The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1918-12-26

A Christmas Day Not Pleasant to Conjure to
Mind Was That Spent at the
Notorious "Hotel Wirz"
By j. q. BosssseW

By. G.. BonneN
~ Early in October, 1854 q company of ~
karA Union soldiers numbering only eighty zaeA
four, officers and all, we're guarding
station on the railroad in the rear of General Sher.
mans army during his Atlanta campaign. After
stubborn resistance of an attack by overpowering
numbers of Confederate forces they were compelled
to surrender, and found themselves prisoners of
war; But they were patriots, not guilty culprits,
and they had nothing to regret, except the fact
that they we're doomed to occupy place in some
miserable Southern prison.
It fell to their lot to be taken to Andersonville
prison. Captured on the third of October, they
we're until October ninth in reaching Andersonvie,
a station on the Macon and Albany Railroad named
in honor of Major Anderson, the gallant defender of
They at once taken within this stockade prison.
which embraced some twenty seven acres of ground.
There, with only the blue. .vated heavens above
them for covering, they were kept until Novem-
Der amid its ndescribable horrors short ratOns
exposed to the piercing rays of Southern sun, the
petiDg storms, and the ravages of voracious mos
quitos, feas and graybacks, which by the millions
abounded in that prison pen.
Then, under the guise of promised exchange,
but really through fear that some of Sherman's
them. they were taken on detour of month and
half, covering some five hundred miles, during
which they were held for some days each in three
different open prison pens
During that time there was not place where
they camped. or we're in prison., but was strewn
with the bodies of some of their comrades, who, in
their weakened condition. expired from starvation
and exposure. Taking the naked and starving con-
dition of these capves into account, doubtless the
suffering they endured on that long detour during
the bleak November and December days, are un-
paraleled, if not unequaled, in the annals of our
country.
It was Christmas December, 1854. when they
returned and reentered the 'Wjrz Hotel" at Ander-
n~ll In, An~2
there ready to receive and admit them as his guests
again.
Arriving inside their old quarters they found
the landlord had just cleaned house. All their old
tent stakes, pegs ETC., had been picked up and
thrown between the inner stockade and the dead ine
All the mud huts had been torn down, the spoon
ing holes filled up. and the twenty foor
freshly plowed, but not swept nor narrowed down.
There were no lace curtained windows. no uphoi-
stored furniture and wuOlen matressed bedsteadS
with the latest improved bed springs
They had not been inside this prison pen fifteen
minutes when prisoner, who was reaching under
the dead line for some tent stakes, was shot by one
of the guards. An ounce ball and three buckshot
had torn hole through the upper part of his body
and killed him instantly. For prisoner to reach
over or under the dead line was certain DEATH
Not long after they reentered this capacious
hotel that Christmas Eve the ration wagon drove in
Each prisoner drew half pint of cold mush and
two or three tablespoonful of some kind of con-
cocton called vinegar, which was made out of sor-
ghum molasses, and was intended an antidote for
scurvy, with which many of them were affected.
At Albany, on their return, knowing they
would need them, while on their way to take the
train, they picked up chips sticks and pine knots,
and carried as many as the guards would allow
The night brought rain and sIeet and cold, and
the chips, sticks, and pine knots then came into
good play. Splitting them up into little spiinters.
about the size of ordinary lead pencils, they built
SMALL individual fires with them, over which they
crouched and protected with their bodies as best
they could. In order to save fuel they fed their
fires just enough to keep up little blaze, over
which they held their aching hands, which, together
with all the exposed parts of their bodies, were
smarting from the seet which was driving with
cruel, singing force.
The cold mush they drew and ate in the evening
and the vinegar they drank seemed if it had turned
to aqua fortis and would their very vitals.
The agonies and suferings of that horrible
night were most excruciating. All over the south
side of the prison pen, where the mess of whose ex-
periences this record is chiefly made quartered
men moaned and groaned and shrieked during the
bitter tedious hours of the night, if in wild
cord with the raging storm and the warning
elements.
During this awful night of woe death reaped
rich harvest and Christmas morning, which should
have been the brightest and cheeriest and happiest
of all the year. revealed the stened forms OF those
who perished during the night in unusually large
numbers, and the reiening monarch there seemed 70
be the relentless king of terrOrs rather than the
prince of Life"
Toward morning the weather turned colder and
it froze to some extent, but the rain and sleet
ceased, and by ten o'clock the clouds dispersed and
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