In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

john h. stibbs Andersonville and the Trial of Henry Wirz The following was originally read in Iowa City on May 30, 1910, and was subsequently published in the Iowa Journal of History and Politics (11: 33–56) and as an offprint chapbook. I have been introduced to you as the sole survivor4 of the Court that tried Captain Henry Wirz, the keeper of the Andersonville Prison, and I have been asked to tell you something of the prison and its management. Were it not for reasons herein given my preference would be to say nothing on the subject, not because I would shirk the responsibility of having participated in the trial of Wirz, but because for more than fifty days during his trial I sat and listened to the terrible story of the sufferings and death of our brave boys at Andersonville, and when the end was reached I felt that I would like to banish the subject from mind and forget, if I could, the details of the terrible crime committed there. On innumerable occasions since the Civil War I have been urged, and at times tempted, to say or write something in relation to the trial of Wirz, but it was always seemed to me a matter of questionable propriety. The record of the trial had been published to the world; and on occasions when the action of the Court has been criticized, or condemned, I have felt that it was the duty of our friends to defend those who served as members of the Court rather than that we should speak for ourselves. Then, too, I have been in doubt as to the extent of my obligations, taken when I was sworn as a member of the Court, and as a result I have remained silent on the subject for nearly forty-five years; but as time passed and one after another of those who served with me passed off the stage, leaving me the sole survivor of the Court, and after a monument was erected to perpetuate the memory of Wirz and he was proclaimed a martyr who had been unfairly tried and condemned, I concluded to lay aside all question of propriety and obligation and accede to the request of some of my Iowa friends who were urging me to prepare a paper. I will add that one of my chief reasons for yielding in this matter was that I wanted to describe the personnel of the Court; to tell who and what the { 262 } men were who composed it; and to tell, as I alone could tell, of the unanimous action of the Court in its findings. I will not attempt to describe fully the horrors of Andersonville, but will simply give you an outline description of the place and the conditions existing there. With that picture before you, your own imagination will supply the details. In the fall of 1863 the rebel prisons in the vicinity of Richmond had become overcrowded, and a new prison was located with a view, as was claimed at the time, of making more room for our men and of placing them as far as possible from our lines, where they could be cared for by a comparatively small guard and where provisions were most accessible. But the evidence presented before the Wirz Commission satisfied the Court beyond a doubt that while this prison was being made ready, if not before, a conspiracy was entered into by certain persons, high in authority in the Confederate service, to destroy the lives of our men, or at least subject them to such hardships as would render them unfit for further military service. Andersonville is situated on the Southwestern Railroad about sixty miles south from Macon, Georgia. In 1864 the place contained not more than a dozen houses. The country round about was covered with a heavy growth of pine timber, and in the midst of this timber, a short distance from the station, the prison was laid out. Planters in the neighborhood were called upon to send in their negro men; and with this force trenches were dug an area of eighteen acres, which subsequently was enlarged to about twenty-seven acres. The timber was cut down and the trees trimmed and set into trenches, forming a stockade about eighteen feet high. Inside the stockade, about twenty feet from the wall, was established a dead-line, formed by driving small stakes in the ground and nailing on top...

Share