The National tribune., 1907-04-25
THE wIRZ MONUMENT.

THE WIRE MONUMENT.
There is a breath of sanity in the
South in regard to the wirz Monument
Miss Fanny Andrews writes to the
Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser that she
lived near AndersonviIle during the
war. She is Georgian thru and thru
and sympathizes with Mr.. Callaway's
vigorous vindication of the Southern
people for responsibility for that great
wrong" She illustrates this by saying
that in the Summer and Fall of 1864 a
band of some 5000 past, on one occa-
sion, thru the neighborhood now known
as De Witt, on the road between AL
bany and Townsville. The planters
along the route were so moved with
compassion at the sight that they or
dered their negros to collect such pro-
visions as could be provided on the spur
of the moment and distribute them to
the suffering Northerners. There was
no time to do any cooking, but hampers
OF potatoes. turnips, ground peas, sugar
cane, ETC., were emptied in the road
before the melancholy procession, and
they were invited to help themselves.
AT this distant day I can still recall
positively the names of three of the
persons who performed this act of
benevolence; they We're Mr.. Robert Ba-
con; his brother, Maj. Edward Bacon,
uncles of the present senior Senator
from Georgia, and Mrs. Troup Miller.
sister OF the present writer who was
managing her husbands plantation
while he was off at the war. There
were doubtless many others who did
the same. for the unavoidable sufferings
OF the prisoners at Andersonville were
subject of frequent conversation and
universal regret among the people of
that section. Father Hamilton, a Ro-
man Catholic priest from Macon, de-
voted himself to the sick among them
with self-sacrifcing love that ought
to entitle him to a monument at the
hands Of the G. A. r. ITSELF"
She says that she sympathizes heart
lily with her Georgia sisters in their de-
sire to vindicate the memory of their
people, but she is entirely opposed to
the erection of a monument at Ander-
sonville for these reasons:
"In the first place, the site of the
famous prison is practically now no
longer Georgia soil. having been taken
over by the United States Government,
and we Il use the pronoun adyisedly.
for I am q daughter of Georgia myself,
and every clod of her old red hills is as
dear to me as my own fiesh) could not
place monument there without It's
consent. Even If this should be granted.
would it, in view of the prevailing senti-
ment at the North, be in the best of
taste? Would 1t, in fact, be consistent
with our own dignity and the dignity
or our purpose to intrude ourselves and
II into company where we are not want
ed-and where. to tell the truth, there
seems no especial reason why we should
desire any memorial of ours to be? On
the great battlefields. where the men of
both sides fought and fell together, it
is all right to mingle theememoriaIs of
our dead. The glory and the tragedy Of
those great fields belong to both alike,
ana we have right to raise our monu-
ments there as high as Heaven if we
can.
But there are spots in the keeping
OF either side where the other had best
not intrude. How should we feel, for
instance, II some Jealous daughters of
New England were to propose the cree
ton of a monument to Grant or Lin
coin in the Confederate cemetery at
richmond? And yet there is nothing
lnV1dlous In the feeling. We of the
South all honor and respect Lincoln,
but there Is an eternal fitness of things
which should preclude even his statue
forever from certain spots peculiarly
sacred to the Southern heart
In the same way, Andersonville is a
spot consecrated to the Northern heart
by the memory of the great tragedy In
which we had no part, except as the
witnesses of sufferings which
We were powerless to relieve, and for
which, as Mr.. Galloway has plainly
shown, We were in no way responsible
But aside from these reasons, the Sc
lection OF AndersOnville as the site of
a monument for Wirz would be likely
to defeat its own object. Ever since
the war 1t has been the Mecca of
throngs of negro excursIonists on Deco
ration Day. and neither they nor the
classes OF whites who consort with them
would be able to appreciate the motives
or respect the object for which the mon
ument was placed there, and even IL II
were not mutilated the surroundings
ana associations Of the spot are such
that the mere fact of its presence would
be more likely to create irritation than
to carry conviction. Hence, all things
considered, it seems that some other
place--Macon, Americas or Thomasyille
for instance-would be more suitable
for the monument contemplated than a
spot where it would meet the ewes of
those only whom no argument can con-
vince. The cities mentioned are visited
every year by thousands Of Northern
tourists of a class more likely to be free
from prejudice. and therefore more open
to reason than the fleeing and often
unthinking crowds that flock to Ander-
sonville. Many of them stay for weeks
and months. There is nothing in the
surroundings to stir up unreasoning
luminosity, and the lesson of the mohu-
ment would stand at least a chance OF
being attended to-
Miss Andrewss letter is reprinted in
the Macon Telegraph.
Chief Yeoman Fred j. Buenzle, of the
INIT al ut