The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1867-05-23

Some unsophisticated and gullible
correspondent Of a Philadelphia pa
per, has been in Washington inspect
ing the Old Capitol Prison, and has
made the startling discovery that the
heart of the monster, Wrz, is preserv-
ed in a jar of spirits in that iustitu-
ton, for the inspection of the curl
Gus. Whereupon the Copperhead
press of the country from Maine to
Georgia, breaks out in full GLORIOUS
over the atrocity of this crime
against the innocent and foully muir
dcrcd Wirz. We take the following
paragraph from the Burlington Argus
as specimen of their lachrymose
waiIings, over the barbarous mutila-
ton of their late fellow com patriot
"What do civilized people think of
Edwin NJ Stanton, by whose order
the mutilalion of the body of the dead
Wirz was mangled, his heart dug out
and put in jar to crafty inperti-
nent curiosity or malevolence akin
to that more ola hycna than hui
man being. We care not what the
crimes of Wirz may have been-he
was murdered without chance Of
defence, or word in mitigation Of
the charge against him, and the whole
feelings of human nature rev oft at the
savage demon who could order so
great an outrage"
When it is recollected that Wirz
wife was IN Washington and with
her brutal husband, nearly all the
time during the trial, and that after
his execution his body was delivered
to her, or her friends, and taken
South for burial upon congenial soil,
and the frather fact that the Old
Capitol Prison has long ceased to be
used for the purposes it was devoted
to during the war, and the utter map
propriateness of the placefor keeping
such a relic, especially since the gov.
eminent has an anatomical museum
in Washington, the absurdity of this
cock-and- bul story over which copper
head journals have written so many
dismal jermaid's will become appa
rent.
Wirz was undoubtedly the mos
brutal and bloodthirsty monste
evolved out of scmi-barbarous pro
slavery system of civilization in it
desperate attempts to destroy tn
government.
1t was proven in court where h
had patient and impartial trial, dc
Tended by council of his own choos
ing, that he had repeatedly murder
ed his defenceless prisoners in col
blood without reason or provocatior
1t was by his order that the poo
starved emaciated victims were sho
down by the guards as they craw
ed up to the fatal dead line to get
coveted bone, or perhaps stick 6
firewood which to cke out thei
miserable existence, and the foul
teen thousand graves in the Andel
vile cemetery testify to his zeal an
efficiency in carrying out the order
IF his superior officers to Grid tn
earth of the yankee vermin''.
There is not an intelligent ma
in the country that believes for on
moment that his body was mutilated
But suppose it was? has it not beer
the custom Of the civil authorities
time out of memory, to turn owe
the bodies of notorious criminals t
the anatomists, and if there is just
fcation in doing this with a perso
who has murdered his one victim
why should he who numbered hi
dead Est by the thousand escape.
The truth is that this discovery (
prodigious mares nest by TIL
prodigious correspondent, is a fort,
nate pretext for copperheads to n
new their fealty to the lost Gauss
and their profound sympathy for il
highest development and most eff
Gent instrument in dccimating 10y;
troops, Henry Wirz the Demon {
Andersonville.