The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1906-09-19

=. demned man and laid the proposition
before him. Wirz replied to them sim
ply and quietly: You know that |
have always told you that | do not
know ANYTHING about Jefferson Davis.
/ He had no connection with me as 10
what was done at AndersonYllle. II
knew anything about him | would not
become a traitor against him or any
one else, even to save my life.
That statement alone, under the cir
cumstances in which it was made, is
sufficient justification for the erection
of monument. Sam Davis, the hum
BILE Tennessean, received that honor
for a similar statement made under
precisely the same circumstances. But
there are other and weightier reasons
whv the monument should be erected
The charges against Wirz were false,
| and they reflect not only upon him,
| but uDOn this section generally, and
the rearing of a monument to the man
would be not only a just tribute to
brave and gallant soldier, but would
also be a reply to the falsehoods which
! have been so theoretically circulated
about Andersonville, for the purpose
of making treason odiOus.
On the morning of the day on which
he mounted the scaffold, with his arm
in a sling as a result of a wound re
ceived in battle, to die bravely, protest
ing his innocence of the charges
against him. Wirz wrote to his attor-
ney concerning his family and the in
fanny which had been put upon them
by the suborned testimony adduced at
the trial In appealing for assistance
hn a
somewhat lengthy letter in these
words:
IF anyone should come to the relief
of my family it is the people of the
South, for whose sake have sacrificed
all"
This appeal from the grave should
be more potent than the protest of the
Grand Army of the Republic. But
there is another appeal from the grave
which is very pertinent at the moment.
In 1888 Jefferson Davis wrote to the
attorney of Wirz:
Il have often felt, with poignant re-
greet, that the Southern public have
never done justice to the martyr,
Major Wirz With wish to do some
thing to awake due consideration for
his memory, l write to ask you to give
the circumstances, as fully as may be
agreeable to you, of the visit made to
him the night before his execution,
when he was tempted by the offer OF
pardon if he would eliminate me,
and thus exonerate himself of charges
of which he was innocent, and with
which | had no connection"
These are the essential facts con-
nected with the legal murder OF the
poor Switzer, who was even denied
Christian burial, but was thrust into
trench dug in the prison yard, along
side that other martyr to the infamous
politics of the era, Mrs. Surrat. What
are the facts as to the AndersOnville
"outrages"? For the heavy mortality
at that prison pen the responsibility
is not far to seek. In the first place,
the Federal government, perhaps for
the first time in the history of war,
and it is to be hoped for the last, had
declared medicines to be cOntraband OF
war. 1t is not necessary to dwell on
the infamy of this order; it carries its
own criticism with it. When the death
rate was high in AndersonYille, South
ern women were being imprisoned in
numbers in Washington for the crime
of having quinine and calomel con-
cealed in their effects to bring South.
Chloroform, to be used in cases of am
mutation, was strictly forbidden. In
these circumstances the Confederate
authorities, aware of their Inability TO
nroDerly care for the sick in the South
| ern prisons, informed the Northern
agents of the great mortality in these
prisons and urgently urged that the
| prisoners be exchanged, even without
regard to the surplus which the Con-
| federates had on the rolls as the re-
suit of exchanges at an earlier period
| of the war. But the Federal war de-
Dartment would not consent to an eX-
| change. Finally, when all hope of eX-
change was gone, the COnfederates Of
fered to deliver up all the sick and
wounded in their charge without re-
curing any equivalent in return, and
! pledged that the number would amount
| to ten or fifteen thousand, and II not 1t
would make up that amount in healthy
men. Even this proposition was tard-
! ily accepted by the Federals. 1t was
made in August, 1864, and the trans
portation was not sent for the sick
until December. though the Federals
were in command of the coast and had
ample transportation facilities at all
times 1t was during this period of
inaction that the heaviest mortality
occurred at AndersOnville.
The mortality at Andersonyille was
undoubtedly heavy, but it was not I'M
paralleled, as the Northern historians
would have the world believe. 1t was,
indeed, not as heavy as the death rate
in some of the Northern prisons. We
cannot escape history" said Abraham
Lincoln, perhaps with the memory OPP
pressing him of the order declaring
medicine contraband Of war, and his
General Order No. 100 authorizing
commanding officers to refuse quarter
lin great straits" 1t is true that we
cannot escape history, but it seems
sufficiently easy to falsify it. Truth
crushed to earth will rise again, but
there is usually someone near at hand
with a baseball bat to give her the
ouietus promptly. 1t has been so with
this story of the horrors of the South
ern prison pens.