Andersonville Highlights Hypocrisy – Commentary by Steve Scroggins

The Yankee propaganda machine made much ado about the awful conditions found at Andersonville.

Today, the site is a National Park and a national cemetery. No one I'm aware of has a problem with this fact.

But contrast that with the site of Camp Douglas [ photos below ], the notorious POW Camp in Chicago where thousands of Confederate POWs perished due to the cruelty and depravity of their federal captors. Unlike war-starved Georgia, blankets and food were in ample supply in Chicago, yet the federal guards allowed Confederate POWs to die of exposure and starvation. One yankee doctor called it an "extermination camp."

The guards at Andersonville received the same pitiful rations as their prisoners. Confederate officials offered to send thousands of starving federal POWs back to the north---without any exchange of any kind---just to keep them from starving. In fact, many were loaded on trains and transported to Savannah where they were to be placed on Yankee ships for transport home. Federal officials changed their minds and refused to accept their own POWs. No mere words can do justice to this cruelty perpetrated on their own men. Those prisoners had to be returned to Andersonville.

Henry Wirz, the commander of Andersonville at the end of the war was convicted in a sham trial of "war crimes" and he was hanged in Washington. The injustice of this act of cruel vengeance is well-documented in a number of books. Wirz was the only person to be executed for "war crimes" in that war. Generals Sherman, Sheridan and Grant and other war criminals who could justifiably be charged with murder, rape, plunder and vandalism, were treated as heroes.

A Defense of Captain Henry Wirz

Today, there is a nice monument placed in Oakwoods Cemetery in Chicago, but let's not forget that Southerners raised the money to place the monument there some thirty years after the war. The momument marks the largest mass grave in North America. Again, though resources were plentiful, these men were not afforded a decent burial in separate graves. Instead, they were all chunked together into one hole. At Andersonville, by contrast, much better records were kept and today you can see the names of these soldiers on their individual graves.

But the mass grave was not insult enough. After moving the remains twice, someone had to add additional insult at their grave site. The "Cenotaph" shown below is what I call "The Ugly Rock." I can think of no more brazen insult to American veterans anywhere.

The Ugly Rock in Chicago's Oakwoods Cemetery
[Click for larger version]

The Ugly Rock shown in proximity to the Confederate Monument in Chicago's Oakwoods Cemetery

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue was present at Andersonville May 30 for a ceremony to honor the dead veterans there. Does anyone think the Governor of Illinois appeared at Oakwoods to honor the American veterans buried in a mass grave? How about the Mayor of Chicago? We all know the answer. Heck, not one southern governor could make the time to attend the funeral of the Hunley crewmen in Charleston back in April. Would anyone expect more from yankee governors?

By act of U.S. Congress [Public Law 85-425 ], the soldiers buried in Chicago's mass grave are American veterans entitled to all the honors and benefits of American veterans. Yet, they remain entombed with the insulting marker nearby labeling them as "traitors" and "ruthless enemies." The hypocrisy of this insult runs off the scale. Most of these Confederate POWs at Camp Douglas died as a direct result of cruelty and intentional deprivation on the part of their federal captors and they have the nerve to label them "ruthless enemies."

How can such a flagrant insult to American veterans be tolerated anywhere in America? Have we been that successfully brainwashed? Memorial Day is supposed to be a time to honor ALL American veterans of ALL wars.

But to honor these men, we are forced to confront the ugly truth about the inhumanity inflicted by Americans, on Americans, at Camp Douglas. We are forced to confront the fact that honorable men like Henry Wirz were falsely accused and executed while the monsters of Camp Douglas and other war criminals like William "Torch" Sherman and Phil Sheridan are memorialized as heroes.

More on the Ugly Rock

Photo from Camp Douglas
More on Camp Douglas
Oak Woods Cemetery

Sonny Perdue flagged at Andersonville 5/30/04

Note: Since this was written, the History Channel published an excellent program on Camp Douglas and its horrors. The special was entitled Eighty Acres of Hell which is available on DVD.

Steve Scroggins is Adjutant of the Lt. James T. Woodward Camp 1399, Sons of Confederate Veterans, in Warner Robins, GA and a frequent GHC contributor of parody and political cartoons and graphics.