ABOUT DEAD-LINES
Much has been written and spoken of the “dead-lines” in Southern prisons. One would suppose they were unknown in Northern prisons. The fact is, they were as common at the North as in the South. There was not a Northern prison-camp but had its “dead-line,” and at all these prisons men were shot at and many killed for passing over them. And there was no reason to complain of this, for the lines were plainly marked, and it was known that anyone attempting to cross them would be shot. So, any man—no matter whether North or South—killed in violating this regulation did not deserve any sympathy.
Even in the Old Capitol Prison guards with loaded guns were stationed around the prison, within and without, and any prisoner attempting to escape, or overstepping the bounds, was liable to be shot. Two men, at least, were killed there—Wharton and Stewart, as described in my Prison Diary, page 36. And this in the city of Washington, a fortified city, within the Union lines, surrounded by camps, with thousands of soldiers, and the prisoners confined in a walled prison-house heavily guarded.
MAJOR HENRY WIRZ, C. S. A.
The True History of the Wirz Case.
I was living in Washington at the time Captain Wirz underwent the travesty of a trial—a farce which ended in a tragedy.
I frequently met and conversed with Louis Schade, his counsel, and his associate, Judge Hughes. I also met and conversed with witnesses on the trial.
Rev. Father Boyle and Father Wiget, who attended Wirz during his imprisonment and ministered to him in his last moments on the scaffold, were both warm personal friends of mine—Father Wiget particularly. I not only regarded him as a spiritual father, as he was, but with all the respect and affection which a devoted son would have for a kind, loving father. Had I any doubts in the matter of the guilt or innocence of Wirz, I would take the word of either of these good and true men before that of the whole tribe of hired perjurers who testified against him.
There are many persons at the present day who know nothing as to the truth or falsity of the record of events which took place during and immediately after the Civil War, except what they have heard or perhaps read in histories written in the heat of passion, with prejudice and malice, and their minds are often poisoned and their judgments warped by the misrepresentations and sensational stories invented at the time to exasperate the people of the North.
Major Henry Wirz was a native of Switzerland. He came to this country, and in 1861 was a physician practising his profession in Western Louisiana.