Andersonville - A Legacy of Shame, But Whose?

Andersonville

A Legacy of Shame...But Whose?

By Gary Waltrip

Introduction

Andersonville is a name that most Americans immediately rank with other infamous prison hellholes of history like Devil's Island, the Black Hole of Calcutta, Auschwitz and Dachau. In many ways it is similar; it was a place of misery, suffering and death, with photographic evidence of its emaciated prisoners a seemingly irrefutable judgment against the men who operated this well-known Confederate prison for Union prisoners of war.

Indeed, Andersonville has for the past one hundred and thirty years been touted as undeniable evidence of the evil nature of the Confederate Government who is even today accused of carrying out a genocidal policy towards Union prisoners. If one can only believe that Confederates were people who delighted in the suffering and death of their captives, then perhaps those disturbing photos of burned and demolished Southern cities won't ache so perceptibly in the far corners of the Northern conscience.

Ken Burns, in his companion book to the PBS television series THE CIVIL WAR, says this of Henry Wirz, the commander of Andersonville: "On November 10, 1865, Henry Wirz, commandant of Andersonville Prison in Georgia, was hanged in the yard of the Old Capitol Prison in Washington for war crimes. He pleaded he had only followed orders."

Burns' subliminal comparison to the well-publicized pleadings of the Nuremberg Trials should not be wasted on the reader, where Nazi war criminals likewise claimed that they "had only followed orders." Burns' insinuation that Wirz was guilty of Nazi-like war crimes only gives new life to the myth of Southern infamy at Andersonville. It is time once and for all for all honest students of history to know the other side of the story, which as all know, is the one that is never taught in history class.

In this article we are going to consider Andersonville Prison, what happened there and why, the Union charges against Major Henry Wirz, Andersonville's commander, and his subsequent execution, and whether or not Wirz was the monster he was alleged to be, or simply an innocent soldier who was made a scapegoat to assuage public outrage over the Andersonville dead. Finally, we are going to try and answer the question that is implied by the title of this article: who was responsible for the Union dead at Andersonville? We will be looking, not only to Confederate sources for the answers; but also to Northern ones, most notably that of Lt. James Madison Page, A Co., Sixth Michigan Cavalry, who was a prisoner of war at Andersonville, and Louis Schade, the Washington attorney who defended Henry Wirz at his trial.

What Was Andersonville Prison?

Andersonville Prison was opened near Americus, Georgia on February 24, 1864. It was intended to be a model prison, spacious and with adequate water and abundant timber for firewood. However, the prison was built on the assumption that it would hold no more than 10,000 Union prisoners of war, and then only while they were awaiting exchange. Both of these assumptions provided impossible when the Federal Government ceased the prisoner exchange that had been agreed to by both sides early in the war.

After the U.S. Government ceased the exchange, Andersonville quickly filled with Union POWs. By June of 1864 the prison population had swollen to 20,000 men and by August reached 33,000 prisoners. This was also the summer of Sherman's march to the sea, when Southern farms, barns, and mills were being burned to the ground in the North's scorched-earth policy that was designed to starve the Southern populace into submission. Even medicine was declared contraband, and Union forces destroyed stores of medicines wherever they were found, even those in possession of private physicians. Needless to say, these privations worsened the lot of Union prisoners; the South could not provide the prisoners what it could not provide its own citizens, and because of disease, inadequate diet, and the summer sun, Union deaths at Andersonville began to soar. According to CONFEDERATE VETERAN magazine of Sept-Oct 1991, 12,912 of the 45,613 Union prisoners at Andersonville died during its fourteen months of operation. Most of these deaths occurred during the period of August through December 1864, when prisoners died at a rate of approximately 100 per day.

Why Was The Prisoner Exchange Stopped?
Why the prisoner exchange was stopped became a hotly controversial subject following the war, and many blatantly self-serving theories were forthcoming from the North. James Madison Page, the Union officer who wrote THE TRUE STORY OF ANDERSONVILLE PRISON (1908) describes some of these theories: "The South refused to exchange a negro for a rebel prisoner." "The rebels would not exchange on an equitable basis as to relative rank of officers;" "The rebel Government resorted to frivolous pretexts to delay exchange as death was doing its work at Andersonville, Salisbury and other prisons."

Page dismisses all of these arguments as mere subterfuge. Even today, however, many of these old Yankee lies have been dusted off and reissued with Ken Burns the most prominent quartermaster. In the PBS series "The Civil War," Burns had the audacity to suggest that Grant stopped the prisoner exchange because he was morally offended by the Confederate Government's refusal to exchange negro prisoners!

In his text, Ken Burns states: "...Grant ordered an end to the prisoner exchange in effect since early in the war, until and unless the South formally agreed to recognize 'no distinction whatever in the exchange between white and colored prisoners.’ " (Page 336.)

So we see that the real reason the prisoner exchange was stopped was because Grant was an egalitarian who was willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands of Union prisoners as an act of moral principle. Even considering Mr. Grant's demonstrated proclivity for expending Union lives, one might conclude that Ken Burns, and his Reconstructionist forbears, would be deterred by simple embarrassment at advancing such an unlikely tenet. After all, black prisoners of war were a minuscule number of the total Union soldiers in Confederate hands. Melvin Grigsby, a Union POW at Andersonville, wrote: "There was not a negro soldier in Andersonville or in any other prison for a considerable time. When they were captured they were either sent back to their old masters or put to work on rebel fortifications, and they were not starved and did not suffer. [Secretary of War] Stanton and others who insisted on this point, might as well have insisted that every black in the South, whose liberty had been granted him by the Emancipation Proclamation and who was detained by his old master, should be a subject of exchange."

James Madison Page agrees. In July of 1864, Henry Wirz had paroled five prisoners to act as emissaries for the others. These emissaries carried a petition to Washington that was signed by almost every Union soldier in Andersonville, demanding that the U.S. Government abide by the original exchange agreement. Their efforts were not successful, and some of them returned to Andersonville to report to their fellows. Page writes, "When the Andersonville emissaries returned from Washington there was not one word about the exchange of negro soldiers being in the way of our release. It was then not thought of. I know that for the past forty-two years that matter has been published broadcast in the North as the reason why we were not exchanged. Grigsby is right in this. The Washington authorities had concluded to stop the exchange before there were any Negro prisoners."

In spite of all the Northern post-war moralizing, the real reason the Union soldiers were not exchanged is because the Northern government considered them expendable. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton said, "We will not exchange able-bodied men for skeletons," and "We do not propose to reinforce the rebel army by exchanging prisoners."

Ulysses S. Grant later confirmed this in his memoirs, explaining that exchange meant reinforcement of the rebel army, and that the exchanged rebel soldier behind brigades and fortifications fighting on the defensive was equivalent to three Union soldiers attacking him.

Page writes, "This was the Stanton policy, and if this atrocious and inhuman doctrine is anyway meritorious, the 'War Secretary' is entitled to the credit."

Who Was Henry Wirz?

Henry Wirz was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1822. He graduated from the University of Zurich, later obtaining an M.D. degree from the medical colleges of Paris and Berlin. After practicing medicine for a time, he immigrated to the United States in 1849, establishing a medical practice in Kentucky. In 1854 he married a widow, Mrs. Wolfe, and became stepfather to her two young daughters. The family moved to Louisiana, and in 1855 his own daughter, Cora, was born. At the beginning of the Civil War, Dr. Wirz enjoyed a lucrative medical practice and was fluent in English, German, and Dutch.

When the war opened, Dr. Wirz enlisted in Company A, Fourth-Battalion, Louisiana Volunteers. This regiment fought bravely at the Battle of Seven Pines, where Sergeant Henry Wirz was severely wounded in his right arm by a minie ball. The arm was almost useless to him thereafter. On June 12, after returning to his unit, Wirz was promoted to Captain "for bravery on the field of battle." However, his wound rendered him unfit for battle, and he was detailed as acting adjutant-general to General John H. Winder, Provost Marshall in charge of Confederate prisoner of war camps.

After serving at prisons in Richmond and Tuscaloosa and carrying out special assignments for the Confederate Government, Capt. Wirz was ordered to take charge of the interior of Andersonville Prison in April of 1864. He assumed his duties there the same month, and remained at Andersonville with his wife and family until April of 1865, when he was included in the surrender of General Johnston and his forces to General Sherman. Shortly before the end of the war, Wirz was promoted to the rank of Major.

Wirz retired to civilian life until taken into custody by Union forces of General Wilson. He was taken to Macon, Georgia where he was questioned at length about the prison, then released to return to his family at Andersonville. While waiting for the train, he was arrested by Wilson's soldiers. A few days later he was transported to Washington, where he was placed in the Old Capitol Prison on May 10, 1865, to await trial on charges of war crimes. We will describe the trial and execution of Wirz in the second installment of this article.
Did Confederate Authorities Deliberately Mistreat Union POWs?
After the war some former Union prisoners of war wrote memoirs and books detailing the cruelty that Southern forces allegedly displayed to their captives. Lt. James Madison Page disputes these descriptions. He states in the preface of his book, THE TRUE STORY OF ANDERSONVILLE PRISON, that he was writing of his own experiences in Southern prisons "in the interest of truth and fair play," and to reduce sectional friction "caused by the exaggerated and often unjust reports of Major Wirz's cruelty and inhumanity to prisoners."

Page speaks of his Confederate captors in most generous terms, from the moment of his capture by Confederate cavalry, through his first internment in a field POW camp, to his transfer first to Libby Prison, then Belle Isle, and later to Andersonville.

James M. Page was in action near Culpeper Court House on September 21, 1863 when he as ordered with other company members forward, dismounted, only to find themselves facing a superior Confederate cavalry troop over the crest of a hill. Page and others ran from the overwhelming force, and were ordered to "halt!" by the advancing Confederates. He did not do so, and admits the Southern troops would have been justified by all the rules of war in shooting him down, but they did not.

Page was soon captured, genially interrogated by General A.P. Hill, and sent to a makeshift POW camp. His first night in camp, another Union POW cut his pockets open while he slept, stealing his watch, cash, pocketknife, and other possessions. He knew he had been robbed by the other POW, and reported the theft to the North Carolina troops in charge, who were indignant at the crime. They soon persuaded the thief to confess and return the goods, after they had put a rope around his neck and hoisted him off the ground a couple of times. Page's possessions were returned, and reported that he was consistently treated with kindness by his Southern captors.

While imprisoned at Belle Isle, Page became sick with fever for eight days, and his comrades feared he would die. A Confederate guard encouraged him daily, telling him he was due to be exchanged "tomorrow." Page later realized that the kindly guard told him the white lie so he wouldn't lose his will to live.

This white lie was used often by the guards, telling the prisoners that exchange would come "next week" or whenever; and though some postwar Northerners stated that this giving of false hope was a form of Southern cruelty, Page believes it was done with benevolence, because the Confederates knew that men without hope would soon succumb to despair and then death.

While Page was convalescing from his fever, a Confederate soldier passed him by, noticed his emaciated form, then handed him a big, red apple. "Stick your teeth into that apple, Yank, and try for a minute to fohget about the Nawth," he said. Page hugged the apple to his breast, then sat down and cried. His one abiding regret was that the Southern soldier hurried away without giving Page the chance to thank him. This was not the only act of kindness Page received from his Confederate guards. Later at Andersonville, a guard brought him some Irish potatoes to cure his scurvy.

Page refutes many of the myths that abounded after the war, ones like the story that "Southern women and children would hold picnics at the edge of the prison so they could enjoy the suffering of the inmates within," which as Page points out, would have been difficult to do in light of the fifteen foot walls all around; or the myth that Confederate guards would be given "thirty days furlough for shooting a prisoner." This latter propaganda would be given new life in Ted Turner’s movie about Andersonville.

Page says such shootings were rare indeed, and then were done only upon extreme provocation. Nevertheless, greatly exaggerated stories of bestial cruelty by the prison guards proliferated after the war.

Page states that the guards, particularly the 25th Alabama, were generally kind and humane. Page said of them: "And I said then, and I have ever since said, in speaking of our guards, the Twenty-fifth Alabama Infantry, I never met the same number of men together who came much nearer to my standard of what I call gentlemen. They were respectful, humane and soldierly."

Page also points out that though prison rations were poor and meager, they were the very same rations that were issued to the guards. Captain Wirz tried to diminish scurvy in the prison, paroled five men to act as emissaries to Washington to petition for exchange, pleaded with the Confederate Government for supplies and even to release the prisoners unconditionally.

Far from the "war crimes" he was hanged for, Henry Wirz did everything humanly possible to save the lives of the Union prisoners under his charge.

He was not alone in this effort; as early as January, 1864, the Confederate Commissioner for Exchange, Colonel Robert Ould proposed to his Union counterpart that doctors and medical supplies of opposing forces be admitted to POW Camps to care for their own sick countrymen.

This offer, if accepted would have done much to ease the suffering of Union POW's, but the offer was never even acknowledged by the North. Page writes of this: "...I have, during the past fifteen or twenty years, read accounts from Southern sources, that the Confederate Government during the summer of 1864 asked the Washington authorities to send physicians and hospital supplies for the express use of Union prisoners held in the South; they pledged that those supplies would be only for the Union prisoners; and it was said that Washington authorities ignored the proposition. This seemed incredible, and I hoped that this charge would be satisfactorily contradicted by Northern writers acquainted with the facts, but I have never read or heard a word of refutation of it."

Finally Ould offered to deliver up all sick and wounded Union prisoners without requiring an equivalent number in return. Though this offer was made in August, the U.S. Government did not send ships for them until December, almost five months later. As noted earlier, this was the very period when most of the Union deaths were occurring, where Federal haste in the matter would have saved thousands of lives. Ken Burns, in his book, “The Civil War,” page 335, writes: "One of the cruelest charges made against Abraham Lincoln was that he was guilty of ‘shameful disregard' of the thousands of Union prisoners languishing in Southern prisons."

The charge may be cruel, but is it true? We are content to let the reader decide.

In Part II: The sham trial and execution of Henry Wirz
This article originally appeared in The Southern Cross newsletter and was reprinted in The Confederate Sentry. Gary Waltrip is a Confederate descendant and Certified Public Accountant in Northern California.

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