Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1867-04-25
clerksbin in the Department of the Interior

a clerkship in the Department of the Interior
This occurred whilst one of the witnesses for the
defence (Duncan) was arrested in open Court, and
placed in prison before he had testified. After
the execution of CAPTAIN Wirz some of the Ger
mans of Washington recognized in de 10 Baumel
a deserter from the Seventh New York (Steuben}
Regiment, whose name was not de Ia Baume, but
Felix Oeser, native of Saxony. They went to
Secretary Harlan, and he dismissed the imposter
and important witness in the Wirz trial, on the
2lst November, eleven days after the execution
No one who is acquainted with the Couover testi-
mony, in consequence of which the President of
the United States was falsely induced to place q
reward of 100000 upon the head of an innocent
man, will be astonished at the above disclosures Of
the character of testimony before Military Com
missions. So much for charge No. 2.
IF from twelve to fifteen witnesses could be found
who were willing to testify to so many acts of muir
der on the part of Wrz, there must certainly have
been no lack of such who were willing to swear to
minor offences Such was the unnatural state of
the public mind against the prisoner ut that time,
that such men regarded themselves, and were re-
garded, as heroes, after having testified in the
the witnesses for the defence were intimidated,
But who is responsible for the many lives that
were lost at fAndersonvile, and in the Southern
prisons2 That question has not been fully settled,
but history will tell on whose heads the guilt for
those sacrificed hecatombs of human beings is to
be placed. 1t was certainly not the fault of
poor Captain Wirz, when in consequence of medi-
cines having been declared contraband Of war by
the North, the Union prisoners died for the want Of
the same. How often have we read during the war
that ladies going South, were arrested and placed
in the Old Capital prison by the Union authorities,
because some quinine or other medicines had been
found concealed in their petticoats. Our navy
prevented the ingress Of medical stores from the
seaside, and our troops repeatedly destroyed drug
in the South. Thus the scarcity of medicine be-
came general all over the South. Surgeon j. G.
Pilot writes, September g. 1864, from Anderson
vile, this letter was produced by the Judge Ad-
vocate in the Wirz trial): "We have but little
more than the indigenous barks and roots with
which to treat the numerous forms of disease to
which our attention is daily called. For the treat
ment of wounds, ulcers, etc., we have literally
nothing except gangrene, and we are compelled to
fold our arms and look quietly upon its ravages,
not even having stimulants to support the system
under its depressing influence; the articles being
so limited in supply that it can only be used tor
cases under the knne.
That provisions in the South were scarce will as
tonish nobody, when it is remembered how the war
was carried on. General Sheridan boasted in his
official report, that, in the Shenandoah Valley a.
lone, he burned two thousand barns filed with corn
and wheat and all the mills in the whole tract of
country; that be destroyed oil factoles Of cloth,
and killed or drove off every animal even to the
poultry, that could contribute to human sustenance.
And those desoations were repeated in different
parts of the South, and that so thoroughly that
last month, two years after the end of the war,
Congress had to appropriate million Of dollars to
save the people of those regions from actual starv
alton. The destruction Of railroads and other
means of transportation, by which food could be
supplied by abundant districts to those without it,
increased the difficulties in giving sufficient food to
our prisoners.
The Confederate authorities, aware of their ina
bity to sustain their prisoners informed the Nor
thern agents of the great mortality, and urgently
requested that the prisoners should be exchanged
even without regard to the surplus which the Con:
federates had on the exchange rolls from former
exchanges, that is, man for man. But our War
Department did not consent to an exchange. They
did not want to exchange skeletons for healthy
men" Finally, when all hopes Of exchange were
gone, COL Ould, the Confederate Commissioner,
offered early in August, 1864, to deliverup all the
Federal sick and wounded, without requiring an
equivalent in return, and pledged that the number
would amount to ten or fifteen thousand and, if it
did not, he would make up the number with well
men. Although this offer was made in August
the transportation was not sent for them Ito Sa-
vannah) until December, although he urged and
implored Ito use his own words) that haste should
be made. During that very period the most of the
deaths at Andersonville occurred. Congressman
Covode, who lost two sons in Southern prisons,
will do well if he inquiries who those skeletons"
were which the Honorable Secretary of War did
not want to exchange for healthy men. If he
does, he will hereafter be perhaps less bitter a.
gainst the people of the South.
But has the North treated her Southern prison
ers 50 we'll that she should lift up her hands, and
cry 'anathema" over the South. Mr.. Stanton re-
ports to Congress- July 18th, 1866, that of South
ern prisoners there died in the North &C. 436, and
of Northern prisoners in the South 22, SIG. What
a fearful record Over $4,000 of prisoners dying
in the midst Of plenty MIR. Stanton gives the
total number of prisoners in the North at 22O 900
and in the South at l26, $40. Suppose this to be
correct though thisstatement comes certainly from
no impartial source there died Of prisoners in the
South, without medicines and provisions, the fifth
Dart, and in the North, with medicines and provi-
sons, the eighth part. But in the number Of
Southern prisoners in the North, are probably in
cluded the paroled prisoners of Lees, johnson 8
and Smith armies, who.never entered North
ern prison. IF that be so the mortality of South
ern prisoners in the North will be even greater
than that of the Federal prisoners in the South
We used justly to proclaim in former time that
ours was ''the land of the free and the home OF
the brave" But, when one half of the country
is shrouded in despotism, which now only finds
a parallel in Russian. Poland and when our gene
rails and soldiers quietly permit that their former
adversaries in arms shall be treated worse than
the Helots of DID, brave soldiers though they may
be, who when the forces and resources OF both
sections were more equal, have not seldom seen
the backs of our best generals, not to speak Of
such as Butler and consorts, then we may well
question whether the "star-spangled banner still
waves over the land of the free or the home of
the brave" A noble and brave soldier never per-
mits his antagonist to be illuminated or tram
pied upon after an honorable surrender. Besides,
Notwithstanding the decision of the highest legal
tribunal in the land, that military commissions
are unconstitutional the earnest and able protesta
tions of President Johnson, and the results OF mill
tary commissions, yet such military commissions
are again established by recent legislation OF Con-
gress all over the suffering and starving South.
History is just, and, as Mr.. Lincoln used to say
we cannot escape history. Puritanical hypocrisy,
and self lfglori6cation will not save
those enemies of liberty from their just punish
ment. i
Not even a Christian burial of the remains of
Captain Wirz has been allowed by Secretary Stan
ton They still lie, side by side, with those Of an
other and acknowledged victim Of Military Com
,,;.cons tho unfnrtunate Mrs Srrratt in the ward