In Wirz’s last letter to his wife and children are the sad, soft breathings from a bosom filled with the warmest affection and anxious solicitude for their welfare:
“Old Capitol Prison,
Washington, D. C., Nov. 10, 1865.
“My dearest Wife and Children: When these lines reach you the hand who wrote them will be stiff and cold. In a few hours from now I shall be dead. Oh, if I could express myself as I wish, if I could tell you what I have suffered when I thought about you and the children! I must leave you without the means to live, to the miseries of a cold cruel world. Lise, do not grieve, do not despair; we will meet again in a better world. Console yourself, think as I do—that I die innocent. Who knows better than you that all these tales of cruelties and murders are infamous lies, and why should I not say it? A great many do call me hard-hearted, because I tell them that I am not guilty, that I have nothing to confess. Oh, think for a moment how the thought that I must suffer and die innocent must sustain me in the last terrible hour; that when I shall stand before my Maker I can say, ‘Lord, of these things you know I am not guilty. I have sinned often and rebelled against Thee, oh, let my unmerited death be an atonement.’ Lise, I die reconciled. I die, I hope, as a Christian. This is His holy will that I should die, and therefore let us say with Christ, ‘Thy will, O Lord, be done.’
“I hardly know what to say. Oh, let me beg you, do not give way to despair. Think that I am gone to my Father, to your Father, to the Father of all, and that there I hope to meet you. Live for the dear children. Oh, do take good care of Cora. Kiss her for me. Kiss Susan and Cornelia, and tell them to live so that we may meet again in the heaven above the skies: tell them that my last thoughts, my last prayer shall be for them.”
Then follow some words of advice with regard to the schooling of the children, and to the future life, etc., of the family, and he concludes by saying:
“God bless you all and protect you. God give you what you stand in need of, and grant that you all so live that when you die you can say, Lord, Thou callest me, here I am. And now, farewell wife, children, all, I will and must close, farewell, farewell; God be with us.
“Your unfortunate husband and father,
H. Wirz.”
EXTRACTS FROM DIARY OF MAJOR WIRZ
From the diary kept by Wirz while in prison during the progress of the trial, I make a few extracts, yet enough to show the manhood, the nobility of the man:
“Old Capitol Prison, Oct. 1, 1865.