Miles O. Sherrill: A Soldier's Story: Prison Life and Other Incidents in the War of 1861-1865

General Grant said: "It was hard, and a great sacrifice, to leave the Union soldiers in Southern prisons, but it must be made; that the Confederates could not afford to leave their men in prison for want of men to take their place, but the United States could; to exchange the prisoners the Confederates would return to the army and go to fighting again." So here is the key to the responsibility for all the suffering and deaths on both sides in the prisons. The Confederate Government offered to let them send medicine South for their sick prisoners, but they declined to do that. It must be remembered the Confederate Government was shut in from the outside world, and could not secure necessary medicine, etc. Now, as to Andersonville, it was under the command of Wirtz, and since men have had time to cool off it has long since been decided that the hanging of that poor man was simply murder. He did the best he could for the poor prisoners there. General Dick Taylor in his book, "Destruction and Reconstruction," gives the following account of meeting with Wirtz, as his troops were passing Andersonville, during the march of Sherman through Georgia, in 1864: "In this journey through Georgia, at Andersonville, we passed in sight of a large stockade inclosing prisoners of war. The train stopped for a few moments, and there entered the carriage to speak to me a man who said his name was Wirtz, and that he was in charge of the prisoners near by. He complained of the inadequacy of his guard and the want of supplies, as the adjacent country was sterile and thinly populated. He also said that the prisoners were suffering from cold, were destitute of blankets, and that he had not wagons to supply fuel. He showed me duplicates of requisitions and appeals for relief that he had made to different authorities, and these I endorsed in the strongest terms possible, hoping to accomplish some good. I know nothing of this (man) Wirtz, whom I then met for the first and only time, but he appeared to be in earnest in his desire to mitigate the condition of his prisoners. There can be but little doubt that his execution was a 'sop' to the