victim dragged to the scaffold than I am. Why should I desire to live? A beggar, crippled, and with my health and spirit broken--why, oh why, should I desire to live? For the sake of my family? My family will do as well without me as with me. Instead of providing for and taking care of them, I would be a burden to them. And still, knowing all that, why do I not put an end to my life? Because, in the first instance, what I suffer now is the Will of God. GOD--how much is not in this word--what a tower of strength, of consolation! Yes, Heavenly Father, if it was not Thy will I would not be a prisoner. I would not be looked at, spoken of as a monster, such as the world has never seen and never will see. If that what I suffer now was not put on me by you for some wise purpose I would be as free as the bird in the air. Thou and I--we two alone know that I am innocent of those terrible charges. Thou and I--we both know that I never took the life of a fellow man--that I never caused a man to suffer and die in consequence of ill-treatment inflicted by me; and still I am tried for murder. Men have sworn that they saw me do it; they have called on Thee to witness that they would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and still they told a lie--a lie as black as hell itself. Why did you not send a thunderbolt from the high heavens--why, oh God, why? Because it is Thy holy will, and in humility I kiss the rod with which Thou seest proper to chastise me.

“The second reason why I did not destroy a life which is a burden to me, is because I owed it to myself, my family, my relatives, even to the world at large, to prove that there never existed a man so utterly devoid of all humanity, such a fiend incarnate, as it has been attempted to prove me to be. I see very well that I have no earthly show--that I am a doomed man; but thanks be to God that I am enabled to say with holy Stephanus: Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. They judge from what they hear and I must abide by it.

“_Oct. 2, 1865._--Another day has passed. I am tired and worn out; whichever way I turn my eyes everything looks gloomy and dark. Can it be possible that, knowing what I do know, I shall fall a victim. But why do I doubt? What right have I to grumble, as if it were a thing unheard of in history that men suffered the death of a felon as innocent of the crime alleged as I am; and if I dare to make a comparison between our Saviour and myself, did not He also suffer death? True, he died as an atonement for a sinful world; true, He died willingly; He had a holy mission to fulfill; but I? Why should I die? I can only say, because it is God’s will. Oh, God! Our Heavenly Father, give me grace, give me the power to bear the cross which Thou seest fit to lay on me. Have I not often sinned against Thee, and neglected the holy commandments? If I suffer now innocently can I, dare I say, I never offended Thee? Therefore be calm, my poor heart. Give thyself into His hands and say, Abba! Father!

“_Oct. 3. 1865._--What a mockery is this trial. I feel at times as if I ought to speak out aloud and tell them, why do you wrong yourself and me too? Why not end the game at once? Take me and hang me and be done with it. A few days I asked to arrange my defense; it was refused on the ground that I had ample time. Ample time, indeed! May the day be far distant for General Wallace when he may plead with grim death for a day, and receive the answer, No! I just received a note from my wife, saying she had tried in every way to see me, but impossible. She says she is going to her mother in Kentucky, and hopes to be able to do more for me there than in remaining here. Poor, deluded woman, what do you expect to accomplish, what can you do for me but pray? Oh, what a consolation it is to a person in a situation like mine, that there is in the wide, wide world at least one being that will pray for me. Yes, pray; but pray for thyself; the road thou hast to travel is a hard one; when thou findest out that when you pressed my hand two weeks ago, when thy lips touched mine, it was in all probability the last time _then_ dost thou need all the comfort prayer can give. May God bless you, and take care of you and the dear, dear children--I must end. Everything swims before my eyes--God, oh, God, have mercy upon me.