The National tribune., 1906-02-22

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clear intent to deeply insult the loyal
people Of the Nation in the movement
started by the Daughters OF the Con-
federacy to erect q monument to
Capt. Wirz. of AndersonvilIe infamy
This is particularly unfortunate at a
time when everyone else is doing his
or her best to allay the animosities and
hatreds engendered by the war. The
action of the Daughters has the look
of devilish malignity 1t recalls the
old tales of mythology where the God
dess of Discord with her heart canker-
ing at the sight of the loving harmony
of the other gods and goddesses. con-
jures her balefuI brain for some device
to set them at strife.
The colossal tragedy of Anderson
vile. Belle Isle. Salisbury and Libby is
the one wholly indefensible. inexcusa-
bic thing in the history of the so-called
Southern Confederacy. There never
can be any palliation for it. The wan
tonness of the horror can be in no man.
ner obscured or diminished. The ut
most that can be done is to think of 1t
as little as possible. This the Daugh
ters of the Confederacy are determined
the country shall not do. They come
out to glorify the principal. the one
figure in the war which Is associated
with it's most pitiable and criminal
phase, and for which they, as adherents
of the Lost Cause. have most reason to
blush before the civilized world.
For all else that was done in the
there can be some excuse or justifica-
ton. They can say with reason that
the provisions of the Constitution were
so equivocal that they found warrant
for secession, and for the doing of mill
tary acts that would make that seces-
sion prevail. That they were utterly
wrong in this is emphatically the YER
dict of the whole civilized world. Yet
they believed they were right at the
time, and what they did might have
been an honest mistake. though it was
one of colossal calamity. which. had it
been successful, would have wrought
unspeakable detriment to humanity.
There can be no such excuse for their
treatment of the Union prisoners. This
was a display of barbarsm worthy of
the most brutal ages of humanity. 1t
harked back to a time when men were
savages and it was the logical accom-
panimenr, or one might say the result.
of the civilization which approved the
tearing away from their homes in
Africa of shipload after shipload of un-
happy negroes to bring them to this
country to wear out their lives in I'M
requited toll for their captors and pur-
chasers.
Men who had sanctioned that
nefarious practice would be capable of
starving to death tens Of thousands of
unfortunate Union soldiers in Belle
Isle, Salisbury, Andersonville and Camp
Tyler.
The plea put forward by the Daugh-
ters that the Government was RESPONSE
bic for these horrors because 1t refused
to exchange prisoners Is absurd even
for women to make. The policy of the
Government with regard to exchanges
had absolutely nothing to do with the
case. The Confederates were bound
to treat their prisoners with huma nifty,
regardless of anything else. We have
seen this illustrated by the heather
nation Japan, which has received the
worlds praise for the kindly generosity
it displayed toward the Russians whom
it captured and without retaliation for
the barbarities we'll known to have
been practiced upon the Japanese pris-
oners.
The interruption Of the exchange
was caused by the grossest bad faith of
the Southern Confederacy as to the
prisoners paroled at Vicksburg and
stood ready to continue the exchange
whenever the Confederacy gave signs
of abiding by it's engagements. But
this, as We have said before, is outside
the real matter Our Government had
the most absolute right to refuse ex-
change for any reason, and this did not
give the slightest justification to the
death the unfortunate. soldiers who fell
into it's hands.
The prisoners of war were deIiber-
ately starved in a country Astounding
in supplies. and where Sherman found
ample food for his great army of co.
900 men in his triumphant march to
the sea.
The Daughters also say that Wirz
was made martyr because he refused
to implicate Jefferson Davis. This is
quite as absurd as the previous pretext
The culpability Of Jefferson Davis for
the systematic cruelties to the prison.
ers was completely established without
| asking single question of Capt. Wirz.
The reports to Jefferson Davis from the
Inspectors sent thither by the Confed-
crate War Department, furnished all
the proof that was needed for that.
Capt. Wirz was hanged very Justly for
cruelties he committed over and above
| what his instructions implied. He was
not hanged for the starvation Of pris-
oners. nor for their confinement with
out shelter or means OF cleanliness in
| that awful pen. He was hanged be-