Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1900-04-06

Il echoed in the press.
. This is the origin of the chant
+ which disturbs the colored population
= OF Capitol Hill, but which, no doubt
. Is neither more nor less authentic thai
> other capitoline ghosts Baltimor
, American.
In connection with the above highl
Interesting story, The SPECTATOR ha
received the following facts from on.
who knows them:
This is fact about Capt. Wirz
which perhaps you have never heard.
My Uncle, Maj. R. B. Winder, c. s.
A., who before the war owned a place
called the "Folly," in Accomac coun.
ty, Va, his family being a branch OF
the Maryland Winders, and be being
hear relative of Gen. Charles Winder,
Stonewall brigade, killed at Cedar
Mountain, and of old Gen. John H.
Winder, provost marshal of Rich
mond. When the war closed, like very
many others he had to go to work and
be became dentist. He was for some
years Dean of the Baltimore Dental
College, and it would he hard to tell,
such was his popularity, who loved
and admired him the most, the North
ern OF Southern dentists, nor do I be-
lleve there was one of them but what
would take his word for anything.
The above is only to make you un-
derstand what follows: Toward .he
close of the war Maj. Winder was one
OF the officers in charge of Anderson
vile, and shortly after the end, was
arrested ard confined in the s.old
his cell being just across
the corridor from Capt. Wirz. After
Capt. Wirz was sentenced be was WIS.,
tied by several men. and offered his
life and liberty if he would swear that
President Davis was the instigstor of
the assassination of President Lincoln,
which offerwas Indignantly refused by
Capt. Wirz. Maj. Winder all bis life
that the evidence against
Capt. Wirz was mass of falsehood
and prejudice, that Capt. Wirz had
Deen sentenced before any testimony
was heard, and they had as much right
70 murder him, as Capt Wirz. The
asst thing that Capt. Wirz sung was
The Switzers Song Of Home" and
or years, whenever Maj Winder
heard that song, he would say, with
ears in his eyes, ''poor Wlrz."
Some years after the war, one of the
prominent dentists of Connecticut
wrote to Major, then DR.. Winder, re-
Iuesting him to receive as a profess
ional student Mr.. Laws. whose fam
ly was connected with the Hazard
'ower Co., and whose brother had
lied at Andersonville. When about a
ear afterwards he discovered that the
)r. Winder whom he had grown to
I'VE and always loved, WAS the Maj.
Vinder whom he had always heard c
poken of as lone of those Anderson l
lille brutes, ~ his face was a comical S
tudy. t
Capt. Wirz was Swiss, ,andsas some 9
ody had to be murdered to satisfy
hose ''pious,' hypocritical fanat- t
Is of the North, who were the I
Die cause of that war. Capt. Wirz, t
oor foreigner, without any influence 8
} save him, was the victim selected. !
Vhen we remember the efforts the t
outh made to exchange prisoners and C
ompare the rations of Confederate
18th those of the Federal soldier, that O
here were more Federal prisoners in p
outhern prisons than there were o
onfederates in Northern prisons, and "
lat more Confederate prisoners died
l Northern prisons than Federals in o
outhern prisons, we can see that b
lese ardent advocates of humanity" e
Id benevolent assimilation" have q
0 cause to shake hands with them
lives. Yours truly,
FRANK DORSEY.