Author's Preface:DURING the past forty years I have read a number of stories of Andersonville Prison and of Major Henry Wirz, who had subordinate charge of the prisoners there. Nearly all these histories were written by comrades who were confined there as prisoners of war. I do not propose in this work to question the accuracy of their portrayal of the great suffering, privations, and of the mortality of prisoners of war in Andersonville, for these are matters of fact that anyone who was confined there can readily corroborate and can never forget. But it has been painful to me since the day I marched from that dismal prison pen, September 20, 1864, to the present time, that my comrades who suffered there and who have written their experiences are to a man wild in their charges that Major Wirz was responsible and that he was the sole cause of the suffering and mortality endured at Andersonville.I write about my experiences in Southern prisons during the Civil War, not in a spirit of controversy, but in the interest of truth and fair play. The main purpose of this book is to reduce the friction between the two sections and especially that caused by the exaggerated and often unjust reports of Major Wirz's cruelty and inhumanity to the Union prisoners, reports throughout the North at least, which have been represented to be gratuitous and willful.I am writing not for the purpose of contradicting any comrade who has written before me, but to take a like liberty and to tell the story again from the standpoint of my own personal experience.Taps will soon sound for us all who passed through those experiences, and I am sure that I shall feel better satisfied, as I pass down to the valley of death, if I say what I can truthfully say in defense of the man who befriended me when I was in the greatest extremity, and when there was no other recourse.At the close of the war, the feeling was so intense in the North because of the suffering and mortality among the prisoners of war at Andersonville that something had to be done to satisfy the popular demand for the punishment of those supposed to be responsible for that suffering and the loss of life among the prisoners, and Major Wirz was doomed before he was tried as the party responsible for these results.In my prison life of seven months at Andersonville, I became well-acquainted with Major Wirz, or Captain Wirz, as he then ranked, and as he will be designated hereafter. The knowledge I gained of his character during this personal acquaintance leads me to disagree with the conclusions reached by other writers as to the true character of this unfortunate man. During all these years, it has been a matter of surprise to me that writers like Richardson, Spencer, Urban, and others failed to take into consideration the fact that Captain Wirz was but a subordinate under General John H. Winder, who was the prison commander. Captain Wirz had charge only of the interior of the stockade, and in every way, he was subject to the orders of his superior officer.Nearly all these writers were soldiers and should have known that obedience to superiors was imperative, and hence if there were fault or error in orders or in their execution it was to be charged against the superior and not the subordinate.In this work, I shall take the stand not only that Captain Wirz was unjustly held responsible for the hardship and mortality of Andersonville, but that the Federal authorities must share the blame for these things with the Confederate, since they well-knew the inability of the Confederates to meet the reasonable wants of their prisoners of war, as they lacked a supply of their own needs, and since the Federal authorities failed to exercise a humane policy in exchange of those captured in battle.