Fifteen Months in Dixie; Or, My Personal Experience in Rebel Prisons

by William W. Day

It is impossible for any person endowed with the common feelings and instincts of humanity to understand, much less to explain, the character of Winder and Wirz. How any person in this enlightened age could be guilty of the cruelties and barbarities practiced by those two ghouls surpass all attempts at explanation. I am of the opinion that the majority of the people of the South were ignorant of the full extent of the horrors of the Southern Military Prisons. I am led to this conclusion by the fact, that, except upon the questions of slavery and war, they were a kind and generous hearted people, generally speaking, as much so, at least, as any community of people of like extent. And for the further reason that not many of them had access to the inside of those prisons, and they would naturally believe the report of interested Confederates, sooner than the reports of interested Federals, particularly, as they had no intercourse with prisoners themselves, except in isolated cases. And still further, all escaped prisoners, who were recaptured and returned to prison spoke highly of the kind treatment of the middle and upper classes, only complaining of the treatment of the lower classes or “Clay Eaters.” But somebody knew of these barbarities and cruelties and somebody was responsible for Winder and Wirz holding their positions, and that after a full investigation and report upon the subject by competent men. That SOMEBODY was Jeff Davis and his cabinet.

The members of the Confederate Congress were aware of the treatment of Federal prisoners and some of the members of that congress cried out against it, in their places. But Jeff Davis ruled the South with a rod of iron. He was the head and front, the great representative of the doctrine of States Rights, which, interpreted by Southern Statesmen, meant the right of a state to separate itself from the General Government, peaceably if possible, by force of arms if need be. And yet when Governor Brown, of Georgia, carried this doctrine to its logical conclusion by withdrawing the Georgia troops from the Confederate armies, to repel the invasion of Sherman and harvest a crop for the use of his army, Davis, in public speeches, intimated that Governor Brown was a traitor.

President Davis and his cabinet knew of the atrocities of Winder and Wirz, and their ilk, and connived at them by keeping the perpetrators in place and power. Winder was a renegade Baltimorean who had received a military education at the expense of the United States government, but being too cowardly to accept a position in the field where his precious carcass would be exposed to danger, he accepted from his intimate friend, Jeff Davis, the office of Provost Marshal General, in which position he was a scourge and a curse to the rebels themselves. Becoming too obnoxious to the people of Richmond, Davis, at last, appointed him Commissary General of prisoners, in which capacity he had charge of all the Federal prisoners east of the Mississippi river.

The antecedents of Wirz are not known. McElroy, who has investigated the subject of Southern Prisons deeper than any man of my knowledge, has arrived at the conclusion that he was probably a clerk in a store before the war of the Rebellion. He arrives at his conclusion logically, for he asserts that Wirz could count more than one hundred.

That Davis and his cabinet knew of the terrible treatment bestowed upon the Federal prisoners at Andersonville, we have abundant proof. The following extract from the report of Colonel D. T. Chandler, of the Rebel War Department, who was sent to inspect Andersonville, was copied from “Andersonville.” The report is of date August 5th, 1864, and is as follows: “My duty requires me respectfully to recommend a change in the officer in command of the post, Brigadier General John H. Winder, and the substitution in his place of some one who unites both energy and good judgment with some feelings of humanity and consideration for the welfare and comfort as far as is consistent with their safe keeping of the vast number of unfortunates placed under his control; some one who, at least, will not advocate DELIBERATELY and in cold blood, the propriety of leaving them in their present condition until their number is sufficiently reduced by death to make the present arrangements suffice for their accomodation, and who will not consider it a matter of self laudation and boasting that he has never been inside of the stockade—a place the horrors of which it is difficult to describe, and which is a DISGRACE TO CIVILIZATION—the condition of which he might by the exercise of a little energy and judgment, even with the limited means at his command, have considerably improved.”

In his examination touching this report, Colonel Chandler says:

“I noticed that General Winder seemed very indifferent to the welfare of the prisoners, indisposed to do anything, or to do as much as I thought he ought to do, to alleviate their sufferings. I remonstrated with him as well as I could, and he used that language which I reported to the Department with reference to it—the language stated in the report. When I spoke of the mortality existing among the prisoners, and pointed out to him that the sickly season was coming on, and that it must necessarily increase unless something was done for their relief—the swamp, for instance, drained, proper food furnished, and in better quality, and other sanitary suggestions which I made to him—he replied to me that he thought it was better to see half of them die than to take care of the men.”

This report proves two points. First that we had been living in Andersonville during the HEALTHY season, God save the mark, and second that Jeff Davis knew of the situation through his War Minister. But Davis was in favor of having the prisoners receive the terrible treatment to which they were subjected. He had, through his Commissary General of Prisoners, made demands upon the Federal Government in the matter of the exchange of prisoners, which no government possessing any self respect could entertain. He demanded an exchange of prisoners in bulk, that is, the Federal Government to give all the Confederate prisoners it held in exchange for all the Federal prisoners the Confederate Government held. The unfairness of such a proposition will be readily seen when the reader is informed that at that time the Federals held about twice as many prisoners as did the Confederates.

The Federal proposition was to exchange man for man and rank for rank. To this the Davis Government would not accede. Then followed the terrors of Andersonville and Florence of which hell itself in its palmiest days could not furnish a duplicate.

I am well aware that I have not expressed the same opinion as other authors, ex-prisoners, upon the subject of the complicity of the whole people of the South in these prison horrors, but the most of these authors wrote a short time subsequent to the close of the war, and while their blood was still hot upon the subject; and I confess that it has taken nearly a quarter of a century for my blood to cool sufficiently to arrive at the conclusions I have expressed in this chapter and which I candidly believe are correct.